I Wrote a Bum Check for a Quart of Whiskey and Called It Problem-Solving 🤣 – Al E.

Well, I'll rearrange this, will you? Hi everybody, I'm Al Easthouse, an alcoholic. It's a real privilege to be here, honored, that sort of thing. Today, I make a few remarks about the recording of Ding Dong here. Terry, he informed me the other night when we drove up that he had taped me over 15 years ago. I don't remember it. He said, well, I got the tape. He said, I'll send it to you. So I can imagine just how that tape is going to sound in comparison. And I, everybody has got his own flavor. Everybody's got his own story. And it's only one. So, you know, you're going to hear it like it is, or like I remember it, or like I embellish it. And you can look for that for damn sure. I, uh, sobriety date is, uh... July 22, 1951. And it's not my fault. That's 48 years. Strange as it may seem, 12 by 12 had not been written. So we had to flounder at our own understanding. Bill had not explained them to us. So we just pitched in, did it ourselves. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. And we did it. You know? What else hadn't been written? A.A. Come to the Age hadn't been written. When I came in, there was only 400 pages in the book. In October of 1951, my wife and I and another couple who had the same amount of time as I had, 90 days. 90 days. We were there. We were there. We shook hands with him. We heard his talk. And we were awed. So we were there. That's in the back of the book. I was there before it was there. I love it. I love it. Hell, somebody had to get here early. I don't really know which direction I'm going this morning, but I'm going. I'll tell you. I may speak for two hours. And I may not. See, I knew that. I'd get the good one. So I'm taking my time here this morning. I'm not getting in a hurry. My legs are... For some mysterious reason, I don't know why, I am nervous this morning. Maybe it's because Terry's here. The Star Trek kid. I don't know. I just am... Every now and then, that'll happen. I remember when we did an expose at the Civic Auditorium on our 50th anniversary in Santa Clara County. And Ole Olsen and Jack Holt and I shared the podium. And I was so nervous then, I almost didn't go up. Sometimes, you ding-dongs just get you that way. And I don't care. Sometimes, even if I'm just at a regular meeting, I really get nervous. And that's good. That makes you scared. See? That gets you in line. Cuts you down to size. For some mysterious reason, I don't know why. But... I had... You've got to start someplace. I start... My story starts on the day that I called Alcoholics Anonymous. And from... So, just to keep you on the track right, I start telling you about this thing. And then I'm sitting there at my kitchen table telling you... I'm telling you about this whole episode prior to. And sometimes, I get off in this direction and that direction. And every now and then, you've got to remind me that I'm still sitting at that kitchen table telling you that damn story. So, you know, I might get all screwed up. That's got to keep you guys ding-dongs straightened out. Anyway, the last weekend that I drank, I came home about 5 o'clock on Sunday morning. And my wife met me at the door. Still up. That damn woman never went to bed when I was out at night. She never went to bed. I don't know how many of you guys' wives do that or did that. But for some mysterious reason, she just wouldn't go to bed. If I came home at 11 o'clock at night, she's still up. I come home at 3 o'clock in the morning, she's still up. But I came home that morning, 5 o'clock on Sunday. I hadn't been... I haven't been home since Friday morning. You know, what happens is, you know, you go in, cash a check, and the weekend starts, and you have a... whatever. And it started, you know, and it wound up on Sunday morning. I come dragging in, you know, and I'm beat to death. I'm sick. And all I want to do is just go to bed. And that's understanding. So she opened the door and I come in. And she said, you know, and you never knew what she was going to say when you got there. You never knew. Sometimes she'd give you the quiet treatment. Sometimes she'd get all over you like a tent, verbally. I remember one time that I came home and I had a red shirt on and she had bought me that for my birthday because it matched my eyes, you know. And I came home and I was just so... All I wanted to do was just go sick. I just wanted to go to bed. And she started getting all over me like a tent. And I started down the hall and said, you bastard, just hang on there. I want to talk to you. I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk. I'm sick. I've got to go to bed. I go to bed. How? She grabbed a hold of my back end of my shirt and pulled it clear off my back. She said, you get in there and get to bed or whatever because I might kill you. So I run into the bedroom. I shut the door, put the chair up underneath the damn door, put on another shirt, crawled out the bedroom window and went back down to Banny's. I was scared. I was scared to death of that woman. She made me scared to death. I don't know why. I loved her, but God, that woman, I just... Oh. She'd get all over you like a tent. Anyway, here I come home that morning. Same old crap, you know. And so she... I didn't know. So she said, Alvin. You know, and when she said Alvin, you knew the ding was up. She usually called me Al. Alvin. I'm telling you, I'm going to take the kids and we're going to go over to Mary's today. That's her sister. We're going over there and we are going to leave you here today and you're going to make a decision about your drinking. I have had it up to my neck. I have had it. You're either going to be here after the day and not drink or you're not going to be here. What are you going to do? Get it. I didn't give you a goddamn decision like that. She had told me that, you know, we'd been married 14, 15 years. I'd heard that ever since day one. Just went over here like a... What the hell? She grabs the kids up and takes off and goes over to Mary's. And you know what you do? You've got to make a decision by God. So I went out in the garage, looked in the old tire casing where I always hid a pint bottle. See if there's anything there. Got to have a drink. You know, and I'm sick. I'm hungover. I'm really... I tell you. Well, you didn't go and understand. So I looked in the old tire casing, pulled out the bottle and the damn thing was empty. Naturally, it's empty. You don't leave a full bottle in the tire casing. And the reason I always had it there is because on weekends when you're doing your work, why, you've got to have a bottle in the garage, see? Your wife will tolerate having a beer or two, but she don't want you to get snockered. So when you're doing yard work and stuff, why, you've got that bottle in there and you can sneak a snort and everything, and everything is happy-daisy and then have a beer in the house. And then, you know, this way, why, you can just be just floating and everybody is copacetic. Anyway, I went down to the... The damn thing is empty so I get in the old truck and the damn tires are smooth and so on and so forth. You know, when a guy's about to give it up, a lot of other things have already disappeared. You know, like a good-looking truck and like stuff like that, you know, and the payments due on the house and stuff like that, you know. You know, like a good-looking truck and stuff like that, you know. You know, you're just kind of behind the eight ball all over. You know the ding is coming. You know it's about up. And something's going to have to be done and you don't just exactly know how it's going to happen. Maybe I'll leave her. Damn woman, don't even love her anyway. Oh, yeah? That kind of stuff goes through your mind. I go down to the liquor store and I wrote a bum check. Got a quart of whiskey. Come home, set it down on the kitchen table, open it up, got to make some decisions today, right? I'm sitting here and I take a drink out of the jug and got to talk about this thing, East House. Take a drink and you got to think it about. Back. You know, any time that I've ever gotten into any kind of trouble, East House, it's over this damn booze. I can remember time and time and time again. It just makes you sick to even think about it. I remember parties that we used to have in Reno. We lived in Reno. And we were playboys. And we were just married. 21, 22 years old. And me being what I was, I loved my wife, but oh you kid crap, you know, that don't go over so good sometimes. I remember one particular, one time we had a, two couples that we played with and worked with and associated with. They had a party up in their house and they had a big basement in the house. Bernice, I'm going to tell this story. I don't care whether you like it or not. Every now and then, you know, she'll be in a crowd like this, at a speaker meeting and even out of town. And all of a sudden she'll say, Alvin, that ain't the way it happened. . . . . . . You were drunk. . We had this party up there. I was thinking about, I was thinking about some of these things. See, sitting there at my kitchen table, I'll, I'll, but. . Just sit down there a moment. . And we, maybe I shouldn't tell it, I don't know. . . . . . . Oh, you know, something is wrong. Oh, God. Well, yeah, so anyway, I'm thinking about this—I don't know why I thought about that. I thought about that probably because, I do love my wife. And some of these things that you do, you just do because you're loaded. But you wouldn't do this over. You wouldn't even think of it. But some of these things transpire when you're, when you're loaded. When you think about it and everything about life is functional, you are now able to move from big to big. Have you thought about how that affects you, as a empowering person? Is it related to the part that you do that seems out semana pre menjadi. What, they call it after a big show you do that they want to watch it,��� when you're looted. And so I was down in the basement with this lady and we were going to play some ping pong. I never thought it was that funny. Anyway, we were down in the basement and all of a sudden the door opened to the basement and Bernice was at the top of the stairs and she hollered, What are you doing down there? I said, We're playing ping pong. She says, With the light off? So we got the hell out of the basement. Matter of fact, I'll tell you how the woman is. Later on that evening, this gal's husband's name was Scoops. He was a good friend of mine. Later on that evening, Bernice and I were not out of sorts because of that. And Scoops and I got in his car, drove over to his house to have a late session about religion. He was a great wine drinker and connoisseur. He wanted to talk about religion. We're in his kitchen sitting there talking about religion and all of a sudden the front door of the house opened up. Now Scoops' wife by this time had gone to bed and she was in bed and the bedroom was just right off the hall in front of the house. And Bernice opened up the door and when she came in, she opened up the bedroom door and went in there and grabbed the bedclothes off of the bed, tried to, and Scoops' wife May was in there in bed and she said, Come on out of there, you son of a bitch. I know you're there. And I wasn't there. I was talking religion in the kitchen. Well, those sort of things comes by your mind. I had remembered a couple of years ago, remember I'm sitting at the kitchen table, guys. A couple of years ago, I had, a typical Monday morning, I'd left the house, old broken down truck. I was a big, big contractor. I had one house going. I had one carpenter working and he was doing the work and I had other things to do. You know, you've got to promote the jobs. So you promote the jobs by bar hopping and stuff like that. You know, if you go in to see the banker, you've got booze on your breath and he doesn't want to see you again. So you've got to do it through the bars anyway. Anyway, why, I had, I was real, really hungry. You know how Monday morning is. I hated Monday mornings. And another thing too, guys. I used to have terrible hangovers. So bad. And I had migraine headaches to top it off. But my headaches, I'd get so damn bad, I'd just beat my head on the ground in the backyard. Really. It was, I don't know why the hell I turned into an alcoholic. Like that, I should have, you know, I should have been able to turn it off. Anyway, I've gone to go over to the Club El Camino, which was one of my regular bars, to, to stop on there on Monday morning, about a quarter to eight. And to get a, pick me up. So I needed a double shot and a beer chaser to get through the morning. And you know, you're sick and you really need it. And you haven't got a bottle in the car, it's all gone. Or truck. So I go in there to get a double shot and a beer chaser. And the bartender's in there, his name is Ambrose. Very good friend of mine. It's a family bar. Bernice and I and the kids have been in there and so forth. So it's a good family bar. And Ambrose is just one hell of a nice guy. I dropped in there, 15 minutes to eight in the morning and ordered a double shot and a beer chaser. Ambrose says, well, fine. He poured out over there and looks at me and he's the only guy in there. He said, East House. He always called me East House, I don't know why. He said, East House, you know what? You ever think about the fact that you drink too much? Wait a minute. God almighty, man. I just come in here to get a drink here. I got it all my way. I got a little hangover and think I'm going to be all right. He said, well, no, I know. You ever think? I don't think about that. I said, well, sometimes I drink. What? Well, you know what? Ever think about the fact you might be an alcoholic? Good Lord, I don't need to hear this crap. Come in here, spend my good money and get in a bar and get a double shot. You shouldn't even. I don't want to hear it. So I take the double shot and chase it down. He turned around behind the bar and tore a little piece of paper out of the newspaper. Put it over in the bar and he said, I'll tell you what, Easthouse. You see this? I said, I don't want to look at it. He said down there, if you have a problem with alcohol, call the Alcoholics Anonymous. This was in 1951. They still did it way back there. See, just like they do today. Nothing's changed. God Almighty, I'm Rosa. I don't want to hear it. Don't even talk to me about it. I don't, I didn't say that. I'm no damn more alcoholic than you are. I said, well, I didn't say you were. I said, here's a slip of paper. He said, I'll tell you what you do. Put that slip of paper in your pocket or in your billfold and I'll buy you another double shot and beer chaser on the house. Well, I don't need that damn thing. He said, wait a minute. You can't turn that deal down, can you? Double shot and beer chaser for a piece of paper, put it in your billfold and you'll never even know it's there. What are you going to do? You take the double shot and beer chaser and put the thing in your pocket and go on about your business. That'll be net. That's program power. Something was working on me then and I didn't even know it. Program power. I'm not talking about God. I'm talking about program power. That magic. That thing that happens to you. Well, I didn't know it. So I went on about it. Went out onto the job. I remember that. There's Freddy working out there in the house. We're trimming the house out and he's way in the back bedroom. And I'm trimming out on the inside of the closet. And you know how builders build closets. They're about this big and so long. Can't only get your face in there, let alone breathe. So I come in there, you know, and I want to be all up and feeling good. I'm, uh... Hi, Freddy, how are you doing? So I stick my head in the closet and holler at him. He's tap, tap, tapping away in there. My God, Easthouse, get out of here. I can't... You smell like a fresh gut wagon. You stink. Get out of here. What are you going to do? I pull out of there and I walk out the front door. I said, I ought to fire that bastard. That's what I ought to do. Here I am doing all this for him and he talks to me like that. I don't... I'm not entitled to that sort of thing at all. Knowing full well he's the only guy that's holding up the whole thing. I said, what do you do? I went over to the liquor store and bought a quart of whiskey and I went over to the airport and sat down and watched the planes come in and go out and try to figure this damn thing out. Man. Opened the bottle up and I started taking a drink. And you know, you're bad. You're trying to get well and things are bad and this ding-dong throws that at you. Hembrough gets this crap at you. Always coming down on you. I'm sitting there taking a drink and watch the plane come in and go out and all of a sudden I started telling myself, Easthouse. And there it came. That was my God voice. I didn't know it. I call it later my thinger. I have a thinger. That's my God. That's my God voice. And everybody's got a God voice. I found that out later. But I'm sitting there and I take a drink and then I'll say, Easthouse, you're really drinking. Well, I ain't all drinking that goddamn much. I don't want people to just get off my back and leave me alone and I'd be all right. And then you take another drink and you listen to the voice say, you just got to do it. You got to wash your stuff and take care of things. What's the matter with you anyway? Wait a minute. I'll take another drink. First thing you know, you take too many drinks. You drown the voice. You go out to the bar and get drinks. You stay drunk. All the rest of the day. Why? Because you're drunk and an alcoholic and you can't help it. Stuff like that just keeps going on and on and on. Sitting there thinking about one time we'd moved. Well, Jack and I were Jack and I were partners in a construction business a little bit before that. We were going to show them how to build all the houses in Santa Clara County. We didn't do it. And we were going to. And so we were always together and always drinking together. And so we were moving all the way from one area in town over to Grace Avenue in Camel. And Jack had a flatbed truck. And you know, when moving day is drinking day, right, for a drunk. You know, you get a bunch of drunks and you know you're going to get your drunken buddies to help you move. You get a flatbed truck. You're going to help them all move. And you're going to have a bottle in the truck. And you're going to have a bottle at the house where you're moving out of and a bottle in the house where you're going to move into. And hopefully you've got a bar in between. And so that way you're well fortified for the day. So you start out on and you always move on Saturday because that's the day you're not working normally. And so you start out good on Friday night. By Saturday morning you've got to hang over anyway. So you don't get, you get a late start but you get started. And so you have a few drinks. So you get started. And then you take a drink. As you're moving along. And long about noon you've got most of that furniture taken care of and everything is going great. Except I'm getting rubbery. And damn it. It's just we've got all that heavy stuff left. The refrigerator. The big chest of drawers. The washing machine. And all that stuff that's heavy. And so Jack, I don't know how in the hell we're going to do it. He said, I said, I'm getting rubbery. He said, oh, don't worry about it East House. God takes care of damn fools, drunks and babies. We'll make it. I'm strong enough. I'll get the whole thing myself. Have to. Oh, sure. So I saw over there across the street there was a guy, the trucker. And he come over and helped us get it all loaded up. And then we took off and started over for Grace Avenue and got all over going around Hamilton Avenue around the corner. Grandma's hat box flew off of there. She had about six hats in there. Damn old concrete truck went over it and mashed them hats all to hell. Poor Grandma. I knew what was going to happen. And then I hid those right back up into a closet over there. She couldn't find it for six weeks. But I'll tell you, the wrath of God came down on me when she did find it. I'm telling you, I had to play Canasta almost every day for a month. She loved Canasta. I'll tell you about that later. She just loved Canasta. She's a great gal. But anyway, we got all over there next to the... Remember, I'm still sitting at the kitchen table, guys. Okay. We're still there. So we got over there and we got to unload it. And I said, I don't know how we're going to get this all unloaded. We can't do all this alone. Well, I tell you, don't worry about it. I got to do it myself. I said, well, I've got to have more water. Well, he says, I happened to look over next door. There was a guy sitting out there on the stoop having a cigarette. Enjoying the Sunday afternoon or the afternoon. I said to Jack, I said, maybe he'll help us. So I went over there to get him. Help us unload. So I went over there and he come back and he said, fine, fine. Come over and help us unload. And so after we got through, they did the loading and unloading and I supervised it, you know, because I was so damn rubbery I couldn't really stand up. So by this time, I got all through and then I said, well, we've got to have a drink. The guy said, well, I'm not drinking today. So I didn't drink it. Well, you've got to have a drink. I don't know anybody that don't drink. Besides that, we did all this work for us. You've got to have a drink. He said, I'm not drinking. Thank you very much. Especially today. Holt turned to me and he said, you know what? You ain't going to live in this neighborhood very damn long. You can see that. Nobody around here like that, so to hell with it. So anyway, got all loaded. So I'm sitting there like that. All of a sudden, here come, thinking about taking another drink, they're sitting in the kitchen. Doorbell rings. And here come Jack Holt, my partner, and the attorney. Rang the doorbell and come in. My wife had called him. Said to go out and talk to him or do something so he could cut down on his drinking. Jack come in, sit down at the table. So naturally, they're two-fisted drinkers themselves. And they sit there and poured a couple of drinks for themselves along with me out of my bottle. Didn't even bring their own damn bottle with them. No. And he said, I understand you. Damn it, you just got to cut it down a little bit. I said, Jack, I'm trying to cut down. I've been trying to cut down quite a while. I'd just like to do it myself. I want to know how. He said, you just don't drink so much, you dummy. Nothing for that. You know, while I get along with John Barley, going real good. Well, hell, he's about this high and big around. He could drink about twice as much as I could anyway. He was a good old drinking buddy, though, I'll tell you that. He said, you just cut it down. You don't drink so much. Simple. God, Holt and we sit there and talk, arguing, arguing, arguing. Oh, before that they'd come, getting my story here out of Squire a little bit, why, I'm sitting there and I think, and about this thing and how a guy really, really ought to knock it off a little bit. And maybe I thought about that damn piece of paper that had been in my pocket for those two years. Why? There wasn't that pocket. So I pulled it out and laid it on the table and looked at it. Well, that's an idea. I might call them, just, you know. I might get acquainted with those nuts. Never know. I just might call them. Maybe, maybe not. But I laid it there just thinking about it as I took another drink. Trying to get settled. So I was laying there on the table. When they came in, we were talking, all of a sudden, Holt finally looked down at them. He said, what's this he's tossed? I said, well, that's the thing about Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, don't call those bastards. They don't drink at all. They'd be crying. So I had a few more drinks and they got up and left and left me to make my own damn decisions. So here he comes. I'm sitting there having another drink. They drank about half the bottle. And all of a sudden, I looked down at them and said, hey, I'm going to call those nuts. So I made a decision to call. I said, as soon as Bernice comes home, I'll have her call them. Right? She's a good leader. And you know, when a guy's made a decision like that, it's all done. Put it to bed. And you proceed to finish the rest of the bottle because everything's great. And so you finish. You finish the rest of the bottle. And about 5.30, here she comes home with the kids. I said, honey, you see this? She said, no. She says, well, I suppose that you have made some very important decisions today. Been here and I see that you got on the outside, most of the outside of a quart of whiskey. So I'm sure that you made some very important decisions today about your drinking or whether or not. Yes, I have. I said, what? She said, well, I said, we're going to call Alcoholics Anonymous. So I'd like to have you call them up. She said, I'm not going to call them. You're the guy who's going to call them. Anybody going to call them, you call them. Go ahead and call them. What are you going to do? I've got to call them. So I fell around and made the call. And naturally, you know, it was just like it is yet. It's on the weekend and there's nobody there that you can talk to one, the drunk right there at him. The one that you want to get to. The main guy. The real important drunk. That's going to be talking to you. That's going to help you. The answering service took it. Well, I'll have someone call you when I get a hold of them. Well, isn't this Alcoholics? Yes, it is, but this is the answering service. Well, I want to talk to somebody from AA. She said, yes, I'll have them call you. I said, well, hurry up. She said, well, don't worry about it. We'll get them to you. In other words, she might have said, hell, you've been that way for as long as you've lived. What the hell is this? You're hurrying up. And that's typical, right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Damn it, you want action. You made the decision. You want it right now. So she said, oh, I'm going to call you. And so she hung up. And about 15, 20 minutes later, my telephone rang. Man, I jumped for oath. There it is. There it is. Answered the phone. And I said, hello. And he said, hello, is this Al? I said, yes. He said, my name's Jay. Yeah. He said, well, my name's Jay, and I'm from Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh. Oh, OK. Good. Well, he said, we're having a barbecue over here, about three of us. And when we get all through, why we get through, why we'll come over, all three of us, we'll be over and talk to you. I said, wait a minute. He said, what do you mean, wait a minute? Well, say, you want us to come over, don't you? You think you drink too much or something? We'll talk about it. I said, well, I don't have anything to do with religion. He said, look, if you've got a problem with drinking, we'll come over and talk to you. Otherwise, you can go right straight to hell. How do you like that? I said, I'll be here. Here we go. And here they came. Now, you talk about program power again. Call it anything you want. Some of you most straight-laced people call it God power, Jesus power, whatever you want to call it. I call it program power. The doorbell rang, and these three guys were there. Opened the door. Who do you think was there? The ding-dong that helped us unload the refrigerator. He was going to cut the door open. He was going to cut the door open. He was going to cut the door open. He was going to cut the door open. He was going to cut the door open. I was hooked. What are you going to do? There they were. The guy knew me. I didn't know him. He knew. No wonder the dirty devil didn't take a drink out there that day. The two-fisted double-crosser. And there he was. Now he was hiding behind the skirts of a bay. Now he could come out and lay it on me. So they came in. And they were all there. And they were all there. And we sat there. Oh, and Bernice took the kids down to the show. Then she came back. And she was going to sit down and listen to all this. And I said, now look, honey. You go on into the back bedroom and do a little bit of reading and that sort of thing. The Sunday paper, whatever you want to do. Because these guys are going to talk to me real confidential. Going to be real down to nitty-gritty stuff. And I don't think you should hear it. One of the guys said, Mrs. Easthouse, you stay right here. We want you to hear every word. What are you going to do? You're nailed. Not only that, they nail you. They're going to disclose everything and all this sort of thing. You just feel like you're just laying there naked. The whole thing's coming apart. You can see it coming. And they sat there and they talked for about six hours, almost to midnight. Bernice discusses this sometimes. But they did. And then they left. And I thought, my God. This is something else. I remembered in 1948, three years prior to that, we had just moved into a new house. You know, drunks move quite often. You know what I mean? We'd moved into a new house. And the hardware man came out and we were mixing drinks for everybody on this open house thing. And this guy that was come out, he was a worse drunk than I was. And we were talking about a thing out there, mixing the drinks in the kitchen. We'd take two while we were serving one. You know what that means. And we're out there having a good time and all that. And shorty said, you know, there's a new outfit coming on. I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, there's a new outfit. They call it Alcoholics Anonymous. I said, well, what in the hell are you telling me about that for? Well, he says, you know what? He says, I drink a lot. And he said, you drink just as much as I do. I said, that's your business. I drink, I'm just, I have no problem with that. He said, I don't even want to talk about it. He said, I just want to let you know about it. Just in case, because they're around. There are AA meetings in town now. I said, well, don't tell me about the damn thing. But I had never forgotten that. Why? I don't know. A drunk won't forget something like that. You know when you get sensitive, they push your buttons, you know. And sometimes them buttons do that. It just kind of blow your mind. But I never forgot that. I was standing there talking about that. And I thought about that that night. Those guys left. And they made an appointment with me to go to the first meeting. Couldn't go to a meeting until Wednesday because there was painting in the women's club. And that's the only meeting that was around there. There was 13 meetings in the county at that time. And I got to the meeting. And then I started to go into these meetings. And just, you know, started going to meetings, going to meetings, going to meetings. And you know you go to a meeting. And now when you go to a meeting, you know that after the meeting you're going to go down to the coffee shop and do a lot of talking with the guys. And you love it. I never took a drink after that. I just kept going to the meetings. Everything was just going great. I didn't hardly do any work. But I just loved those meetings. I'll have to go down and talk with the guys and go after the meeting, go down to the coffee shop, get home at about 1, 3, 2 o'clock in the morning. Nothing in much changed. So finally Bernice got sick of it. After about 90 days had passed, why, she hollered and she called my mentor, old Bill Grace, the guy that did a lot of scrutinizing my character with me. She called him up and said, Bill, she said, you know what? He said, the lawn needs mowing, the hedge needs trimming, the backyard needs fixing. It's still just like it was. Nothing has changed. All he's not doing, he's just not drinking. And I said, well, I'm going to go down to the coffee shop and I'm going to go to the coffee shop. And he said, well, I'm going to go down to the coffee shop. I'm going to go to the coffee shop. I'm going to go to the coffee shop. I'm going to go to the coffee shop. I'm going to go to the coffee shop. I'm going to go to the coffee shop. And he said, Bill, you're not drinking. I see him no more than I used to see him before. He comes home now, gets a shower, has dinner, gets and goes to the damn meeting, and then I don't see him until 1, 2 o'clock in the morning. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? She says to Bill, she said, I want something to really happen here. You've got to straighten this guy around. We called him up and he said, East House Hauntingsville. How do you like your meeting? I said, oh, they're just great. How are you doing? He says, that's so. He said, I've just been talking with your wife. I said, well, what the hell about it? Why she tells me that all you do is just go to meetings, come home, and don't look at it. You've got three kids. What the hell's the matter with you, man? Do you know anything about balance and living? Well, wait a minute, though, Bill. I'm just getting straightened out. He said, don't tell me you're just getting straightened out. We're going to get you straightened out good. You're going to get some balance in your life. There's three phases to living, you know. Part of it's work. Part of it is AA. And part of it's family. And you've got to get that thing straightened out. He said, that's a three-sided triangle. And you've got to start evening it out. Well, Jesus, Bill. After all, yabba-dum-dee-da, don't yabba-dum-dee. I tell you what we're going to do. He said, we're going to start a new meeting on the east side of town. And we have a group, and we've started a group. We're going to start a new meeting. And we've picked out a steering committee. I'm part of the steering committee. And the steering committee is going to select a new secretary. And we're going to select a new secretary. Who do you think that's going to be? It's going to be you. I said, wait a minute. You can't do that. I can't be a secretary. My God, I've only been sober 90 days. He said, I know that. But we've got a group. We've got a steering committee. And we've got a secretary appointed. And all he has to do is follow the instructions. You don't have to know a damn thing. That's what you're going to do. And you're going to be the secretary. And your wife's going to help you. And she'll get the cookies down there and stuff. And we're going to have a nice family group. And sure enough, that's exactly what they did. Al became the secretary. And that's exactly what it was. And from then on, things started to look a little bit better for Bernice. Believe me. Doing a hell of a deal. Well. It's not going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. It's going to be a great deal. So we go into meetings and we're doing this, that, and that. Getting guided. We're 12-stepping them. And I'm taking care of the yard. And things are looking better. The kids are looking better. Alvin's getting sober. And he's really getting into some of this step work. Remember, we didn't have a 12-by-12 to do it then. So we had to do it kind of like by ear and talking and so forth. So Bill was a great mentor for me. He was just fantastic. And that's when I told you before, the... We had a chance to go up and see the Lasker Award presented to Alcoholics Anonymous. And those kind of things started happening in a nice way. And all of a sudden, why, you've got to get into this thing. And so you start getting acquainted with the steps. And a lot of things happened that were not quite so good in relation to taking care of some of the things that were not so good. Taking care of some of the things that were in the background like, you know, owing all the money and doing this and that. But little by little, why, you're starting to get straightened out. But anyway, why, we're going along. Started getting acquainted with my singer thing, the God voice. And I got acquainted with that. And the third step is I made a decision to turn my life over to the care of God. As I was doing that. And God understood me. Well, I was never a godly man. I went to Sunday school when I was a kid. I went for eight straight years and got one of them ribbons. But the thing that really impressed me the most about my Sunday school teacher was the things that he said about God. And he said these things literally. God is love. God is good. Anything that is good is godly. Anything that is godly is good. If you love your fellow man, that's a godly thing. And that's a good thing. And so if you radiate good, what's going to come back as good? And if you want to straight lace it and say that's God, that's goodly, or that's Jesus, or whatever you want to do it, you do it. That's why the third step is the way it is. And I had my singer. My singer. A God voice. The little voice that always said the right thing to do. And everybody's got one. Even when you're sitting in a bar taking that extra double shot. The little voice will say, You stash, you're drinking too much. Wait a minute, one more ain't going to hurt. You take another one, the little voice goes, You drown the voice, you get drunk. So after you're going along pretty good like this thing, and I became really acquainted with this God voice. Because everybody has it. If they exercise that philosophy, they're going to get drunk. And I'm going to get drunk. And I'm going to get drunk. So you take that philosophy, or that belief, it's your thinger. Down deep within. And that's where it is. And that's where the good of you is. You see the problem about the God voice, and the thinger, no problem about, but the thing, here's the way the thing works. You see, before you quit drinking, you go in there and sit at a bar and the little voice says, You shouldn't be in there, you shouldn't be in there. You stop after your grade, and you get home it's six o'clock, you're supposed to go home. One more. I'm going to have one more. He says, you've got to get home. So you call the wife. The little boy says, call the wife, call the wife. So you call the wife. I'll be home about 7, 7.30. So you know you've got another hour and a half, and she lets it go. And besides that, you know, when it gets that too far, it gets past 7.30, and all of a sudden you think, well, what the hell is another half an hour? Then I have the little boy says, you should have gone home. And by that time, it's after 8 o'clock. What the hell is the difference if I go home until midnight? She can't give me any more. How much is she going to give me now? Well, that's the way that goes, see? So you understand that the God voice works. But you've got to work with it. You can't drown it. You've got to listen to it. So you see, you use this as the, that's, you see, before you did that, you always, it was always in conflict. Now you see you're on the same side of the fence. We'd been sober about six, eight months, and all of a sudden why I, you know, and you don't spend quite so much money. You don't have to rat hole 20 bucks, put it in your purse, and your wife don't know about it and that sort of stuff. That stuff kind of disappears. The honesty starts coming out. And so all of a sudden you're coming home one night after you get your check, and you think, well, you know what? Everything's coming along pretty good. We're catching up on some bills. We still owe a lot. But things are going pretty damn good. I think maybe we entitled, she and I are entitled. We're like, Grandma, take care of the kids. And she and I will take a trip and go to Reno. We're entitled to it. Well, that's fine. Absolutely we're entitled. You can go to Reno for a couple hundred bucks, then. So I had about 200 bucks, and I thought, well, we'll do that. And so I'm thinking to myself, you know, a little boy says, well, you shouldn't do that, East House. You still owe a lot of money. You're tired of need fixing yet. You've still got a lot of wreckage to clean up. I don't care. We're justified. And as I'm driving to work, I'm saying, yeah, we're going to go. A little boy said, no, he shouldn't. I already told Bernice he's going to get stuff. We're going to go. She's got stuff all ready. And so I come home that night. On the way home that night, why, a little boy kept saying, I don't know why. God was saying, East House, you shouldn't go. You shouldn't go. You know what you should do? You go later. So all of a sudden, I told him. I said, well, we ain't going to go. I'll be damned. So I got home. I said, well, honey, we're not going. What? We all decided we were going. We talked about it. Well, I'm all packed. I'm ready to go this weekend. No, we're not going to go. Well, why not? You ain't going to tell me how to talk with God or the finger. Well, my finger says we ain't going. You ain't going to do that. We ain't going. I made the decision we're not going. That's all. So you don't go. Why? You're starting to do the right thing. And then you get in through the steps. You know, the funny part of it is I like a lot of this. The stuff about honesty. Well, the four things about the Oxford group was honesty, purity, unselfishness, unconditional love. That's why it didn't work. Because they talked about absolute honesty. Absolute unselfishness. Absolutely. Absolutely. Who the hell are they? Who ever heard of absolute honesty to such a degree that it's just absolute? That's why it didn't work. So when Bill and Bob got hold of it, why, they kind of tempered it. Have an honest desire. You're sincere about it. And you mark it up on like a one to ten. So if I'm operating on a seven and a half, I'm doing a damn good job or something like that. You know, it's... Absolute honesty and et cetera, et cetera. Kind of reminds me of the story about... And this is good, so you want to pay attention. Story about a couple that went into a Kentucky Fried Chicken place to get some chicken. And it was on a Saturday and they were just busier than hell. And they were going to get the chicken and they were going to go out to the park. Enjoy the chicken in the Saturday afternoon. And they were busier than hell in there. And they had quite a time getting up to the counter. And finally they did. Got their order in. Finally got over to the counter. Gave them their money and they gave them their sack and all kinds of sacks out in there. They took the sack and went out over to the park. Opened up the sack. No chicken in there. It was $5,400 worth of cash receipts. What are you going to do? The gal says, well, my gosh. We just gave it. They don't know nothing. They don't know nothing. We've got to take the money and just go on. Forget them. Don't go back. Don't ever go back there. Oh, he said, we've got to go back. He said, I've got to take the money back. I'm on it. I'm on it. What do you mean you've got to go back? We've got to go back. I'm an honest man. I'm going to take the money back. What are you going to do? She just said, okay. So they took the money back. Got up to the manager and finally the manager said, my God, such a wonderful couple this is. Honestly, that's fantastic. I'm going to call the Mercury News. I'll put it in the paper. Get your pictures out here and we'll give you a six-month worth of chicken on the house and all that sort of thing. He said, well, don't call the Mercury News. Don't call them. He said, oh, I'm going to call them. He said, don't. Call them. The guy says, I insist. Well, don't insist, the guy says. This woman's not my wife. He was an honest man. So you see the standards that we, whatever that is. I don't know how to figure that one out. Okay. Like being selfish or unselfish kind of reminds me of, and this happens to all of us. Like the wife and I are now home with all the children are grown and they're gone. And we'll be, maybe there'll be a quarter of a pumpkin pie left. Oh, no, cherry pie. She loves cherry pie. She don't like pumpkin pie. Say there's a quarter of a cherry pie left. And so I volunteer. Well, I'll get up and cut the pie. And we'll have pie and have some milk or something, whatever. So I go in and cut the pie. And you just can't cut it exactly in two pieces. Why? I don't know. You can't do it. You try it. You eye it this way and eye it that way. And you cut it. And you look at them. Well, let's see. One's a little bit bigger than the other. What are you going to do? Which piece are you going to give her? Huh? So you look. You know. And then all of a sudden the flash goes on. Well, you know. If I give her the biggest piece, she's going to give it back to me anyway. She always does that. She always gives me the biggest piece. So I'll try that. So I give her the biggest piece. Sure enough. Hey, you got the biggest piece. I got the biggest piece. You don't need the biggest. But you see what I'm saying is that old selfishness that comes in. And you say, well, you know, naturally what you'd really like to do is take the piece yourself. I don't know why you do that. Why is that? Why is that? That old selfishness comes in. There is a... Hey, it's five minutes after eleven. Huh? No, I left the kitchen. See, I got sober. You didn't pay attention. Hey! Hey! I knew I was going to get somebody on that. I love it. Well, I want to talk about why AA or how, not why, it works. And there's three things about alcoholics and unaccompanied. Three things that definitely make this thing work. It's people. And it's a book. And it's programmed. Power. And I don't mean holy roller stuff. I mean programmed power. The kind of power that we feel when you go into a meeting and feel the magic. And the good feeling that you have when you're there. That's programmed power. You don't feel it in the annals of a church room. You don't feel it in the annals of a union meeting or any place. You feel it at an AA meeting. Why? It's fantastic. That's why you're here. Let's go on to the next one. I have one more story I want to tell you before I wind this up. What? Nothing's backwards on you. See? I love her. We had a... Well, it made me think of a couple of guys who was applying for a job. I like this story because it fits the drunk. and it also fits the Mormon that's in the story. Now the Mormon is not straight-laced, but he's a Mormon and he's a good Mormon. So he doesn't drink coffee and he doesn't drink booze. But he's not like the drunk. The drunk does both. And he drinks more booze than he does coffee. And they're applying for a job in one of the high-tech places in Santa Clara County. And they were just working on this thing and they've gone through all sorts of tests and they finally come up with the answer that they're both even. So we go, what can we do with these guys? When shall we peak? Well, what let's do? I'll tell you, let's just give them an aptitude test of some kind and use a rhyme or something or a word as a key word to the thing and have them say that and get it in there. And the one that does the best job, we're going to give them the job. Okay, so they told him that. And so the drunk said, oh my God. And he'd been drunk every night that week, been going through all these tests. He got a buddy. He and Tim had been out every night. And Tim was the worst drunk that he was. And so he said, oh my God, I just don't feel like it. I just won't give up the ghost. Anyway, they're sitting there in the room, in the conference room, and the Mormon starts writing. And Tim and the drunk is thinking, oh my God. And the Mormon come up with his. And he told them, he said, well, I got my answer in the committee. Well, okay. What's your answer? So the Mormon says, as we were crossing the desert sands, we came upon a caravan. And we asked them, are they going to? Their immediate reply was Timbuktu. That's the word that they had to use in the answer, Timbuktu. And the drunk said, oh my God, I can never beat this one. Then he started cussing Tim. Started cussing Tim. And all of a sudden he thought, Bing! Bingo! As hungover as he was, he said, Tim and I are hunting went. Thereupon three damsels met. They being three and us being two, I bucked one and Tim bucked two. He got the job. He got the job. Now we're back to these. Three things about Alcoholics Anonymous. People, people, book, and power. I'm probably calling it God. I call it program power. Magic. The thing that's there. That's what you come here for. It. If you're willing to go to any length to get it, you're willing to do certain things and take certain steps. It is the magic. It is the magic. It is the power. It's fantastic. So you go to a first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and all of a sudden you go in there and there's a whole lot of people. And they're all gathered there and then they're all gathered there and they're good. Nice faces and everybody's smiling and so on and so forth. They go around and they start taking up a collection and then somebody gets up and starts reading out of this book. I always like to see a book at a meeting. I don't know if they have the big near and near. I guess. And they start reading out of the book. And you're maybe not paying much attention. And after they get through reading out of the book, why, then they start talking. Calling this person, calling that person. And you feel it as the meeting starts to unfold. You just feel it. It was good. I did that to me. I just felt it was coming on. It was awesome. This is something else. These ding-dongs have got something. And I want it. Whatever it is, I want to be here. And so you see, it starts to work. I never took another drink since I first came in. It's 1952. Because of it. Now, I want to tell you something. There's probably half the people first come to an AA meeting. Go out and get loaded again. Why? They don't get it yet. Why? We'll tell you about that. Twenty-five percent of them come back. And they get it. But twenty-five percent, for some mysterious reason, they don't have the capacity to buy this thing, this talking barrel. They don't ever show up again. I don't know why. They just don't. So there's a book in the power. But if you think for one minute, and a lot of you try this. Well, I don't buy that whole damn thing. I'm going to go to those silly meetings because I got to. Why do I got to? Because they give me those damn court cards. And I'm going to go to those damn meetings. But I'm telling you, when I'm through with that, I ain't going to more. Half of them wind up doing it. Well, maybe I am going to come back some more. Maybe I'll go to more meetings. But I'll tell you one thing. I ain't going to get into the rest of that crap. I'll go to meetings. Take a break. Take the book and go home. And I don't have to do that. It ain't going to work. It don't work that way. So you come in and you say, Well, maybe I'll go to the meetings and get the book. And I'll read the book. It ain't going to work without all that. It ain't going to work without the power. Well, maybe I'll just go and I'll get it for the awesome stuff. I'll go to the meeting. I won't need the book. I'll just go for the God power. It ain't going to work. It don't take one. It don't take two. You take, to God I give it, three. People, book, and power. You've got to do it if you're going to buy this program and be a happy person. And if you're going to give to this program and be of service, and be of service to yourself and your fellow man, you've got to buy the whole concept. People, book, and power. And the guy says, Well, I'll tell you what. I'm just going to take the book and the hell with the people and the power. Sure, sure. You can be an intellectual like that if you want to. It ain't going to work. So I'll let you tell some. We're all here. Here with the power. We're here with the book and the people. We're all here now. And I feel it. I've enjoyed this. I don't care whether you have or not. I do it for myself. I'm a selfish bastard. I love it. We're all here and the power is here and the people are in the books here. Now when we leave today, we're going to leave the people. We're going to leave the power. I mean we're going to leave the people. Now we're going to go home. And tomorrow when you get up and go to work, why, you're going to leave the book home and go to work. God, guys, keep the power going. Thank you. .