100,000 Sober Washingtonians Went Extinct — They Got Too Busy Doing Other Things to Help Each Other — Tom F. and Clancy I.

For our first speaker for 15 minutes, we're going to have Tom come up. Tom Flynn from Baltimore, Maryland, and then he's going to introduce Clancy. So thank you very much. Man, I'd just like to have the right to take up the collection. I'm an alcoholic, you know. First things first, huh? I am not a problem drinker. I am an answer drinker. Life was a problem. Alcohol was an answer. That makes me an answer drinker. Alcohol has taken me to places that National Geographic's never seen. I didn't even have a ticket. I can go up in here and go anywhere. Don't need a passport. Don't need anything. Don't know whether I'm coming back. Don't care. Fewer and fewer other people cared, too. I had a wonderful time drinking. Boy, once in a while I hear a guy say, Oh, I picked up a drink and I was an instant alcoholic. I could cry. So sad. You know. I had a lot of fun drinking. He picked up a drink. He's an instant alcoholic. He missed a lot, you know. I think it's like getting pregnant without having sex. There's something wrong here. But I digress. I'm so wayward, they have to give me a topic. They won't let me pick one, you know, and that's okay. I can follow directions. I'm going to talk about sponsorship, that wonderful gift, sponsorship, that enriching gift for both the sponsor and the pigeons. I call them pigeons. I don't call them sponsees. I'm no lawyer. You know. I call them pigeons. I call them what they are. And I sponsor quite a few men. I have the same sponsor. I have a home group. My home group is the Harbor City Speaker's meeting in Baltimore. And my sponsor's been my sponsor since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous August 14, 1980. I have been outgrowing him. He's growing faster than me, so I don't think I'm going to catch him in the foreseeable future. He's 84. He looks like he's 55. And he moves like he's about 56. And last winter, he went to Central America to do some missionary work for his church and took his wife for 62 years with him. So he's a pretty steady fellow. He's been sober 43 years, and he's still happy about it. And my sponsor's one of those very uncool guys. He actually tells his face about it. He don't sit in the corner, you know, like the great Buddha or someone, you know. He sits there smiling. And you can see that he is sober. You can see his eyes. They're clear. They're shiny. And his eyes actually smile at you. See? That's how he is. I want to be like my sponsor. I wanted to be like him 26 years ago. And I still want to be like my sponsor. Even once in a while, he gets upset. Once in a while, he gets other pigeons he works with. Do you know, as long as I've been around, I still get a little jealous. You'd think you would get over that, wouldn't you? Well, I'm here to report to you I haven't gotten over it, okay? It just don't last as long, so that's all. What is the advantage of a sponsor? For me, I can only talk about my experience. You know, that's all I can do. The most repetitious thing my sponsor has ever told me is, you know, I'm not going to be a sponsor. My name is Mark. I'm not going to be a sponsor. I'm going to be a sponsor. I'm going to be a sponsor. I'm going to be a sponsor. What my sponsor told me is, I have feet of clay. He must have told that to me a thousand times. See? He tells me that he is mortal. He's like me. He has the same shortcomings and defects that I have. They just don't run him anymore. See? Not as much as they used to be. He's not a candidate for saint. Because then, he and I couldn't get along. You know? But he's a candidate for a good messenger. Why? good messenger man, and he and I get along there. I remember one time I did a meeting in Delaware, it was a Delaware State Convention some years ago, and you know how sponsors do, they say the craziest things at the craziest time. I got finished talking, he came up and patted me on the back, he said, Tom you did good, and I felt very, very puffed up, my sponsors saying how good I felt, you know. I was really going to, you know, the reincarnation of Demosthenes or something like that, you know. And then he asked me that stupid sponsor question, he said, you used to deliver newspapers in South Baltimore, didn't you Tom? Yeah, Wally, I used to do that. That's a good thing for you to remember tonight, you're the delivery boy, you're not the editor. So if I meet any of you guys on the street and I say to you, paper lady, you know what it's all about, you got that? Okay, that's what it's about, that's what sponsorship's about, is that joy of passing along a message, not only is there a solution, but there is a solution for you, now, now is the operative word. The solution is for you now, let's start now, you know. He don't say you're going to start, you know, I thought I was intellectual, I was mistaken, I've soon gotten over that. My sponsor says we're going to do the steps, he don't say you're going to do them, I thought I should join an in-depth study group and impress him how much I knew, but I can't impress him too much. I haven't impressed him in 26 years, I've tried, I've even lied and exaggerated some of my feats, you know. Now, my sponsor's never called me a liar, he suggested that I close the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, I closed the door, and he never really called me a liar. And sometimes, he would say to me, Tom, I listen to you speak, sometimes, and you know, I'd like to tell you I'm a much more accomplished liar than you, I lie better than you. So, whatever early honesty I developed, I developed by default, not by virtue, because my sponsor was listening. a better liar than me. It's serious. That's simple. Now, what he says. People can come to AA. A lot of people come. A lot of people don't recover. That's their business. I'm not critical of you. That's how you see it. That's okay with me. Let me tell you real quickly how it is. If you come to AA and you think drinking is your problem and you stop drinking, then the drinking is left. If the problem's still there after the drinking's left, you've got a problem other than drinking. It's still there. That's evidence of it. It's here. It's that simple. So you need something else that's going to take care of the problem that's left over. It's still there. And that's what the steps are. A program of recovery for not just stop drinking. See, you have to stop drinking. That really helps. Armed with that help, I cannot face the truth about myself because I am delusional. See, part of my illness is in my head. I am delusional. People will say, Oh, I'm in denial. I cannot be in denial. In order to be in denial, you must know the truth. I don't know the truth. truth. What I know isn't non-truth. And I believe it. That's delusional. To be in denial is to know the truth and say it is not so. That's denial. So I'm delusional. But I've got to take some actions or I'm going to get miserable. Now, how can I take actions if my mind, which is delusional, directs me? Right? We all have experience with that. I am going to get delusional directed results. It's very simple. You know, it's like two and two six. Yeah, that's right. Inflation's everywhere. Yeah, right. Right? Delusional. That's where I am. That's where a sponsor comes in. Their next speaker has taught me what this is. Right? Alcoholics and analysts, in essence, is one alcoholic talking with another alcoholic for the sole purpose of him taking some actions he does not yet believe in. I got that right, didn't I? It's true. Now, how can I take the actions with a delusional mind? I can't. Can I? Of course I can't. But my sponsor can. He can guide me. You see, you don't have to understand. You don't have to understand. You don't have to understand. You don't have to understand to do these steps. You can walk right next to a sponsor who already has the experience of doing the steps. You can avoid your delusional thinking from the very get-go if you follow your sponsor's direction. For you're not listening to your head, you're listening to an informed, experienced, sober head. And you will get those kind of results. It's that simple. And that's the importance of a sponsor. A good sponsor will always say whatever power he or she has comes from this higher power. Because a good sponsor will openly acknowledge that he or she, of and by themselves, weren't able to pull this thing off. They couldn't get themselves sober. So where the heck did they come off saying they can get you sober of and by themselves? So they will refer you to a higher power of your choice. Your understanding. It may be him or her for a while. That's okay though. They'll let you play a little puppy dog for a while. You like that. Okay. They'll pat you. But they'll lower the truth on you. And the truth is, what a good sponsor does, he takes my fearful, trembling hand, full of guilt, shame, and steadies that shaking hand and watches me. Put that hand into the hand of a loving God. That's what a good sponsor does. And he stands in the background now as my friend. And lets me focus my attention on God, not him or her. He makes that transfer gracefully. That's what a good sponsor can do. So you can avoid all the pain of early recovery with a good sponsor by following directions. Doing the steps. You say, oh, Wally, I can't do the steps. Why is that, Tom? Well, they said I'm still fogged up. Well, we can do them twice. Once we'll do them, just lift the fog, and then we'll do them unfogged. What do you do with a sponsor like that? You do what I did when you're desperate. Okay, Wally. There's the most spiritual words I've ever, I can say the Lord's prayer. I can say everything, right? I spent four years of my life doing the steps. I can do the steps. I can do the steps. I can do the steps. I understand you'd be a priest. Okay, I can say all that stuff. Yeah. We're all preach. We're all searchers. Most spiritual words I've ever said. Get in the car, Tom. Okay, Wally. It's a willingness to follow the directions of another human being. That's what surrender is. Ain't got a damn thing to do with Pearl Harbor. Sure it is. Sure it is. That's what a sponsor can do. Ever since then, my life, has has power unfailing power it has a real clear direction and i have a purpose that makes me feel downright upright thank you very much uh some of the things i said you may not agree with i got them from our next speaker clancy my name is clancy emmislon i'm an alcoholic want to welcome you all here all you folks up in the half measures balcony i i am glad to be here at this anniversary i've been at the anniversary of this group i guess every year since it was founded and it's something i look forward to and i'm glad to see it continues to flourish it's a mark of a good group continues to flourish and grow and bad groups eventually dwindle and die and so i'm glad to be here i uh had kind of a bumpy trip in on the airplane today and the wind was blowing here and they wouldn't take off because they couldn't land it was just a rotten trip but then i had to think this is not really a rotten trip i'll tell you a rotten trip i think i mentioned this once before but some years ago i was speaking in reykjavik iceland that's a long ways away from los angeles i'll tell you and on the way home on sunday night you you take have to take air iceland to minneapolis which is like traveling in a box car and so i was sitting in minneapolis at about four hours to wait before the united airlines plane left at night nobody's going home i sit in the wire room and i was tired and had to go to the bathroom so i went to the bathroom a cute little bathroom two little stalls with um doors and a little sink just so cute i was sitting in one of these stalls just thank you and a voice from the next although said hi there i thought it must be some mistake i didn't say anything the boy said what are you doing tonight and i better get this quashed right now i said i'm going back toすarks for life and say yeah hey do we go back here tomorrow 7th of july certainly that's looking good but actually hearing the electric� this little bathroom tour you got an שנ and getting an煙 job that little bar 굉장히 good day for you ложd I said, I'm going back to Los Angeles to my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. But thank you very much for asking. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. There was a long pause, and the voice said, we could really have some fun tonight if you wanted to. And I was tired, and I overreacted. I said, look, I don't know what your problem is, pal, but I'm not in here to listen to your crap. Just sit here and do what you're supposed to do. I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do, and forget it. There was a long pause, and the voice said, I'll have to call you back. This jerk in the next stall won't shut up. That's what we call a bad trip. I know there's a lot of new people here tonight. I was talking to a few of them. A guy two days over and some other people before the meeting. And there's something, I think, that might help you understand a little bit what Tom was talking about, what I'm going to talk about, what you hear at AA. Something you don't ever hear discussed at meetings. But there are types of alcoholics. We don't talk about it, but there seem to be types of alcoholics. There's a type of alcoholic, by any way you measure them, they drink and get in trouble and can't stop, and something happens that really threatens their security. They may lose a job, or they may lose a family, or somebody dies, and they quit, and they never drink again. And we don't know if people like that. There's some in my family. And the same type of alcoholic, if they have become addicted to alcohol, you don't hear that much, you just hear of drug addiction. But physical addiction to alcohol is much more lethal than drug addiction. When drug addicts withdraw, they get very sick. When physically addicted alcoholics withdraw, they sometimes die. They smash their head into the sidewalk and have all terrible things happening, their heart goes. But these are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created, to medically withdraw people off the addiction to alcohol. Each step of the way, they show them the nature of their problem, what's been going on, what's wrong, and they quit. And they never drink again. Up in Seattle, there's a big hospital called Schick Shadel. And they advertise, Alcoholics, we will cure your alcoholism in a month with two follow-up treatments. And we think, this is not ridiculous, but they have a long list of names, just many, many names for people who've done that. That's the type of alcoholic. Then there's another type of alcoholic, which seems to be a type of alcoholic. It's a, they drink and they get in trouble and they can't quit. And something happens that really threatens their security. Maybe they lose a job or lose a family or somebody dies. And they quit. But they always eventually drink again. And these same type of people come out of treatment centers with tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks. And they quit. But they quit. But they quit. But they always eventually drink again. And these are the type of people that have baffled humanity for 4,000 years in written history. Everyone's tried to help them. They can't be helped. Years, thousands of years ago, they thought they were possessed by devils. They'd put them to death. They'd flog them and send them away. There's never been an answer. Over the years, science tries to help them. Religion tries to help them. Medicine tries to help them. Everybody tries to help them. And I suppose most of us will never. What we are most familiar with, I would think, is, at least I am, I'm sure some of you are, of seeing that look in the face of someone who loves you. That terrible look of disappointment. That says, oh, how could you? You were doing better and you were doing so good. And the children were doing better. And now, look, you're drunk again. How could you? How could you do that? And the only answer I know to that is, leave me alone. Because I don't know the answer either. Just leave me alone. And it goes on and on. There's never been an answer. Just stop and think if you're kind of new tonight. In these 4,000 years of recorded history of this type of alcoholism, there's been two periods where there's been any group of such people staying sober. One was an organization called the Washingtonians, from 1840 to eight, for the next few years. They had what they estimated after five years, they had 100,000 sober drunkards, which is pretty impressive. What do you think? AA only had maybe 1,000 after five years. I mean, they just took the nation by storm. And the other place, of course, is Alcoholics Anonymous, which you're sitting in, which has been here, started very slowly in 1930s, but has picked up speed over the years. The Washingtonians, in 1845, did something that makes sense, because you hear it in meetings today. Gosh, if we're able to help drinkers, we should be able to help many types of people. It's all one big disease. We should help narcotics addicts who are not alcoholics. We should help, perhaps, gamblers and overeaters, people with emotional problems. Some of them got involved in politics. Many of them got involved in the temperance movement. They all stamp out the sale of alcohol. Some of them got involved in allowing alcohol. Some of them got involved in allowing Texas into the Union. Some of them got into slavery, anti-slavery work. They all got very busy. And by 1848, they were extinct. Very few exceptions. They all died drunk. 100,000 of them. I had a book home written by one of the few survivors in 1861. He said, I don't know what happened. We were doing so well. Then we all had so many things to do. We just didn't seem to have time to get together to help one another anymore. That's a small thing. And they were extinct. I'll tell you how extinct they were. As I said, Alcoholics Anonymous was formed in 1935. By 1939, they had written this book, which wasn't designed actually to help alcoholics as much as it was to get money to build hospitals to help alcoholics. Thank God it didn't sell so we couldn't build the hospitals. And in the end of 1940, AA was fairly well known. But the Saturday Morning Post had a record. It had a writer who specialized in uncovering corruption. He had just finished a scathing article about the Philadelphia labor unions on the docks. His next assignment, get the dope on those Alcoholics Anonymous fellas. And he wormed his way in and, much to his surprise, found just what they said it was. People doing it for fun and for free, as the saying goes, helping one another, getting up at night. They help one another. Doing all sorts of things. And he wrote a very remarkable article about it in the Saturday Morning Post on March 19th, the anniversary of it, from 1941. So I don't know how many years ago that is, a long time. And it took the country by storm because all over the country, people knew these type of alcoholics that couldn't stay sober. And here's somebody writing about somebody that takes these people and makes them sober. And they flooded New York with letters, oh my God, my husband's this way, my wife's this way. And all over the country, A started, just boom. And by 1942, there were thousands of groups in the United States of people. And by 1943, the novelty was starting to wear off. The groups were dying off. By 1944, they were dying off further. Bill Wilson said he sat at his desk every day, seeing the letter, our group died, take us off your mailing list. Our group got fighting about something. Our group got killed. Our group got into a beef about money matters. Our group got into, we don't understand why you have to remain anonymous. On and on. By 1945, he didn't know what to do. AA was dying. And a guy in North, he started the thing called the grapevine, I thought that'd help. It's a tabloid, it's not a small thing, but then it was a tabloid. He thought maybe that'd make, pull people together, it didn't. In 1945, a doctor in North Carolina wrote him a letter and said, Bill, I'm sending an article for you. That maybe we might run the grapevine, because it's really kind of appropriate. And it was an article on the Washingtonians, that group that had been there a hundred years. Bill had never heard of them. That's how extinct they were. And he read all about them and what happened to them and why it happened. And he looked at the letters he was reading, the same things, the same fights, the same arguments, the same problems, the same lack of attention. And in a desperate attempt to save Alcoholics Anonymous before it died, he sat down and wrote the Twelve Traditions, which are based on the experience of the Washingtonians as much as the AA. And a lot of people, we don't even pay much attention to them, they're just something that come out in a book. Thousands of alcoholics died for those, before those traditions were introduced. The irony is, of course, that he introduced them one by one in the grapevine, in the long form. If you have a book, look in the back, across from the short form that we read sometimes meetings, is the long form, which explains what they're about. The long form. In my group in Los Angeles, we read the long form once a month, because we want the newcomers to know what's going on. But he introduced them one by one in the grapevine. And Alcoholics Anonymous had the same problem then as we have now. It's a difficult problem. It's full of alcoholics. And people all said, we don't have any rules! We're not here for rules! We're here to find love! A lot of people wouldn't accept them. Some people did, but a lot of people didn't. Groups kept dying. But some groups hung in there. And Bill would ride around all over the East Coast in his motorcycle, with his wife in the sidecar, going to meetings to explain, these are not rules. These are trying to save AA. And even then, in the letters in New York, in the archives, a couple of letters say things like this. Dear Bill, we would very much appreciate to have you come and speak at the anniversary of our group. But only if you promise not to talk about their traditions. If you're that so, don't come. I mean, that was really brutal. I mean, that was really brutal. So Bill and Dr. Bob, Dr. Bob was the co-founder of AA, in a sense. He lived out in Akron, Ohio. And Bill lived in New York. And Bill and Dr. Bob always got along very well. Their followers didn't. Because the people in Akron, Nick had come out of the Oxford group, and they were a little more attuned to the Oxford group and the four absolutes. In New York, they're involved in actions and so on. And so Bill and Dr. Bob, if we could just get all these various people together once, and see, we're all on the same page. They don't accept us. They don't accept the traditions. So they told their followers, find a place to meet. The people in Akron said, well, I'll go to a meeting, but we're not going to go to New York. And the people in New York, not to be outdone in spirituality, said, OK, we'll go to a meeting. We won't go to Akron. So Bill and Dr. Bob got together and they came up with a solemn and likely decision. Cleveland. That's not working. That's not working. All right. So on July 4th, the weekend of 1950, the first major group of sober alcoholics of our type in the world sat in that room. And there were people from all over. I have the tapes over at that convention. Very poor quality now, but, I mean, how fascinating to listen to. Dr. Bob, the co-founder, Bill and Dr. Bob both spoke, of course. Bob was dying of cancer. He've been working vou Mexico for 10 years, he lives in Clint écalley, 100 miles away, from Poerth Enfin. You don't want to speak, Bob, because you're so sick. You go, oh, no, I'm God is sick. I'm 15 years sober. I'm the second oldest sobriety in the world. I'm not done yet. Let that be a warning to the next gunner. Well, that's why I'm hardly ever invited back, except once a year. But Dr. Bob that day, his son on one side and a friend on the other took this tall, dying man, and they want him, because he was the most, he was one of the great conveyors of the Alcoholics Anonymous spirit, better than Bill. And to the podium, he gave a short talk, which many people consider to be the Gettysburg Address of Alcoholics Anonymous. He started off very drab. He said, oh, I'm so glad to be here, and I hope you'll go back and tell all the boys and girls in your group that all of us are together and we'll get much out of what we put into it. And he said, as I look over this vast group, I'm glad that some small thing I did 15 years ago helped bring this about. And he said, I want to apologize for my health. It has been good. I've been sick the last few months. But then, he said, I feel I'd like to call your attention to two or three things. In the next two minutes, he specified what AA is, right down the halls of eternity. He said, first, let us remember to keep our program simple. Let's not louse it all up with Freudian complexes, which may be of interest to the scientific mind, but has nothing to do with our work here. Our work here, when reduced to the last, consists of love and service. And we all know what love is, and we all know what service is. And secondly, he said, let us guard that erring member, the tongue, and try to use it with kindness and understanding. And there isn't a person in this room or any room like it who doesn't know exactly what he's talking about. When things are going our way, we're just all wonderful. Love is the answer. I found a new God. But let somebody hurt our feelings or threaten us psychologically or do something that makes us angry. It doesn't take long. I believe that son of a bitch twists baby chickens' necks. Pass it on. And finally, he said, none of us would be here today, tonight, if someone hadn't taken the time to take us to a few meetings, to explain things to us, to give us a pat on the back when we needed it. Let us never reach that stage of smug complacency when we are too busy to help our fellow man who still suffers from this disease. That's all. Thank you. He sat down and was dead shortly thereafter. But that really synthesized it. But the thing that that whole thing was about, and the tapes that six young guys, each of them took two traditions and explained, these are not rules. These are not laws. There's no police department. We're doing this to save AA. And they did them well. And they introduced them. One guy made a big point of saying, is these are, we don't have AA police. We can't keep you out of the meetings. You know, through really some bad press in my area in Los Angeles, I've been called a dictator type sponsor. I've been called a person who does not share, but rather tells. Here's what you're doing today, smiley. You know? And that, it makes it sound pretty brutal, except that it's hard to realize that you can be a dictator type sponsor only as long as you've got the absolute approval of the dictatee. If all he ever has to say is screw you, and the dictatorship is over. And that's, where have you been? Why is your face flushed? But I, you can only be a dictator as long as the dictatee. That's why a lot of us old timers said it might've been a good idea to have AA police, you know, come at night and, did you say screw you to your sponsor? Come with us to the camp for a little retraining. But they put it in the traditions and that saved alcoholics down, and that's why we're here tonight. And we don't even pay much attention to it, but those, those traditions saved AA. And that's why we're, that's what it's all about. That's why it's rather important. That's why a group can last six years. The biggest group in New York for years was the, was the Midway Group. Met on Fifth Avenue, I spoke there in the 1960s, 70s too, big, enormous group. And they became the cutting edge of AA. And they realized, alcoholics, once upon a time, should be for alcoholics, but it should be for everybody now. So they began having a combined AA, and AA, and AA, and AA. So they began having a combined AA, and AA, and AA, and AA. And then they had all kinds of people with emotional problems participating. And little by little, they shrunk, and they've been dead for 20 years. Nobody's ever even heard of them anymore. And there's the biggest, one of the biggest groups in the United States. Because it turns out, the reason that traditions are important, a meeting where anything goes is eventually a meeting where nobody goes. It's almost as though people like us, we want meringue, but we need bread and butter. And you get bread and butter and the meat and potatoes at regular meetings. I very much enjoyed Tom's talk tonight on sponsorship. Because I am a strong believer in sponsorship. My life was, I owe my life to it. I was in and out of AA for years. I have an empathy for those people who cannot stay sober, who come here and can't stay sober. I admire the people who come here and get sober and stay sober. That's the way it should be. But there's some of us who are obstructionists. Obstructionists in our minds or something are just, I can't accept AA. You know, AA is nice, but I've got a lot of problems, a lot of situations, a lot of deals. As Tom said, alcohol makes it better. That's why I drink. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I drink because I've screwed around a lot when I'm sober. They say alcoholics can't stop. I can stop anytime. I've stopped hundreds of times. My problem is not that I can't stop. My problem is after I stop, in a day or two or three or four, one day somebody seems to sneak into my bedroom in the night, put an invisible spring in my gut, and the next day they start to tighten it. And it doesn't come out as I need booze. It comes out as a little growing restlessness, a little irritability, just a little tired of these constant sermons about what I did last month. Get off it. And little by little, when I get there, I'm like, oh, I'm going to die. I don't know what happens to me when I'm on the wagon. The technicolor in the world gradually turns to black and white. It's all there. And I've tried a lot of things. I spent thousands and thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis to get to the root of my problems. And I got to what I thought was the root of my problems. I had a great breakthrough. But I realized I still had the same feelings. I just knew why now. Because why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Is always the answer. When I was drinking heavily, the psychiatrist said, are you from an alcoholic family? Were you inappropriately touched as a child? I didn't understand how to explain it to him. The only alcoholic in my family is me. And the only person who inappropriately touched me was me. And knowing all the reasons why you are goofy doesn't help if you're still goofy you know what's the what's the purpose of it you made me late at night in a bar somewhere some big moose whoever says i'm gonna let you moth off all night what the hell's wrong with you and you can tell them i was repressed by the norwegian lutheran church and my parents were boom i uh alcohol if you're new i want to tell you something it may shock you alcohol is the best friend i ever had friends come and go lovers come and go jobs come and go cities come and go but when a few drinks is just resolving all of those conflicts i guess you know it's been said i know you folks can't drink in here but i can but you know it all seemed to me that for people like me maybe not of you but for me you can always spot an alcoholic just you can always spot an alcoholic just you can always spot an alcoholic just by when they take a drink the only thing that even comes close to it is when you're really old and you can go to the can and drinking is the best friend i ever had and i i learned to drink on a ship in the pacific ocean in world war ii when i was 15 years old as a little snot run away from home and i didn't become a terrible raging alcoholic it just it alcohols it helped me get through a lot of things at the end of the war as a navy and hospital in northern california they passed around some tests i was been good on tests and they gave me an honorary high school diploma from the armed forces institute because i'm still junior in high school i went back to wisconsin after the war and went to university won some trophies for the university went out in the world became a sports writer married this lovely girl black hair and black flashing eyes i was raised in the norwegian lutheran church very strict church i i heard people in a say things like i've been searching for god for 30 years i never searched for god i've been searching for god for 10 seconds i've known where god was since i was one year old he slowly circles the our savior's lutheran church in eau claire wisconsin and he gives it to sinners and he gives it to catholics and that's what that was so hurt me and when i fell in love with this girl she dropped the big one on me she said i'm a catholic i can't take her home she probably want to burn down our church but she had me we got married down off the world i became a sports writer newspaper sports writer my wife began manifesting the behavior patterns of catholics that i knew nothing of i'd been shared from them uh you know they talk about i know tom has been a study to be a priest and all a bunch of catholics in this area but you can imagine norweg northern wisconsin you don't know these things but in case by any chance there is a protestant in the room if you're loving a lovely catholic good catholic girl you're going to be a catholic girl you're going to be a catholic girl i'm going to tell you something's going to happen to you you are about to have a big family pal i didn't know that i became a national distributor of small catholics i remember saying to my wife can't we use birth control no i don't know what i'd have done if she had said yes it seems incredible at this time day and age but here i was i'd been overseas i'd been through a major university and i'd heard the word condom once in my lifetime in a navy training film where they showed this voluptuous girl with the big hooters and said watch out use a condom or you'll get venereal disease at that stage of my life i wouldn't care what i got but you know in that era you never heard anybody talk about what you hear kind of bad kids going to drugstores and maybe say a thing they wouldn't go to drugstores they're just so each other say i got a rubber and even they'd be ashamed to go in and buy them you know they'd have to hire someone depraved hey give me a package of cigarettes and some rubbers look how much progress we've made the last 55 years the drugstore by my house in los angeles kids with them can't be very kids but they must they look you kids they come in say things like hey give me a package of condoms and some cigarettes so all these all these years i drank alcohol smoked and drank and raised hell because under the guise of a world war ii veteran and the only problem i ever had with alcohol is that sometimes i drink a little too much or as my psychiatrist pointed out to me i have many times been thoughtlessly over served and when i drink too much i sometimes act bizarre they felt and so i was sent to my first aa meeting not since suggest i go 1949 long time ago most of you little snots weren't even born were you we love you that's something i must say there's a lot of young people in this group and i don't know if anybody ever tells you this but in my home group we have a lot of young people and if you're like the young people in our group i want to tell you something you are the future leaders of alcoholics anonymous i'll tell you something else if you're like the young people in our group i'm really glad i'm going to be dead anyway the uh... i went to an aa meeting and just a bunch of fat old guys sitting around a table eight guys i had to do with alcoholics we're alcoholics i remember going in there and the guy said what the hell are you supposed to be and what kind of reaction is that i realize now i was twenty two there wasn't anybody in that state under forty in aa in nineteen forty nine and a half years ago i was twenty two there wasn't anybody in that state under forty in aa in nineteen forty nine and a half years ago i was twenty two there wasn't anybody in that state under forty nine and a half years ago so that's like some little kid twelve coming in tonight saying i'm an alcoholic what do you have for me this but i tried to be as well as suggested i come here do you think you're an alcoholic no he said what the hell do you think is wrong with you i tried to be honest i think i'm too sensitive i never said that again for a long time i'll tell you but it didn't take me long to identify what what this was alcoholics are people whose problem is alcohol that doesn't take long to learn and they come to alcoholics anonymous they admit their problem is alcohol they return to god they help others and live happily ever after and that's very nice for them that's not me my problem was not alcohol I thought it was till i tried to stop drinking and i stopped drinking for a while life was flavorless like taking the salt out of my food feeling crappy my problem always has been i can stop drinking but a few days later that spring goes in my gut and then just nervous irritable and eventually i have a few drinks i don't drink that much A drinker? I don't explain that to people. I drink to restore the balance inside of me or something. And then sometimes I drink too much again. They say, see, your problem was alcohol, wasn't it? I say, yeah, I guess it was. But down deep I just want to shriek, no, it wasn't. You don't understand, nor does anybody else. There's something wrong with me, I don't know what the hell it is, but I sure wish I could get over it. And so I drank to A for a while, and then I left, and I went to a different city, went to work in a big corporation as a writer, and I got in trouble with my drinking, and they called me, and they said, you know, Emerson, you do a nice job writing, but we can't have you missing on Monday and coming in some day smelling like alcohol. And I was a young guy, and I thought, what should I do? And I had a great idea, just like a light bulb out of my head. This was in a city called Beloit, Wisconsin. I was working for Fairbanks-Morse. I said, Mr. Collins, you know, that's right. I think I may have. I have a drinking problem going back to the war. There's this new thing in town called Alcoholics Anonymous. Would you work with me while I went there in a couple weeks and got cured? He said, sure, absolutely, we'll have a good idea. So I go sit in these dreary, stupid meetings with these idiots talking. I stayed drunk around the clock 25 years, night and day. One day I walked through that door, and they told me to put the plug in the jug, and I did. And I've just never been so goddamn happy. And you could go home and say to your wife, well, dear, I've gone back to Alcoholics Anonymous. Wonderful, wonderful. What do they want you to do, honey? Well, they want me to taper off. And there wasn't any Al-Anon then to screw it up for everybody. Ever since the birth of Al-Anon, there's never been any, there's never been any, there's never been any, there's never been any rest for anybody, anywhere, anytime. No, they don't want you to taper off. You're supposed to stop completely. We know that. We have the same steps you do. What's wrong with you? I release you, you son of a bitch. But with the time that I had for Fairbanks-Morse to get cured, I had found another job. And I did that again and again. All my kids had been born in different states, were going to be different. And some years later, I finally went down in Dallas and lost it all. It was all gone. Family left, and they took away my company car. And I had cost them a big account, and they were very upset. And I had burned off a lot of people in a lot of towns. I couldn't, and I said, I've got to get out of Texas. I said, my friend and I, they're going to put me back in a state hospital because I got their probation out of that. And he said, drive my car to Los Angeles. I said, sure I will. And I hopped in the car. First night, I got to El Paso and had a wonderful time in Juarez. Got drunk with some old friends. The next day, I got to Phoenix and got drunk and lost the car. Never have found it. All my clothes, all my ID. That night, I got to beef on the street corner with a guy trying to be a cop, and he threw me in jail overnight. I still remember that night in the middle of the night. I was so sick and so hot and I got 110 up in that jail. And I threw up in what I thought was the toilet trying to be a guy's bunk. He wasn't in it. He just, that made me feel a little bit. I laid down next to it and put my feet on the cheek of the tile and this guy came back from where he was, a trusty, whatever he was, and found me his bed full of vomit. This guy laid next to me and said, you drunken fuck. And kicked my front teeth out. I don't know if he meant to do that, but that's what happened. That was one of the few mornings I was really glad I'd been in psychoanalysis. I was almost instantly able to identify his problem. I remember thinking, this son of a bitch is overreacting. But I didn't want to say anything and make trouble. And the next day, I got out of there sick and desperate. I'll tell you something, if you want to be a long-term slipper, I'm going to give you a great tip. You get to a point where you smell bad, you look bad, and you can't do anything about it. There's one place you can go. You can always go to an AA club. The worse you look, the better they like it. Oh, this one is mine, Fred. Ha, ha, ha. And I hustled some old lady for 20 bucks and got a bus fare to Los Angeles and got a hold of a guy who was a big star there and I'd given him a start. Years ago, when I was doing well, he gave me a bunch of money and I drank that up and had a good time and still looked terrible but I called him up again and he said, no, I've called Dallas. You haven't had a car accident. Like you said, you're a liar. You're drunk. Stay away from here. And I, a couple days later, two big guys threw me out of a Skid Row mission, if you can imagine that. I said, and stay out of here, you bum. 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. Abs that I wrote, the L.C. Elmer ads for the board company were running that very week in Life and Time and New Yorker, Saving Post. I've had my picture in the New York Times but it's hard to explain these things in midair. And I stood outside of that mission on a cold, rainy morning, sick, and I had a terrible feeling. I didn't know what the feeling was. I know what it is now because I've seen it with people that I've sponsored. You suddenly realize there's no friendly direction. There's nobody in any direction that wants to see you. There's no smiles anywhere. It's a terrible, lonely feeling when you're out of your own. And so I knew I had to get off the street. It was raining. I said to this guy, Jesus, pal, where's the A.A. Club? He said, well, it's out in Wilshire and Fairfax. I said, where the hell is that? He said, Wilshire doesn't come down this far. You have to go up this hill to Hill Street and then cut over to Wilshire and walk west until you come to Fairfax. I walked up the hill to Fairfax. Wilshire and I just walked and walked and never could, almost could never find Fairfax. Some years later, I counted my car. It was seven and a half miles. That's a long way to walk when you're sick and you're dreadful. Walking up the street, all these big fancy stores and Macy's and all these places and nice cars going by and pointing to this fool in the rain, sick, unshaven, dirty blood, covered with vomit. And I got to this A.A. Club and I thought, I got to hustle somebody. I'm going to die. I don't want to, but I got to do something. And I went in there and they go, glad to see you, son. You're home. Turn it over. All right. And I hung around there that night. They had a meeting and I ate about four pounds of cake because I could chew that. And they had a meeting on gratitude and I almost puked it up and went, ugh. And everybody went home and it was still raining and just the manager of the club and I were there. I said, I better put on some clothes. I better put on my newcomer look. I'm a newcomer and I have no place to stay. And it's a, I, training, so, you're in luck, kid. A guy named Joe Quinn left a 49 Merc in the parking lot last summer. You can sleep in that. It's not, doesn't run, but it's dry. You mean you want me to sleep in the abandoned car? Yeah, good deal, huh? Yeah, that's a good deal. And I still vaguely remember sleeping in that car and think, how could this be happening to me? I'm a bright, intelligent, talented person and I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. And I, next day I got up and there was a spiritual man and the manager said, you know, you're not supposed to be in the club during the day unless you got a membership but you're such a mess. You can come in here but you can't. Don't ask money for money. We don't allow that and you have to go to a meeting every night in the club. So I did that. I just, I remember the second night I was there, I was laying in that car and my mouth started bleeding again and you know, I thought, I thought, maybe I'm dead. Maybe I'm dead. Maybe this is what hell is. Maybe hell is not fire and brimstone. Maybe it's just being cold and sick and your mouth hurts and it bleeds and everywhere you go you hear people behind you ridiculing you and laughing at you and you can't do a thing about it. I thought, is this the way it's going to be for eternity? Gah. And I had no idea that it would be my sobriety date. Didn't want it to be. Had no desire. Sobriety to me is nothing to be gained. I stayed sober once when I was in jail overnight and that night my son died and I felt so bad that I stopped drinking and I stopped drinking for my dead son and finally got so bad that I committed suicide and they put me in a state insane asylum. That's what sobriety does for me. Now why would I be sober this time? Of all the times. You know, we talked about the traditions. The third tradition is the only requirement is a membership of desire to stop drinking. I have no desire to stop drinking. Drinking to me, stopping drinking to me is lethal. I got to find some way to drink without getting in trouble is what I got to find. Incidentally, if you've got that philosophy, you might try the first two, page and a half of chapter three. They talk about that as precisely and I read that several times. I've never identified with it until after I was sober a long time. People like you and I have, whether we know it or not, taken on the obsession that somehow, somewhere, we will control and enjoy our drinking. It says the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Now why would I stay sober? I'll tell you why. Because the meetings I had to go to, in a couple of those meetings, I saw an actor that I'd seen in the movies. An actor in the movies, a movie star. What does that tell you? That tells you he's rich. I thought, I bet he'd like to have a new friend. I offered my friend, but he spurned it. Later in the week, like you do in all fanatics groups where they have sponsors all the time, crap, better get a sponsor, boy. You're living in bad shape out there in the car. I better get a sponsor. That's why I need some other cretin to give me some goofy prairie to God. My problem by this time is that I didn't even want to hear about God. Because now as a boy, I felt guilty because I'd committed two or three, broken two or three commandments that I didn't always remember to give my mother and father. I respect them, and I didn't always remember to go to the Sabbath to eat holy, and sometimes I took God's name in vain, but by this time, I'd broken 10 out of 10. And I know that if God exists, that I am damned, and I know God exists, so I just have to try to put it out of my mind. I don't want to hear talk about God at all. And I just don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. So they started telling me to get a sponsor, so I went up to old Bob, the actor. I said, Bob, I've admired your program so much. Would you be my sponsor? He said, sure, but I want you to do what I tell you. Oh, sure, Bob. I found out later he wasn't even a movie actor. He'd been in three movies as a character actor, and I'd seen two of them, so I thought he was a rapid backer. I've been in more movies than he ever was, but I didn't know that. And they said, he wasn't a very good actor, but he was, because he could act decently in meetings, and for him, that took a lot of acting. He turned out to be a right-wing fascist A.A. pig, just a terrible, do this, do that. And I was so much smarter than he was, that it would kill me. Why am I taking this crap from this guy? Because he was my only meal ticket out of there. It turned out later he didn't like me. Now, I don't blame him. I don't want to brag, but I was the worst type of newcomer that ever comes to the A.A. I say that humbly and modestly. And I know that because I've sponsored a couple of guys just like that. I'll tell you what it's like. When these guys come in the room and say, hi, you just wish you had a rifle. Here's hi. You know, just boom. And what these kind of people are, they're people who hang around A.A. year after year, drinking intermittently and come back, and want attention. And they just hang around some more, and somebody invests more time and energy and one day get tired and go get drunk and come back and say, oh, I need some more help. And you can't tell them anything. They know everything. They've been around for so long. It's just maddening. And that's the way I must have been with Bob. But he was a good man. He tried to help me. He took me with him a couple of times to hear him talk. And he'd talk to me sometimes around the club. But he'd say stupid things sometimes. I just, I had a position to maintain as an intellectual. I might be down and out, but I heard him say one night, I don't know if it was to me or somebody else, he said, as long as you think your problem is alcohol, you're going to die drunk. Bob, what do you say things like that for? You make me look bad. This whole thing is about alcohol problems. He says, nope, if your problem is alcohol, you shouldn't even be here. Bob, light's kind of hot on the old set today. Then you'd get cross. You just get cross for nothing always. But he said, kid, if your problem is alcohol, you don't need any. You're wasting time. What do you need, Bob? Psycho-cybernetics? What the hell are you talking about? He said, no, if your problem is alcohol, you quit drinking and you clean up your act and that's it. Tom mentioned that today. I said, but that doesn't work. That doesn't work, Bob. I've tried that a thousand times. That doesn't work. He said, that's right, kid. He said, that's because your problem is an alcohol problem. You must have the same problem I got. What's that, Bob? He said, it's something that sounds like alcohol and it confuses people a lot. It's something called alcoholism. I said, oh, Jesus, Bob. I look terrible, but I'm smarter than hell. Don't play word games with me. Alcohol, alcohol, alcoholism. Hooray. I'm well. I'm well. Shut up, he explained. And he gave me a little lecture on this subject and I tried to blot it out, but someone got through and began to change my life, although I didn't know at the time. He said, you know, that's right, kid. People with alcohol problems, they stop drinking and they want to do that, they quit. However, this strange thing called alcoholism, which unfortunately for you and me looks almost exactly the same to the naked eye. This mind-consuming, perception-distorting, bodily-eroding, eventually fatal thing called alcoholism, you'll discover sooner or later if you haven't discovered it yet, that stopping drinking and cleaning up your act has no significant long-term effect on your life other than to eventually make it so painful you can't stand it. I said, Jesus, Bob, I've never heard you say that before. But I say to stop drinking, you feel better. He said, nah. I said, stop drinking. Stop drinking makes it worse. If that's the case, then why do these alcoholics drink again when they notice doing something terrible to them? He said, they don't notice doing something terrible to them, kid. You say you've been around A all these years? You must have heard that alcoholics are people who get an unnatural reaction to alcohol? Yes, I've set up a phenomenon of craving and they all drink and go, nah, nah, nah. He said, nah, kid, that's podium talk. The natural reaction, he had a Coke in his hand, but he usually says, here, remember this, kid. I'll tell you the unnatural reaction. It's something that does special for me, not to me. When I have a few drinks, hmm, it almost instantly changes my perception of reality. When I have a few drinks, hmm, it almost instantly changes my relationship to the world around me. When I have a few drinks, it almost instantly makes me talk. Smaller and more self-contained in my gut and them smaller and less frightening to me. I said, Jesus, Bob, what's wrong with that? He said, because it isn't really happening, you idiot. It's all in your head and eventually you drink too much and then you've got to get sober again and you're sick. Okay, that's happened to me. I understand that. But then, now if you're sober and you're not sober, you're not sober. And you're not sober. And you're not sober. And you're not sober. And you're not sober. And you know it's eating you up. Why would you drink then? He said, that's the other part of it, kid. You never learned much, did you? You know, he told me, a few years ago, somebody gave me a tape. They taped me when I was three years sober. Not to, because I said anything wise, but they were testing their tape machine and they threw the tape in the back of a closet and some years later they found it and gave it to me of a talk I gave when I was three years sober. And I remember, I found myself quoting Bob in something that I hadn't mentioned in 35 years. And I listened to it and I thought, my God, that's exactly true. He said, kid, when people are born, they, it's not easy being a kid. Not easy at all. There's a lot of problems, a lot of conflicts. You have to discover how to stay out of conflicts. You've got to find problems. You've got to find solutions too. You've got to learn how to get along, what you have to give in order to get what you want to do. You have to, when to go and when not to go. But it's most of all finding answers to those problems, those conflicts. And if you can do this, that's called maturing. And if you become a mature individual, you live a pretty comfortable life. You can hold a job, get along with your kids, get along with the neighbors, go on square vacations and enjoy them. All sorts of things. He said, but this almost never happens to alcoholics. I said, why not, Bob? He said, because we have learned that when we have conflicts and we don't find quick solutions to them, we can drink them away. Here's to you, household finance. Here's to you, bitch, I never liked you anyway. Hey, Mr. Collins, take your job and shove it. And it works. And it's great except for one thing, one thing I never know. I'm building a closet of unresolved childish emotions. We call them alcoholic emotions. That's a little more distinguished, you know. I guess that's my alcoholic emotions. Ha, ha, ha. What are alcoholic emotions? I hate you. I love you. You hurt my feelings. I'm going to run away. Let's get married. On and on. Mine. No, mine. Ha, ha, ha. All of us, I'm sure, at one time or another, have said, I'm sick of taking all this heat about my drinking. I'll get in trouble. I'm going to straighten out. I'm going to shape up. And I'm going to go to work. I'm going to come home. I'm not going to stop at a bar all night. I'm going to get along and do my job and get along and so on. And never once know it's impossible for me because sooner or later, someone will trigger some of those emotions. Someone will hurt my feelings. Someone will put me down. Someone will imply I'm not very much. Someone will laugh at me. And when that time comes, it triggers that, just, brr, as the motor starts, boy. When I was young, I thought I would pop people and quit, but as you get older, you can't do that anymore. So I just, I got to get revenge on that person. No matter, it's obsessed me. I just, people do this to me. That sets up other things. It gets pretty bad after a while. And you get to, so feeling so bad sometimes that you, scientists who study alcoholics say you can get to a point where you literally must drink to preserve your sanity. And so you drink. And it starts all over again. And they say, why did you do that? Oh, I don't know. I don't remember, but it's something, you know. Never once, he said, eventually they drink, kid. I said, my God, Bob. I never heard you explain that to me. They always said to stop drinking makes you feel better. And then you just, you try to do things. I said, that's the story of my life for the last 12 years. I've been great jobs and great job, great, I've had great opportunities, almost, and I always eventually explode and blow. He said, there's a name for people like you. I thought, oh, cause he was a profane person. I said, what could it be, Bob? He said, you're an alcoholic. I said, my God, I'm an alcoholic. If that's what an alcoholic is, that's what I am. I never heard him defined it that way, but that's the story of my life. And I said, he said, I guess that's what my kid wrote. He said, you know, that's what this kid wrote. He said, no, that's the alcoholic life. If you're a senator of the United States, there are senators who have the same problem. Heads of major corporations, head of the biggest insurance company in the world is the alcoholic. They're sober now, but they have the same thing. The measure of an alcoholic is not where you are. The measure of an alcoholic is, you no longer can drink and you no longer can stay sober. I said, my God, Bob, why doesn't AA explain it the way you do instead of this allergy to body crap and all this obsession of the mind? He says, they do, kid. Look on the wall over there. See that one? He says, it asks you to admit you're having a problem with alcohol. Then there's a dash, means end of thought. And it asks you to admit you're having a problem without alcohol. I said, oh. And he said something to me that I'd say to anybody new in this room or anybody not new. He said, if both of those instances weren't correct in your life, you wouldn't be here. If you could still drink, you'd be out drinking. If you could stay sober, comfortably, you would. You wouldn't come here. You'd watch television. But when you can't drink and you can't stay sober, you're eventually driven to rooms like this. And then you watch your brain try to find reasons of difference so you can escape and have a drink. Isn't that irony? I said, my God, Bob. And my life didn't get better. That was December of 1958, a long time ago. And my life didn't get better, but Bob would get me jobs and help me get jobs and keep me going. And he didn't ever underwrite me, but he helped me with some friends, got me a room, a little place in their basement to live, and gave me some clothes. But the biggest thing that happened in that period was that the one thing that has always troubled me the most in my life, as I look back, and it's, I just hate the fact that down deep, I'm really a weakling. I hate it. I hate being a weakling. I hate weaklings and I hate being a weakling. So my whole life was spent in no one ever knowing that I'm a weakling. And now, you call me a weakling, we'll have a fight right now, pal. And I got so bad, there were some nights, I got so alone and afraid, and, you know, I had to go to work. I had to go to work. I had to go to work. I had to go to work. I had to go to work. I had to go to work. I had to go to work. I was alone and afraid, and I wanted to talk to, I remember telling Bob about, I'm really a weakling, Bob. I can't handle this. I thought he'd reject me. Because, you know, strong guys don't mind saying they're weaklings. Yes, I'm a weakling. Part of my personality is a weakling. But when you're a weakling, that's all you got. And you say, I'm a weakling, you just open up and you're vulnerable and they know you're nothing. And he didn't laugh at me. He talked to me. He said, and little by little I would explain all the things I felt weakling about. And he said, yes, I understand that. Here's what you do about that. And little by little something began to glimmer in my mind. I didn't realize this until way later. I began to believe this man knew how I felt. I couldn't believe it. Now you think, what's the big deal about finding somebody that knows how you feel? Because I never knew anybody that I believed knew how I felt. My dad didn't. My doctor didn't. My minister didn't. My bosses did. They all said they did. Well, we know how you feel. You have to say, yeah, thanks a lot. But you want to say, no, you don't know how I feel. What's important about having somebody that knows how you feel? I'll tell you. Everybody in this room has had enough advice to last him 10,000 years. People just give advice all the time to idiots like us. Passersby. I think you ought to go to rehab. Yeah. After a while you just burn them off. Yeah, thanks a lot. But if you can find somebody that you believe knows how you feel, that advice becomes meaningful information and may prompt you to take actions you would never take under any other duress. I remember standing in the Brentwood meeting, one of the kind of high-scale meetings my sponsor took me there one night. Just about five blocks from where O.J. Simpson didn't kill his wife some years later. And you stand there and he said, see that woman over there? Yes, I fear. See that? He said, I want you to apologize to her. What for? He said, somebody told me at the Monday night meeting at the club you called her a bitch. She is a bitch, Bob. Why do you think she's a bitch? She told her new girl to stay away from me. Well, she's right. You apologize. I can't think of anybody in the world except him would have told me that and I would have said, to hell with you. I'd not go over there and abase myself in front of that old bag. I made that clancy knuckle sneer at me and laugh at me. She's never been friendly to me anyway. She's a wretched old beast. But somebody that I believed knew how I felt told me to do it and I found myself. I'm sorry I called you that name Monday night. Bitch. I understand you're going to quit your job. Jesus, Bob. You got me stuffing envelopes for a dollar and nine cents an hour. I used to have an office bigger than this company. While you stay on that job till you get a better job. I understand you're going to leave and not go to the Friday night meeting anymore, huh? Oh, it's a big clique, Bob. They all suck around each other. They're all doing well. They ridicule me and call me a dummy. So maybe they know something you don't know. And little by little they got me taking actions that began to change my life a little bit. I was able to hold a job finally for three months. God, I felt great. And by the time I was two years sober I finally got a little job. I'm an entry level writer in a big medical corporation. And some guys helped me to get some secondhand clothes that fit me. And I still had no front teeth. But I learned to carry my lip like this. They just thought I'd been burned in a fire. And I thought this is my chance. This is my chance. If I don't make this chance it ain't going to go. But I'm going to make my move. And I went to work there with such determination. And the third day I got a job. And I got a job. And I got a job. And I got a job. And I got a job. And I got a job. And I got a job. And the third day I was there I heard some guy joking about my lack of teeth. And away it went. And I thought you son of a bitch I'm doing my best and you do that? And I decided to just pop him one and quit. You know, there's but then I happened to think I promised to call that damn Bob before I did anything. Bob! He said I understand that kid. Here's what you tell him. I said that can't work. That's ridiculous. He said just do it. I did that. I said I did it. And it eased it off. Huh. In my first year there I must have called him forty-five times. We were just on the edge of doing something bad. But little by little he gave me some techniques of working at peace. By the time I was five years sober I was director of advertising for that big medical corporation. He had front teeth. Smiled a lot. And if you knew people have lost teeth let me give you hope. Once you become spiritually pure they grow back. Who knows? Now seven years sober another guy and I were brought into Hollywood. We created something called Boss Radio. We became the number one hard rock station in the world. Ten years sober I was downtown doing public relations for an oil company. Fifteen years sober I was a marketing director in Beverly Hills. When I was five years sober the same wife and all those children heard the crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to Dallas, Texas. Leaped out of their post office box. Rushed to my side. Attached themselves to me like a group of starving chiggers. Nine months and ten sexes they had another Catholic at the street. Thank God somebody gave me a book on the rhythm system we ended all that. They're all grown up now. Three of my daughters turned seventeen last year in AA. Coming up to eighteen this year. Hope they do it. The rest of my kids apparently are not alcoholics except one who is. That last child was the son to replace my dead son. Idle of my eye. Idle of my eye. Captain of his foot football team. Head of senior class. And he's turned into an alcoholic and he spent his entire life surrounded by AA members and AAs. And he refuses to do anything about it. I sponsor people all over the world. And I can't help my own son. And if you have a son or a parent that's an alcoholic and you wonder why you can't help him because no matter what I tell him it's not an AA it's just the old man talking. Wherever there's a strong emotional relationship you can't help that person. It's so ironic. And so I pray for him. He's lost his wife now. He's about to lose his big job. And he says you don't understand dad. And he stays away from me now. And I said to his ex-wife I said we get along so well when we're together and I love him so why does he stay away from me? He says he doesn't want you to see him when he smells like alcohol. And he smelled like alcohol almost all the time and I wish I could do something about it. But if my daughter's in AA only one of them has turned out bad. She, my oldest daughter has become a judge. We so wanted a defense attorney but no. She comes home at Christmas and she says things like you know dad when we were little girls you used to get mad at us and send us to our room. I said sure honey. She says when you come to Albuquerque I'm going to send you to a little room. I have no need to go to Albuquerque. Little by little I stayed sober. I want to say one more thing. I know we're running a little bit late but I think it's important to new people to hear this. Because now they're going to start once you if you're going to admit you're an alcoholic the next step they're going to say start working on the steps. And I had to tell Bob I can't do the steps. I cannot return to God. I cannot return to God Bob. He says nothing in AA says you come to return to God. You never oh to a power greater than myself Bob. Does that fool you? It doesn't fool me. I know what the hell they're talking about. He says it doesn't say that either. It says you come to believe in something. You don't go back to sick old beliefs. You come to believe in something with a different mind. Can't you believe in God? I said no I can't Bob. He says can't you believe in AA? I said I like it better than I used to but not a hell of a lot. He says you think I'm doing better than you are? I said of course you are Bob. Congratulations I'm your new higher power. And I could accept that because he could not send me to hell. He tried but he couldn't. But you have to find if you're new you have to find some power. I could believe in him because I believed I knew he knew how I felt. But will do what? Will restore you to sanity. Came to believe a power could restore us to sanity. What the hell is sanity? Sanity you can read ten medical textbooks and ten ten different books and you'll be fine. When the human brain is under sufficient conflict cannot find a resolution sometimes it gets so bad in order to maintain its neural integrity it will set up an artificial perception of reality. That is called psychosis. And psychosis when you get psychosis you stay you don't get psychosis and un-psychosis you can stay psychotic. Some of us in whole all psychotics easy to spot these rifles have you read about in the papers they say think like oh god I lived next door to this guy for ten years nice guy just came one night and took a rifle and killed his kids and his wife and himself. Something triggered his psychosis. But here's something nice alcoholics almost never become psychotic. There's hardly any cases of alcoholics becoming psychotic. And if you do you might hear it is but not from psychosis. Something else everybody here that's ever been drunk a lot knows how it feels to wake up in the morning and needs something cold and wet to put the fire out. Oh god. Why would you need fluids to overcome fluids? Because alcohol is the only fluid I know of that dries out your body. As it goes through your blood cells through your blood arteries and coronary arteries it dries out the cells it touches. It's called desiccation of cells. They all die. And then when you induce fluids they come alive. And when you drink and get drunk again they die. And you induce fluids they die. It happens hundreds and thousands of times. There's only two organs in the body where when the cells die they do not revive. The liver which is why we have problems with the liver and the brain which is why we have problems with the brain. And if you drink enough and dry out enough cells you can dry out the functioning ability of your brain. It is called the Korsakoff syndrome. We call it a wet brain but it's a dry brain. And you may think you've got part of it but you haven't if you're thinking about it you're not. You probably will never see a case of it and I see them all the time I wish I never did. But people with the Korsakoff syndrome are sitting on a bed somewhere in a ward and people come and feed them and change their diapers and put them to bed and get them up and feed them and change their diapers and put them in again. They can never get better. It's very much like the last stages of Alzheimer's except Alzheimer's has the decency to kill the patient. In Korsakoff syndrome you can sit like that for 50 years and your families come down to see if mom knows them or dad knows whoever it is. Mom remember us? No I don't. That's a terrible terrible thing. But that's what alcoholic insanity ranks just behind syphilis as a cause of irreversible brain damage. But why don't alcoholics become psychotic? That's an interesting thing. I must have known it all my life but I didn't understand it. When things get bad enough long enough and my brain's neural integrity is threatened I drink alcohol which alters my perception of reality. I drink alcohol I have the ability to induce temporary psychosis. And we all do. Never knew it. Then it goes away tomorrow. So I I had to come to believe in the second step that it meant what it said. Nothing nothing complex about these steps. There's a power here somewhere I don't know what it is but you don't have to know what it is or how it's going to work yet. You have to believe there is such a power a power that will enable me not to have to induce a perception change in order to stand reality. Enable me to stay sober. And the third step which is the last step I'm going to mention that's a little tough because as you turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand them there's no monkeying around the words there. And I had to just do what Bob says. And that was the best thing I ever did. It saved my life. And over a period of time some months later when I got suicidal Bob got that pain same pain redirected it to get me to write an inventory I swore I'd never write. I'd take my inventory to the psychiatrist. I would take it out of work after. And he got me to make amends to my father a man I hadn't talked to in ten years. He had me do all sorts of things. And I began to feel I didn't seem to me that I was feeling any different at all. But everybody around me was gradually shaping up. That's why I still go to meetings. I don't need them but you do. And it's amazing the best psychiatrist I ever said I would have to take antidepressants as long as I lived. And I haven't had antidepressants since the day I got sober. Once I began doing it. I knew all about it I just had never done it. I kind of knew think of it this way I hope you can find somebody that you will come to believe knows how you feel it will save your life. And why are these three steps so important? To get you in AA? There's another reason. Once you've been sober a long time sometimes around here people get tired of this and they stop going around. And they forget the three steps the first three steps they forget that of themselves they cannot stay sober. That's how old timers get drunk. Because I know the problem now so it's for everybody. I use those first three steps as a trampoline. Every once in a while I just feel tired and cross and boom bouncing. No matter what you say I have trouble drinking I have trouble not drinking can't do nothing but the drinking but with not drinking there's a power that's going to make it better and I better start doing it. And you keep doing it. Maybe help somebody else. It's a great it's a great thing. That's why it's important there must be meetings like this meeting the last six years and somewhere in New Jersey that most people in every world never heard of. But it's going to change some lives and nothing else will ever change in this world. That's what makes Alcoholics Anonymous such a remarkable thing. It is designed for people to do things because it turns out the purpose of AA the purpose of not drinking is not to get drier and drier God I haven't had a drink in 48 years. I'd be so dry up here I'd burst into flame. Purpose of AA is to very slowly do what alcohol did fast. To little by little change my perception of reality. To little by little change my relationship to the world around me. To little by little make me taller and more self-contained and them smaller and less threatening. Never realized it happens so gradually. The last thing I want to say quickly. When I was 15 the purpose of AA is to change your life and your thinking. It sometimes happens more than you want it to. When I was 15 years old I was doing very well and in some hideous AA induced goofiness I left my job in Beverly Hills and for the last 33 years I've been running the Skid Row Mission that threw me out in 1958. And people say why would you give up your great career to run that damn mission? And there's no good answer to that. Well for such a significant decrease in business I'm going to take a few guys. In a couple days I'll be back in Los Angeles Wednesday morning and I'll do something none of you will do I'm sure. I live up by the ocean in a nice comfortable part of Los Angeles well to do part. And I'll get in my car and I'll get on the freeway and drive through Beverly Hills my car wants to get off there and I drug addiction, and insanity, and just being abandoned, and I spend all day in there inside with people trying to find ways to get these people to acknowledge the fact that they've got to do something and get them to do it, and then I go home at night, and I feel pretty good, better than doing all those elevators in Beverly Hills popping my fingers, and you think it'd be easy to get these people what they had, because their mindset is, you know what, they're dying on the street, the basic number one, number one reason that the social scientists never seem to understand, they will not take actions they don't want to, and you're going to die, because as Tom said tonight, almost said it right, the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is tonight in New Jersey is exactly what it was June 10th, 1935 in Akron, Ohio. They didn't have any meetings, they had no book, they didn't have any readings, they had one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic to help him reduce his feelings of difference at least enough so that he will begin to take actions he does not yet believe in, and when that moment happens, that is the conception of sobriety, and you and I must blow that spark and turn it into a flame. I want to, you know, I said Bob was my higher power. As a result of doing things, I came to believe in AA as my higher power, eventually came to believe in God, when he died I got another sponsor who taught me how to pray, and I've come to believe that God is a, my sponsor said, you know, you're not important enough for God to hate, why don't you just let him help you? So I've come to believe in God, and I believe God loves me as much as you know less than you know more than you, but the conception of sobriety, we blow it into a flame, our belief in God adds a draft. It makes it burn, and you walk down the street and you, I don't care if I'm in Summit, New Jersey or Chicago or Seattle or Oslo, Norway or Dublin, Ireland where I was a couple weeks ago, wherever I am, I have a reasonable chance to live in comfort, which is the greatest gift you will ever get. Thank you.