I Got Nothing I Asked For But Everything I’d Hoped For – Walter O.

About This Speaker Tape

Walter O'Keefe, a veteran broadcaster and songwriter born in 1900, delivers a deeply personal talk at a Dallas AA convention in 1973. He opens with self-deprecating humor about his age, his career substituting for bigger stars (Fred Allen, Walter Winchell, Gary Moore), and jokes pulled from Ann Landers columns and news clippings. He weaves in stories about Jim Farley, Nixon in China, and an 80-year-old woman reading The Happy Hooker on a plane.

He pivots to the spiritual core of his story: the son of an alcoholic and father of an alcoholic, he describes three generations tyrannized by liquor. His turning point came in 1952 when he visited the leper colony at Molokai and saw serenity in the eyes of the caregivers — what he calls the 'Molokai look.' Three years later, broken and empty, he was carried to his first meeting in New York by a little broker's clerk named Ed L., who became his sponsor.

He recounts his relationship with Bill W. and Lois, reading aloud the letter he wrote Lois after Bill's death. He describes writing the song 'One Day at a Time' on a plane returning to California, and tells the story of how a tape of his Amarillo talk traveled to South Africa and reached lepers in the bush — evidence that you never know how Higher Power uses your service.

He closes with prayers from Thomas More and Thomas Merton, and Robert Louis Stevenson's definition of success, framing sobriety as being 'convinced by transparency' — the quality he saw in Ed L., in Bill, and now hopes to embody himself.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:00 Introduction of Walter O'Keefe as one of the greatest AAs, praise for Tom Lovern's daily gratitude calls
• 3:00 Walter opens with jokes about aging, Avery Brundage marrying a 34-year-old, the 80-year-old woman reading The Happy Hooker on the plane to Saskatoon
• 10:00 Ann Landers letter about the oversexed alcoholic husband, Milwaukee divorce joke, Jim Farley and Dr. Hu Shi 'likey speechy' story
• 17:00 Qualification: son of an alcoholic, father of an alcoholic, three generations tyrannized by liquor; reads the 'I asked Higher Power for strength' prayer from El Paso
• 25:00 Writing the letter to Lois after Bill's death, seeing Bill's photo on the front page of the New York Times, the hidden hand of Higher Power in a 12-step call
• 35:00 Writing the song 'One Day at a Time' on a plane returning to California, the Russian soldier's prayer found outside Kharkov
• 45:00 The Amarillo tape story — how his talk reached lepers in the South African bush three years later via a merchant seaman
• 55:00 Molokai visit in 1952, the blind decaying woman who wouldn't let him see her, the 'Molokai look' of serenity in the caregivers' eyes
• 68:00 First meeting in New York with Ed L., Ed arriving at Sutton Place during the relapse, 'when are you going to stop running away from me'
• 78:00 Closing with Thomas More's prayer, Thomas Merton's meditation, and Robert Louis Stevenson's definition of success