Step 12 and the Newcomer Who Didn’t Know He Could Be Sponsored – Dick M.

Good morning. My name is Dick Martin, and I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the actions of AA and sponsorship, I've been sober since September 15, 1965, and I am very grateful for that this morning. I think it's kind of cruel and unusual to have to speak at 9 a.m. in the morning. And I think that because God himself doesn't wake up until 10. So maybe I can sneak a few things in before he wakes up and things will be all right. I don't know. But just merely the mentioning of his name is a prayer, and I know that. And I hope that you will pick up on that and go with it where you will. So, but I started drinking when I was a teenager. I was probably 13, 14 years old when I had my first beer. And when I say when I have my first bear, I don't mean sips or anything like that. I'd had that before. But when I add my first full can, first full bottle of beer, and actually the first full can of beer i had was a canadian ace ale came in a red can and i found it along with five others underneath a tree trunk that someone had left there with the idea of coming back and drinking it later and a buddy and i were walking through the woods, and I discovered this. And they even had a church key in there. For you uninformed, a churchkey is a device used by old people to open cans of beer. There are some of you gray-haired people here that understand that. But anyway, I asked Ed, I said, would you like a can? And he said yes. And I opened a can for him and opened a Can for myself. And we sat there and drank the beer, and it seems to me that he drank about three-quarters of his maybe and poured the rest of it out. I said, is there something wrong with it? And he said no. He said my father was an alcoholic, and I don't want to be an alcoholic like he. And I said well, my father's an alcoholic too, Ed, but you know, that doesn't have anything to do with me. I finished mine and thought of opening another, but I just felt that the peer pressure of someone not drinking was enough at that point that I didn't drink. I talked to Ed the other day. I've known him since I was in the seventh grade, and he and his wife are good friends, and we don't talk often, but maybe once a year or so, but he lives in Washington, D.C., and held him out in the Midwest. And so we don't talk frequently, but it's just like yesterday. It's just Like We Saw or Talked to Each Other Yesterday because we were good and firm friends. And Ed went on, and he never did become an alcoholic. His father died from it. I went on and continued my path, my career of drinking. And my father died from his drinking. And I guess if you die from it, you could say, yeah, he's probably an alcoholic. I don't know why it is that there isn't anywhere in the AA literature that I've ever been able to find anything that says you're not supposed to call somebody an alcoholic Now, it may be in there somewhere, But it certainly isn't in any of the AA literature that I've read. And I'm going to call him an alcoholic because he was an alcoholic. He had a drunken fall down the basement steps, which ended up – he had an aneurysm. It burst an anurysm in his brain, and he subsequently died a couple of months later. but he was celebrating the fact that he'd been nominated for a federal judgeship. So he's a functioning alcoholic. But the earliest memory I have, which I must have been about three or four years old, and we were living at 16 Colonial Place in Asheville, North Carolina, I can tell you that, but I just don't remember how old I was exactly. But I believe I was three or four years old. And I remember my father coming home drunk and my mother yelling at him and him yelling at her, and there was cursing and screaming going on and that sort of thing. That became a rather ordinary thing in the household. So I wasn't frightened about it. I was disturbed about it, but I was distraught enough to drink, you know, so I did is what it amounts to. But my whole life, as far as I can remember, up until even yet today, has circulated in some fashion around alcohol, either not drinking it or drinking it, or trying to not drink it, or trying TO drink it whichever the case may be. I'm still pursuing a path of sobriety and still pursuing the idea that, you know, that I can stay sober a day at a time because the people who have gone before me have stayed sober a way at a day. A day at the time. And many of them have died sober. And if they can die sober, I can die sober. I'm sure of that as long as I maintain this, you this spiritual program of Alcoholics Anonymous and simply not taking a drink a day at a time and reaching out and helping others and trying to be better than I am. But I went on after my father had passed away, I went along and pursued my drinking and I drank until I was 33, and I just couldn't make it anymore. By that time, I'd been arrested 23 times for public intoxication, twice for being in possession of a vehicle while drunk, and once for urinating in public. That was kind of a bad night. I've been out drinking beer and I was in my car and I had to relieve myself I didn't want to relieve myself in the front seat somebody else had but God only knows who it was large stain so I pulled up and stopped and got out of the car and went over to there was a house there near a park I was relieving myself and then I got a tap on the shoulder, and it was a cop, and he said, when you're through. Seems the lady of the house didn't like people peeing on her roses. I can understand that, but, you know, the necessity was there. But I was living in Washington, D.C., I lived there for many years, up until 1975. When I was 10 years sober, we moved out to Bellevue, Nebraska. But during my drinking time, I went to school and went in the Air Force and came out and went to college. And I ended up accruing 160 credit hours, which can tell you right there I was educated much beyond my intellect. I never got a degree. I don't even have an associate's degree. But I sure went to school a lot. I kept changing my mind as to what I wanted to do. And if I was interested in something, I'd take that course. It didn't make a difference whether it had anything to do with anything else or not. I just kept on going, and I went part-time many years. And I've often thought I ought to gather that stuff together and pay one of these universities $4,000 or $5,000 and get a master's degree out of it, I suppose. But I don't know what I'd do with that if I did it. But when I came back from the service, I was in the Air Force. I was an air traffic controller. The GCA had approached control and controlled our operator. And I was on a mission. I was back in England during the Korean War, and I had a good war. The only battle I ever fought was the Battle of Piccadilly Circus. Only those of you who are familiar with that would know what I'm talking about. I'll tell you privately later. But I drank nearly every day when I was in the service, and I was under the influence of alcohol many times when Iwas guiding traffic through the fog to land at various and sundry Air Force bases in England, And I was good at it. I really was. And I got out of the Air Force and came back home and went to college. And while I was in college, I finally decided that, you know, I looked at myself one day and I said, you Know, here you are. You're 27 years old. It's time you were married. and maybe if you take some if you're married get married you'll take a little responsibility in your life things will you know, you'll shape up a little bit and so I got married as an antidote to alcoholism I suppose in part and I got married and we had two kids and I loved the kids and I didn't like her I had a problem I hadn't finished dating yet and she objected to that I don't know why, I think it was kind of narrow minded of her I had one girlfriend outstanding above all the others this gal's name was Joe and And I frequently went out and drank with her. I remember just before I got sober, on the Tuesday before I got sober on Thursday, we had gone out drinking. And she had gotten so drunk that I had to carry her to her car so she could drive home and give you some sort of an idea that chivalry wasn't dead. I was still much in consideration of women. But the next day, we both worked at the same place. We both worked with a radio station, and she was the president of the corporation's secretary. And I was a salesman successfully. And I called her up the next night. and said, look, I know we were supposed to get together tonight, but it can't be a drinking night like last night was. I'm just burning hard coal, and there's no way I can do it. And she said, you know, that sounds good to me, and what will we do? And I said, well, there's a movie on at the Avalon Theater. Let's go there, and I'll meet you at the Chevy Chase Inn, and we'll have dinner, and then we'll go on to the movie. And she says, okay. And I got to the Chevy Chase Inn before she did, and I noticed on the marquee of the Avalon Theater on Connecticut Avenue that the movie had changed. And I didn't want to see what it was that was showing it. And she came in and sat down, and we had a drink. And I said, well, let's go out to Angler's Inn, which is kind of a high buck country inn still in existence, overlooked the Potomac River, very picturesque setting. We went out there and had dinner. I know we had two bottles of wine with dinner. I don't have any idea what we ate, but we did eat something. And we had an after-dinner drink, and I paid the bill. And we got back in the car, and I drove back to the Chevy Chase Inn in Washington. And we sat at the sidewalk cafe of this restaurant, and we were drinking Remy Martin Grand Fien Chambing Cognac and coffee. I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I didn't have money. I really didn't. I was broke. But that day I had gotten an American Express card in the mail. And I didn't want the people at American Express to think I didn' t like them. And I still, you know, I have a credit card, an American Express credit card now that says on there is the date how long you've had it and I've had mine since 65. I've actually had an American express card longer than Robert Redford but he's a lot better looking than I am, so it doesn't really count. But we were sitting there and drinking this champagne cognac, as I mentioned. And I mention that because if you're a mad dog 2020 or something like that, that gives me a little bit of class. It's about $85 a bottle tax free, duty free and I knew the right things but I couldn't afford them by any stretch of the imagination and we were sitting there and talking and while we were talking she asked me to marry her and I want you to know I had exactly the right number of drinks I didn't have one short or one too many. She asked me to marry here and I thought to myself hell I can't marry her I'm already married and you know and I'm not a good husband I'm a good father to my kids we work the same place and I am not a great father I'm no longer a good employee I'm nor a good citizen I've been arrested many times and I don't show up where I say I'm going to be and I do not do the things that I should do And I just looked at her and said, no, I can't do that. Now, if I'd have had another drink and we'd have begun negotiating, obviously I would have been able to realize that I could easily get a divorce or finish the divorce I was involved in and take care of that problem. But the main thing is that, you know, I just didn't have that drink and we didn't start doing any negotiating. If we had begun to negotiate, however, I would have discovered I knew that she had money because she drove her Mercedes convertible. And one of those SL numbers, I don't remember what it was. It doesn't make any difference now. But I knew that she had money because the secretary, even if she was secretary of the president of the company, you know, didn't make that kind of money. And but I told her, no, I just can't do that. And I paid the bill and I got up and we went our separate ways. She went home and I went home. And the next thing I can remember is I was sitting on the edge of my bed. Now, I was living in my widowed mother's house with my widowing mother and my old maid sister. And that's not a place for some guy that's 33 years old to be living. I can guarantee you that. You know, by the time you're 33, you shouldn't be living with mommy anymore. I mean, it's just not right. they ask you questions like where have you been and who are you with you know just like you were a teenager or something it just doesn't make any sense but I sat on the edge of that bed and I thought to myself Jesus Christ what am I going to do why can't I be like normal people why canít I be like other people. Why can't I drink like other people? Why canít I have a life? Why canít do the things that I say that Iím going to do? I just donít understand. I donít know what it is. God, what am I going to do? Now, Iíd been to a psychiatrist. As a matter of fact, this was in September but in April of that year, I had asked my psychiatrist whom I had gone to see for a year and a half twice a week. That's more intense psychotherapy than you get if you're wrapped up in a nut house. But there wasn't anything wrong with me mentally. I was just simply an alcoholic, and I showed all kinds of symptoms, I'm sure, of all kinds of mental illness, but I remember asking this doctor, I said, doctor, I said, when I came here a year and a half ago, you gave me a battery of tests. You gave me the Minneapolis multiphasic personality test, and you gave me the Rorschach test, which is ink blots, which is supposed to look like deer in the park or something like that. Actually, they looked like dirty pictures to me. They were all, you know, some kind of gentalia. And I didn't, you Know, I said, You know, I took all these tests and you never told me the result. And he said, Well, Dick, you never asked. And I said Well, I'm asking now. And he Said, You seem to be preoccupied with sex. And I immediately thought I must be some sort of pervert. And I was. i hope i remember to explain that and i said well when do you think i'll feel some relief from the life problems and he said how old are you and i and uh i said i'm 33 and he says it took you a long time to get here didn't it and i thought my god i'm gonna have to go to this guy for 33 years he's much older than i am and he'll probably die before i finish that what do i do then and I asked him do you think I should go to Alcoholics Anonymous and he said no you're not ready for that yet so I said regardless of that don't send me a bill because I'm not going to pay it and this is not doing me any good just not working and so I got up and left and uh some months later and that was in april and some months later in september i uh i was sitting on the edge of that bed you know i thought to myself you know the only thing that i haven't done the only things that i can do is that i'm going to go to the only one thing that I haven't done is that I haven't gone to Alcoholics Anonymous and I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous because when I was a kid I used to sell the Saturday evening post, door to door. And as a result of doing that you would get coupons for the number of sales that you had and if you sold enough you would send these coupons in and you could win a bicycle. And that was what I went after. I did win a bicycle. Anyway, Anyway, in the Saturday Evening Post article, I remember there was an article, I know now it was Jack Alexander who had written it, about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I knew what AA was. I knew it was full of derelicts and bums and near-do-wells and used-to-bes and has-beens and a few gray-haired little old ladies with blue tats who would lead us in hymns and jump us to Jesus. And it was kind of like the Salvation Army. and I knew what the Salvation Army was. They would come to play at Christmas time and I remember they'd come up and play at the bars where I used to drink and they used to play something that sounded like put a nickel on the drum save another drunken bum I didn't want to have anything to do with Alcoholics Anonymous I can tell you It was well beneath my pride and dignity. And so I had, you know, dismissed that idea, although I kept asking people. I had asked another doctor if I should go to AA, and he said no. And he said, you have to drink 20 long years to become an alcoholic. And, you knows, there didn't seem to be any answer there. The only thing that I didn't know was alcoholics anonymous, and I didn' t know whether that was an answer or not, and I certainly didn' T think that it was. But as I sat there on the edge of the bed, I couldn' Tthink of anything else. So I said what I'll do is I'll call that minister that I talked to one time and see if he'll take me to an AA meeting. And so I woke up the next morning, and i didn't drink which was most unusual and uh i got up and i drove to work and i got there and i called this minister and he wasn't in yet but he called me when he got in the office and i told him i was drinking more and enjoying it less and i wanted to talk to him again briefly And he said, fine, come on out. So I did. And I told him that, you know, I thought that I wanted to try this AA thing. And I had heard that AA was successful, but I never knew anybody that was in AA. I never new anybody that knew anybody who was in AAA even. You know, it was just kind of a hidden society, if you will. and uh i uh told him that and he said well we have a guy here in the parish who uh is a member of aa and i'll get him in touch with you this fellow named kelly brown called me and kelly said he hadn't been sober long enough to go on a 12-step call but he'd get his sponsor he called this fellow name of buck doyle And Buck said, of course, he said, I'll tell you what. He thought that I was living near this church, and I didn't live near there at all, but he thought I was. He said, why don't you meet me at the corner of Fox Hall and Reservoir Roads? I know where that St. Patrick's is. I'll pick you up outside. And I said, okay. And he picked me up and took me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in Silver Spring, Maryland. and it was in a community center in the basement, this meeting was. I remember walking across the parking lot that night, and I can remember it was damp and drizzly and a little bit on the chilly side. I can member I was wearing a hat and a top coat, and I remember walkng across this parking lot thinking to myself, my God, look what's happened to you. And I remember walking down the steps, and there was a light bulb hanging underneath the porch above. And I walked into, there's a screen door, and it was a fellow that pushed the screen door open, stuck out his hand, and he said, welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, we're glad you're here. And that fellow was a guy named Reds Fanning, and Reds fanning, yeah, and I became friends later. But he was a good sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous who eventually died sober in AA. But anyway, he said, oh, but you're with Buck, you're okay. I mean, he just dismissed any reason to think that he had to pay more attention to me. And so I walked on into the meeting with this fellow Buck. And the area chairman was a fellow named Ernie the Attorney. And Ernie, the attorney, was talking about the service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he showed a film strip, something like Circles of Love and Service. And I was very interested in that. I was a businessman, you know, showing the structure of this thing. It was kind of interesting to me. And after the meeting was over, we went over to a nearby hot shop. And there was Buck Doyle, and we used to call him the Monsignor. And a fellow named Hugh McGee, we used to call no growth McGee. And Ernie, the attorney, and me. And they sat there, and they 12-stepped me in the traditional sense of the word. They told me what they were like and what had happened and what they're like now. And I immediately, you know, identified without knowing that I identified. And I didn't know I was supposed to identify with these people, but I immediately did. And I thought for a second, you Know, how did these guys learn this about me? And I said, Wait a minute, what are you guys doing? Where'd you learn all this about Me? I said, there's some people who know some parts of that, but not anybody knows me like you guys do. Where in the world did you find this out? They said, Dick, we aren't talking about you. We're talking about us. And I said oh. I was disappointed that they weren't talking about me, I guess. It was more that I had just simply identified with what they had said. And I identified enough with them to do some things that I didn't think would make any sense at all. They want me to go to a meeting every night. Well, it's not that my social schedule is so heavy. I was not living with my wife and kids. I was living with My mother, and I was mostly crying myself to sleep at night. And that's not much of a way to live. It's not such a way of living. and so I agreed to do that and I agreed to call Buck every morning when I got to work and I called him and we generally make arrangements to go to lunch that day and we often times went to the AA business men's lunch in Washington and it still goes on today but it was three days a week at that time and we'd go there and eat talk about sex and politics and other things we didn't know anything about. They didn't hold an AA meeting as such, but they would talk about the people that they were sponsoring and what they could do and what was going on and whatthey could do to be helpful to the still-suffering alcoholic. And AA in the Washington area was pretty well run from that luncheon, I can tell you. But not in a mean sort of way, but in a kindly sort of way. And so I got with these guys and eventually I discovered that I can remember driving across the 14th Street Bridge one day and I can say, I remember saying to Buck, I said, Buck, you know, you guys don't fool me at all. you know you talk about staying sober a day at a time but you really mean forever and he said yeah we do and he says I don't think a person is going to stay sober in alcoholic synonymous unless they make a personal commitment to themselves not to anybody else but make a commitment to themselves that they're going to be sober for the rest of their lives and he says you can do it just don't drink a day of time continue to go to meetings. And I said, well, what are these things? I said people talk about sponsors. I said what's a sponsor? And he said I'm a sponsor. I'm your sponsor. I didn't know you couldn't do that. I don't know about you but you know I just didn't know that and I would suggest to you if you're not sponsoring anybody you should go up to the nearest newcomer and tell them you're their sponsor. They don't Know You Can't Do that either and first thing you know you'll you'll be on the road of recovery with somebody else it's what it amounts to and it really is important to understand that you know your helping others is going to make you well it may not make them well at all but you'll recover from this seemingly hopeless state of mind and body if you extend yourself to reach out and be helpful to somebody else instead of doing what I did for many years before I came to AA, and I was the most important person in my life, I can tell you. And I'm not the most important person today. Went to a lot of meetings, we went to a meeting every night, it was suggested that I go to a meeting ever night for the first six weeks and at the end of that period of time make up my mind whether I was an alcoholic or not. And I said, but Buck, I already know whether I'm an alcoholic are not. And he said, I know you do, but I want you to do what I said. I want to go to a meeting every night and at the end of that six-week period of time we'll talk about it. I said okay. So I did what I was told to do. I did what I told to in Alcoholics Anonymous because I had made so many errors in judgment that I really didn't know what was right and what was wrong. And I was afraid that I would make some other terrible errors and not stay sober. So I just did what I was told to do, and it was really quite that simple. And because I didn't – you know, I knew how to drink, but I didn' t know how to stay sober and Buck told me, he said, we know howto drink, Dick, just like you do, but you don't know howtostaysober, and we do, and we'll teach you how to stay sober and we will pass on to you what we have gotten so that you can be like we are so that we can be sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't have much of a desire to stop drinking I was still shaking, I was still in bad shape I was still scared to death and gradually I would go to these meetings and I'd see the same guys over and over again. And I got to know them, to like them, and to respect them. If you know, like, and respect people, then you want to be like they are. And I looked at them and they were sober. And so all of a sudden I had a desire to stop drinking. I had a desire to be sober like these guys. I wanted to be like they were because they were great guys and they told great stories and it was just great to be with them and I didn't feel any pressure to do anything when I was with them. I just felt like I was another one of them, and I felt like I was part of and not apart from. And I felt like I wasn't apart from everything, everything else in my life, my employment, family, so on and so forth. So I became very active in Alcoholics Anonymous. I was sponsoring people in AA when I was two months sober, and amazingly enough, some of them stayed sober even yet today. It wasn't because of me, and I know it wasn't because of me. It was because of them, because they did what I did. They just followed me, and I didn't have any better idea of knowing what to do than a fish, to tell you the truth. But, you know, I got involved with them. I was helpful to other people, and I stayed sober. And in the meantime, I had a sponsor who was teaching me to live the steps of alcoholics and honors. I can remember one time I was walking down the street and talking to him and saying, you know what, I made a mistake today, and so on and so forth. And I went in at work, and I said I went and talked to the boss. He said, that's right, when you're wrong, promptly admit it. And, you know, everything that he did was – all of his life came out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And everything that He did, every motion and action that He took was that of the steps or the traditions in AlcoholicsAnonymous. And I owe Him – I owed Him and owe Him yet my life because He saved my life. I don't think that any other person could have 12-stepped me and it would have worked as this did. And he was a great guy and a great AA, and he was oftentimes touted as being the one who sobered up half of Washington, D.C., and I know he didn't do that, but he was certainly great with newcomers, and He was certainly Great With Me. Many years later, well, Buck was one of these people who was always doing something in Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're busy in AA doing things, there are people who are going to take pot shots at you. It's just like you stick your head above the crowd and somebody is going to go bing, and it's going to happen every time. And I don't care what you do. I don' t care if you' re doing something right or something wrong. the people who are doing nothing are going to take pot shots at you. It's kind of a form of applause, really, I think, today. I didn't used to think so. But I became, as I say, I became very active in AA. I had a conversation with Buck. I said, Buck, I went to this psychiatrist, and I said on the last day there I asked him some questions, And I said, the answers he gave me weren't acceptable. And he said, well, what were the questions? And I say, well I asked him if I should go to AA. And he says, no, I wasn't ready for that. And I says, I didn't understand what he meant. And he say, it's really very simple Dick, he thought you still had money. And that was such a cynical answer, I just loved it. I just loved the sardonic, cynical answers that he came up with. And I said, you know, I asked him, I said one, well, I would feel some relief from these life problems. And I say, what does AA say about that? And he said, well AA says generally, he said you stay sober one month for every year that you drank. and if you took any of those mood-altering chemicals or smoked those cigarettes with no names on them, you can add about a year on top of that. And he says at the end of that time your mind will be as clear as it's going to get. And I didn't think that that was too bad. You know, I'd been drinking for 19 years and add a year to that. Add a year or so on that for whatever. And, you know, it just didn't seem like that was a bad deal to me. He's talking about a couple of years, and that was a lot shorter than 33 years, I'll tell you. And I said, well, Buck, I said—you know, we talked about sex, and he said he thought I was preoccupied with sex. And he said, Dick, he said you were a gin drinker. And he says it really doesn't make a difference whether it's gin or beer or whiskey or whatever it was. And I said, I drank it all. And he said, yeah, but he said when you take alcohol and remove the water from it he says what you have is something similar to ether and it'll anesthetize even the smallest parts of your body. I hadn't been in any locker room with him or anything. But he was right. And he says, you know, when you're thinking about it all the time and not doing it, you're going to be preoccupied with sex. That made sense to me. This gal, Jo, that asked me to marry her, I tried to get her to go to AA many, many times. And I talked to her boss about it because he was proud that I was sober and AA and being a productive member of the company. And I suggested to him, this is working so well, maybe Joe ought to go. And he said, well, I've told her that she has to do something about her drinking. She was going to a psychiatrist who was giving her pills in those days, which is common. My psychiatrist did. I was taking as many as 20 10-milligram capsules of Librium a day. It was very smooth. I was a witless alcoholic is what I was, just a witeless drunk. But anyway, this gal, I tried to get her to go to AA. She finally came into the residue of the estate from her parents, and net to her was $27 million. And that was a lot of money in those days. It's a lot OF money today, but not anywhere near as much as it was back in 65, I can tell you. And if I'd have had some idea she had that kind of money, I would have married her in a minute. Whether I was already married or not, it wouldn't have made any difference to me. Because I thought lack of money was one of my problems. But in trying to get her to go about, I'd say I was sober about a year and a half. She was fired, and she came into the residue of the estate. And she went down to St. Thomas and built a house on top of the hill. and she died as a result of an overdose of pills and alcohol on her living room floor and I would have been right there beside her because that's the kind of person I am and I don't think that I would have lived any longer than she did. So I'm very grateful that I didn't have that drink, that drink that would allow us to sit there and negotiate. But as I say, I became very active in AA, and I was sponsoring a lot of guys, and it was helping them through the steps, and they were helping me through the steps because I didn't know any better. And I went to the friendship group one night, which is in the Washington Cathedral. And there was a gal there that was secretary of the group, and she kept dropping notes and giggling. And it was obvious that she needed a keeper. And so I talked to her for a while and asked her if she would speak. I had the privilege of being able to be the chairman at my sponsor's home group, which was the Annandale Group in Annanddale, Virginia. It was a speaker meeting, and I had the privilege of doing that. And with his permission, I could ask two people to speak on that night, and Peg was one of those. And she – I called her up prior to going down there, maybe a week or so, and I said, do you want me to pick you up and take you down there? We can grab a bite to eat on the way. She said, no, I've already made arrangements to go with someone else. I thought, I'm not going to tell you what I thought. It wasn't very nice. I don't like being denied, I can tell you that. It just doesn't work very well with me. And I felt sorry for myself is what it amounted to. But anyway, she came down and she spoke. And I'm trying to remember the name of the guy that spoke with you. I can't remember it, but he ended up drinking again. But I saw Peg again at an intergroup meeting, and I went down there to pick up tickets for the intergroup banquet, which is what she had gone down there for. They were two different groups. And I talked to her afterwards, and we had a cup of coffee, as I recall, chatted for a while. And she went her way, and I went mine. And having been turned down once, I wasn't going to ask again. So I kept busy in alcoholics and amas, and, you know, I had to go down and turn the money in. And she went down the same day and turned it in. And I asked her if she would, you know, like to go with me to the intergroup banquet. And she said that she was one of the hostesses there. She was too busy, and she wouldn't be able to do that. So we went to the Intergroup Banquet. And in those days in Washington, D.C., the Inter Group Banquet would have, you know, some speaker come in from some part of the country. And it was usually held in the Sheraton Park Hotel, and the men would wear tuxedos. The women wore long dresses, and all of the men wore tuxedoes, and all of women wore more long dresses. It was a very attractive party that was held, and I went there with Buck and his wife, of course. And Peg was there, and the whole time I saw her there, she was by herself. She wasn't hostessing anything. It didn't appear to me that she was. I'm sure that she had duties, but I've never asked her what they were. And I asked her if she would go out with me. And she said, you'll have to call me. And so I called her to see if her schedule was open. She had an opening on June the 6th, which is Monday. It's June the 5th, 1966. I had been married on June 6th and some years before that. France was invaded on June 5th. It wasn't a very auspicious date for me, I'll tell you. But anyway, I called her up and she said that she would like to do that. And that happened to be a Monday evening. And, you know, people don't date on Monday night. They date on Friday night or Saturday night. You know, I knew the level of importance that she had reached to this. But I said fine, and I picked her up, and as I was driving down Georgia Avenue, and I had a Ford Falcon at that time, which, as I said, somebody had urinated on the front seat. And I thought, I can't pick anybody up, and I can' t date anybody in this, and I went and traded it in and bought a 1966 gold Bonneville convertible. So it wouldn't stop at anything. I mean, the only thing it stopped at was a gas station, it seems to me, as I recall. But I went by and picked her up, and she was impressed. Of course, I was grandiose, and I took her to a seafood restaurant downtown, and we ate dinner, and She very modestly ate shrimp salad. As I remember, I couldn't tell you what I ate, But I thought, you know, why didn't she order a lobster or something? You know, what kind of a girl is this? And we went on to a pre-Broadway showing of Barefoot in the Park at the National Theater. And she laughed and I laughed. We had a good time. Her nose wrinkled up when she laughed just like it does today. And we started dating. And we went out every night between that date and including August the 12th of that year, which is the day we got married. I wouldn't suggest that anybody try that. I wasn't sober a year yet, and she was sober about a year and a half, both of those about as goofy as you can get, I suppose. and but somehow or another we've managed to stay together and not only managed to stay together but live a life of with very few regrets we've never talked about divorce we've talked about homicide a few times We had a couple of kids. We have a son we're very proud of. If I was going to design a son, I would design it like Jim. He's a fine young man. He's married and he made a terrible mistake. I kept warning him about this. He did the same thing that I did. He married somebody who was sober longer than he was. And I want to tell you guys, don't do that. They'll have you bringing them coffee every morning. You go to an AA meeting, they'll say, well, you can bring my coffee. And you just pitter-patter along just like a newcomer. Besides that, you end up, if you stay with them over a long period of time, you endup sleeping with an old timer and it's just, you know. a friend of mine says she allows uh old age to creep over her every now and then it wasn't too many months ago that she asked me she said you know she said i want to i want a girl grow old with you and i said well honey it's too late and she said why and I said because you're already old but we've had a good life together Alcoholics Anonymous has always come first and I mean that absolutely it has come first in our lives it's come first in her life and first in my life she has never said to me Dick you're going to too many meetings or oh I wish you wouldn't go out and go to a meeting tonight. I've never heard that, nor have I ever said that to her. We're both very active in AA. There are people who come over to the house all the time. There were people who phone all the time and, you know, occasionally it's nice to get away for a weekend so that you don't get all those phone calls and those distractions. It allows you to get your mind together and you feel pretty decent about life. But I stayed very active in Alcoholics Anonymous. The steps and the traditions have been a wide part of our lives, and without the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, without the strength that you all give to us, we wouldn't have been able to survive. We have one child that was born dead, which is a tragedy in itself. My wife cried herself to sleep every night, and I held her. There wasn't anything else I could do. But if that child had lived, our lives would have been so different. And I'm not glad the child died, don't get me wrong. But as it was, we were able to leave Washington, D.C. I think if that childhood lived, I don't think that I would have made the effort to leave Washington, but we were able to leave Washington and move out to Bellevue, Nebraska. Involved with a radio station out there and became very involved with Alcoholics Anonymous and sponsor a lot of guys. We started a group out there named after the group that we had started at Foxhole and Reservoir Roads in Washington, D.C. We started the Fox Hall group. Bellevue is now a little town of about 50,000 people. And our Tuesday night meeting has between 450 and 500 people every Tuesday night. I'll tell you how to do it someday if you ask. It's really very simple. But it has saved our lives. And I go to four or five meetings a week Certainly average that over my sobriety. As I say, I sponsor a lot of guys. Peg sponsors a lot of gals. We don't try to get them to marry each other. We try not to get them to marriage each other but as an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'd like to really thank the committee for what you have done in inviting us down, inviting us to spend the weekend with you, and I want to leave you with a parting remark. You know, in our book it talks about our sobriety is dependent upon our spiritual condition. It actually doesn't say that. It actually says that our sobrietty is dependent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition. So it's by taking the steps and helping others and adhering to the traditions that we're able to have a spiritual condition at all. And that's the maintenance. That's going to the meetings, that's doing what you say you're going to do when you say your going to be there. That's being where you say you're gonna be when you're saying you're gonna be there and it's most important that we all understand that it's not because we're spiritual beings that we are able to do anything at all It's really because we take the maintenance, we do the maintenance to our life and we do it right. We do the right things and we try to be honest and forthright and we trying to be grateful. Those are all, that's all part of the maintenance and it's that maintenance, it's doing those things that allows us to stay sober and to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm very proud to be here and I'm very happy that I'm an alcoholic, and I am proud that I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I hope you are too. Thank you.