I Prefer Believing in My Sponsor Over Pretending to Believe in a Higher Power – Clancy I.

My name is Clancy Inneslund and I'm an alcoholic. I'm very glad to be here tonight. I think it's remarkable such a large crowd tonight with this bad weather. I know some of you have had to travel four and five miles to get here. I met one of the cake presenters tonight. He came down with me on the ride down. I didn't know why. But he tried out a whole series of one-liners about sodomy and tested which one I'd laugh at. And I didn't laugh at any, so I guess he just chose one and went with it. So I had a wonderful trip. At least it took my mind off the rain. But I'm very happy to be here today. I'm always glad to be at this meeting in the first week in January. For those of you who are new, I don't think it's been mentioned, this is the 19th anniversary of this group. It's the 19th anniversary of this meeting. And soon it'll be 20 years like today it is. And I still remember coming down here for the first meeting and the young Turks, the young guys around here today who are feeling their oats. Pat, one of the old fools who gave a cake here tonight, was a young Turk. And Cliff was a young Turk. And Skip, who gave a birthday cake, was a young Turk. And Al McGee was a young Turk. Oh, you know, instead of a pony, by the way, I'm a meanie. I never figured it would last. But it has. Incidentally, I was talking to Al McGee. He was mentioned previously, his charming wife passed away. And he said, I was talking to him today at length, and he said to me, be sure to give all of you who know him his love and all of you who don't know him his love. He's a good man, a good example of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he's a... We were talking about... It's something that... It's kind of a grueling thing to go through a long illness with someone you're married to until they finally die. And Alcoholics Anonymous has been of inestimable value. Because AA is not designed to make life wonderful. It's designed to make life livable and to get through things good and bad. And that's why we gather together. But the function of this meeting is the same as it was many years ago. So, speaker, talk for a few minutes on his own opinions. They didn't used to say that when I first came down here. They did the second time I came down here. I just gave a little talk on where Bill and Dr. Bob went wrong, should I? But we talk about this nature of the disease of alcoholism, which continues to be a terribly great killer. It's an ironic thing. In my lifetime, I'm not terribly old. I'm old to you young people, but I'm not really old compared to a glacier or something, I don't suppose. But when I was a little boy playing on the streets of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, I had no idea of it. But a very wealthy young man in the East was sent to the best doctor in the world, in Switzerland, to be cured of his alcoholism. And the doctor took him in. Or cured of his, not alcoholism, his upset, his illness. The doctor took him in and kept him in the hospital. He kept him in the sanitarium. The best hospital and the best treatment in the world for one year. And he released him and he said, I think you're all right now, son. You can go back to New York. Follow simple rules I've given you. The kid didn't even get to the ship. He was face down in his own vomit the next night. Drunk, sick, crazy. His parents were appalled. The doctor was appalled. He was appalled. So the parents sent a big check back to the doctor. The doctor said, you ought to give him another shot, doctor, because it hasn't taken yet. And the doctor this time refused to let him back into the hospital. And he said, what has come ringing down the hallways of time to help new people like you and me remember what we've got and what we're doing about it? He said, in effect, Roland, I am very sorry. I thought I could help you. I thought you had a significantly bad neurological, neurotic condition. I see now that is not the case. You are what is known as an alcoholic. And I cannot even let you in my hospital because, to the best of my knowledge, there is no effective treatment for this condition anywhere in the world at any price. In 1932, the best doctor in the world had never heard of anyone being helped with alcoholism. And they'd been working on it for 5,000 years by that time. And so... Through a very strange series of intricate, funny little coincidences, some people finally got together in Akron, Ohio, as a very odd little chain of people from this fellow who, incidentally, he never went to AA. He stayed sober for a while through the Oxford movement. But he never went to AA. His family always was very proud that he didn't have to go to AA. He died in 1943. As of today... As of today, his family has still not released the cause of death. Which leads one to believe he probably went back to drinking, because that's what alcoholics do. But he had helped someone who also did not stay sober. But this guy, the brief time he was sober, interested a guy named Bill Wilson in staying sober. So the two number one links on the chain didn't stay sober. Bill Wilson did. And that's why this room is full tonight. And that's why I'm here, and that's why you're here. And it's an amazing thing when you stop and think about it. You know, we've got 350 people in the room. That's very nice. It's not a record crowd. I'm going to say something that's going to sound terribly... going to sound strange, but it's really true. Some of you have been there. You know, in our home group, on our crew, on our crew, the people who work each meeting, coffee makers, cleaners up, setters up, parkers, all the things, there are 435 people. And our weekly crew with commitments. And we get about 1,000 people every week. But that's, you know, who did... Here's your 345. That's a pretty good lick. It's not really so much. It's a small room. But stop and think of this. Undoubtedly, there are more sober alcoholics in this room tonight than there were in the world in 1935. And there wasn't any place to go. And people then were just like you and me and had this... the same sensitivities and the same desires for betterness and the same needs out of life. And all they got was, get out of here, you sick son of a bitch. You don't even care. Because that was the universal answer. If you drink, you don't care. And it took a lot of years for people like us to be sober and to come to understand maybe the reason we drink is we care too much. We care too much. We feel too intensely. It's almost an immaturity. I don't suppose there's an alcoholic alive who doesn't feel secretly that they are maybe a little bit too sensitive and feel things too intensely. And I bet there's an alcoholic alive who doesn't come here and sit with the knowledge, yes, I know AA is a very nice place, but my case is different. I had that feeling and it almost killed me. The worst years of my life came, after I came to AA. I came to AA and I was still doing fairly well. I'd been in jail a couple of times. That embarrassed me and humiliated me because I had planned to become something. I didn't like that with my record. After coming to AA, I went to jail 32 times. And I went to hospitals and nut houses and funny places. And I, the last day I drank on a cold, rainy, this kind of rain reminds me, it was a cold, rainy day. It was a cold, drizzly rain. And I was thrown out of a Skid Row mission. And I didn't have any front teeth. I'd been kicked out of the Phoenix, Arizona, drunk tank. And my clothes were gone and my family was gone. And I was just staggered. I hollered, wait a minute, I'm not a bum. Three years ago, I directed a grand opera at the University of Texas. Ads that some guys and I wrote, the old, the old, Elsie and Elmer ads for the board and company, are still running in Life magazine and Collier's and Saturday Evening Post. I've had my picture in the New York Times for achievement. How many people do you know have had their picture in the New York Times for achievement? But it's hard to explain these things in midair. When you don't have any front teeth, you really can't punch out those consonants the way I had spent thousands of dollars and a lot of time and psychoanalysis to get to the root of my sensitivities and problems. Got into metaphysics and at one time was one of perhaps six people in the state of Texas who knew truth. It's easy for you to laugh. You have no idea what it's like. I thought they'd admire me for it. They put me in the insane asylum. That's what they did. I read books. I did a lot of things. But the one thing that always helped me the most that helped me when I felt that I was going to die, I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. Different and desperate and less than. I suppose in retrospect, I don't know that I ever would have thought about it at the time because it was such a dismal thought how to put it out of my mind. But in retrospect, I could see the story of my life. The story of my life is somehow or other of myself, I am not enough. And I don't know why. I don't know what makes it. And I can't find anybody who will tell me. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. But I have that fear. I've got to find something extra to make me equal. And I don't know why. So I tried a lot of extra things and I did a lot of extra things. But when I was a boy, 15 years old, a runaway from home, standing on the deck of a ship in Pearl Harbor early in the Second World War, a dumb little snot and I was pumped with pimples on his face and didn't know anything. And some grown-up men shamed me into drinking that I didn't drink. And I said, I swore I'd never do to my mother. I took some drinks and they threw me up. I threw them up again, threw them up again. I finally took a drink and they held it down. And that day was the first day I ever felt the way men looked. And I'll tell you, I got sick and I threw it up and got sick again. But for a brief moment in time, I had the feeling that's an alcohol. I didn't become a terrible old drunk. It was just something I discovered. You know, in your 20s and teens and 20s are when people learn about life as a rule. You learn about sex and you learn about jobs. You learn about drinking. You learn about self-being, self-supporting. You learn about all the things, smoking and drinking are all the things that people learn about. And you just stick with the ones you like and you get rid of the ones you don't like. It's the rite of passage of every human being in society. And I didn't think finding alcohol was any big deal because everybody around me drank. But drinking to me became just a great thing. And as I grew a little older, I drank. I loved it. I loved drinking. Drinking filled holes in me that I hadn't even identified until I filled them. But when I filled them, they were there. Many years later, I was, when I was sober a few months, I finally got a little job at an advertising agency doing a job I'd held when I was 14 and now I was in my 30s and lucky to get it. And one of our accounts was something called Kamchatka Vodka. I don't know if you ever saw their billboards, but they were around and for years they always said the same thing. Vodka is pronounced Kamchatka. And I was wrapping packages, but I had been a very top, good writer. So I thought, I'll tell these guys an idea and they'll say, who is that guy? Get him up here. Let's get him. So I remember coming by with my packages in the mailbox. I said, I've got an idea for that Kamchatka billboard. Now what the hell is that? I said, how about this? Kamchatka Vodka goes boom. Better than all vodkas anywhere. And they gave me the same look I've been getting all my life. And one guy says, that's supposed to be funny? And the other guy says, you know, you've got not only an ugly, ugly mouth, but a stupid mouth. And somebody else says, if you don't like your package, wrap our packages, why don't you go somewhere else and wrap their goddamn packages? And I was so, I almost went over the table at him because that's humiliating Christ. But the only thing, I was more afraid of my sponsor than I was mad, so I didn't kill him, but I saw my sponsor that night and I told him this turgid story. I said, God, never am I going to be anywhere for peace. And he said, oh, shut up. He explained, listen, they're not putting you down. They don't know what the hell you're talking about. Can't you understand this? To them, Kamshat Kavadga doesn't go boom. To them, it goes blu. That's why you're in this goddamn meeting and they're not. Oh, I said, I could have told you that. But I think that day was the first time I ever really understood the nature of what I was doing. Because when I was a boy and when I grew up, alcohol went boom and I never had the slightest idea you didn't do that for everybody. And if people didn't drink what that told me, they didn't have holes to fill. That's all it ever told me. Stopped after work to have a couple drinks and say to a guy, you want a drink? Yeah, I'll have one. Or have another one. No, Betty's got dinner on. I have to go now. You wussy. Not even man enough to fill your holes, eh? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Had no idea. There's no need to stay and have another one that goes blu, blu, blu. But I drank and I'll tell you something. Alcohol was the best friend I have ever had in my life. I have never had a better friend than alcohol. That sounds terrible to say that in a day meeting. We could have speakers go up here and say, that damn alcohol poisons all of us. When I hear that kind of talk I want to jump up and say, hey, wait a minute. It's like hearing somebody bad mouth an old girlfriend in the mind or something. Wait a minute. She may be a pig now, but she didn't used to be. Alcohol filled my holes. And I used it to fill my holes. And then I, alcohol sometimes got to be a problem. But I tried to fight it. You know, an illustration I've used a lot of times, but I won't make it very long tonight. But you stop and think about this whole story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It wasn't that terrible. He drank that stuff and turned into that evil man. That was the bad part about it all. He wanted to do that. That's why he mixed up all these experiments. You know, he's a wonderful doctor. And he was so good and he wanted to see what it would feel like to have a little evil going. And he finally mixed up some stuff and gave him temporarily evil. And in the movie, at least the movie I saw, I've read the book, but the movie is more graphic. He's, instead of being here, good Spencer Tracy, he's over there and he's got this hooker played by Ingrid Bergman beating the hell out of her. Whack, whack, whack. You know. And she said, Yump and yiminy. Ah, shut up. You know. And when he gets tired, he goes back and has the next patient. And this is great. He's a good doctor. He's a little restless. He has a drink and can go over and beat the shit out of Ingrid Bergman one more night. And there's nothing bad about that. And I understand that. That's why I like to drink. I can be good only so long and then I need some strength to really be rotten. Because I was raised in a Norwegian Lutheran church. It doesn't make you good but it makes you so you can't enjoy evil. You know. You need something to cut off. When you drink, you can... And when I'm around late at night in a bar, I want to be with people who are like me. I don't want to be with wimps and wussies. I want to be with people who say, Hey! Let's go to Tijuana! I want to be with people who say, Yeah! Yeah! I'll drive! Ah! I don't want to be with somebody who says, Why? It's so late. What will I tell Phyllis? Tell her to keep you home, you nerd. I, uh... From time to time, I just need to have a little excitement. I never found any good Bergman, but I think I found her grandmother once. It isn't just women. I mean, it's everything. You're whole. When alcohol transforms you, you know what it feels like. You know, that's why people keep judging us all the time for the wrong measuring sticks. They, uh... People think... Here's an example. You want a sure way to see a non-alcoholic? You just... I saw it once this holiday. Go to a party where a lot of people are drinking. If you see a guy take out his car keys and say, Martha, I'm afraid I drank a little too much honey. Maybe you better drive us home. You can bet he'll never be in this room. People like you and I have a little different approach. It's my car and I'll drive the goddamn car! And if you don't like it, walk! Oh, bitch! It has transformed me with my holes are now full! The traffic cops, you know, these... these stops they have all over California in the holiday season to catch drunken drivers. They're not trying to catch people like you and me. If they're trying to catch us, they'd have them out all year. They're trying to catch social drinkers who go out and they're Christmas drunk. And they get drunky poo at the party. And then... And then... hit trees and eat each other and they stop in these long lines while people like you and me who know how to drive and drink have to sit behind them and wait. Hurry up up there for Christ's sake! Alcohol makes me something better than I've ever been. And the only problem was I had the same problem with alcohol that Dr. Jekyll had. Nice two of them. But he finally locked up his stuff and was going to go straight. Marry his sweetheart played by this virgin played by Lana Turner. Well, the producer wrote her a part I guess. I don't know. But anyway. And he's going to announce his engagement and he became Mr. Hyde without intending to. From then on his life was hell. He never knew when he was going to become his tribe. He had lost the power to control. And that's what happened in my life. As long as I had the power to control when I was going to raise hell, it was great. But the day came when I lost the power. And I would find myself out raising hell when I didn't intend to raise hell. And find myself in a bar at 11 o'clock and I'd say, oh, God. Promised to be at my daughter's birthday at 6 o'clock. What the hell? Oh, well, I'll give her two presents. I'll find myself in jail at night. Oh, God, I was supposed to be at that meeting tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock and I'll bail out but I can't. I don't know if I can explain this. I'll find myself in jail at night. I'll find myself in jail and have my father come down one morning and say, did you have a good time while you were drunk last night, son? I said, no, I didn't mean to do it. It's just a dumb thing. I said, I hope you had a good time because your little son died and we couldn't find you anywhere. I hope you had a good time. And he walked out and I'll tell you, the world stopped in a sense. All I could think of was to holler after him. But I didn't mean to! And I sure as hell didn't mean to. I would have given him my life to keep that from happening. And one day alcohol, you can stop drinking alcohol, go to AA. You discover alcohol really isn't a problem. It is for alcoholics, but not for me. My case is different. It is more painful for me when I stop because the holes come back. The very reasons I drink are there intensified. But I drink and people, well-meaning people, they say to me, your problem is alcohol. And I don't know how to explain to them. It isn't really if you drink my problem is alcohol. Why don't you come to my bedroom some morning about two o'clock, sneak in and stand at the foot of my bed. Maybe you can see me with my eyes wide open gazing off in the darkness and my head going a hundred miles an hour and my gut churning wondering why can't I get along with my kids? I love them. Why can't, why do I fight all the time with my wife? Why are they screwing me around down to work? Why don't things come together for me like they do with other people? Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel this way all the time? If you watch that for an hour you would think my problem was alcohol. You might understand why I drink. I drink to get rid of those feelings. I drink to feel whole. And now drinking has become a problem. So now drinking is a problem so I've got to stop. I stopped drinking and that's a terrible problem. One time I took a vow to stop drinking because my wife was pregnant and I was going to do something to make up for the death of my son I felt in some obscure way and I stayed sober so long through so much pain that one day my wife took the children to church and I just put the car in the garage and put a hose in it and got in and went to sleep and died. My neighbor found me in there dead and pulled me out and they got to be going again but put me in the nut house but I was 30 seconds away from being just a grown over tombstone in a little Texas graveyard today pal and I never would have had the slightest idea what was wrong all I knew was there's something wrong I spent a thousand dollars and a lot of years trying to find out why I found out the reasons why sometimes but the time comes I just can't stand being less than and you go to AA and they say well stop drinking keep coming back you don't really understand not really that may help people whose problem is drinking pal but it don't help people whose problem is their head and gut and mind and difference and feelings too sensitive and can't even show that because you gotta be a man I would never tell anybody I felt sensitive because that's what a wimp does I'm a man any more than if my boss comes through where I was working and said how you doing I would never tell him the truth but that surprised me how you doing oh I'm afraid what are you afraid of I don't know the correct answer is how you doing fine just getting out some tired blood hair getting out some tired blood hair so I stood outside of a skid row mission everything gone I'd been up and down up and down up and down finally it was all gone gone with the wind and walked 71 blocks in a cold drizzle like this from 4th and Los Angeles out to Fairfax and Wilshire to an AA club that I'd been asked to leave two weeks before because they felt that was a bad influence on the newcomers and I hung around that club and I was so desperate this time that I let those people do something I had one pride I had I may be down I may have lost everything but I haven't sold out and this time I sold out I let those people have eventually make me do things that hurt my pride that hurt my all I got left is my intellect and my will and now they're undermining that and that's when I began to get better who would ever have thought that and now it's been 32 years since I've walked in that rain off Skid Row and I've had a very slow early sobriety because I you don't become wonderful by getting sober all that does is make it more painful for a while there's a certain elation about being sober you've got to remember this if you're new especially being sober doesn't make you feel wonderful the natural state of sober alcoholics is depression and anxiety and feelings of difference that's what AA is about AA is not designed to get you sober toilets get you sober AA is so by being sober is the vestibule of AA and most people never understand that they come to AA and sit in a few meetings talk with a parent somebody else has said feel shitty and say AA doesn't work I see alcohol today I see alcoholics die regularly I'm sure most of you never will see it I see it all the time when I say die I don't mean oh look that man is sick I mean where we say get a blanket over his face and get him out of here he's dead and it's kind of an interesting thing isn't it I go around and talk a lot at AA it's not supposed to be a community the last couple years have been exotic places Glasgow and London and Dublin and Belfast and Berlin and Australia and New Zealand and Tahiti and Hawaii and Mexico and Canada and all over the United States and I sit with a man I know and have known for some time watching him die and I can't even communicate with him because of one thing he zipped up from the inside finally the last vestige of hope he says what you what you say may be true but you don't understand my case is different that's all it takes to die drunk keep that thought paramount and that's why what we do here is we try to get people to come to understand that the problem really isn't drinking the problem is something called alcoholism not alcohol alcohol problems are easy to solve you get them sober and they're all right alcoholism you discover stopping drinking makes it worse till you have to drink till you have to get sober till you have to drink till you have to get sober that's called alcoholism and that's why today with all the help available in America today with all the help available it is still estimated over 90% of alcoholics die drunk in America and they die drunk convinced but I'm not really an alcoholic you don't understand my problems came when I was sober and I drank just to get away from them and they don't realize they're defining the nature of alcoholism when sobriety is untenable and alcohol drinking is untenable you are now in the throes of alcoholism and this isn't being on schedule over the years I've had the opportunity to sponsor a lot of people they had to put the flag on the moon movie stars priests doctors a guy who was on his bottom year last bottom financially was making 250 grand a year and these guys have been on schedule what we all have in common is the same thing we have in common with you I presume drinking has become untenable and sobriety has become untenable I don't know what to do that's why people like us go through all these permutations they talk about in the book changing from scotch to brandy and drinking beer only or drinking only at home or never drinking at home all these things because I've got to find a way because life without any drinking is unbearable and drinking is unbearable and the reason that's important to know is so that you and I will get a glimmer of idea that that is exactly what AA is set up to solve sets up to solve it's not to get you sober it's not to make you holy it's not to make you wonderful it's not to make you superhuman it's to do something infinitely more complex than that it is to little by little with an ongoing surrenders to take actions that will bring about a change of perception that will over a long period of time begin to fill holes that nothing has ever filled except alcohol for alcoholics now you say it seems like that shouldn't work look at Jimmy tonight got a 30 year cake that big teacher there 19 years I've watched him get every one of his cakes in his hall on these meetings most of the people Carlos watched him remember he got his first cake and he was young and cute now he's old and fat but you're still you're still cute you're still cute no he looks just the same as he did then he looks a little better than he does he looks a little better now that he did that but what keeps us sober you think some people just come here and we read this and learn to stand pain not at all I can't stand pain any more than I could the last day I drank what Alcoholics Anonymous does is find ways to alter and reduce and get rid of pain and conflict and the agony that make alcoholics drink you will also have conflict because no matter how hard you work the program you never rise above human being but the fact that people are sober and living in the world is the greatest testament everybody everybody got big offers all these movements oh yes you come to transactional analysis you'll find happiness you come to transcendental meditation you come to S you come to primal scream therapy therapy X or take medication Y or take Prozac or take medication Y or find a good analyst but go and ask him could I see a room full of the people who are feeling well from this not any but here you step in rooms and you're the biggest enemy we have to fight here taking it for granted this is such a miracle that we now take it for granted oh yes I went down to that god damn AA meeting and they had a good speaker but shit they had to wait for the coffee there was not enough cream and shit and it's funny except a lot of people this room are going to die drunk talking that way as it always happens I'll just point out to you folks who were talking through the traditions and laughing with all this other stuff this room was this full 15 years ago and there's been newcomers come every meeting since then a lot of people have been slicked right out that door pal this room was this full a lot of times and a certain cadre remained the activists remain and the slick ones slide out the door and what makes them slick because the feelings of difference come back and they they're afraid to trust AA and so they go back to their old defense mechanisms I don't need this shit man and away they go and they're funny until you go to their funerals or see them in the hospital or see them face down on their own puke on Christmas morning as I saw a guy recently and on and on what I'm trying to say is this the function of alcoholics and why you should stay here and why you should do it apparently everyone of us got a cake here tonight did get a sponsor because I'll tell you something we are very lucky in this group and in the Pacific group and in groups like this wherever there's a strong sponsor ethic you have a successful AA movement where there's a weak sponsor ethic you have a weak AA movement I'll guarantee that you go across the country there are pockets of enthusiasm and they are all where there's a strong sponsorial ethic there are two friends of mine sitting in the front row who started a Pacific group in Minneapolis and it's building up and they have a strong sponsorial ethic and people can't understand why it's so successful people are feeling so good get a sponsor and then surrender if you can your thinking judgment to that sponsor it's very hard because you know we hear speakers say I came to AA and I threw in the towel it's been wonderful ever since that's podium talk unless they've been sober less than ten minutes here's what human beings do we come to AA and we throw in the towel as soon as the heat's off I snatch it back and I spend the rest of my time of my life tearing off small strips is there no satisfying you god damn AAs because that's what humans have to do and your perceptions change I'm so glad my perceptions changed for example I never could have returned to God until my sponsor told me I didn't have to and I never could if I'd had to return to God which I thought was a concept of AA I would have died he said you have to come to find something I remember a few years ago sitting in the little Norwegian Lutheran church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with my mother's little casket I was glad she'd died because she'd been so sick and looking around that room and thinking I sat here terrified of an evil god day after day until I ran away and thank God I survived long enough to discover the same god as in this room as in the meeting in West Los Angeles a god who means well for me if I can keep my head out of my butt long enough to have it happen to take the actions to be to be what AA asks me to be not a wonderful person but a person who acts differently than a selfish nasty self-obsessed snot to do these things and I know it I know it works because it changed my life and changed many many lives and I know if you're new tonight or feeling different or feeling bad you'll say yes it works for them but will it work for me and I tell you this I'll just give you the ultimate test I'll give you the ultimate test you don't have to go to AA on one condition if when you have your back to the wall and the hounds of fate are ripping at your throat and you have nowhere to turn and if you take a drink and it goes no more for me I'm starting to feel it if that's what happens to you you don't have to go to AA but you don't have to go to AA but you don't have to go if your case is like mine and countless others when your back's to the wall and the hounds of fate rip against your throat it goes and it doesn't go but it goes you want to try me copper why don't you take your job and shove it Mr. Carlson you with anyone granny if things look significantly different and now you've run out of time you better stay here because what AA will do will make things look different again and you'll see very slowly but you live in a world where your holes are almost full when you're sober it's something that's so unbelievable that I had to experience it to believe it so I I hope you stay here the 19 years anniversary is very nice what makes it important is this there's always therapies to help people like you and me but there's no place where they're year after year full of successful results so that's what this is about if Dr. Young could see this that old Austrian doctor he would he would think there was a true miracle that people a lot of people died to put us in this room and I I'm very glad I'm here and I hope you're here and I wish you a happy anniversary thank you yes sir hi there did I have much difficulty the first third step and what did I make that decision yes because I said before the third the first step the first three steps are really quite simple we make them complex I'll just quickly let me just go through should I answer that question then I'll sit down the first step we keep thinking what does the first step mean it means we gotta admit we're real alcoholics we can't drink anymore it doesn't say that at all it says we admit we're having trouble drinking and we're having trouble sober that's all it says that's all the first step is about all these things as my sponsor pointed out to me nicely he says why don't you just try the black part boy I thought I had it by full strength I'd have I'd have run is what I would have done but the first step simple I'm having become powerless over alcohol I've become powerless over sobriety okay that's all you don't even have to he doesn't ask you to get sober he just says admit those things then you're gonna come to believe that a power greater than yourself can restore your sanity well there we go but as I told you as my sponsor pointed out to me doesn't say return to God it says come to believe in something not as sick as your sick beliefs you've had and my sponsor said well can't you believe can't you come to believe in anything I said no he said do you believe in God I said no he said do you think I'm doing better than you are I guess you are he says congratulations I'm your new higher power and he became my higher power and people laughed and sneered at us because I had him for my higher power but I will tell you this tonight I would much rather see you believe in your sponsor that you believe in than to pretend to believe in a God you don't believe in because it will be two o'clock in the morning and you've got to turn to what you believe and if you've been fooling them you're dead I'd rather see you grab onto an arm that you believe in than all the beautiful prayers that people say because they think it makes them look good but as a result of that I took actions that will restore me to sanity what is sanity sanity is the ability to live in reality without becoming psychotic for me drinking makes me psychotic living in reality means sanity I had come to believe I didn't know how it was going to happen at the time but I had to try to come to believe that a power greater than myself would restore me to sanity and the third step was just the extension of that then I made a decision to turn my will and my life over the terror of that power I just came to believe in I just came to believe I turned my will and my life over the care of my sponsor and he made me take actions that infuriated me and embarrassed me and humiliated me people say aren't you going to turn your life over to God I said I haven't got time for that this time it's going to be going too hard but as a result of those things I took actions I eventually took an inventory and I made amends I did a lot of things and my perceptions changed and one day I came to believe in AA because it was working and one day as I said earlier I found myself praying to a God that I thought loved me I can't guarantee that any prayer I've ever said has ever gotten out of the room I get into but I know this when I get up when I pray to a God that I think loves me I always feel better when I'm done and that's a there's no big mystery about the third step after you're sober why do you may want to get into deeper ramifications but it's unnecessary because when the last analysis the steps mean what they say that's what they mean it's a simple program it isn't we make it sound simple till you get into the next tent and it'll be a dollar and a half extra to discover how complex it is when all else fails make it simple don't make it complex I think about that a lot a lot of people come to me when they're having a lot of problems they're so eager to do something about it it's like seeing a big sailing ship in a storm and they say I'm in a storm put up all the sails let's get out of here when you're in a storm you take down all the sails and head to the wind and keep it as simple as you can and ride it out you still do that today with a with a big battleship the battle of the Philippine Sea big typhoon came down and all the ships just stopped doing everything and aimed towards the wind and hung on till it stopped but when we get into a jam we keep wanting to make it complex I have complex problems I need complex answers no you didn't you need less complex problems you need less and goofy people have goofy problems and that's why it's always good to have a sponsor too because some people get their messages direct from God and I'll tell you something when you are goofy God gives you goofy answers at one time God told me to quit a job and punch the guy on the way out I will be done father later on I discovered God was signed the way I would write it but all I'm saying is this don't make it more complex all you got to do is this you come in here by saying I can't stay sober comfortably and I can't drink comfortably step one somehow I got to try to believe there's something here that's going to help me not have to drink I can't see what it can be but I just try to believe that such a power exists step two then I'm going to try to allow them to superimpose actions and perceptions over mine even though I can't believe they know more about me than I do step three and eventually step four and five and six and seven and eight Bill Wilson you know he has something about this growing process I'll just close by saying this there's only one word that's been changed in the twelve steps since they were published 1939 the first edition of the big book and the first incidentally over here today we got off the freeway on a mission and I saw a van with a New Mexico license plate and the license number was big book are they here? well they won't have that van long I was going to congratulate my daughter who's an assistant DA in New Mexico I was going to get them a break and I'll screw them but one word has been changed when the book came out the twelfth step read having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs and after the book came out Bill's followers said that's wrong we haven't had any spiritual experience you don't have the spiritual experience and you had it in the hospital before you ever heard of the steps how do you understand this? how do you make of this? hmm apparently the book sold very slowly so they had a lot of time to go hmm a couple of years as a matter of fact but they finally came to a glimmering something that they didn't really understand but I can tell you now as fact that somehow here for some reason nobody knew the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous when taken over a period of time of death the worst saddest case is watching people come out of treatment facilities and think they've taken the twelve steps in twenty-eight days you'd laugh but they'd die from it they'd die from it the steps are something you take over a long period of time again and again because you must not know them you must get into your emotional reactions it takes a long time there's a lot of help but the twelve steps bring about an incremental spiritual experience not the way Bill Wilson got his whoa but the way you and I get ours hmm make amends to that bitch yeah and one day sobriety is there and we're living in it comfortably and so they change and they change in the book they change the twelfth step to what the way it was read tonight having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps and that's why it must be it's a continuing thing the last thing I'm going to say now is when I was in the Texas Dunn house as a suicide I knew I was never going to get out as a suicide so I did not have to prove mental health so I angled for a transfer to the alcoholic ward I could prove I was sober and I did not I just came off electric shock treatments and I was really just no more no more did you know my name is Hart, Schaffner and Mark and down in Texas and Louisiana and Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi and Tennessee and all those places where the poo-poo kickers live they have a different way of not getting on the podium like tonight we finally got Carlos to eventually say my name is Carlos and I'm an alcoholic and I'm an alcoholic and I'm an alcoholic and I'm an alcoholic but down there they don't say that if you've ever been there you know what they say they say my name is Fred and I'm an alcoholic and through the grace of God and the power of this simple program it has not been necessary for me to drink or take a mind sedating or tranquilizing drug since when they give their birthday August the 14th 1988 and for this I'm truly grateful and if you're just coming off shock you know turn down the voltage doctor that's why it's amazing for me tonight to leave this kid row mission that I'm director of where I got thrown out of 32 years ago and went back to 17 years ago from a successful career in advertising to live there in a rain with my friend Clint hideous traffic terrible terrible conditions just so I can get down here to this podium and stand up here tonight and tell you I can tell you in almost one sentence everything I know that I've really learned in 32 years and it's this I've learned my name is Clancy Emmesland and I'm an alcoholic and through the grace of God and the power of this simple program it has not been necessary for me to drink or take any mind sedating or tranquilizing medications since October the 31st 1958 and for this I am truly grateful thank you