Into Action and the Decision to Stop Procrastinating – John A.

This recording is part of the Northern California Tape Library about alcoholism. It was recorded on Sunday, October 9th, 1983 at the Northern Carolina Council of Alcoholics Anonymous annual fall conference held in Stockton, California. The speaker, John Ackerland of Laguna Beach, California Please observe the traditions of Alcoholic Anonymous and do not play this recording for entertainment or commercial purposes. And please, do not break the anonymity of the speaker or any A member at any public level. The written record and this copy were both made by Bart Daniel of 1332 St. I. N. S. Way, Sacramento, California, zip 95816. For this afternoon, John A. from Laguna Beach, California. I'm John Ackerlin, an alcoholic. I'm very enthusiastic about this program and I'm very grateful for this way of life. It's terrific. First, I'd like to thank Maryland Committee for the invitation. I'd sure like to think for all the hospitality here. I like to thank Maurice for picking me up at the airport and the time I had with him going over quite a deal. I have a lot of people in this room that I love and it's close to me and then most of you have never seen me before. In a very short while you will know me very intimately. Bart and I, we have known each other for a long time. Are you nervous? No. Sometimes they get a little nervous when I'm up here, you know and I don't blame them. I uh, Jesus did you see all those fallen leaves? I don't think I'm too presumptuous if I say that some of us here today sit with a bunch of burdens and lots of if-onlys, but be that as it may we all here in these rooms are still lucky ones because we have a chance. Lots of people who have this thing called alcoholism doesn't have a chancen for various reasons. My father didn't have much of a chance, he had problems with his liver in 1927 and nobody knew anything about his illness then. He was a giant of a man, he radiated vitality, women adored him and men envied him but he died three years later and he only weighed 130 pounds when he died and he didn't want to die at all and he did not have much of a chance my older brother is two years older than I am he doesn't have much of a sense for another reason he has something called pride seems to be a commodity that we can't afford a luxury of in this outfit eighteen years ago or so he lived in a castle out of Stockholm he was married to a beautiful girl in fact he married my girlfriend I had a little problem with that for a while now I'm glad he did he drank like I drank and he blew it all in the last 16 years he has lived in a building in Stockholm with seven other drunks he drinks a fifth of whiskey every night and lives in the past and nobody is on his case there he doesn't have any push Alan on after him. And if it wasn't for mine, I wouldn't be alive today. You should see this guy all these years, a fifth whiskey or more every day. He speaks six languages fluently, and he can sit down tell these other guys that once he carried the Swedish flag in the Olympics on five occasions, and he doesn't have much of a chance. My younger brother is seven years younger than I am, and he doesn't have much of a chance for another reason. He doesn't want to do anything about his problem. I really love him. When we grew up, I was more or less like his father. When I was 24 years old, I paid for his college education for three years and the maintenance of it. Mom passed away in 1950. I took him out to this country and has been ever since. A few years ago now, he was told by his doctor he couldn't drink anymore. He said, called I something very wrong with your liver, you can't drink that booze. He told him that for 90 days. But he doesn't drink like I drank and that's all he's looking at. He had seven, eight whiskeys before dinner, two kinds of wine, coffee, and brandy for dessert. It's kind of elegant. He lights a couple of candles now and then. I tried to trust him about four years ago now. He and his wife was in my home and I said, you know Carl, maybe that church will fix you so you don't have to drink. But if it doesn't work out, maybe you can go with me to a few meetings and see what it's all about. Then she spoke up, and she said, Jan, you're an alcoholic, and you know a lot about alcoholism, but you don't know a hell of a lot about anything else. And then I said to her, I said, you know, I only drank for ten years, so I don't know that much about alcoholism. But I have lived out there in that world sober for more 17 years, an exciting beautiful joyous way of life. So I know a lot about good living besides that it ain't my fucking day with that shot. I really never have been a person or advocate for letter works from this podium but I just didn't want her to misunderstand. If I upset any spiritual giants here this morning, I'd be more than happy to apologize to you. But I just couldn't find a better word for it. See what's wrong with my brothers is simply this, that alcohol is still doing something for them. And that's the nature of the illness and that's why I said in the beginning that we all here in these rooms are the lucky ones because we have a chance. I'd like to say to you that I was five years sober. I made a tally one time. I went to 14 funerals in six months. One guy was 24 years old. He was a male nurse in Norwalk on the alcoholic ward. he stood down the Alana Club in Anaheim skin and bone and he said you know I work on the alcoholic world I know what alcoholics look like I have about 18 months more to drink before I have to do anything about it and this guy had a wine source on his legs he died two weeks later another guy he was 30 years old he owned the Swedish Smorgasbord in Lincoln in Anheim very successful businessman man. He drank a little whiskey, took a little Valium, and it just quit on him one night. One guy had nine-and-a-half years of sobriety in this program, a beautiful man. And he helped me a lot when I came in. He had a 46-foot Chris Craft in front of his house in Newport Beach, very successful man. After nine- and-a half years, he started to take a little forcing the second all. Three months later, he was picked up at Leder Drexel trying to steal a pint of liquor, trying to steal some codeine cough medicine. Then he went back to whiskey, died within a year. In six months, I went to 14 funerals. I hope I have you really depressed by now. I lay something even worse on you. The American Medical Association has a survey out. nine out of ten alcoholics never make it nine out of ten alcoholics either die or go crazy from this thing and I hope to God that you and I are the one of the ten that's going to make it and it's yes and it seems to me that we who are going to lots of meetings and share with other alcoholics and be part of this thing, we seem to survive. Alcoholics Anonymous is completely different from anything else. It has nothing to do with stopping drinking because stopping drinking is not our problem. To stay stopped is our dilemma. And that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about. I mean, if you just want to stop drinking, you can go out and kick a cop in the ass. Stop for 30 days. I talk to newcomers and I love newcomers, and I like the feelings in these rooms with our newcomers, and I like being a newcomer myself. It's very important to me, and I'd like to share with you why I like to be a newcom. I hope I never forget the last year I drank because I compromised on everything I believed in or stood for. I couldn't live or function without liquor. I didn't dare to go to sleep if I didn t have a fifth of whiskey in the refrigerator because I had to have it when I woke up. And if I ran out of booze at midnight, I usually called an associate of mine in Baldwin Park and said, Harold, next week you will owe me me $150 on this particular job. But if you give me 20 bucks tonight, you won't have to pay me the $130 next week. And I drove a hundred mile round trip at midnight to pick up $20. I didn't dare to buy any booze in Baldwin Park because then I wouldn't make it home. And when I came home to Anaheim where we lived at the time, I bought a fifth of Imperial Bergen for $4.85 and then I was safe and I had to live like that. Hope I never forget that period in my life. I know some of us after we get a little well and get the few dollars in our pockets and bedroom privileges again. We forget how it really was. In fact, my wife cut me off six months before I came into AA. She really ran out of humor down at the end, I tell you. She stood up and looked at me one evening and she said, yeah, and she says, I wish you could find yourself a girlfriends I wouldn't have to fool with you he said you take forever laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter laughter days. The other reason why I like to be in Newcombe, I had been going to meetings every day for 90 days and Phil Petty talked one Sunday morning and he stood up here and said if you keep going to the meetings you will wake up one morning and realize and find out that you can function without alcohol and it is not necessary to drink anymore and you have a way to go. And I sat in the room and said, My God, I have experienced those feelings. It was the first time here it dawned on me that I wasn't hooked anymore, that I had some degree of choice over my own actions, and I had already started to experience a freedom here that I hadn't had for a long, long time. And I hope I never forget that period in Alcoholics Anonymous, the knowledge that I was not hooked and that I am free. I hope that I never take it for granted. Those are the two reasons why I like to be a newcomer. You are new if you just feel or think that you have a drinking problem, half the battle is won because then you know why you're here. But most of us coming in here, including myself, I didn't feel that way when I came in here because there were so many other anxieties that so far overshadowed my relationship to liquor and I felt if only these things would be straightened out, I wouldn't have to drink as much or do it be the way I was. And that's how I think it is for most of us when we are new because we so slowly and so gradually grow into our relationship to liquor it's very hard for us to see where we are in relationship to lick and admitted because for a long time it worked. He did everything I wanted her to do picked me up and slowed me down and whatever and when they started to talk to me about that I had to give up my booze I thought they were absolutely crazy and didn't understand at all. And that's how I think it is for most of us when we are new, and I don't really give a damn how bad it gets in the morning because we get used to that. That's the price we've got to pay no big deal. And to give you an example of how hard it is for us to see where we are in the relationship to liquor, I talked in the stephouse in Costa Mesa some years ago now. There was a guy on the front row. He had a shake. She was wetting on the floor, and he was in a hell of a sad shape. And he came up to me after the meeting and said, you know, I really don't know if I'm an alcoholic. And I asked him, I said, what seems to be a problem? And he said, I got an ulcer. Then he asked me, what is an alcoholic anyhow? And I said I really do not know myself. Have you ever repeated the same performance again and again and again when it comes to liquor? he said I don't know what you mean so I thought about my own case and I said has your wife ever complained about your drinking he said I ain't married she divorced me two years ago he said so the devil flew into me I said did she divorce you because you had an ulcer and he said no she said I drank too much beer so I said well now we're getting somewhere so I asked him when did you come into this goddamn place I mean as far as I'm concerned the step housing coast of Mesa ain't much to shoot for you know I said really when did he come in here and he says yesterday morning so I say did they take you in here because you had an ulcer. And he said, no, I just couldn't navigate anymore. As far as I'm concerned, he is typical. And he couldn't really see himself how he was in a relationship to lick unadmitted. And you all knew here today, if you saw this guy sitting up here and doing those kind of tricks right now, you would sit down and say to yourself, well, that's the way they're supposed to look like. If I ever get in that kind of shape or condition, I'll do something about it and you feel like you're off the hook. This is one of the reasons why we ask you to go to a flock of meetings before you decide whether you belong or not. And then when we start to go here to meetings in the beginning, we usually identify with the wrong things. We identify with things that haven't yet happened to us and that kind of protects our rights or whatever you want to call it. We hear some very flamboyant stories from this podium from time to time like I've been arrested this year already 42 times. Only August. And I sat back there and heard those kind of stories, and I said, yeah, that's the way they are supposed to be. Because I had never been arrested. I'd never been in an alcoholic water or step house or anything like that, so how in the hell could I be an alcoholic? I'd been in the building business a number of years. I owned my own door factory, nice home with a swimming pool, three automobiles and an English Bulldog, so how the hell would I have been an alcoholic, you know? I mean, we all have a conception of what you think an alcoholic ought to look like, and I just didn't fit that description. So I had a hard time to identify her. You know, that Paul the preacher up there this morning, he sure looks like a drunk to me. I... No offense. I had a hard time to identify when I first came in. I sat back down and listened, and I heard that we alcoholics have a peculiar attitude. This guy was up talking. He said, yeah, I live back middle west somewhere, and I decided on a Sunday morning I was going to go to California and start over again, and I wanted to look good when I came out there, so I wanted a brand new car. So I got the car dealer out of bed, and he got the bank car out of bad, and I got a brand-new car, and I took off for California. He said, I was a little drunk. Drove 90 miles an hour over a hill and then I decided I was at a car park. And I drove head into that one and totaled out my new one and my attitude was that never again am I going to buy a goddamn Chevy. And I wasn't like that. I heard that we alcoholics rebel against society or authority. I never really did. I was for king and country when I lived in Sweden. I supported the press in the United States after I came over here to the bitter end. When I heard a sales pitch, I improved on it. I was always for things. I was very positive. I always tried to be part of things. I really always tried to be good. When I sat back here in the beginning, my problems just seemed to be different than yours. As I looked over my life, it was just like I'd failed regularly long before I started to drink, even when I gave it my best shot. I could be very good for a couple of months, and then the bottom fell off. And I couldn't understand why I was such a screw-up. And that's what I said to children here in the beginning. Quite some time later, I heard a tape one time when Alcoholics Anonymous had had a 20th anniversary in Santa Monica. Our co-founder Bill W. was there, and somebody said to him, you know, Bill, this program of AlcoholicsAnonymous, is really the most fabulous success story that has ever been put together. he said not really it's not a success story it is just a lot of failures that has been put into usefulness and that day I was very grateful I was a member here and I stayed around so you all knew just come to meetings for a while because it takes a bit for all of us before it falls in place I assure you I didn't have problems with my liquor at the same places most of these people I heard I had a little problem with my booze at PTA meetings and Girl Scouts and places like that. It seems to where I had a problem with my liquor in the beginning. When things like that was going on, I always came home in the afternoon and I said, hey, let's go, you know. And my kids usually said, well, please, Dad, don't come today. And I said why? I said you're sloth to be with your guys. And they said, but you're also terribly drunk. I said I'm not really that drunk. I'm just pleasantly gasped. I always felt I handled it well. In fact, bartenders all over Orange County told me how well I could drink. They used to say to me, Mr. Ackerling, you really know how to drink. I said, isn't it absolutely wonderful? And they'd say, you're something else. You were in there last night for an hour and a half, and you drank 22 drinks. Never raised your voice. You never get out of line. You're a perfect gentleman, and you leave graciously, and then you're back here again in the morning at 9 o'clock and start all over again. I said isn't that absolutely wonderful, you know? And I felt good. I knew I had a handle on this thing, you know. And everybody in that damn bar turned around and looked at me and I really felt like John Wayne, you now. And that's how it was the first two years of my drinking. I gave it a highlight on my drinking career. You know, I didn't start to drink until I was 31 years old. When my father died from that thing, I promised my grandmother I would never drink. And I never did. I was very responsible as a young man. Took on a lot more responsibility than I should have done. And I had tremendous anxieties. I had a tremendous inferiority complex. take on that burden of being head of the family. But I did the best I could. And then I came out here to America, and I did a lot of work. I did what I did best I couldn't here. You know, I always tried. And when I was 31 years old, I was something about... I started to drink a little bit on weekends. that was something that wasn't right in my life it seemed to me like I loved more than anybody else did and I needed a tremendous amount of approval and I I couldn't understand why people didn't love me as much as I loved them and I just was so frustrated not much in 1954 was when I started to drink every day I was employed by this door factory in Alhambra and my boss there taught me how to drink every day. He was an alcoholic, I didn't know it. I just thought he was wonderful. We had early times at 8 o'clock in the morning, cocktails at 10, martini lunches from 12 to 2.30. Then we went out and made a few calls in the afternoon and went back to the office and typed up bits from 6 to midnight and drank whiskey, and I thought I landed in heaven. I used to come home to my wife and say, you know, this building business is out of this world. I have never felt such confidence in my life. I said, it really is wonderful. You know, we drink a little bit, then we work a little bit, and it's just wonderful. And the only problem with that company, they lost money every month. I'd been there a year, I had anyhow sold so many doors they couldn't pay me my commission. So they gave me one-third of the stock of the company, now I own the goddamn place. I used to come home and I said to my wife, you know, Jesus. I said, you know, I'm just a little immigrant and I own the goddamn place. They were $60,000 in the hold. I signed a piece of paper and indebted myself over 20 grand overnight and I thought I had a good deal. When I took my inventory in Alcoholics Anonymous, I realized that optimism was one of my defects of character. You know, I tell you, it was so incredible. I worked seven days a week, 16, 18 hours a day. When you own a place, you're general manager, sales manager, and truck driver. And I had got a contract with the American Housing Guild in San Diego for 700 homes. There were 7,000 door openings that I had to fulfill in 90 days. You know, I worked around the clock. And I could come home to Coronado Mall while we lived at the time at 3.30 in the morning, truckload of 400-door openings on top of the truck, came into my little home there. We had a little Spanish house in the bluff there and Karen had a hot bath ready for me and I came in there at 3 30 in the evening at 3 in the early morning, you know, working and drinking all day and slid in the tub there and lit up a camel and inhaled. and she came in with a pitcher of martinis and sat down with John and talked to me you know and I sat down and told her oh how well we were doing you know slept for an hour 45 minutes up took a cold shower and zoomed down to San Diego which was about 60 some miles south and delivered the door before 8 in the morning and drove back up to our hamper and did the same thing all over again that's how I lived for a long time few years later they fired me from my own door factory That's how it began for me. I had three beautiful girls on a Sunday, we took them to church on Sundays. It was the right environment to bring them up, to give them good stories. We tried everything that was right to be Americans. The only problem with that church business was that the last four years of my drinking, I was a morning drinker and Karen usually inspected me on Sunday mornings before we should take off, and many times she'd go and look at me and said, not today. And that hurt my feelings when she took off down the street with the kids in the car and I had to stand on the corner at home. So sometimes I ran down the block after screaming and hollering and my neighbors were outside talking about the lawn problem and here I came running by. Sometimes I was strangely clad. I mean if you ever saw guy in his Swedish flannel pajamas coming down the street, you know. Knew something was wrong, you know." She saw me in the rearview mirror coming down like a bat out of hell after her, so she stopped down the block and waited for me and rolled down the window and said, said, what's the matter now? You know, I said, don't forget to pray for me. And when I got there, I didn't feel like I belonged, but I sure tried. Oh God. When I came down to church, you know, oh, I looked sincere and hummed a lot. And one time I went so far, I said, God, if you're up to say something, because I know we have a contact, you know. And he never said anything. In fact, he hasn't done so yet, and I know a couple of guys have heard him, and I don't want to go where they are. That direct pipeline, it kind of worries me at times, you knows. That telephone they have every day, you notice. Sounds pretty good to me, to get it your own way. I can't tell you how many times I was drunk in that Congregational Church in Anaheim, but it was incredible. Two years later, it had progressed a little bit. One week she said to me you know John let's just try the Episcopalian Church next Sunday because the Congregation certainly doesn't do the job and I said it sounds terrific to me and she said yeah they have very colorful costumes down to sing a lot and you like music, it might hit you. I'd been drinking to five that morning. I still had the shakes when I woke up, so I went out in the kitchen and drank a little codeine cough medicine, stopped the shakes, tightened my belt and walked along with small steps, tried to look effective and passed inspection and came to church. The only thing I can say to you is the routine in the Episcopalian church, it really ain't for drunks. It's a very busy place, you know I mean they get up and down and kneel and pray and sit and stand and sing I was up and down three four times then my timing got off you know when they sat down I stood up and in Sweden where we don't know the words we sing tralala I had a couple of solos there all by myself. In fact, the second time I came up there and gave the trial of law, you could hear a guy five rows behind me. He says, sit down, you son of a bitch. Third time down praying, I couldn't get up. again. And I clunked at that bench. I tried every trick in the book I knew I'd get up and couldn't make it. Tried it sideways and backwards and forward, even tried to roll up. My wife sat down and looked at me. She said, for God's sake, Johnny, get up. And I said, it's an absolute impossibility, you know. So they went up and down, and I sat down saying by myself, you know. Next time I looked behind me, they were all down praying and here's this guy in the row behind was laying down on his knees, his hands, his sheen and his mumble and looked real serious and he looked right at me. And I sat on the floor and stared at him. Sometimes you look at the guy, you focus in and you lock and you can't move, you knows. He stared at me and I stared at Him and then I thought I'd better look little casual, so I winked my eye at him. I kind of stopped him for a minute. I was so glad I wasn't in Laguna Beach that morning. Maybe I've been to New Orleans. It's a wonderful experience. So needless to say, we didn't go back to the Episcopalian church. I think alcoholics like me have no problems with booze until we try to stop drinking. And when I started to try to start drinking, I got into a lot of trouble with my liquor. Carrie said to me one week, she said, you know, you drink too much. I said, what are you talking about? She said, Yeah, you drink way too much. I said, Okay, then I'll quit. And then I couldn't quit. And then the battle was on. When I had been off the sauce for a couple of weeks, I got the shake, or a couple OF days, then my shakes began. And then a couple shots of whiskey stopped the shake cycle functioning at work. Then I had to con myself into why I'd have a couple Of drinks all the time. And thenI started to lie about it, and then I started to hide it, and from then on it got worse. At this period of my life, I worked seven days a week, 16, 18 hours a day, and I drank a fifth or more whiskey every day. That was the period I drank three-fifths of a liquor a day. Just a cup. Two years after the shakes began, weirder things happened to me when I stopped drinking. One morning at four o'clock, I hadn't had anything for three days. I sat in that bed and looked in front of me and this big white snake came out of the wall. I never saw anything like it in my life. It was unbelievable. He was this big in the arm and on his fattest part had three black eyes, was twenty-three feet long. He came slowly across the room and stopped right in front of my face and started to hiss at me, you know, tongue dangling, you know, right there. And I stared at this goddamn thing, you know, paralyzed from fright. I couldn't even smell him. The kind of palatal high sweet mulch I smelled the whole day. It was incredible. I screamed so loud from fright that my brain exploded for my own sound, and then I fell backwards unconscious. That was my experience. There was such an enormous crescendo in my brain. It just exploded and blew. And then it blacked out, and I fell backward. That's what my experience was. Karen told me in the morning, she said, something very strange happened this morning around four o'clock. She said, you sat straight up in bed and looked in front of you for quite a while, And then you said, eee. That's all it was. To me, it was the goddamnedest thing I'd ever done, true. One morning she almost had me. I woke up and my bed was wet. The most humiliating time of my drinking career so far. I lay down and I thought, God, it has finally happened and what can I say to this? And she was standing in front of the bed and looking at me with those cold island on eyes. You know those little beer ones? You know? But the dialogue was terrific. she stood and stared at me and she said well when I laid down I said well what I mean what the hell can you say sure hope there's some bad weather here today I know I felt and then my youngest daughter Katrina came in and she said daddy I'm so sorry but last night when I climbed into bed with you I believed I wet your bed I mean talk about the break for an alcoholic I just smiled at her I said oh my little darling that's a little squirt now and then won't hurt anybody I said you know I said and you thought I was an alcoholic you know four days later it wasn't Katrina's fault I didn't have a dream that I went to the bathroom I didn' t have a blackout I just laid on reason I said out to hell with it if she can do it I can do and that's what I'd become at the time of my life and today I'm very grateful I'm just a simple alcoholic because we have these evidences of self-degradation and I believe this that God will let us see how we really are later on and perhaps then there will be enough panic in us that we seek help and some of us will have the great fortune of finding this fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous and their way to live. One night I made love to my wife when she wasn't even there and that's kind of tricky. She was laying two feet away from me there and And he said, what are you doing over there, you know? And I said, I beg your pardon, you know. I mean, I always had a lot of class. When she realized what was going on, she started to laugh at me. And I started to cry because I felt it was humiliating to laugh with the guy who was doing his best. In the morning when I had been out in the kitchen and had my codeine cough medicine and my bourbon, she met me in the hallway, and she said, Well, good morning, lover boy. I really didn't feel any pain. I just smiled, and I said, That's the best peace I've had in a long time. I love laughter in Alcoholics Anonymous. It is an absolute spiritual experience. It is very much part of the recovery here. It's a very important thing. You see that everything and anything that we have laughed about here this afternoon was absolutely the deepest tragedy when it happened. And when we can identify between ourselves in this area and see and realize this insanity, this denial. It goes with his illness. And we can laugh at ourselves in this manner. It makes it possible for us to forgive ourselves and change. It's a beautiful thing. Like every alcoholic story, ours was tremendously tragic at the end. One time I was sober for three weeks on the wagon. I had had an ultimatum, and we should go to Palm Springs to start over. I hadn't had a vacation for five years at that period of my life. I didn't have to leave town because I was safe there. They took my checks and they weren't always good, but I had a short-term account at Al's Party Panthers. I always got what I needed as far as liquor was concerned. that morning we should leave, I just panicked. And I drank a fifth of whiskey before we left and drove eighty-nine of my son out to Palm Springs. Four kids were crying and she was hysterical and I had to get all it lasted. She was convinced that it was my way of telling her I didn't love her anymore and wandered out of it and didn't know how to say it. Second day there, she just locked herself in the bathroom and said, Johnny, I can't live like this anymore. Drank hundreds of ice creams down and said I'm going to commit suicide. I laid on that bed and prayed to God hoping she was going to die so she didn't have to be with me anymore because I knew at that time of my life there was no way out of it for me because I had tried and that's how it was and that is how it is and that way it usually ends by the grace of God she got sick and she didn' t die but it was that close two years after this incident I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and you can draw your own conclusions of those two years were on my guilt connector with it. Two years before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I was fired from my own door factory. Two days before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I was picked up down at Trifty Mart in Anaheim a Sunday morning at 10 o'clock trying to steal a pint of liquor for $3.57 and you should have seen me then. I was drunk and I was unshaven. I weighed 246 pounds at the time. I hadn't been able to get drunk sober for ten months in my life, I couldn't even defend myself. I just stood there and looked at this guy, and I said, It can't be me. Look where I came from. And I was brought up in a beautiful family under the most favorable circumstances. But that morning in Anaheim I looked exactly like a person who has to steal a pint of liquor to live. And I walked out of there and hoped I would die soon. That evening, I had another ultimatum, and I got off the sauce. My boss then a few days before, I said, don't go in and see this developer if you've been drinking. He doesn't want to have your whiskey breath in his office. Things were really crowded in me. The next afternoon, I had an appointment with this guy at 2 o'clock. The shakes were bad, and I went down to Ming with a little ball where I had my office the last four years and have a couple of shots so I could function and see him. Two drinks didn't do it anymore. I had seven or eight drinks. And then I knew I was too drunk, and I didn't dare to blow that job Tuesday. Two-thirty that afternoon I sat out in the parking lot and wept in my car. I just sat down and cried out, Oh God, what has happened to me? What has happened for us? I had the most fabulous plans helping or let me die, I said. I just couldn't act much longer. And the next day, Karen stood down and looked at me and she said, Yanni, for years because of the children we have stayed together but now because of them we have to part. And either you go down and try that thing called Alcoholics Anonymous or else out you go again. And that's how I came in here and I didn't think this would work either. At that problem in my life there wasn't anything that was sacred to me, I hadn't tried to use to stop and nothing worked. I swore on the Bible. That was very important to me. I had 11 years, two hours a day of religious education. It meant a lot to me but two weeks later I was drunk again and again. I went to a minister for counseling every week for an hour for 18 months and he realized after that period we lacked identification. when he talked about god i said walter you are a good man but i'm not you don't talk to your wife the way i talk to mine in the evenings when she corners me about my drinking so god doesn't want to have anything to do with me i know because i've tried and he realized that if he should sit down listen to my reasons and justifications why i had to drink and carry on the way I did he was going to actually help me to die from this thing called alcoholism and he recognized that i to find my bottom photo down, so he just gave me to God one day and we had a divorce there. When he wouldn't talk to me anymore I went to a psychiatrist. This guy never really said anything to me that my wife didn't tell me for free three times a day. What good does it do when you're telepracticing drunk at this stage of your illness? Oh, you need a crutch huh? You can't stand on your own two feet huh? Or do you realize that you're driving your wife insane and she's such a borderline right now that you'll push her little further. She will be institutionalized for the rest of her life, and it's your fault. So what do you do then? You do what I did. I went on the wagon. And two days later, I knew everything he said was the truth. And I knew it before. And the more sober we become, the more we realize how we hurt our loved ones. And that in itself will drive us back to drinking again, because it's the only way we know to get out from under this guilt. There's a lot of capable people in the field of alcoholism today and I sure don't envy them but the nature of the illness is simply this that as long as alcohol is doing something for us it is impossible for anybody talking it out of using it. And that's the nature or the illness and that's why I said that we who are here in these rooms are the lucky ones because we have a chance. One time I bought a dapper gray Arabian horse. I thought if I had a hobby, I could stop drinking, you know. You should have seen me. I got this beautiful horse. We had to look at the picture, spend a whole month, $1,000 to buy us the gears alone, beautiful English saddle, a Kimberley pick, special stirrups, a martingale and a blue saddle blanket. I had an English Stetson hat, a Harris tweed jacket, English job purse, a Spanish cane, wore my father's monocle. Would you believe I was sober for two days? What about one and a half? Second day I had 14 martinis for lunch and I fell off the horse too, you know. So here I come into the Alana Club in Anaheim because of this last ultimatum, you now. And they say, do you have a drinking problem? And I said, hell no. I got along just famously with it, but can't do something for my wife. She's crazy, you know. And that's the attitude we have. That's the gratitude we have to have because we don't know it's going to work in here. And we've got to cover ourselves and protect our own deals. I mean, you think about it. all these fabulously flamboyant, deep things that I had tried. And then I come into this flaky club in Anaheim, and that should change it. One light bulb in the ceiling with a brown paper bag around it, you know. If you want what we got, I said, they've got to be kidding, you now what I mean? But it happened there. The day after that day, my friend and sponsor, Charlie Wickham, that afternoon said, Come home with me and let us talk. And we sat in his patio and he told me his story. And that's what I think is important in Alcoholics Anonymous. One drunk talking to another on the identification between the two. And when he was through with his story, I realized that he was worse than I was and he depended more than I did on it and he was sober. I said you were that bad and you can stay off that sauce and he said yeah I knew he was telling the truth but I tried to wiggle out of it one more time I said Charlie you don't understand every time I stop drinking I get the shakes and weird things happen to me and he says Johnny you will only shake for four or five days then you never have to shake again as long as you live and I didn't know that and I sat down I thought, Jesus, what information this guy is coming up with. Then he told me about the disease of alcoholism. He called it an allergy of the body coupled with the obsession of the mind. So the first drink is a mental one to make you comfortable. Then the body takes over and craves more booze and you cannot control your drinker pattern or your behavior pattern. So things started to fall in place for me a little bit. That evening I was in a meeting. When they read portion of chapter 5 that we heard here today, I just said please God help me today to stay sober and it wasn't a big deal you know I always thought the spiritual experience would be something like come on yes John what can I do for you well it wasnít like that at all it was merely a feeling and my thoughts were these that perhaps after all this days are away from me too when I came home that night I said to my wife I said Karen it happened to me tonight I don't have to drink anymore and she said your eyes look different and I haven't had a drink of alcohol or any codeine cough medicine or strange pills or funny cigarettes in that day and last Saturday that was 21 years ago Just watch now. You all knew, you might sit down and say to yourself right now, it must be easy for you to have all that time in the program. You know, I was not a great success when I came in here, and that's what we are dealing with right now. I had a lot of anxieties about my children because I wanted to be a good father, and I wasn't most of the time. I was $36,000 in the hole. They were all small bills, and they were all due. And my wife's suicide attempt just about drove me crazy. It's very hard to live with when you realize that you're broken and not a human being spirit. but I didn't drink and I went to meetings every day and that's the only thing I had going for me for quite a while but I have never experienced as fierce as I did the first few months of my sobriety I couldn't handle nothing when the phone rang at home I just pointed I said and I split and hid in a closet I had a three-piece Brooks Brothers suit on and I sat on the floor in my closet and just wept I sat in meetings in the front row and wept I had about ten days of sobriety I sat up there and blurted out you guys don't understand but I feel so goddamn guilty it was an old time but I said the reason you feel so guilty is because you're guilty and there were guys like that that saved my life for the first time I could admit that it was my fault without reservations you know as long as we pin it on somebody else or something else nothing can happen to us but I came to the conclusion that whatever they had done or she had done or said I drove them to it when I took it on that basis I was free. But when that meeting closed that night, it was probably the most crucial time for me here because I felt trapped. I felt I was in a corner I couldn't get out of. And I actually regretted that I had copped out and admitted my fault. The only thing I had going for me then was this, that I knew under no circumstances could I go back to drinking again. No matter what, I couldnít escape from Bruce anymore. I had done enough damage. I had no more rights when he came to liquor on whatever was coming my way I had to stand down face the music but I couldn't split the booths anymore so I actually taken the first two steps in this program and didn't know it but how do you turn your wheel of life over the care of God as you understand him what's a spiritual experience in these rooms well that happened to me moments later the same evening as I stood out alone and afraid this guy came up to me never saw him before. He just came over, put his arm around me and said, Johnny, don't worry, everything is going to be all right. And I believed him. That's the only thing I had going for me for a while. You know, I trusted them. They didn't talk to me like anybody else had ever talked to me before. They didn't point fingers, there was no judgment, they just shared our own experiences from heart to heart. And this love and this care that goes on in these rooms is really the most healing commodity that we can offer being offered. It suits us back to good health and it gives us a God of our very own that we trust under any condition. It's here for everybody. Nobody is excluded, and nobody can be replaced here. There isn't anybody that can be placed here. I don't believe for a moment that God would let us go through all these things and then bring us in here and show us this way to live if he didn't have any plans for us. It really wouldn't make any sense. That's how that's how my the beginning was i just came to realize those guys had my welfare at heart and i trusted them for quite a while i felt my still that my life was over could never be right again it would never mend and she would never forgive me i like to assure you that these years i've been here have been the best years of my life. I know without a shadow of a doubt whatever is in front of me will be the best year of my live as long as I practice the principle of this program day at a time, it's terrific. I actually envy new people that you're going to discover about yourself providing or go to meetings. I plain envy you what you're gonna find out about yourself. And you don't believe me now and I didn't believe it then but it was the greatest opportunity I ever had in my life and I was beaten down to nothing so don't fret it we have all been there. You're actually sitting on an opportunity if you're throwing the towel and let us love you and help you, it's incredible. And we have this uniqueness that we think that we don't we wonder why is it that some people make it and some people don't? You can see some people, a lady or gentleman walking in through the doors and you can see that there is something in their eyes. And you wonder what is it that, what is this phenomena that some people make it and some people don't? You know the only thing we have to have to make this program is if we are in a point where we say please God help me. If we are afraid about about the God business. If we are just in the spot where we say, please help me. That's all that's necessary to make this program. But if we for any reason should have the arrogance to say that I'm going to prove to them that I can make it on my own, we seem to have to be able to hurt some children. Why is it so necessary that we should do it alone when we do it so well together? and that's what this thing is all about. You know, my wife wasn't that impressed with my sobriety in the beginning. One day she stood up and looked at me and she said, before you had a booze as a crutch, now you have those goddamn meetings. She said, are you that kind of a weakling that you can't stand on your own two feet? And I said, yes, I am that kindofa weakling. And she said where are you going? I said I'm going to a meeting because I don't want to get drunk anymore. and that's the first time it dawned on her that this time I was not on a wagon something had happened to me and then she joined the program of Al-Anon and has been a fabulous lover forever since you see we are strong when we can admit weakness that's our strength and survival here we don't have to prove nothing anymore because this is bigger than all of us that's why we have the ABCs in the big book it says God could and would if he was sought. It's a fabulous thing. Long ago now, she said, it wasn't always your fault. Long ago know, she says, John, this life we live today is really just the most fabulous adventure. And it was so tragic and so hopeless and it has completely turned around. There's even a degree of innocence between us today and that's almost impossible to conceive that something like that could happen to a couple of people or so much had gone in between and that has come to pass because she is just as busy in Al-Anon as I am in AA and we have seen so many people over the years who have turned around and started to be good to one another so it hasn't all been in vain it has come for some use and some purpose and our lives are full of meaning and depth today it's just incredible I like to touch on two things, and then I'm going to try to finish off here. The inventory. Many people have a problem with the inventory. I'll help you a little bit. It is the number one stumbling block we have, this thing. They have a long form and a short form. There are no shortcuts to this. We've got to take it. And I'll give you a little help. First write down the four things you have decided not to tell anybody even under severe torture. I'll save you 62 pages of writing. You've got to get there sooner or later. The most thing that makes us to go back to drinking again is resentments. We have to get rid of the resentments, and I'll share a little bit about that. You know, I had some resentment against my wife and my younger brother, but they were easy to forgive because I loved them both. But my older brother was my problem. He was the one that created my inferiority complex. He beat me to absolutely nothingness when I was young. he was 12 years old, he was six feet tall and he was fat. He was obese and he was a brute. He used to beat me up that I really was silly. Sometimes I pretended that I had fainted when I actually hadn't so he would leave me alone. And I felt that I wasn't much of a man, that I didn't stand up and swing as long as I could. He just beat me spiritually. When we were 13 years old he drowned me in the ocean outside. I was 15 feet depth, and he grabbed me by the hair and held me under, and it's a terrifying thing to drown when you inhale water so long that you can't move your limbs. And I even heard my father's voice talking to me from the other side. When I came to again, he had dragged me up and put me on the sun deck up there. I just lay down and thought, why does he hate me so much I just want him to tolerate me you know I couldn't figure it out at all and then you know I mean he has married my girlfriend just to get to me really and here I have a resentment against him when they tell me I have to forgive him and I said they gotta be kidding I mean how can I forgive this son of a bitch am I supposed to be some sort of a second class citizen and yes, because I've joined this AA. You know, I prayed, didn't do nothing. Somebody said, try to understand your resentment. Then I turned around. I tried to figure out why did he resent me so much? And that's not a ball game when we get out of the way. And I realized what it was. course, my father favored me. Our Father favored me." He was obese and an introvert, and my father is—I was very little, and I was absolutely adorable, believe it or not! But he just hugged me and loved me all the time. It was just like I saw a film. My brother was always standing the side watching the show and I realized that he needed more love than I did. I have always been outgoing, lots of people have always liked me you know, and I thought I was always in the way. He is such a serious introvert person and then I got this most overwhelming compassion for him and I realised that this guy had lived his entire life for one reason only to get the approval from my father and couldn't get it. You should have seen him, how fat he was. When he came into high school, he took gymnastics seven days a week. He became one of the finest athletes in Sweden. He had scholarships to universities. He graduated with an A in everything. He became an officer on a gentleman because our father said every fine family should have an officer. And I realized that all his life he has lived just to get the approval from the old man, and he can't get it because he died in 1930. And here I sat down and I wondered how can I make amends to him, to tell him how beautiful he is? At this time in my life I hadn't heard from him for 15 years. And the next day, I got a letter from him. I haven't heard form him for fifteen years. You can call that a coincidence, if you want to. And they wrote everything what he had achieved and done. And he was living in this castle in Stockholm just like my father grew up. He was in charge of the Semper rubber factory in Scandinavia that made 150 grand a year, and he had all these things in sports and so on that he had achieved, and how he carried the Swedish flag and all that thing. And he was quite a guy. I just wrote this short little note to him, and I said, Dear Barthel, if our Father would have been alive today, he would have taken you in his arms and said, You have succeeded beyond my greatest expectations, your loving brother John. And I haven't had a resentment since. But you know what the payoff was with this? I lost my inferiority complex. Isn't that something? I became a total man for the first time in my life. And you know, you hear that after a time in this program we read some spiritual plateaus. Personally, I don't like plateaus A lot of people fall off these plateaus you know and I don't think any of us enjoy to be preached to or talked down to or lectured to but I love the format of Alcoholics Anonymous we share our experiences and our experiences only and that can't offend too many you know and the only thing that happens with little longevity here is that we get a little more of understanding of other human beings and that's beautiful I better not go overtime it drives these old timers crazy you know I have a friend in Glendale his name is Bob Lemkin he's a full-blooded German and I had a little problem with the Germans during the war really hated them with a passion I thought I could never forgive them but I knew this guy for four years and I realized I loved him he even talks funny. You know, he was actually born in this country, but he has more of an accent than I have. I can't figure it out. He must practice every night or something. Every his birthday for many years now, he has invited me to Glendale to talk. Mind you, he invites me. But he's one of these old-timers that, you know, you can't save any souls after ten, buddy." You know that type. It was 10 o'clock and I had a minute and a half to wrap up my story. And he sits back down and he says, John, for God's sake, it's 10! I said, Lemke, this is only an AA meeting. We ain't marching into Poland tonight. I share with you a fabulous story about our fellowship, and what we mean to one another, America that goes on here. There was a guy named Bill Schellenberger, he was a German. He couldn't get sober. Nine years he was drunk in and out of Anaheim. After nine years of this, he got one year sobriety, and we became the best of friends. He was a framing contractor in building, and I am a subcontractor too. And he's six foot two, and he really looks like a German god if there is such a thing. But anyhow, I'll tell you about the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous with its description. He had a job down in Mission Vieille reframing about 110 houses for a developer called Alva Wilson, a real gentleman. He was in his late sixties at the time, beautiful man. And I was doing my thing down. I was down to inspect what my guys were doing that morning and Bill Schellenberger was standing on the second floor nailing on the roof after us, you know. He had just a pair of shorts on, construction boots and that belt with the big hammer on his 30-foot tape, and hammering away up on the second floor. As he's standing up there, Mr. Wilson about seven or eight out of precedence, vice-president of the bank and everything came down to cul-de-sac to look this thing over. It was quite an entourage. And just then Bill sees me and he said, Joe! And he jumped down from the second floor right down in the dust, you know, that goddamn thing is smoking and flying around here. And then he threw himself around me and kissed me twice. You know, I mean, here's this big German guy, you know, and just, you know. And Mr. Wilson was standing there looking at us, you know. And he said, what is it with you guys? and Bill Schellenberger he said oh Mr. Wilson old John and I we went through Alcatraz together he said you know what he realized there was something special between us it was it was unbelievable I tell you it was the most beautiful transformation I've ever seen in my life because this gentleman this old gentleman and he had tears in his eyes and he said i don't know what it is between you but that's beautiful that's what you and i got between us there is nothing like it there is nothing like we can be who we are and what we are exactly exposed and in spite of it they love us. You know when I was a young man, I had dreams, intentions, anticipations. I was very sensitive. I'm 62 years old and I'd like to tell you something, I have intentions, I have anticipations, I'm have dreams and I'm just as vulnerable as I ever was in my life. And I thank God for that. That what we are well when we live our lives. I wouldn't miss it from nothing to be the way we are. And I tell you, we wonder sometimes, what is this emotional immaturity they talk about alcoholism is? I'll tell you what it is. You know, Alan McInnes, I love that man, he helped me a lot. And he had a pamphlet out in Members Ivy and Alcoholics Anonymous. and i went through his workshop you know but he said is and this is how it is with his emotional immaturity at the height of his success as a screenwriter at the heart of his life height of your success in his profession he was convinced that one morning open up LA Times would say, they found out about McInnes. Our emotional immaturity is simply this, you and I we cannot live with secrets. We cannot live with secrets, that's the emotional immaturity. And we wonder sometimes what is the formula for a change of attitude has nothing to do with what we read, how we philosophize along, we meditate in the morning and so on and so forth. Has nothing to do with it. Two things bother all of us. It's either what we do or what we don't do. It's incredible. If it is something that we do that bothers us, we have to stop it. If it is something that we don't do, they call it procrastination and we have to attend to it right away. Otherwise, we're going to magnify that other point. You see, this is a program of action, of doing things. You know my... I tell you, some people say, I've gone to five or more meetings a week for all these years. And many say that, oh, you are an AA fanatic. Maybe I am. It doesn't matter to me. I don't have to defend that. But I tell you, I live more normal than most normal people do. And I'm aware of it. My two oldest girls were 13 and 10 when I came in. 13 and ten. I was 41 years old. I played tennis with them twice a week all these years until they grew up and moved out. you know my two youngest people my two young Katrina and John they were eight and six Katrina was eight just like I was when my dad died you know it's incredible they can't even remember me drunk or drinking Katrina had the same emotions as I had she felt not enough and she didn't do well enough and so on and so forth and I'd like to tell you something she has been in Al-Anon for seven years and she's an absolute sheer delight she's a free beautiful human being and we love each other immensely and she was absolutely as a teenager she was the most hostile girl I tell you pride was nothing that I could afford luxury of when she talked to me but I loved her in spite of it know. I had never been able, I never had to give them any ultimatums that involved rejection. I have always left the door open. Love with no conditions is what's going on in Alcoholics Anonymous. My son, he was hooked on pot and drugs for four years. He sat on that hill in Laguna and got stoned every night. He has been five and a half years clean now, and he's beautiful. i have experienced everything with those two kids that i wish my father could have experienced with me and it is just like he has been here on this trip there's no empty places in here anymore it's uh there is a sense of communication you know spiritually you know it's just like if i think this, he senses it. I tell you that my kids, those two, many times made decisions and acted and reacted like I had never been around. Strange, isn't it? I was there all the time, and I'm a father, I'm responsible person, I did everything with them. You know, they have had me all this time but that's how their self-will and their thing was. I didn't have my dad since I was eight years old. Every time I made a decision in my life, it was just like he stood right next to me. You know, I wanted to tell you that little story because many of us here we think that our kids get screwed up because our things which we did. That isn't necessarily so. They have their own self-will, you know, and everything else like that. And we're all God's kids, let's face it. Every night before dinner or before I go to my meetings, I go down to the beach in Laguna where I live and swim for half an hour. That's the time of the day when I'm alone. That is the time when I look over my life and my priorities. That s the time of the year when I have the most intimate privacy. You and I recall at the tenth and eleventh step. And I cannot but recognize the miracle of this program of ours that we can live without alcohol. That's really the miracle of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And then when we put down no conditions in our sobriety, and when we have no reservations about the 12 steps and the 12 traditions that's laid out as a way of life for us, when we start to practice these principles in all of our affairs, what happens to us then is simply this, that we men and women can live out there in that world where the conflicts are, where we used to get in trouble and we will fit in out there and we would be part of it. We can really be like God's kids like we were intended to be in the first place. Think about that. Any other therapy pertaining to the serious illness of ours, people are confined behind doors and walls and locks and bars. It's not in jail we have a problem with booze. It's no longer in prison or in institutions and the care units because we cannot remain in there forever. Eventually we have to go out in the mainstream of life and living and that's what this program is all about. And when we start to live and lead life where we don't have to justify our own actions we can really take these strong feelings and emotions we have within ourselves and turn them all into positive and I know for a fact there's a lot more good things out there than are bad and if that ain't a payoff I don't know what is. If I have said nothing this morning that you can identify with just go to another meeting tonight. But if you will believe this and take this with you when you leave this beautiful point today, and if you are a little bit like I was when I first came in. I woke up with two things every morning. It was loneliness and fear. If you would just believe this, that we only wish you well and we only want good things for you. If you can just believe that and take that with you, you will never wake up lonely anymore because you know by now there's a way to live and to go God bless you and thank you.