Good Orderly Direction as a Higher Power – Brian M.

Brian M. from New York City. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Brian Mines. I'm an alcoholic. Before I get all lined up, I just want to thank you very much for inviting me out here. it's I'm moody all this you know it's just mind blowing to see this I was just saying that to John and thank you very much I just want to thank you now my name is Brian I'm an alcoholic and I come from New York now I don't remember the first time I picked up a drink but I do remember the first thing I had gotten drunk it was at the end of the second world war I was about 11 years old and I was at a black party that was the parties that the neighborhoods threw for all the returning soldiers and sailors and marines and the whacks and the waves, the bans and the merchant seamen. And this was one of the first ones shown in New York when it was a big one. It took place on 98th Street between Lexington and Park Avenue by the old car bonds. And all the hoi polloi from New York was there. Mayor LaGuardia and Congressman Vito Marcantonio and some senators and the police commissioner Bill O'Dwyer. All the mucky mucks, the hooi pollois. They were all there and they were all elbowing each other trying to get next to the microphone and in front of the reporters. And it was a big festival occasion, I remember that. They had American flags hanging off the fire escapes and all the stoops had balloons and every ten feet there were huge kegs of beer donated by the brewery and there was tables just laden down with food that they hadn't seen since the beginning of the war. I was 11 years old and I was sitting on a stoop with a friend of mine named Johnny and this soldier, and he was a war hero. He was a legitimate war hero. They had announced a few times over there in Japan, Tokyo Rose, that they were looking for him. They were going to try to kill him. And here he was sitting on a stupor desk. And he had all these braids and all these medals and ribbons. And he held a mug of beer in his hand and a cigarette. And he would lean over and he'd take a big puff of the cigarette. He'd inhale the smoke and he said, I went to China. I had a hot cup of coffee. And with that, he would drink the mug of bear and he would bring it down. And he said, and I brought the smoke back here. And he would blow the smoke out. Now we couldn't care less about him drinking a beer. What the hell? Everybody drank beer. But what fascinated Johnny and I was the way he made the smoke disappear. One minute he'd take a puff and it'd disappear and he'd go to China. He'd have a hot cup of coffee and he drank the mug of beer and heíd bring it back. And Johnny andI would make him do it over and over again. I would hold his nose and Johnny would hold the thing and sure enough it would disappear. So with the free cigarettes and the free beer, Johnny and I were puffing away going to China, having a hot cup of coffee drinking a mug of beer, coming back and the end result was I was smoking like a professional and I was drunk as hell I remember falling off the stoop and Johnny falling atop me and trying to get up and the street is waving we're bumping into people and they're kicking us in the ass and we're stagnant down and throwing up and I remember with great fondness it was the first time I'd ever gotten drunk and there were many parties in those days especially the house parties they would have the, everything took place the weddings and the wakes and everything took place in the tenements, in the houses and it was saying a couple of burly men down there I come from Yorkville on the Upper East Side an immigrant, I'm a first generation, it was mostly all European immigrants and they had their knickerbocker brewery right there in Yorkville and it would send a couple or burly man down there to bring the beer up and they'd roll it through the streets and they hump it up one step at a time. They'd get it into a kitchen and with a great heave, they'd heave it up into the kitchen tubs filled with ice and they'd pack it all with ice and they put wet towels around it and they drive a nail into it and stick it in on top. They always get a bicycle pump and they plug it in and they pack it in with towels. And you'd pump it up to get air. You'd pumpit in and put air into it so you can get the beer to flow a lot faster and better. I would always grab the bicycle pump I'd always be standing on it, and I'd be pumping up the beer, and he'd have this fillet, a big basin underneath it, and I was always sucking on the suds. And many times, many times I remember getting drunk at 10 or 11, 12 years old, and nobody ever said anything because Brian was a good boy. Oh, that's all right, Brian is a good guy. Brian is doing a man's job. 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 worked, you could beat your wife, you Could beat the kids, You could beat the system, beat the law. Nobody gave a damn as long as you worked and you went to work. And they never said anything. They tore me on the bunk beds and on top of the coats. And nobody ever said anything." And I would get out of school at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I'd get my shoeshine back. And I'd go along 2nd Avenue or 3rd Avenue or Lexington Avenue. And I come back, and these young soldiers and sailors and Marines and the merchant seamen, they'd be sitting on their neighborhood stoops and be passing around these containers of beer. And they'd been telling stories of death and war and traveling destruction and killing. And I'd sit there shining in their shoes, looking up at them. I loved them. These were the big guys. These were my heroes. I mean, they just didn't talk about it. They did it. They would show me the German helmet with the bullet hole right through the center of it or the broken bonsai sword or the blood splattered Japanese flag. I loved him. They were my superheroes. And when a container would come near me, I'd grab it and I'd start gulping away. And they'd turn around and say, hey, take it easy, kid. And they pull it off me and I always made sure I had a little foam on my nose so they'd think it cute and they'd toss them my hair and there were great things with my father, Big Harry so they never said anything to me and a year or two went later and I started moving up into the big league I started selling newspapers now and I would get down early to the news building and I'd get the news in the mirror and I go along 2nd Avenue, 3rd Avenue Lexington Avenue and I come home a lot later that night these young soldiers and sailors and marines and merchant seamen they were no longer sitting on the stoops the neighborhood stoops that were ostracized now down to the ballpark and down east of the river because they were the winos. They were the bums. They didn't work. And there was a whole pack of them down there, young men, the bungs and the wino's. But I remembered them. They were my heroes and I wasn't about to leave them flat and I would get down tothe ballpark and I'd look for them on the park benches down along the east river and they'd be passing around in containers the bottles of muscatel, sneaky peat and theyd be telling stories of death and travel and destruction and fights and jails and I loved them. And when the bottle of Sneaky Pete would come around to me, I would grab it and take it and I'd kick in and now they wouldn't pull it out of my hands because I was paying my way. So I went to the kiddie. And I was about 13 years old somehow looking back over my life. I seemed to be able to remember more things about growing up than I can about being grown up. And i remember this with great clarity. It was the first time I'd ever had a blackout. I was 13 years old and Jenny and I, we had some money and we went down and we dug got one of the winos. So go get us three bottles of sneaky Pete. And it was this soldier, it was this hero. And here he was a young, young, old, dirty man. And I remember I think the pint would cost about 37 cents and we gave him a buck and he went and he got three pints and to come back he gave Johnny and I a pint and he scurried off with his own. And Johnny and I went way in the back of the vacant lots and I cracked my pint and Johnny cracked his pint. And we started drinking and I felt a rush of that muscatel hit me and I could I feel this spread across my shoulders, and we started body punching each other and picking up the bus signs and walking up the street and bumping into people. And it was the first time I can really remember beer muscles. That was when I first got my beer muscles with that. And we went, we dug a while out again, and we gave him another buck to go get us three more pints. And I remember it was 2 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon when I cracked that second pint. And the next thing I knew, I come out of a blackout. My mother had my head over the kitchen tubs, and I was thrown up into the tubs. My two brothers are leaning over, and they were pounding the hell out of me, screaming at me. Where have you been? Where the hell have you've been all day? The neighbors had come and told my mother that her son was drunk, staggering around the neighborhood. And they had posses scouring the neighborhood, and they didn't find me until 11 o'clock at night, and I just didn't know. I just did not know it was 2 o' clock in the afternoon. I remember cracking that second pint, and here it was, 11 o clock at night. And I just don't know, and it troubled me, it bothered me. And a couple of days later, I'm walking up to a neighbor, and one of these big guys come walking down. And I stopped him, and I started to tell him what happened. And I remember this guy, he was looking down at me, and he was sort of swerving back and forth in his heels. He had a big smile on his lips. And I finished talking, and he said to me, Kid, were you drinking? And I said, Yeah, yeah, I was drinking. He said, Were you drunk? I said、Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wasn't drunk. And he just smiled. He rocked back, and it gave me this big expansive shrug, This big alcoholic shrugged. He just shrugbed, he tossed my hair, he walked around me and he kept going. I had been born and raised with that shrug. I had seen the shrug all my life. I'd walk into a barn, there wouldn't be a soul in a barn. I said, where the hell is everybody? They say, out around looking for Joe's car. He doesn't know where he parked it last night. He'd be going up and down, up and done the blocks looking for Joes car. And somebody would say, was Joe drinking last night? They say yeah, was Jo drunk last night, they say yeah. They just shruggled, nobody said anything. They just, they just shrunk. They say, Mary just left. She's going hysterical. She's crazy. She doesn't know where she left the kids. She's running all over. She doesn'T know where the kids are. And somebody says, Mary drinking? They say yeah. They say is Mary drunk? They say yes. They just shrugged. And ladies and gentlemen, that's the story of my life. It was just one shrug after another. That's where alcohol took me, ladies and gentleman. that's where alcohol took me it reduced me and my life to a human shrug they would turn around and say where's Brian I don't know the ship sailed for Panama last night is he aboard the ship you know is he coming home tonight you know does he have any money left whatever happened to that nice girl he was going with And ladies and gentlemen, that's it It was just one shrug after another At 17 I forged my papers To make myself 17 I ran away and went to sea And the shrug followed me No matter where I went, the shrub went with me It was like some kind of a voodoo Like juju I remember I was in Singapore I was at a nightclub and I got into a battle And I got pretty bad cut up And pretty bad beaten And they had me in a tank for three days And in those days Singapore was still a British crown colony and I remember representing me was the American consulate and they called me out and I came out after three days in a tank and I looked like one of these punkers today you know half of the head was shaved like a mohawk and was all stitched up and the other side was all bleached and blonde and red from the black side it was standing straight up and I had all blood and mercuricone all over my face I was a mess but that t-shirt was stuck with blood and with the stitches where I got cut and I was really a mess after three things in the tank and they call me in front of the magistrate. The magistrate was an English judge and he was sitting up there with a big long white wig and black flowing robe and representing me was the American counselor and they called me out and I come shuffling out and I'm standing there and the magistrade looked down to the American counsel and he leaned over and he said, Was the bloke drinking? And the American Counselor leaned over and he says to me, Were you drinking? And I leaned over the table and I looked at the American counselors right in the eye 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 said what the hell kind of an American do you think I am anyway? Of course I'm a drunk. Of course he leaned over and he looked up at the magistrate and he said yes your magistrate, the book was drinking and the judge went the American counselor went the captain went, I went and that was it. There was just one shrugger and I could stop right there ladies and gentlemen and that's the story of my life. And there isn't much more to say about my drinking except perhaps at the end, I was what you'd call a round-the-clock drinker. You know, once I took that first drink, I was in the grip of the grape. But when you're in the drip of the great, you're off and you're running. And I'd wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and I live in 86, and I'd awake up at four o' clock in the mornin', and I shuffle out and I go up. I always walked up because I'd sort of blow my head clear. I'd walk up to the neighborhood, and they knew where all the bars were open and where they were closed. I climb over the fire escapes. You go in the back door, you bang at the door and they say, who is it? And you hear the dogs barking and everybody yelling out the backyards. Who is that? That guy won't call the cops. Who is it ? And I'd be banging at the doorknob and they'd say, Who is him? And I said, Brian. The guy would open up and say, Jesus Christ, don't you ever sleep? You just left, you know? And I had a few drinks and I'd get passed out and the guy would wake me up. God damn it, you're always sleeping. Get out of here. They'd throw me out and I always walked up to the neighbor and then I'd take a cab back. and I live in 86th Street between 2nd and 1st Avenue and I would tell the cabbie that and the cab would always seem to stop at 2nd Avenue he'd say, here, and I'd be you know, in the corner there you know holding on to the bottle I'd say nah, nah, down a block a little and he'd go a little bit further he'd stay here and I say nah, naw, Jesus you see the doorman down there with the canopy I said, there and he pulled up in front of the canopy and Thomas, Tom the doorman he would come walking over he'd look and he would see me I'd be crunched in the corner there and he'd shake his head And he'd open up the cab And I'd pass out the bottle of beer or whatever The hell I was drinking and I'd come out And I'll be weaving back and forth with the money But he'd take the money out of my hand And he paid the cab and then I'd been taking the money And I would be sticking it in his pocket And he told me, Brian, you don't have to give me no money Please Brian, please And I said, Tom Hey Tom, don't never be ashamed To accept a buck And he would be there to be dropping it. We'd be bumping heads, coming up and picking it up and down. And I say, Tom, and I grab him. You know, I say Tom, how's your mother, Tom? Say, yeah, she's all right, Brian. I say you know, if you ever need any help, you know my apartment number. Don't ever be ashamed to help. He said, I said, Tom. And I pull him closer. Tom, it's manly to accept help. Don't never be ashamed ask me, you now. I call him Tom. The other tenants called him Thomas. You see, I was always straight from the shoulder, stand-up kind of a guy. Nothing hoi polloi about me. I called Tom, don't you ever stop and not ask me to help, you know? And then I look across the street and I say, well, Tom, I think I'd stop across the Street and have a few drinks. And he'd say, all right. And he'd stuff the bottle underneath me and he'd wait until the traffic died down. Then he'd give me a shove and I'd go stumbling out into the traffic with the bottle. You see, ladies and gentlemen, I live across the St. in a four-story walk-up, you now? And I remember I'd be trying to get up the stairs. I live in the third floor. I'd pass out, and people would be stepping over me or stepping on me. But there was something about when I drank, something about doormen. I just loved doormens, you know? I mean, I'd been coming down Park Avenue to the cab, and I'd see some guy there with a maroon and all epaulets, and that night stopped. And he'd come over, and he'd salute me looking, and I'll be there all gassed up with that death ray stare, looking out at him, and an argument would always start. The cab driver wanted me out, and the doorman wanted me to stay in and the cop didn't want to be bothered and I wanted a drink. I was always getting in fights with cab drivers. And that's about it, ladies and gentlemen. About 1969, I was on the drunk and I come out of a blackout and I was talking to this voice on the phone and I'm sort of weaving in and out of the blackout and the voice is saying to me, take it easy, Brian, take it easily. He says, give us your address and we'll send a couple of men over to talk to you. And I'm weaving in, and I'm trying to figure out who this guy is. I want to send a couple of men over to talk to me. And I tore a couple words out, hoping maybe he'd bite, and I could fill in around the sentence to figure out who the guy was. And he kept saying, take it easy, Brian. Give us your address, we'll send a coupla. I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. I said who the hell are you anyway? What do you mean send a couples of men over to talking to me? I said Who are you? He says I'm so-and-so from Intergroup. Now if you've never heard the word Intergroup, you gotta admit, it sounds like some kind of a communist word, you know? I said intergroup I said what the hell are you talking about intergroup I said who the hell are you anyway he says I'm so-and-so from intergroup Alcoholics Anonymous I said intergroup AlcoholicsAnonymous I said how the hell did you get my number he said you just called us up I said I call you up what the heck would I call you up for and he said look he says give it your radness I'll send a couple of men I said don't you send nobody over here start in trouble I'll give you something I'll punch you in the face that's what I'll gave you and I hung up the phone and I sat in the bed and the sweat just started pouring out of me. I figured, what in God's name did I do this time that Intergroup would be after me, you know? Of course, all I knew from the movies with the Tommy guns and when Intergroup was after you meant one thing, you know? You know? So I sat still, and I got up, and I put my ear up against the door thinking maybe I hear foot marks, footfalls, or keys rattling. And I put the light out, and I crept across the floor, and I leaned up against a window, and I pulled the shade back, looking out, thinking maybe I'd see a ninja group guy there. You know, smoking, you know, looking up at me. Who the hell knows, you known? Well, anyway, in 1969, I finally sobered up somewhere along the line. The ship came in and I grabbed the ship around the world ship. And we were about three days out of the Suez Canal and a storm came up and I was drinking. And somehow I thought the storm was there for me. And I had the bottle, I went out and I'm laughing and the storm and the ship is swerving. in the cave and I'm cursing and peeing there and yelling and spitting against the storm and the next thing was, I wound up with a busted shoulder, you know, and they took me off in Naples. I went through the Sewells Canal a few days later. They took me out to Naples They had me in the hospital for three days and they had me on a body cast with a big bar on it like this and this is the way they took me outside to Rome to the airport and I hadn't drank in about since the storm I hadn'T drank and they left me alone at the airport and all of a sudden And I went over and I bought some cards and started writing them out. And I ordered myself a little cappuccino, a little fundador, and I started drinking. And as I say, the first drink, I'm in the grip of the grape. I'm gone, you know. I stopped pumping in the fundador at the airport. And by the time we got off in New York and I was coming down the terminal, I was like some sort of a drunken runaway construction boom. You know, I was going like this. And the people are talking. I'm going through it thoroughly. And about 1970, I come out of a blackout again. and I was talking to this voice again. And he's saying, so I says, where was there a meeting? And he told me, and the meeting was in 72nd Street, right off between 2nd and 3rd Avenue at the Butterfield Group. And I remember I went in there and I sat down and the only thing I heard was stay out of one bar, one bar at a time. Now I'm sure what the man was saying was stay away from one drink, one drink at a times. But somehow I had it in my head that he was saying stay away form one bar one bar a time And I walked out, I walked up to 72nd Street and 3rd Avenue and I walked all the way up to 93rd Street on 3rd Avenue and I passed all these saloons, all these bars. Nothing happened. I walked into this here one place where I knew the people and I ordered up my sobering up drink which was a large club soda with a big chunk of lemon. And I'm standing at the bar and next thing I thought my head started to wind up and all of a sudden it was like somebody hit me with a sack and I went into a fit. And when I come out of it, I was in an ambulance with a friend of mine, Jackie, and his big attendant kneeling atop me with something in my mouth. And I rolled over and I got on top of him and I saw beating the shit out of the attendant. And he started screaming to the driver, stop the ambulance. And the ambulance came to a screech and halted. The doors flew open. I took off like a shot with Jackie after me. And I ran up this block and Jackie ran up after me and I ran down this block. And Jackie ran after me, I ran into this here bar. And I'm up at the bar and I'm huffing and puffing and Jackie comes running after me he's huffin' and puffin'. And I grabbed him and said, what the hell happened? God damn it, what happened? He says, I don't know. He said, you came into the bar. He said everything was all right. And next thing you went into some kind of a fit. And the only thing I could attribute a fit to was AA. I mean, they told me to stay out of one bar. I passed all these bars. Nothing happened to me. I went in one stinking bar and I woke up in an ambulance. You know? I said to Jackie, I said, Jesus, no wonder they're anonymous. I mean. These people would kill you. I mean they'd kill you without even leaving a fingerprint. You know. and the worst thing is if they did kill me the guys wouldn't know where to go to look for them you know I said you know and I said that's it Jackie I said that's with this intergroup shit I said man I said man you know now Jackie I tried my best Lord knows I did my share I said but they god damn near killed me I said that's it one shot at me I said that's it and that was it in 1970 I grabbed a ship and I was about five days out of Seattle on my way bound for Japan and the storm came up again. And there I am out there again, starting and cursing and laughing and giggling and crying and peeing and laughing. And it picked me up and it slammed me up against the housing and it shattered the lower part of my back. So for nine days, I laid on my stomach. And so we got to Japan where they took me off and they had me in the hospital for 16 days where they operated on my back and again, I didn't drink and again they took us to the airport and I'm at the airport and I start writing out a few little cards and a little sake start popping a little sake and the next thing I'm in the plane and I'm drinking in the plane and I passed out in the back of the plane and by the time I got up the drain it come out there was a big puddle of blood on the seat and the last thing they had to ask somebody who had a Kotex and they got me in the back and they're packing me with Kotexes and everybody knew me and everybody loved me and I was a great hero and when I got to Anchorage, Alaska they had me get my luggage out to get me another pair of pants to put it on, by the time I got to New York I was a mess, and I figured that's it we're going to see it seems like every time I went to see there was a school of Moby Dicks out there looking for me, you know, between the elements and Moby Dick, they had nothing against Captain Ahab it seems Like Me they didn't like, you know, and i figured that was it and i came back and i went to work sand hogging digging tunnels in new york, i had started in 54 and i carried a book all throughout the years, and then went back and uh, i went to work in the tunnels, andi was working on a job in 12th Avenue. I was the dynamiter on the job. I was on a six-week drunk. And I'm up, I'm passed out in the house and all of a sudden I hear banging at the door and it's the shop steward. He's banging at door, hey Brian, open the door or kick it in. And you know, he opened it up and I finally opened the door and he comes in and he goes, Jesus, this place stinks, man. You open up the window and pull out and what the hell are you doing in there? You know, your bottles, you know. You're on a 6-week drink, you. And he said, well, when the hell are you coming back to work? And there was something in the tone that I knew there was something wrong. And I said, what do you mean? What's wrong? I'm on a drunk. What's the big deal? He said, how long do you think you've been on a drug? And I really thought I was on a junk for about a week. But with something in this tone, so I figured, well I'll throw another week into it. And then we can always cut back. So I said wow, two weeks. He said no man. He said you've be on this drunk six weeks now. I said six weeks. I vaguely remember going out and people coming in and going out. And he says, when the hell are you coming back? And I said, well, what's today? He said, Well, today's Wednesday. I said all right. I said look, I'll be back to work Monday. He said look Brian, I'm going back there now. We can't cover you any longer. He said are you're coming back. I said Look, take book on it. I'll Be Back To Work Monday. And all I ever needed over the years to come off a drunk was a floor, some water and a toilet. And usually I could come off drunk in three days. I mean, you go through the whips and the jingles and the shakes and the heaves. And you do what you have to do. And usually, I could come off in three days. And Monday morning, I went back to work. At 9 o'clock, they called for the dynamite. We loaded up all kind of dynamite, and I took it up to the heading. And when you go to the ending, all the lights are moved back. And everything is done with flashlight or air lights. And they started loading the heading, and then I went into a convulsion. And then, I mean... They called out for an ambulance. and the ambulance heard that there was dynamite and they called the police and the police heard there was dynamite, they called a bomb squad and they call a squad and they, and they told the mayor, you know, and I'm up there in the front and they turn around and say watch out, there he is, where is he? He's over there and I am flopping all over the place watching the old and I m banging all over there. They tied me down to a flat car and they took me out when I come out everybody and his brother was out there and I was in a lot of trouble. I remember they were claiming I was an epileptic and if you re an epilectic they won t allow you to work in the tunnels because of that. I mean, you could set the charge off and wipe out the heading or you could be working on a scaffold and kick the scaffold out. And they wouldn't let me go back to work claiming I was an epileptic until I went to a hospital and I had to go to Lenox Hill Hospital for those whole battery of EGK and KGE and all these different tests and brainwave scans. And I went. I went through this whole battery test. And next day I went back and I was sitting outside the neurosurgeon's office waiting for him to call me in. And he stuck his head out. He said, Mr. Mines, and I got up, and he went like this here, and I took a big, deep breath, and I walked into his office, and he's sitting there, and he's shuffling the charts around on his desk. And he said, well, he says, everything here looks pretty negative. I heard the word negative, and I let my breath out just a little bit. And I said, what do you mean negative? He said well, everything here looks very good, and I let breath out, just a bit more. I said you mean to say, I'm not an epileptic? He said no, you're not an epileptic, you are an alcoholic. I said, yeah, yeah ,yeah, yeah. I said but I'm not an epileptic, right? He said no you're an alcoholic. I said then I didn't have an epileptics fit. He said, no you had an alcoholic seizure. I said oh thank God, I grabbed him and I hugged him. I mean I couldn't care less about being an alcoholic what the hell did I care about being an alcoholic as far as I was concerned everybody was an alcoholic, I had them put it in writing I went back and I saw the safety engineer on the job I walked in, I took it out of the envelope and I threw it on his desk. I said, here. I said... Here it is here. I'm an Aki, not an Eppie. He read it. He says, oh, you're an alcoholic, huh? Yeah, Brian. I said yeah. He said, so am I. I said no kidding. Yeah, we shook hands. He said you going back to work? I said yes. He said do you want a drink? I said yea. He took out a jug. He had a slug. I had a Slug. I mean who cares about being an alcoholic? You know? I mean telling me I was an alcoholic was like the bank president putting his arm around me saying Brian, you got the next loan. Don't worry about anything. Couldn't care less. You see the key was ladies and gentlemen I wasn't a wino. If you're a winos, forget about it. I mean, you know, they don't even have the decency to count to ten. You're just out. And not only are you out, but don't you come back. So telling me I was an alcoholic, I couldn't care less, and I went back to work. But I was worried, ladies and gentlemen, because every time I was trying to come off a drunk, I was convulsing. I was conversing on subway platforms in the middle of the street. They never knew where it was coming, and i was worried. And a friend of mine, Joe, who turned out to be my sponsor, he had been in AA for seven years. And Joe, we sailed together. We went to sea together. We worked in the tunnels together. And he had Been Sober for seven Years. And he Had Been 12-Stepping Me All Along. And he came and he said, look, Brian, why don't you come to a couple of meetings with me? And I was really worried because I just couldn't beat these convulsions. And I said, okay. 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. And he guaranteed that if you stay away from one drink one day at a time, you can get drunk and afterward, when the meeting ended, we all got up, I started making a beeline for the door, they all stopped and they started to say the Our Father and I was shocked and I searched out and I saw Joe and Joe kind of had his eyes closed and holding his two fingers and kind of rocking back and forth, saying the Our Father. And I looked at him, and I said to myself, Ah, Joe, what did they do to you, Joe? I mean, here is a guy I drink with and we fall with, and here he is now, psalm singing, rocking to Jesus. I said, Ah, Jesus. After we went for coffee, about a block away from the church, we went out for coffee. And I said look, Joe. Just between you and me, Joe... Now nobody else... I lowered my voice and made sure nobody was listening. I said, just between you and me, Joe, did you understand that guy, what he said? That if you don't pick up that first drink, you can't get drunk. Did you understand it, Joe? And Joe looked at me. He said, yeah, sure, I understand that. I said Joe, just be between you with me, deep down, deep in the caverns of your bowels, Joe. Do you really understand that if you do not pick up the first drink you can not get drunk? And he said, Yeah, I understood it. I said if you understand, what the hell are you doing there for seven years? I said, this is my second meeting. I understand it. I said of course you can't get drunk if you don't pick up the first drink Joe. I'll guarantee you that all day. That's like me guaranteeing you Joe, if you're going to leave the house today, you won't get run over by a train. They're bullshitting you Joe. Can't you see it? And he said look, why don't you try 90 days 90 meetings. I said Joe please, please. Maybe you don' t mind sitting in the front row like some sort of A.A. Quasimodo, humped over, squinting at the speaker, slurping for sobriety? I said, Joe, I don't suck around people. That's not my idea of what being a man is all about. You got to get out there and take shots, Joe. He said, look, why don't you try 90 days, 90 minutes? I said forget about it, Joe and just then, believe it or not, the bells on the train starts ringing. I said Joe, I broke out laughing. They're calling for you, Joe and with that I left and that was in 71. I stayed all sober all throughout the holidays I didn't pick up a drink all throughout the holidays. And I'm born and raised in Yorkville. I live in 86th Street, and that's where the St. Patrick's Day parade breaks up. And I know everybody, you know? And I remember my two nieces came in, and I had the camel head coat, and I was all decked out, and we're watching the parade, and they start passing a bottle around, and it came to me, and there was the first drink. I picked it up and I started drinking. And that was the lead to two weeks of drinking I never knew existed. This time, the fears were so great. I had been sober for about four months. The fears wereそう great, I never left the apartment. I had the windows locked, the door locked, the shades drawn. And all I had was the furniture. The only friends and enemies I had was the furniture. And I would stand there and I loved it. I loved being alone in that isolated drinking. The only phone calls I made I went to the liquor store across the street. They would deliver it in the morning, and I loved it. I would stand there in the middle of the floor, a man amongst men, all things to women. Jackie and nonsense would be on the ground with her arms around my knees saying, I love you, Brian. I love your piece. Take the money. Take the honey. And I'd laugh and say, you can't buy a man like me. And I grab her up, and open the door, and slam the door. And the next minute, they'd be banging at the door and I'd open it up, and it'd be Sophia Loren. Just one time, Brian, just one time. I'd say, Jesus Christ, leave me alone. Can't you see? I'm only human and I'd push her out. You know? I'd stand in the middle of the floor with my chest heaving because I just knocked out Muhammad Ali for the heavyweight championship of the world. I don't know how many times I knocked that guy out for the heavierweight championship and I would always knock him out March 16th so I could lead the St. Patrick's Day parade down 86th Street and I could see myself coming down, the horses leading the way, you know, and the bagpipes. And I'd have a little patch over my eye where he caught me with a lucky left hook, you know? And the cops, the horses would be skidding me and all the other policemen would be standing there with their arms locked trying to hold back the surgeon crowd and then they say, there's the champ, there's Brian. And I hear, what a man, whata man, you kno? Well, I'd be standing in the middle of the floor with a bottle in my hand and the hair be hanging in my eyes and I'd had this vomiting, dribbly old T-shirt The only white on it was a sweat mark around her armpits. And I'd have these warm, wrinkled, farty shorts. And I would be weaving back and forth in the tears. The tears would be flowing down my eyes because it was the third year in a row I had won the Academy Award. You could hear them. They applauded me yelling. Somebody yelled, who won it? And they said Brian. They go, oh, thank God he won it again, you know. Well, anyway, April Fool's Day, 1972, Intergroup finally came and they got me. and they carted me off to Freeport and I remember I never want to forget that but I remember they were taking me down sort of the AA section and my brother-in-law had one arm and her nurse had the other arm and I was shuffling down there and my hair was wild and matted with sweat and I had a two week groat from the St. Patrick's Day it was the two weeks that I was on the drunk and I had the same vomity dribbly old t-shirt everything I drank was on a t- shirt and naturally those same warm wrinkle farty shorts, I mean we were like this, if I got up they got up if I went out and fell they got out and they fell there's a story all of their own, a personality all of itself you know and I had to see this old pee stained pair of pants with the fly broken half open half closed so I never needed a belt, you just pull them on, you pull them off you pass out, you know. And the painstaking pair of slippers I had the right foot on the left and the left foot on a right and this is the way they were taking me down. And as we got closer to the nervous stage which was the men's lounge this one guy stepped out and he saw the three of us coming and he stepped back into the men'S lounge and I could hear him saying Hey guys, come out and look at this guy a real wolf man. And they come out and they were looking at and they yelled at the nurse Watch it nurse, don't touch him you get locked your and they all start laughing. Another guy said don't breathe, we'll get black lung, and they all start laughing. And I remember this one guy saying, nah, nah. He's not real. He just enabled Fool's Day. They're trying to scare us. And, I remember, this is the first time that a man or a woman ever laughed in my face and I didn't do anything about it. I remember standing there and I had my head down. And you know how the voice starts working on you? The voices start lashing at me saying, look at that. Get your head up, you bastard. For once in your life, try to be a man. For once tried to do something right. Get your head up, get your head up. And I kept trying to get my head up so I could look at these people right in the face. But somehow it seems like somebody used a machete and cut up all my neck muscles and my back muscles. I just couldn't get my hair up. And if there was one thing at that moment I wish I could have done, and that was to grab myself by the head of the hair, yank my face up and spit right into it. That's how I felt about myself. It was my second day on my 38th birthday. And I was physically bankrupt, mentally bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, financially bankrupt, and sexually bankrupt. I see now in retrospect that I've been slipping in and out of impotency since I was about 28 years old. And it was tough. I'd be in a bar. I was a sandhog and a seaman and a bartender. And I'd been in a bar and the guys would be there. One guy would say, yeah, I took the girl home last night. I made love two or three times. The other guy would said, yeah I took the girl at home and he made love to her three times and this guy, he took the girl home and who made love 2 or 3 times. Well I see know in sobriety ladies and gentlemen, that if these guys are taking these girls home making love two or three times one thing is for sure. They weren't drinking what I was drinking. That's for sure You don't drink that stuff and go home make love two of three times. You'll go home and fall out of the bed two or tree times You know? You get up and you go to the bathroom and you pee-pee two or treetimes And the only reason, I don't want to belabor this sex thing, you know The only reason I mention it is because maybe maybe out there there's some guy that just kinda knows what I'm talking about. As for the women, they know what I am talking about, you know? And I was laying in a bed and I was dehydrated and I couldn't get out of bed for about three days and I had to sideboard because you know when you are trying to come off a drunk those toes are digging and digging into the sheets and every few minutes, bam! You get a jump and you come out of the bed and Iwas plopping out and they picked me up and they threw me in I had to move me to another bed and put the sideboards up. And I was laying there, and I remember I had a towel in my mouth. And it was late at night, and the towel was there, and I was crying. And I remember saying to myself again in the voice, look at that, you goddammit, the tears are so ashamed of you. It won't even run down your cheeks like a man because they were running, hiding in your ears. I said, look at That. Even your tears are ashamed of You, you bastard, you punk bastard. And I Was laying there and I Was just crying. I didn't want anybody to hear me. I had the biting on a towel. And this nurse came in. It was like a vision of loveliness. It must have been about 2 o'clock in the morning. She had long, sheen black hair. Maybe she was about 29, 30 years old. And she had the biggest, whitest eyes I had ever seen. And I'm laying in the bed and I still had the same vomity dribbly t-shirt and the same farty shorts. You know, I'm still laying there. A human stink. And she sat in the bedroom and she started calling to me and she stopped talking to me. and I'm looking at her and she looked like she was rich that she had never worked a day in her life that she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she's telling me she knows what I'm going through and I knew that this was part of the gig and this is what nurses tell patients and finally I couldn't take that hypocrisy any longer and I said look look I know you mean well I said but why don't you get up and get the hell out of here and stop bullshitting me you don't know nothing lady I said I come out of worse situations like this I'll beat this one too just get out of there leave me alone and she got off the bed and she says alright Brian she said I'll leave you alone and all of a sudden her voice changed and she said but don't you dare ever tell me I don't know what you're going through she said Brian I'm an alcoholic and I've been in many a bed like this and many a room like this and when she said to me ladies and gentlemen honest to God when she was when she told me that she was an alcoholic it was like the fist of Gulliver come out of nowhere and slammed right into me the impact of what that woman said to be if it wasn't for the bed springs I would have been driven right to the deck It hit me with that force. Never in my life did I ever think of a woman as an alcoholic. I drank with women all over the world. I drank in penthouses, in Cadillacs, in doorways. I drank when I'm sitting on stoops in door ways, bare legged, bare footed. Their feet black, pitch black from walking the streets. Their toes caked with blood from walking in vacant lots in search of the bottle gang. And never, never for a moment did I even think of them as an alcoholics. We never thought of the women as alcoholics because usually they were my friend's mothers or sisters or wives or daughters or nieces. And we just considered them on a bad run, maybe trouble at home. But we never considered men all right. They were drunks and bums and freeloaders and creeps, but never a woman. And when she said to me that she was an alcoholic, I'm telling you, I was driven into that bed. And she sat down and she started talking to me. And this is the first time in my life somebody didn't talk to me about my drinking. and just tussle my hand, walk around and keep going and shrug me off. She sat down and she started to talk to me. And the only thing that got through was the fact that I knew I looked and smelled like I did because I picked up a drink and she looked like she did clean and neat and decent because she didn't pick up a dream. You know, knowing one thing and understanding it is two different things. I understood that little bit that I looked or smelled and looked like I do because I picked up a drink. And they suggested 90 days, 90 meetings. And I came out and the greatest thing I had going for me was anger. I had an angry drive for sobriety. I begrudged no... I have no amends to make the booze. I don't care who drinks. I have not... I begrudge no man or woman a drink It's just not for me. I'm not one of these that had a white knuckle sobriete. I went the distance with the boozes and whatever it was it's gone. And I had that angry, angry drive never to pick up a drink again. And I came into the meetings and I would look around and they told me to sit in the front row and the front floor would be taken up by all these beautiful blue-headed ladies. Oh, they'd all be there with their blue hair all crossed up. And there was one Tommy. She was sober about 30 years. Somehow she took a shine to me. And no matter where I went, Tommy would be there and she'd see me with a big booming voice. Yoo-hoo, Brian! And she had a cane. She was crippled. She'd slam the chair, wave the cane. I'd say, what the hell? 300 people, she's got to pick me out, you know? I'd go like this. She'd say, come here. I'd say what the hell? You know, come on. You know? One way I liked it and the other way, you know, you know, I'd get up there and she'd sit down. I'd sit down and I'd listen. I'd sit up there and I look around and I see the young beautiful women and now in New York I don't know out here but a lot of them knit. They knit and they all sit there and they've been like little knitting circles you know? And you hear this great ooh-ing and ah-ing because it was a discovery of a new floral pattern you know ? And I look around at them and they'd be knitting and in my mind's eye I'd see them. Purl one, drop two, identify and wait. Purr one, drop two and wait and I could see them in my mine's eye waiting and identifying and dropping and I guess they just wait for the menopause and then wait for death. You know, I figured it was so unfair. I say look at them. You could just look at him and see that they never did anything and more than likely they never will do anything now. Their sponsors will say to that, you know. And I'd see the men. The men, they're all running around with the latest page boy hairdo, little Lulu hairdos and they'd all walk around like Prince Valiance, looking like Prince Valiance and they had names like Crash and Dash and Biff and Griff, you know? And I come from Third Avenue, from the saloons where they had simple names, names with meaning and dignity. Names like Killer, Crush, Knuckles, you know? I mean, to this day, if you go into the neighborhood saloon, you don't have to grab the bartender and ask the bartester who Harry the Nose is. If you look around, you'll see who Harry The Nose has. Had simple names. And I would go around asking all the old-timers, why 90 days, 90 meetings? I mean it seems like all my life I've been raised with these esoteric numbers, these mystical numbers. there was the Ten Commandments the Twelve Apostles the Twelve Lost Tribes of Israel there was the Seven Planets, the Nine Planets the Seven Deadly Sins Moses was in the desert 40 days, 40 nights Columbus 40 years Columbus sailed the Atlantic 40 days 40 nights and now me 90 days, 90 meetings you know and nobody seemed to know Why 90 days? You ever notice they would never say 90 days, 90 meetings. They roll it. 90 days. 90 meetings like it's out there somewhere. They suck in like the carrot. You know you're running up in 90 days you know. But it didn't take me long to figure out 90 days 90 meetings why 90 days 90 meetings? You have to be here 90 days 90 meetings just to understand what the hell they're talking about. I mean it's a very sophisticated jargon that takes place in these rooms. A very sophisticated way of speaking. The topic would be, you see, you see by not making a decision you really made a decision. Oh boy! Oh Jesus! They all applaud me. I mean, you know, victory, victory. Or you see it's really a full-time job not having a job. What a topic! What a subject! Oh, what sobriety! What sobriery, you don't? the one that always got me was you see you have to give it away to keep it you can't keep it unless you give it away you have to give it away to keep it in fact the more you give away the more you keep and I would lean over to say to Joe Joe what the hell are they giving away they don't work they're all unemployment on welfare look at them Joe they're all in alimony they're bullshitting you Joe And he said, look, remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try to identify. Try to identity with the speakers. And I would sit there. And I had nicknames for the speakers that seems like in the first 90 days that I was running into the same cluster of speakers. And I Would sit there, you know, in the front, you Know, with my arms crossed and my legs crossed to find them, you Now? To find them. Never look at them. You're always looking up, you Know? They'd be beaming and happy and you feel like getting up and kicking them in the ass, you Know? You Look up at them, you know. And I had nicknames for the speakers. And I'd say, oh, that's little Mary Bliss. Here comes easy does it, Ed. Uh-oh, there's one day at a time Mary. You know, I had all the nicknams for them. And this speaker got up and he introduced him. And his name was Charlie. And Charlie went into a story and Charlie said, I picked up a 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 sat there stunned, stunned. I said he picked up a drink, fell down the flight of stairs and surrendered. Man, I fell off bar stools, gangways, garbage cans and never, never in a million years would I tell a shit story like that in public. You know? I said to myself, this guy will never get a girl with a story likethat, you know? I immediately nicknamed him Staircase Charlie. And about a week later, they introduced Charlie again. I remember getting caught there. I said, oh, there's Staircase Charlie. And I got up front and I sat right there and I zeroed in on the story because it was very important to me to find out what kind of a staircase it was that made him surrender because nobody picks up a drink. Even a kid doesn't do something like that. Now, I could see, and I'm listening, that if he says he fell down a four-story spiral staircase, case, well alright I can buy that one by the time you thump down four stories okay, you know. Or maybe he's going to say he fell five stories between the banisters and he splatted out. Well alright, you got to buy that one. I can see you surrendering on a five story flop. But there was something in the way he stood and the way he was dressed and theway he talked that I knew. I knew that this guy was strictly a two step foyer job. I could tell a bullshitter. I was looking at him. I could see. And he went into his story and he said I picked up a drink, I fell on the flight of stairs and I surrendered they all started to applaud and hug him and kiss him invite him to parties and get his autograph and I said why the hell won't he tell the real story I mean nobody picks up a drank and falls on a flight of stars, he picked up a drink he had another drink he added another drink that's why he was drunk why don't he told me he was drug you see they kept telling me bring the body bring the bodies sooner or later their head will follow and here it was a week later I had heard the same story but I heard it just a little bit different and about two weeks later they introduced Charlie again now 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 his story as he get close to picking up that first drink I felt my stomach tighten up I said hey Charlie watch that drink Charlie watch the drink and he got closer to picking it up and I said Charlie can't you see what you're doing Charlie watch the drank Charlie and Charlie said and I picked up a 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. I lay out from here to Vegas. I knew he was going head over heels down a flight of stairs. It was the first time in my life I identified with that first drink. I knew Heedon Stan had filled his chance, man, once he'd picked up that drink. And it started to get better. Now I could hear a little bit more about the drink. and I kept coming to the meetings and I remember I was having lunch with my mother and I'm sitting there and on the dress that she had one of these birds you remember them they used to put it in the water they dunk in the wall and they come up and they go down and you know when they come off and I sit there and the bird is going up and down and I look at her and I feel like getting up and slapping right off the dress I said to my mother I said mom what kind of a bird is that and she said what bird I said no bird it's going up and down she says I don't know some kind of a novelty bird I said nah ma please What's the name of it? It's important to me. What's the name of the bird? And she says, I don't know, a dodo bird. And I said, that's it. And I vowed then and there never to become an AA dodo bird. I hated the AA dodo birds, you know. You'd be sitting at a meeting and the speaker would say something like, I finally took my sponsor's advice and I went to the bank manager and I explained I just don't have the money. And it was all right, it was all right and they all go up and down Or the speaker would say, for the first time in my life, I looked out the window. I looked at the window and it was all right. It was all all right, Leogo. I said, Joe, what the hell are you madding about? He says, they're identifying. I said identifying with windows? I said... He said, they've identifying with feelings. Ladies and gentlemen, most of us don't come up with feelings I know where I come from, nobody. But nobody spoke about feelings. I mean, it was five ways of completely covering the gamut of feelings. That was good, pretty good, bad, pretty bad, you know? And to get your point across, you merely raise or lower your voice. How's things going? Yeah, good, good. Pretty good, pretty good. Bad, bad. Just went up and down. And so, you know, I didn't know what the hell we were talking about, but I happened to be at a meeting, and it was this here lady, and the only thing I can remember about her was she was married, she came from Queens, She had red hair, glasses, and a broken nose. That was the only thing I can remember about her. And right in the middle of a qualification, I caught myself nodding like a mule. I was going up and down, up and down, I went and danced. And when I saw Joe after it, I said, Joe, Joe, do you know what's going on? And he said, that's right, you're identifying. You're identifying with the feelings. And it was that lady too, huh? It was the first time in my life I ever identified with another human being. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just here by a fluke. I may never see you again. But if you tell me you're an alcoholic, I know you. I know your gut. I know some of your fantasies. I know some of the hopes and dreams and aspirations and pain. It's truly the language of the heart. And she opened it up. She opened up the world of feelings. It made that connection. And I kept coming to the meetings and things got better. And I had been very active right off the bat. And I stayed away from the closed meetings and the step meetings because of the concept of God. I've been 14 when I left the church that I was raised in and nobody including you was about to start ramming God down my throat so I stayed away from all the discussion meetings but I happened to be at a beginners meeting when they went into the concept of God and a higher power one said it was this another said it wasn't and I remember this young kid turning around he said the way he had heard God was G-O-D good orderly direction G- O-D good orderLY direction And for me, ladies and gentlemen, when I heard that, it seems like my chest split open. That centuries of venom and stink poured out. But here was a God now that I could understand with good orderly direction. As far as I was concerned, that's what it was supposed to have been all along was good orderLY direction. But somehow the way I was raised, the way we were presented, I just couldn't buy it. But this I could. And I remember leaning back in my seat looking at the speaker and behind the speaker the slogan said 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 good orderling direction became you. Became AA. And all they were asking me was to try to stay away from a drink a day at a time. Try to do the best that I can. And try to get to a meeting. If I could bring another suffering alcoholic, to bring him. Now, I may have been every man's drunk, but I assure you, I'm no man's fool. I knew right then and there that if I didn't make it in a room full of alcoholics, I wasn't going to make it. Good, orderly direction. That's what I've been looking for all my life. It wasn't so much 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, Brian. Remember that. Get a hold of that. But the word that caught me was the right direction. All my life I had been looking for some type of direction. I'd be a liar, ladies and gentlemen, if I stood up here and told you all I ever did was drink and fight and carouse. that wasn't me at all. I was always trying to be a man, ladies and gentlemen. I was Always trying to do the right thing. I Was always shining my shoes, trying to put my best foot forward. Iwas always washing my face, combing my hair, trying to make that first good long-lasting impression. IWas always saying I'm sorry. I WAS always making amends. IWas always trying to pay back my bills. I WAs always an alcoholic. I Was always picking up a drink. And I Was Always and Always and always. And here I was being offered good, orderly direction in my life. I'm no man's fool, I assure you. I knew that if I didn't make it here, I just wouldn't make It. And everything, everything became good, orderedly direction. I go to a job, I see a guy fighting outside the hog house, getting fired. I see A guy puking between two cars. I'd see a guy dragging a woman out of a cab by the hair of the head and I'd say to myself, there but for the grace of good, all the direction goes right. It just made sense. I no longer did any of those things because I simply trusted in you. I didn't pick up the first drink and I kept coming to meetings and things kept getting better and better for me. And I was working as a dynamiter up in San Cortland Park and I was working until midnight. And we'd get up around 11 o'clock in the afternoon and I'd go have brunch. And right by outside in 86th Street, between 3rd and 2nd Avenue, there was an old nightclub there. It used to be the Law of Life. But now it was Bonnie Google's and they had like a bench outside. And after I would have breakfast, I would sit there with a container of coffee and a cigarette, and I'd just sort of get myself together, watching the people go by, waiting to go to work. And this one day, I was sitting there, had a cigarette in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, and all of a sudden this little girl come running up the block, and she looked like a small little Shirley Temple with all kinds of curls on her hands and little dimpled knees and little cheeks, and she come bouncing up, she come plopping on my lap with a lollipop. And she kept pushing the lollhipop at me. And I'm there with the cigarette in a container of coffee looking down at the kid. I had never married. I didn't have any kids. I'm looking down to the kid and she kept pushing a lollipop at me. So I took the lollhipop and I held it and I tried to give it back and she keep pushing the lollypop back at me and her mother came up and the mother looked down at me and said, she wants you to lick her lollippop. So I looked at the mother and I took her lollypop and put it on my mouth and I gave it a big slurp and I rolled my eyes around and sucked on my lips and the little kid was happy and I give it to her lollipop and she plopped it in the mountain. She skipped off the street and I looked up at the mother and the mother was looking at me. She nodded and I nodded and as they started walking back, I was looking out their back to see them walking up the street and all of a sudden this tremendous feeling of love overcame me. This peaty feeling, this heavy feeling of loved just poured off my shoulders and I look at them and this great feeling and I said to myself this is good orderly direction and it was the first time since I had heard it about eight or nine months prior to that that the words didn't quite fit the feelings. And I said, no, no. This is the God of the rooms. This is God. They're talking about this is God and I just couldn't believe it. I just wouldn't believe that I'd be sitting on a bench with a cigarette in one hand and a container of a cork in the other and a taste of a Charles lollipop in my mouth and God? I was just blown away by it all and I said God I said God God bless you. Like I went over his head to his boss or something I mean, you know What the hell do you know about God, you know? And things just really started picking up and they started to get together. And in 1976, and I've been so over four years, I got a phone call from San Francisco that they were taking a Bicentennial ship out of Beth, Maine and they'd be flying a crew up and would I like to go? And I hadn't been to sea in four years and I'd sailed for 20-some years and I said yes, I'd like to be part of the crew. And about a week before I was scheduled to fly, the flight was up to Maine. This here friend of ours, a guy named Roy, was slipping and sliding around the program. And his sponsor and another guy were supposed to go up and pick him up at the house at 6 o'clock in the morning and take him to a detox. And whatever went through Roy's head, I don't know, he opened the window and he dove out 36 stories. And by the time they got there, it was a mess. It was a wife and his five kids and it was a mess. And Roy was half Irish Catholic and half Jewish and his mother flew in, who was Jewish flew in from San Francisco and it was a lot of, they had cremated the body and there was a big halibut about the ashes where they wanted the ashes buried and one time Roy had gone to see and myself, his sponsor and another guy, our sponsor, we got together with his wife and his mom and everything, we sat him down and I explained that I'd be sailing in a week and why not give the ashes to me and I'll give them a burial at sea which they agreed. So I went to see, I took the ashes with me. We got to San Francisco. I picked up five roses, red roses, one for each one of the children and a yellow rose for his wife. And on the international date line, I had asked the captain, could we bury him on the national date line? Because he never made it in the program between sobriety and drunkenness. And I just thought it would be apropos if I could bury him between two time zones at the international dateline. And when the day came, the captain brought the ship, slowed the ship down with the ringing of bells and the clanging of horns. And the crew was all assembled and the passengers were assembled. And they had the ashes on top of the, underneath the American flag and the roses on topof it. And had them stapled to the serenity prayer, the plastic serenety prayer. So when they opened it, it all dumped in the water together. And I remember watching the readers that floated away, thinking, here was, I don't know, you know, he may have died and frightened and whatever went through his head. But he was buried by fellowship dignity. He was buried with dignity. That's what we give each other in these rooms, ladies and gentlemen. We give each another dignity. And I went up to the captain and I got the longitude and the latitude and had photographs taken when we got to Japan. I had the photographs developed and I put on them the longitude and latitude line so his wife and his children would go to the map and trace out the longitudinal latitude and they could see where their father was buried. And in years to come, the grandchildren can go to them up with dignity and say here's where granddaddy is buried. That's what we give the people who are yet to come. We offer them dignity. They're recipients of a gift that they know nothing about. we give unselfishly and I just and then I went ladies and gentlemen I've been around the world 16 times I've sailed all over the world and I never saw anything sober and this was the first time that I went to see and I started to see the world sober and I had registered with GSO as an internationalist and they had given me the list of the loners and the internationalists and I decided to correspond with this priest in Taiwan and he wrote to me and he said, is that at all possible if I ever get there, he would like to take his fifth step with me. The man had been sober five years and never told a story to another human being. It was all through letters from GSO and tapes that were sent all over the world and I couldn't make it a couple of times but finally I got into Taiwan and I rented a car and a driver and we went clippity clap over the hills and dills and rice patties and I finally got way inland to this small orphanage where he was the missionary and I spent the whole day with him taking the first step and we'd walk along and he'd go into long tangents of I'd see his eyes roll in retrospect and he come out and he say long things in English and next thing he'd break into Chinese and the long tangens and then he'd weave in and out of Chinese and in and outer of English and I would look at him and I realized how lucky I had been to sober up in New York with people I realized the value of having a sponsor and people significant in your life to share with. Because what this man had written and what he put on tape, there's no way in hell what he was saying to me. What you think up here and what you say here is two different things. That's the importance of sharing with meetings, at sharing with a sponsor, sharing with somebody else because this guy was as crazy as a loon. I'm telling you, what he had written down was two entirely different things and I realized how lucky I was to have showed it up where I can walk to meetings and I realize how blessed he was to have sobered up with the help of people writing to one another. And if you're ever afraid, ladies and gentlemen, of traveling, I mean, don't ever be. The hand of AA literally reaches out from the four points of the compass. I think they're in 190 countries. No matter where you go, there's somebody tucked away waiting for you. And the wonderful thing about this program is that if you get to a country and AA isn't there when you get there, then AA is there when you got there. Because you're AA. She's AA. He's AA We're AA And all it takes is at the right time to extend a hand to the suffering alcoholic and I realized how blessed that priest was. And I came back ladies and gentlemen and with the help of people in the program I went to Fordham University in 1982. I graduated with a degree in fine art and in 1985 ladies and gentlemen I finally learned how to drive a car I had never I get broke up when I think of this I never drove a car, I was just afraid and with people they really witnessed me all the way I went and I took the lessons and I did what I was told and I went and I gave them the test and the day they mailed me the license I remember sitting in the kitchen and I locked the door and I put the towel on my mouth and tears just ran out of my eyes. I was proud when I graduated from college, ladies and gentlemen, but it was nothing, nothing to the pride that I felt for getting that driver's license. I mean, it was breaking through sheer panic. I have a phobia against drivers and I used to be so ashamed. Here I was 50 years old and 40 years old and 30 years old and kids would say to me, you mean to say you don't know how to drive? And I'd sit there and hold my breath ashamed to admit that I was afraid to drive. And here I was with a license. And one day, after I had the license about six months, I don't know just, you know how it happens one day I just got up calmly and I walked up to Avis and I rented a car by myself. So I drove over a bridge under a tunnel and I drove about 25 miles and one of my fantasies, ladies and gentlemen, was always to drive to a drive-in to a diner and just go and sit there and order a cup of coffee. I remember years ago I was living with a young lady in Los Angeles and I was shipping out of San Pedro and I were sitting in a car on the gas station and she was in paying the bill and I would look at her and I'd be looking out and I'm looking out at the highway and I've been looking at a hobo and the hobo was there in the car and he was going like this and all of a sudden he'd run across the street and he'd go like this and then he'd come across the highway and he went like this and I filled up with love and I looked at him And it was the only man I've ever envied in my life. The man had that type of freedom and that type of courage that he didn't even know where he went. He went this way, he went... I swear, I felt like getting out and just hugging him. Here was a man and all my life, ladies and gentlemen, I hadn't tucked away deep in my soul. And here I was and I drove and I to the diner and I went in and you'll never know the thrill of it. I just went like any other human being and I sat up and I ordered a cup of coffee and I started talking to the waitress it's something I'd seen in the movies all my life and I wasn't able to do and I was looking in the cup of coffe and the image of my beloved hobo came to me and I smiled and I let him go because I no longer needed him I had my own freedom I could come and go I drove the car and I made a U-turn and I went down the block into another diner and I ordered another cup of coffee. Never do that. I'm 54 years old, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going 17 years old when I did a lot of things in my life. I did all the things drunk and I did a lot things sober. And I wish I could stand here today and tell you that I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. I wish i could tell you, well I finally know, here I am. I'm fully potentiating. I know, Here I am." But to be honest with you, ladies and gentlemen, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. So thanks to you in this program, ladies and gentlemen. I can tell you, I may not know what i want to do when I go up but I can say the many things that I am not. I am not that young man that the FBI took off 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 young man that's up in a hog house getting fired or yanking that woman out of the cabin at 3 o'clock in the morning and dragging her back into the bar because I'm Not Finished Drinking. I'm NOT that young men peeing between two cars or puking up against a building. And thank the almighty God I'M NOT that poor bachelor sitting in a bar. You ever see them sitting right as you go in the bar, vacantly staring out a light that's passing him by. As long as that man continues drinking, if she continues drinking they'll never have anything to say about life. Thank God I am not that. I am NOT a lot of things today ladies and gentlemen because of you. I am Not a lot things and somehow the great miracle of this program is by seeing the many things that I am That somehow I see the many thing that I Am. And when I do have the courage and I do the wisdom to look I see the many Things I can yet become if I continue adhering to the principles of this program, if I can continue staying away from a drink, if I consider reaching out to the suffering alcoholic. I was in San Francisco when I heard a young lady pretty much take all of this and reduce it to its lowest common denominator when 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 want to thank each and every one of you for opening those gates and for letting me out. I want to thank God for each and every one of you. I want a thank you from me, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.