The Breeding Ground of Humility is the Back Seat of a Squad Car – Jack S.

I'd like to introduce this next, our speaker. He is no stranger to most of us and he's got a wonderful story and when we had this little mix-up and had to change speakers I went up to Jack and I said you're our pick can you imagine the answer I got from Jack but it started with B. With nothing else I'll give you Jack S. Thank you, Russ. How did that end at B? It doesn't bother me. It's not the first time this has happened to me. And I thought it was sort of unique that I'd be following JoJo, that she was a prostitute and I'm a substituter. Is that the same thing? I knew a guy was waiting for a bus one time and the guy stopped him and said, what are you doing standing there? He said, I'm waiting for my wife. She works over there. The guy said, she works over here? She works there? He said yeah. He said man, that's a whorehouse. He said you mean your wife's a prostitute? He said hell no. She's a substitute. She works the weekend. it. My name is Jack Sullivan. I am an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. In keeping with the guidelines of today's society, you've got to be something else. So I'm an alcoholic and a... I'm the abused adult spouse of an Al-Anon, and an adult child of normal parents. That qualifies me. I don't see that Al-Alanon speaker. She must have went back to her room. They generally come into town and confess and become so guilt-ridden they have to rest. So I assume that's where she is. Y'all know why crocodiles won't eat alanons? Professional courtesy. But I am glad to be here. I've enjoyed the entire conference, and I know I'll enjoy the rest. Looking forward to hear our Sunday morning speaker. I haven't heard, but Cecil I have heard. Looking forward that tonight. Of course, Sue and JoJo listened to Milton last night. he talks so slow. You can tell he's not from Georgia, but I am glad to be here. It's always nice to be with AA people. I've been a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous since the 21st day of August of 1962. I didn't tell you that to impress you. I told you that because it impresses me, and it impresses the hell out of me, because I never heard of it until I got here, and I didnít want a damn thing to do with you when I got here. You were a strange group of people, and Iím certainly was not interested in joining any damn organization that wanted me for a member. And when I came into AA, to my first AA meeting, those old guys didn't think too much of wanting me either. I was 33 years old and they were dumbfounded that somebody at that age would darken the doors of AA. That you had a lot more drinking to do in the 60s if you were only 33. I have a friend who just recently passed away in St. Louis, Paul Keebler, many of y'all knew Paul. And Paul would have been sober about 48 years if he was alive. And he said when he came in, hey, they had a measuring stick 48 years ago. If you had nine teeth or wristwatch and could count up to ten, they wouldn't let you in. That you had to lose another tooth or two. And now look at them today, all them young'uns, and they're neat, you know. and I often think about them old fools that were there when I came in if some of the young'uns were darkening their doors. They used to look at them and, How old are you? Eighteen. And they'd say, Eighteen? I drank more, spilled more whiskey than you ever drank. And them kids would look at him and say, Mayfee, you drank some instead of spilling it, you got her quicker, you old bastard. Well, I don't think it would have done me a bit of good had I known of AA. I was never the type of person that could learn from other people's mistakes. I literally demanded that I be allowed to have my own. And I think there's a lot of people in this room that way. But if it was for me to learn from others, from other People, that was not in my category. I was not capable of doing that. If you could have your own experiences, they taught me nothing. I'll learn from my own. And I'm sure if I'd have known of A earlier, it would not have done any good because of that reason. I just was not one of those people able to pick up on the experiences of others. I love stories about alcoholics. I heard one the other day, or a doctor told me about a year ago, about a fellow that was incapable of, we got to talking about learning from other people, and he told me a story about a lady that had a parrot, very polite parrot. And when you went to visit, the parrot would say, Come in. How nice of you to visit. We're so glad you're here. A lady was dumbfounded by the politeness of the parrot. She said to the lady, How in the world did you ever train that parrot? She said, Well, I didn't really train him. She said when I got him, he cussed like a Key West sailor. And she said, I got so disgusted with him one day I grabbed him by his feet and I threw him in the freezer. And she said, after about 15 minutes, I went back to let him out. And I asked the parrot, have you learned anything? He said, yes, ma'am. I'll never curse again. Said, but tell me, what the hell did that turkey do? Now, sitting in this room right now, right this very minute, there's some parrots and there's some turkeys. And there are some of you that will have to skin you, freeze your ass, and wrap you before you'll ever learn a damn thing. And you'll be just like I was. Those of you who didn't know I was going to talk, I apologize If you didn't know it and came anyway, feel free to leave And for the rest of you, when I came in here, I knew I was going to tell you. You knew you were going to listen. If you get through before I do, you're going home That won't bother me either But I never set out to become an alcoholic It's nothing I accomplished. I don't want any credit for it. When I was a young fellow, I don' t have the slightest idea why everything that you weren' t supposed to do I found to be very enjoyable. I had an older brother who studied and got a good education and did what you're supposed to d Today he' s the vice president of General Motors Corporation. I had two sisters who went to school and did which you're suppose to do and they married and still have the same husbands and four children and had good lives. And I was the guy that decided what you were supposed to do wasn't a damn bit of fun, and I didn't want to do what you're supposed to do. So when I got about 13 or 14 years old, I found there were other areas of life where you didn't have to do what you were supposed to. And I went out to a corner at 4th and Central in Louisville, Kentucky, and if you've never been there, it's where Churchill Downs Racetrack is. And that corner borders that racetrack. And if you're never been here, I'm sure you've seen the Kentucky Derby on television and it was an exciting place. There was a lot of things that went on on that corner that I had never been told about, but I'll damn well assure you it was more exciting than studying and doing homework. And I got a job as assistant manager of a filling station out there at night. I was about 16 by now. My grades in school had gone to hell. I had no interest in studying. My father and I were at war with each other. My mother was dead, and it was just beginning to darken the clouds of alcoholism, I guess, and I was having a ball. And everything back then was rationed during World War II, and it Was about 1944-45, the end of the war, and that filling station was a real neat place because they rationed gasoline. And people would buy gasoline with coupons, and at the end of the month there were some people who hadn't used all their coupons, and they'd give you the book. You pasted them on them OPA stamps and sent them off to the government. And all that meant was that there might be 300 gallons of gasoline down in those tanks that had been accounted for through the federal government but hadn't been pumped out of there. And there were about four liquor stores and beer joints around that corner, and those guys didn't have any gasoline, but they had beer and whiskey. and they'd bring their beer and whiskey to the gas station. We'd fill up their Cadillacs and put the beer and the whiskey in the storeroom and sell it and drink it. There was a guy that ran a drugstore across the street over there, and he didn't have any gasoline, but he had cigarettes, and he'd come over with five or six cartons of cigarettes and we'd fill off his Cadillac and put them in the store room and put those cigarettes in the story room and either smoke them or sell them. There was few girls around there that didn't even have any gasolene. You'll have to draw your own conclusions. But it was a very, very interesting time in my life, and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. My father, as I said, and I became sort of enemies at this time. He didn't like who I was with and what I did and how long I stayed and the way things were going for me. We just got at war. When I was 20 years old, I began to get in difficulty from drinking alcohol and maybe by that time I was an alcoholic. Up to that time, I really can't tell you, a great deal of drinking played a big part in my life. I'm sure I drank it. I'm surer I got drunk. I'm suer something happened. I just have no recollection of it. But by the time Iwas 20, everything was beginning to happen. And my father and I were going round and round and I had no use for my father. I thought he was a dumbass old man and the only thing that ever changed my opinion of my father was the squad car. For some reason, the breeding ground of humility is the back seat of a squad car You can set a drunk down in a squad car and it changes his opinion of people immediately and especially like if he's married He'll be down at the bar talking about that old bitch he lives with Lock him up give him a quarter to make one phone call. And she'll answer. And that old bitch becomes, Honey. And to show you what kind of man my father was, he would not contribute to my delinquency. The first time I was ever arrested, I dropped the dime on the phone and he answered and I said, Daddy. daddy he said what do you want i said i'm in jail he said why did you call me i said well i thought you might come down here and get me out oh he said i wouldn't worry about that if i was you by god i was worried about it he said as smart as you are I'm sure if you figured a way to get in you'll figure a way to get out and he hung up and he told me when I got out he said I've never been in jail I understand they allow you one phone call don't waste it so I never called him again I went to work for the Louisville National Railroad Company up in Louisville when I was 20 years old in 1949 and I think they hired an alcoholic and I stayed with them for the next about eleven and a half years working for them as a practicing alcoholic and I was the type of an alcoholic that I had absolutely no responsibility, no care about anything. Fun and games came first. When it was time to go and a time to do I just didn't particularly give a damn about anybody else if you wanted to go somewhere and stay a long time I'd go with you and stay along time I'd stay till my money ran out I always was not going to get too drunk because I enjoyed having a good time, but I always wound up getting too drunk. And I got progressive into alcoholism just exactly like the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says people like us do. And I thought I was too young, and if I ever get like this guy, I'll quit. If I ever Get That Bad, I'LL STOP. And I always had somebody to pick out. And nothing, absolutely nothing was wrong with me. anytime I got into some kind of trouble I had a justifiable reason for doing it and an alibi for getting out of it I was exactly what the big book talks about when it says that people like you and I are driven that's a powerful word in that book driven by hundreds of forms of fears and self delusions and self pities that the way we feel sometime in society sober and seemingly engulfed at times with fears that have no description, that have no definition. We only feel them at a gut level and we're driven by that type of feeling only to delude ourselves into believing that alcohol will solve the feeling and this time it'll be different that once again we can be returned to the days of us one drink conviviality and fun and no crazy insane bizarre behavior and that's the story of my life the story of my I was driven by those feelings and I would try like hell to stay out of them, you know. And I never succeeded real well. Now everybody tried to stop me. Back then nobody knew anything about alcoholism. There was a priest that was a good friend in our family. He said, if you don't quit drinking, you're going to hell. I'd been there, I guess. But how do you scare somebody that's driven by hundreds of forms of fears? How do you spare somebody into not drinking? A policeman says you're Going to Jail. a judge says prison, a boss said the unemployment line, a wife says divorce court, a doctor says you're going to die. And fear never works on people that are literally scared to death. God, I've seen experts try to scare people into not drinking. We had a lady down home one time that was one of them Al-Nans. And she tried every way in the world to get that poor guy to quit drinking. Nothing worked, nothing helped. She went down to a costume shop in Louisville and bought a devil suit Put that devil suit on And he went out and hid behind the hedge one night And the old guy come home drunk She leaped out from behind that hedge at him And she said, I've come to get you That old drunk looked at her and said, who are you? She said, I am the devil That old junk stuck his hand out He said, by God, put her there. He said I've been wanting to meet you ever since I married your sister. Didn't help. Didn't health. and through all of these days of trying to become whatever it is we try to become just basically human gifted with all these defects of character and shortcoming but openly admitting to none I proceeded and progressed into chronic alcoholism as I can readily assure you so will you Age, intelligence, money plays no factors, my friends. If you live, you get there, provided you retain soundness of mind and no incarceration. So I progressively got worse, and with all of my skills and capabilities, I was able to drink myself to skid row. I lost my job at the railroad, the respect of all my friends and my father, the respect to my sisters and my brothers. The only friends I had were people like me. And once again, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about people like me and I assume you to where we constantly search for somewhere in some place where we can be understood. Constantly looking for someplace to be understood. And if you drink long enough and often enough, you certainly wake up to the poor harshness of bewilderment and frustration and terror and desperation. Only to have to have another drink to try again. And I don't expect anybody to understand that but alcoholics. Because you see, we reach a point in our lives where the only thing that destroys us anymore is alcohol and yet the only thing that allows us to survive is alcohol. We need the drink to overcome what we've become and yet it's essentially the thing that's made us become what we are and we're not capable of telling anybody what kind of people we are sober. You see, and that's what Alcoholics Anonymous addresses. Please remember that. AlcoholicsAnonymous is not too interested in crazy, insane, bizarre, drunken behavior. we're all guilty of that. Alcoholics and anonymous addresses sobriety. What kind of person are you sober if you're new to AA? And if you are not new, I assume you've investigated that. And you decided to come here, thank God. If you are new, you don't have to tell me right now, you know. And if you'd like for me to be your sponsor or somebody that can help you, then I'm perfectly willing to sit down and listen until you describe yourself. And I'll understand whatever you have to say, because it's an extremely difficult thing to look at yourself for what you really are. And to understand that once you come here, as JoJo said this morning, nobody is going to judge you on what you were. And nobody is gonna judge you on what you are. We only hope and pray that you will become what it is you can be if you stay here. if you stay here. A girl up in Louisville asked me one time if I thought it was all right for her to tell people she was a hooker. I thought about that when Joe was talking. I said, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says in a general way we describe what we used to be like. And what happened? If you feel it's necessary to tell them, tell them. Who in the hell is going to say anything about it? Are there some self-righteous people here? I assume they probably are. you know but if you could get them to be absolutely honest most of them the only damn thing they had to sell was a watch if they had any damn thing else they'd have sold it I would've I wouldve Skid Row's not an interesting place to talk about when you get that far in alcoholism. It's just sort of a dead issue with me, and I'm sure it's a dead issue with most people who've ever made it to Skid Row. It's a place where you cease to live and begin to exist. It's the place that seems to reach in into the levels of your gut and take everything that's good and decent out of you. It's seemingly a place that makes you recognize that there is no such thing as hope. It is the place that the big book talks about where the chilling vapors of loneliness set in. And God, it's a lonely, lonely place. It's a place where sometimes you must come to grips with who and what you are. You must come the grips that if you intend to live in a world of hope toward a more possibly will be better than today, you've got to find some place to live except where you are and doesn't that describe wherever you are? you've got to find some place to live other than where you are. You see, I think I've always thought that I was the luckiest individual in the world to have been a single alcoholic. I never married during my drinking career. I feel inferior a lot of times with some of you guys. I mean, it's depressing to ride 50 miles with some guy that's had six wives. And you think, what the hell is wrong with me? But I never thought about getting married. It might have entered my mind one time, and I rode by some Al-Anon's house and heard her talking to her husband, and that changed my mind. But I Never Wanted to Get Married, Never Had a Reason to Get Marriage, and Never Did. So I was very lucky, very fortunate. And I say that because I never had a wife and I never any children. And so I was a single wino who left a home and went to live in a gutter. Now, most of you went and got a guter and took it home with you. And I've seen your stinking, filthy gutters running down through the middle of the living room to some of the finest homes in the country. I've seeing all of the feelings of loneliness and insecurity and desperation and despair that engulfs an alcoholic sitting on skid row engulfing a wife sitting in your living room. I've seen alcoholics with their sick minds honestly to God believing that the people who love them the most were in some way responsible for what they've become and they reach out of their living room gutters to pull those people down into them with them and sadly enough, most of the time they succeed. I've seen kids go after their parents. I've seeing husbands go after their wives and I've seen wives go after their husbands but when you got that emotional gutter in the middle of your living room it doesn't matter who's involved in it. It all becomes the same sick feelings of loneliness and despair and terror and the easiest The easiest way out is to be single, with no home, no gutter, no wife, no kids. Go live in the city streets. It's a hell of a lot easier. And rather interesting at times, you meet some stupid people, like cops. They ride down alleys And there was a hardware store there And they threw out cardboard boxes And we slept in them Great insulator, cardboard Write that down if you've got another drunk in you Keeps the cold weather off of you You could get there early And get one of them big freezer boxes Them big suckers You could lay down in them You could look at some guy Trying to adjust a TV console box hell you knew he was better than he was so maybe they ought to get him out of here he's ruining the neighborhood cops ride down and shine lights on you ask you what you're doing educated questions that they learn in those academies what are you doing you say nothing they arrest you you know anything about alcoholism they say throw it light on you and say what are you doing you stick your head out of that box and say officer i'm progressive and he'll leave you alone finance companies were hunting me i'm sure that's never happened to you rather embarrassing to tell you about it guys couldn't find me that upsets them you borrow $500 from them six months later you owe $11,000 I think and they can't find you interesting people bartenders squealed on me they knew where I was guy comes snooping around that alley one day saw me sitting in one of them boxes with a day old racing form and a pint of wine looking around in there a little leery of saying anything I guess, in that cardboard jungle. Finally got up enough nerve and came over to my box. Knocked on my flap. I opened it to let him in. Said something that I still consider dumb. said are you Jack Sullivan I said yes sir told me who he was and where he was from he said you remember borrowing some money from us about a year ago and I said yeah sir he said if you don't start making some payments on that loan you're going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble tar and feather was the only thing left I think And as the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, I lived with a killing vapor of loneliness and the hopelessness that fills us all at some times in our life. And please remember, there's something in your mind and something in your heart. It is not a physical place. It does not require streets and sidewalks to have those kind of feelings. And surely I would die there because, after all, I had failed, everything else had failed and I was one of the type of people that AA talks about who had the defiance. I think our second step of AA in the 12 and 12 talks about certain people defiant. It's an interesting thing that you find about half the people here who one day somewhere sometime in their life finally had enough and they looked to the sky or the heavens or wherever and they fell to their knees and they said, God help me. And he does and they do well. And literally and truly you'll find it's about 50% of the other people who are just exactly like I was, full of defiance and bitterness towards God and his whole damn society. And not only that, but perfectly willing to challenge him face-to-face. If there is such a thing, where in the hell are you? Come down here. I'd like to see you. I see those hypocrites down that alley every Sunday morning who go to worship you, whatever you are. But look what I've become. If not because of you, where are you and some way you're instrumental in encouraging people to believe that crap. I had nothing or nobody to pray to. It was simply because I wanted nothing or anybody to pray to. From the day that I was born God's grace hovers over my head as it did yours we act sometimes in a like it's a great inspirational thing that the grace of god has entered into the hearts and souls of the people you see here was there all time where was it when i was on skid row where it been from the day i was born floating around over the top of my head trying to enter into a sick soul that blocked and kept everything good and decent out of my life, from a human aspect to a God aspect. And I became an emotionless, empty, useless piece of human flesh. And I knew that surely I would die there and couldn't care less. I looked up one morning on the 21st day of August in the back room of a saloon. My father came in the back door with a guy I didn't know or hadn't seen. I had no idea who the guy was. And he came over to a table where I was sitting, and my father went up and sat on some stools that went around a lunch counter. I hadn't see my father in ages. My father knew where I Was, and I'm sure that you can relate to this with your children or whatever. He said, it's different knowing than it is seeing. It's painful enough just to know. it's extremely difficult just to know and look and I didn't want to look but he came this day with this man who I did not know who he was and the guy walked over to a table where I was sitting and stuck out his hand a very distinguished looking man a lot of people here in the audience today knew Albany and Jeff that knew Jack Jack was a gray haired man very distinguished working gentleman and he walked over this table where literally a piece of useless human flesh was sitting and I had long hair and a beard my teeth had been knocked out and I was suffering from malnutrition and dehydration and I have that color that we get of when you swell and turn green and yellow and it was unbelievable that a guy that looked like he did would come to where I was sitting and he walked over and he stuck his hand out and smiled he said hi my name is Jack I understand that yours is too and I said yes he said I've come out here to help you your father has told me about you And I'm a friend of a vice president on the Louisville National Railroad Company. And he said, I've come out here to help you. I hope you'll let me. I can't help you if you won't let me, so I hope you will. And he smiled. And I said, why? Why would somebody that had never seen you before care about somebody that looked like I did? so i asked him why stranger would you be interested in helping me and he said something that i didn't believe but i know today it's the only message i have to carry he said i used to be like you are and somebody helped me I used to be like you are and somebody helped me and that's my reason for being here payback maybe but I would like to help you and I said well I'll do anything you say and that was because I was so sick he never mentioned it told me later when I asked him I said, I'll do anything because I was so sick. He said, I've made arrangements to have you admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Louisville, Our Lady of Peace. And that day and that condition on the 21st day of August of 1962 at the age of 33, at 1030 in the morning, I know that by hospital records, I went into Our Lady of Peace Hospital and from that moment to this moment I have not found it necessary to take a drink of alcohol in order to live out there. And that's why I drank alcohol, in order to live up there. So I got in that hospital and I would like to tell you that I responded tremendously to their philosophy. These were psychiatrists who were not advocates of AA that much. They thought that alcoholics suffered from a valium deficiency. And if they could bring your valium levels back to their proper place, through psychiatric help and sometimes a little electrical buzzing. And just maybe, if you wanted to drift by the door of an AA meeting, they would return you to your normal place in society as a social drinker. And I thought, that's nice. So I was sitting up there in the room the following week and I'd gotten pretty well physically, as you can in a week's time, talking to another drunk about the facts of life. Drunks are nice people to talk to. Drunks talk to each other because we act like we believe each other. And if we talked to somebody else, they'd put us away. And drunks, you have to talk to each Other when you're a drunk because our undisremembered gets into gear and we forget about all them troubles we've had. And only drunks have them undisremembered. A school teacher told me one time, said there is no such word in the English language as undisremembered. I said, you're crazy as hell. I don't know anything about the English languages. There's an undisRemembered in AA. We undisREMEMBER a hell of a lot of things. We undISREMember getting locked up and losing jobs and driving people crazy and not paying the bills. because when we sit down to talk to another drunk, we tell him about them seven women we had that night and the 7,000 we wanted to track and the seven cases of beer we had in the car. And oh man, I'm telling you, we got there about nine o'clock and on and on it goes. And we never tell him a damn thing about all the hell we've gone. So we were sitting up there discussing all the finer things of life and a nurse came in the room and looked at me and gave me that Al-Anon handshake. You've seen it, haven't you? She said, don't you go anywhere tonight. We're going to the AA meeting. I said, going where? To the AA meet. I said what in the hell is an AA meeting? I never heard of AA. She said it's a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I said Alcoholics Aanonymous? Are you insinuating you think I'm an alcoholic? She said, no I'm not insinuating a thing I said, I'll have you know I'm no damn alcoholic She said I'll let you know that if you're not one there ain't any I said I'm going to be I'm never going to any damn day A meeting She said You be back there with me tonight or I'll put you over there where the doorknobs are on the outside If you've never been in an asylum them. That's what they were then, asylums. Now they're a treatment center. Hey, you've made a lot of strides over the last 28 years. I remember they used to whisper at you, shacking up. Now you're in a meaningful relationship. You've come a long way. But those places have architectural defects in them, those asylums. Some doors have one knob. It ain't on your side. I said, well, I'll go to that damn day, but I sure as hell don't want to. There I mean, a lot I can learn from those drunks. She said, well, you ought to learn something from somebody who conditioned your end the things you've done. I said, what do you mean? If you knew them damn people out there what they were doing to me. And she said, and imagine you've down a hell of a lot to them. I said I haven't done a damn thing to them they haven't deserved. Who among us is wrong? You don't find new alcoholics wrong. Sick alcoholics are wrong. The whole damn world's wrong. I knew an alcoholic cowboy out in Dallas, Texas one time, drunk. And he was never wrong, I guess, because he'd come out of a saloon out there one day and an old man rode into town on a mule. And when that old man got off that mule, that alcoholic cowboy went out there and got all over that oldman. He said, hey, old man, can you dance? The old man said, no, I don't know how to dance. He said、I bet you can. He got that six-shooter out of that holster and started shooting at that old man's feet. That old man got to dancing. Counting them bullets, when he fired that sixth bullet, that old man reached up on the back of that mule and got a shotgun stuck in that alcoholic's face. He said, have you ever kissed a mule's ass? He said no, but I've always wanted to. I've always wanted to. I didn't want to go back to that damn day meeting. They were having a square dance over in an auditorium there at that hospital. In a week's time, I'd fallen in love in there. Now, that's neat. I'm serious. You ever see two drunks in love and a nut house? I mean, if you put a sock on one foot and set them on a bed, they don't know whether to lay down or get up. And I was madly in love with this drunken little broad from another floor of the asylum. And I wanted to be square dancing with her. I love it going to these treatment centers today and you see them drunks running around there holding hands and blinking eyes at each other. they can't wait till they get out of there a lot of times they don't the only thing I know that's dumber than that is somebody works there tries to separate them I'm serious if you work in one of them places you got two drunks in love leave them alone encourage them really encourage them to stay together cause you believe me if you get them separated they'll screw up four people they were meant for each other well that nurse came and got me that night took me down that corridor to my first AA meeting and I walked up to a door where the student nurse's classroom and an old lady was standing in that door and her name was Margaret Biven and she was every bit as 60 years old, gray haired old woman and she looked at me and smiled put her arm around my shoulder and called me honey. Now, a big, tough, macho drunk from 4th and Central who was feeling good and ready to go again having some damned old woman put her arms around him. She said, hi, honey. She said honey, would you like a cup of coffee and a cookie? And I thought, Jesus. Well, anyway, I went on in there and I sat down and some old fool got up to talk about his drinking. And they had me in the audience and I got talking about mine. And they were trying to shut me up and I wouldn't shut up. And he'd talk and I'd talk. It was a hell of a meeting. I made a fool out of myself in that meeting you wouldn't believe. Unbelievable the ass I made out of my life. I made it out of himself. And finally when he got through, I came away with a very conclusion. Anybody drink like he did ought to quit. Why, haven't you done that at any of me? Some new people here today? Thank God, if I ever got like that, I'd quit. But you see, the reasoning behind my life is different than the reasoning behind his. That's an opinion everybody has sometimes. Understand why he quit. Boy. but it has nothing to do with skid row or ages or education or money or anything. It's only got something to do with what's up there what'supthere you see if they only knew then they would understand why I'm the way that I am as if we get some justification out of our own self-destruction Please stop recorder at this point. Turn cassette to side two. Thank you. ...meanings of meanings, but it seems like we get some perverse, satisfying justification for being the way we are when it's killing us. It's about like a guy laying out in the middle of the street been hit by a car. But you see, the reasoning behind my life is different than the reasoning behind it. That's an opinion everybody has sometimes. Understand why he quit, boy. But it has nothing to do with skid row or ages or education or money or anything. It's only got something to do with what's up there. What's up here? You see, if they only knew, then they would understand why I'm the way that I am. As if we get some justification out of our own self-destruction. In the second step of Alcoholics and Armors where it talks about sanity it's got a lot of meanings but it seems like we get some perverse, satisfying justification for being the way we are when it's killing us. It's about like a guy laying out in the middle of the street being hit by a bus. And some guy comes along and says, let me help you. And he says, no, not just yet. I'd like to wait until 300 people come by so I can tell them it wasn't my fault. Crazy? Hell yes, it's crazy. Our lives are going to hell in handbaskets, and mine certainly was. but I don't blame him. So I started out that door after disrupting their AA meeting and there stood Margaret Biven put her arm around my shoulder again and smiled said honey come back next week we need people like you and I thought they ought to put that old broad in a home somewhere get her off of the street my psychiatrist told me during the following week I never grew up interesting I went back the following week and sat down next to some nasty old man rough talking old fool name was Hillary became my sponsor naturally he said how you doing and I didn't think it was any of his business I didn' t even know him I thought well you ought to be nice to old people I really believe that today I said I'm doing alright old man but I ain't no damn alcoholic he looked at me and he said well if you ever find out what you are you oughta do something about it you look like hell So I moved away My psychiatrist told me I never had an identity Never matured Never grew up Didn't know who I really was Worked for the railroad Where my father worked My real name's John O'Connor Sullivan Jr. They jacked the nickname I was Johnny Sullivan's boy On that railroad And there's a tremendous Significance to that Because it kept me from establishing an identity of who I was. And I thought, that makes sense to me. Everywhere I went, I was Johnny Sullivan's boy, he asked. I said, absolutely. You never grew up. You never matured. You never established an identity. You really don't know who you are. And I though, I can't wait for my father to come up here so I can tell him if he didn't name me Charlie, I wouldn't have gone through all this shit. But I ran back to that AA beat and sat down next to that old fool. He said, how you doing? I said, I'm doing fine, but I ain't no alcoholic. He said really? I said really. Nothing impresses an alcoholic by looking him in the eye and saying, my psychiatrist said. Well, that impresses a hell of an alcoholic. I mean, even if you don't have one and you're new, tell them you do. when your sponsor is chewing your butt out for something, say, well, my psychiatrist said. It impresses the hell out of them. I said, my psychologist told me today that I didn't know who I was. And that old man said, I believe that. I said I never had an identity and therefore kept me from maturing. Now, I'm paying $160 an hour for this kind of information. And I'm talking to some old fool who's a damn insurance man. And he ain't charging me nothing. He looked at me and he laughed. He said, boy, I want to tell you something. If you'd have been a grape picker in a Garden Eden, you'd have been drunk. I got up and moved away. I spent 40 days in an insane asylum in Louisville, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Western State Hospital. That's another story within itself. It was the only alcohol treatment program in the state of Kentucky in 1962, and that asylum, and I was down there with a very bitter attitude. You see, I had not changed. The book Alcoholics Anonymous tells you it is an impossibility, an impossibility to stay sober until you have a profound change in your attitude. You will find a lot of people talk about perception in this program. Some people even talk about an illness of perception. The definition of perception is the truth as you see it. That's what perception is. Perception is the true truth. Truth as you say it, not as I say it or anybody else, but as you said. what is your perception when you come to act? And my perception of the truth about me was a hell of a long way from the reality of what I really was. And I'd sit down there even in that insane asylum and argue with those people, that if it wasn't for, I wouldn't. I hadn't changed not one damn bit. And my attitude was just as bad, and my perception was so disillusioned. I left there and came back to Louisville, and my sister gave me a home to live with her. And I started going back to A. About three weeks ago, I got real sick. I went to, I get the flu, and Gay and I were supposed to take a trip, and I got some antibiotics and medication and made our trip. I shouldn't have really because I got pneumonia. And I got really sick. and I got back home and my doctor's in AA and I'm his sponsor he scared the death out of me but I couldn't hardly breathe this flu and pneumonia thing had gotten in my bronchial tubes and my lungs and I can't breathe and I'd been smoking cigarettes for 47 and a half years and I was sitting there in the living room at home and we've got a mirror up over the television and I go and I'm lighting up cigarettes now and the only reason I'm telling you this is for a purpose of the same thing or reason to quit drinking and I thought to myself this is crazy you know I'm sitting here and I can't breathe and I am scared to death now I'm tellin' ya I am sitting there literally in fear that I'm not gonna get another breath it was the most horrible and horrifying thing I had experienced in ages really and truly wondering if you're going to get another one and it's a hell of a horrible feeling and I took them cigarettes and I threw them away out of total fear that I wasn't going to be able to breathe anymore and I haven't had a cigarette now for about 10 days but I don't want that I am not a damn non-smoker fire them up and all during the meetings i'm sitting with you i'm a smoker that ain't smoking but the reason i quit was i was i was afraid literally scared that those things were going to take my life take my breath and when i got back to louisville in 1962 i went to alcoholics anonymous for those people for the same damn reason that i was afraid i was going back and living that alley in that filth and dirt and trash and i didn't want to live there anymore i didn'T come to a for salvation or to change or to anything i stayed around here with all them old fools long enough because i was afRAID to go back to that alley and for some reason i knew i was GOING and for SOME REASON i knew if i started DIDN'T STOP SMOKING THAT DAMN CIGARETTE the other day is going to quit breathing. And I did it out of total fear, which is proof that a healthy fear of something is good for you. There's a hell of a lot of difference between a negative fear or a false pride than there is a good healthy fear in all of our lives. I don't put my hand over fire because I don' t want to get burned. I have a very healthy fear of fire. If a wildcat comes in that back door, I'm leaving. A healthy fear. And I came there initially for a healthy fear. But I stayed with those guys because back then, and there's some of the fellows in this room today that'll tell you back then boy when you were new they grabbed you. Because there wasn't that many people. I mean you were literally surrounded by five or six people who took you everywhere you went. And when you got on their case man they made you see in a hurry just how damn dumb you really were. Are you powerless over alcohol? How the hell do you sit there and tell somebody no? Do you have an unmanageable life? Oh, absolutely not. I love living in cardboard boxes on concrete. Of course I don't have a job with the railroad. I don' t have any money. I owe everybody in town. I look like hell and I'm sick. Unmanageble? Of course not. Do you believe that there's a power greater than you that can restore you to sanity? Depends on what you call insane. What the hell is sanity and addiction. Insanity is the dishonesty we have with ourselves. Alcoholics Anonymous asks you to become honest, honest, not lying, cheating, and stealing, although that helps, but go get yourself a flashlight and a little book in a closet and sit in there and analyze what kind of person you really are. What kind of a person are you as an individual to where you can make yourself so damn miserable at life and justified to the people who want to listen? How can you be so dishonest only with yourself when you're the one that's dying? How in the hell can you sit and look in a mirror and lie to yourself about what a great person you are to the world when you eat up inside and know you don't fit, and you don' adjust, and can't tolerate it or stand it much damn longer. How much more dishonest can you get? You become totally, totally insane when you do that to yourself. You will become as sane in this program as you become honest. To whatever degree of honesty you attain, you will attain the same degree of sanity. that and nothing more and when I could see that I became willing to listen willing to do and that was over a protracted period of time and I said to my sponsor one night I said well I'll be willing to go along with whatever because my life is now getting a little bit better and beginning to change but I said I want you to understand one thing I don't believe in God and I don't propose to start. And he looked at me and said, who cares? Who gives a damn what you believe in? Now if you're new to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm your sponsor, I can get through to you damn quick. But if you are new to Alcoholics Aanonymous and you are sitting here living 100 miles away from home, I am here to tell you I couldn't care less what you believed in. I don't give a damn what you believe in, because my friend, what you believe in is what brought you here. And it's not important at all. It is meaningless for what you believe in at this time in your life to get you well. Meaningless. You see, if you're new to this program, it's what I believe in. And I believe you can get well. I believe if you stay here and go with us, you'll get better. And I believe that no matter what you are, because I know what you can become. And I'm here to tell you tonight or today that God believes exactly what these sober people in Alcoholics Anonymous believe. that it is immaterial to God whether you believe in him or not because, you see, God believes in you. And God would wish that you would do better and God would want you to do better and God will allow you the time for that to happen into your life. but god like the people in a want you to know and something that i never understood that we believe in you and who you believe in is immaterial and that god's will for people like us is just to make us better people to please God. You see, we reap all the rewards. I reap all the rewards and because I get them and my life changes that pleases God. You see God's will for people like us is generally to be exactly the opposite of what we used to be and we must carry this type of thing all through our life as you heard Sue talk about this morning with the tragedy that entered their lives after nine years of sobriety i'm here today to tell you that after 27 and a half years of sobrity they're still there and then i must rely on the principles of alcoholics anonymous the people like you and the belief that i have in a god that i can accept and understand that no matter what i do not need to ever again destroy my life because of. That I can get through the times and the tribulations if I will continue to implement God's will into my life. And the only thing he asks of people like us, you know, God wants people like US to laugh, not cry. We've cried all of our life. God wants people likes us to grow, not rot like we've rotted all of out life. God wants people like us to give, not take from every human being that comes down the pike. God wants People Like Us to love and not hate like we've learned to over the years. And God wants us to do this for each other because we're better and He's pleased. And God ain't going to do anything more than give you that opportunity to let His grace into your life and to do things that please Him for your benefit. God ain'T going to find you jobs, you know? If you're looking for what God will do for you, He'll grant you the serenity to accept the things you can't change, the courage to change the thingsyou can, the wisdom to know the difference, and not a damn thing else. You can either get up off your ass and go look for a job or sit home and pray for one. But God wants people like us to love each other because we're better of each other. That's why I can look at a young boy, well as long as it ain't midnight in the motel room and say, I love you. I've had a few of them run. I'm kidding. Honey, I'm getting married. I'm not kidding. I've got my wife here with me. If I look at somebody in Alcoholics Anonymous, boy, girl, man, woman, word, say, I love you. I love You for what You are, not for who You are. I don't love You because of what You Are. I loveYou because of What I Am when I'm with You. I loveU for What IAm when I am with You, because of you, I'm better. Because of you I'm a much better human being and hopefully in some small way because of me, you may be better. And I don't have to tell you that once you become willing to unlock the rest of Alcoholics Anonymous is there. I can stand here tonight and I don't have to go through 12 steps of A to tell you that for 27 and a half years they have entered my life. Once I was willing to unlock the door that let me in. It used to be in 1960s, and some of you all remember there was a step at Alcoholics Anonymous called the third step that separated the men from the boys. The men took it and the boys stayed home. And that was the thing that got us here. And we felt better because God had entered into our life and the sickness of our souls had disappeared, and that wherever we go, we're going to fall. Sometimes the runner stumbles, don't we all? But wherever we Go, we know we've made a decision and become willing to try, and we never go alone. We never go along, and I can prove that to you because you can stand here all day and listen to me, all day, and listen speakers, and you enjoy it, and We all get something out of everything that they say. But the true meaning, the true purpose, the true intention of Alcoholics Anonymous is with God in our presence and us willing to try. We feel. We don't know, and intellectually, who cares? We feel the difference in all of us. And we feel in our hearts and in our soul the presence of the things that make us whole human beings once again. and I can put this room in total silence and I can't explain the feeling that will come the only thing I can tell you is that I can feel that it's here and I know of no other place on earth where it exists no other I sober about 11 months and I got my job back with that railroad And after 13 months I married Gay Most of y'all know Gay, she's here with me She's not dressed up so I'm not going to ask her to stand up She said aren't you going to put a suit on I said I brought one damn suit and that's for Cecil And I ain't putting it on for anybody else I'm putting my suit on when Cecil talks So the hell with the rest of them But Gay and I got married, and she had a daughter, and she has two children, and one of them is pregnant now, and I'm about to become a great-grandpa who never had kids. And even the book says more will be revealed to me. And we've had a good life together, and again, we've led our lives through the lives of Alcoholics Anonymous. We've gone to meetings, we're friends, we've shared, we tried, and that's all we can do. We've had our ups and downs and ins and outs, and sometimes we borrowed from you and sometimes we lent. Some days I'm strong and you can have some of it and someday I'm weak and I need some of yours and as long as I stay here with you I can't go wrong with it because it's always there for me and I don't do a damn thing to day different than I did 27 and a half years ago because I still go to five or six AA meetings a week and I do what Alcoholics Anonymous has asked me to do and that's to take care of myself and my family and try to help other people and I try to do that in a way that balances my life with a good book. You know an interesting thing in Alcoholics Anonymous that you run into damn few people that realize where those slogans came from. Do you know most people think those slogans are for that individual alcoholic? They walk in a clubhouse somewhere and it says, live and let live, but for the grace of God. You know where those slogANS are in the book? The family afterwards. Now Who put think, think, thinking there? I have no idea. But they ought to bar him. They ought to barr it. Live and let live. Easy does it. See, that's for your family. Alcoholics Anonymous is a family illness. You know, I want my wife to be an individual human being. And I want her to allow me that privilege. And I don't want her. I want us to be something. And I wanna live and let life with my family. And I want that total fame. Somebody mentioned it this morning. This is a damn program you take home with you. This is icing on the cake what we're doing here this weekend. Sitting in there at French Lake having a hell of a good time. JoJo's out running somewhere still trying to find the meaning of that damn word. But what we are hearing, you know, is for family. But you've got to go back out there. That's where they are. You know? And, you don't want some sad news. i hate to break this to you because you look like such nice people but them bastards are still out there and they'll get you if you ain't careful if you anchor but you have to go out there to live and alcoholic synonymous is a program about living about loving and about sharing and it's for us and it is for our families and in joining with a belief in a God that we understand and it's here for everybody everybody I got an opportunity to start an alcohol and drug abuse program for that same railroad ran me off in 1974 and I stayed with it for 14 years and I left in January of 88 I don't do anything now takes me about an hour to get started at that. And I don't get started till noon. Wife said the other day, I'm glad I got talk up here really. I've been mad at God for about three weeks. God and I ain't been doing well at all. In fact, I run him out of my house the other morning. I'll tell you why. I was sitting at home the other night and my wife was telling one of these young people, you know them 19 year olds that come around your house that you can't get rid of that eat all the time, and they like to sit there and say, look at that old fool. I quit drinking because I'm afraid I'll look like him. And we had one in our living room the other night, and my wife said, you know what? I believe that I'm going to bury him standing up. The change your positions will do him good. And that young person looked at my wife and said, why don't you bury him face down so he can see where he's going? I said, boy, what the hell are you doing in my house? Where'd you come from? And he said, according to the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, God sent me to you. And I've been mad at God. Hey, we're doing good. You know, had a hell of a good time up here this weekend. Hell of a great time coming up here. Picked Sue and JoJo up to the airport, playing with the iron half late, oxygen mask was dropping down. I'm telling them to have faith they're wanting oxygen. You're right along in a car about to run out of gas some guy said, have faith so I'd rather have gas. We had a good time. I looked at JoJo and I said, do those people up there know you're black? And she said, why? I said, oh, God. She looked at Gay and says, is he lying? Is he lying to you? I'm going to close this meeting by telling you a story I close every talk with, and it's because it's been so important to me over the years. I've never forgotten it, and I hope you never do. It meant so much to me. I don't have the slightest idea where I heard it. it was about a man walking down a very cold and lonely road one night and in the middle of the road laid a snake when the man got to the snake he looked up and the snake spoke to him and the snack asked him Mr. please help me I'm a reptile, I cannot live in this kind of weather I'm dying please pick me up put me under your coat and get me warm in order that I may live and the man said I can't do that you're a poisonous reptile And surely if I did that and saved your life, you'd bite me. And the snake said, I wouldn't bite you if you saved my life. So the man picked him up from the road and put him under his coat. And when the snake got warm and returned to vitality, he bit him. And the man grabbed him and threw him out from under hiscoat and back to the road. And he looked at him and he said, I thought you promised if I saved your wife not to bite. And the snickering grin across his face. He said, you knew what I was when you picked me up. My friend, if you're sitting somewhere in the confines of your own living room, in a bar room, wherever it may be, if it's your decision to take the top off the bottle, the cork out of the jug, rationalize it to those that care to hear. Explain it to anybody that's willing to listen. but if you've been here if you know me if you met us you know what it is when you pick it up thank you for having me I really don't think anyone was disappointed. Jim Wilson told me that A.A. had to cut down someplace, so they're just not going to give Jack a present, I guess. It isn't up here. If I call on God, he might wish he had it. I, too, would like to add a little pitch for the next meeting, which is the Allotine Meeting at 3.30 p.m. From my own experience as an alcoholic, anyone in this room that has children, that is an alcoholic or Al-Anon, that has Children or expects to have Children, I think should listen to this next message that will be delivered by the Alateen at 3.30. If you wish, could we join hands and close with a large prayer, please? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. Thank you, John. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you for having me.