If I’m an Alcoholic, My Problem Cannot Be Alcohol – Clancy I.

My name is Clancy Immersland and I'm an alcoholic. I'm a little sorry that the applause was not sustained enough for me to get to the podium. I'm very glad to be here tonight. I made a tremendous sacrifice to be with you. I really did. I was having lunch today with Lou Holtz, Notre Dame football coach and SC football coach, a guy named Paul Horning and Cardinal Mahoney, and a big SC Notre Dame football luncheon in Los Angeles before the big game tomorrow. It really was fascinating. We were up telling jokes and having a great time. A lot of old Heisman Award winners there and everybody was doing good. I finally had to excuse myself because I had to go catch a plane to South Bay Group. They begged me to stay, but I said no. They need me. But I'm glad to be here and I want to thank Jim and Yolanda for picking me up. Lately, when I've come to Northern California, the chances are about one in three someone's ever going to meet me at the airport. It's just ridiculous. I always have my car rental card with me just in case. But tonight everything was fine and I'm pleased to be here. There's one before I start off. There's something I have to tell you. I also have another mission in life that I go through life with this. It's kind of a cold and lonely job and it's not much appreciated, but someone's got to do it. I've taken on that responsibility. About 25 or 26 years ago, in the Canoga Park Group in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, there was an old guy named Bill Davidson or Bill D as he was known. And he was kind of an old curmudgeon and he was a kind of a tradition fanatic. And he felt no one in A should be well known. Not even known in the group, I guess. I guess he thought it was just all sit in a circle and be anonymous. And what he used to do, when they'd read the traditions of that meeting, to accentuate it, he would just join in the end and he'd say, principles before personalities. They'd say, oh for Christ's sake, Bill, knock it off. I'm not going to knock it off. It needs to be said. So after a while, some of the young guys in the group really were kind of amused by this old fool. So they would join in and mock him and say it. And which was fine. That went on for a while. Except one day, apparently some of another group came in, heard this, and thought it was some sort of a spiritual breakthrough. And took it back to their group. And then for about 20 years, there was just a little cluster of about six groups in the San Fernando Valley where they would join in and say principles before personalities and look smug. Then somehow the virus got loose and now it's around a lot of meetings in Southern California. None of the meetings I go to, I'm glad to say, but I heard it tonight. And not only that, but I heard you join in at the end of chapter five, in which there's no rationale for it. So I just want you to know, the next time you gather together and you smugly say principles before personalities, you're not being spiritual. You're just mocking poor old Bill Davidson in the Canoga Park. You don't have to like it, but it's the truth. Don't let it frighten you. I used to drink alcohol, like most of us, I guess. Young people back here who are addicts, you are certainly welcome to our open meetings, but to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you must be an alcoholic. It's one of the problems that's been over the years, and it's not because we don't like narcotics addicts, it's because the primary problem in Alcoholics Anonymous, the primary problem amongst alcoholics, the terrible feeling of being different. The one thing that sets this fellowship aside from all other fellowships over the world is it's one talking to another to help break down that feeling of difference, which is incidentally why special interest groups never succeed. Rarely if ever, you know, you'd think they would, that a group made up entirely of actors, a group made up entirely of doctors, or a group made up entirely of pilots, and they succeed for a little while, but unless they get into the main population of AA, they don't last because of a very simple reason. All of us come here feeling different. When I join with other people that I can say, yes, we are more, we are different because we are apart from them because of this reason, I reinforce the feelings of difference, and that's why it is a continual lack of success. That's why. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous who also used narcotics in the late 1950s formed Narcotics Anonymous. And that is why members of Alcoholics Anonymous who also had compulsive eating problems founded Overeaters Anonymous in 1960. And that's why members of Alcoholics Anonymous who were also gamblers founded Gamblers Anonymous in 1959. And that's why members of Alcoholics Anonymous who were also cocaine addicts founded Cocaine's Anonymous in the 1970s. I know the founders of all these groups. They all are very dedicated people, but they realize that no matter what you say about it, as much as I want to be empathetic, I don't identify with the person telling me about his gambling problem if I don't have a gambling problem. That's all. It has to do with the recovery. I remember thinking about that a few years ago, 1960, I was about two years sober, and they founded this Overeaters Anonymous. And they came out of the AA club to get volunteers. And they came out of the AA club to get volunteers. And they came out of the AA club to get volunteers. And they came out of the AA club to get volunteers. They brought a few volunteers here. And they helped volunteer. So they outnumbered the students. And they helped volunteer. So they outnumbered the students. And they got journalists to speak at the first meetings. They had no success, there were so many old fat broads sitting around, and, well, some of them are more moving, I don't know. I don't know why I'm never invited back anywhere. I haven't said anything yet back there, so it's all right. So they invited me to come over and talk on obsessions. And I was just two years sober. And I'm an authority on obsessions, I don't know how to overcome them. But, but they're not given good talk of obsessions. I remember thinking about that and said, look, I don't know who do you really trust. They're not going to have a good talk at Obsessions. That was maybe the second or third speaker O.A. ever had. That weighed about 130 pounds. It was skinny, scrawny. And I tried to help them. And then I sat down, and they start talking about their problem. And I couldn't believe my ears. You know, I know a lot about Obsessions. But this one woman, you know, talks about eating two cakes. And I thought, you really are a sick bitch. You know. Some woman talks about eating and eating until she couldn't eat anymore. And going to the washroom and putting her finger down her throat and then coming back and eating some more. I thought, I don't even want to shake hands with you, you know. I can see doing that about drinking, but not eating, you know. And it's much that same way. That is why AA is so specific in its traditions. You must be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. In case there's any questions, there's a little folder called Problems Other Than Alcohol written by Bill Wilson, in which he specifically says, unless you are an alcoholic, you cannot be a participating member of Alcoholics Anonymous, despite what. Someone in your local group may tell you. Because it's the identification. I don't know if I ever mentioned this before or not. I don't know why I'm in kind of a free fall tonight. About two years before I went to speak at OA, I was sober about a month. And I was living in the backseat of an abandoned car back at the AA club. And I was a scruffy looking puke. Had no front teeth and grubby old clothes and dreadful attitude and skinny and goofy. And UCLA, big hospital, UCLA, big hospital in Los Angeles, came to the AA club and asked for ten volunteers. Ten known alcoholics. Even though I didn't feel like one, I volunteered. They wanted ten volunteers because the University of Saskatchewan had isolated a chemical that would help alcoholics get to the root of their inner self and really make the breakthrough that allowed them to get a perception of their problem. And they had this, they're running this big test and they'd give you a room and they'd give you meals, they'd give you food. They'd call in and take care of you for two weeks, three weeks while you took these chemicals to see if they worked. And I volunteered. I didn't care about the chemicals, but I only got out of that abandoned car. It was getting cold. And they looked at me and they turned me down. I guess I looked so bad that they thought I wouldn't give their damn chemical a fair shake. And so I missed the famous 1958 UCLA test of the new drug called LSD. And eight of those people are dead. And that was a wonderful, there's always breakthroughs. Nobody's always got a better idea. You know, as long as I can remember, there's always been some, somebody's got a better way than AA. There's always got somebody a better way than AA. If you'll pardon me, I'm off on a tangent tonight, but what do you care? Holding up the drawing, you can win a weekend with Duffy. I had lunch with Duffy today. He was at that very luncheon and sat at my table and I somehow was thinking about those OAs in 1960. Don't let it go out of this room. But over the years, there's been a lot of great cures for alcoholism since I've been sober. In fact, they've always looked for the reason for alcoholism. You know, there's always been the feeling, if we could just find out what it is. And there have been some theories in the early 1950s, before I was sober, they thought it was sure it was a malfunctioning of the endocrine or ductless glands that would process alcohol in the body differently. It turned out that wasn't it, because they could disprove it. But I often thought, I wish I'd known that. Because in the 1950s, I was in bad shape, coming home drunk, and sitting on the front porch in the snow and vomit. My wife came out on the porch and said, and you, with little children in the house, and you sit out here and vomit, and the neighbors can't see you. What kind of a sick pervert are you? It would be nice to be able to say, I have a malfunctioning of my endocrine or ductless glands. Except that wouldn't have stopped her. When I was sober, about seven years, six years, seven years, I was working for a big television station in Hollywood. And, uh, we had a guy came down and gave a talk at our station. Uh, he was on a tour, and he was the director of the Schick Shadel Alcoholism Institute in Seattle. And their theory at that time was that alcoholics could return to social drinking if it was caused by an imbalance of enzymes, that they could redress the enzyme imbalance, the alcoholic could drink. And I went down there just to, you know, I didn't believe it, but I went down there to listen to him. I stood behind the camera and watched his interview, and this guy was a bad alcoholic. Apparently, he said he was. And he could get all done with his enzyme story, and he wound up by picking up a martini and saying, they would have you believe that you can't do this. I didn't want to drink, but my, my tongue darted out. And I was wondering, I wonder if they have any enzymes down at the 7-Eleven. But about a month later, this guy, in the later part of his tour, apparently his enzymes did not kick in at the right time. He wound up in a padded cell in Chicxedil. And since then, they have changed their philosophy to it now takes a week to cure you. But there's, in Los Angeles, big hospital, big Seventh-day Adventist hospital outside of Los Angeles, very famous, had a two-page, full pages in the Los Angeles Times in the 1970s. I remember reading this. Now, there, Seventh-day Adventists are deaf and drinking, but they wanted to help alcoholics. So, they took one of the wards of the hospital, and turned it to a regular bar. They had a bar. They had a bar. They had a bar. They had a bar. It was an old bar, just a regular bar with pictures on the wall of the bar. And these poor boobs would come in there sick and off the streets. I mean, their family would turn them in and come in in the morning. And there's a bartender standing there. All right, pal, do you want a little drink? Yeah, what do you serve it? Some kind of medicine? No? Starch? Rum? Bourbon? What do you want? I can't believe it. Well, we'll leave it. Oh, I'll try some bourbon. Okay, partner. Had a little glass, little wires on them, I guess, so they couldn't take them out of the bar. And it was good bourbon. My God, you selfless adventists don't know how to treat alcohol, I tell them. And for days, you come in every morning, what do you want? A little bourbon. One more. You bet. Great. Then one day, the bad news came. As he took a drink of bourbon, they ran an electric shock through this cord. That's what it was for. They go, Ah, no ice this time, Fred. And then after that, you know, then they'd give him a drink of bourbon, and he'd say, Oh, no ice this time, Fred. And then after that, you know, then they'd give him a drink of bourbon, and he'd say, Oh, no ice this time, Fred. And then after that, you know, then they'd give him a drink without the shock. And after that, after all, the guy was just, he was like a fawn in a forest fire. He just... So finally, the guy came in the morning and said, You want a little drink? He says, Christ, no, I don't want a drink. And if he did that three mornings, they had another cure. And they had 100% cures, the guys who got out of that hospital. And they had a big article in the paper. And finally, some months later, somebody did a follow-up, and none of these people were sober. Because they, they walked out sober. The first bar, they found there were not any wires on the glasses. They were, they were, they were, they were, you know, and then if you're old, you remember the 1970s, the Rand Report, most very famous, made papers all over the world. Rand, this top think tank in Los, Santa Monica. Alcoholics can drink again, safely. And then, a small type, you know, said, except those that can. But they had, they proved their research that alcoholics could drink again, if they, and that made fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, Dr. Albuquerque in the early 1980s, he had a technique where if you got really drunk and crazy, you'd go to his office, they'd bring you to his office, and he'd take films of you. And then the next time you were sober and felt like drinking, you'd go over and watch this film and see how sickening you got, and you wouldn't want to drink. And that worked for a little while, until they didn't have time to stop by the theater on the way to the bar. There's been all sorts of ways and new ways and better ways. And here we are tonight in San Jose, and this is still the only thing that has ever worked on a regular basis for people like you and me. Still, the world is full of people who fight it, and especially people like you and me who fight it. And I fought it most of my adult life, and I didn't fight it because I was against AA. I fought it for the same reason everybody else that I know of fights it, because I always knew my case was different. It's easy for you to laugh. You have no idea what it's like. Now I've lost my place. I'll have to start over again. Hi, my name is Clancy. That's probably a memorized talk. But I drank a lot in my life, and I never really felt that alcohol was a big problem in my life. Although I got in a lot of problems with it. I got in jails. I was in jail many times. I was hospitalized. I was strapped down. But I never really felt that alcohol was a problem. I always felt alcohol is, to them, it looks like a problem. But to me, my problems are, I think, considerably more complex than drinking. My problems are feelings that I have inside of me, and the way people treat me, and the way I'm screwed around by life a lot, and the way things don't work out, and on and on. And drinking makes me overcome those feelings. And sometimes I drink too much. And then well-meaning people think my problem is alcohol. But I know it is. When they tell me I'll be all right if I stop drinking, I know they don't understand. I spent a lot of years, a lot of time over the years examining myself. I felt, if I've ever been given any gift by life, it was a gift of self-analysis. I didn't want to waste this gift. If you've been given that gift, I want to give you some hope. You will never have a good day as long as you live. You may have good mornings for a while. Pretty nice morning. I wonder why. But over the years, I had a lot of feelings, you know, and I can joke about it now, but I really couldn't identify them at the time. I know there's a lot of new people here tonight who don't know much about A. A lot of people here. Monterrey, I don't know much about A. I didn't mean anything personal, guys. Yes, I did. But the the problem that a great many new people have is that you hear the speakers talk and they always have such nicely packaged talks. And then in 1952, I did this. Then in 1954, I realized this. Then in 1956, it's just wonderful. It isn't that way when you're living through it. It's just every few years. I took my little boy to Gettysburg. I'm kind of a Civil War buff. He's about 11. I took him to the battlefield in Gettysburg. And I gave him probably a definitive and explicit explanation of that battle that anybody ever had. I just pointed out to him where the Union troops had started, where they were pushed back to this hill and where General Meade brought up some guys on this hill was lead on the second day. He sent Hood and some other troops up to Enfield out to Abbotsford Road. The third day, they had 50,000 Pickett's guys and they brought in, you know, I gave about an hour and a half on this battle. And I finally looked down and the kid was going, you certainly you certainly know a lot about the Battle of Gettysburg, don't you, Dad? I said, yes, I do, kid. I, I know more than anybody who fought in it. Oh, I see. That's exactly true. I know more about the Battle of Gettysburg than anybody who fought. Because I knew what everybody was thinking. None of them knew what everybody was thinking. I knew what everybody was thinking. I knew what they were trying to do. People who fought in the battle, they just said, oh, shit, here they come again. And that's much the way it is with life. You know, we we get up and talk knowledgeably about our lives as though we knew what was going on and what was going on and just, oh, shit, here they come again. But over the years I've been sober, I've talked a lot about feelings. But I suppose to make it a little more succinct, I could maybe three general areas but could not really identify them until after I got sober. I could identify them but not understand the ramifications. One was that for a reason I never could figure out why. And I couldn't I couldn't put my finger on what the feeling was until I heard somebody tell it to me in the fifth step once, in his own fifth step. But it just seemed to me all my life, it seemed like other people felt there was something wrong with me. But nobody ever told me what it was. It's almost as though they all seem to like each other better than they like me. Nothing that could lay my finger on it, but it always seemed that way. Then, I didn't quite fit in and I wasn't quite enough. And they and that was a feeling I had a lot not being enough. And I learned as a young guy the way you overcome that. I wasn't aware I was doing it. You learn some little dog and pony show. You learn some little gimmick. You learn some little defense mechanism that keeps them at bay. And in turn, I thought I was the only one in the world who had to hide myself from people I find out later that everybody does. That's what defense mechanisms are. And all human beings have them to one form or another. But some of them need them more than others. And one of the ones that I used to help me a lot was I've always done a lot of reading. I used to be something of a writer most of my life, building life as a writer. And I'd use, you know, what I always thought of as the imitation intellectual defense. You know, what we've been arguing about. I don't suppose you have any idea what Nietzsche had to say about that, do you? No, I didn't think you did. And there's millions of these little things. And it gets all the way to the other end of the spectrum. It looks entirely different, looks entirely different. But it's exactly the same thing. The guy who says, I got a new Harley. I'm going to drive it up your ass. But they're all saying in effect is this. Stay at a distance and believe what I show you. Don't look and see that I'm not enough. So I always had that feeling. I was trying to cover for that feeling. I had a lot of fear in my life, a lot of fear that I know everybody has a lot of fear. But the thing that I could not identify exactly is that my fear seemed to become. More intense when I became successful as that fear should go away when you become successful, but I'd work my butt off to get a fairly good job and be doing good. And all it would take to trigger that fear and terror is to have someone start criticizing me for my job or what I was doing, then all of a sudden it's just they're trying to ruin everything for me. I want to get them and get into a battle over it. It's overreact constantly. And that sort of thing always leads to your own demise. I feeling I had a lot. But for some reason, I could never understand what I could feel. It always seems to me I've been too vulnerable to feelings. Other people seem to be able to take feelings in stride. But I just seem to just seem to get to me. I heard the guy say one time he said, well, for Christ's sake, you can't do anything about the bullet with your name on it. And you can't do it about the emotional arrow with your name on it. I was going to get just going to get you. I thought about that later. I thought that may be true. There's a lot of arrows out there addressed to whom they may concern. And I'm. I'm getting more than my share. And the net result of that is I had my I spent much of my life with hurt feelings. I don't know if you can identify that, but my feelings were always hurt. We were talking about it at dinner tonight, about having your feelings hurt and walking home, you know, freezing your butt off to prove that you were right about that. If you ever did that when I was new and I walked, somebody hurt my feelings at the meeting, the guy that gave me the ride there. And I said, I don't need your ride home. Thanks. He said, you have a way to get there. Don't worry about me. I walked about seven, five, six, seven miles. I thought, why did I say that? But I did it all my life. I worked in a big corporation once where I had a great job. And the guy hurt my feelings on a bad day criticizing something I'd written. And I said, if that's the way it is, why don't you get yourself another boy? And they did. God damn it. And my wife never stopped reminding me of that for 20 years. Why don't you get another boy today? And the bad thing about that feeling is that you, when your feelings are hurt and you always have to be something different, you can slide into a frame of reference without being aware of it. And I've done it a lot and I may do it today sometimes, but I don't think so. But where it looks as though everybody can just be what they are. You can just be what you are. But I have to keep pretending. I have to keep making adjustments. I have to keep making, playing a role to get along. Everybody else should just be what they are and that's fine. I'm the only one who's got to play a role all the time. And damn, I'm sick of it. And these feelings and a lot of other feelings have bubbled intermittently in my life and other kinds of things and hurt feelings and wanting things to be right. They're never right. And people screw me around and on and on. And I was a young man. I went into psychoanalysis because I wanted to become successful. I want to get these terrible feelings out of the way. I guess, you know, they say you shouldn't go to psychoanalysis. Maybe you shouldn't today. But I think psychoanalysis has been ruined over the years. So many little people have been in it. But in my day, just the thinkers and sensitive people were there. And I loved it. I discovered things that would bring tears rolling down your cheeks. I, I discovered that I'd been screwed all along and it wasn't my fault. That's an example I always use is that I was raised in a little town called Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in the Norwegian Lutheran Church. And around here, the Norwegian Lutheran Church is much. But there's the biggest church. And and we were the majority. And we were just a great church, kind of a strict church, but a great church. And I loved it. We learned to sing the Norwegian sometimes. And we had a case and they only really had two main rules. As far as I could tell, you don't sin and you don't monkey with Catholics. That's as far as and that's OK. Makes for a good, easy life. And as I got older, I was weak and I got sitting and I got monkeying with Catholics. And then I got sitting with Catholics practically repopulated the Catholic church in North America, so I knew kind of knew I was going to go to hell. But it wasn't the church's fault. It's just I need a good time. And in psychoanalysis, years later, I can't tell you what a shock it was when I found out the Norwegian Lutheran Church had repressed me, had left deep psychological scars. I was just sick about it, for Christ's sake. I couldn't believe it. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have formed adult children of Norwegian Lutherans. We probably could have hired a couple of co-dependents and sat around and been pissed off every week. I discovered that I'd been repressed by the depression. Did you know there had been a depression? I discovered all kinds of things. I just loved it. I just loved it. I'll tell you, I used to think a few years ago when I was sober a few years, you think, why did I like psychoanalysis so much? You know, all I ever got there was bad news. And I was about my parents or about the depression or about. This or that. And it cost me a lot of money, but I just couldn't wait to get there. I just loved it. And only the last three or four years have I had the glimmering of why I like. Now I understand right well, because I've seen close up sober other therapies that provide the same service and why they are successful. And they really are successful. They become very, very big, these therapies. And to understand what they do, it's necessary to understand, at least for people like me. I've been around AA a long time and I've traveled all over the world. I see I know A's everywhere. And last place I got to go is South Africa. I got to go there in April. So I've been everywhere, I guess. But of all the alcoholics I know, whatever else they have when they come to AA, there's two things every alcoholic I know has had. You have to have a lack of self-worth and you must have a deep-seated guilt. The reason for the guilt can vary. And then we get different reasons for it. But it's always that guilt. These are the type of deep-seated things you don't get. You get rid of by talking about them. You can whitewash them, pretend they're gone. But the next time you're tired across their back, you don't get rid of them easily. They require a lot of work over a long period of time and they retire, they require continual maintenance. Now, what would you do? What would you say if I told you there were therapies available now that will almost immediately rid you of deep-seated guilt? I have never known anything that would do that except alcohol, which is one of the recent drank. But there are therapies. That's true. But there are therapies that will rid you of guilt. Now, which makes them tremendously successful. And do you know how they rid you of guilt? The same way psychoanalysis rid me of guilt. They asked me to accept the role of continuing victim because when it's their fault, it is not my fault, no matter what I do. I was programmed this way. They didn't mean to do it, but they ruined my life. And it's just terrible. And I'm a victim. And I'm sorry that I did those terrible things, but not my fault. I was just programmed that way. Now, what's wrong with that? To be able to get rid of guilt. That's a pretty nice deal to get rid of guilt. I was in the 1950s. They do it now in these therapies today. You come to understand as you get older, there's no free lunches. Everything there is that you get that's worth anything you have to pay for. And there's a price for getting rid of guilt. But it doesn't have a big red tag on top. It's a hidden price you discover. Sometimes you don't even know until after you've paid it for two or three years. And that's this. In order to be a continual victim, in order to get the values of victimization, there are three major prices you pay. One, whether you intend to or not, you little by little over a period of time must sustain and enhance your feelings of resentment toward those who have done it to you. If you ever see these therapies where people discuss that they're that way because somebody else did to them, you stand outside the meeting afterwards and nobody ever comes out smiling because they've been there reinforcing their resentment. The second feeling that you get, whether you intend to or not, you sustain it, is the feeling of difference. I can never really fit in because they or it has ruined my life or my inner child or my parents or whatever it might be has done this to me. And I could have been something, but they've made it impossible for me to do it. There's no sense even trying because it's too late. And the third price you pay is down deep, continual feeling of self-pity. I would have been a contender if it hadn't been for these things. I could have been something. I could have had a happy life. I would have had a happy marriage. I would have been a good father, but they ruined it all for me. Now, maybe that's not too big a price to pay to get rid of guilt because guilt is a painful thing, but at least for people like me and I presume like you, if you're in the crowd, we have a book called Blue Book called Alcoholics Anonymous. And it says in there the three most lethal emotions for people like you and me. Resentment, self-pity and feelings of difference. Great many people in this organization have been led into those other therapies because it looks like they found the real answer we have never addressed. I have a guy in our group named Chuck Barnes. I guess he doesn't mind if I use his name now. But he was sober for four years and doing very well. And some of these people got a hold of him. Some woman got a hold of him and says, you're wasting your time today, you should get to this therapy, but it's one we all heard of. And he went over there for two years and he stopped going to meetings finally. I said, come up, I was his sponsor. I said, Chuck, you already got a meeting. She said, I'm not going to drink. And for the first time in my life, I'm finding the truth of what has been done to me. And about six months ago, he never did drink. But he found enough truth that he went home after one of their meetings and hanged himself. Sober as a judge. And he just discovered truth. Truth is, that form of truth is a lethal thing. Now, don't misunderstand me. I want to say one thing. As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I realize my role. I have no feelings about what they do in their meetings. People want to go there. That's fine. I wish them well. I hope that every commercial ACOA meeting tonight is full of people. I mean, not the Aladin one, but the commercial one. I hope that every... I hope the Aladin ones are full of people, because they're the ones who are working the steps. I hope that every inner child meeting is full of people tonight. But I'll tell you this. I'll be damned if I ever want to go to an AA meeting and hear that crap talked about here. I no more want to hear about your inner child that I expect to go to their meeting and insist they read the 12 traditions. Different organizations, different therapeutics. This deals with recovery. They deal with continuing goddamn pain. And I don't judge them. But I tell you that if you want to go to them, fine. But you keep what you get there, there. I don't want to come into a meeting where there's 12 steps of recovery and actions to take to change my life and hear about some sick neurotic tendency of yours that some goofy counselor who can't stay sober himself has told you. Happy days. I shouldn't get off on that, but I do. I watch people around me really in deep trouble. But I was a victim for years in psychosis. I loved it. I'll tell you another thing. You never really feel good. Good again, either. Victims never really feel good to the always negative emotions going. But later on, I couldn't afford metaphysics anymore. And I got into metaphysics and did a lot of things. But the one thing that helped me the most over all my life was the one thing I never paid much attention to. I discovered I was a little boy, 15 years old, full of either acute neurosis or a high excitement level that I ran away from home and got to San Francisco. And lied, my age was on a ship in the South Pacific. And the day before my 16th birthday, I was at Pearl Harbor early in the Second World War. And some man intimidated me into taking a drink of whiskey. And I tried to explain to him I didn't I couldn't say because I choked up. But I thought I'm a Lutheran. Lutherans don't drink whiskey. I promised my mother I wouldn't drink. I good guys don't drink whiskey. Buck Jones never drank whiskey. I was just about to tell him this. I heard a voice say, God damn right. And that's my voice. That's good. And I had my first drink of whiskey at that ship. And it burned my mouth and burned my throat and burned my stomach and burned my mouth and burned his shirt last I saw of it. It was just hideous. And what I remember about that is the scornful laughter, you know, get the bottle away, you little son of a bitch. I don't know of anything, any single emotion that is more blindingly crazed than public humiliation for people like me. And I presume like some of you. I'll just humiliate her and try it or you think you're going missing. Mention my name, you'll get a good seat. Every time I talk, she walks in front of me and incites me to say terrible things. No hard feelings. But I, you know, I really mean that I don't. That's a terrible when you're inadequate and somebody publicly humiliates you. To this day, that sounds strange. You may laugh at this, but the people I sponsor, I try to I tell them I do not want them to own handguns. Because years ago, I remember watching two different AA guys in a fit of rage grab a gun and do something they wouldn't have done if they had to go to the next room to get it just that instant. That's why I don't tell the people I sponsor. I would prefer they didn't have any whiskey in the house or any booze in the house. Of course, the argument he says, well, if you're going to drink, you're going to drink. That may be what I've known. One dear friends who were just doing fine, weren't going to drink at all. But one guy in a beef with his wife next to him, she ground him and he ground him back and she finally said something that just made him crazy. He said, you bitch, boom, boom. And that was the end of it for him. And if he had to go in the next room to get it, he wouldn't have done it. For people like me who are on the right combination of buttons are oppressed, who become momentarily crazed. I know one thing to avoid that that's to stay out of the situations where your buttons can be pressed. And if they are pressed to not be in a position where you can ruin your life. But at that, I had no tools to deal with these guys. They publicly humiliated me. I would have killed them if I could. I had no, you know, I thought later the only thing I might have done. I might have said, lean over, fella. Yeah, what do you want? Take that. Give him a zit right in the old eye, teach him a lesson. But I'll tell you, I felt terrible. And so the next few days when nobody was looking, I would sneak into this guy's sea bag and try to take a drink or two. And I hated it. But I finally held one down and I held it down. I just hated it. I suddenly realized all of a sudden I felt better than I had ever felt. And I felt for the first time the way men looked just wonderful. And I discovered that alcohol is a good thing. You know, there's a book out called All All the Things I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. That's really a bunch of crap. I never learned anything in kindergarten. I didn't even learn to sleep on my rug, for Christ's sake. You learn about life in your teens. That's where you learn about life. You learn about lust and you learn about. I want anyone else to feel free to get up and leave anytime you want. And she's my favorite, too. And I'm sitting next to her. Well, you learn in your teens, you learn about love and you learn about drinking and you learn about smoking and you learn about relationships. You learn your family is going to support you the rest of your life. And you learn about having to get along with people who are going there to protect you sometimes. And that's where you learn about life. And you try to stick with the things you like and get rid of the things you don't like and drink with something I learned along the way. No, no big deal. That's what men did. And I did it. I didn't become a crazy drunk throughout the Pacific. I tried to drink and learned to drink. I got drunk and it was fun. It was exciting and a whole different world. At the end of the war, I was up here in Pleasanton Naval Hospital and getting sewed together and some great lady came out with a bunch of tests. And I'll tell you, I've said this a thousand times when I took this test, but only in the last couple of years have I ever struck what a miracle that was. She just gave out a bunch of tests to the guys in the hospital. Or some of us at any rate. And I've often thought about that because I've always had kind of a perverse attitude some days and just terrible. I just as easily have said, oh, I'm not going to take your damn test. That's not part of being in the hospital. Screw off here with your Red Cross crap. Or I might have been in one of my cute moods and taken the test and made every answer wrong just to show how cute I was. But that day, I guess I wasn't feeling well, so I did it right. And I wrote it. I just happened to hit it right. And what's the big deal? Two weeks later, she came by to me and a few others, not all the people, a few of us, and gave us our high school diplomas, the Armed Forces Institute. She said, congratulations, you did very well in your test. And so with that, that changed my life. I stopped thinking about that. If I hadn't taken that test, I'd have had to go back to start my junior year in high school after the war. There's no way I would have done that. Instead, I was able to go to college, which was people in my age group. College after the war and the first class of veterans. We all stood around the campus, kind of looking steely-eyed, sex-crazed killers. Our unemployment check would make it on time this week. I got married in college, found out in the world I became a sports writer, newspaper sports writer. But I married this Catholic girl who I'd never known, a woman with dark hair before us, and seemed more exotic to me. And she kept having babies, as is the want of Catholics. I tried to please her. I thought about that. She said, can't we use birth control? She said, no. I thought about that later. What if she had said yes? What the hell would I have done? In my generation, nobody had the guts to go to a drugstore in order to, you know, God, it would take some guy with cojones as big as a house in it. And the ones that did went in and said things like, hey, give me some cigarettes and some condoms. Now it's a little bit different. At least where I live, the guys walk into the thrifty drugs, they say, hey, give me some condoms. Have some cigarettes. But she had a priest come by one day and he gave me an hour and a half on the rhythm system, which is the Catholic version of birth control. And I listened intently and I just couldn't pick up that beat. I became a national distributor of small Catholics. That's what happened to me. And I was kind of successful. I got some big jobs, eventually in advertising, public relations. And all these years I drank. The only problem I ever had in my life, a major problem, because drinking offset so much of this. I didn't identify at the time, but I'll tell you why drinking was important in my life. I discovered this long after so. Alcohol had the power to almost instantly take a person who didn't feel like they were enough and make me feel temporarily more than enough. Alcohol took a person like me who lived with fear. And for a while I was fearless. Alcohol took a person like me who was always subject to rejection and hurt feelings, and I became momentarily omnipotent. I'm sure some of you, the example of some of you guys have had this experience sitting in a bar late at night, having a few drinks, watching the miracle of alcohol take place, watching some old beast become beautiful. And I might side lover to such an old queen. And imply there will be delights beyond her comprehension. She'd like to join me in the old Chevy. Now, she would say, no, what I'm drinking, I don't feel rejected. I don't know what I'd do if I was sober, because I wouldn't dare ask the question. If I was sober, if I did, I'd hang myself, I suppose. But when I have a few drinks, I don't feel rejected. I feel sorry for her. You know, don't come begging tomorrow, bitch. That's why I drink. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I drink them a feeler. And sometimes, unfortunately, I drink too much. Sometimes I get drunk. Sometimes I like to say many times I've been thoughtlessly over-served. That happens a lot to victims. And when I get drunk, sometimes I act bizarre. I didn't know why that was until I got psychoanalysis. But I realized in psychoanalysis that I've been repressed all my life and there are chains of the psyche holding me down. And alcohol dissolves these chains of these things temporarily and I'm free and I sometimes frighten people around me. I, I never could get a cop to buy that, but I got it. So I was sent to my first AA meeting in 1949. That's a long time ago. Most of you little snots weren't even born. We love you. The now, 22 is not terribly young. I ate a day, but then no one heard of anybody within 15 years of it. That's it. They just thought I was a little freak and I thought they were old freaks. I had a terrible time. I didn't last long. And I would left soon after those in psychoanalysis and other things. And every so often I'd go back to AA. Somebody sent me back to AA. So I went to AA off and on for the next years. I went to real therapies most of the time. And so as I do now, when I talk, I've done this before and I'll do it again. Because I think there's always young people and new people here. I think sometimes we get so caught up in our AA life today that we don't tell you, we are not reminded of the valuable role you play. Now, my home group, some of you have been there. Some of you were there last Wednesday night. Biggest group of 1100 people. Just a big, exciting, all the way dresses well and they look well. And the guys off schedule look good. Everybody just looks good. And we have a lot of young people in that group. I'll tell you the young people in this meeting tonight. If you are like the young people in our group, I want to remind you, you are the AA leaders of tomorrow. If you're like the young people in our group, I want to remind you, you are the AA leaders of tomorrow. If you're like the young people in our group, I want to remind you, you are the AA leaders of tomorrow. I'll tell you something else. Really glad I'm going to be dead. Idiots, dumbbells, nothing personal. My sponsor told me that 30 years ago and he's glad he's dead. But I went to therapy, did a lot of things. But alcohol, alcohol is the best friend I ever had. That probably sounds terrible if you're new at an AA meeting to hear somebody say that. But to this day, I'm offended when I hear that. I hear people come up and say things like, that damn alcohol. There was poison from the first drink. It's like hearing somebody badmouth an old girlfriend of mine. Hey, wait a minute. She may be a pig now, but she didn't used to be. My God, I'm loyal. And I drank and I used alcohol to get me through things. Alcohol, I'm sure some of you have the experience too. I have all my life, I never was worth a damn small talk. I always hate situations where I'm going to be small talk. Now this is public relations and I'm going to parties. And when you're sober, standing around, you know, we're all going to be a scorcher tomorrow. Sometime you get your courage up and say things like, see the woman in the red dress, is she a beast? Oh, that's your wife, huh? Going to be a scorcher tomorrow. And if I have a few drinks, I go to Algonquin Round Table, baby. I get too hip for the room. I just and I've stopped drinking from time to time when people thought my problem was alcohol, well-meaning people, I know it isn't because it's just when I stopped drinking, all it does, there's a little moment of elation. But I've made this decision. And one night my old pals came back to visit me in the middle of the night. Here comes fear, loneliness, feelings of difference, feelings of resentment, feelings of self-pity and all the things that when they come, it's going to be long. You're going to be sober long now. Folks. And the day finally came. I became somewhat successful, though. And I got to be successful several times and had an unfortunate series of seem to me just sentences that every job wound up with a with a quick with hurt feelings or fired because of some emotional explosion or drunk and get in trouble and on and on and on ever since you have such potential, you did so good, but there's something wrong with it and say something wrong with you, but we can't have you here. And the day finally came in my a life that cannot come to a person with my background and intelligence and experience. One morning I found myself being physically thrown out of a skid row mission. The guy said, and stay out. And I tried to explain to him I'm not a bum. Three years ago, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas. Ads that I helped write the LC Elmer ads for the board company. If you're old, you remember them, all those cows talking to each other. Now you can laugh, but assuming that everyone was successful for the board company, really. Ninety three, they're going to go back to the LC Elmer. The cows are stature symbol. Write those things. I've had my picture in The New York Times for achievement. How many people, you know, have had their picture in The New York Times for achievement? But it's hard to explain these things in midair. And unfortunately, I'd had my front teeth kicked out about a month before that in the Phoenix jail. So I wasn't hitting those confidence. I should say in passing, I remember that morning was probably going to talk a little too long tonight, but there's nothing else to do. But I remember waking up in the Phoenix jail and waking up and finding a guy. I was laying on the floor. The guy was kicking my front teeth out of my throat. He said, you vomit on my bunk, you drunken son of a bitch, smack it. You laughing at that? When I get to the part where I get leukemia, you like that. But anyway, I woke up and I was there for a few mornings. I was glad that I had been in psychoanalysis. Because once you've been in psychoanalysis, you have insights and understandings that most people don't have. So sick, I couldn't even move my head out of the way of his shoe while he kicked my teeth out. But I was almost instantly able to identify his problem. I remember thinking, this son of a bitch is overreacting. That cheers you up a little. I stood outside of the Skid Row Mission in downtown Los Angeles in an old shirt, an old pair of jacket that was kind of half torn, some pants. I'd lost my clothes somewhere. I'd lost, my family had gone away. My children were gone. My parents had written me off. I was, as far as I could see, I was just about dying on the street. And the guy come up, if a guy would have come up to me and said, answer the question honestly, kid will save your life. Are you an alcoholic? To save my life. But I had to say, no, I'm not. But I wish I were. I wish I were. I wish my life were that uncomplicated. I wish I could be like these AA members who stop drinking and clean up their act when they feel better. There's something much deeper than that in my life. And I walked 71 blocks out to an AA club because it was raining. I'd been asked to leave a week before, hung around that damn club. It was terrible. I slept in the backseat of a band car, as I've mentioned. That's why I wanted to get to UCLA to get some square meal. And I was just, and the club was full of the worst type of people that an intelligent slipper can be around. And these people are called AA fanatics. God, they're a grizzly bunch. You know, you just, when you're cursed with intelligence, you try to get a little ploy. You know, I don't have anything left anymore. I've lost my home and my family, but I used to be quite successful. If I had a few dollars, I'd probably get started again. And they'd give me answers like, go to a lot of meetings, work the steps. It'll all get better. Really, I hung around that damn club. And I'd been in and out of AA for many years. I knew a lot about AA. I did a lot of things. I'll tell you what happened. They did the same thing as they do now. Get a sponsor, get a sponsor. I saw this actor who'd been in and out of the AA meetings and he, he always played loving, kindly roles in the movies. So I thought, oh, that's going to be my sponsor. Maybe you could sponsor me for a few bucks and get some front teeth and get out of here. But every kindly role he should have, he should have won the Academy Award for it because he was not a kindly man. And he, he intimidated me and I used to, oh, I used to hate that guy. I mean, I hate them, but somehow I look back on that now. Why didn't I tell him to go screw himself and leave me alone? Because, you know, they can talk all they want about dictator sponsors. I'm known as a dictator sponsor in my area, but sponsors can never be dictators unless you have the complete acceptance of the dictatee. We don't have any police force. We should, but if you guys want to stick to your sponsor, you say, screw you. I always thought it would be nice if just a little force came to the house at night and said, we're from AA, did you say screw you to your sponsor? Do you still have relatives in Akron? But they, there's no, but he was a dictator type sponsor. Now, why did I let this guy dictate to them? And I look back, there are two factors. One factor is kind of abstract, is that I believe now a guy who is on the kind of scam knows he's phoning goofy and bad, trying to put up a front. I hate people who can see through me. But I have a begrudging respect for them. I love people who I can fool, but I have no respect for them. And somehow he just pulled my covers when he talked to me. Hated him, I used to lie awake and think about it, hated him, respected him. He was not, he was telling me the truth as much as I hated him. And I was one of the factors. The other factor was I apparently, without being aware of it, gotten to a point that I got to do before I didn't have the other factors with it. And that is, it's an amazing thing. Alcoholism, the alcoholic nearly always must drink again because of the pain of survival. And this pain makes it imperative to drinkers today. Somehow here, if you can find the situation right, the desperation and the pain, the same desperation and pain that ensures you must drink, if you can allow someone to steer that, they will use that same desperation and pain to make you take actions that you would never take in a thousand years on your own. Just like, I'm thinking today, landing the plane in San Jose today. The same engines that made us go 550 miles an hour on the way up here stopped us at the air. They just changed the direction of the thrust. And in a sense to me, that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. I'll tell you, I'd go around, as I told you a lot, around AA, and throughout AA, all over the world, there are pockets of enthusiasm. Followed by big areas of kind of blah, just staying sober. Then another pocket of enthusiasm. And you see this all over the world. Anytime you see a pocket of enthusiasm, you will see a strong sponsorship ethic. And the reason for that is people have gotten into an ethic where they allow someone to use that pain to steer them to take actions rather than sit back and say, I'm not going to do that. I don't believe that I'll do it someday. But he made me take actions and do things. And some days I was almost suicidal. And you take that pain. I lost, I got fired as a dishwasher when I was six months sober after working three days at the job. I was going to kill myself when I called him up. And he used that pain to curse me into writing an inventory. And I told him, I don't have to write an inventory. I've taken my inventory with a psychiatrist. Why should I take it with an out-of-work actor, for Christ's sake? I don't know why he didn't like me. But he cursed me into writing an inventory. And a week later, I took a fifth sip, something I swore I'd never do. He drove along the ocean all the way to Oxford. Oxnard, 40 miles to get me in the night. And I got a flashlight and I read this hideous goddamn thing. I thought he was going to throw me out of the car. And I got near Oxnard and I looked over. He's going, I thought I'd broken him. But I've taken that trip maybe 225 times since then. On the driver's side. Some other boob over there. And the only time you come alert is when you think there may be something interesting coming out. And they say things like, let me explain this part before I read it. But there's nothing ever new in an inventory. And once you've been listening to a few of them, you know, the only thing that's new to is the guy taking it. That's what's so sad. That's why it needs all the help you can get to momentarily drive him to do it. Because there's nothing new. I said I've heard it in many different ways than anybody in the world. And I haven't heard anything new in 20 years. In fact, after a while, they follow some patterns. You can almost tell them something's been left out. Didn't you leave something out there? You've been talking to that bitch. No, just that's what comes next there. The specifics vary, but it's always the same emotions. And I let him intimidate me. And little by little, I felt better. One day he had me start making amends of all the people to make amends to. He had me start making amends to my father, the man who led my list of resentments as the man who had victimized me. And I said, for Christ's sake, he ruined my life. That may be. But you were a bad son, too. We're going to start doing what you did. And over. We're going to create a family, oddly enough. Father and I corresponded a little bit. And I just hated my sponsor made me do everything. And one day I talked to him. I was back here and then little by little, my my stepmother died. We sat up all night talking. And the weirdest thing, he told me how our relationship had looked to him. And I looked at him as though I'd victimized him. Damn, I couldn't believe it. But we started to get along better after that. And the last 20 years of his life, we probably were closer than most fathers and sons in the whole world. When he died, I was holding my hand up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, I'd flown up there. A couple of days later, we were sitting at the Norwegian Lutheran Church, about this size, full of people, and I was sitting by his casket. I was looking around the room thinking, isn't that marvelous? I'm glad my dad died out of the pain. I'm glad that AA has driven me to take actions to realize that the same God is in this church as is in my meeting in West L.A. That God loves me and wants good things for me. I just think I never would have known that. And the reason I mention that is because of this. If I had stayed in the victimization philosophy rather than the AA recovery, to this day, when people said, how is your father? I'd have said, I don't want to talk about that dirty son of a bitch. He ruined my life. I said, now people say, how's your father? I say, I'm sure glad he was my dad. And we had a lot of good time together. That's the difference. I don't want to live with the pain of called truth that eats you up inside. I want to live in peace with the world. But little by little, I took the steps. And finally, I finally held a job wrapping packages. Now it's a year sober. Not much of a job, but I held a job. And I was two years sober. I got a little job as a writer in a medical corporation. I went to work every day. So I was five years sober as director of advertising. When I was two years sober, I had squirreled away some money. Bob, I got enough money to get some front teeth. Where'd you get the money? So I just kind of put it aside. So why don't you send that money to your kids in Texas? They need it. Jesus, Bob. They all got front teeth. I got a picture right here. You're a crappy father. Send the goddamn money. OK. So I learned to carry my lip like this. A lot of people never knew I didn't have front teeth. They just thought I'd been burned in a fire. But I was five years sober. I was director of advertising for that corporation. I had front teeth then, I'll tell you. When I was seven years sober, another guy and I were brought into Hollywood. We created something called Boss Radio. We got the number one hard rock station in the world. We all wore shiny suits. Said things like, what's coming on down, baby? I got the television and then in public relations, oil companies. Then I was a marketing director for a big publishing firm. I was five years sober with the same wife. All those children heard the crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to Dallas, Texas, to a post office box, leaped out of their post office box, fled to my side, attached themselves to a group of starving chiggers. Nine months and ten seconds. Another Catholic hit the street. People say, why don't you have any hair in front? You know how many times I've said you're what? But they've all grown up down there. All doing well. My oldest daughter, the D.A. in Albuquerque. She says to me last Christmas she says, you know, dad, we're little girls, you made us go to our room. I said, yeah, honey, just Albuquerque. I'm gonna send you to your room. I guess she's kidding, but I. I didn't lose nothing in Albuquerque. But it's all nice. All very nice to her. And here I am tonight. Sober and sane. And this morning I left a little house up by the ocean in Los Angeles. And the woman I've been married to for 43 years. And, well, she's been married 43 years. I've been married. Fault. Worked as a child. But the kids all grown up. Ten grandchildren. One working in MTV in New York now. Doing slick. It's all very nice. There's only one thing that, if you're new tonight or having a problem with the program, you know you're going to get sick of these thinking success stories. You'll discover after a while, no matter how sad they make their story, how tragic it is, how much they've lost, sooner or later, before the Lord's Prayer, they're going to say, But then, one day I walked through that door, and the desire to drink left me instantly. I now have $10 million. And I have $10 million of dollars with me tonight. Several different families have returned to me. Well, the one thing, I put the plug in the jug. I think, after a while, you don't even want to listen. You're sitting there thinking, which hurts least? Cutting your wrists or hanging yourself? I think AI speakers would be listened to a lot more clearly, more thoroughly, if we'd ever so often throw a speaker in and say something like, And then, it turned out, goddammit, I just couldn't make it. That's the way it is in the real world out there, boy. You don't know what you're going to make. I want to say one thing quickly. Now, I know I don't want to really keep you awake too long, but the most important thing I want to say tonight, or I'll say before I sit down. I said a long time ago, don't be paying any attention. And the old timers all know this, so they can doze off. I'm going to talk to the people who are new, or who are weak and heavy laden tonight. You can be sober a lot of years, and have to go through periods of being weak and heavy laden. The most important thing I said tonight, I said, My name is Clancy, I'm a Muslim, and I'm an alcoholic. Clancy, I'm a Muslim, and I'm an alcoholic. How in the world can I be an alcoholic? My problem never really was alcohol. It was temporarily when I was drunk. But it wasn't really alcohol when I drank. It wasn't really alcohol the day I got sober, and it certainly hasn't been alcohol ever since. How can I be an alcoholic? How can you be an alcoholic if your problem really isn't alcohol? I'm going to tell you something. I'm glad that I fell into the hands of activists. I'm glad that I was desperate and full of pain, and from time to time allowed them to steer that pain before I killed myself. I'm glad that I survived long enough to discover the most important single thing I have ever learned in my life about anything. And everything I've said tonight is just an introduction to this one sentence. If you're new tonight, remember this. I had to learn in AA. If my problem is alcohol, I am not an alcoholic. And conversely, if I'm an alcoholic, my problem is not and cannot be alcohol. Now doesn't that sound strange and upside down and crazy like some kind of fringe alternative therapy? I guarantee you that's the message of AA as far as I know. It's the message of this book. I'm sure I'm one of the very few people in this room, maybe the only one, who sat and talked to Bill Wilson about it for an hour. That's what he thought, at least in 1963 when I sat in his office in New York. I don't think he changed his mind after that. Well, you say, but it must be alcohol. How can you tell? I can disprove that in ten seconds. If alcohol is the problem, detoxes turn out recovered people. And they don't. Hospitals turn out recovered people. Treatment centers turn out recovered people. Jails turn out recovered people. They don't. They turn out people who are physically sober with varying amounts of information. And what may be wrong with it, but I'll guarantee you, if they be like me, or I presume like you, unless something dramatic happens after that, sooner or later, they must always eventually drink or sedate. If it isn't alcohol, what is it? Something mysterious they're not telling us about? You got to pay more to get? Like in these other therapies, you buy some more books, you get to another week-long seminar? No? Something you hear about every day. Something you read about every day. Something you, every time you go to a meeting, you hear it at length. But if you are like me, your preconception of the word may be so strong it'll block out what it means. And it may cause you to die from it. But it is not alcohol. It is something called alcoholism. Same thing. Alcohol, alcoholism, same thing. Not the same thing. Tremendous difference. I'll guarantee you, if you be like me, the day will come when your sanity and your life will depend on the difference. Well, what is the difference? I could give you an hour-long talk on that if I wanted to. A few years ago, I was invited to come to Orlando, Florida, to talk to the American College of Psychiatry, a winter meeting, on the differences between alcohol problems and the disease of alcoholism. And when they called me on the phone, they said they'd fly me down to first class. I really felt kind of guilty. I thought, gosh, if I could tell them on the phone, you know, what... Then I thought, if I do this, I'll never get to Disney World. I may not have had a happy childhood, but I've had a long one. I hear people talking about their inner child. I have an inner adult trying to get out. You better hurry, I'll tell you. Very seriously, you know what the difference is? The difference is this. Alcohol problem is overcome by stopping drinking, cleaning up your act, and living better. This strange, denigrating, destructive, emotionally eroding, eventually fatal thing called alcoholism, you will discover sooner or later, if you haven't discovered it yet, that stopping drinking, cleaning up your act, living better, has no long-term significant effect on your life other than to gradually make it so painful you can't. The thing that makes alcoholism a fatal illness is not that you can't get the patient sober or educated. It is that the pain of sobriety eventually always gets worse than the remembered pain of drinking. So, even that doesn't make you an alcoholic. That almost makes you an alcoholic. One other thing must be present. You must be one of the five or six percent of people in the world, and nobody knows why, but it seems to hold true to every generation. Who gets an unnatural reaction from alcohol and never even knows it? Because you have nothing to compare it against. But this unnatural reaction to alcohol, this so-called allergy, this ultra-sensitivity, the question is, if you can find out what that is, then maybe you can make an intelligent judgment. Well, is it that you stay drunk all the time? You hear these speakers say, I stayed drunk around the clock for 25 years. I'll tell you a medical fact. It is physically impossible for a human body to stay intoxicated, two straight weeks, night and day, in a laboratory. That isn't it. It makes you act crazy. Some people do. Some people don't. We hear a lot of speakers who have crazy stories because it makes for interesting talks, but it has nothing to do with alcoholism. I'm in a different position than most of you. This morning I was in a situation where I was watching an alcoholic die in front of me. Monday I was in a situation where I was watching an alcoholic die. Part of my job is watching alcoholics die today. Some of them have never acted crazy. They get more and more catatonic. They get just more and more quiet. They almost have to hold a mirror to their mouth. Is it that you can't handle alcohol? No. Alcoholics handle alcohol better than non-alcoholics in any kind of a test. Then what is it? And it turns out the unnatural reaction is something so simple I never would have guessed it in 10,000 years. Do you know what the unnatural reaction must be? It's having the unnatural ability of almost instantly making everything alright. I think that's such a big thing. But it turns out it doesn't do that for most people. They call it an immediate alteration of my perception of reality, an alteration of my relationship to my environment, an enhancement of my stature and omnipotence, a decreasing of their threat to me. Whatever it may be, it just boils down to this. It makes me feel alright. I remember my sponsor telling me that years ago when I was new. He said, Remember this, kid. For them, alcohol goes But for you and me, it goes That's why we're here and they're not. I said, Yeah, that's really good, Bob. Alright, that does. But to this night, that's still the best test I know. If you're a new one, though, here's the test. Of course, we have 20 questions. We have 40 questions. Hazel Lynn's got an 8,000 page book. Get out of the alcoholic when you start. You are and you're done. But the best test I know is this. Just to visualize to yourself, that another day is here where your back's to the wall and the hounds of fate ripping into your throat and every man's hand is turned against you and says, Here, have a drink. Would you really be satisfied to have it go? No more for me. I'm starting to feel it. It's hard to remember. That's the reaction most people get. That's why they don't drink. They will never know what you and I take for granted. When your back's to the wall and the hounds of fate ripping into your throat and every man's hand is, Have a drink. It doesn't go. It goes. You want to try me, copper? Hey, Mr. Carlson, you know that job I worked six months to get? Shove it. You with anyone, granny? Alcohol must have the power to almost instantly alter my perception of reality. And if it does that, it's wonderful. But to quickly jump why it's wrong is because sooner or later, if it does that for you, it has a little tendency to erode your ability to cope with reality. You don't have to work through problems anymore. You can change them. And one day, alcohol becomes a problem. And then you're going to stop drinking. So you stop drinking and realize it's really painful to stop drinking. So I'll watch it. I'll control it. And you start. You can't stay drinking, so you've got to stop. You stay sober, so you've got to start. You can't stay drinking, so you've got to stop. They give the first step. They admitted we were powerless over alcohol and also that our lives had become unmanageable. Sober and drunk. And you read this funny little thing in Chapter 3 where they talk about things people have done, sworn off with or without a solemn oath, changed from Scotch to red, drink beer only, drink at home only, never drink at home, on and on. Funny little things. Why do people get into that? Because of a very simple reason. I've discovered I can't stand it sober and drinking is a big problem. I've got to fight it. And when you get into that solution, when you get into that problem, that's called alcoholism. And today in America, with all the help available, AA, treatment centers, hospitals, counselors, over 95% of alcoholics still die drunk or die as a direct result of drinking. And I'll tell you, as far as I'm concerned, they die saying the same thing. But you don't understand. I am not really an alcoholic. I went to AA and I went to treatment and did all these things. But my problem isn't alcohol. I have these terrible feelings. I drank to get some relief, for Christ's sake, and now I drink a little too much and you think my problem is alcohol. My problem is alcohol. They've just defined the disease of alcoholism. The reason that's important to remember that so you won't sit in AA meetings and go to a few meetings and talk the talk and giggle and go to a bar or a coffee shop and wonder why you feel bad. The natural state of sober alcoholics is growing depression and anxiety. I would suggest if AA is not working for you, find someone to steer your pain by taking the actions that your mind will not let you take on your own. You get involved in taking steps that don't seem to have any application in your life until after you take them. You make some degrees of continual surrender, remembering I don't like these things, but I don't have to like them. What I can't stand is what I've become. And little by little, AA works. You wonder what AA does for you as you're rich or famous. Some people do, some people don't. The most happy people I know, the woman I sponsor is 22 years sober. She's become the best waitress in her restaurant. She's happy as a clam. I'll tell you what AA does. In my opinion, AA very slowly does what alcohol does fast. Over a period of time, it very slowly takes people who feel like they're not enough and makes me feel like I'm enough. Not all the time, because human beings don't feel like they're enough all the time. It takes a person like me living with fear and most of the time I don't have fear. It takes a person like me who lives with hurt feelings. The point of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's people, it's places. It's not to make you wonderful, not to make you holy, not to make you any of these things. Little by little, it fills holes that only alcohol has ever filled before. And I know it works because it works for me. The last thing I want to say before I sit down. AA today has forever, as far back as I can remember, 1949, around AA there's always kind of this circling of jackals, like this circle of buffalo herd waiting for a sick buffalo so they can jump on it. And these people come around and they say, hey, listen, AA is good for your drinking, but if you have really deep emotional problems, AA isn't enough. You need more than this. Maybe you need this therapist. Maybe you need Prozac. Maybe you need deep feelings. Maybe you need to discover your inner child. Maybe you need all these things. If you don't do that, you can't possibly survive because AA only deals with your drinking. Let me just say this. In my lifetime, I have been in jail 33 times, which is not a world record. It's good for an advertising executive. I have been in a veteran's hospital twice, once in a padded cell. I've been chained down in the municipal hospital where my wife came in, went upstairs, had a baby and went home again, and I'm still chained down. I have been committed to spending an indefinite period after the rest of my life to the Texas state insane asylum in Texas as a sober suicide. I think I can speak on behalf of the people with strong emotions. Speaking on behalf of the people with strong emotions, let me say this. Despite what anybody tells you, Alcoholics Anonymous, its people, its fellowship, its program, its steps will work at least 34 and a half years. I know that from personal experience. Think of the love offering, dummy. It'll work 34 and a half years. It'll make you feel good. It'll make you feel better than all the people who tell you it doesn't work. So if you're new tonight or afraid or lonely or sad, give it all you got. End of 34 and a half years. If you're not happy, come back here. I won't be here to listen to it.