The Character Defects He Found in the Salvation Army – 1965 – Bill L.

Well, that's true. I never have flown anything but a jet until yesterday, and I think I'm going to stick with the jet. Margaret, I'm afraid you left some butterflies up here. Like Doug said, my name is Bill, Bill LaCourte. I'm from Detroit. i'm 27 years old i came into aa when i was 23 the fact that i'm an alcoholic i feel is the only and the most important fact that I'm here today. I feel that an AA is the only possible means for me to ever be a man. I feel without AA, I would always be a child. I would be nothing but a child and there would there would be no hope, no possible means for me to be anything other than a child. Well, I think maybe it's better off. You know, I get the kick out of the way you people talk. I used to go with a girl from Alabama, and I don't know why I remember her saying what I remember here saying. I can only remember one thing. She used to say, Bail, bail, stop that, bail. And that's all I remember, no matter who I hear any of these people call. You know, I like to think I'm normal in many respects. And then I have a good time thinking that I'm abnormal in many other respects. And I'm not sure just which is the better off. As a child, I was very fearful of everything, all things, everyone, my instructors, my brothers. I have seven brothers and a sister. I'm the second oldest. Our family is rather odd. We have two sets of twins. We range in ages from 30 down through 11. It's a rather active family, we're spread all over the country. So as I see it, we are rather abnormal in that respect. I was born and raised in a town in northern Michigan, not in Detroit, in East Howell. It's a small tourist town. My father was one of two doctors at the time, and since he's moved to Birmingham, a suburb of Detroit. But as the doctor's son in Dallas, my brothers and I could get away with murder if we ever attempted that. We got away with more things than any of my classmates, any of the kids I ran around with. So we took advantage of this fact and we had a ball. However, I got a late start drinking. I was 18 when I started and I drank for five years. In that five years, I experienced the inside of jails, I experienced drunken driving charges. I experienced lost jobs. I experienced loan checks. I experienced garnishments. I experienced all the things that most Alkies take quite a time to experience. I've often felt that the only thing I didn't do was murder. That's the only think that was left for me. And oddly enough, I never thought of murdering myself. I've heard many else who think of this, but I always felt that I would be better off in an insane asylum or a prison. I only made the jails, and that was a one- or two-day spin. I never got to 30 days, and that's what I always seemed to be trying for, and I always wanted that because I couldn't live in society. I couldn'T seem to do what my brothers were doing, what my fellow classmates were doing. I didn't drink a lot. Many times since I've been in AA, older members have told me why you couldn't hardly be an alcoholic, because I spilled more booze than you drank. Well, this is very true. They probably did. But it wasn't the booze they spilled that got me drunk. I never could drink a lot. When I started drinking, I got sick the first time I drank. I got definitely sick. I swore I would never drink again. I don't know why I got to such a late start, really, because we always had booze around the house. And my father, I think, qualified for this program, but that's his decision. It's odd that my father is responsible for being in AA. But I swore I would never drink again, and it held true for a couple of months. I didn't enjoy drinking, but it seemed that I had to drink to have a good time, to allay these fears that were constantly nagging at me. I always felt very self-conscious in a crowd, much as I do right now. I felt that booze was the only answer, and it seemed to do the trick. Why? Because I could be the life of the party once I got going for about an hour, and then I got sicker than a dog. However, this went away after a while, and I became able to drink a little bit more. I understand that with primary alcoholics, a big scientific word here, primary alcoholics have trouble in schools, children have trouble with their parents, have trouble law enforcement, that sort of thing. I never had that trouble. But I did have trouble booze when I first started. And I'm told they can't drink to begin with, whereas secondary alcoholics drink possibly for years and then turn alcoholics. But I couldn't drink, to begin. I built up a fairly good tolerance where I could spend the whole night in the bar without regurgitating another big scientific word. It's not like hemorrhaging, Tom said it. And then about four and a half years after I started drinking, I found that this tolerance was decreasing. I found that I did all the things that alcoholics were, that I was told alcoholics did. I never felt that I had a drinking problem. I never thought that booze was part of my problem. I knew very well that I have a problem, but I thought my problem was a people problem because booze and I got along fine. It was the only friend I really had. It was close and dear to me. It did me many, many favors. But people constantly were getting in my way. They were taking my promotions. They were smashing my car, mainly because I was too drunk to drive. I found that people were the only thing standing between me and my own goals. So I immediately, upon deciding this, decided I would have nothing to do with people. And this was at the age of, I'll say 22, 22 and a half. By this time I had never been fired but I quit many jobs because I knew I would get fired. On several jobs no one in the office said I want to raise or I'm quitting. And they said quit. I felt I was always indispensable to the company. I felt that without me they would flop, and most of them expanded more than double their size since I quit. But I found that I could not associate with people. I started drinking in the better places when I was 19. I came out of the woods and came into the city and started drinking in the Better Places in the Detroit area. When I came into AA in Flint, I was drinking in the worst possible places a man could find. I never spent any time on Skid Row and Detroit, but I spent a lot of time on skid row in Jackson and Flint. And the reason it's Jackson and Flynn is because I was trying to get rid of the people I was associating with, get a different job, I'd get out of that environment that drove me into the problems that I had. I'd experience inside of a jail, I'd experienced attorney fees, that sort of thing. I should say my father experienced my attorney fees. My father, being a doctor, knew something about alcoholism. He knew something of AA. And I feel that he knew I was an alcoholic long before I did. He never once reprimanded me for my drinking, never gave me hell for sending my bills home, never refused me when I asked for money, and I asked money more than I earned it. But on New Year's Day in 1961 I asked my father if I couldn't possibly be sent to an insane asylum, be sent with some hospital that could help me. And he said, Phil, why don't you go to AA? Oh, my God. I thought, well, I knew what AA was. We discussed it in a family. We had many friends in AA. My father had many family friends who were in AA and I knew where it was. it was for people who had a drinking problem. I knew exactly what it was, but I wasn't an alcoholic. I was only 23 years old. I Was a doctor's son. Now how that had anything to do with it, I don't know, but that's what I felt. And besides, I only drank beer. You know, unless the other was free. But my father said in the next sentence he would pay off the bone check if I joined AA. Oh, that sounded all right because I was out of a job and all my, shall I say, my creditors were hounding my father for my bills and he decided that he would pay if I joined AA. And I thought, well, for a couple of meetings, you know, and get him to pay off his check, I couldn't ask for a better deal. So I went back to Flint jobless and more or less with no place to stay. My father arranged the ride for me. I didn't have a car at the time, so I bought that with a bum check. He arranged the ride back to Flint for me with a member of AA, but I didn't know that. And when we got into Flint, this guy said, oh, on the way out of Flint, I said, well, we've got to stop. You know, I didn' t know how far it was from Flint to Dallas or Detroit to Flint or Detroit to Jackson. I knew that it took a six-pack with these new expressways to get from Dallas the plant. And I asked this guy that we're going to stop. I didn't realize people drove without drinking. I knew it was against the law, but I didnít think people really paid too much attention to that. And he said, well, weíll have to stop, and I said, why? And he says, well weíve got to get something to drink. And this is New Yearís Day, mind you, itís 200 miles north of Detroit. And we have to start and get something to drink and he said why well that's what you do you said oh so we came to this one bar just off the town and it was really packed must have been the only bar open in the city that day and he says well let's go on to the next one the next room is 40 miles away and if his next one you figure 160 miles north of detroit it's woods up there there's nothing There's no traffic on New Year's Day. In the summertime, you can't do anything on the highway, so it's packed. On New Year day, there's no one goes north on New Years day in this part of the country. But all of a sudden, there are too many cars to make a left-hand turn into that bar. And this kind of reaffirms my faith in any guy, that's a mind game. And in Croft Hall, about 10 miles further, the expressway cuts in all the way to Detroit. And you know, they don't build bars on expressways. We got into Flint, I'm sorry. And this guy said, where are you going? I said, downtown recreation. He said, oh yeah, I know where that is. He said, that's right by the Alamo Club. I said, oh, yeah, big deal. He said why don't you come in the club with me? There are some few friends in here I'd like to meet. Oh look, I didn't know what Alamo club was. I had no idea what it was. So I went in with this guy because I was out of a job, see. And he has some friends and I know he told my father, or my father told him that I didn' have a job Yeah, I'm not going to flinch. Let's go on again. And so I went in with this guy, and this is the truth. Believe me, it's unbelievable. But for three days, the people in that Alamo Club did not talk about a drinking problem. I know that I can't get together with another Elkie and not talk about a drinker problem. I've never heard it since. I've never heard it done. But because this is New Year's Day, 1961, if you recall, it was on a Sunday. Monday was a legal holiday, and it was January 3rd before any businesses or offices were open. And for three days these people took me home, put me to bed, got me up, bought my cigarettes, saw to it that I got here and there, saw toit that I ate. They were really cool people, let me tell you. But it was all right because I was broke, and my father hadn't given me any money when I left home. And he kept telling me they're going to take me up to see a guy by the name of John. Well fine, John's got an office, that means he's a big shot in some outfit, he's probably going to hire me. You've probably heard what a good worker I am and this sort of thing. There isn't anything else of all managers, one and all. But I went up to see John on the 3rd of January, mind you, hanging around with people in AA for three days, never hearing of a drinking problem. Nobody ever told me their experiences. And this is unusual because if they had, I wouldn't have had anything to do with them. But it was in the back of my mind that if I went to AA, the checks would be paid, the laws would be off on that, and this is all right. But I kept putting it off. Well, next day I'll get in touch with the CAA. I went up to the Matthew Tomlin building with some of the fellows to see this guy. And as we got out the elevator, it said FDA on the door. And FDA is something like HFC. So I thought for sure this was the type of organization where they were taking me out to get along. The FDA stands for the Swing Committee on Alcoholism. But I didn't know that. He took me in, we sat down for a while and it was Big John. He's a guy that had an accent like yours. I keep wanting to call him a hillbilly but I can't do that, Johnny. But he had an accident of some kind like yours and he came out and he looked down at me. He's very big guy. He looked down and said, Bill, in case he meets you now, how does he know my name? He took me into his inner office and closed the door and locked it. And he started to tell me in a very concrete manner about a young guy who shared a girl, he shared with his instructors, he shared it with brothers and sisters. He's afraid to do anything by himself but he always got good marks in school and I didn't like that because he was telling me about me. He was always in all the clubs, he was always the model student, so to speak, and I didn't like that. No one knew I was afraid of everything. No one, until I started drinking. And then he started talking about that part. He started talking where this young man starts drinking and he's no longer afraid of girls. In fact, he likes them even. But as Mark started to fail in high school... I only drank six months when I was in high school and the last six months of high school. And back then, I thought, my God, what a little fun it's been missing. But the more this guy talked, the more I began to hate him, my parents, my brothers, all the friends I'd ever associated with because no one knew that much about me. He told me some things about me that I didn't know. And when he was all done, he sewed it up and said, This is a typical story of an alcoholic. Can you imagine that? An alcoholic at 23 who only drinks beer. I said, Mr. Frank, you're out of your mind. I can't be an alcoholic, he said. Why not? Because I'm too young. You know what he did? He got his little squawk box on the desk and a 23-year-old fella came in the office who had been sober and AA for three years. I said, he's nuts! He can't be an alcoholic! He said, okay. Anyway that 23- year old put me home that night. And we went on to the other excuses about never, you know, can't be an alcoholics by only drinking beer. And he got somebody on the phone that had only drank beer. You know, I felt the same thing. They weren't an alcoholic, they were just nuts. They needed this outfit to use as express, which was truer than I thought. But it hit me that my father was going to pay the check if I joined AA. Well fine, I'll go to a couple of meetings with these guys. I went to a meeting that night, my first meeting in Fenton, and we walked in a little bit late and they brought me a coffee and made me feel as though it was really something. And I kept thinking, look at all these others. No, they're looking at me. And it was a closed meeting. They went around the table one by one. Each one of them, I felt, were crying in their coffees trying to make me feel good because I'm finally here and all this nonsense. And they came to me and they said, well, Bill, what have you got to say? And I really gave them a piece of my mind. I told them exactly why I was there. I was here only to get my father's pay off the checks. I was not an alcoholic. It was the silliest thing I ever heard of. And they all smiled at me. I got mad as in hell. I commented on the paper a couple of times and walked off. But I was in a town 20 miles from Flint, so I had to wait for my driver. All the way back to Flint, you know, in this meeting they discussed the 12 steps. And all the way down to Flint this guy kept saying, Well, how do you like those 12 steps? I said, They're all right. They're alright. He said, I don't know what good they are, but they're alright, because I suppose some people need them. I felt they were the same thing as the Ten Commandments, There were two more, which made it a little more difficult. I told him I had no use for them. He said okay and he smiled and kept on driving. And the next day my father called me and said, Well, I didn't say you went to a meeting. Now how do you know that? I said yeah, I went to meetings. How do you like it? He says wonderful dad, wonderful. Really great outfit at that age. For six months I stayed in Flint, working on occasion. But I found it very difficult to work without alcohol. I had seven jobs in those six months. Some were... well, I had one of everything. I had 7 different kinds of jobs. Some I liked, some I didn't like. Some I could do and some I couldn't do. The easy ones I could deal with. And I'd quit the easy ones because they weren't challenging enough, and take a good stiff cold one that I'd get fired from. Oddly enough, I had a job that I was, the only job I was fired from when I was drinking was a job at Chevrolet in the accounting department. I had to go to the accounting office. I had another job that required a degree, and I didn't have a degree but they didn't know that. And that was the only job I got fired from drinking. The reason I got fire from that, because in the three months that I was with them I was absent from work three times and they called me on the carpet and said, Bill, why are you absent? And I said, well, I've got a terrible ulcer. They said, Well, Bill I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll send you to the plant doctor and he'll give you a complete physical I said, to work with treatment, we'll treat you and keep you on. Oh my God, my father's a licensed physician with a practice of, why should I go to a kooky plant doctor? And I said well that's silly, I'm not probably giving him that physical, he always has. And he said no Bill, we can't do that. And I says well then, I refuse to do it. And he says well can we refuse to keep you out? Oddly enough, my father put in practice he's now a plant doctor with Ford Motor Company. My opinion has completely changed. But for six months in Flint I lived with a couple. She was 26 and he was 23 at the time. They were both in AA. They met in AA, and they had three wonderful little kids. I didn't bother to pay them anything for my room and board. Occasionally, I would babysit, thinking I'm doing a big thing. I went to AA meetings quite a bit because my dad didn't do things the way I thought he would do them. He took six months to pay those damn checks off. I think he knows more about his son than his son does. But in that six months, I listened to you people. You said it's the first drink that makes you drunk. Now, isn't that silly? Any office can drink more than one drink. We like getting drunk. So I felt, as I'm planning my own case history, I could see that I never in my life had one drink. Never. I'd refuse drinks because I knew that one wouldn't do it. You said that alcoholism is a progressive disease. You said it only gets worse unless you do something about it. And I could see where mine got worse and worse and so fast in five years that I was in AA. You know, something's wrong. You told me that no one comes through the door without a problem. Well, I thought that was pretty true, but mine was not an alcoholic problem. But then I heard that gamblers' anonymous and a few other anonymous were started with the program of AA So I thought I would start my own little personal people phenomenon, because people were my problem. As I said, I had six jobs. You know, after drinking without a drink for six months and not accepting what you people had to say, I was very, very miserable in Flint. i saw that a might be for me but i couldn't possibly see how i was an alcoholic how i could possibly be an alcoholic all the things you people said about alcoholism had happened to me but it couldn't be as the alcohol effects wore off i obtained a very large conscience A conscience so alive that I could no longer live with these people that I was living with in the eye. I hadn't bothered to pay them rent, room and board as they said. So one day I packed a laundry bag and got on the expressway and hitchhiked through Detroit. In Detroit I found a job dealing with people unfortunately. I didn't bother calling AA for about two weeks, but in that two weeks I felt myself going out of my mind. I was living at the YMCA and I found that nothing was going my way. Nothing. I found the things you said would happen if I didn t go to meetings began to happen. So I thought, well maybe I am. I called AA and I was told there was a meeting right across the street. I think that night it went over or the night after. And I didn't walk in that meeting saying, I'm Bill LaForte, I'm trying to get started in this program and please help me. I didn'y say that at all. I walked in and I said, I said, I'm Bill Hort. I've been sober for six months. Is there anything I can do to help? And he said, yes, there is, Bill. Would you lead a table tonight? I thought, oh my God, what I could do. I hadn't even taken the first step yet and here I was leading a table. A couple nights after that, I got a new man to work with who was a few years older than myself. He was on the second time around and really wanted it this time. I found myself saying to him for the first time with sincerity, I'm an alcoholic. And you know it felt good. It really felt good I am an alcoholic It felt real good A month after that, they elected me chairman of the group. I'm still in the process of taking the first step. I guess after, in that group, after you're chairman, you become treasurer automatically. And that's quite an honor in AA, you know. I became treasuer. I started taking 12-step calls. I gave my first talk at this for seven and a half months in Asia. And you know it's real difficult to do these things without taking the first steps. After eight months in the program, I realized that I was an alcoholic. Not a little bit alcoholic, not becoming an alcoholic, not used to be an alcoholic but I am an alcoholic. I felt good because I was an alcoholic at this point, didn't I? That is nervous. After 11 months in AA, I wanted this program. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. I wanted to go to meetings and laugh like you people laugh. I wanted us to walk down the street and hold my head up. I wanted sobriety more than everything else in this world. but I still couldn't hold a job. I had thirteen jobs in the first eleven months in this program. I kind of split it down the middle and say six I quit, seven I got fired from. I was running out of money. My father wouldn't send me anymore, to find advice for you people in that age. I no longer was eating regularly. I was losing weight, and for me to lose weight is disastrous. I went into the intergroup office in Detroit where I'd been visiting regularly. I knew the girls quite well. And I asked Izzy, I said, Izzy what can I do? She says, what do you mean Bill? You're doing real well. And then it hit me, I'd never told anybody about this job problem. and I told her I really broke down and told her I really bawled my eyes out with Lizzie and she says Bill her face lit up because I know where you can go that's where it is it says the Salvation Army oh my God first day and then the Salation Army that's what Two days later I was moving in, mainly because I hadn't eaten in two days. I remember that morning—you've got to get down there early, Lord, because it's quite a lot— I was sitting on the bench, and the reception officer in the receiving department there, they didn't receive you like a truck unloaded freight. I was sittin' there, and I was thinking, my God, I gotta get in. I gotta have a bet tonight, I guess. I gotta ask someplace to call home in Salvation Army. They interviewed me and took an application, all this garbage. asked me if I had ever been in the Salvation Army before, and I told them very definitely not. This seems to be quite a popular attitude. I find now that I was not any different than anyone else moving into the Salation Army. After they gave me my physical and assigned me to a bed and assigned to a job, I guess you're thinking, how the hell am I going to get out of here? I maintained all contact with A.A. while I was in New Sallie. I wanted desperately to get others first. So desperately that I bought a paper every night looking at the one ask for a job. Every Monday night there were vaccination courses where several people from A.I. uh the major himself several people gave uh an introductory talk i suppose there to the new borders this one fellow from a that i'd known outside of the sally kept telling me phil look when it's time for you to go you'll go keep active any day do what you can here when it is time for you to go, you'll go. I fought that for about 24 hours. And then he started coming down on Thursdays to see me. He kept in contact with me. He kept telling me, Bill, when it's time to go you'll go. And I said, John, that can't be. If you walked in here tonight and offered me a job, I couldn't move out because I have no money to pay rent. I have nothing. He said, Phil, forget it. When it's time for you to go, you'll go. After three months, I gave up. I thought, well, here I am. I'm going to be here a long time. I might as well make the best of it. I started looking around me. I began talking to some of the guys. I found that 90% of those that I talked to had been through AHA before the Salvation Army, but AHA wasn't for them. I found that some of them stayed sober in AHAs before the salvation army. I found that some stayed sober for as long as ten years, some six months. Then I got to thinking why are these guys here after age? I mean, this is, you know, you don't go any lower than the Salvation Army, you don' t. And I started looking around and I could see that this guy hated his wife. This guy hated more than one. I found one guy was an habitual thief Every one of these guys had a character defect that stood out like a sore thumb. This is how I learned to take an Inman short. I took this character defect, that was so prominent in them, and I tried to see if that character defect in any way applied to me. I have yet to find anyone with a character defect that I don't have. Every one of them fits me. Now, some guys are worse than I am in some areas, but then I'm worse than some and others. I found that character defects are not only intended for alcoholics. I find that crazy people have them too. I maintained contact with AA. I started doing part-time work in the evenings at the inner group office. Life started taking on a little bit of meaning as much as it can in this alley. Being Catholic, I could not join their religion which looked awfully attractive because the only thing you had to worry about was your cigarettes. So I started spending all my time worrying about my cigarettes and I put a lot of time into that. I no longer cared about getting out of the cell because I was more or less resigned to the fact that I'll get out when it's time. After six months Juanita at the intergroup office called me and said, Joe, would you come and work for me? I said, well, I can't tonight, Juanita. I've got to go to a meeting. She says, no, no. I mean starting Monday full time. Can you imagine that? Somebody called me to go and work with them. I said Juanita, I can't. I can move out of here. I have no place to go. You have to work here to be able to draw me on a bed. And she said, well, let me call you back. A little while later, she called me back, and some lady who I had never met, who had never meant me, never even saw me, put up the money to pay my rent and buy my food until I was first paid it. Now, nothing like this had ever happened to me before. It had, but I wasn't grateful for it. It happened in Flint, something much like it. But I wasn't grateful for that, yet. I went to work for Juanita in a group office. Things started happening. I got my driver's license back. Many things happened, not all of them, but my creditors, you know, they were watching my social security numbers, huh? They saw I was working, so they started bouncing on me. But it was fun to pay those bills. It was actually fun. I used to think when I first came into AA, once I get a job and get established, all the time and money I'm going to have on my hands. That isn't the case. Not by a long shot. Time is something I don't have. Money is something I have temporarily and it's gone. I'm still paying off my phone checks, some of them. Some that my father couldn't or refused to pay. Some that he didn't know about they brought up with me since. I'm paying off two cars that I no longer drive and that are no longer drivable, I should say. It's odd. I've had five major accidents, and up until the time I started working at Intergroup, I'd owned five cars. I'm very used to buying cars. I've only sold one in my life, and that was last year. 8A? Working for 8A in the integral office was an experience I cannot afford to forget. I found that giving of myself, and believe me, I was giving the salaries were very low in any offices. However, it was about $300 a month more than I was making at the time. I found working in the integral office 10 to 12 hours a day was far more rewarding than painting signs at the Salvation Army. I could have helped people as a salary, and I like to think I tried, but I don't think I was much help to them because I was an affluent self. But in the office I had a genuine chance to see what alcoholism is all about. And it's truly a crippling, a family-crippling disease. We had more phone calls from wives than we did from husbands, from potential alimons than we get from potential AAs. They really had some scary ideas what an AA is all about, you know. One lady called and asked us to please get her husband off the front lawn. We told her, does he want us to come and pick him up off the front lawn? And she said, my God, no. I said well then we can't do it. She couldn't understand me. But it shows, I think, how well or how much she needed Eleanor. In this time, I started working with Alateen. I wasn't so much older than they. Some of their problems I experienced. In fact all of them one way or another. as if we look at it as emotional disease that affects everyone in the family. I found that these kids had the same spirits that I always had, which are prerequisites to alcoholism, I feel. I found it a great opportunity to do something for me because these kids were exactly like I was once. No, I was in a position to possibly help them. It was a good feeling. AA is full of good feelings. As time went on, you know we had two offices in Detroit for a while. I used to say that we have two brains of AA, the good kind and the bad kind, but there's no such thing as bad AA. You people do things different here in Lexington than we do in Detroit. People in Flint do it different than we in Detroit People in Saginaw do it far different than you do here in lexington And you know why everybody stays sober? I don't think it's because it's one type of AA versus another I don't think that AA in any particular location is any different from any other, basically. It's the same false test, the same principles that we work on. I don' t even feel that AA is any particular group or any group of groups. I don''t feel that AAA is an office in New York State. I don't feel that AA is necessarily and only in this hall. I feel that the true mark of AA is what goes on when there are no meetings. The true mark AA is what we do on the job, is what you do when we're away from our fellow alcoholics smile at us and we smile back at them, say it's a beautiful day, and we talk about our drinking problems. I think AA is what we do when we're away from these people in these situations. I find that I have no trouble at all being a member of AA at a meeting. I find it very simple. I found being a number of AA is far more difficult when there are away is to talk to far more challenging and if i can still reflect what i learned in aaa when i'm away from aa i feel a hell of a lot better i don't find it any trouble to be a man at aaa it's really simple because you people understand me and i understand you but my boss doesn't understand me This is where I find it truly rewarding. Anyway, our office was consolidated with the other office. I didn't particularly care if the door worked for those other people. I was very bitter because no one in AA offered me a job. I had to go out and look for a job. I fell into a position with a meat packer that I find truly challenging. I've made better money at many jobs, but I've never had the challenge put in front of me to do what I'm doing now. The company has seen fit to send me to school. Many people have seen fit to sendme to school in the last three years, I attended three very different seminars on the disease of alcoholism plus time study school and the company hasn't been sending me to any algorithmically can be sure of that. They sent me to a time study school that has in turn enabled me to save the company money and at the same time enhance my own position with the company. It's a position that I was lucky to get, darn lucky. However it only strengthens and that belief in God. I find on the job that I'm in a position to get back at anyone I want to getback at, particularly supervision. I find these are the biggest group of nuts that I have to get along with. They don't like me and I don't want them. But yet, I have faith in one to them i have to say good night i have to ask them about various machines i have to work with them this is where i find a very helpful two months ago you know in aa i work with a lot of young people and you know i've heard these young people say i'm too young i have my whole life ahead I'm not going to dry up in AA. And I hear the old people say, I'm too old, I haven't got a chance, there's nothing to live for, so why should I dry up in AA? One is the same as the other, isn't it? They're actually saying the same thing. They want to escape the pains of the drinking but they don't want to quit. I know that feeling. I find that in young people, the big difference is, especially among those young single people, they're dying to get married. They're dying to have somebody pat them on the shoulder. Like girls all seem to have been married or are married. But the guys, a lot of single guys, 21, 22, 23 years old, come in in Detroit. And they all want to get married. It's funny, as children they all hated it and were afraid of girls, but now they just love them. They want to get married, and I always felt that someplace way back, mothers are responsible for this, for the feeling that these guys all have to get marriage, they all feel like they've got to get marry. and I kept telling them to stay single, stay single it's a good life, just stay single and when you meet the right girl things will happen but yet they continue to strive if I can only get married and I've seen a couple of these guys get married end up in hospitals because they got married strictly because they wanted to get married no other reason I got married two months ago to a girl that has no idea of what alcoholism is. They've never had it in the family, at least to my knowledge. She's from a foreign country where alcoholism's not prevalent. It isn't a disease there, but it is here. Her parents don't know about it yet, and that's fine because they're still in a foreign country. I think that's one reason I married her too, because I never got along with any girl's parents. I find the best part of being married to a Cuban is the in-laws are in Cuba. I find this is something to be grateful for. To be grateful to AA4. She's been to a couple of LMA meetings. She doesn't seem to get too much out of them because she has no idea what I'm like when I drink. I can tell her, but she says, oh no, I can't do it. I get to thinking AA has made me look like a liar. I'm not too tickled about that condition. Now, I'd like to show this whole thing up and show you what really this program can do. John used to say to me when I was in his alley, let's go on, let's God. He'd pump this into me all the time, let's do it, let God. Whenever I see him now, it seems to be the first thing he says, let's grow on, my God. When I was drinking, I had full control of my hands when I wrote the bunk checks. My hands were on the steering wheel of the car when it hit the railroad crossing. My hand didn't do the work that I should have done and consequently got fired or lost a job. I was running the show. I ended up on Skid Row in Jackson. I ended up in the South. It was truly a good experience. I didn't want any part of AA I didn' t want any part of the salvation army I didn''t ask for the job in the integer ball I didn ''t ask the company to send me to school you know I didn.''t even ask if the girl rang Now, what do those mean? I didn't ask that the state of Michigan send me to these seminars on alcoholism. I didn' t ask this business. But yet they happen. And why? It's real simple. For the same reason that sometimes tempers fly in AA, but for some reason or other we don't hit each other like we did in the box. We're basically the same people. What's the difference? All the time I spent in Sally with the so-called social outcasts, I never saw a fight. Why? Why they fall all the time on Skid Row. It's real simple why. Because God has something to do with A.D. God has nothing to do with the salary term. God has something to do with just about everything that's good. And I like to think that God has something to do with my life. I've been told by people that don't believe, as I believe in a God, that God didn't do all these things for me. You people in AA did. He's absolutely right. You people and AA did, but how is God going to do his work if it isn't through his instrument? here on earth. That's the only possible way he can get things done. So in a sense this guy has to be right. I tell him this, he says, I'm crazy. Fine. I'd just as soon be crazy the way I am today as to be alright the way that I used to be. I've been told that I can't possibly be an alcoholic. Fine. For all I know, maybe I'm not an alcoholic, but I'll be damned if I'm going to find out. They say if you're not sure, stick around the area a little while or go and get a drink. See what happens. You know, there's no doubt in my mind today that I can take a drink. When we break for lunch, I can go out and take a Drink and lay it down and walk away from it. I know I can do that. But tonight, I'm going to say, well, look at that, I had one at noon, and I laid that one down. I think I'll go out next Tuesday this time and lay them down. and you know what I don't catch that plane tomorrow morning I'll be in some bar or an election or I'll do that I know if I did that I wouldn't be at work Monday morning I know I wouldn'y get to go to school Monday night and I know after a year I wouldn''t have my wife or my job or my car because never have I had just one drink. As I said, I turned them down. No, maybe I'm not an alcoholic. I've seen a lot of guys say they weren't. And I've see them get drunk. And I see them come back to AA and decide all of a sudden they were. I've told people I'm an alcoholic, and they say you're crazy. They say you can't be. Fine, I don't care. I know I haven't had a traffic ticket in almost five years. I didn't have driver's license for three of those five years. I know I haven't written a bum check in almost five years, I know i haven't been arrested in almost five years and I know too I haven had a drink in almost 5 years and that seems to be the only difference in me is the fact that I don't drink now I'm still afraid of people. I'm still afraid to get up and talk to people. Just like I was in speech class in high school, I'm still the same guy I used to be. But today I know my problems and I have to work on them. Yeah, I'm every man. I got over half of my life ahead of me yet. You know what else I know? I know I can do anything I want to do with all those years if I want it. Anything I want do, I can it as long as I stick with it. If I, if I for any reason happen to leave AA, I know exactly what I'll do then. I get drunk and I'll return to the drunken slob that I used to be. No, I really don't have too difficult a choice. It's a clear-cut matter. I can listen to the guys at work say I'm not an alcoholic. They don't even say that anymore because I don't argue with them. I just say, okay, fine. That's good enough. And that kind of irritates me. They drop the session. As far as I found it, when I refuse a drink, you know, just saying no thanks is not good enough, they keep on you. They want to have a drink. I say it's nothing and the second time around they say no thanks I'm an alcoholic you know this kind of gets a laugh then I say no thank I'm an alcoholic in AA and you know that's a big feature of mysterious organizations they don't bother you after that they're kind of afraid of you then if that one doesn't work. About the third time around, I ask my host or hostess aside, and I say, see that's a pretty carpet you got. And you don't want me to really take that drink. Oh yeah, I have to drink, huh? And no, no, I put a puddle about this big right in the middle of that carpet. And, you know, he doesn't bother me the rest of the night either. I I find staying sober is far easier than staying drunk. Staying drunk is very difficult. It costs money, it costs time, it cost jobs. It costs respect. Self-respect. That's something that I found in A.J. that I cannot afford to part with. I find I'm not any different than you people. I find that I'm not basically any different from anyone else on the face of this earth. I'm just another human being, trying to struggle my way through life that I strongly believe something better waits ahead. Thank you very much.