He Left His Big Shot Job in Beverly Hills for the Mission on Skid Row – Clancy I.

Her toilet broke yesterday, and she never knows when she has to go. That's why my face is flushed this morning. My name is Clancy Immersland, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm very glad to be here this morning. I want to do something that hasn't been done all weekend. I want to give a tip of the hey-hey hat to all of those folks in the half-measures room over there. You don't know what fun it is to be over here jammed between two fat people. I guess I'm the only homegrown member. The last time I was here was 31 years ago. I spoke at the 10th birthday of this convention, and I had to wait for the entire committee to die before I got invited back. I'll tell you, this has been a crackerjack convention from Friday night when Butch started it to last night when Howard got done, or was that this morning? Sometimes. But it was just, if you're kind of new, you hit the jackpot this weekend. You heard some great talks. I heard every talk except Chris. I had to leave the building for a while, and I miss Chris. But I will listen to your tape on the freeway, and if I find any errors, I will call you. But I'm, most of you know I grew up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, nearby. And I discovered there were parts of America that didn't stay cold all the time. But I grew up in the Norwegian Lutheran Church, a very strict church. And I grew up in the 30s. Everybody was poor, but nobody knew they were poor. That was the great thing about it. Everybody was poor. So you just seemed normal. My dad made about $100 a month as a teacher, and we didn't know you couldn't live on that. So we lived on it. And we, it was a great life. And I was raised in a church and confirmed and catechized and did very well, did very well in school. Got straight As. Shoved it in. I was a good kid. I was a good kid. I was a good kid. I lived ahead in school at Christmas time to a new grade. And I was, I remember my grandma telling me, she said, Sonny, you're going to be governor of Wisconsin someday. And I smiled modestly. And when I was about 11 or 12, my parents got a divorce, which seems like nothing now, but everybody gets divorced. But at that time, I had never heard of a divorce when my parents got divorced. I'd never even heard of one, because nobody in our church ever got divorced, nobody in our family ever got divorced. And it really made me upset. I felt very rejected by both everybody, I guess. And they explained it to me, some people explained it to me. And I understood it intellectually, but not emotionally. And I took my defense against it. It was kind of a bitter, nasty facade and sarcastic and loud and anti-everything. But then when I was 15, I was flunking out of high school. And, uh... I ran around with a couple of kids who later on went to the penitentiary at Waupon. And I probably would have gone with them. And what saved my bacon is the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. And that was such a big thing that took my attention off everything else. I couldn't wait till Saturday to get down to the Badger Theater and buy my ticket for a dime and get in and see the newsreels of all the things going on. And one of the kids in our high school went out to San Francisco to see his brother in the Marine Corps. And when he was out there, he was a senior in high school. He must have been 17. He joined the Marine Corps and came back in his dress blues uniform. It just, God, all the girls went, oh, oh. I thought, that's what I need. Because I was about this tall and had pimply and glasses. And I didn't realize there was more to it than the uniform. I said, how did you get in the Marine Corps? He said, well, I enlisted in San Francisco. So I thought, well, maybe that's where you enlisted in the Marine Corps. So I waited till after I was, after my 15th break. And then on my birthday in 1942, I just ended my sophomore year in high school. And I told my mother I wanted to go up to the Superior and see my aunt and uncle. And she packed my little bag and gave me a bus fare. And I got a guy to give me a ride to Minneapolis. And I decided to hitchhike to San Francisco. I never hitchhiked. But they just said, it's easy. You put out your thumb and smile and somebody stops. I noticed they've taken down the big screens with pictures on them. You people in the back, you probably can't see me. I'm about six foot two. I have blonde curly hair. I kind of look like a bronzed Viking god. If any changes come up, I'll let you know. When I, somebody told me how to get, they said, you're on the wrong, there's no road from Indianapolis to San Francisco. You have to get on the Lincoln Highway, number 30. So they said, go down Highway 100, I guess. And I stood up there with my, my little bag and finally a guy stopped. He says, where are you going, kid? I said, San Francisco. He says, oh my, hop in. Turned out he was in the Navy going back to a ship. I don't know what the hell he's taking that route for, but he did. And all the way out across the country, he gave me a ride. I wish I had got his name. I thanked him profusely. Bought my meals. There was no motels. Then we'd stop at night. He'd put me in a trailer court bed and listen to me prattle all day long. And just remarkable. I told him, I'm going to go with you in the Marine Corps and kill chaps. He said, well, you're, I don't think you'll make it, kid. You don't look like you're old enough or smart enough. He said, why don't you try to get in the Merchant Marine? Because they're taking anybody with a warm body. Because all the good guys have gone in the Navy. He said, and I'll drop you off at the Coast Guard office. You go in and tell them you're 16, not 15, and see what they do. And so he dropped me off. We came down Market Street in San Francisco. Thrilling. Smell the ocean. For the first time in these big buildings. And at that time, the Foshay Tower was the largest building in the area. You know, just, and I, just wonderful. And I, and I wanted to, he dropped me off at the Coast Guard office. I said, I want to be in the Merchant Marine. He goes, throw out this application, kid. And I filled it out. I put down 16. He said, well, you're only 16, kid. You have to have your parents' permission. So I took it out of the block, got my parents' permission. I'll tell you how things were then. That afternoon, I was on a ship going to the South Pacific. No training, no nothing, but I, they stuck me in a room with three of the worst type of people that any small Lutheran boy can be with. These people are called men. What the hell are you supposed to be? I could see there's a little tension, so I told them a joke that I used to go over good in study hall. Didn't go over good there. I said, shut up and get in your bunk. And they start talking and laughing about what they'd been doing in San Francisco with the ship for three days. And I was, I felt bad. I had broken several commandments by that time. I didn't always respect my mother and father anymore, and I didn't remember the Sabbath day if I could help it. And when I was with these guys, I sometimes took the Lord's name in vain, but I hadn't really made my move yet. And these guys on the ship were, oh, God. I was with some severe sinners. I mean. I just turned my face to the wall and, oh, I wanted my mother is what I wanted. And they'd been doing, apparently engaged in sex for three days incessantly with a series of people. And I don't want to give the wrong impression. Even at the age of 15 in Eau Claire, I'd had sex. But I'd been apprehensive and I'd been afraid and I'd been alone. And these guys were doing it with people. Couldn't believe it. Then I suddenly realized. Of course. They've all got black hair. Those are the Catholics they told me about. But I eventually got adopted as kind of a mascot by these tough old guys, thank God. And we sailed across. And every, at the end of our watch, a watch on a ship is a four hour period. That's the same for whatever time of day it is. In other words, if you're on the four to eight watch in the morning, you're on the four to eight watch in the afternoon as well. You have two watches. And these guys would come in from the watch and they'd say, well, I'm going to have a watch. And I'd say, well, I'm going to have a watch. And they'd say, well, I'm going to have a watch. And I'd say, well, I'm going to have a watch. And they'd say, well, I'm going to have a watch. And they'd all have whiskey in their gloves. Seabags. And drink whiskey and raise hell. And talk dirty. And they're not supposed to have whiskey on a ship, but who's going to stop them? You know, any other ear, there'd be pirates. You know? But one day, we were just coming into Pearl Harbor, and one of these guys came over with his bottle and stuck it in my face and said, How about you, Junior? You think you're man enough for a little snort? And I had never been in the same room with a bottle of whiskey like I had on that ship, and I never was going to plan to be. And I thought, I better stop this right now. I was going to tell him, I was going to say, You get that bottle out of my face. I happen to be a Norwegian Lutheran. You probably don't know about people like me, but we're pretty straight arrows, and we don't drink that crap, and we don't talk to people that do drink it. I was just going to tell him that. He says, Why do you think you're man enough? I heard a voice say, God damn right. So I took my first drink of whiskey out of the first bottle that was ever close to me, and it burned my mouth and my throat and my stomach and my throat and my mouth, and his shirt finally. Get the bottle away from the son of a bitch. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And to this day, I don't know any motion that's worse than this. Public humiliation. When someone just makes a fool of you, and you can't do anything about it, everybody can see that you're a fool. I couldn't hit this guy. I thought a couple days later something I could have done. It would have been great. They'd have thrown me overboard, but it would have been great. I could have said, Lean over. Yeah. Take that. Give him one in the old eye. But the next day, they took me to Honolulu. Through all the excitement, then to Pearl Harbor. They're still smoking in some areas. And took me to a club and bought me a bottle of beer that I didn't like. Didn't like the taste, but I tasted it in Wisconsin. Everybody in Wisconsin drinks beer. In fact, Eau Claire is famous because I don't think there's, is Walters beer still there? Used to be a beer called Walters beer. And when I got drinking heavily some years later, I took a small bottle and sent to the state to have it analyzed. I thought, there's something wrong with this beer. I got a letter back, said, Dear Mr. Emerson, we are very sorry. Your horse has tuberculosis, but I, uh, you know, and I've been around a long time and I've heard every AA meeting has someone, we heard a lot of it this weekend when I held that drink down, it was a wonderful feeling, but my, I guess my religion so strong inside of me, I could not enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it. I never drank. I didn't drink. After that, I wouldn't drink that slop, terrible stuff, and we sailed around the Pacific. We went up to the Aleutian Islands. Uh, some of you young people don't realize the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands in the Second World War, and we had to go up and get them out of there. When I was 17, I went in the Navy. Then the wars outside of San Francisco, the hospital being sewed together, and the Red Cross was taken by surprise, I guess, by the atomic bomb. So they had a whole bunch of tests left, and they passed around everybody in the hospital. And I've always been great on tests because I read a lot. I remember the guy coming in and saying, Clancy, it doesn't seem possible, but you're in the top 5% of intelligence in the entire United States Navy. And I said, I know, but what that did for me, it didn't seem to, it got me out, I got out of the Navy and came back to Wisconsin, and now I would have to go back to be a junior in high school. Couldn't bear the thought of it. But then some guy in the VA wrangled it so I could go to the university. This test would cover the last two years of my school. So I went to university, and I don't think there's anybody in the room that remembers 1946, but millions of guys got out of the service hall at once. They went to college because you got the GI Bill. They paid for your tuition. They paid you money, living money. And everybody went to college. It was just a nice thing to do. And you'd sit in freshman English class. And some grizzled old ex-marine sergeant. The ex-marine sergeant would be sitting in the front row. Some little honey just out of high school would sit next to him. Were you in the war? Yeah. Did you put out? Very rude, but a lot of them did. But these guys, veterans, ran together and did a lot of drinking. And I wanted to run them to veterans. So I went with them and I drank. And little by little, I got to enjoy it. I guess that's it. Almost a classic case of crossing the invisible line. By the end of my freshman year, I was a drinker. And it helped me because it built up my confidence. I was able to do things. We'd heard a lot about that about this weekend, too. I could do things. I didn't feel inadequate. I felt tough. And I became editor of the university newspaper. And I was chief justice of the court. And I was doing all sorts of wonderful things. I won some national trophies for the university. And at the end of my career, I was a doctor. I was a doctor. I was a doctor. I had a career there. When we graduated, I was a speaker at commencement on behalf of the senior class. But I didn't get a diploma. I got a blank sheet of paper. Because the last semester, I had not attended a needed English history class that met at 8 o'clock in the morning because I couldn't get up that early. So I had to go to summer school. And I had to go to summer school. I got a job at Gillette's Rubber Company balancing Whiteside. Well, 1600. Six white sidewall tires and shift. And I went to school three hours a week. I really was upset about this. I had done so much for that university, I felt. And they'd treat me like a piece of crap. I'd stop after work every night and get drunk on Barstow Street someplace. Water Street, if I was really out, down and out. And I'd find someone to tell this story, this whole story. But you know, I went to that school. And I worked very hard. And I won these things. And it's crazy they'd treat me like this. People just don't want to hear it anymore. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, you know. But one night, I stopped in. And I was coming from work. And I ran across this pretty girl. And she turned out to be a traveling saleswoman for some magazine scam. And I told her the whole story. And she, really? Oh, that's too bad. Oh. And she said, but it seems odd. You look rather tawdry. You have dirty shoes. Dirty fingernails. And you don't, your skin isn't very clean. And I said, I just came from work. She said, I don't see you as a person who won many trophies for the university. I said, I'll show you. We jumped in the car and went to the campus. Of course, one in the morning, all locked up. But I found a rock to get through a door. We went in upstairs to the trophy case. My pictures and trophies. She was overcome, I think. She slumped to the floor. And I, I thought, oh, my gosh, she's had a flat tire. And I tried to pump her up. And, well, that was the good old days. When you get to be in your 80s, you decide you're playing pool with the rope. Ha, ha, ha. And, but anyway, a policeman's flashlight illuminated this terrible scene. And if you want to talk about a passion quencher, all you need to do is have a car. And I said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And the cops say, what are you doing here? Nothing anymore. They arrested me for breaking and entering in the nighttime, five years in the state penitentiary if you get convicted. I don't know what they got her for. But thank God overnight the school put in some clout and got her reduced to drunken disorderly. But I had to go to court the next morning. God, that was a bad morning. Because I had been hired to teach at Duluth-Denfeld High School, teach journalism. And I was going to get my diploma. and now I was in this tawdry situation, and the judge is a friend of our family. Judge Farr was a friend of ours. I knew him quite well, and I had confessed to him what a tawdry person I was. We were waiting for a court to open, and a guy came in with a box and said, Who's your son? I said, I am. He said, Here, this is yours. I looked at it, and all my books from the university were in them, and all my notebooks, and a note on top from the dean saying, I covered for you as long as I could, but I can't cover this one. You're expelled. Then I got a telegram from Duluth from Alvin T. Stolen, superintendent of schools. I remember such things, and he told me that my contract had been voided on the grounds of moral turpitude before I even started. This was kind of a bad morning turning out. Then the judge came in. Oh, I'm so sorry, Judge. I didn't mean to. Clancey said, I regret. That's fine. That's fine. I'm sure you're that sorry. I said, Why is that? He said, In my experience, when people are that sorry, they're not only sorry for what they've done, but they're sorry for what they're going to do. I said, Oh, not me, Judge. I've learned my lesson. But he was right. And so I had to change my career. I got a job at a newspaper as a sports writer, which to this day is my favorite job I've ever had. Loved it. I love covering sports. I love playing sports and so on. And married this girl with black flashing eyes and black hair. You know, you don't see girls like that at the Lutheran church very often. You see blondes and blondes and blondes and blue eyes. And here is this mysterious creature. And she won my heart. And then she said, I'm a Catholic. Oh, shit. But I thought, I'll show I'm tolerant. And we got married. And I was doing fine. Then my wife began manifesting the behavior pattern of Catholics that I knew nothing about. No Norwegian ever learned about those things. No Lutheran ever did. And that is, if there's any little Lutheran boys here who are going with a mysterious girl with black hair, Catholic, good girl, let me give you some information you don't have. You are about to have a much larger family than you ever will. I never thought. I became a national distributor of small Catholics. I remember saying to my wife, can't we use birth control? No. But I don't know what I would have done if she had said yes. It's hard to realize in this day and age how different it was then. I mean, bad kids knew about birth control. And they knew about how to stop birth, I guess. But they, to get birth control. I won. Let me put it this way. I'd been in the Navy. I'd been overseas. I'd been all over a lot of places. I had only heard the word condom once in my life. In a Navy training film. It showed this woman with big hooters and said, if you go to bed with her and don't wear a condom, you'll die or something like that. At that stage of my life, I would have said, I'll take my chances. Hey, you know. And that time, kids didn't go in and buy condoms. They'd have to hire. Someone depraved. And he'd go in and get them for them. Hey, give me some cigarettes. And some rubbers. Yeah. Now, look how much change we've made over the years. Right at a drugstore by my house, kids come in. I guess they're grown up, but they look like kids to me. They say, hey, give me some condoms. And some cigarettes. Yeah. Big change. Yeah. But as I get older. As I get older. As I get older. When I got children, I had to have more money. I couldn't get any more money. So I had a flair for writing. I decided to go into the legitimate world. And I got a job in Beloit, Wisconsin. At a big manufacturing company there. Manufactured railroad engines. And I wanted to come to work in their advertising department. And I did very well because I write well. And I was there a few months and doing very well. Drinking a lot. Drinking an awful lot because I loved it. But they called me in one morning and said, Clancy. Clancy. You know, you write very well. Thanks. They said, but we really need you here Mondays, too. And Tuesday, you smell bad when you come in. And they said, you know, we can't have that. They're going to can me. And so I remember something I'd learned in my senior year of college. I went to an AA meeting because I was getting busted for disorderly conduct. They said, why don't you go to this AA thing? I said, I'm not an alcoholic. We know that. But at least you won't go to get busted. So I went to my first day meeting, you know, Eau Claire. Eight fat guys sitting around the table. What the hell are you doing here? That's a funny welcome. But I know why it was because I was 22. I looked even younger. And there was no one in Wisconsin under 40 in AA at that time. It was like some kid coming in this morning and saying, I'm eight years old and I think I'm an alcoholic. Oh, do you? I think you have a broken nose. Yeah. But I went to AA and that week I went to the meetings and I learned the basics of Alcoholics Anonymous. If you're new, it doesn't take long. Alcoholics are people who drink too much alcohol. They come to AA and admit it and that cheers them up. Then they return to God and pray incessantly. Then they spend the rest of their life interminably helping one another. No attraction there for me, boy. But I realized this wasn't going to help me. I realized I wasn't going to get out of this. But at Beloit, when they called me, I went to the AA there. I said to the guy at the company, I said, we can't have you drink. I said, I know that, Mr. Collins. I oversees during the war. So it's so much horror sometimes I drink too much. People like to hear that. And I said, they got this thing downtown in Beloit called alcohol. Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'll go there. If you give me a two-week paid leave, I'll go down there and get cured and come back. Fine, fine. Because nobody knew anything about AA. It was just a funny place where old drunks went and never came back. Just, ooh. I went there and there were about nine fat guys sitting around a table. Drury, talking about how much they drank. Just goops. So I realized I was going to get better. I got a job in Rockford, Illinois, writing at a machine tool company. And I did that for the next nine years. I worked at a place until they got on to me and then I had to move. And I could always move because I had good samples of the stuff I wrote. In the 1950s, incidentally, I wrote something that was so good that my boss stole it from me and became a national hero for writing it. But whenever you hear this phrase, remember it came from me. The national slogan of the community chest in 1955. We're putting all our bags in. One ask it. Is that cute? I guess not. Well, but I did that for years. All my kids have been born in a different part of the country. We're going to be different and start over again. And I, when I got in trouble, I'd go to AA for two weeks and get the heat off and get out of there. I did that again and again. I finally went down and finally in Dallas at a big, big, big advertising agency called Tracy Locke. Biggest one in the South. And I had just come out of the nut house and I convinced people I'd learned my lesson. And I got a good job there. And the day came, called me and, Clancy, you write very well. And I thought, oh, here we go. He said, but last week you almost cost us the Fritos account. That's a $10 million account with your drunkenness. We can't have that. You're done here. Clean out your office. Get out of here. I've been trying to make it my business to see that you never work in advertising again. All right. So I cleaned out my office. I didn't go right home. They gave me a severance check and I thought I might as well spend that. But, you know, nobody likes to go home and admit your failure and hear that same, well, you did it this time. It's very disturbing. I had a good example of that. A few months ago, my dogs were barking. And so I went to the living room. What the hell? Go. Stop. Stop. They were barking. There was a guy sitting on the little wall in front of our house at 2 in the morning. I said, what are you doing out there? I'm going to a lecture. I said, a lecture about what? Alcoholism. I said, where in the hell in Venice, California is there a lecture on alcoholism at 2 in the morning? At my house. And I do it. So I just sped up the severance check. And then I went home. And by the time I got home several days later, my clothes were on the porch with a note on top of them saying, we can't take any more. We're gone. And they left. Don't know where they went. My clothes. I knew. And when I got out of the nut house in Texas, they had a law at that time that you could be signed out by one of your loved ones. So I was signed out to my wife. If you could imagine how hideous that must be. You're going to get this garbage out? Yes, I am. And go near that phone bitch and I'll kill you. But I knew I had to get out of Texas. I knew she'd turn me in. But a guy about a week before that said, I got a car I want to take to Los Angeles. Everybody will drive it if I pay for them? I said, no. But that morning I did. I said, I know someone. Who? Me. I thought you were Tracy Locke. Big man of Tracy Locke. I was. But I turned out they were phony. I quit. So I got a car and I drove it. First day I got as far as Elkville. El Paso, where I used to work on the faculty of the university there. And I parked my car because I knew the city well. Went to Juarez, where I'm a living legend in Juarez, Mexico. By midnight I was on the bar of the Chinese palace singing my little song. Yo soy el maestro de los locos en Chihuahua. And my fans all going, cabrón, cabrón. I think that means welcome in Spanish. The next day I got as far as. Phoenix, where I didn't know anybody. So I'd be very careful where I parked my car. And I did park it well. I haven't found it yet. With all my ID, all my clothes, all my money. By nightfall I was searching. I was drunk and searching for that car. Guy came up to me and said, help me find my car. I said, don't bother me. I said, for crying out loud, help me find my car. He said, don't bother me. And I grabbed him by the pillow. I said, what the hell's wrong with you? He said, you shouldn't have done that, young man. Whipped out his badge. He says, you're under arrest. Put me in the Phoenix jail. He said, I'm going to cool you off, boy. You don't really cool off in a jail that's about 135 degrees. But I finally got to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night. I was so sick. I threw up. I thought it was a toilet. Somebody's bed is what it was. But there's nobody in it. Then I lay down next to one of the. I'm sure you've done this. After you just throw up. Is there anything better? They just find a cool piece of tile and you're right by the toilet in case you need it again. And I went to sleep and he came back from where he was and found me in this drunk, sleeping by his bed with vomit on him. He kicked me, you son of a bitch. I don't think he meant to do it, but he kicked my front teeth out. And did somebody laugh at that? This is a tough crowd. I could understand why you're sick. She came back with a brave girl. Yeah, and I got out in the morning. I was covered with vomit and blood bleeding out of my mouth and had no money, no nothing, didn't know a soul. But I learned one thing in the last few years when I've been screwed around AA. If you really get looking bad and nobody wants you around anymore and you're just a mess, there's always one place where you're welcome. Go to an AA club. It's the only place in the world where the worse you look, the better they like it. This one. This one's mine, Jim. So I went to the Arid Club, which certainly is a well-named club. I hustled some lady for $20 and got on a bus and went to Los Angeles. I didn't want to go to Los Angeles. I had nothing reason to go there. And I was around for a few days. There was a guy, a big star that I'd given me a start to some years before that. I called him and said, I've had a terrible car accident. Knocked my teeth out of my clothes. And I got no clothes, no nothing. Could you help me? He said, oh, yeah. He showed me how to get to Hollywood and come to his office and peeled off some dough. I said, thanks, Ted. I'll pay you back. And I went downstairs and got a room and showered and tried to get as much blood off me as I could and off my clothes. Drank for two or three days and ran out of money. I called him back. I said, Ted, my check hasn't come yet. Could you help me? He said, Clancy, after you called me, I called Dallas. They said, you turned into a bum. You used to be a good guy. You're not anymore. You're a bum. Don't bother me with your bum. I said, Jesus, Ted, for old time's sake, please. He said, okay, you come to the back of the station tonight, the TV station. And maybe at 9 o'clock I'll come out in the fire escape. Maybe I won't. Because I was back there at 830. The rain coming down. He came out. You make me sick. He threw a $5 bill that floated down to the mud puddle. And I crawled out and got that. I fooled him. And then I said I got thrown out of it all night. The movie and Skid Row. You know, you can't imagine how fast you can go down if you run out of a source of money and don't know anybody. And I came out of there in the morning at 5 o'clock sick. The guy said, do you want to sell a pint of blood? I said, yes, I really do. He took me. We walked eight blocks of 4th Street to a blood bank. And we went and sat down. We took a drop of blood over here. Some guy finally came in and said, I'm in this line. I'm in this line. And he said, you don't have enough iron in your blood to sell blood here. Sorry. Come back again later. I said, Jesus, I'm so sick. Help me. Help me. I'm so sick. He said, down here about four blocks, there's a place designed for bums like you. It's called the Midnight Mission. Go down there and get some breakfast. All right. I went down in the rain. I went to this Midnight Mission. I said, I'd like some breakfast, please. Just something that's on my stomach. He said, God, we just got done serving. Sorry. Come back at noon. We'll give you lunch. I said, I can't wait till noon. Give me something, please. He said, we're done serving. I grabbed him by the lapel. Bad habit. I said, for Christ's sake, give me something to eat. And two guys stepped over, unpeeled each one hand and threw me out the door. I said, and don't come back, you bastard. I drank some. I'm not a bastard. Three years ago, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas. I directed a grand opera. And three, there are ads running this very weekend, Elsie and Elmer ads for the Borden Company that I wrote. And I've had my picture in the New York Times once upon a time. But it's hard to explain these things in midair. And I stood beside that old mission, and I think, I don't know what I'm going to do. If some guy would come up to me that morning and said, you know, Slim, you're dying. You're down to 120-some pounds. You've lost your wife and children. You'll never see them again. You've lost your career. Once upon a time, they called you a boy genius of the advertising world. You can't even get a job washing dishes, you bum. He said, and you've been going to AA now for almost 10 years. You sit in the meetings and think how stupid these people are with their little steps, their little additions, their little drinking habits. No, no, no. You can't wait to get out of there. Your little mother up in Wisconsin is no longer allowed to accept phone calls from you because your stepfather is so tired of washing. You play on her emotions, so she'll go down to her tiny little bank account and send a few more dollars to her little boy to help him. He'd rather have her think you're dead than the way you are. He said, now, you've been hanging around AA, trying to work AA for almost 10 years. Why don't you go back to AA one morning, maybe this morning, and admit you're really an alcoholic and see what happens? And I said, you just don't understand, pal. I'm not an alcoholic. I wish I were. Someone mentioned that. Amy, I guess, mentioned that yesterday that she wishes she were an alcoholic. But I'm not an alcoholic because I know what an alcoholic is, and I'm not that. Alcoholics drink all the time. I don't drink all the time, only when I have to. They say they can't stop. I can stop. I've stopped many, many times. When I have enough remorse, I stop just like that. And one other thing. I don't think I can do that. I don't think I can do that. I don't think I can do that. I don't think I've ever mentioned this. But in many talks, people say, well, I just stayed in my room and drank for a year. But you can't do that if you have a large family of kids. You've got to get out there and get some money coming in, no matter what you've got to do. No matter how you feel, you've got to get out there. Jesus, that's sickening. I've got to go out there and put it together. Yeah, here are my samples. I had some bad breaks, but I'm okay now. Because you can't go home and say, I'm sorry, kids. I'm drinking. You can't eat. That does not work. That does not work in families. And I didn't know what to do. I told them, alcoholics can't stop drinking. I stopped drinking. My problem has never been that I can't stop drinking. I can stop drinking and I feel pretty good. But after a while, in a few days, somebody sneaks into my bedroom in the middle of the night and puts an invisible spring in my gut. And the next day, they start to tighten it. And it doesn't come out as, I need a drink. Just keep drinking. It doesn't come out as a little restlessness, a little irritability. Why don't you knock it off in there, for God's sake? And little by little, it gets worse. And I've tried a lot of things. At one time in the mid-1950s, I spent almost $10,000 when I had some money to break through that wall. I took their pills. I read their books. I went to their meetings. It didn't help. I'll tell you how you break that feeling. Hmm. But then you say, I'm going to watch it. This time. Never knowing you can't and you won't. But I used to wish I were an alcoholic. I wish all I ever did was drink like these old fools in AA. And when I stopped drinking, everybody would clap and cheer me. But nobody came up and talked to me that morning. So I said to some mooch standing there in the rain, I said, where's the AA club around here? He said, well, there's nothing around here. Go up this hill to Hill Street, cut over to Wilshire, walk west until you come to Fairfax. That doesn't sound bad. I said, turned out to be seven and a half miles in the rain. Sick and cold and shaking and desperate. And I got to this club. Then I almost didn't go in. Because there's a guy in the doorway saying, welcome home, son. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Oh, shit. And I went in. And I had no idea that would be my sobriety date. Because I had no desire to stop drinking. The traditions we've heard over the weekend. Tradition three says, the only requirement for membership is desire to stop drinking. I said, I've no desire to stop drinking. Because my problem is not alcohol. My problem is something that's so unmanly, I don't want to talk about it. I'm too sensitive. I would never tell anyone that. I feel things too intensely. I've been rejected so many times, I can't stand it anymore. I just don't feel good. I'm weak and I'm inadequate. And that's why I drink. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I don't stay drunk for a month at a time. I drink just to, oh, God, feel my manhood come back. And I got to, I remember somebody had me read that book. And I saw one line in there. I think it was before I was sober. But in chapter three, it talks about what people like us have in common. There's not much we have in common. Look around the room. Different sizes, shapes, colors, backgrounds. But the book implies that alcoholics of our type are caught up in an obsession, which we accept voluntarily or involuntarily. And that obsession states that I am obsessed with the idea that somehow, someday I will control and enjoy my drinking. It says the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many of us pursue it into insanity. And I know that's true because I watch people do it. I guess that's what I was always looking for. What is the X factor that they believe? Because I can't make it without drinking because inadequate, weak people can't make it in the world. And when I'm strong and vital, I got to drink too much. And I had no idea what was wrong with me. But I stayed in that club. The guy said, you know, you're supposed to be a member to come in this club, but you're such a mess. You die. You're in our parking lot. You can come into the club, but three rules for you. You can't ask anyone for money, which you've already broken. None of your sarcastic remarks, which you've already broken. And you've got to go to a meeting every night in our club. Jesus. I'd almost rather die than go through that. But I did. And in those meetings, I saw a man who eventually got inside my head. I couldn't believe it. I guess that my defenses were down. But he saved my life. It changed my life. His name was Bob. And he's a... I'd seen him in the movies. I said, he's a movie star. He must have a lot of money. I bet he'd like to have a new friend. But he didn't want a new friend. By Friday, I was dying. I was living in cake in the meetings. So I come up and I said, Bob, I've admired your program for a while. Would you be my sponsor? He said, okay, but I want you to be my sponsor. I said, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've admired your program for a while. Would you be my sponsor? He said, okay, but I want you to tell you. Oh, sure, Bob. I thought, I'll have your wallet in my pocket before you even know it, you old fool. But it turned out that I found out soon thereafter he wasn't a movie star at all. He'd been in three movies, three cameo roles, and I'd seen two of them. So I thought he was in all the movies. I've been in more movies in the last few years than he ever saw. But I didn't think so. know it then. And they said he wasn't a good actor, but he was a good actor, because he acted well at meetings, which is very hard to do for a right-wing fascist AA pig. Do this! Do that! I thought, why am I taking the crap from this guy? Because he was my only meal ticket out there. I thought he was going to die. And what he would do, he'd come down from Brentwood, where he lived, and pick me up at the club when he had to talk somewhere. He'd buy my dinner, give me some soup or scrambled eggs or some hideous thing. And we'd go off to hear him talk. And then I got so I could almost give his talk for him. Then on the way home, he'd give me his opinions. He had this man of strong opinions that he didn't want everyone challenged. And one night, I was asking him about this guy that said he'd come to AA and got sober and didn't go back and stayed sober. I said, how did he do that? He said, kid, there are those kind of people. They're called people with an alcohol problem, and we shouldn't have them around our meetings. I said, Jesus, Bob. Not to be offensive, but isn't AA designed to help people with an alcohol problem? He said, no! People with alcohol problems should stay home or go somewhere else. I said, what should they do if they're drinking against me then, Bob? They should quit drinking. They should clean up their act, and when they're offered a drink say, no, thank you. I said, thank you. That doesn't work. I've been trying that for 10 years, for Christ's sake. It doesn't work, Bob. He said, Oh, yes, it does. He said, Apparently, if it doesn't work for you, you don't have an alcohol problem. I said, I know that, Bob. He said, You probably suffer what all the rest of us today suffer from. That it's not an alcohol problem. It sounds like alcohol, but it isn't. It's something called alcoholism. I said, Oh, Jesus, Bob. Don't play word games with me. I look terrible. I'm smarter than you'd ever believe. Shut up, he said. He had a three-hour harangue, most of which I was able to blot out before it went insane. But in that harangue, he saved my life, although I didn't know it then or thereafter for a long time. He pointed out the difference. He said, People with an alcohol problem overcome it by stopping drinking or cutting down. People with alcoholism have a problem. They overcome it by stopping it. They overcome it by cutting down, but just temporarily, because they must always drink again. Must always drink again. Drink to excess again and again. I said, Jesus, Bob. Why do these drunkards drink all that? I've been going to meetings all over the country. They don't ever talk about how much they drank and what they lost and they drank more. Why do they drink such crap that was so bad for them? He said, Kid, you didn't ever learn much, did you? He said, Alcoholics don't drink alcohol because it's bad for them. He had a cup of coffee or a glass of Coke or something in his hand, and he said, I'll tell you why alcoholics drink. If this were Johnnie Walker and I took a big drink, the result would be to almost instantly alter my perception of reality. The world becomes a softer, more pleasant place, and I have another drink, and pretty soon I become cleverer as well. They don't know it, but I know it. And you drink, and because drinking is what you're seeking. Drinking is doing something special for you. It only does to one out of ten people who drink alcohol. It's making you what you want to be. I said, Jesus, that's right, Bob. It does that. He said, That's all there is to it. I said, But there's a girl in our group. I heard her talk. She said, That meeting I went to the other night where she'd been sober, and then she got drunk again and got sober. Why would she get drunk? Why would she get drunk again if it's so wonderful to be sober? He said, That's the other part of the disease, kid. The thing that alcohol does for alcoholics, the penalty you pay is that absence from alcohol becomes intolerable. Sobriety becomes unbearable. Irritations become irritations. Anger becomes anger. It gets very bad. You can try a lot of things, but nothing will ever quench those feelings except a couple drinks. And when you have a drink, you're sober. You have a couple drinks. I said, Now, there's a problem. Let me ask you this. I have maybe a hundred times in my life stopped after work for two drinks and going to go home to be with my kids. And I wind up there at one o'clock in the morning, drunk. Why is that? Why can't I have two drinks and my plumber can have two drinks? He said, That's what alcohol is about, kid. When you take two drinks, you're no longer frightened and afraid. You're a different person. You're ready for the night. Hi, baby. Maybe later on you'll side over to the bar and say things like, You with anyone, granny? I did a lot of drinking in bars, but I never, I'll tell you something I'm rather proud of. I never went home with an ugly woman. I woke up with a lot of them. Jesus. Where's that girl I brought home? I don't know. Are we married? Jesus. But he pointed out to me, alcohol has to do something special for you. If it doesn't do something special for you, you'll never be an alcoholic. And if it does something special for you, it'll make sobriety unbearable after a while. Because the emotions will come back, inadequacies and fears and despairs. So you have to drink and try vainly to control it until eventually you're full of remorse again. Maybe you quit again. On and on. My God, Bob. The way you described that, I said, that's the story of my life. He said, there's a name for people like you. I thought, oh, what could that be? Because he was so profane. It'll be some dirty name. What would that be, Bob? He said, you're an alcoholic, kid. I said, how could I be an alcoholic? My problem really isn't alcohol. It is when I'm drunk. But most of the time, it's just these goddamn feelings eating me up. He said, alcoholics aren't people whose problem is alcohol. Kid, alcoholics are people whose answer is alcohol. And if it's your answer, it'll be your problem as long as you live. And he told me that in early December of 1958. I thought, that can't be true. My life can't be that simple. But I thought, I'll try it. I'll try it. I'll try what he says. And he scared me because he said, we're going to go through the steps. I'm not going to take you through the steps. Don't worry. He said, we're going to go through the steps. And I said, I can't go through the steps, Bob. He said, why not? I said, because God hates me. And the reason I knew God hated me is because when I was working in Texas, I was out one night, got caught in jail, got home the next morning, and they said, you shouldn't have been here last night. Your little son died. We couldn't find you. It just about killed me because I had a bunch of little girls and one little boy. He was going to be the apple of my eye. And I remember we took him and buried him in Shamrock, Wisconsin, just off the Black River Falls. And next to his grandmother. And I took a bow at his casket. I said, John Emmesland, this will never happen again. I'm so sorry. Oh, God, I'm sorry. And I stopped drinking. I was working, came home after work, had dinner with my kids. First time I'd done that. For years. Go for rides afterwards, help with their schoolwork. Weekend, we went to the show on Friday night. Had three great weeks. And then one night, wouldn't you know it, somebody snuck into my bedroom and put an invisible spring in my gut. The next morning I got up and I was feeling edgy. I thought, oh, I know that's crap coming again. But I can beat this for baby John. And the days went by and it got worse and worse. Something had happened. Something had happened to me. Maybe it happened to you. I don't know. But whatever color it was, my life seemed to go back to gray. The damn job is gray. And this damn town is gray. And these damn people are gray. And I can't stand it. And I got tense, nervous, just irritable. Take my daughter, Mary. Mary, take your sisters and go to your room. For Christ's sake, knock it off. Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to do that. It was just, ugh. And one day I got up. I was just crazy. And I went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. There was a note there. I've taken the kids to church, to mass. And there's no coffee. If you didn't say that, I spotted that. And I thought, Jesus! And I went out in the garage and sat in my car and hooked a hose up on the back of the car and turned the motor and went to sleep and died. I just, I can't stand it. And I can't drink. I have a baby John, and I can't stand it. And I died. And the guy next door, he'd be in his breakfast nook and looking out the window. And I was, he didn't, I come out, so he wandered over and found me dead in the car. And he pulled me out and they beat up my chest. And they rushed me to the hospital and oxygenated me for a couple of days. Then examined me and determined I was seriously mentally ill and put me in the state of insane asylum for an indefinite period. That's how I get to when I stay sober, folks. That's not an alcohol problem. That's something wrong inside of me, and I know it. But I remember when my son died, I shook my fist at God. I said, God, you took my little boy that never committed a sin and killed him to punish me because I'm bad. Well, screw you, God! I could never disbelieve in God, but I hated him. You'll get me in hell, but you won't get me before that. Screw you! I heard this guy wants me to return to God in the steps. I said, I can't return to God, Bob. He said, you're fortunate. Nothing in AA ever asks you to return to God. Oh, I said, to a power greater than myself, Bob? Is that supposed to fool me? He says, it doesn't say that either. Why don't you reach down the wall? Says, we came to believe. We never asked you to go back to any old sickness. You come to believe. Can't you come to believe in the loving God? I said, no! He said, could you believe in AA? I said, no! He says, well, I like it better than I used to, but not much. He says, you think I'm doing better than you are? I said, of course you are, Bob. He said, congratulations. I'm your new higher power. And I could accept that, because I knew he was trying to help me. So over a period of time, through a series of devices, I began doing things he told me to do. And I'll tell you, those actions saved my life, that he told me to do, because some of them were so terribly important. I look back now, I can't believe it was so important. Dumb little things, like I want you to go over and say your story to that woman. Why should I? Because you called her a bitch. She is a bitch. Why do you think she's a bitch? She told her new girls to stay away from me. Well, she's right. You apologize. And my mind said, absolutely not. But somehow, with the greatest gift I ever got from any girl, and God. Sorry I called you a bitch. You bitch. But little things like that. And there was, you know, maybe things you'd learn in treatment today, but there was no treatment then. No treatment. Sanitaria, but no treatment. In fact, that's something I want to talk in just a minute about. I won't take very long. But this is the home base, Minneapolis is the home base of treatment centers, internationally known. And in the 19th century, in the 19th century, in the 1960s, 50s, and 60s, and 70s, the old timers had a terrible resentment towards treatment centers. Ah, those goddamn crazy farms. But over the years, I've come to realize there are good treatment centers and bad treatment centers. And the way you describe the difference is this. It's if I go down to the beach in Santa Monica, and I want to go to Catalina, which is out of sight, and there's a nice little trim craft, they're saying SS Treatment Center, and people in white jackets. They say, we can feed you and take care of you. I want to see what else is available. I go down to the beach. There's two guys slinking in the deep grass, saying, you want to go with us? We're AA. We've got an invisible boat. So we get on the treatment center, and that's right. And they do exactly what they say. They feed me and dry me off, give me clean clothes, make me feel good. But just to get out of sight of land, they say, well, we have to turn back now. But I'm not there yet. No, but you're strong enough to swim there now. And so you swim. And you get tired, and here come these two boobs floating above the water in an invisible boat. You want to get in my boat? I'm not that sick, you son of a bitch. Boom. And pretty soon, here they come again. You're about drowned. You want to get in our boat? Yes. They lift you and put you in an invisible boat. What do I do now? Grab an oar and roll like hell. You're crazy. And finally, you're about dead. You want to ride in my boat? Yes. Yes. What do I do? Grab an oar and roll. You crazy bastards. And as you row, the boat appears. But it doesn't appear until you row. It's ironic. And pretty soon, you've got to be, I don't want to go to Catalina, I want to stay on the boat. Geez. Ha ha. And another thing that you learn, that's what the sponsors are for. They come by and say, hey. You got your oar upside down? Oh. Ha ha. But they, it works. And the difference between a good treatment center and a bad treatment center is just simply when you get off the good treatment center, they say, you're in good shape now. But when you see those guys in the boat jump in and roll like hell. And if they tell you you're strong enough to make it on your own, they'll kill you. Because you're not. The good treatment centers are of great value to AA. The bad treatment centers are of great value to AA. The bad treatment centers are lethal. Many of them have gone out of business, thank God. But there's a few more that should. But I did what Bill Bob said. I came to believe he was my higher power. I took actions and made amends eventually to people and took an inventory. The day I got fired as a dishwasher. I couldn't hold a job to my smart mouth. But little by little, by the time I got a year sober finally. My second year, I held three or four jobs before I got fired. And after my second birthday, I'd held a job for six months, I think. And a guy put in some clout for me. He got me a job as a beginning writer in a big medical corporation. And I went to work there. He took me down to the thrift shop and got me some clothes. They didn't quite fit, but almost. If I'd walk like this, they'd fit. And I had no front teeth, so I had to learn to talk like this. I went in this big medical group. They said, you know, Clancy, this has nothing to do with you because you can't expect to know this. But we're trying to get this procedure on paper. And we can't get it to run right. And I looked at it and I thought, God, I wrote a whole treatise on that ten years ago. And so I said, let me try it. And I wrote it. They said, wonderful. That's great, Clancy. God, that's wonderful. And I thought, well, I'm on my way now. And I was just smirking. A couple of days later, I heard a guy. He was supposed to be my assistant. Say, he doesn't even have any front teeth. And I thought, I'll be damned. No matter what I do, if somebody's got on my case, I'm going to have to punch this son of a bitch and quit the job. But if I do it, I'll have to explain it to that damn Bob. So I called Bob. They're ridiculing me, Bob. What'd they say, kid? They said, I don't have any front teeth. Do you have any front teeth? No, you know I don't. But they're ridiculing me. Ask him why he said it. I said, are you crazy? I know why he said it. He wants my job. I said, ask him why he said it. And I said, . So I got this guy aside. I said, I understand you think it's kind of funny. I have no front teeth. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. He said, oh, no. He said, I was talking to somebody about that thing you wrote. And that's so good. And now you've got clothes that obviously don't fit you. And you've got no teeth. Something bad happened to you back there somewhere. And you're making a comeback. He said, I just want you to know that all of us are with you 100%. I'm proud of you. But why did I tell you what I told him? I said, oh. And I went through that three or four more times, various times of embarrassment. By the time I was five years sober, I was director of advertising for that big corporation. I had front teeth, smiled a lot. If there's any new people here who have lost their teeth, let me give you hope. Once you become spiritually perfect, they grow back. I don't know exactly how that works. When I was seven years sober, another guy and I were brought into Hollywood. We created something called Boss Radio. Became the number one hard rock station in the world. We all wore shiny suits and said things like, what's coming on down, baby? We brought the Beatles out to the West Coast from New York. Only one group I had a terrible time with. People always joke about this. But there's a young couple. They're supposed to be trying to break into show business. And my job was to promote them and write something wonderful each month. I told them, my office says I can't promote you. You've got nothing that I can see that I can write about. Sorry. So they went on to become Sonny and Cher, for Christ's sake. Well, not my fault. I was 10 years sober. I was downtown doing public relations for a big company. 15 years sober. I was a marketing director. In Beverly Hills. When I was five years sober, the same wife and all those children heard the crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to Dallas, Texas. Jumped out of their post office box. Rushed to my side. Attached themselves to me like a group of starving chiggers. Nine months and ten seconds later, another Catholic hit the street. But it was a little boy. And I'll tell you, I sat in St. John's Hospital and cried for half an hour over that. Then I could see I've got to stop this influx of Catholics somehow. Somebody gave me a book on the rhythm system, apparently, which is a Catholic version of birth control. And I mastered that. And that was the end of the children. Several times I had to tell my wife, not tonight, honey. I've got a headache. Now they're all grown up. One of my oldest daughters turned 25 yesterday in AA. And her sister is going to turn 25 in two weeks. And her other sister is going to turn 25 in four weeks. It is that good a deal. They all drank together. The oldest one, when she got sober, the other two said, if you're an alcoholic, we must be too. And the other kids are an alcoholic. Only one of my children has turned out unfortunate. I hate to talk about that because, you know, it takes the glitter off the globe, as it were. My oldest daughter, Mary, has become a judge. We so wanted a defense attorney, but no. She came home from Christmas a few years ago. She said, Daddy, do you remember when you were so trying to stop drinking, you were so terrible, you'd send us to our room? I said, sure, honey. But you know why. She said, yeah, I know. When you come to Albuquerque, I'm going to send you to a little room. I stay out of Albuquerque at all times. But the greatest gift, I think, I think it came to me when I was about five years sober, maybe, and little by little enhanced. And if you're kind of new tonight, you may wonder this morning. What is AA for? See how long you can stay dry? God, I've been dry for 55 years. I might burst into flame up here at any moment. No. The purpose of AA, and I believe this with every fiber of my being, the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to very slowly do what drinking did fast. To change my perception of the world. To enable me to live with confidence and strength. To take actions. Wonderful. Wonderful. And you've got to keep doing it little by little to keep it going. That's one more thing I want to throw in just for the hell of it. Somebody's been a lot of talk this weekend about the, what is it, the need to drink. What's it called? Craving. Yeah. Huh? Craving. Craving, yeah. Craving. And nobody's ever explained that, the phenomenon of craving. There's never been an explanation in AA ever, anywhere. And my sponsor, Bob, had the craving explanation. And it sounds right for me anyway. He said when you drink and you start to become where you want to be, you find it sagging just a little bit. So you instinctively take a drink to hold it. And you keep drinking to hold that edge until pretty soon you're drunk and then it makes no difference. And he said that's what's called the phenomenon of craving. All the phenomenon of craving is just a need not to go back to being nothing. And I thought, God, that sounds right to me. But I, when I was 15 years sober, I felt good. I didn't know how good I felt. And one day in a fit of feeling good, I left my job in Beverly Hills where I was a big shot. And for the last 40 years I've run the Midnight Mission on Skid Row. And people say, what? And people say, why did you give up your great career, this big money, to run this Mission on Skid Row? And there's no good answer to that. Well, to such a significant decrease in salary, I couldn't pass it up. So not tomorrow morning because tomorrow morning, thank God, is Memorial Day and I'll be home. And in the morning I'll put on my World War II veteran cap and go to the Veterans Hospital or the cemetery where all of us old veterans stand around. Just remember this. The paper says that approximately 1,500 World War II veterans die every day. But then Tuesday morning I'm going to do something that none of you will do. I live in a house by the ocean by myself. My wife suddenly passed away about a year and a half ago. And we buried her in Shamrock between her mother and her son. And I brought all my kids up this summer and we celebrated at her grave. What a wonderful woman she was. But I go home. My grandson living with me is supposed to be my housekeeper. God, he's intolerant. Incompetent, I mean. I want to slap him. But he's big, so I don't. But I'm going to get up in the morning and have breakfast in my car. I live in a big house out by the ocean. I've lived for many years. Yesterday there were 150 AAs in my backyard playing ball. I can't go because I have to go to Minneapolis. But anyway, I'll go downtown through Beverly Hills where I used to work and go down to Skid Row, which is this ravaged area downtown, and park my car underneath the building. And I'll walk around the building and see who died over this weekend. Several people probably should die. They die from smashing their face into the sidewalk in convulsions or overdose on crack, which is a lethal thing, just dreadful. And you see who's going to die and who's not. Then I'll go in the building. I'll talk to the staff, and we'll try to figure out ways to get these poor bastards off the street. It is almost impossible to get people off Skid Row because it isn't an economic thing. It's a mindset. They cannot stand conflict anymore. The slightest trace of conflict. And so we have to do it very gently. We get a few. My meeting, Pacific Group, there's hardly a week goes by that somebody doesn't get up and say, I got my start at the Midnight Mission. That makes me feel good. And then I'll go home and have dinner with my grandson. Then I'll go to a meeting. And I'll judge. I think they should have heard that talk Sunday morning. It'd be all better. Then I'll go to bed and I'll go to sleep. I want to tell you, that's just one thing, newcomer, I want to point out to you. Just think, I will go to bed and I will go to sleep. And you can't, but you will if you stay around here. That's the purpose of alcoholic status, to live comfortably. As a human being, to live with some degree of self-confidence. To live the way you drank to feel. It doesn't come very fast. And we don't have, every day is not a wonderful day. No matter how long you work the program or how hard, you never rise above human being. And human beings are fallible. And they make mistakes. I know how to live exactly. And I don't always do it because I, I don't know because I'm a goof, I guess. But that's what A's were. I'll tell you the motto of AA. You'll never hear it anywhere else except here. You're not okay. I'm not okay. And it's okay. But quickly to end this, I don't want to go on as long as Howard did. But I, over the years, my sponsor died. I got another sponsor, a guy named Chuck C. And he told me, I told him that God hated me. And he said, I've got some bad news for you, kid. You're not important enough for God to hate. That hurt my feelings. But I tried saying a prayer that day. And I said a prayer. I've been saying a prayer every day since then for 50-some years. And I pray for, I think the most inspired line in the book, praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry it out. And I can't quite achieve it. Some days I do. Some days I don't. But at least, the great thing about AA is every night here is New Year's Eve. You can make your bows for New Year's. Get up in the morning and it's New Year's Day. And you've got a fresh day. And you screw up that day, thank God, next night is New Year's Eve again. Every day is New Year's Eve. And if you fail in the daytime, don't worry about it. Just tell God and get up. Because probably the nicest thing I've gotten out of AA, among other things, is what I'm just going to tell you. I don't ever say this in meetings, but I say it today. We're all here. We're sober. God bless you. Thank you.