Surrender Is When You Start to Win — That Sounds Paradoxical but It Is Not – Duke D.

Thank you, Benny. You said that just like we rehearsed it, just like I wrote it out, and just like you re... Boy, we've dropped from 2,000 down to 20, but that's all right. We're still gonna do what we gotta do, and I'm happy to be here, but just bear with me one brief moment, please. May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight, my God, my higher power. Amen. Thank you. My name is Duke Darnell. I'm a grateful recovered but not cured alcoholic. As I said this morning, I was told to always give the name of my home group and my drink of sobriety, and so I'll do that now. Give the full name, the name of your group, and your sobriety. I'm Duke Darnell. I'm a member of the Way of Life group in Daytona Beach, Florida, and I've been sober for as long as I can remember. Now, I've also was taught early on that to whatever AA asks you to do, do it if you possibly can. I've also been taught that you ought to do two things, and these are I'm a member idea of how this company works and how it works, so would it be okay if I could introduce Dr. Ashfield today. Unexpected. It will seem unnecessary, but Dr. Ashfield came by yesterday and said I do know a pundit, and he was invited, and I'm glad he came by this afternoon. He said he was端ing to another, but I really was impressed. Probably not convinced. If it's not making a big deal, then perhaps this woman knows him, but he opened his mouth simply to it, andEddie Barger has come. Let it be known that Ken dishes up to three times in a day. Dr. In peditty. Knight. Back and forth. Mit. Maim. Mart. when she comes around, yeah. There you are. Two years! Two years by the grace of God. And she's an inspiration to all of us. And say a word. Go ahead. Go ahead. You've got to do it now. A request. Oh, my God. Say a word. Happy birthday. Thank you very much. And I'm so honored to receive my freedom medallion from Duke here in Minneapolis. And it's just an awesome gift to have received. You know, I can't believe I'm here. And I love you all. And thank you. Time's up. Okay. Those are little A8 chores that are fun. Cleaning up the vomit out of the backseat of the car after you've taken some guy to detox is not fun. But that's an AA duty, too. Well, I was asked to speak a little bit about early AA history in New Orleans and AA International. You know, I feel like the bat boy of the Yankees. I'm with Cersei, one of the most prominent guys in AA, if there is such a thing as prominence in AA. One of the best-known people in AA and a true pioneer, contemporary of Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob and Ann and Lois. He knew them all and was with them all. And he helped in some of our writings. He helped edit the traditions. He helped with the 12 and 12. And he's truly a wonderful guy. And that's Cersei. And I'm in awe of being around with Cersei. And then to cap it off is Dr. Bob's son, Smitty. Dr. Bob's one of my great heroes. He's the all-time greatest 12-stepper of all time. As Dr. Bob's son mentioned, Smitty mentioned, he 12-stepped over 5,000 people when he was assigned to that hospital. He got them as they came in. And so his impact is just beyond anybody's calculation. So to put me on the platform with them is awe-inspiring to me. And I'm one of the, I was, even though Bill Wilson and Bob Smith were contemporaries of mine, I never got to meet either one of them because when I was in the program in early sobriety, my first six years in the program, I was going to see in merchant ships. And I was a member of AA International. But I didn't see, Bill Wilson came to New Orleans twice. New Orleans was my home port and my hometown for a long time. And I was a member of AA International. And I was a member of AA International for a long time. And he came there twice. But each time he was there, I was at sea. And didn't get to see him. And then I had one other chance to see him when he came to Miami in the 1970 convention, international convention. And I was living in San Juan, Puerto Rico. And I was all set to come up to that convention. And I couldn't get away because of the job I had. I worked for a steamship agency and couldn't get away. So I missed my chances to meet Bill W. But he's been a tremendous influence in my life. And I had a chance to meet him. And I have a big book signed by Bill W., an early first edition big book signed by Bill W. But that's as close as I ever get to him. Anyway, I'll tell you a little bit about the early AA history in New Orleans. New Orleans was, as Bill said, a tough nut to crack. It's a heavy drinking town. It's one of the reasons I gravitated to New Orleans is because the bars don't close there. Some bars have never been closed. When they sweep out at 4 in the morning, they'll move your feet. Move your feet out of the way. And they'll finish sweet. And that's about it, you know. They change shifts. Bartender wiped out. They change bartenders. If they've got a waiter or waitress, they change them. But the bar does not close. And I thought that was just heaven because any time you wake up with a case of the 5 o'clock, and we've had that happen, we know what that feels like, when there's no question, it's not a matter of do you want a drink anymore. It's a matter of you've got to have a drink. And you wake up with the 5 o'clock, there's either a liquor store or a bar wide open within a block of wherever you are. If you're anywhere near the downtown area. So, I thought New Orleans was tailored for my habits. New Orleans. And so, I lived there. And I also love it to this day because that's where I found the program or where the program found me. I sobered up in New Orleans at a clubhouse near the French Market, the Dumaine Street Clubhouse. Before I get too far into that, I just thought of it as Smitty was talking today. He talked about the highway patrol. And I recall a story about the highway patrol, about a car that was driving by. It was driving erratically down the highway. And the highway patrol pulled him over to the side and he said, you were speeding. And the guy said, no, no, Jed, I'm not. He said, I might have had a little spurt to pass that long cutback there, but I wasn't speeding. And his wife said, you know, you were speeding. You've been going 80 miles an hour ever since we left home this morning. So, he went, well, she's ruined me for that, you know. And so, and the highway patrol said, also, I noticed you don't have a seatbelt on. And he said, well, officer, he said, I've had it on. I wear it habitually. I put it on religiously when I start the car. He said, I just flipped it off as you were approaching the car because I thought you might ask me to step out. But I had it on all the time. Wife said, you're crazy. You haven't worn it since we've had the car. You stuff it down in the seat so you won't have to bother with it. So, the cop is right in the way. And then the guy's furious. But, man. And the cop said, and incidentally, he said, that right tail light of yours is out. He said, I got to give you this. I got to give you this citation for that, too. Oh, it must have just gone out. I checked my lights around the clock. Every time I leave, I check my lights just to be sure they're all working. And it was working perfectly a few minutes ago when I left. I'll put to pull off at the next stop and replace it. Wife said, you know, that tail light's been out for three weeks. I've been bugging you to get it fixed. You wouldn't do it. You're too lazy. And now look what happened. So, with that, she just ruined it. He blew his melon. What the hell's wrong with you, woman? Shut up. You're going to get me put in jail. Bangety-bang-bang. He pulled her off good. He couldn't stand it anymore. So, the cop said, does he always talk to you this way? She said, no, only when he's drunk. So, I couldn't really, I had to remember that way. Yeah. Well, in New Orleans, it was a tough nut to crack. The first known contact anybody had with AA was in 1940 when a woman wrote to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York about her brother Daniel. And sisters do things like that. My sister, Minnie, is here from Denver right now. She's supporting me in this effort. And she supported me when I got my 50-year medallion in Daytona Beach. But this sister loved her brother, and she saw that he was destroying his life. So, she wrote to the Rockefeller Foundation in New York because she had heard that the Rockefeller interests were interested in alcoholism and had had a contact with something called Alcoholics Anonymous that she didn't know a thing about. They, of course, turned her letter over to Bill Williams. And he wrote to her. And she wrote to him. And he wrote to her. And he wrote to Bill Wilson, who was Alcoholics Anonymous at the time in New York. And they got a response. But Daniel never came into any program, never started any group. And he's vanished from the pages of history. That was the first contact of anybody from New Orleans expressing an interest in AA. So, we've got to fast forward to 1952. And there was a little more in 1940. Let's see. That happened in 1940. 1940. Now, the bill is still in effect. The big book had been written by then, but it hadn't enjoyed wide circulation. Then in 1942, New York had a contact of two guys that had formed a two-man group. And they called it the New Orleans Group. And finally, a third one came in, and they had established a group. And by 1955, it was up to 10 members. And by the time I came in to New Orleans, it grew geometrically. AA was growing geometrically in those days. And by the time I came in in September of 1952, it was growing geometrically. And by the time I came in in September of 1949, there were a total of 900 members in the state of Louisiana. Now, the book I've got says 900, and then 1950, a year later, 942. But I think that the 900 was what we call in the steamship business a swag figure. You know what a swag figure is? Somebody in here knows what a swag figure is. That's a scientific wild-ass guess. But it was probably pretty close to 900 people. There were exactly 12 meetings a week in New Orleans in 1949 when I came in. And I think that's a pretty good number. I think that's a pretty good number. I think that's a pretty good number. I think that's a pretty good number. Probably a few less than the 900. And I had a little card with the where-or-when list in New Orleans consisted of one little white card with a list of the meetings on there, and on the other side was the fifth chapter. No, the 12 steps. The 12 steps on that. I wish I still... I'd give my reservation in hell to have that card today. I carried it in my hip pocket for a long time. And anyway, when I came... My last drunk. I was drunk-a-log. My last drunk was absolutely horrible. I had left the ship in total disgrace in Galveston. I was going to sea at the time, had been going to sea for quite a while. And I left the ship in total disgrace in Galveston, came to New Orleans because that's the 24-hour town. I rode a rickety old bus. I had some soup. I had some rum. And I had some money from my payoff from the ship. Had some rum in a little zipper bag. I call my assignation bag. Call it that to this day. And I was drunk. And I remember riding in that un-air-conditioned rickety old bus. That's before they had air conditioning on buses and before they had toilets on buses. And I had a suffering ride across the state of Texas, trying not to get too drunk. And I finally did. And the bus driver came. I'm going to throw you off if you don't quiet down. So I quieted down. Got to Lake Charles. I was out of rum. My bottle was empty. And I saw this bar. I was in Louisiana. Highly civilized. No closing hours. And I pulled into a place. Said, bar, bar, bar. So I got in the bus. I got in the bus. I got in the bus. I got in the bus. I'm over there drinking in this bar, getting well. Came back to the bus and someone said, bad news. Bad news. Mechanical trouble. We're going to be here for the next three hours. I said, oh my God, what a tragedy. And back I go to that bar. I was quite happy then. Anyway, that's the, this is the drunk that brought me to AA. And I finally got to New Orleans. And I settled in to some serious drinking. And I did until my money was gone. And then. And during that. That time I got a Dear John letter from the only woman who I had ever loved up to that time. And she was up in Columbia University getting a graduate degree. And there I was, a miserable wretch of a seaman, unemployed and unemployable. And I got a Dear John letter from her. And that was, that captured. So I decided once again to kill myself again. I'd done this before. And I got a bunch of booze and I checked into a cheap, cheap, cheap hotel. And I settled down to drink myself to death. And this was my plan. Well, I didn't die. I ran out of booze. So I went around the corner to Camp Street and got another load. Brought that back, settled back in. I bribed the maid not to bother me. And I would sit in that un-air-conditioned room in my shorts, crying my eyes out, praying, and say, you know, and didn't die. And on the third load, I gave up on that suicide attempt. And I said, well, hell. I had had a brush fight with AA a few months before. And I said, well, hell. And I hadn't learned anything about one step. But I'd been tremendously impressed with the same thing we see right here in Minneapolis, the love and the fellowship and the consideration and the kindness and the tolerance. And for the first time in my life with those people, I felt like I did. I fit. I was with people I could identify with, people that I could understand and who understood me. I felt like I belonged. But that was just on the fellowship. And I went back to see. After six days, five days sober, and one day, I took a glass of wine. And it triggered the addiction again. And I had a lot more alcohol time. And then so that was my brush fight earlier. So while I was in that third-class hotel, I remembered how wonderful those people had treated me. And they had said, stay, stay, and get the steps. And I didn't. So I called. I did probably the most significant thing I've ever done in my life. I called. And that time, I surrendered. And I surrendered. I surrendered to victory, as we call it. They say that surrender is when we start to win. That sounds like contradictory. It sounds paradoxical. But it is not. That's when you really do win, when you let go absolutely and you give up. So they said, well, come on. We've sent two guys to get you. They sent two guys to get me. Took me down to a clubhouse they had. Put me in there. Drive me out the old-fashioned way. Walked the floor. Got a little soup in me. I'd throw that up. Get a little more. Throw that up. Finally, I'd hold it down a little bit. Somebody took me and got me a bath. Somebody shaved me, helped me shave. I had some dirty clothes. Somebody took them someplace and washed them. This is old-fashioned 12-step work, because there weren't treatment centers as we know them today. There was no money around. So everybody pitched in and did everything. And to this day, I love those people. They're all dead by now. But they were all older than me then. But my God, they did move. And they said, and I... after a while, I said, well, I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hospital. And I was there about five or six days. Here, I'm a young guy again. And I'm sober. So I said, I'm going to go back to C. And fortunately, my first sponsor, Marvin, said, look, look, Duke, you go back to C after only a few days of sobriety. You could probably pass the physical now. And you'd get back to C. But you're just going to repeat the same thing over again. And your next drunk, you're going to die if you have another drunk like the last one. Because I'd had delirium where they dried me out. They had a little room upstairs where they call it the drying out room. And they had a cot. And they had a cot. And a table. And a water glass. And a chair. And the treatment consisted of taking you up there and throwing you on that cot and saying, shake it out, kid. But if you started to go into DTs or they thought you were going to die, they would give you a drink. As a matter of fact, when I checked into there, I had a half a jug of Old Crow still left. And they took that away from me. And I know my moment of complete surrender when a little sweet girl called Catherine, she died not too long ago in her 80s, she said, Duke, you can't stay here. You can't stay up here in the drying out room and suck on that jug. He said, just give me the bottle. And if we see you too sick to live or we see you going into DTs, we'll give you a drink. And I knew then that she knew. There was the identity thing, you know. Other people wouldn't understand, but I knew and she knew. And I said, here, take it. I want you people to teach me how to not drink. And I still choke up when I think about that particular moment. But that was my moment of surrender. And I gave Catherine my jug. And I did happen to have two drinks out of it or I was completely unglued. But it was understood. That was the only medication we had. Many talked about Peraldehyde, but only doctors could give you Peraldehyde. But when we took 12 Step, we used to carry a jug in the car, those of us who had cars. I didn't get a car for the first two years of my sobriety. Anyway, she said, give me the jug. And I did. And then when it came time for me to ship out again, I was told, stay here. For 90 days at least. Get as many meetings as you can. That's before they said 90 meetings in 90 days. They just said crowd as many as you can. Well, they had 12 meetings a week, but I practically lived in that clubhouse. I would be there. They moved me out of that dump hotel, put me in a rooming house, a nice rooming house, seven miles away. It was out by Tulane University, nice and clean. Mr. and Mrs. Aspergill. I'm surprised they ever let me in. But they did. God bless them. And I stayed out there. And I agreed. I said, I don't know how I'll live. I don't have any money whatsoever. And they said, you're going to have to pay me. And they said, don't worry. Do you ask for this day's daily bread in the morning? I said, sure. You taught me that. They said, do that and you will always get it. And what do you know? Here it is over 50 years later, and I still always get it. Sometimes a little skimpy, but most of the time in great abundance and much more than I need. Notice the boiler here? You know. So I did. I settled in to learn the steps and work the program. And I became enamored of AA. I loved it. And I stayed in. I stayed there. Now we live the New Orleans history. And I'm going to my personal part of it in AA International. I stayed there for about three months. Came time to go back to sea. I said, I can't stay ashore any longer. The only thing I know is seafaring. And I might be able to get my foot back in the door and catch a ship. And they said, yeah, you've got the steps now. You've got a wonderful good sponsor. We will write you. We will contact you. But we suggest you contact New York and get in touch with a woman up there named Ann Emmer. And I can say her name because it's well known and she used it publicly. Ann McFarland, a saint. And she kept people like me in AA International, seafaring people, seamen. They used to have what they called the dew line. Guys would sit up there and look at a screen all day. Had to drive you to drink, you know. And people in Tule, loners on Guam. And that made up a loosely organized group called AA International. And you would write Ann a letter and say, well, listen, I'm going to leave. And I'll be in San Juan. And it's OK. You'd get to San Juan. There would be a letter. They'd say, in San Juan, contact so and so and so and so. Sometimes it was just a loner. I'm going to tell you about some of those early. I understand here at this convention, the AA International is having one of their own meetings. And probably today and probably, I don't know, the new guys in there. Tell them, I was in this when it was just getting started. That's a nice feeling, you know, to think that I was there then. Anyway, I'm going to leave. I'm going to leave. I said I was there then. Anyway, I became a member of AA International. And I guess that's why I qualify to be on the same platform with Searcy and Smitty. They were two AA pioneers of the conventional variety. You know, they were here in the States where AA was expanding. But I wasn't. I'm an AA pioneer in seafaring and among loners and internationalists. And there are only a very few of us. But anyway, I did that. And I had some interesting experiences. I was on the seafaring. I was on the seafaring. And by the way, I got back. Oh, but it was a愀 a perturbing experience LGBTQ. I mean pretty much active in that is going through public communication in that time. I mention San Juan as an example. When I finally went back to see, and by the way, the way I made my living in New Orleans during those three months, would go in a very busy, it was a fantastic feeling coming back to what we all were about in New Orleans. tentarhair.com protocol setting has finally gone, it goes along out of the law. It doesn't have any restrictions. It can get you anywhere below zero degrees is what I'm trying to say. We're almost up to about . But anyway, I was in San Juan. Back in the day, I was in the market window in the hills. We left Calif wzgl. Don't miss it outside the convention hall. produce and products. A lot of you have been to New Orleans and know about the French market. Wonderful place. And you can get chicory coffee there. Good place, you know. And I'd go over there and I'd see some guy come in with a truckload of cantaloupes or something. And I'd say, can I help unload your truck, mister? Okay, kid. So I'd help unload the truck and work till I worked up a great big sweat. And then I'd get maybe a dollar or a dollar and some free food. And that wasn't much money, but it kept me alive. At that time, the AA put me in a rooming house, Mrs. Astorview, the one I told you about out by two lanes. Rent was $8 a week, and that included a good continental breakfast made with milk, French style, you know, café au lait, and good dark coffee in there. And I would have two hard rolls or a couple of donuts or some toast or something, and grits. $8 a week. $8 a week. So that's how long ago this was. That's how long ago this was. Anyway, I lived out there and I worked at the French market and wherever I could, people would come into our AA clubhouse. They used that for a slave labor market. I remember a guy came in. He says, I need two healthy guys to help me move. Come on. And there was another guy called himself Polak. I'm not being a derisive person. That's politically incorrect. That's what he called himself. Hello, my name is Polak. So I can call him Polak. And Polak and I went and helped this guy move. He lived upstairs. We carried stuff down the street. We carried stuff down the street. We carried stuff down the street. We carried stuff down into his truck, up and down, up and down. Noon came. He gave us each a bologna sandwich. We whooped that down, you know. End of the day, he took us back to the club. He said, thanks, fellas, you helped me move. And he gave us each the handsome sum of a dollar. I said, oh, thank you, sir. But that's part of growing up and that's part of early sobriety. And that's where I was. Well, anyway, I went back to see. And I'll tell you about San Juan. I when I when I got to San Juan, I could not find the letter that I had received from Ann telling me where the contact was there. So someone had said, when you're looking for a in a city and that's before they had meetings everywhere and meeting lists and so forth, they said, go to either the police station or a priest. Well, I was still a little bit afraid of clergymen. So I went to the police station on the waterfront branch of the police station. I went in there and I wasn't entirely unknown in that establishment. You know, I walked in. They said, oh, Duke, you know, and I said, listen, I'm I'm trying to find alcoholics anonymous. And I couldn't speak Spanish then. I do now, but I couldn't speak Spanish then. So I was limping along in my broken Spanish and he's limping back at me and broken. Huh? What's that? Well, that's a group of people that have banded together so that they won't drink. I don't know what you're talking about, but they wanted to help. They wanted to help. They didn't want to have me as a customer again. And so they really, really, really were sincere in their desire to. To help me. And so the guy's on the phone. Finally, his being his face lit up. Oh, I found them for you, Senor. Thank you. Took the phone, got an American woman. It was the woman's Christian temperance union. You know, thank you, ma'am. I'm looking for something else. But finally, I said, well, I had a lot of energy just like I do now. And I walked. I said, well, I want to drink real bad. I got to do something. And I got to talk. I got to talk to another alcoholic. I don't like I'm alone down here. And I've really done some heroic drunks and rum was cheap down there and the music was loud and the women were beautiful and I just wanted all of it. And and so and I had money in my pocket and a good ship waiting for me. And so I've walked and walked and walked and walked way out to San Francisco. Finally, it's late and I'm tired enough to where I think I can go back to the ship and sleep and the craving will leave me. I get on the bus, sit my butt down on a seat. And there's a little tiny English language newspaper on this. He saw I pick it up. What's going on here? And I get into the classifies. Do you have a drinking problem? If so, perhaps we can help call number, number, number, number. Ask for earnings. Well, what do you know? That's the first lesson I had of God doing for me what I couldn't do for myself. So I jumped off the bus, found a coin phone, one nickel in those days, called up. I said, Ernie, I saw your ad in the San Juan Times. And I said that by I said, I'm a member of a New Orleans group. They had one group. I was in the New Orleans group. And he said, I'll be happy to come get you. And Ernie came and get me. Now, I tell you, at three months, I do some magic metamorphosis of cellular change. I became Dr. Bob. I was so enamored of AA and so in love with AA that I became Dr. Bob. And I was going to talk to this guy. And Ernie came by. He was very tolerant. He had been the founder of AA in in Puerto Rico. Ernie Goodman, Ernie G. I can say it now. He's dead. And he had his girlfriend with him and he took me to their apartment. And the three of us had a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful AA meeting. Thank you, God. Wonderful AA meeting. And I maintained contact with Ernie for a long, long time. I was in fact, every I was on the run finally. And I'd go to San Juan every month. I'd go to the meeting there and then meet all the other guys. There was a guy there. He translated the big book into Spanish. He was a newspaper reporter for El Mundo paper. And he translated the big book into Spanish, put all the stories in. This was first edition time. And then in that he had other stories of Puerto Ricans who had made the program, and he ran them all on an old-fashioned mimeograph machine. And I bought two of them. They were $3 a copy and I bought two. And I gave one of them to the archives up in New York. And it rests there today under glass. And I kept the other for myself. And I gave it to a sister up in San Juan. and law and i asked of course the other day she said i don't know where that silly old book is we threw that away okay you know that was a mistake i made but anyway my experience with with aaa international and san juan was a success it was it was it was nice and uh there were others i'll tell you about willie in portugal i was told to contact a guy named willie in portugal and now this is not in the aaa history books because willie was unable to start a group it just he tried and it didn't take off and it tried but i contacted willie and we had a wonderful visit and he told me his story and willie was from a wealthy family he spoke fluent english he'd been educated in switzerland spoke with a british accent and he spoke fluent english had a lot of money and he ran the family business and he was a chronic he was a periodic he would get dry and stay dry on muscle and then finally the compulsive anxiety would go away and he would go to the hospital and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would be discharged and he would take over and there was no refusing it and he would take over and there was no refusing it you know compulsion by definition means something you are compelled to do it's not a question of purge or wish or want or maybe when the when it becomes a compulsion you do it well willie fought it on muscle for quite a while and one night he left his office and he knows that whenever he would get on a big drunk his family would ship him off to switzerland where they have the high-priced nut houses up there the real big drying out factories and they take you up and they'd load you up on big and they'd load you up on big barbiturates and so forth and uh he'd send you back and you would swap one addiction for another and then you'd be back on booze again and that was the cycle and that was the cycle the keely institute did the same thing in dwight illinois they called it the keely cure anyway willie knew that if he made him any more trips up to up to switzerland to dry out the family's going to disown him he would ruin what was left of the family business and he would be dead so but the compulsion came and he closed his office this man i tell you this knocked me out when willie told me this he closed his office and he started out and he crossed this there's a cobblestone father in lisbon and he was walking on this thing toward his favorite restaurant that had a big bar where he had always started his drunks in the first place and he said god please please he cried on the way there i don't want to do this again send me someone that can show me how to not drink nothing he couldn't change course he was compelled to walk toward that barbiturates and he said well i'm going to go to the barbiturates and i'm going to go to the bar and grill and got kicked out of portugal for his performances you know he said oh god now i am ruined i know there's no hope with this guy here hey come on over come on over willie sit down his name was guillermo but he called himself willie to americans he said come on sit down with me have something to eat and the guy wasn't drinking he had food in front of him and willie said my god man you got kicked out of portugal what are you doing here oh he says i'm on my way to turkey he says i've got another assignment i'm back in good with the state department he said but i had to stop here to make a few amends willie says what do you mean by a man's well he said let me tell you about that and they had their first a h contact and they spent the night discussing the program and the guy the american guy left his big book with willie just as i've left many big books out in the world and he left this big book with willie he says here read this work on this and willie got sober and stayed sober and when i went to portugal i contacted ann in the room and i went to portugal i contacted ann in the room and i said why are you not doing anything. and when i went to portugal i contacted ann in the room and i said why are you not doing anything. She said, yeah, look up Willie when you get over there. He's a good guy. He's trying to start a group, but he's not having much luck. So as the guy used to say on TV, that's the name of that thing. And that was one of my adventures in AA International in Portugal. And there's another one in England. I used to love to go to a group in England called the Akron Group. And I contacted an RAF doctor there. And I can't for the life of me even remember his first name, but I knew him. And he told me a story. Now, this is secondhand, but I have no reason at all to doubt it. He told about a tenor sax player in a dance band. And that's back in the days when they had a whole mile of, they're different than they are now, you know. And he said, that guy told him that he was playing in his band up somewhere in the north of England, and a fellow out there, Happy Joyce and Free, danced over in front of the stand. And he says, hey, I want to talk to you. And at the break, he talked to him. And he said, listen, he said, I want to thank you for your contribution. And he said, I'm sorry, I was carrying the message to me eight years ago. And the sax man said, I don't know what you're talking, I said, I'm sorry, I just don't quite remember you. You'll come pretty soon if you give me. No, he said, you wouldn't remember me, but you carried the message to me. And the guy said, well, how's that? He said, well, you took a 12-step call to a dormitory-type flop house, and it was dark. And some guy at a lower berth, lower bunk, had asked for someone from AA to come. And you took the call. And you came. And you left the door open. And you came. And you left some literature. And you sat on a little stool by that guy's bunk. And I was up in the upper bunk, in the dark, shaking and crying and praying for relief. And you carried the message to this guy. And he said, I listened to every word. I listened to every word. And then you left some literature. And you left. And I've been looking for you ever since, because the guy didn't make it. But I took the pamphlet you left. And I went to AA. And I've been sober ever since. And he says, I want to thank you. Now, you know, you have enough of these things happen to you that you don't have any question about a higher power. I mean, it doesn't become a belief. It becomes a fact. As Bill W. says in the book, these are not theories. These are facts. And so that's the way it was. That's the way it was with that guy. And I'll give you one more little yarn about my experience in AA International. And then I'll get back into my story a little bit. I have the happy knowledge of being one of the founders of the first group in Havana. And I can't give you the year. I can give you the year. It was about 1951. I contacted Ann again in New York. And I said, I'm on the Havana run now. I'm coming to Havana. And I want to contact her. So she gave me the name of a guy named Lee S. And he lived in the Hotel Nacional. He was a tobacco broker. A lot of money. He'd go down into Pinar del Rio province and buy leaf tobacco. And he had... He was a tobacco broker. And he did very well. A terrible, terrible drunk. Anyway, he got sober in AA in New York and then came back to Havana. But he had no contacts. He had no one there. And there were no meetings, you know. So anyway, Ann put me in touch with Lee. And I was making my home in Havana at the time. And we became good friends. And we would have two-man meetings. So once we decided to put a little ad in the paper. And we put a little ad in the paper. And we got a guy. He came down from the Standard Oil Company. No, that was afterward. Before that, another contact of Ann's. And he worked for Standard Oil. His name was Stanley. So then there were three of us. So then that Presbyterian minister, Reverend Pinkston. We called him Pinky. And he was a nice guy. And he wasn't an alcoholic or anything. But one of his parishioners was a terrible drunk. And he had read about AA. And he knew about AA. And he contacted New York. And they referred his letter to Ann. And she said, listen. Duke and Lee have started... They had a little group down... And Stan has started a little group down there. Contact them. So we got him. Four. Well, before it was over, we had nine men. Nine men in that group. No women. I was the secretary. And to this day, if you go to the archives, and you can find a 1952 international directory, you'll find the name of the Havana group, we called it. And secretary, contact, Duke D. No, Duke Darnell. She put my last name in there. And gave the address and the phone number to contact. And we got a few that way, you know. And so I feel good about it because that truly is a pioneering effort. Now, I know others did much greater, like Captain Jack, the captain of a tanker. He did an awful lot more. But I see these things of God working in my life, little events and big events. You know, on page 164 in the big book, it says, See that your relations with him are right, and great events will come to pass for you and many others. And that's what my life consists of. But you got to keep tuned to them. You got to be looking for them. When I finally left the sea, and I joined a group in New Orleans called the Metairie Road Group. Met on Metairie Road. That was a strange coincidence for you. And I went there one night, and we had an old crusty old guy named Jules was chairing the meeting. And we had a new guy in early sobriety. He had three months. And he says, I got to share, I got to share. And Jules says, shut up, you're new. No, I got to share, even before we start. He said, I got to tell you. I got to tell you guys something. Jules said, all right, what is it? He said, well, he said, for years, when I would come home stomping around drunk, my little daughter, my little three-year-old daughter, would run and hide. And he said, I longed, I longed, I love my little daughter, I longed to grab her in my arms like a little girl will run to her daddy when he comes home and whisk them up and hug them and hold them in the air. And I'd come in the house, and I'd look at the drape, and she'd go back behind the drape and hide, and her little shoesies would stick out under the drape, you know. And he said, it would just tear my heart out that my daughter wouldn't love me. So I'd make a resolution. I said, tomorrow I'm not going to take a drink. But I always failed. I'd always have my drink at noon and stop at the bar on the way home and get drunk before I got home to a cold supper and an angry wife. He said, then I joined this Metairie Road group, and I've been sober now for three months. He said, tonight I came home. And he said, I opened the door clean and sober, not stinky and pukey or anything. And my little daughter, she said, Daddy, Daddy, you're home. And he said, I swept her up in my arms and I held her a lot. And I went over and we sat in my chair. And she crawled across my lap in her little shoesies that I used to look at under the drapes. And she grabbed my cheeks with her little peanut butter hands, and she said, Daddy, I love you. I'm telling you, those crusty old guys at Jules' meeting, I had a golf ball in my throat. And I thought then, the big book tells me that great events, they'll come to pass. We will see the workings of a loving higher power if we just keep tuned to it. Just keep tuned to it. We will see it all around us. It's like that cartoon in the grapevine of the little tiny fish looking up at a great big fish. And the caption, the little tiny fish says, where's all this wire everybody's talking about? Well, that's the way it is with the higher power. If you're just tuned, you see the evidence everywhere you go. Coincidences that defy all possible. All possible chance of coincidence. Like when Willie walked in on that guy. You know. And there are many others. I've got a whole talk I give on coincidences that I've seen in AA. Anyway, I see God at work every day of my life. In my home group of the Way of Life group in Daytona Beach, Florida. Plug, plug, plug, plug. Several of them are right here now. Yeah. The last meeting I attended before I left town to come up here was chaired by Pete. Now, Pete. See? Chuckles? They know Pete. Because for years you'd see Pete around Daytona pushing a shopping cart, getting cans out of the garbage to take to the metal guy to sell for money. You know, you'll see him around any time. You see guys gathering cans. And this was Pete's life. And he would gather these cans and take them. And he was just on one of that drunk. This was his last drunk. And he was just about dead. He truly was just about dead. He found a wallet in a garbage can. And it had $58 in it. And he said, Oh my God, that's $58. Let's see. I got eight to live on and 50 for booze. That's economics for you, you know. It makes sense to me. It makes perfect sense to me. So he went to get the drink first and he spent the whole $58. And this is the way alcoholics operate. Anyway, this is Pete. This is Pete. And he chaired the meeting. He got one year of sobriety. Just the other day, wasn't it? And Pete's up there and he told a story. I had to write it down because I can't remember it. Anyway, on his last drunk. Or one of his last drunks. He was just close to death. And a cop got him. They were going to arrest him for vagrancy. He said, Come on. God Almighty, you're just out here on the street. He said, I'm going to arrest you. And Pete didn't want to go to jail. He wanted to stay outside where the booze was. So the cop said, and he didn't have any idea at all. The cop said, What's your name? He says, Ambrose Papadopoulos. Gave him that kind of a name. The cops faced it up. Papadopoulos, we've been looking for you. Come on. You're under arrest for serious crimes. He said, What do you know? So they hauled him off to jail. And there really was a guy with that name. Babaladopoulos. There really was a guy with that name. And he was wanted by the cops for a serious crime. And so, but they hold Pete in for that. Well, I got to wind down. I just got the high sign. I had a lot of good funny jokes. But this isn't the funny meeting. This was a happy meeting and a good meeting and full of love. And I thank you very much. Thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.