Paul M. at the 8th Tri-State conv – 1968

Okay, Frank, this is Paul Lovgren again, over in Louisville. Following is a talk given by Paul M. of Washington State on Saturday morning, 9 o'clock, November 2, 1968. This recording, as well as all the copies, were made by Paul Lofgren of Louisville, Kentucky. Hello. I had experience in Chicago for two years as a social worker. I knew Skid Row vicariously, but I saw it almost daily. And our speaker this morning has known Skid Rows in America, the Bowery in New York, Madison Street in Chicago, and Miami Beach, Florida. But he is here as further evidence of the wonderful therapeutic value of alcoholics in our midst. Without more ado, I'd like to introduce to you my friend Paul M. Paul? Thank you. My name is Paul M., and I'm an alcoholic. If you hear anything rattling back there, it's not the change in my pocket, it just my knees. I don't ever talk in front of a group of people like this, but I have learned that if I'm asked to do anything in AA, to do my best, and that's what I'll try to do. I feel like there was one time I let my mouth overload my you-know-what when I said yes. A fellow asked me if I had a speech and some notes made for a speech. I'm no speech maker. I've got a story, and I'm stuck with it. I am an alcoholic, and I started drinking at a very early age. I was born in this state of Kentucky. Was raised around Covington, Newport, Kentucky. And like I say, I remember during the homebrew days when we were kids, we used to run up through the alleys and steal the homebrewer off the people's back porch and off their window boxes. And of course in those days I was acquainted with a lot of moonshine makers. In fact, I had a few of them in my family. In a very early age, I started not only drinking the moonshine, I was hauling it out of the mountains of Kentucky into the bigger cities. It seemed like I got in trouble from the first time I drank. Some people say that they talk about Gallop and TB. be. Well, my disease was like riding a racehorse. It wasn't galloping. I was arrested for drunk the first time I ever drank. And as I drank, it seemed like my trouble advanced from petty things to bigger things. Of course, through drinking and the association of people, I was introduced to a lot of lawbreakers, I guess you'd call them, which they were. And from jail houses for a drunk, of course, I wound up in penal institutions. They call them in appellate institutions. I call them penitentiaries. My first day in a penitentiary was in the state of Kentucky, and I was introduced to AA there by what they call short timers. As my time got short, the deputy warden called me up and told me that he could see through my record that a lot of my troubles stem from drinking, and he thought it would be a good idea if I attended AA. But the only reason I went to AA there was to get out of cell block at night and go up and see what the people from the free world looked like, and probably bum some cigarettes or get a piece of cake and a cup of coffee. And I thought it might help me on my parole. And maybe it did have something to do with it because I didn't make parole, but I got drunk on the way home, reported to my parole officer drunk and was back before they had a chance to wash my clothes. Of course, there was... I even got drunk in there. They had some panels which was covered over with gray paint, but we found out how to take them set screws out and we stuck it, set up these wide-mouth jars of raisins and dough and yeast that we would have connections from the kitchens. And the guys that wanted to be cut in on the jug, they brought the raisins while he was in. The guy brought the yeast, he was then. And back in these steam pipes, they worked off pretty good. I was caught in there for making moonshine, I guess you'd call it. Deputy Warden called me up front and wanted to know what I knew about them four jugs, and I told him I didn't know nothing, and them raisins was jumping in there then. But, like I say, I'd built up a lot of hatred for the law and for everybody. And I'd heard about the bar in New York where he wasn't picked up as frequently and he wasn'T bothered by nobody. And I didn't want to be bothered by anybody. at one thing I wasn't allowed back in my hometown. So I proceeded to New York and to the barrio. And I learned a lot in the barriero. I learned how to become a better thief, a better liar, a better panhandler. I learned all the places to sell your blood. I learned all the places to go to to get sad for your wine sores. I learned all the warm places to sleep at night, the hallways where you wouldn't be filled out of. And I learned all the hell of being jostled with thousands of people and not knowing nobody, nobody speaking to you. So I learned quite a bit in the barrio. It seemed like that a man has to take an awful beating or sometimes he can get his eyes open. And it seems like people talk about this high-bottom drinking, low-bOTTOM drinking. Of course, I have a lot of respect for the people that's had money, the wealthy people that continue to drink and go to hospitals and ease off of it and such as that. I believe if I had money, I would never have quit drinking. I don't believe it. I believe that we have a bottom cut out for us and I believe this is the way it should be. That's the one that I had to go which wasn't a very pretty one and I don' t tell these things with any braggarty. That' s just the way that it happened. Getting a little bit ahead of my story, I can't ever remember any trunks that got in trouble in my family. I've never seen my father drunk in my life. I have one sister that tips it pretty heavy, but she manages to go to work and gets by. I don't know whether you'd call her a social drinker or not. I never was a social drinker. I don't know nothing about social drinking. I drank to get drunk, and I drank everything that had alcohol in it, I guess. I don' t know of anything that I missed. I sure as hell ain' gong to go back and find out if I missed anything. But speaking about what I drank reminds me, I guess it's geographical or I don't know. Some people call it geographical. I just called it common sense. I know when I'd been pinched enough in one town to get the hell out of it. So I made the tombs in New York, Rickers Island, and I made three penises in New York City in 24 hours. We were drunk. And I had a payoff slip from a ship. I had Siemens papers, and I had a payoff slip from a ship. And I always showed that judge where I was going to go catch another ship, and he turned me loose. But I know that I've had enough around there between New York and over in Newark, New Jersey. I made that Caldwell Penitentiary over there. That judge over there, I can't remember his name. I don't want to remember his nickname because I didn't like him. But the first time I was in front of He gave me ten days, and he told me if I come back, the sentence would increase. And he kept his word. He gave Me 10 days and 20 days and 30 days and 60 days, and I just tried him out, and He finally gave Me a year to come. But I beat that rap. You know, that's pretty smart. I had a sister over in Plainfield, New Jersey that was pretty well to do, I guess. But I got a hold of her and she came over and seen the judge and I copped out for that Skillman's Institute Hospital up there in New Jersey. I didn't have no intentions of going to it when I told them that. But my sister came over and talked to the judge, and they didn't have room for me at that Skillman's Institute when I made this deal. But I had to be in my sister's custody, and they would call her when they had room for Me. So they released me in her custody, See, and they, we stopped in Newark and she bought me some clean clothes. I guess she was scared she'd get loused up because she rode too fast. But she, we went up to her house and she made me take a shower out in the garage and pull the clothes I had on and shake them. And I managed to shake it out there And they had their bar there, and I didn't get drunk, but I kind of relieved the tension a little bit, you know. Yeah, trying to go along with this deal until I could make a break. In a couple days past nine, she sent me down a playing field. She touched me with her car. she sent me down to Plainfield to pay a phone bill and pick up some groceries and I parked the car and caught that 50 cent train back to New York and I never did go to the Skillman Institute but I did get away from there I went to Florida and they got a skid row in Florida and of course they got jailed houses and workhouses and I made all of them there was a little fellow there that was sleeping with me over in the weeds. We had a pretty good spot over there in the weeds, and we had some big boxes and a bunch of stuff, and it wasn't too far off the main drag where we could do some pretty good stemming. So we, Shorty Ames, he's dead now. He was from Orson, D.C., like I say, but he got, I never did figure out where he got this money. I think it was some kind of a pension or something, I don't know, but I always hung close to him because I knew he'd get that money every month. He kind of liked me too. But shorty scored for a room $7 a week at 17th and Flagler, Miami, up over the Bamboo bar. And of course we had what, on Skid Row we got what you call a tail if you got a jug while you generally got a tail behind you, two or three following you. So we had a tail with us and Jack Danewood and a couple more guys. So there was one Sunday morning we was up in this room and we didn't have nothing to drink and Shorty said he'd make a run and we made a Chicago circle and pooled what pennies we had and Shorty went to make the run and he come back with some damn stuff. It's not aqua velvet, it's aqualata and it's made in Puerto Rico and it is green and it has 72% alcohol. So there was a couple there that couldn't drink it straight sissies. So we had to spend part of our money for the next jug to buy them a Pepsi-Cola so they could drink it. And they still couldn't drink it, but me and Shorty and Jack Dane Wood, we didn't see nothing wrong with it. It was hot as hell, but it didn't taste too bad. And so they used to say if you get up old Paul ahead of steam, boy, he can go out there on that panhandling. So I got up ahead of stream and I hit the streets and I was going for some more drugs. And there was them guys looking out the window at me, watching me, going up and down the street. And I was catching them on every side of the street, I wasn't letting none of them get by me. and there was a colored lady standing on the corner with a little baby in her arm and I told her didn't lie to her I told Her I was 13 cents short for a jug and I sure appreciate it we were sick and I held her baby while she dug me out to 13 cents but as the day went on we kept jugging and as night came sometime during the night I woke up and I was burning up inside and there was a community icebox out in the hall and I went out and got what ice is out and put it in a big crock and I'm letting that water run on me and drank a little bit of it too and Jack was laying crossways in the bed and Jack stirred a little and he wanted some water and I said, Shorty feels awful cold there and Jack reached over and he said, yeah, he's stiff and I reached and got a hold of his arm and shorty was dead. So it was just about daylight on a Monday morning then and there's a little old restaurant downstairs, one of them by the name of Effie was running. And we told her and she called the law. And you talk about insanity. Now this is where it's getting about this insanity part of the program which I should have mentioned. We, I think we had about a pint and a half of this aqua light up left. So before the law would come, at the end of the hall was a little window and I went out and set it out on the roof. But there was bottles on the bed and all over the floor there and the law coming and the coroner coming to take Paul Shorty away and the corner told us if we'd been drinking any of that to tell him and he'd take us over to the hospital and pump us because there'd been five or six guys found on the bridge and on skid row had drank that that week and then died. And we told them we'd only been drinking wine. But it must have been a bad shipment or something. We didn't know. Well, after they carried Shorty out, we went out and sat out on the roof in the sun there and drank this other pint and a half of Aqualida. And we got to crying about Shorty dying. And I told him, I said, you know, that damn law will come back here and get his belongings. And I said, I know if Shorty was living, he'd want us to have them. So we got a big cardboard box and carried Shorty's things off and went down and sold them and got some more acrylite. Now, you talk about insanity. How in the hell can anybody be any more crazy than that and carry a dead man out of bed with you in the morning? but I was told that I had to talk 50 minutes and I don't think I can do it but you know a lot of things run through a person's mind when they sober up I just wonder if if it was meant for me to go to this penal institution where I would have a little bit of this AAC was planted. Because it never got no better. It got worse. I can remember we had to tell so many lies and we went to extremes to obtain alcohol all. And I think we have to go to just as many extremes to make this program work for some of us. I know I do, because I was a pretty sick boy. And I find myself, I'm not completely well. You all bear with me. I get my story all screwed up because I'm still a little screwed up. I guess the alcohol does some damage, it'll never be repaired. But as I, like I was saying, we went to any extremes to get drunk. I got married too at a very early age and have two children. And of course I lost them through drinking, which there was a lot of hatred built up for that woman, but I don't hold no hatred toward her whatsoever. Of course, I was looking for everything for Paul and nothing for nobody else. I remember one time that I was living in Cincinnati. I was talking about lying and stealing and cheating. Somewhere or other I managed to get a new washing machine. I don't know how in the hell I'd done it, but I did. I probably got it on credit. I know I did it. But I'd run out of credit in this local bar and had bummed and dinged everybody I could that I couldn't get nothing. When I was sitting in there and a man gave me a couple glasses of wine he told me that was it. A fella come in and he asked this guy, he said, Mooney, you know where I can get a hold of a quarter-horse motor? He said, I don't want one from a shop. And I said, I know where you can get one. You know. And he said... I said how long will you be here? And he says, Oh, a few minutes. And I say, Well, you wait right here. I'll go get one." Well, this apartment house I was living in, they had these down in the basement, they had this different stall where you put your belongings. You know we hate to tell these things about ourselves. I got a bar and pulled that lock loose and a pair of pliers and a screwdriver and I had that motor off of there in about ten minutes. I was back down at the bar and sold it to the man for $8 or something, $7 or $8. That's pretty well going to extremes, but top of all, it made a liar out of me too, see, because when I went home there, My wife was washing, and she hollered up to me and said, This damn washing machine won't work. And I said, Well, what's wrong with it? It's a brand new one. It should work. So I went down and plugged it in and switched it on and looked at her, and I said somebody stole this motor off of this washing machine. Went up and told the landlord what kind of place I was living in and made him replace the motor. Oh. And showed him. I said you see where they broke in here? They pried that lock off of there. You know, like I said, we don't tell those things with braggarty. I know we don'T, but we have to be honest. And I'm hooked with those kind of things. That's the things that I had to do to drink, I guess. I did do them. I'm not proud of them. Not being egotistic, I'm a little proud of myself today. This program has done so much for me that I wouldn't know where to begin to count my blessings. and there's a lot of things that I haven't told that I wouldn't I don't think it's necessary to tell that things can a lot of times get twisted around people get the wrong conception of things and it might by me telling them it might cause some things that I wouldn't want to happen. I might wind up back in the penitentiary, you know. But I think that that I've been forgiven for a lot of those things. At least I believe that I have. Now, I never was a champagne drinker. The only champagne I ever drank was when I was working them spot jobs up in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles. I'd get a job washing dishes and some of these different conventions and hotels and stuff and I'd always manage to get on the glass machine and I had a the first thing I looked to I could always get a job washing dishes for a month and I could always manage to get on the glass machine because most of them agencies know me and I always come in and manage to pay them that dollar fee or dollar and a half fee whatever it costs for them to get me the job but I had me a jug a big mouth jug I've always got a jug but I had a big mouth jug, and as them glasses would come into that washing machine, anything but beer would pour in that jug. And I called it Johnny Gets You Ready. And boy, I'm telling you, you mix a bunch of that champagne up in that wine and different liquors, and it sure gets you ready. And I used to save up a couple of jugs of it and take one with me to the flop house. If I was working, I'd pay 50 cents for a flop. You always get a flop in the bar where you skid row for 50, 55 cents. And them guys around in the flop houses thought I was the business guy that's bringing this jug in to Johnny Gets You Ready. And an old boy in there, stayed in this flop house up in the bar with me. I changed the name for him. He drank it and he'd get like King Kong. When he drank it, I called it King Kong because he thought he was king. But I try to work the steps to the best of my ability, which sometimes it isn't too much. But I know I've got the steps to go by. And I try to, in the mornings when I get up, I honestly and truthfully see if there's somebody I can help instead for somebody I can take, because I was always taking somebody. For something, a little thing, maybe some little thing and maybe some big thing. I was Always Hoping for Some Big Thing. But I know today, without this AA program, there's no doubt in my mind that I would still be locked up in some penitentiary, some mental institution, staring at the walls, or either I'd be dead. I know that because there's no human being that could continue to go through the hell and the DTs and the convulsions and continue to live. I remember in Miami Beach, I don't know how I got from Fort Lauderdale. I must have rolled somebody because I got there in a taxi cab from Fort lauderdales to Miami beach but only had a pair of shorts on, no shoes. All I had on was a pair of shorts. And of course you know how long I lasted. But I either went into the DTs first or convulsions first. I don't know what, but I had both of them there in jail. and it was four days before I could go in front of the judge. They managed to find me a pair of pants there in jail and I had a little, I'd been acquainted with this judge before and he told me he either gave me ten days suspended sentence or a ten dollar fine suspended, I don't know what, but anyhow he suspended it. And when I left there, there was two people that I know in Miami Beach. It was NAA. A lot of people shunned away from them. There was two men beauty operators, but I know they're good for a handout, so I went down there and looked them up. But these guys got me cleaned up and they got me some clothes. And they tried to get me to eat something. And they'd taken me to a meeting that night at the Friendship Club on Flagler Street in Miami. I've seen people there that I had seen on Skid Row, and they were clean. And I figured if these people could make it, maybe I could make them. in some way, somehow I don't it's way beyond me how I've made this program well it is and it isn't I know that I couldn't have done it by myself there's no way in the world that I could have been here today without a higher power I know because I didn't have it in me believing I didn't have the mentality left to and when I say that I mean that for a fact because I would go pay for a flop maybe for two or three days and I couldn't find where I paid it at I mean, that sounds way out but it's the truth and I'd wind up done paid for a plop and I get some man and be back down on the bridge and in fact if I would have had my choice rather than to sleep in a bed or have my jug I would take the jug I mean if I only had enough money for one I wouldn't pay for no bed I'd buy the jug this program works people I'm telling you if there's anybody here that that's just here as a visitor that's got any doubts give it a try give it an honest try I mean an honest try not a not a something you're going to do for yourself honestly from your heart try and you can make this program and when you ask that man upstairs for help don't just let it be lip service don't Don't deal with him. Let it come from your heart, and you'll get help. Well, I'm sure if this thing worked for a person like me, it'll work for anybody. Thank you very much. Thank you.