Step 7 and the Art of Chipping Away What You Don’t Want – Tom O.

Hi, everybody. My name is Tom. I'm an alcoholic and a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's important to tell you that I'm a member of Alcoholic Anonymous because I wouldn't want you to think that I was a business representative for Charm School, because that's not really why we come to Alcoholics Anonymous. At least it's not why I came here. I came here because I was a rotten, no-good, damn drunk, and there was no place else to go. And I just don't see Alcoholics Anonymous as a place for nice people. I wouldn't want to hurt anybody's feelings on a Sunday morning when I'm supposed to be spiritual, but I just don't say AlcoholicsAnonymous is a place for nice, successful people. I mean, it's a place for no-goods, bums, and people who couldn't make it anyplace else. Well, I do want to thank you for having me up here. Actually, this is the third year in a row that I've been invited to come. Twice by a beautiful, lovely young lady who I didn't know could sing like she can. and then once by a man of few words, who, of course, is Bill. And Bill called up and asked if I would come and said he'd send me a letter in a few days. About three months later, he sent me a brief note. But he said he would get in touch with me the first week in March to confirm flight schedules and things like that. and then he called up, I think, last Thursday and asked if I'd made any arrangements for my flight plans. I said, yeah, I had, and I told him what flight I was coming in on, and he said, well, the reason I called you is because I wanted to tell you who's going to meet you. He said, you're going to be met by a guy with a receding hairline. And then there was a long damn silence. And I figured that the conversation was over. And in fear and trembling, I asked, does he have a name? And he said, yes, Don, and hung up. And I really think Don is to be commended for his courage because he wore his badge with the little heart on it out in front of God and everybody right there in the middle of the airport. and that's why I walked up to him and recognized him at once but last night it occurred to me what if instead of having courage he had a sense of adventure and had not worn his badge but had worn a hat I would have been forced in the position of going down to the American Airlines Paging Center and ask them to page Don with a receding airline. I'm glad to be here, and I want to tell you that I'm happy and I'm also glad that you're here too. Now, I came 700 miles to make this talk, and I'd hate like hell to get up here and not have anybody here I mean, I have done that but it makes it nicer if there's a few of you here it said on the marquee over there that we were going to close up at 12 o'clock I hope we make it it's 11 minutes after 11 and if I can wind this thing up by 12 o', man something spiritual is really working inside me Actually, I don't have to leave until 3.25 this afternoon, so if any of you feel like you've got to get up and walk out, don't bother. I've had that happen before, too. One time there were two young kids who lived diagonally across the street from a house of ill repute and in the afternoons and early evenings they would see men go up and knock on the door and the lady would come to the door they'd hand her some money and go in and stay varying periods of time and then come out and walk down the street with a sort of a cat eat the cabbage look on their face and it intrigued these kids curiosity and they wanted to find out what was going on over there. And so they got a hold of 25 cents each, and early one afternoon they went over and knocked on the door and the lady came to the door and let them in. And she said, What do you young punks want? And they said, Well, we want to do whatever it is that the big boys are doing that seems to be so much fun. Well, they were standing in front of her facing each other holding their little 25 cent pieces and she took their money and grabbed them behind the collar and just pounded their heads together unmercifully. And she opened the door and threw them out, and they picked themselves up and walked on down the street and about a half block down the way one of them turned to the other and he said, you know, I don't believe I could have took five dollars worth of that. And that's the reason I'm here this morning. I took the whole $5 worth and thought I was having a good time. I like to say that Tom is who I am and an alcoholic is what I am and when I got up this morning who told her what we weren't going to drink and that's where it's been all day long so far but it wasn't always that way. It used to be that who'd tell her what we wasn't going to drink and the what it'd say who said we ain't. And the who'd say I said we aint, and the whore'd say just you wait and see. And the whores would go out and get drunk and the hoo'd have to hang over. And that reminds me of a story, well they don't really remind me of this story, I mean I've known about it all the way long. It's about them three drunk rabbits, and their names was Foot and Foot-Foot and Footfoot-FOOT. And they were always arguing with each other. Foot-foot-foot would go to Foot-foot, and he'd say, Foot's been stealing my booze. And Foot would say, look, Foot-tooth, you and Foot foot-toot are going to have to settle that out between yourselves and don't get me involved in anything. This went on all the time. And then one day Foot died, and they give him a good funeral, but you know how it is. You've got to get juiced up to go to a funeral. And after it was over, they were sitting along the fence with their ears. You know how a drunk rabbit looks. and foot foot foot turned to foot foot and he said well I guess we might as well go to Alcoholics Anonymous now that we've got one foot in the grave let's hold the applause down because I'm pressed for time. And that's not the only way to get here, but it's a way. Now, I don't know when I started drinking, but I know why I started drinkin'. I started drankin' because everybody else was doin' it. And you may not think that's a powerful reason for doin' anything, but I do. I remember back in the days when many skirts were in style and I never was so impressed with... with, I'm not saying it was a character defect, but just some things better off not exposed. But if everybody else is doing it, it's hard to stand up on the side and be different. And the first memories I have are memories of being off on the edge of the crowd and odd and peculiar. and today I call it unique but I didn't know that word back then when the crowd I was coming up with started to drink I started to drinking just to be one of the crowd that's the only reason in the world just to being one ofthe crowd I started drinking I had trouble with my drinking right off from the very beginning and I might as well tell you what it is when I'd drink I'd puke a lot of people don't like me to use that word especially right after breakfast and they tell me you ought to say you were sick at the stomach but that wouldn't be telling exactly like it was because it's really not the same thing I never had anybody teach me how to drink I'm a self-educated drunk And sometimes I think maybe if I had instructions on how to drink, I might not have turned into being an alcoholic. I don't give that the hell of a lot of thought, really. I mean, but it just occurred to me, you see. But I had to learn by myself. And I was nervous about it and I think I drank it too fast and I always had to have a chaser with it. And, you know, sometimes I'd drink two or three. A lot of times I would be sick of the stomach, really now. I mean、you know, I might as well admit that. But then other times I'd take a drink or two or three real quick, just boom, boom, boom like that and I'd be feeling just as good as I feel right now and out of a clear blue sky I'd puke. And anything you do over and over you get good at it and I got good at puking. I did. I got so I could walk down the street and puke and never miss a step and never get any on me either. and later on I learned something else, too, and it is that once you master a skill, you never really lose it. I've got a son that graduated from West Point, and he transferred to the Air Force and was a navigator, and one time he and his wife and young infant son came to our house, and they brought that 24-hour flu bug with them, and man, with that stuff, you get sick in all directions. It was the first time in my life I'd ever been sick sober And we don't have but one bathroom at home And I told my son, I was ashamed of him I really was I told him, I said, you know, if you're no better in the air Than you are in the bathroom The country's in a hell of a shape But I was just as good as I was 30 years ago I could be sitting around that round table in our dining room and get up and go do what I had to do neatly and come back and never miss my turn to talk. And it was important for me in those days to learn how to drink successfully, and I did. And successful drinking to me then meant that I could go out and tie on a load and somehow get home. And then when the bed started to turn round and round and around, I'd jump in as it passed by and pass out without having to get up and go to the bathroom and puke and that was successful drinking to me. And I don't think this had anything to do with me becoming an alcoholic really except one thing and it's the only reason I tell it actually. It illustrates a point that I think is important for me to say. It may not mean anything to you, but it's just something I think I ought to say, and that is that if you're going to be an alcoholic, you've got to drink. Now, around the country today, it's getting to be the end thing to belong to Alcoholics Anonymous. And in the culture that we live in today, it's not looked on favorably to make slighting remarks about underprivileged groups. And I don't want to get myself in trouble standing up here talking about groups that I pity, but there is one group that I have absolutely nothing but total pity for, and that's those people that would like to be an alcoholic and haven't got what it takes. You see, there are a lot of people that like all the things we've got. They like the love and the warmth and the concern and all these beautiful things that we've Got going for us, but they miss out on the part about drinking. I mean, they won't drink, or at least they won' t give it an honest try. I know people that'll drink and puke and quit. And you just can't pull it off that way. And I really do pity people that would like to be an alcoholic and haven't got what it's taking. You see, just everybody can't be an alcoholic. Now, to be a alcoholic, you have to have certain outstanding characteristics. You have to courage and fortitude and determination and the capacity to envision a goal and let nothing keep you from achieving that goal. And some people just can't pull it off. That's all there is to it. And so I think it's important for me to stand up here and say that if you're going to be an alcoholic, you've got to drink. And while we're on that subject, there's another thing that there's a lot of misunderstanding about, and I think I ought to say that too while the subject is on my mind, and that is that if You're Going to Be a Member of Alcoholics Anonymous, You've Got to Quit. Now, a lot Of people don't understand that. again they love all the things we got the love, the warmth, the concern the affection, the tenderness all these good beautiful things that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous and they miss out on the part about not drinking I don't think it's entirely their fault I don' t think we tell them the whole truth when they first come here there is a requirement for membership in Alcoholic Anonymous and I didn't make it up it was here when I got here And the requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking. And I think the trouble is that most people don't understand what a desire is. Most people think a desire Is something that if you get it, it's okay. If you don't get it It don't matter one way or the other And it's all right And that's not what a Desire is And I didn't know what a desire was when I got here But my wife taught me what a design was And I'm married to a good-looking woman who's a good cook. And one night we had some people over before a meeting, three other couples. She put on a good feed and afterwards it was the four couples of us in the car going to the meeting. They complimented on the supper that she'd prepared. And she said, yeah, that's why Tom married me for my cooking. Well, she said it four times and I just couldn't stand it any longer. and I told her, I said I never will forget the first time I ever saw you walking down that hospital corridor on those high heels shaking from side to side and I was an alcoholic right at the stage where booze made me think I was God's gift to women and I totally if you think I married you for your cooking you're nuts and I did something that I do a lot I went home and I meditated on this thing that had come out of my mouth. And it occurred to me that no married man at any rate should ever have any trouble understanding what the requirement for membership in AA is. It may have been so long ago you've forgotten about it. But that's what those gals did to us when we were courting them. Now they knew by instinct that attraction was better than promotion. And they led us on and led us on and put a whole lot of ideas in our head and got us all ready for action. And then one day they drew a line and said, uh-uh. And what they really said if you ever stopped to think about it was if you've decided that you want what I've got, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. Of course, at some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, yourself to worry. You see, that's a desire. A desire is a screaming mean itch to get the thing you desire and you do anything in God's green earth to get it. And I'll tell you another thing about a desire, if you're going to have a desire you've got to have some kind of general idea of what it is you're going to desire in the first place. I mean, you can't just go out and sit in a field and desire. Well, anyway, I didn't keep up that punk kid drinking. I come from this dumb town of Lake Providence, Louisiana, a little old hick town. And y'all have been real nice to me this weekend. Really, you have, and I've enjoyed it. And don't make a liar out of yourself By trying to make me feel more at home than I already do Don't come up after the meeting and tell me you went through Lake Providence one time Where in the hell would you be going? Nobody goes through Lake Providence. If you've got a reason to go there, you may go there. But don't come up afterwards and tell me you went through Lake Province. But I wanted to leave there and go off and be a success and a hero. And it never occurred to me that maybe you couldn't take a little dumb hick kid and put him off in a different environment and that he might not feel comfortable. But that's exactly what happened to me. I left this little dumb hickey town and I went off to college and I was in a larger community where there was a university and people that seemed to know so many things that I didn't know and had things that i didn't have mainly money and uh... i just felt miserable it wasn't at all the way i expected it to be and uh i'll never forget one night shortly after i'd gone off to college and there were about four or five couples of us We went out for a steak dinner, and we were sitting around a round table, and the waitress was coming around asking everybody what kind of dressing they wanted on their salad. And when she got to me, I said, Kraft. Now, see, I can tell I'm going to have trouble with y'all. because that's what they did they laughed at me and right then and there I began to develop a lifestyle that continued until long after I had been in Alcoholics Anonymous and it was this that anytime I said anything I had to observe you closely to determine how you understood it so I could decide how I meant it and if you laughed I was a comedian and you know if you looked puzzled I was a philosopher. And somewhere along this time in my early 20s I began to drink again and something had happened maybe my body had grown up I don't know what the hell it was maybe I drank differently and this time it was different though when I drank and this year and this is the first time I didn't get sick at the stomach so much and this times I didn' t throw up so much and this was the first time when I drunk a drink or two or three something terrific happened and what happened was that I could take a drink or two or three and people changed. Normally when I looked at a group of people like you, only one or two thoughts would cross my mind. Do you threaten me or can I use you? But with a drink of two or tree in me, I could go out amongst you and genuinely participate in the things that you did. I mean actually genuinely be part of you and the life that you lived. And I could take that drink or two or three, and by God, I became charming. And I would look in your eyes, and I could tell that you were saying, Come on, Tom, we're out here waiting for you. Come be part of us. And I was like, I'm going to go out and be part of you. And it was a new experience to me, and it was a wonderful, electrifying, spiritual experience to me. And I loved it. And so I liked to drink when I was with people. and not only did I like to drink with people when I was with people but I also liked to drink sometimes when I wasn't with people when I didn't know who I was by myself my last name is O'Sullivan and I'm not the only O'SULLIVAN in the room this morning the other O'Süllivan came up to me and shook hands before the meeting started and he said just tell them that the other one is a good looking one but I used to like to talk to myself in the mirror and I'd have a drink or two or three and I look at myself in a mirror and i used to call myself sully baby and i remember i would push my hair back like this and i'd say sully maybe you're going to make it or sully babe you're all right or suly baby you know things are going to be okay And I carried on conversations with Sully Baby in the mirror, and I loved to do that when I was by myself. And then when I Was in Dental School down in New Orleans and I lived on a second-floor apartment and outside the window there on the west side of the building was what in the daytime was kind of a cruddy-looking scene. There was a couple of old streetcar tracks and some straggly trees, but at night with a drink or two or three and me, God, it looked beautiful. And I used to like to sit by that window and look out at the night and have a drink or two or three and just sit there and look at the sheer beauty of the night. And sometimes I used To like to Sit by that Window and Have a Drink or Two or Three and Get Sweet Music on the Radio, and I'd Cry. And I loved to cry. I don't mean bawl, but I mean just fill up right up to here with real hot tears and have them course over my lid and down my cheeks. And I always did think that there was something beautiful about having a drink or two and feeling good and being sad. And it was a way of life that I liked and I pursued it, and I've said many times that it was just as though I'd been walking down the street and turned a corner and got lost and couldn't find my way back because all of a sudden this life that i had built up... You see, I had wanted so desperately to be a success, and I had achieved success. I was out of dental school. I had taken an internship at residency, some postgraduate courses. I was married, had a beautiful family, beautiful children, overseas on a sensitive diplomatic mission, my own car, on the general staff, all the things that a young man in his early 30s could ever want. And all of a sudden, the whole thing began to fall apart, and I didn't understand it. People started talking ugly about me. They said I smelled bad. Well, I'll admit to some place in my drinking career I stopped bathing. I didn' t taper off or just quit. But there was a reason for me quitting bathing. now I'm married to a woman who I don't care what your problem is her first answer is to take a good hot bath and I'm going to tell you after you've been in here a little while and I've been here a little bit you have to set up a scale of relative values and I have set me up a scale of relative value and I want to tell you this I will take a bath but it's way to hell down the line on my list of values I can think of 40 things I'd rather do than take a good hot bath but she was always after me to take a good hot bat and I got a message for some of you tough macho guys you leather jacket fellas and I'm not trying to be funny I'm saying this out of the bottom of my heart I just want to tell you one thing, and it's this. You ain't nothing without your britches. Because she talked me into taking a bath one Saturday afternoon, and the liquor store was closed at 10 o'clock, and I didn't have enough booze in the house for the weekend. And while I was taking a breath, she stole my pants. And at that time I was never praying to anybody Because I didn't have anybody to pray to But I found somebody real quick I got out on my hands and my knees And I begged her to give me back my pants And she gave them back to me At the very last possible moment And I threw on those pants Nothing else, dripping wet Grabbed what money I had dashed a block and a half down the street to the Texas liquor store walked in trying to look cool buying my weekend booze with dimes and pennies and two dollar bills and so I made up my mind I just wasn't going to bathe no more and that's all there was and then they said my hands were shaking Well, I knew my hands were shaking, and I'll admit that if you've got a dentist coming at you with one of them long needles and his hand is steady, it ain't too good. But if he's weaving at you, you know, I mean, you've Got Cause for Concern. But I knew My Hands Were Shaking, and l had taken steps to do something about it. Now, I never did like to get up early in the morning, but as I told you, I'm married to a woman who's a good cook, and she believes that if You're going to be well, You have to eat well. and she wanted me to leave for work with a hearty breakfast under my belt. Well, in those days I couldn't just get up and eat. I had to get ready to eat. And so as much as I hated to get up early in the morning, I had TO get up earlier enough to get drunked up enough to eat breakfast and then breakfast would get me sober and then I had To get drunk up enough to go to work but not so drunk that I couldn'T go to worked. And that's work. That's what I'm talking about, that courage and fortitude and determination that it takes to be an alcoholic. This ain't no damn 40-hour week I'm talkin' about. Every night, 365 stupid days in a year, when I went to bed, I knew exactly how I was gonna feel in the morning. Sick. But I had it worked out to where I was in real good shape up to 10 o'clock. And if you'd have come to me by 10 o'to'clock in the morning, you'd ha' got the best treatment you coulda' got. And just before I'd go to work, I used to put a drop of Charlemagne perfume on my tongue. And later on they had some proceedings against me in the Army and they asked a major that had an office next door to me how I smelled when I came to work in the mornin'. And he said he smelled like a drunken French whore. I mean that and I can remember more than one time when I'd have somebody cut on the inside maybe from here to here and it would come time to sew them back up and the clock would strike ten and I'd be like and I'll have to stuff a lot of cotton in your mouth and go off in the corner and take a drink And they were narrow-minded. Well, you see, you're just like the colonel. I'm going to have to explain it to you. You see, if I was a jack-legged dentist, I'd have let him go with the damn gums flapping in the breeze. But I've never been that sort of a fellow. I've always been a professional man with the highest ethical and moral standards. And I wouldn't dream of letting my patients leave my office without being properly sewed up. And the only way I could do it was take a drink. And I was the only dentist within 1,500 miles. And one time a guy told me, he said, well if your hands are shaking why don't you take a goofball or two or three or four? And I did and one day I went to sleep in the lady's lap. you'd be amazed at what kind of dirty mind some people have and when I came back to the United States I knew that something was wrong with me and I went to an army doctor that was well thought of and I told him I thought I might be an alcoholic I have no idea where I got that word from I was a captain in the dental corps at the time and he said to me I'm glad you came to me just last week I cured a major general so they put me in the hospital and they stuck a lot of needles in me and out me and up me and the cure didn't take and for a long time I thought it was because I was just a captain I did I can remember walking down the street and saying to myself man if I was just somebody else. All this stuff wouldn't be happening to me. I remember one time I walked in the room where there was four people and I said I thought it would rain and they all got up and walked out. It was like I had broke wind. And I got all the same help that you got. They said to me, why don't you drink like Bill? Bill is a bald-headed brother-in-law of mine. I've been sober today for 22 years and I feel this morning exactly about Bill as I did 30 years ago. I never want to do anything like Bill. And besides, how do you drink? How do you think like Bill?" And then they told me, get right with God. And I got the same question today that I had 30 years ago. How do you do it? Now, you don't have to pay too much attention to what I'm saying up here because if you disagree with me, you've got a constitutional right to be wrong. But I'm going to stand up here and tell you that I don't believe the alcoholic dynamics have got to answer to your problem. And the reason I say that is that there's no chapter in the book titled, There's an Answer. The title of the chapter is, There is a Solution. And that's what we've got. We've got a time-tested, experience-proved solution. And you've got to put you in the solution and come up with your own answer. and I sometimes think that it may be the particular glory of Alcoholics Anonymous that we don't go around pretending to have the answer but rather we present a solution to the people who wish to take advantage of it and I honestly do believe that the trouble one of the major troubles with the whole stupid world not just including the area of alcoholism but including it for sure But the trouble with the whole dumb world that we live in Is that every Tom, Dick and Harry that you run into Has got to answer to your problem And they don't even know what your dumb problem is And I think it's a great thing That in Alcoholics Anonymous we have A time-tested, experience-approved solution And you've got to put you in the solution And come up with your own answer Then they tried to scare me into not drinking I don't believe you can scare an alcoholic Into not drinking They told me I'd die if I didn't stop drinking I'd go crazy if I hadn't stopped drinking All this kind of stuff And that reminds me of a story I have absolutely no business in the world telling But I'm going to do it anyway it's about a little boy that his mama caught him playing with himself and she gave him a doomsday lecture she said, that'll make you go blind and he said, well, could I keep on doing it just until I have to wear glasses and that's almost the definition of alcoholism if it ever really gets bad, I'll quit and then they sent me to AA and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I can't tell you how long I came there I was in 1956 and I can tell you how long I came I don't really remember I'd say it was more than six months and less than two years. And one night I walked out the meeting room of the Alcoholics Anonymous group and didn't come back. And I don't know why I did it. It wasn't because I thought it would work or wouldn't work or didn't like the people or did like them or anything at all. I don' t even remember actually walking out the door. It just so happened that one time I left the meeting room and didn't come back and I have no idea why I didn't come back I came back five years later in 1961 when I left that meeting room that night I still had all the things that I held sacred to me in life I still had my wife, my job the family, the car the money, the home all the things that I had strived so mightily to attain and all the thing that I said that I held to be blessed and sacred in my life and when I came back they were all gone when I come back to Alcoholics Anonymous five years later in 1961 I had a dollar and thirty-five cents in my pocket and that was it and everything else was gone You see, there's something I want to say here and I honestly don't know how to say it. And I hope it comes out nice but I know it won't. I want say something to the people that I hear everywhere I go who say, but I don't like AA. Who the hell cares whether you like it or not? If you're an alcoholic like I am, you goddamn well better sit out there and learn to like it for the simple reason that it may be the only game in town. And that's just a suggestion And I was one of those self-centered alcoholics That had to go all the way down to the bottom There's no need of me telling you all that Bob sketched all that in last night I went all the places he went And some other places besides I had hallucinations to the extent that I missed them when they left really and finally because there was nothing else left to do and I had been reduced to the level of a street bum on the streets of the city of San Antonio I hitchhiked back to this town Lake Providence that I had left years before to become a hero. And I hitchhiked into Lake Providence one Labor Day weekend on a tasty bird poultry truck. And I went back there and lived with my mother. I was in my late 30s and she was in her 70s and I became the town drunk. You know, I used to think it was a big deal becoming the town drunks but it's not really. We all are the town drugs. or the apartment drunks, or the condominium drunks or the shopping market drunks. What difference does it make? You know in all my life I don't believe I have ever seen an anonymous alcoholic. You take a real drunk that sees a cop coming and he'll go hide somewhere in the bushes. Not an alcoholic. If the cop is walking this way the alcoholic will run around and get in front of him so the cop can see him. and we queer people in many ways I mean, we get drunk in condominiums and on main streets and in shopping market parking lots and any place you can think of and it don't bother us one bit and then we decide to come to Alcoholics Anonymous and start living a good life and right away we say shh, don't tell nobody I've changed my way of living but don't let nobody know about it I think if you listen closely enough to enough AA talks you'll hear certain characteristics when people get to their turning points or their surrender points or whatever kind of points you may want to call them they all talk about a sudden clarity of the mind And suddenly the mind becomes clear. It doesn't mean that there's no confusion in the mind, but just suddenly it becomes clear and you hear most of the people tell about in their own way, of course, that while this clarity of mind existed that they realized that they were at a crossroads and he realized that there were at the crossroads and no crap. This was it. and it's suddenly they felt the tug of some vague power greater than they were and this all happened to me one time because I fell out of bed I was living back in a little tiny dirty filthy room that I call a recovery room it was where my mother used to put me when company came. A little old dirty Hollywood bed down close to the floor, and I was always falling in and out of it. And it never made any difference to me whether I woke up in bed or out of bed. I mean, in bed on the floor. I don't ever remember waking up in between, but I don' t think that made any different. But this night, if it was night, and l'm not really sure because in those days, things weren't black and white. They were all gray. I fell out of bed and I lay down on the floor and I just simply had had enough. That's all. I mean, I just was willing that the direction of my life be changed and that's all I can say about it. I don't remember praying or going through any formality or anything. I just honestly wished inside me that the direction of my life would be changed. And I never will forget something that happened to me and has become a basic part of my life even to today. I got up off that floor and I walked around that house by now my mother had died and I was there by myself and all the same filth was in exactly the same places that it was before I fell out of bed. The cobwebs were where they were and the dust was where they were and the dirt was where it was. Everything was precisely the same as it had always been. But the most tremendous event in my life had already taken place and I didn't know it. I had already taking my last drink. And this has been my experience as I've come to AA and continue to AA and have grown in prayer, in a prayer life, which I think is the whole basis of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so many times I discover that the things that I think that I pray for or wish or long for or earnestly desire have actually taken place in my life before I am even aware that they have occurred. And I sometimes say to myself that it would be well if I would learn to tiptoe through life lest the noise that I make in my mad rush on would distract me from the beauty of the reality in which I am immersed. And if that don't sound like Sunday preaching, well it does. And so I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because a guy asked me to come. This guy wasn't nearly as intellectual as I was. The only thing he had going for him was sober, and I never could stand his guts and can't today. But he came by and asked me if I'd go to a meeting, and then I went. And I've been coming ever since. And I didn't come to AA the way you're supposed to, I don't think. I hear these old-timers say, when you come in that door, you've got to tell the truth. Well, I didn'T come to AE that way. I mean, first of all, I DIDN'T know what the truth was when I came here. and I had to come here long enough to find out what the truth was, and then a little bit longer to find whether or not I wanted to tell it. And I hear people say they're not going to write an inventory, and believe me, I don't give a hoot whether you write an Inventory or not, but I had too. My life was so screwed up that I had get it down in black and white to find what was real and unreal. And I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. In World War II, I was shot down over Vienna and had to jump out of my airplane. And I got back with my own outfit. And that's a good story all by itself. But when I came back from overseas, they said the veterans didn't want to talk. Well, I did. Anytime I got a chance to talk, I talked. But the story, the way that it happened wasn't good enough. I had to add on to it. And I want to tell you how it ended up. You see, it ended up that I was captured by the Germans and escaped. And I wanna tell you how I escaped. Late one afternoon walking at the end of a column under the pretense of having to relieve myself, I walked off through a shallow ditch onto a grassy plain out into the woods, picked out a tree, relieved myself, noticed that the column had walked on and then drifted out through the woods and made contact with the Russians and eventually got back with my own outfit. And that never happened at all! But as I'm standing here this morning, I can see just as clearly as I can see Debbie, that shallow ditch and that grassy plain and the tree that I picked out. you see when I lied I made mental pictures to go with my life I wasn't just an ordinary liar I never could get my wife to understand that I was a created, dedicated artistic liar and when I got here I literally did not know what was real and what was unreal and I had to get it out on paper to find out as far as that particular thing is concerned it was so screwed up it. I'll tell you what I did. I couldn't unravel it, so I just memorized the good story. And if you want to hear about that after the meeting and we've got time, I'll talk to you about it. Tell it, dude. And then I hear people say about the fifth step, you know, I don't mind telling it to myself and to God, but not another human being. Well, that wasn't my experience with the fifthstep at all. I'll take you part of my fifthstep experience. When I was about eight years old, I was an altar boy in a Catholic church and one Sunday I stole a buck off the collection plate and I got caught and punished but I guess I couldn't accept the forgiveness and I carried this thing with me all my life all my adult life I was a regular army man and I literally lived around the world and many a night in Rome or Paris or Tokyo or Rejovic or wherever the hell it might have been, just as I was ready to doze off into a peaceful night's sleep, up and pop that buck. And there I'd be all night with it. And I'm not saying it made me drink, but I am saying it didn't contribute to any kind of serenity. And I never will forget when I found out that the priest had died. There were only three people that knew, my mother, the priest, and me. and I got a letter saying the priest had died and I'd never been so happy in my life I was actually thrilled I was walking on air now there's only two of us that know and I watched my mother die and I'm not saying it was the only thought but I am saying that it was present as I watched her die now it's safe because nobody knows but me and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I run into some of you loose mouth people well that's the truth some of your people stand around and in ordinary conversation tell each other things that no sane human being would tell his lawyer or his priest and I decided I was going to tell somebody about stealing that buck and that's when I found out something else about AA and a lot of things that outsiders don't understand I really felt sorry for Bob last night talking about going to Harvard and he's going to explain AA to them psychiatrists I mean I would not to comment on that but man he's got a job ahead of him I'm telling you because outsiders don't understand what's going on in their head and when they do understand it they don't believe it and outside people see four AAs at a table and everybody talking and they think there's a lot of communication going on but there's not there's four monologues taking place everybody is sitting around just idling waiting for somebody to take a deep breath so they can dive in and take control and I tell you another thing It's damn near impossible to tell somebody in our college anonymous what a rat you are. You go up to somebody in the A and say, look, I want to tell you what a Rat I am. They say, wait a minute, let me tell you where the Rat I Am. And I remember more nights than I care to remember. I'd say, I'm going to meet tonight and I'm gonna tell somebody about stealing that buck. And I'd go down there and say hey, I wanna tell you about something I did. Wait, let Me tell you About Something I Did. and I remember one night I got mad and I said to him I said by God I'm going to keep coming back to Adel I'm gray-haired but I'm gonna tell somebody about stealing that damn dollar and so I was glad when I could find somebody who would sit down and shut up and let me tell him all these things I've been wanting to tell somebody about me all my life and how many times have you wanted honest to God wanted to tell somebody and you go up to them and you start to tell them and they pat you on the shoulder and they say Don I got all the confidence in the world that's French for get the hell away from here I ain't interested in your damn problem and I knew I was taking a risk you know a guy asked me one time that I was sponsoring, and he said, how do I know that guy won't tell it on me? I said, you don't. You're taking a risk. You don't know that Alcoholics Anonymous will work. You got no guarantee that it'll work. The only way you'll ever find out whether it'll work or not is to get in here and try it. But let me tell you one thing. This ain't no damn penny-ante game. You ain't playing just what you got before you. You gotta push it all into the middle and bet your ass that it'll work. And you better believe you're taking a risk, and I knew I was taking a risque when I took that fifth step with that guy. I was fully prepared for him to say, yes, we deal with the dregs of humanity, but we didn't count on people like you. But of course he didn't do that. he let me lay the whole pile of crap on his desk and then when it was all over he looked at me and he said you know we love you and for the first time in my life I had experienced unconditional surrender unconditional acceptance and there's a four letter word for unconditional acceptance and the word is love and that's what happens here in Alcoholics Anonymous is that we're unconditionally accepted that's why I said in the beginning it's not a place for nice people don't come here and pretend that you're a nice person come here as the bum that you are you're the people we want we don't want nice people they got other clubs for nice People but if you think that you know good and you're down and your life ain't worth leaving to come here you're The People We Want and then they get tacked up about the sixth and the seventh step you know and I had a guy tell a story one time about a lady that had asked a sculptor if it wasn't a big deal making beautiful statues and he said no not really all you do is just get a piece of marble and chip away what you don't want and isn't that what we begin to do in our college synonymous isn't there some moment in AA when we begin to grasp however faintly who it is we can become and then doesn't it gradually begin to grow into an earnest desire to become that which we know we are destined to be and it's just a case of chipping away what we don't want and then we all get tied up in the amends bit that's where you need a sponsor you need a sponsor for the 8th and 9th steps more than any other step I had a hell of a time with the making of amends you know if you're going to make amends you've got to know you harmed somebody and you have to know how you harmed them and you know you have no idea you have too know how you're going to repair the harm that you did to them. I remember I went to a guy one time and I said, I'm sorry I owe you that $200. He said, by God, I am too. And another time I said to another guy, I'm really sorry. And he said, you sure are. You're the sorriest bastard I've ever run into. Those aren't amends. or men's an effort to restore to the lives of those we've harmed that which we have taken away from them and it's a tremendous undertaking and a tremendous enterprise and Gary mentioned last night coming up in the elevator that that's where the key to the whole glory of the program lies is when we begin to get into the area of trying to go out and repair the damage that we once brought into the lives of the people that we met and that we loved and we simply encountered as far as that's concerned. And they have to be direct amends. That guy that I told you that came to call on me and I never did like him and he got up one night and said that he never had made any direct amens but he'd made a lot of indirect amends and I said, well, you must be in BB. and he said BB what's BB I said I don't know but his churn ain't AA because the AA program specifies direct amends and then there's the prayer steps you know when I came into AA an old guy had a rough sponsor he was a mean son of a gun and he told me he said you're going to have to pray whether you like it or not. But he said, I'm going to teach you how to pray, and he said I want you to do it exactly the way I tell you because he said you're the only guy I've ever known in my life that could screw prayer up. And he said I don't want any of this stuff dropping down on your knees in the living room where the whole family can see it. He said I want to pray for you when you get up each morning to go to the bathroom. And he says I don' t care whether you sit or stand or kneel or whatever else you do. But he said, while you're in the bathroom, say please. And don't say anything else. And then he said at the end of the day, when you finish your day, you go back in the bedroom and you say thanks. And don'sayanythingelse. And he told me that if you do this on a daily basis, that in time the right word for you will come. I've been an A for 22 years and I want to tell you how far I've got I don't go in the bathroom anymore well, I do but I mean not for that when I first come to consciousness in the morning the first words that cross my mind are please dear God with your help I'll not take a drink today and the last thing I say at night is thank you God for this sober day I used to say thank you for this beautiful day of sobriety but I realized that was what that guy was talking about see, I'm trying to add on to it and make it into something that it ain't just thank you for this sober day and I've learned a lot about prayer in Alcoholics Anonymous it's my very life's blood but the people I have the most sympathy for maybe are those people who have trouble with the third step and those are the people that seem to think that you have to know something about God in order to take the third step when you really don't you see I must have taken the third step years ago I wouldn't be here this morning but in the interval since I took it my will has changed my life has changed and my understanding of God has changed and if we were gathered here a year from today I would have to admit to you that in the interval my will had changed, my life had changed and my understanding of God had changed. You see, everything in the third step as far as I'm concerned is a variable that changes with the passage of time except the decision that I made. You see? And to me, taking the third steps is a lot like getting married. Now my wife's name is Zida and over 30 years ago I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of Zida as I understood her and ain't I glad I didn't wait until I understood her but I made the commitment based on what I could do at the time that I made it and in the interval we have grown into some kind of a relationship which could easily be described there's conscious contact the capacity to sit in a room without saying anything without touching and being keenly aware of the presence of the other as an other and I tell you in all truth there is a sense in which I am aware of her presence here this morning just as much as if she was sitting down there and this is what's happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous that I have become aware that I live and exist and possess my moments in the presence of a power greater than myself. And this is the thing that sustains me. And I could go on and on and On and On, but we're really getting cramped for time here. And I'm going to tell you about the first time I ever really carried the message to a guy and sponsored him at the same time. Then we'll knock it off. And this guy was on the prison farm. And I went out there and talked on Sundays. And later on he got off the prison farm and he came over to the house. He tried to drink, and he couldn't drink, and it just made him terribly sick. And he came home from the house, and first he asked my wife, and then he asked me if we would help him learn how to stay sober. And of course she told him yes, that we would. You know how L9s are. And then he finally got to me, you know, and I told him, yeah, we would, and I said, well, I'm going to go to jail. I told you that I lost my wife. Well, you see I had just got her back and I was about 18 months sober. And later on I remember Eddie said that some of the things that I said made sense and that's an indication how sick he was. Now my town is right on the Mississippi River and before the EPA got at us we used to use across the levee as a garbage dump and transients used to take corrugated tin and build lean-tos and live over there in the garbage dump. And that's where Eddie's daddy lived. And that'S where he had to go for a home when he left the prison for him and when he came to us. And what we'd do was we'd have Eddie come over to the house every morning and my wife would feed him three good meals during the day and my office is in the same building that my home is in and in between patients, which in those days was a hell of a long time, I'd give him gems of wisdom, and then at night he'd go back to his father's home in the garbage dump. Now, as I said, I got a thing about this woman that I'm married to, and I had just got her back. And one night I was on my side of the house. I was playing a hi-fi and she came over and said it was too loud and I said it wasn't she said it would I said run she said it was one of those intellectual conversations and finally when she said again that it was too loud I said look why don't you just get out of here and leave I just got her back and she said for heaven's sakes you don't mean go back to san antonio and i said that's exactly what i mean and she says well i'm not leaving unless you give me some money i said i'll give you twenty dollars a week if you just get the hell out of here you could tell i'm one of the last big spenders She said that's not enough I went to 40, not enough 80, 160, 326, 40, 1280 Not enough When she said not enough I began to get weak in the stomach And my voice began to change Like it does when I get upset And anger begins to pop into my mind And I got up out of that chair And I shook my finger in her face and I said look at here I'm an alcoholic and you're making me nervous and you know you ain't supposed to make alcoholics nervous And not me, because I wouldn't talk that way. But my wife said, Bullshit! And I tore out that side door on this side yard and I'm telling you, I thought I was going to bust wide open into little pebbles. I never felt like that in my whole entire life. And I looked up and there in the gathering twilight come old Eddie. He'd been back to his father's home in the garbage dump, and had forgotten one of them gems of wisdom I'd give him. And he'd come back to find out what it was. And I put him in the car and got him straightened up. And then I went home and got straight with her. And I like to remember that night because I believe that that night even God herself was in trouble. Because she needed somebody to send to me. And as she looked over all her vast creation, the only person she could find who would go was a tall, skinny drunk with a scratchy voice that lived in a garbage dump. You see, what we do here is help each other. Let's never forget it. Thank you very much.