Step 2 Promised to Restore My Sanity — That Assumes I Had Any Left to Restore – John V.

And I will never forget, and I hope I never will forget, the first time I heard the purposes of this AA meeting given, at which I had any power to comprehend what was being said. So I want to give you the purpose of the meeting that was the preamble, as we call it, that was used when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and many of the groups in this area still use it. Immature person, probably I'll never grow up, sort of like John Kennedy. You know, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Our president is emotionally immature. When the uprising recently came up in the past year down in Jackson, Mississippi, he went to crying to his mama. He said, Mama, Robert's trying to take over my country. There's nothing to be ashamed of. And when I found out that it was some hope offered through the purpose of that first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, it meant so much to me, and I want to give it to you. Alcoholics Anonymous is an informal society of alcoholics who aim to help fellow problem drinkers recover their health. We know we're a foundation for permanent recovery. In spite of the fact that we've often been pronounced incurable. We, Alcoholics Anonymous, are gathered together seeking a renewal of strength. This strength has been revealed to us as coming from a power greater than any earthly one, however we talk to no particular creed or sect. This is not the place for the curious, nor anyone presently under the influence of alcohol. The only requirement for membership is an honest willingness to do anything to quit drinking. Each speaker on our program presents his or her own particular views and experiences. Their opinions may not be that of the group as a whole. And that is the purpose of the meeting as it was first given to me, and I will never forget what it meant to me. When there was a hope that we could be restored to sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. Now, many of us might have been in the frame of mind that I was in that night, and the purpose of the meeting was to restore sanity. was a hope for my sanity to be renewed, restored. It meant a great deal to me. I sort of elaborated on that out in Texas several years ago, and a boy who had been released from the penitentiary went back to the penitentiary and made a set and sent it to me for me to put my mental marbles in. I admitted that my mental marbles through the teachings of AA had been gotten back together, but the set that he came in was still in this place, and I was looking for it, so he made me a set. I am so horribly inadequate to act as the chairman of such a meeting as this because of the dignified air. We're certainly blessed with having a speaker tonight who has a message for us. I I I I look out over this crowd and I've attended many, many AA's. I feel inadequate as the four-colored preacher did when he was invited out of town to make his preach, and the congregation that he was preaching before was much larger than he had expected to see, and when he walked up on the rough and to take his place, he couldn't say a thing. He was just all stricken, and he said, Lord God, what a gathering. That's the way he started off, and that's the way I feel up here tonight. I'm reminded of Clarence when he said last night that he faded on several occasions when he was called on to make talk in school. I feel more or less that way. I figured tonight it was my pleasure to meet him back in the late 40s over in Asheville, North Carolina. I was attending the first Southeastern Convention that was ever held in that city, and our speaker was present over there, and he talked at one of the night sessions at a hospital, a drying-out station that one of our members was on cloud nine and was going to establish over there. I don't know how successful it was, but his intentions were good. And it's been my pleasure to run interns several times since then, and we tried mighty hard to get him out here in 1950. In 1959, I believe, when we had the last Southeastern Regional Convention. But the family duties prevented him from being here. But we are so fortunate in having him now, and I don't want to take up any more of his time because he has such a wonderful message for us. And he is affectionately known to us as Johnny. But I want to give, for the benefit of those of you who are not members, I want to give you the very reverend Johnny Van Dyke, the vice of Oklahoma City. Mr. Dean, I don't know if you're sitting. I'm glad that you invited me to come here to Memphis, Tennessee. When I came here this evening, I didn't know how I was going to get back to Oklahoma tomorrow morning by 8.30, but that problem seemed to be solved, if I still can keep my eye on the microscope without any of the strain. And I'm glad to be here. There is a hymn in the old Methodist hymn book, which says, I walk not always this way. I'm glad to be now a priest in the church and a dean of a cathedral. But once upon a time, I went to my first meeting. And I am one of you. I'm an alcoholic. And I hope when there is any press here that they will be very careful what they say and not mention my name. It has been my pleasure to be in AA for quite a long time. As the chairman said, we met one another for the first time in 1946 in Asheville, North Carolina. That's a heck of a long time. And then you start to think about it, how every day, 24 hours, has gotten us together that I can be sober for about 18, 19 years. Then I must thank God on my knees every day that I came into this group. Believe me, I'm not a fool. That time was very small. I think Ruth, who was a speaker here before me, agreed with me tonight, or she really heard I did. We only have one story to tell. I understand, and I'm not here to start to interpret any steps. I'm just as much of a drunk as you are. And there is only one interpretation of the steps, to be very honest. And so the only story we have to tell is a story about us. Me. I hope by now I know me, and therefore I'd like to tell you a little bit about how I found AA, or I go a step further, how and what happened then after that. Let me first tell you a little bit, I think, who are here already when we are little children have a tendency to become alcoholics. Alcoholism is an escape mechanism. And all of us, when we are young, we try to be and try to become happy people. I think when you ask your children, who are two and three and four and five years old, what they want to become when they are older, they want to become something. This becomes their ideal. Why it becomes that way is that they think if they will have those things that they want to be or want to have, that they become happy people. And I think we are not any exception to that. I remember when I was a young man, I wanted to be a happy person and I wanted to be a happy person. I thought that if I would have the things which money can buy, and I would have a pretty home, a good-looking car, the cars at that time were different than they are now, then I would be a happy person. And, of course, the reason that we feel that way is by contrast. Most of the time we don't have that. I don't know how it is with you, but for me it was this way, that I was brought up in a very small country, in a very small village. My father didn't have any money. And I looked at those people who had the things as being in an exalted position, and I hoped someday to heaven. And for that I was willing to sacrifice a number of things. In the small village in which we lived in Holland, and you can still hear it, for I have an accent from here to the other end of the room, but when you can't understand me, then put up your hand, and I'll switch a little bit. In the small village in which I lived, my father was a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers are very... a remarkable person, to say the least. They are neither... When they are fish, they want to be fowl, and when they are fowl, they want to be fish. And my father had a very... I think he really resented it from the very beginning. He knew that he never would have any money, but he certainly wanted his children to have money. And that's what he was always harping about, education. Now, that's a very good thing in itself, but, you know, education, for the sake of education, is something that is not very good for children. I was told always by my father that he wouldn't smoke, for otherwise he couldn't go to school. And he was not using even any matches. He was using pieces of firewood, you know, in his pocket, and then he would light his pipe, and he'd say that he did it for us. And you'd start to resent that. And then when we went to school, we had to have second-hand books, and second-hand shoes, and second-hand pants, and second-hand everything. And in the country I came from, we had bicycles, and every boy knew the name of his bicycle, the same as my boys know the name of the airplanes, but my bicycle didn't have a name. It was lacquered over second-hand again. And I resented the dickens out of that. And I made up my mind once upon a time that if I grew up, then I was going to have the things which I wanted to have. It certainly would make me a more happy or a happy person, which I was not. Now, that was the thing. I think the drive for success, the willingness to work, if you're trying to be someone, you're not. I came from a very small village, as I told you. I probably was taken out of the clay by ten horses. You know that clay is still sitting between our toes, regardless of what you think. When we come from small villages, we never overcome this. And when we go out and we live in a big city, what we want to do, is show as interest of society, and we can conquer the world. And there's another thing what my parents had, and I think this was detrimental of me becoming an alcoholic, is they had the kind of a religion which was based on the words, don't, don't do this, don't go on a bicycle on Sunday, and don't play cards on a Sunday, and don't do this. And that religion was such that anyone, I think, who finally starts to go to, to a school of higher learning, revolts against. You cannot live by negative religion. I had to me become a policeman who was standing around the corner, and if I did anything wrong, then he was going to hit me over the head. I remember how I was so full of fear and so afraid, and once upon a time when I was in high school, we had orders to be home before twelve o'clock on Saturday night, for then it would be Sunday, and I had a bicycle with me, and I was a viewer, and I was a few minutes late, or a few, about ten minutes, quarter of an hour, for I had seen a beautiful girl, and I think we all like to do that, that when the clock started to ding its twelve bell at midnight, I stepped off my bicycle, for I thought, my God, at the seventh bell, God would come down and hit me right over the head. Now here are those two things, three things really. One is a drive to help things, and the other one is a religion that you cannot fall back on, a negative one. H-10-4, I would call it an escape kind of a life. In high school, or out of secondary schooling, I didn't go to high school, I went to gymnasium, as it is called in Holland. I didn't want to study, I wanted to make money, and when you look at the young boys and girls today, they want to do the same thing. I wanted to hurt, I wanted to do the same things, and after one year of trying to make my money that way, I find that in the university I worked hard. I knew that in order to get the things I wanted, to get the material things, I had to study, and I did it double as hard as anyone else, and I became a doctor of chemistry, and I became a doctor of engineering. And now I have reached the point of great success, for you see, the country I come from, money doesn't count half as much as a degree. And so when I was 23, I became president of an oil company, and I had reached what I wanted to do, I had now reached the top of the ladder, I made money, and I was respected, I had all the things which I thought I wanted. When you are built that way, then you cannot stop. I give you a typical idea of what kind of a person we generally are, and I think if I speak about myself, then I speak about all of us. The first money I ever made as salary, I spent on getting an ivory-colored open Buick. And the country I came from was laid out that time for bicycles. It was not laid out for ivory-colored open Buicks. But now I know the reason why. You see, this is typical of an escape artist. We want people to notice us. Mommy, do you see me? We want people to say, you see who is going there? This is this young fellow. And we still do this by drinking, you see. We really want people to say, you see who's going there? Same thing. Well, anyway, this is what I did. And of course, you understand that already a long time before that I had left the family circle for we want to be on our own. There's another one of those things. Well, then a lot of things do happen. When you have a good-looking car, you have good-looking girls. You know that. I probably as a clergyman shouldn't talk about this. Most people think that a clergyman is foley and has a halo around his head. But you know most of the time that halo is all slipped down again. And even this is typical for an alcoholic, for when you look at the wives they marry, they're all built like cathedrals. You know that? I mean, we pick our wives for architectural beauty. And this goes as our wives, and this goes as our girlfriends, too. And I had plenty of them. For when in Holland that time, you had a good-looking car, old boy. I may just as well tell you right now, and be amongst ourselves, and I hope it doesn't get in any paper, but I think, you know, our dribble on alcohol is also related somehow or another with our dribble with females. Yes? I think all of us have one other dribble, and that is we want to be loved. We want to go out of their way. Well, this is number three. And so, as far as that is concerned, I had now everything. I had a car, I had a big job, I had also the architectural beauty of a lot of friends, and I had made it. But you don't stop there. Now, I haven't said a word about drinking yet, have I? You know, drinking is just a symptom. I mean, it is. I didn't drink. I didn't need to drink that time yet. I believe that anyone who is in high school or in college is entitled to get drunk a few times a year. I think there's nothing wrong with that. I still believe that God created the grape of the vine and the fermentation process to be used. And I did. But I was not an alcoholic yet. That came later. My small little country, for when I was in 23 or 24, I had reached the top of success. I was making as much money as the prime minister. I got my chance to come to this country. And this is the greatest country in the world. I never can help saying this. You know, when people abroad or any place in America talk about their country, this is the greatest. This country has been extremely good to me. Then, 23, 24, and they painted America. I was told that America had green dollar bills and they were hanging on the trees. And if you worked hard enough and reached far enough, you could get as many as you wanted. And my idea was to get as many as I wanted. And then I was going to work for 10 years and put as many of those dollar bills in a rock. I came here. I came here many years ago. This is about 30 years ago. I came to this country, having made up my mind to make as much money as I could. And then I was going to play the big boss. This is what we all want to do. You know, this is why we come to a bar and we stand in front of the bar and we want to be the big boss and we take our wallet out of our pocket and we set a note for all of them. Well, I came here. But now there started to develop a difficulty. You see, I came here and I was sent from the old country. I was sent here to become the head of a distillery. Now, when you are allergic to tar, you should not go in the roofing business. That's stupid. When you are an escape artist, you shouldn't go in the liquor business nor in the tranquilizer business. At that time they didn't have those things yet and it is a good thing, otherwise I probably would have been in that one. But I came here to repeal a distilling company. I didn't have any trouble. My salary was... There was really no limit to what you could achieve and I saw my future very clear that I within 10 years wanted to do. But then fate... From the small company I was working for and they sent me over, this company was absorbed by a much larger one and again by a much larger one and I grew with the company and finally here I became the head of research of the largest distilling company in the world. And now I have made my fortune. I came here as an immigrant with nothing in my pocket, some broken down underwear and some pyjamas. Working very hard, I started to have a big estate, my own chauffeur and butler, my own farmer and I was sitting on top of the world. And people who saw me driving, driving right by in my chauffeur car and going in a private railroad car, they were saying to one another, do you see what a success this is? This is America. But in the meantime something had happened. You see, a product of, in the first place, our parents. Secondly, we are from a small village. I was a materialist. I didn't have any idea of God anymore until the clay of Holland was sitting in between my toes. Now let me first tell you something about my religion that time. My father was a very, very intelligent man. Blessed soul. He's dead now. When I was 18 years old, I went to my father and I was in university then. I said to him, Father, I don't believe anything of this nonsense as far as your religion is concerned. And I will never go to church anymore. And then my father, who was a very wise man, said to me, son, he said, you are not 40 years old yet. That's all he said. He didn't say you have to. He didn't say you should. He didn't say it is better. He didn't say anything else but those words. And I still can hear him. Son, he said, you are not 40 years old yet. And I have repeated those words thousands of times. For you see, when you are sitting at the top of the ladder, you're at the head of a very large corporation and you do what I did, travel all over the world. By the way, I crossed the ocean 39 times. Then you meet a tremendous amount of people. You meet people who know so much. More than you do. And people who have, and let us call it honestly, people who all over the world show their breathing, show their real education, who can talk on any kind of subject you cannot talk about. And then you start to develop an inferiority complex. And this is what is the fourth thing, what we all have. We feel inferior. And therefore we want to be some, someone, somebody, who we are not. And the easiest way to be somebody who we are not is to take a drink or two or three or ten. And then be our somebody who we are not. I remember the time I was skiing in Switzerland and I didn't know how to ski very well. But when I took half a bottle, brother, I could ski just as well as anybody else. And I remember the time that I was that, I could talk and speak before large groups of people all over the world. And I speak seven languages fluently. But there were some languages I didn't speak. But if I took half a bottle, then I could speak about twenty-eight. And I met a tremendous amount of men and women, especially women. And there were a lot of things I wanted to do and didn't have the guts to do it. But boy, when I took half a bottle, ha! That's inferiority complex for you. You see, we are all that way. This happened to me. And therefore, in the few years that I had been in this country, I had an alcoholic that I didn't know. It was a time that AA even didn't exist. And you were trying to find out what was wrong with you. But it never occurred that it was drinking. And it never occurred to you that a self-analysis would do the trick. And then what happened? In the first place, it doesn't have any effect on your business. In the beginning. For you see, you are the jolly good fellow who can do anything and people think you're nice. And you are really the life of the party. And people say, brother, this is the guy. And this is exactly what you want. You see, you become the center of attention. And now it is, you are your own god. You stand in the center of it. And people adore you. But it is stopped there. Then there only would be a stop on it. But there ain't. Don't you see? For when you are in that kind of a path, you cannot stop. And so I didn't stop. And I remember how I went to doctors and I said, I am so nervous and I can't sleep. And then they tried to give me a pill. It's a good thing that I was not a pill addict. And so you stay home and you drink some more. But this is the beginning. And you try to hide it. And I try to hide it. But there comes a time that you get up in the middle of the night and you cannot sleep anyway. And what then? And you go to your liquor closet and I can see some faces here who have gone through the same thing as I did. And then you take an extra one. And then if you are in the kind of business I was, then the liquor you drink doesn't cost a thing. But you get everything for nothing. Then you start drinking. You start to drink for lunch and you start to drink for dinner. And you start to drink after dinner. And then you get drunk for lunch and then you get drunk for dinner. And then you get drunk after dinner. And then comes a time that you get drunk, period. And you stay there. And I remember how many times that I was driven to my office and I would say a prayer, make me no drink today. And it's another good thing that God never listens. The answer to that prayer, of course, had been this, don't touch whiskey. But I wouldn't want to hear that anyway. And so generally before lunch I was drunk already. And business was fine. I was a very pleasing personality. I could get along with everyone. I was a good chemist. But then more come. You know, I wish that there was somehow or another some kind of a radar which we could put in the room of an alcoholic and that some of us could beam in on. We could see what is really going on here. And I think we would be astonished. I'll tell you about my own experience. There came a time that I was home at night and this occurred night after night and I thought I was going to get crazy. And I didn't want to get crazy. And I thought the little wheels in my head spin and spin and they didn't stop. And then the only thing you can do is to call someone and ask please to be with you. That's why so many alcoholics have teleponitis. There's another disease. That's why we have to have someone to be around us. And then we start to get lonely. I think there is not a lonelier than an alcoholic in the last stages of his drinking. You can be at the cocktail party and you know you're set. And no one really thinks it but you. And there are hundreds of people around you and for no one understands. And now you start to reach the very end. And then of course things go all wrong. And we start to shake. And from time to time at night when we shake we pray. And then we start to shake and to pray in the same time. And Bob Dan. It is no wonder that psychiatrists and doctors cannot help us. But I think this is one of the things you have to experience. And if you haven't experienced it you don't know anything about it. I think this is one of the reasons that an alcoholic can start to phony and mild-wine. Seek into prayer in the same time. Not knowing if you're going to wake up the next morning. And finally not caring a damn if you do or don't. And then of course things go wrong. And you can't help it. Things have to go wrong for then your mind is so befuddled that you are completely crazy. You are not sane. When the steps say that we came to believe that we could become sane I think this is what they are talking about. We have gone nuts. All the things do happen then. I remember how I once upon a time because you keep on having parties. Very prominent family. And I was sitting dispensing cocktails. And the butler came by and asked me if I wanted to have a drink. And I know that I was sitting on my hands. For they were shaking so hard that you know that you couldn't have them here. And I didn't dare to take a cocktail. But I was afraid that if I took one from the tray it would go this way. Then after the cocktail probably we were invited for lunch. And I was sitting at the luncheon table. And I am a European. That means I eat as a fork in the knife. They still can see that you know. And it's a good thing that I eat as a fork in the knife but I should hold them on my throat. That gives you leverage. And across from me is a very beautiful young woman of a very prominent family. And she said to me you are very nervous aren't you? She knew. She said come to my room and I will show you how to get rid of this. I knew how to do it. And I went with her and she gave me half a pint of whiskey. And half a pint of whiskey quieted my arms and my hands and my stomach. And in two minutes flat I could go back to the table and I could eat like a normal being. You see this is how dependent we get on it. And that means you just can't stop. For if you stop you are a goner. What happens then? The next thing that happens is that your mind is so far gone that you start to make all kinds of wrong decisions. I made a wrong decision. And then in one year time I remember that I started to make so many wrong decisions that I was asked to leave the country. And not only did I make so many wrong decisions but also this was in the very beginning of course of repeal after the prohibition. The liquor industry at that time was a very difficult industry. There were quite a number of elements in there which were not very pleasant. And not only myself but about two other people, my boss and my child and a friend of mine they even couldn't get any more insurance. We had a bad heart, we had bad eyes, we had bad livers, we had bad kidneys. There is not anything that we didn't have bad. And this was just the time that they started to bring in those big pension plans of the large corporations and the insurance companies wouldn't let us be in the pension plans. And now we are both now. So they asked me to take a leave of absence. You know the leave of absence is a large corporation is it is. The arrears don't prompt you anymore but you have done such good work that they'd like to give you some salary for half a year. The owner of that. And so I was without a job. It was a good thing that I was a bachelor. And my health was gone. And I thought my brain was gone. And then remarkable things started to happen. So much money that I could have retired at that time. I was 35 years old. And I had enough money together to really go back to the old country and just live like a king. Wrong decision in your own business you also start to make wrong decisions about your own life. And in one year time, not by drinking, but by making wrong decisions and by drinking, I lost. And I lost my home. Then I had to sell. And finally within a year time I moved back to an eight dollar a week room. And now you would think when you have been fired from your job, you have lost all your money, that finally you start to wake up, isn't it? You don't. But you can. You just can. And something worse happened. As I told you, a friend of mine, my boss and myself were told to leave the company. And within two months time, my boss, who was one of the greatest brains this country has ever had, he called me one night and said, John, how are you doing? And I said, not too good. How are you? He said, bad. The next evening they called me and they told me that he had bled to death. And now there were only two. And a month later, this friend of mine who was a sales manager, he also died in an alcoholic convulsion. And now I was the only one left. And now you would think when a thing like this would happen, then even medically you can't drink anymore, but you still keep on. Keep on, keep on. Still when. And I think some of you may have been there. I hope not too many. Then you give up. You want to stop drinking and you can. And you try. And then you say, those are used living. Why don't I die? And you give up. You don't care if you die. You're afraid you'll wake up in the morning. And you know, this is a remarkable thing. Some of us, I think, had to come to that point. I had to. I think life is something like a tree. Your life, my life. In life, we have to be pruned. Tree of life is egotistical. I wanted me to be egotistical, then the little branches have to come off. And in nature, you see this when a hailstorm comes and it takes the branches off. And especially when the tree is willing to give a little bit. Then the ice storm may come, but it shakes it off again. And underneath the tree, you find a tree. Those little pieces of wood. But when it hits something which is strong and doesn't give, then from time to time, the whole damn tree has to come down. And this happened to me. Everything had to go. And so, after I had lost everything, even had lost the will to live, then finally I think I was ready. But I didn't know it. But you see, there is something in the world which knows. There is this. And this is what I call the power greater than we are. There is something in this universe which knows when we are ready. And then the remarkable thing is that things start to happen then. Not that you do it, but they happen out of nowhere, still out of some way. And I remember how I was living in an $8 a week room and how an old lady came in. Not to me. But to the people I lived with. And she had heard about a young fellow who seemed to have such a terrible time drinking. And how she put this book, and it was that time not this book, it was the yellow cover book, in my room next to my bed. That's all she did. She didn't ring the doorbell. She was awful looking, to be honest. She had a hoarse face and I wouldn't have talked to her anyway. But she was very wise. She didn't ask to be talked to or ask to talk to me. The only thing she did was that yellow book next to me. One night, drunk. You know, we may not have money to buy food, but we always have money to buy liquor. Or to get it someplace. Don't ask me how. I had saved some of my previous jobs, too. I hate to tell you how much liquor I had in my closet when I left. You know, when I sold my home and I had to sell it, the only thing that I rescued was my liquor. The rest, the rest I just left. I left this book next to my bed and the next morning I woke up and I found the book. And I was very curious. And then I remembered I had bought that book. But I had sold the book. There's an onion in it. I learned there's one fellow who needed it more, I thought, than I did. And now I started to read it. And I started to use the telephone, for in that book was a telephone number to call. The telephone number happens to be a minister of the church. And he asked me if I had any trouble. And, of course, he doesn't have any trouble. In the morning at 8 o'clock you have trouble at night. That's why drunks always call at night, you see. 11, 13, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock. In the morning you don't have any trouble. At night you have. And this man of the sloth was very wild. And he said, you don't have any trouble now, do you? And I said, no. He said, how about seeing me tonight at 5 o'clock? And so I made a date. To see this man at 5 o'clock. And, of course, by 5 o'clock it didn't feel too good. Simple. And then something happened that I think can happen to people. And he was someone who was able to talk me sober. Have you ever been talked sober? You can do that, you know. ...and putting his hand around you. After an hour you were sober. And I was. When I came in I was just doing this, you know. And finally after one hour I was sober. And I promised him something. I promised that I would be at the meeting where people who had the same trouble as I had came together. And it was three days off. And he was dumb. For you don't make an alcoholic promise anything three days ahead. Now this was the first time I ever had talked to a clergyman. What happened in those three days I still remember a little bit, but I'm not going to tell you. For these are one of those things which only alcoholics keep to themselves. I know that I broke up in New York, but I remembered on Sunday morning something that I had promised this man of God that I would be there. And therefore I made my way back to New Jersey and I went to the meeting. In the meantime, like every alcoholic and every crazy man, I had bought two Cadillacs for her too. That came out later. It wasn't the time that you could make money on a Cadillac. Do you remember that? 1944 and 45. You could get a Cadillac and you could sell it the next day for $1,500 profit. This is what I did. And I came to the meeting, and this is many years ago. And I have been to meetings ever since. That time in New York when I woke up on a Sunday morning has been the last time that I ever took a drink. And then my life started to change. What made it change? You know what I think made it change? I cannot understand that there are people who have difficulty in understanding a power greater than they are. I don't understand them. But for the first time in my life, I started to know that there were people who loved me. I started to know that there was a power in this world, something like electricity, which really cared what happened to me. It may be that there had to be some conditioning, but that I was not without hope. That out of nowhere, out of no place, I got the courage. And it was not even necessary to have the courage. For all of a sudden, I didn't need a drink. All of a sudden, I was a free man. And something or someone did that. To me, what did was the love which is at loose in this universe of ours. I was not completely lost, but that there could be a complete new beginning. And the people I talked to were the people who had made the beginning, very feeble men in the beginning, but nevertheless who had started something new. They were new people. They were not texture people. They were not people who say, now we are going to try to take a drink less today and two drinks less tomorrow. They were people who out of nowhere had gotten, as it were, a credit on the bank which said, that is hope for you. There is love in the world. There is someone who cares. You don't have to be alone. And then I started to go to meetings. You know, I have been and I still go to many AA meetings. At that time, the first year, I think I went to 170 AA meetings. There are people who say that they can stay sober on one meeting a week. I think they're crazy. It's the same as there are people who maybe, I think my little boy thinks that when he goes to school half a day a week, he will be a professor in mathematics. But he can't. He has to go to school every day. And even he has to do some homework. And I think in AA it is the same way. When you think that you can stay sober on one meeting, forget about it. And I would resign from the club. For you see, AA is either total or nothing. You either are an alcoholic or you ain't. There are too many people who think they're half pregnant. You know, when you're pregnant, you are either pregnant or you ain't. You are either an alcoholic or you ain't. And if you are an alcoholic, then the most important thing in your life is this. To be in the company of people who ooze out that there is love and hope in the world. And they don't have to tell you either. For you feel it. In the olden days, there were people, you know, they painted a saint by having a halo around his head. You know what that meant? That meant something like this. These people have something within themselves that oozes out that they love you. This is what we find in AA. The real one. And you have to be in the company of that kind of a people. And I went to those meetings. And I had a ball. I didn't have any money this time, but money had become unimportant. What had become now the most important thing in the world is in the first place to stay sober. But not only to stay sober. Now it became how to be a happy man. I had tried to make my own happiness and I had so-called become happy and then lost everything and become the most unhappy man in the world. How could I recapture this? You only can recapture this by... How can you capture it? It is by giving. You know, AA is something like a marriage. If your real marriage is in the world. That's why there are so many divorces. You know what marriage is? A marriage in love is a willingness to give. Marriage in love is a willingness to sacrifice of yourself. And then you will become a happy man just by return. My mother once said to me, she died eight weeks ago. Happiness comes in always by the back door, not by the front door. By giving of yourself. By giving to others. You become a happy, a blessed man. And you get it back sevenfold. And this is what I wanted to do. I had found one answer in life. I had found that in this world there is this power greater than I am which I call love. And I wanted to give. And I started to work as alcoholic. That's the only thing I knew. For I was one. And I had come all the way back. And I never wanted to be a fetched up Johnny Van Dyke. I wanted to be a new one. Just three words of all the things I had done before. And then I met what is now my wife. Her father is one of the founders of AA. You know, in the olden days, when you got into AA, they looked you over. You couldn't just get in, you know. They thought of the phony. Oh, God. And they followed you through. And I remember in those days, this is about 19 years ago, that we had to visit the old timers. And the old timers that time were three years dry. But most of the old timers were one year dry and six months dry. And it was a hell of a long time. And I remember the oldest in the group was what is now my father-in-law. And I came to visit him and he had a daughter. And this was a girl who was knitting argyle socks. Then I came in. The girls I knew never did knit argyle socks. And so I asked her if I could take her out. And finally I asked her if I could marry her or ask her father. And my God, he was five years dry and he nearly went overboard. I think the closest he ever came to getting drunk all of the time. And I had been sober for six months, asked him if I could marry the only daughter he had. Oh, that was bad. Well, anyway, we did. And then he started to go out as a teen. That was good for my egotism, boy. Here I was with two doctor's degrees and I was known as Walter W. Son-in-law. How far can you go down? We did a lot of prison work and we helped a hell of a lot of people. And then, you know, when you really start to become a new person, then everything changes. Most of us think that we need to drink in order to be good salesmen. You know that? This is another one of those things. You know, we have to go. We have to entertain, otherwise we can't sell. A lot of hurry. You see, if you can make a living when you're drinking, you can make a living ten times as good when you're not drinking. And I started to go into my own business. And that business went fine. About three years after I was sober, I again had my own air-conditioned new home. But you see, something was gnawing at me all the time. I saw that I had found the answer to life. The answer was in that God was not blind, that God was love. Why would he care who I was? But he did, nevertheless. And so I had found the answer to my life, and I saw that the answer to my life was the answer in the life of many people. And I went to the church, and the church didn't say very much to me. I came to religion and to Christianity from outside the church. Probably I'm an Old Testament guy, I don't know. But I knew one thing, that I had had an experience of what this goodness that is in the universe can do and wants to do for someone, regardless if he asks for it or not. He had done it. And so then it happens what is in the book from time to time. It is in the old book. See, we have changed the steps. It's now when we have a spiritual awakening. That time it was spiritual experience. Some of you may remember that. That something happens to us and that we know what we have to do. I knew what I had to do. But this was the good news, wasn't it? A person like I could become sober if a person like myself could become a happy person than everyone else could. If a person like myself who didn't deserve it could really find happiness and could become a new person, not with the same personality I had before, but with a totally different one. That's the good news. And I had to proclaim that good news. And so I wanted to go into the church. AA brought me to the idea of God and the God of love who is my Father. And in AA I started to have the experiences and the great experience of being able to speak without drinking and being not afraid what to say and of knowing what to say, but let someone else do the talking. Using me. Being used by becoming a channel of good in the world. But you know, most of the time the church doesn't recognize this. Organized religion and experienced religion are not the same. They have a terrible time meeting. And I knew what I had to do, but I couldn't. But I'll tell you something, and this is secret. If the power greater than you are, and if you really mean this, the power which is love wants you to do something. Then the whole world can be against you and your whole family and no more. But he makes it come to pass. But this is his world, you see. And so sooner or later it is going to happen. Happened to me. I wanted to be in the church. I became a member in the church after I was two years sober. I wanted to go to ministry. I know, I knew that I could make $50,000 a year. It's very simple. But I also knew that I could do so much more. I could help other people to find a way. I could tell other people that I had experienced that this power is greater than I am and what he can do. And you know, then something remarkable happened one day. I had tried to get in the church and in the seminary for a long time. And I was an old man, you know. By that time I had two children. And when I went to my doctor and I said I wanted to go into the church, he laughed at me. He said, you? Come on. You're a bad boy. I have been a very bad boy. I have never been a dodo. Some days I was in the diocese of Newark. They had a meeting of all the clergy and the bishops. And they had a great theologian as a speaker. But then he got sick. And they didn't know who was going to talk now. But I had heard that Johnny Van Dyke didn't give a hoot to whom he talked. So in the morning at 930, I got a telephone call from the chairman of the speaker's committee. And he said, I hear that you are willing to talk any place, anywhere. Are you willing to talk at 12 o'clock today? I said, to whom? Well, the bishops and the clergy are going to be there. What are you going to talk about? I said, all right, we're going to talk about God. I talked about God. And I talked for three quarters of an hour. And then I was stupid enough to ask if there were any questions. And boy, there were so many of them that I wasn't through for an hour and a half. But the next day I got a telephone call from the bishop. And he said, I understand you want to go in the seminary. You want to become a priest. And I said, yes, sir. And he said, I want to see you tomorrow morning. And I went over there and he said, why do you want to go in the ministry? I said, Bishop, I'll tell you something. I've done everything wrong that's in the book. And a lot of things aren't even in the book, but I invented most of them. But I know something that most people don't know. That is that black can become white. Two days later, I was in the seminary. And then I became a deacon and then I became a priest. And then I started to work with alcoholics. You know, to me, an alcoholic is a very special kind of a person. They know they're wrong. Most people don't know they're wrong. You know what? You know, you have a hell of a time in the church to convince people that they are not completely right. But an alcoholic, you don't have to convince at all. And if he sees a ray of hope, he wants to have that. And then he starts to get a hold of a fellow who loves him. You can't get rid of him. You see? And so the little church I was with, they started to grow. And most of them were alcoholics and dope addicts and people with medics problems. It was all the same stuff. And my parish became not only the small village I was in, but it became 25 mile radius. And it grew from 19 people. When we started, it was a little club for old ladies. And you know, sometimes they find you in these funerals too. And some of them died already. And it became a very big parish. It was a mission. It became a parish. And then I had one assistant. And then I had two assistants. And things went fine. But you see, we never know what we have to do. I still have my business. You see, I never wanted to make my money from the church. I believe that the future of the church is going to be this. That there are people, and then they, like Paul did. But then sometime it gets a little bit too much. And you can't. So two and a half years ago, and I don't know what happened. But three years ago, I sold all my businesses. I don't know why. I know now why. But I didn't know at that time. You know, from time to time I think we alcoholics have to live by intuition. I think Dick is part of this power greater than we are, you see. And I live by intuition. I never know the next day what I'm going to do. And I sold my business. And my God, three months later they asked me to become dean of the cathedral in Oklahoma. Now Oklahoma for me was Indians and oil, that's all. I even doubted the fact that I had a church. It was a good thing I sold my business, but I don't have the time anymore. And so I am at the moment in Oklahoma. But I'm still in AA. You see, this is the greatest church in the world. All of you know you want to get better. All of you not only want to get better, but what you want to do is you want to really be able, and I mean that, for I've talked to thousands of alcoholics, you really want to have this love in your heart that you can go out and be a free person, and that you can give it to some people. And that is the church, isn't it? Basically. We have to give in order to live. You have to give it out. If I start, if I stop going to meetings and if I stop talking, then sooner or later, I am going to lose it again. This is our responsibility. This is what we have to do. We are given something. We are given a new life. There is new life only during the hour when we give it up. And just as much as our drinking was progressive, this has to become progressive. And the more you, the more you become a happier man and the blessed man you get. You know, I've been sober now for a long time. And people look at me and say to me, I never saw you with a long face yet. No, I don't have to anymore. I am a happy sort of a guy. I don't grow a halo. I never do a wing. Don't have to. I'm living in this world, and I know if I keep on living day by day, the way I do now. And I will make mistakes. For you see, a fox loses his hair, but never his tricks. You know that. But if I keep on going, then I don't have to worry about anything. I don't have very much money. But I have one thing that I never can take away. And I can't lose it. That's it. The knowledge, in the first place, that so many people think about me. And if they think about me, they think about me with love in their heart. That's one. In the second place, that I have been privileged to help so many people. Not only others. Not only alcoholics. But others. And then the knowledge that there is in this world this power for good. Who I call my God. And he'll take care of me. I also found out another thing, and that is that if I only start to feel this hand behind me, then regardless of what happens, everything will be all right. And so that is why I'm glad to be here. That is not much of a philosophy, is it? It's only the story of good men. But we all are the same. May I say to you, who are brand new in this, that you remember one thing of this little talk. That there is a power in this world to love you. That you don't have to be alone. That someone does care. That someone wants you. And regardless of how bleak you think these things are, you know, the sun is always behind the clouds. Someday you'll see him. And then start to go out on a limb. Don't be afraid. And if they ask you to speak, speak. And if you don't know what to say, they say, You do the talking. And use my mouth. That's it. I'm glad to be here. I have to be tomorrow morning in Oklahoma City. I have to preach tomorrow four times. May God bless you all here in Tennessee. And when you invite me back again, not to talk this way, but just sit together in a group. Be with one another. Have fellowship. Hold hands, I would say. And I'm sure that God will bless your work. But he needs you. And he uses you. And therefore, never say no. God bless all of you. Thank you so much, John Van Dyke. We're very, very grateful to you. And I think this is a propitious time to acknowledge the fact that your local committee, who has gotten this wonderful conference or convention together, has done a lot of work. Let's give them a big hand, because they have. I've been requested to make a few announcements here.