Step 11 and the Need to Increase the Dose – Tom O.

Thank you, Paul. What I really meant was just get on with it and shut up. You ask all these people to come here and talk and then you read all this crap. Read, read, read. And then you give me that bull about You're telling me that Rudy Little came here without any compensation? I don't believe that. You hook me routinely, but I bet you didn't hook Rudy. Otis is up here laughing, and Otis has got money, and the reason he's got money is he don't ever spend any. My name is Tom and I'm a recovered alcoholic. And I don't know why the titter runs through the group when somebody mentions sanity. You sound like a bunch of defectives, really. It's on the wall up here. I'm not bringing it up. It says up there. I don't know what is wrong with people like you that laugh their silly little laughs when a guy mentions sanity. That's what he says up there. Came to believe the power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Don't say a thing about sobriety. And I can't understand how people can come down here week after week after year after year after week, and then seemingly be amused at the fact that the steps say sanity. And that's what it says. It says that we came to believe that the power of God in ourselves could restore us to sanity. Not surprising, but sanity. And I haven't had a drink all day because I woke up sane this morning. And a sane alcoholic is not free to choose to drink. Can't do it. You have to go nuts first. And I haven't gone nuts yet. I mean, hang around here a little longer and I might make it, but I haven'T made it yet. James is over there telling me to talk as long as I want, say anything I want to and then when I'm talking to Paul James comes over and butts into the conversation on Paul's side cutting me out and then Paul whispers to me that James wants me to talk into the microphone so the tapes will be good I ain't selling tapes And a lot of times when I finish one of these things The last thing in the world I'm going to know is what I said I'm glad to be here, I guess You know, I felt better about it before I found out That you weren't paying Rudy anything And no, really, I have real honest to God deep ties to this group. I tell this every time I come over. But if you don't pay any more attention to it than you do what I say about sanity, well, you can listen to it again. When I was first starting off in Alcoholics Anonymous, I accidentally stumbled onto this group down here on Washington Street, the 1400 block, I guess. and I came in and I stayed here and they made me this group is kind of goofy I can understand your behavior to some extent but they made be an honorary member of the group I've been sober a long time I still don't know what an honorary AA member is but anyway they made one and they gave me the first recognition that I ever had for sobriety. In those days they used to give cigarette lighters you can tell how far back that was you know, the Surgeon General hadn't got a cold of it yet and I got I got my first lighter in here in this group and I had some wonderful experiences in here, I really did I'm not going to count my talking time until I get through with this introduction And the introduction could last for 20 minutes Back in those days, I don't know what you do now But back in those day, this group went through the steps on Wednesday nights That's all they did They went 1, 2, 3, 4, through 12 Then they started back with 1 I mean there was no variety whatsoever Just step after step after steps And we assigned different people to conduct the meetings and they let me get on the roster. And boy was I ever more proud of that. And what had happened when they decided that they needed to study the steps, there was a guy that was an engineer, railroad engineer in Shreveport and he used to pull a haul into Vicksburg on Wednesdays and they asked him because he had a little bit more surprise than anybody else if he would conduct the Wednesday night meeting for the first set of steps that they had and he said he couldn't promise them anything but he'd be glad to start out on it. And that guy in his little choo-choo showed up for 12 consecutive Wednesday nights and that's the only time that this has ever happened in his experience. And this is how, I say we, since they won't pay me anything, I mean, I'm going to say we. How we got started on doing the steps. And I had a tremendous experience in this group here. I took a pill or two when I first came into AA and I don't think that's anything. You know, I mean, what's wrong with taking a pill or two now? And Glenn asked me one night. He said, Doc, I want to ask you a question. This is in front of everybody in the group. He said were you taking something when you first came here? And I said no, indeed I was not. I get kind of irritated at these people who will tell newcomers When you walk through that door You've got to tell the truth That's a bunch of crap I had to come here for almost a year To find out what the truth was And then another year To decide whether I wanted to tell it or not So when he asked me If I was taking something When I first came in And naturally, I gave him the answer that I always had handy. Why no? What do you think I am, you know? He didn't say anything. He dropped it then, and I went on home, and I never spent such a miserable week in my whole life. Honestly, I started to send him a telegram, but I decided that would be a little far out and call a little too much attention to me. So I waited until I came back the next week, and this is how chicken these people in AA can be. Don't trust them any further than you could throw a billy goat. They let me get up in front of everybody again and say, I have something that I have to tell you last week I told a lie and they just laughed and laughed you talk about somebody being humiliated I really was humiliated but there was nothing I could do I had admitted the lie and Glenn's out there looking at me as much as to say what was the lie so I had gotten in this deep and I had to go ahead and say last week when he asked me if I had taken anything when I first came here I said no and that was a lie I had taken something and then everybody laughed again this is the kind of early AA introduction I got from this beloved group where people were aware of my sensitive nature and paid attention to it and didn't, you know, make me want to cry. I was telling Karen I read a book not long ago that the title of it was Let Your Life Alone. And I was fascinated by this book. You see, I've been in AA long enough to know how to stay sane. And it's real simple. I did the things that I had to do in the first nine steps and now, today, I stay sane by applying steps 10, 11, 12 to my life on a daily basis and that's all there is to it. I wish I could tell you something more complicated, but that really is all there is to it. And this leaves a whole lot of time in the day, you know? It really does. And that's what this book said. Don't mess with your life. And I also was telling Karen, you know, for a long, long time I had always heard about the abundant life. and I thought the abundant life had to do with quality and then I found out it doesn't really it has to do with quantity and that's what the abundant life means that there's a heck of a whole lot of life out there see and I can go out and get some of it and I picture this life that's out there like balloons maybe and this is what I spend my days doing after I do the 10th, 11th and 12th step And I got all that time left over, you know I'm reaching out To get these balloons That are full of life And I'm pulling them into me And every once in a while If you're near I'll boom shoot you a balloon You know I don't want to kick them all And so this is what my life is And I think this is What the guy who wrote the book Is talking about I know how to stay sane And therefore sober and I got the abundant life out there well there's just a heck of a whole lot of life floating around what he's saying is enjoy it be part of it go out there and get with it don't go around talking about hey did you take an inventory yesterday no I don't care whether you took an inventory or not you probably can get by for one day maybe two days maybe ten days I don' t know if you go too long you get in trouble but I don't have to worry about it you get into trouble by yourself and so I lead a wonderful life a sane sober life that I don' t have to fool with you know there is a whole major industry out there which has only one object and that is to take people like you and me who have recovered from alcoholism and convince us that there's something else wrong with me. And by God, there ain't nothing else wrong with me I'm living this abundant life and grabbing it in like this and it's wonderful you know and I like the title of that book you see Don't Mess With My Life let me enjoy it and I've got a good life with all this life that I'm getting pulled in and this life of mine includes a lot of women too sure does that sanity's got more than one meaning there's a discrimination aspect to this thing I mean, well, you know, you make a distinction between the good and the beautiful. So I've got a lot of beautiful women half my age in my life, and I love it. One of the first things that I remember hearing in Alcoholics Anonymous was about hitting bottom. And this guy said, you know, we've got four bottoms in AA, high bottom, low bottom, boys' bottom, girls' bottom. And I never got over that. I never really had a boys' bottle. But I've had high bottom, low bottom And oh lord I've been And these women come to talk to me That's what they want to do And they don't want me to talk You know it's a big mistake in our college anonymous that some of us jokers are wise. Wise is my eye. I ain't got time to be wise. I've got all this life I've gotta fool around with. I ainít wise and people don't want wise people to deal with nowadays. They want somebody who will listen to them. This is a universal cry of the people that are ill at ease out there is why won't somebody pay attention to me? And this is all I do. I pay attention to people during the day. And I have these gorgeous, lovely women coming in and when you come to see me we sit in facing chairs and I wouldn't touch you on a bit but if you cross your knees I'm looking As a matter of fact, I was looking before you crossed them. But women like for men to look at their legs. If they don't embarrass them, then I don't want to embarrass anybody because I don' t them to get up and me lose the leg. And some of these women go home and call their mothers up, and their mothers tell me, she loves you because you understand her. So I spent a lot of time trying to refine my understanding. And then husbands come by. And not all of them, but some of them thank me for letting her come over and talk to me. And some of these guys I look at kind of strangely as they're walking out. You see, who would tinker with a life like that. There's plenty of it, it's abundant life, there's a lot of it out there. I love it. And who would tinker with it? But there was a time in my life when I had all the same ingredients. But now the women, for one thing, back then they made me nervous. Well, now they make me little nervous nowadays, too, as far as that's concerned. But back then they made me real nervous. And I know now that when I looked around at the guys and gals that were my age, Rudy is signaling to me back there their tears are falling down his eyes. It's a little early, Rudy. What was I talking about, Rudy? Sir? Oh, hell, I finished with that a long time ago. I'm talking about there was a time when I was nervous around people. And I know now that the other people that I was raised up, they were nervous too. But you see, I was so self-centered back in those days that I couldn't recognize that other people had the same problem that I had. So I thought I was the only person that was nervous and shaky and ill at ease around other people and had decided to tinker with my life. And the easiest thing to use for a tinkerer was alcohol. So I started to drink alcohol on the hope that it would make my life better. I didn't know about that book then, the book that said Let Your Life Alone. Everything in those days, boy, I'm telling you, this self-help industry would have loved it the way things were back then. Everything back there was if you can just get the right thing, you've got it made. So I began to search for the right things. And alcohol was the best thing that came up, and I heard people talking about it. You know, I was a great guy for listening in on the big boys. I always want to know what the big boys are doing and the big guys the big ones evidently were having a heck of a good time I mean, to listen to them talk later on I found out that it wasn't as much fun as they said it was but I didn't know so I'm listening and I decided to try alcohol to make me be able to participate in this life that I was living more fully and for a while it worked it really did it worked beautifully no kidding anybody that runs alcohol down did not have the same experience I had I had an experience where alcohol made everything beautiful it changed the whole relationship that I had to other people and to myself it was just everything I could have wished for for crying out loud and I had it right there on demand I didn't have to go hunting around and saying you know can I try this, can I tried that no indeed a couple of swigs of this delicious material and I was ready for whatever came up and I had made a major positive discovery in my life and Iwas delighted with it however I had so many sentences that begin with however that word seems to torment me all through my life everything was fine however I began to have bad experiences with alcohol and it distressed the daylights out of me because I didn't want to have bad experiences and besides I had struggled to find this thing that was making my life more real. And I was afraid that it all might crumble and I would be without the thing that I was using as a resource with which to meet life. And, I think that if anybody is either using alcohol as a resources of which to make life or is even thinking about using alcohol as a resource with which to meet life, there is one thing that they should know. And it's this. If I'm going to use alcohol as a resources with which to meet like, I have to increase the dose with the passage of time not to get ahead but just to keep even. And there's a tragedy of the whole thing. And I think this is a life rule, because I'll go a step further and say that I am convinced that if I'm going to use anything as a resource with which to meet life, I should be well advised to know that I will have to increase the dose with the passage of time, not to get ahead, but just to keep evil. And I believe that's why in the 11th step it says that we sought through prayer and meditation to what? To improve, improve, I-M-P-R-O-V-E, improve our conscious contact with God. Because in my life it has become a very present reality That part of this daily routine that I go through, my 10th step day, is the fact that I have to include the possibility, the very real possibility, that the God I understand today will not be adequate to carry me through tomorrow. And this is an awesome and a chilling thought, but it's a very true one. And I have found this to be true in my life. And I'll tell you what the most present memory that comes to my mind is that the only way most of the time, if I haven't kept up with the exercises built into prayer and meditation and I get in a tight and I need a little more God in my wife then I have to go down the route of adversity and pain and I don't like adversity and pain anymore today than I ever did in my life so I try to keep a handle on this prayer and meditation but the fact is the fact that I have experienced in my own life in my whole life that it may be necessary at any given moment for me to improve my conscious contact with God which means that I have to develop an ongoing better relationship with him I haveto increase what I already have and if I don't I might discover that I'm in trouble and I don' t want to get in trouble and I know how to keep out of trouble you see so nothing is as important in my life as this daily exercise of prayer and meditation to increase the dose that I have to have to be protected against whatever might happen in the next 24 hours. So I go along this route and I think that anybody that is thinking even of using alcohol or any chemicals for that matter as a resource in which to meet life, should know this and should think about it and should talk it over with whoever's close to them that the reality is that if you're doing that, no matter what it is, you're going to have to increase the dose as time goes by, not to get ahead, but just to keep even. And that's one of the most pitiful realities that exist in the world we live in. talking about beautiful ladies. I had a real gorgeous blonde young lady that came to me, but she didn't come to me just to sit down and talk. She came to be because she was in trouble. She was 25 years old and she was on cocaine. And I don't have a heck of a whole lot of success with people on cocaine in the first place, but I thought that I was getting some place with this woman and we were talking about what she could do and one of the things that she could do would be on time when she came to see me, but she just couldn't pull it off. And one day she said to me I just can't get here on time I have other things to do and then she said in the same breath what do you see down the road for me. And I had to tell her the truth. I said, in six months I'm convinced that you'll be a two dollar street whore because that's where she's heading and I can't stop her. I don't know how I can stop her unless some terrific intervention appears in her life and makes her willing to do whatever it is that she has to do in order to stem that avalanche of destruction that she's headed for. So, I got tied up. Oh man, if Bob James was here, wouldn't he have a party with that person? He loved the words tied up, I don't know. Must be a lot of people in here that know Bob. Bob could put a sexual turn on anything. The Lord's Prayer wasn't exempt, you know. and somehow when anybody said something about being tied up, it created a mental picture in Bob's mind that really turned him loose. You get tied up and you have to go through drastic measures to get out of it and this happened in my life. You see, it had been so easy to get into it. And then one time I realized that I was in trouble. I mean, I was In real trouble. I was IN the army. I'm a dentist. They're getting ready to kick me out. And I'm living a good life. I've got good money and I've Got a beautiful wife. I've GOT three wonderful kids. I've GOt all the good things in life, But they're going to kick Me out Because I'm drinking too much. You see, that's where that sanity comes in. The best explanation I can give of sanity is Leona Bobbitt. Now really, I think sometimes when we're dealing with AA realities, we should try to see if if we can't discover life realities that say the same thing and make the AA realities clearer. Now, Leona was cleared by the court on an insanity defense. And that's what all you people were giggling about, was this sanity-insanity bit of it. But the specific sanity defense that she was cleared on was really an insanity defense and the court found now this is not my idea this is the court found that Leona was innocent by reason of an irresistible impulse now don't tell me that there's an alcoholic or the loved one of an alcoholic in this room who at some time in their drinking career hasn't dashed out the front door dashed back in with a small bottle hidden somewhere and the wife or whoever the monitor is stands there wagging their finger and says why did you do it and the poor alcoholic says honey I had an irresistible impulse and he's telling the truth you see insanity that's what it's all about so I got caught up in this net where things began to be tilted between sanity and not sanity and I decided that I was going to quit drinking I was stationed at Camp Roberts in California right along Highway 101 just north of Paso Robles and I decided I was going to stop drinking and I took a day's annual leave to quit drinking. And I started out early in the morning I went down on the beach side and I got on a big flat rock and there's a difference between Atlantic and Pacific waves. Atlantic waves are chopping, Pacific waves are flowing. And I'm on this big rock and it's warm to my stomach. I take my shirt off and these gorgeous waves are rolling in and lulling my jagged nerves. I got on that thing about nine o'clock in the morning and I can remember somewhere around one o' clock in the afternoon thinking to myself, there ain't nothing to it really. Here, I quit drinking and I ain't had no problems at all. And then about three o'clock in the afternoon, I put my shirt back on and got in my car and drove downtown to the bar to get one drink. And at night, a little after midnight, they threw me out because first of all it was after hours and secondly I was drunk and disorderly. And I knew then that I couldn't stop drinking. Now when you get these real honest to God convention speakers in here that you're paying money for like Rudy. They're going to quote the big book to you. They do it every time. They'll pull that big book out and they'll quote something out of it to reinforce what they're saying. They ain't got the guts to speak out their own conviction. They've got to get the book. so I'm going to say something about the book myself if you've got a book you can go to page 23 and 24 page 23 three lines down at the bottom of the page three words down atthe bottom ofthe page he has lost then on page 24 at the top of the pages one word, control. So this is my contribution from the big book. Three words down at the bottom of one page, one word up at the top of the other page. The three bottom words are he has lost and then that one little stinking word up there, control. He has lost control. Shake your head And that's what I realized I couldn't have said it in those words But I knew that had happened in my case I had lost control I no longer had any control Over the situation at all He had lost his control I had loss control I had lose control Over with And then sometimes later I had another experience that just flowed over me and almost carried me out of this world. My wife and I were walking down to Ginza in Tokyo, and Ginza and Tokyo is the equivalent of French Quarter in New Orleans. And a song was coming out of one of these joints, and the song was Vaya con Dios, and there was a couple that you never heard of. Bless Paul and Mary Ford singing it. And while I'm walking along, and I've always been sentimentally attracted by pretty music like that, and while I're dripping a little sentimentality in, all of a sudden is a deep, I guess, spiritual awareness that it's always going to be like this. It ain't never going to be any different. My life will always be. And I think this is a major discovery for me because of what it issued into. I don't expect anyone else to identify with this. This is my particular experience. I think that in that moment on the Ginza I became willing for this to be true in my life that I would continue to be as I was then. And what I think this really meant when it was all said and done that I decided that I would drink regardless of consequences and this is a thing of such major importance to me because we say that willpower is no good and I think that the reason in my case that will power is no good will power is an instrument of choice and I had already made the choice and the choice was to drink regardless of circumstances or a consequence. And that's what I did for five long years. And if you think the beginning of it was rough I wouldn't even try to tell you about the last five years when I am convinced that I was drinking regardless of consequences. And the only reason that I would do such a stupid thing is that is that I must have recognized that the stakes were so horribly high. It truly was a matter of sanity now. It truly was a manner of a life in balance. And I couldn't turn it loose because three at the bottom he had lost one's top control. he had lost control the most pathetic words that I have ever experienced maybe not the most pathetic there's some words in chapter 3 that probably are just as pathetic as that when he talks about an alcoholic who experiences total loss of everything in his life and I experienced this there was just absolutely nothing left in my life there was no hope for me to go anywhere with my life I just had to go along like I remember one time in California I was going to meet my wife and I had to go around Bakersfield and I went by Tehachapi and they had a lot of tumbleweeds down there and it was the middle of the night and if you've ever driven with those damn tumbleweed coming at you you know like that and you get disoriented you wonder where in the heck am I because these tumble weeds keep coming in on you and this is the way my life had gotten to be at that particular point And I've long since passed the point where I could hope for anything. I had people come in, and I'll call them, Hey, you darling person. Now this is a woman that's married to somebody else. He don't know what's going on. He really don't care. I know he don't if it's me, honey. See what I tell you. That's your Saturday morning speaker, but her name is Maxine. But to me, I knew her when she was Maxine BJ. That's Maxine before Joe. Remember when we used to meet at the Green Derby, honey? I don't want anybody to know about that. That's the way I do things. Anyway, there was no way out of the dilemma I was in. I mean, it just could all be summed up in those three words, those four words. He had lost control. you know I look back on it today and I'm amazed that a person as brilliant as I am couldn't grasp the central fact that there would be no need for control unless it was out of control in the first place we've got levies along the Mississippi and they don't serve any function whatsoever when the river's in its course The only function that they ever serve is when it's out of control. But I couldn't put all that together. I don't know what happened to me, and I don' t want to give you any bum fears, so I'm not going to interpret what happened. I'm just going to tell you. I have a friend, a woman, who says... who says that there are times in life when we just have to fall down and beg. And I believe that, and you may not like that, and I don't care whether you like it or not. Let me tell you one thing about the things that I'm saying. I'm not up here looking for approval never in a million years. If you don't like what I'm seeing, get up and walk out. I mean, because I don' t care one way or the other. I'm trying to relate an experience. and I damn sure am not looking for approval from anybody and this is what this woman said there come times in life when we just have to fall down and beg and that time came to me I fell down and I begged and I didn't beg for anything specific because I didn' t know anything specific to beg for but out of all this torture and pain and misery occurred an event that I don't understand to this day I never have taken a drink since then and I don' t know why it happened I couldn' t in a million years begin to tell you even why I think it happened I just know that it happened I do know one thing about it I do not know that there is an initial sanity in this program and the initial sanity comes all at one time and it has to be that way or there would not be any recovery at all it has to be a one time event and people call this the grace of God I don't think this says much as far as language is concerned but this is the ongoing you know this is the current thing that people say i don't know what the grace of god means but this when you say it i guess other people understand in their own way what you're talking about but that's okay with me this initial sanity came let's say as a result of the grace we've got a total gift but there had to be this total gift in the beginning or there There never would have been any permanent ongoing gift. And so I got sane and subsequently sober, and I began to reclaim this abundant life that I had left when I began toy with my life back in the days when I started experimenting with alcohol. And then, I came to recognize, I don't know whether everybody had this experience or not. Now again, I'm trying to share an experience, surely not look for approval. Then I began to understand that if I wanted to continue in this way of living, that there were some things I was going to have to do. And so, I went ahead and did those things. And I'll tell you what the things I had to do are. They had to go through the first nine steps. It's just that simple. That's all there is to it. And I did those thing. And that's when the second sanity kicked in. And I want to tell you this because I want to say something about the second sanity as compared to the first sanity. The second sanity, which I worked for... Let me back up just for a minute. I heard a guy say one time that what you get, you have, and what you earn, you own. But you see, this initial sanity I had gotten, and that's all I could say for it. But the second sanity I earned it, and I own it. and again with all due respect to God the second sanity which I earned is vastly superior to the first which I simply got for one thing I know how I earned the second and for another thing I know that I own it and God in heaven himself cannot take my earned sobriety from me. The only person that can take my earned sanity from me is me. And that's why I keep coming back to you stupid meetings. We got a guy in my group who's a meeting nut He's always on people to come to meetings and I don't think I need to go to meetings really But I'm 76 years old and why push it? If I'm stuck with meetings for however long I got to live I'm going to keep going because I like this way of life I told you about the women you know, I like the women you give me my choice of men or women and I'm going to take women every time don't have anything against men it's just that I like women and so I keep coming back isn't there a lot of reasons that I keepcoming back one reason I keep coming back is I want to see what they're going to drag in next. That's the most wholesome exercise I know is to watch these stupid damn nuts come in that door over there. Talk to them about resentment. I'll lay you five to three that when they come in the door they don't have any resentment. I used to think it was because they're obstinate now I know it's because they're so darn sick that they don't know what a resentment is but they'll find out I belong to one of the greatest groups in the whole United States of America when I came into AA and they told me that this was an illness and that I'd never get rid of it and that if I took one drink I'd be just as bad as if I'd been drinking the whole time. I didn't know whether that was true or not. But I got these wonderful people in my group. Really, heroes in heroin. They went out and got drunk for me. And that's another reason I keep coming back to meetings. You see, I'm waiting for somebody to come in and say to me, Tom, this is not where the reality is. It's out there. But nobody does that. They go out there, but they all slink back in like puppy dogs with their tail between their butts and blaming it on their wife or somebody else. You know, it's never an alcoholic's fault. He never takes responsibility for anything in the world he wants. Now I really am through, but I'm not going to stop talking because... No, just what's left here is off Rudy's time. But when he asked me about this, my first thought was, you're getting paid for it. You ought to say it yourself. But he doesn't understand it, and besides, he doesn' t speak as well as I do. That's mainly because he comes from Tennessee, but not really. I mean, that's just a lot of baloney. He comes from Bastrop. See, look at them all shaking their heads back there in the Bastard Corner. He wanted me to talk about anger and love. Is that what you want me to say? I think that's a good thing to talk about. I don't see what it's got to do with anything I've said, but it is a good thing to talk about. Is it anger, Rudy? Huh? Is it an anger and love? Opposites of love, okay. It's what? Hey Rudy! Okay, all right. He wants me to talk about the opposite of love not being hate. That's what he wants me to talk about. And it's not really. And I really am through with my story but y'all could pick up some good information here. I mean it's just as good it's just as good as he has lost control. Now whatever you do I want you to remember that because that's my quote out of the big book. He has lost and so. But the thing about hate and love, a lot of people think that hate and love are the same thing but they're not. You're just as bound to the person you hate as you are to the person you love. Sometimes more so. The opposite of love is indifference. And this has got a real AA application as far as I'm concerned because we are people who have gone through life being hated and we've gone off in little corners and cried to ourselves and said, why don't somebody love me? And we all just thought, you know, that if we could get rid of the hate, then everything would be alright. And then love would automatically appear. But that's not so. The opposite of love is indifference. And that's what I met all my life. I detest these people who slip up to a sick alcoholic and pat him on the shoulder and say, I have all the confidence in the world in them. You know what this means? This means get out of my sight. I don't want to have anything to do with you. Don't tell me about your trouble. And people use it all the time, all the conference in the word. But the people in Alcoholics Anonymous recognize that indifference is the thing that kills alcoholism. And so I've got a friend over in my group soon, this guy, and this is the meeting nut I told you about. But this guy's crazy. He'll pick up hitchhikers on the theory that they might be alcoholic, and hell, I wouldn't pick up a hitchhiker in this day and age for love and money, but he does. And he can't understand why I won't. Because this guy don't know what indifference is. He loves everybody. He wants to go out and help them all. And he does, and I can't do anything but admire him. Well, I can be telling Rudy's stories up here when I ain't getting money for it anyway, but when I first got into AA long about that time, really. We had a convention down in Baton Rouge, the Louisiana State Convention. We had a guy by the name of Jack on that program. And Jack was the political cartoonist for the National Banner. Now, that wasn't his first love. His first love was being a cowboy. And he had been a cowboy in Wyoming, I think. And I seem to remember there was something that happened to his stomach. He'd had a large part of his stomach cut out. I don't know why that was. Anyway, Jack was in this area down from Nashville and he was going down the Mississippi on a boat and they asked him if he'd stop in Baton Rouge and talk on Sunday morning at the convention. And he said yes. And so he got up and he told this story that a guy from what he called the Silk Stocking District of Nashville, rich prominent banker, called Jack at the Nashville banner one day and told him that he wanted him to take him to an AA meeting. And Jack said he was just thrilled. He'd like to take anybody to an AAA meeting, but especially if you're going to get to take a rich banker from a select part of town. And so he went and picked the guy up and took him to the meeting and he said when he walked in the meeting he knew that God had everything all arranged because they had one of the best speakers in the country on the program that night. And he took the guy and he walked right down to the front seat with him. And he said everything was just like he knew it would be. The guy gave a wonderful talk. But he made one mistake. He quit at 9 o'clock. Now you see, that had never happened to me. he quit at 9 o'clock and then the chairman made a dumber mistake still he called on somebody to fill up that little tiny space between 10 minutes to 9 and maybe 2 minutes to 5 and a guy he called on was a telephone lineman repair and he had come to the meeting without being able to go home and change clothes and he'd had on his work clothes. He had the top of his shirt open about to that. He was a hairy joker and the hair was going all over every place. He was just a mess. Damn good AA, but you know, not appealing to a silk stocking prospect. And he got up and he began to give his AA pitch and he said I came to AA because it was the onlyest place left to go. And Jack said he just felt like crawling between the benches. Imagine that kind of English. The onlyest place left to go and Jack said that if he said it once he said 10 times I came to A.A. because it was the only place left to go and Jack said he just saw his whole dream collapse he knew that this silk stocking guy wasn't going to put up with that kind of English language and so he took the fellow home and when he got home he asked him if he'd like for him to come pick him up again and he said no he said I'll tell you what he said when I want to go again I'll call you And so Jack drove off, crushing his bad luck at this telephone line that had got up there with the only place left to go. And he went on back to work as a cartoonist at the Nashville Banner. And about six weeks later, this guy called him again. And he said he wanted to go to an AA meeting again. And so Jack said, well, I'll pick you up tonight. And he did. And when the guy was in the car, he said to the guy. You know what the guy said to him? He said, I want to tell you something before we even get started. He said, when I went to that first meeting, he said I wasn't really sober. He said I had been drinking. But when I came home, I realized that if I was ever going to do anything with myself, I was going to have to get sober. And so he said, I went out to this drying out place and I've been out there all this time getting sober. and Jack said to him he said well I sure am glad that you decided to give AA a chance and the fellow said oh there wasn't any doubt about that he said all the time I was out there at that sanitarium he said one thought kept running through my mind I got to go to AA because it's the only place left to go Thank you.