The Danger of the Convention Speaker – Dave R.

I'm an alcoholic. My name is Dave Cook. Hi, everybody. I'm a member of the Gratitude Study Group in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Safe Haven Group down in Harkers Island, North Colorado. I live down on the coast part of the town, so I've got two home groups. It's good to be here And it's good I appreciate all the hospitality That has been shown me so far And And it is good to see old friends And some people I have known for quite a while And maybe make some new friends By God's grace And because this program Has been working for me For some time Through the love of two women in my life My former wife And my present wife who still died back after 37 years of living with me, and then my present wife, Julie, for about 12 years, who is a member of the fellowship. Through their help and some sponsors that have led me with a kind but firm hand and through the love of a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous and some of them in the room tonight, I haven't found it necessary to partake of any alcohol since September 12, 1957. And for this, I'm very grateful. Now, my sobriety date is September 12th, 57, and some people are opposed to sobrieta dates. I'll tell you a story about sobrieto dates. When I came in the Alcoholics Anonymous, they were required to give you a sobriete date. Now, I didn't come in there in Texas. In Texas, you know, if you don't give them a sobrietate date, they'll shoot you. and I came in alcoholics and almost in the central group in Ronald, Virginia and the second meeting I ever went to was a discussion meeting and I was no different from anybody else that goes to our first discussion meeting it was 13-14 a wicker chair sitting in a circle and I began to wonder what I was going to say when it got to me and it got to me and the man who would become And my first sponsor, although I didn't know it then, he spoke up and told me what to say. He said, give your name and sobriety date. That's all you're qualified to do. And by God, he was right. That was about all I was able to do, and then they had a saying in that group. If you remember that group, you have a home group member. If you got behind the podium and you didn't give your sobrieto date, you usually didn't have one. So that's the reason I give my sobriete date. Let's talk that way. In that old group, you know, Run Oak was a railroad town, north of Western Railroad. And we had to get a lot of people coming in now, people at different stores and been in AA, around AA. And sometimes you hear one of them say, I've been around AA 25 years. And somebody in the group says, well, how long have you been sober? That's what we want to know, how Long Have You Been Sober? And that's the way I was raised, and that's how it is I feel about it today. So, if any of you feel like shooting, go right ahead. It'll be all right. But I'm one of the fortunate ones. I got the Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, what is so pleasing to me is so many young people. When I came into AA, at that time, I was a young person as far as alcoholism was concerned and Alcoholics Announcements. I was 29 years of age when I came to AA. I've been sober 53 years, so you can figure it out. But, you know, when I came to AA, anybody that had 20 years of sobriety, they were an old-timer. That's the truth. And that's something I'd like to straighten out right now. Although I've been sober for quite a long period of time, I still consider the old-timers those that were here when I got here, those men that had 25 years of sobiety that led me the road that I know today, that I was around and shared with them, and they were just inspirations that I look back at. And so I was fortunate to be around these people in my early sobriety. I took my first drink when I was 16, a freshman in college. I should have known what drinking could do for a grown man or a young man. My father was an alcoholic. I didn't know it until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. My father was one of these men that he was a good man as long as he didn't drink. You've heard that expression. And because of his drinking, he lived with the force in my home when I was 12 years of age. My mother was financially able to take me and my two sisters and raise us and give us an education. And I was sent off to college when I Was 16 years old. And when I went off to College at 16, World War II was just over. So the fellas would come back on the GI Bill and a little bit older than me, but I was around this crowd long enough that, you know, I've always said in an environment, if you're in an environement in sobriety or in drinking, you stay around it long enough, you become a part of it. And that's what happened to me, being around these fellows. And they like to drink. And I had a little trouble in the beginning getting it down and working at it. You know, we were working on becoming alcoholics, I guess. And I used to hear them talking about the pleasure that came from drinking, which I didn't understand because I was throwing up most of the time. And they asked one night after the other, you know, when did the pleasure come? And I'll never forget what he told me. He said, Dave, there's a little pause in between from the time you take the drink and when you throw up, that's the pleasure. Well, some of them might identify with that. I don't know. But I went on through school and didn't know what a hangover was. drinking on weekends, and we were having these joint fraternities and all that stuff. Studied engineering, but when I finished school, because of my basketball ability, I was off-job coaching high school basketball down in eastern North Carolina. I've looked at this many times, and I think I was seeking a little glory and a lot of attention. Of course, we in AA know nothing about anything like that. Ego was a problem for me before I ever got here, and as you know, some of us still have that problem in the sobriety. Don't we? But I fell upstairs in the coaching session. That's what happened. I was very successful, but I was drinking on weekends. I was meeting some of my schoolmates, you know different places over the weekend to have those parties, and we called them but they would knock down and drag out deals and get back and work another week and do the same thing. And then I got in the problem of drinking on the job, teaching, coaching. Going into school under the influence of alcohol. It got to be that bad for me in my third year of coaching. And I'd gone to a much larger high school and the authorities in the school, the principal particularly, who was trying to help me and a man that was really interested in me and he approached me about my drinking. Of course, I denied it and resented it and that's when all the trouble began because that denial that we all have, it really manifested itself in me right then. And it got so bad that I began to let go of my responsibilities, doing things I was supposed to do financially. I had a habit of writing checks when they didn't have money in the bank. I know none of you have never done anything like that. I was one of these fellows that always said, I never wrote a bad check I wasn't going to make good the next morning. And I look back and I don't know about you, but I used to solve all my financial problems about 11 o'clock at night when I was about ready to pass out and I could see everything working out. I mean, I knew what was going to happen and I had it all planned. Pass out and get up the next moment was worse than it was when I went to bed. But, you know, it's just an endless cycle. My mother, it wasn't a lot of money teaching school. I was driving a big automobile. I was going out to the fancy restaurants with the fancy women. But my mother would supplement my income, and that was the only way I was able to do that. Then Mother got kind of slow. She used to cover all my checks. You know, they'd call her, and she'd cover them. And then she got slow. and authorities came to the school to see me about some of these things. I can remember when the deputy sheriff used to come and they'd call me outside of the building to talk about this problem and kids would begin to look out the window and some of the teachers too. And as I was walking out there with these fellows and they drove these big black Dodgers and had an antenna on it that looked like it was 50 foot tall And I always wanted a car with a 50-foot antenna on it because it just reminded me of authority, really. And as I would go out there and see these people looking at me, and I'd say to myself, my God, they don't know it, but I'm an undercover agent for the Sheriff's Department. That's what my thinking was at that time. You know, I started thinking strange things. And I'd gotten to the point then that, you know, same old thing. Wanted to be somewhere else most of the time with somebody else most time and somewhere else most of time. Never satisfied. And the culmination of my drinking at this particular school, I had, you know, the alcoholic, you know, it says alcoholism is cunning, baffling, and paltry. Well, the Alcoholic is cunning and baffling. And we get people off our back, and I decided that's what I'd do. We're talking about all these problems that are happening, so I decided I'd divert their attention. And there was a girl in the community I'd known for about two weeks, so I married her. It was a whirlwind courtship, as you've already figured out. About two weeks. Well, you know it's alcoholic when I tell you this. We got married on the 4th of July. And I'll never forget that day as long as I live. I remember it was a big church wedding. She came from a good family. And God, I destroyed her life is what I did. But I remember just before the service started, I was outside and my mother came to me and said, Son, you really don't have to do this. And by God, that's one time I wish I'd listened to Mother. I really do. I wish that I never got into that. But we were able to live together for about a year and a half. And the only reason was we lived together for a year and a half because of the stigma that was attached to somebody in the community having a drinking problem, which was me. And we tried it for ayear and ahalf. She finally got smart and left and did the right thing, and I've already regretted that. The alcoholic touches so many people's lives. and so in my last year at this school the fellows coaching the girls basketball team had to go in service and they asked me to take over the girls ball team and it was a good girls basketball game I was going to these ball games I wasn't drunk I was loose moving good moving good drinking vodka You know, it leaves you breathless. And I had been in the habit of, you know, the first game and I had them all in the huddle just before tip-off. And like I've done to boys, I started hitting them on the rear. And, well, you-know-what-the-hell happened then. Parents start coming down out of the stands. I didn't really know what had happened. I really didn't until the next morning when the school board met. And they helped me, allowed me to resign. And by this time I was living in another small town close by. It was a rural consolidated school. And I was employed later by another school a little bit further east. And in my home state, if you keep moving east, there ain't nowhere to go. And that's eventually what happened. And this school was a rock bottom of schools, it really was. But in my own mind I thought I was there for a reason. And I lasted the six and a half months at this school. It got me to the point that I would have to get up four or five o'clock in the morning drunk enough to stop shaking so I could take a shower and shave and get my clothes on to get to school. I knew what was going to happen when I was about 12, the shake would start again. and I'd have some hit at the gymnasium or in the automobile and go back and get a few shots, stop the shakes, pray for 3 o'clock, go back to town and do the same thing again. And it went on for six and a half months. And one day at school, the principal just stopped me and said, Dave, we don't need you anymore. And I was going down to school on that influence of alcohol all the time. And I've looked back at this moment in my life many times, And I really believe that that's when I crossed that invisible line that we speak of. Although I didn't know it then, I'd become an alcoholic although I didn'T know it. Because to me, an alcoholic is a man or woman that will take a drink of liquor and can no longer guarantee you their behavior. And that's what happened to me. I'd take one drink and I couldn't tell you what was going to happen. And I left school that day. and I had some blackouts before. As a matter of fact, my mother in the previous summer had sent me to some drying out places up and down the East Coast for my nerves. I didn't have no problem drinking. I've had bad nerves. And these were, you know, when I came along there were no such thing as treatment centers. They were what they call drying outplaces. and I enjoyed going there because you would taper off. I don't know if any of you ever tapered off. I enjoyed tapering off. Sitting in a lawn chair under some soft green grass with an umbrella over you just sipping and you do it long enough you accomplish what you set out to do. I come back from these places in worse shape than when I went and mother was just wasting money But this day I left school, I experienced my first prolonged blackout. I don't know where I went for two weeks, but I woke up in jail for the first time in my life. In the city that I was living down east of North Carolina. And a man began to talk to me through a cell door that morning when I came to. I had a lot of bandages on me. And he said, son, your mother's come down here and straightened out all this mess and we're going to send you to a place where they can cure you. Now, I didn't know what he was talking about. And I'd long stopped since eating. I thought maybe I was going back to one of those places where I could sit in a lawn chair and taper off. And that's not where I went. My favorite expression now, too, found my thrill on Dick's Hill. Dick's Hills was the state in San Jose. I went there when I was 27 years old. On account of one fact, although I didn' t know it, I'd become an alcoholic, but I didn't know it. I didn' t know it, and I got to this place. I never want to forget my first trip to Dix Hill as long as I live because, well, when I got there, they put me in the inebriate ward. I didn''t know what it meant, but it sounded academic to me, And I adjusted that environment, too. The people in that ward, they chased squirrels most of the time. I mean, they'd run up and down the walls under the beds. So, hell, I started doing the same thing. You got to do like the Romans, you know. And never caught any. I come close a couple of times. And then one day they came and got me, And I was beginning to have a lot of problems that I'd never experienced before. Later found out what it was, hallucinations, DTs, and everything that goes with it. And they put me in what they call a skid row, which was a padded cell down in the basement of this building where they had all the drunks. And they'd take your clothes away from you and lock you up in this cell and let you have your running fits. That was a cure for alcoholism in the state of North Carolina in 1955. I was 56 and early 57, and I'll never want to forget it. And I can remember when they came and got me and carried me back upstairs and put me with the rest of the drunks. And I'd gotten to the point then that I didn't understand what I was doing there because there was nobody my age. The men were older. I was the only young man there. And, of course, you know how we are. We have reasons for being everywhere. And I began to think, well, maybe I was there to write a story to expose this place to the public. That's what it really was. And I really began to thank that. And it was a few nights later, the men were playing poker. They were using matchsticks for chips. And as they were playing cards, they began to discuss the reason they were there. And one man spoke up and said, I'm here because my wife wanted to get rid of me. Well, I kind of identified with that. I thought my mother wanted to gets rid of him. And really and truly, my mother had done everything she knew to do to help me. And then I heard a man say, I am here because I am an alcoholic. And that was the first time I ever heard it in that context. and I began to think of my father that being an alcoholic and I begin to think, well, it was a game I was to play for a long time when I got to alcoholics and I was comparing my drinking with my father's. And he was much better man than I ever hoped to be. He lost a family. He never lost or got kicked out of the profession. He never had to serve time. He never hade to do the things that I had to do eventually to get to alcoholic. And I've often said I wish my daddy could have found AA. He would have made a damn good memory because he liked to tell stories like we do. He liked to exaggerate once in a while like we did, and he would have had a good memory, but he didn't have that opportunity. He died at 54 years of age drunk in automobile life. And so the day came I had to leave Dixville. I'd been there 30-some odd days. I didn't know where to go. I'd lost everything I'd accumulated since I'd finished college. The marriage was gone. The home, everything was gone, no bank account, no nothing. So what do you do? Well, you go back home. You go back Home to Mother. And, you know, at that age, you come home just on holidays or delts or something in particular, and people want to know, well, what are you doing home? And you don't tell them you've been to Dixville, no. I had a nervous breakdown. I'd been in the hospital. And I got home and my mother took me in and she sent me to the family doctor. Now, my family doctor at that time was very ignorant of alcoholism and drugs and anything. Now, I don't know anything about drugs, but I do know something about tablets. And the good doctor gave me some tablets to take for my nerves, and they really did the trick on me. You're talking about being loose. I was really loose then. I would run around in a crowd at night I'd been in school with, you know, going to restaurants, and if they were drinking, I was taking my medicine, and I was usually in worse shape than they were. And then one night, that bottle was passed. It had been passed several nights before, several times before, and I'd never taking a drink. I had been at home about nine weeks and it was past one night and I decided I'd have a drink and we speak of the compulsion set in and two days I was back in the place that said I'd never go again as long as I lived, Dix Hill. Back again. And to make a long story short, I went back to Dix Hills five times in six months on account of one fact, I'd become an alcoholic And I didn't know it. The last time I went back to Dix Hill, they put me in the nut part of the bug house instead of the drying out part. And there is a distinct difference. And this is where I found out about being strapped down to the bed in a straight jacket. And this was where I find out how you live better electrically too. And I never want to forget that. I had an old friend that was down from Alabama. He'd been dead and gone. He lived in Atlanta for a while, and his name was Pelham Green. And Pelham used to say after he'd had one of those shock treatments, he always felt better. You're darn right. You'll feel better if you had one, I'll tell you that. But we have a word, a vocabulary that you hear a lot in alcoholic phenomena, the word coincidence. a lot of coincidences happened to me before I ever got to Alcoholics Anonymous and what I'm having one day at Dixie Hill for some strange reason I'd been over there several weeks in that nut ward I mean with the craziest I began to accept my fate that I was one of them, I really did and what they did they took me back over to the main building with the rest of the drunks now Now, I'd been there so much it more or less made me an honorary attendant. I worked in the kitchen. I worked at the dining hall. And I had a job to go to the main building to get the mail every day, and I had two assistants. And one day going to get some mail, we decided we would escape. And I don't want to sound dramatic, but by God, back then it was like cops and robbers. It really was. And we went over that fence, and I go there all the time past that place now, and I don't know how we got over it, but we did. And that afternoon, we were in downtown Raleigh in the old Andrew Johnson Hotel. Of course, it's been torn down, and we'd got a jug, and we were talking to each other, and the 6 o'clock news came on. And you know the stringers they have at the bottom when there's a hurricane coming or bad weather or something? Well, one came up and said that three criminal insane had just escaped from Dick's Hill. And one of the fellows said, I wonder who the hell it is. And sure enough, we knew who it was in a minute because they spotted those pictures, each one of us. Boom, boom, boom. There we were. One fellow started crying, and he ran, and I don't know what happened to him. I haven't seen him since. And this was 50-something years ago. And the other fellow and myself decided, well, since we were gangsters, we'd better split up. So he went his way, and I was in downtown Raleigh the next morning, and a friend of my mother's that knew my plight and knew what was going on put me on a gray iron bus and sent me back to my hometown down east of North Carolina where I was raised. and unbeknownst to me right side of town all that stuff and I broke into my mother's home where I was raised and I didn't know but later found out she was in Richmond, Virginia with a nervous breakdown and I began to borrow money from her friends and everything and I brought her home and found me and that's when they got together I don't know if you knew who they are or not but they are those people that put you in one room, cracked the door and put you in the other one. And they began to talk about how much they loved you but what they got to do. And I'll never forget it now. One of them came to me at that time with my two sisters and my mother and a friend of the family like a father to me. And one of them came in the room I was in and had a wad of money. Now there's nothing that are practicing alcoholic like them are better to see a wad of money because problems will begin to be resolved right then. And the conversation was if you don't leave here, you're killing mother. We want you to leave this part of the country. And they meant for me to leave because I was a lot of money at that time and I could have gone to West Cobra's and lived good for a period of time. So I began to think it was a good idea too. And I decided to leave. And I didn't go to the West Coast. I went four miles to a neighboring town, pulled into Old Weldon Hotel and had a lot of friends there for a few days, a few weeks until the money came out. When the money ran out, I did the same thing I'd always done before. I went over to my hometown and a friend of the family in business, I bought an outboard motor, but I didn't have a boat, but I bought one. You know, write a check, get some change and pick up the motor later. And I got the change and went on back to my hotel over in Royal and they called my mother two days later, I think it was to tell her that my motor was ready and she put two and two together and that afternoon John Law had me back in my hometown in jail, in my home town. And I was in jail there for several days. And it seemed like everybody was put in jail at night for drinking and so forth or going the next morning. Then one night I got to raising a lot of rompers down there and I told them I wanted to see my attorney. He said, who is your attorney? And I told him, he said, talk to him all you want to. He's the next cell block. And sure enough, he was. And this man, a coincidence maybe, he later found Alcoholics Anonymous and was a member of our state legislature later on in life. Found sobriety. He couldn't help me that night, though, I'll tell you that. And the prosecuting attorney that took me upstairs and I stood trial in the court of law with something I didn't know I'd done in a blackout and my mother's next door neighbor, he didn't seem to know who I was either nobody in the family seemed to know who I wasn't, nobody came and then I moved down the road further to another courthouse and tried again and eventually was put on a chain gang down at the Great Dismal Swamps that's what happened to me as a result of drinking I don't recommend this you don't have to go through this I've often said that I've always been ashamed of it. I'm still ashamed of them. But if it took this to me to eventually get to alcoholics, then I must thank God for it. And I think it was that true in my case because I was one of these that had to be beat down to my knees before I could see myself as I really was. And that's the thing I don't understand about alcoholism even today is the inability of the alcoholic to look at himself as he really is in his worst moments. And we just about die from it. And that's what just about happened to me. And while I was there in this camp, I worked hard enough, I worked my life. I heard about AA and Dix Hill when I was over there. Some fellows from Raleigh used to come over every Sunday afternoon and put on a meeting. I was the joker, got in the back of the room and raised a lot of rompers, made fun of them, drank the coffee and ate the donuts. And I was sober about a year when I realized one day that they left every Sunday afternoon and went home. You know, we were kind of slow. And then I'd heard about Alcoholics Anonymous. One time prior to this, after I had a brief bout of recovery, an old-timer in my hometown took me down to a place called Rich Square, North Carolina to talk to a man named Vernon Strickland. Vernon was a man that was a successful lawyer, and he lost his practice on account of his drinking. He wound up out in the Cleveland-Akron area, and Dr. Bob got a hold of him and helped him get sober and found sobriety. And Vernon came back to North Carolina, to eastern North Carolina and started the first group in eastern North Colorado. And they took me down there to talk to Vernon one night. and I remember the man took the time to tell me about AA and what could happen and so forth and I remembered my reply to him well, I'm too young to be an alcoholic and my brain had been pickled by then too young to be a alcoholic I never forgot what Vernon told me that night he said, son, I'll tell you what you keep drinking and be patient and it was about a year and a half later that I I was patient, and I found AA. And I never forgot the first time I saw Vernon after I had a little over a year of sobriety. He said, I see you were impatient. And that was the second time. Then the third time I was in this prison camp with a young man who was superintendent of this camp. He and his wife, I had to cut his grass on Saturday afternoon. They'd let me have dinner with them on Saturday night. And he talked to me about alcoholic moments. Maybe that's what I needed to do. Same answer. So when I got off the road, I went back. The only place I had to go again was back home. And my mother took me in in spite of they not wanting me to be there. And that's when I made a vow I just wouldn't drink anymore for, you know, sobriety wasn't in my vocabulary. I would do this for her. I wouldn't drank anymore. I don't recommend this before AA or after AA. And I was able to do it for a little over four months. And one day at home it suggested maybe I should go to work. It had been a while, and I didn't think I'd get a job teaching instead, and I'll come out. So I was interviewed in three different states in the period of one week. My mother carried me to these places, and I wound up in Roanoke, Virginia on a particular Thursday afternoon. I never forgot it. And the man began to talk to me. The superintendent of city schools there in Roanoke, largest high school in southwest Virginia at that time. And he wanted some references, and I told him I had a little problem at one time. And he said, well, let me have some references. I want to get on the phone right now. And he was gone about 30 minutes. My mother was sitting there, and she said, Well, it's all over now. And he came back in about 30 or 40 minutes and said, I understand you had a problem with drinking at one point, but you're doing fine now. And I said, Yes, sir, I am. And I was doing fine, I thought. So I went home, back to my hometown, and my mother financed the whole deal. I had a new start in life in spite of where I had been. A new start on life and a good job. Assistant basketball coach at this high school. And on the way back by bus, two days later, I had an old layover in Richmond and I decided I'd have one drink, but I bought two pints. I mean, always kind of added and subtracted rather peculiar. And it's what you call an alcoholic count. And, well, that's the only drunk I really like to talk about because that's when it got me into alcoholics and all this. And instead of having to go into the place I was supposed to go to where I had a room and everything, a nice place, I checked into the big hotel up on the hill and started living it up, I was writing checks again, and I was able to work for one week. School officials found out what was wrong when I didn't come in after one week, and they came and tried to help me. Borrowed money from them trying to get straight, and they finally had to fire me. In the middle of this drunk, my mother got in touch with me on the telephone. And my mother gave me the greatest gift I've ever received from her since the day I was born. that's when she kicked me out of her life and I knew she meant it I knew sie meant it and what happened then was just a few days later I was on the streets in Ronald, Virginia doing the best I could on Sunday morning September 11th 1957 I was in the back alley down on Skid Row trying to get a drink of liquor down I hadn't taken a drink and I don't know about you, but I remember when it seemed like everything stopped moving. And I began to think I was going to die in that back alley from what I was doing. And I begun to think that I was the only man like this, that I were just a leper. And I cried out for some help. Strangely it may seem, maybe coincidentally, a man that hired me to go to work there He didn't know anything about drunks or alcoholics or AA. He just wanted to help a human being, and he found me that Sunday morning and carried me to his home and got in touch with a man that knew a man on Alcoholics Anonymous in Roanoke. And that afternoon I was carried down to a place called the Easy Does It Club, which was a twist-up clubhouse where I was introduced to AlcoholicsAnonymous for the first time. now that was on September 11th they had to carry me I'd gotten to the point I hurt all over my hair hurt my toenails hurt tired of the high cost of low living and that's what it is and they carried me up the steps literally and the vision was just straight ahead and people would get we say we don't look them over when they come in by God you look me over And what I had was what I had. There was a paper bag with ear syringe, 12 pennies and a razor. That's all I had and a toothbrush. That's All I had when I got to the doors of alcoholic farms. And an old gentleman standing in the right hand corner came over to give me this and I waddled over to him and the rest of the members were talking to the school officials and that old man told me, I'll never forget him, his name was Old Man John, that's what he called him. He'd come to When he was 72 years of age, I helped burn him, but he rang my bell. He said, son, that's all you've got to do is listen to these people and do what they tell you to do, and you don't have to be alone anymore. Now, what he was telling me were the first few lines of chapter 5. Rather have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly fallen out. That's what old man John was telling him. And he rung my bell. He really did. And I had a lot of respect for that man. And then members began to talk to me, and I said something about a drink. And, oh, no, we don't do it that way. He said, you get too bad, we'll get you some help. Then I said some about some tablets. I thought I'd started a revolution when I said that. No, we're going to get a doctor if you get it too bad. He said drink the coffee, drink the coffe. and I'm not what I'm about to say is no reflection of who made the coffee tonight but I've always said and still contend that there are a hell of a lot of people in alcoholic numbers making coffee that don't have any business doing it and that was one of those nights really it was that ropey stuff I thought it was a requirement I sat there and drank coffee the whole afternoon got sick as a dog and they carried me to my first meeting that night and some guy stood up and talked and I don't know what he said or what was going on but I do remember the most important thing about that meeting when it was over strangers walked up to me and gave me the magic words of alcoholics and they said we love you and we understand you're going to be alright and they proved to me that night I didn't have to be alone again because three men got me a room at the YMCA and stayed with me all night long talking about Alcoholics Anonymous and their story and what they've been through. And I listened and listened and I remember one of them said the next morning, early in the morning, getting daylight and he said, Dave, all we do is we just try to do it day at the time. And I really believe that's when I began to believe that maybe I could do it a day at a time. I really believe that's when it happened to me. But somewhere in the dark recess of my mind, I knew one fact then as I know it tonight. I had to be around you to do it. I had TO BE AROUND YOU TO DO IT. And so I never want to forget that. You know, I often say that when we sponsor people or when we're trying to help people, But when they really need help, it's when that meeting's over. You know, we pat them on the shoulder and tell them you're doing a good job. Now keep it up. They go out the door, and that's when the hell they need us, when they have to go out there by themselves in that world. That's what it's all about as far as I'm concerned. That's where I was fortunate enough to have three men that took that much interest in me to help me. And so my life in AA began to be in sobriety, And my man that I met, my sponsor, I didn't pick him, by the way. He chose to sponsor me. I didn' t ask for him. And he got me a place to stay where there were five other men that lived in a boarding house. We each had a room and a private bath, and we had meetings after meetings. And out of those six men, I'm the only one left that's sober. the other one Charlie my best friend he died June a year ago I gave him his 52 year chip three days before he died and and he was a dear friend and out of those six men I say I'm the only one one other one is still living but he's still drinking and he calls me Christmas time collect I don't know how I could do it and he couldn't and the same old deal you know, I just followed the directions really and so that was a learning experience and I got involved in the group there and then my former wife Sue came along and this was another gift I was real active in that group and I grew up real quick had a lot of knowledge in early sobriety As my sponsor said, I became dangerous after about a year. I began to know a lot. And, well, as a matter of fact, well, I was running around with a crowd that was telling me to take what I needed and throw the rest away. And I just about went away until one night they called me in that they had a conference room. I called it an inventory room is what it was, really. Because sometimes they'd say, come on back here. We want to talk to you a minute. And they'd sit you down and take your inventory right there, four or five of them, the old-timers. And they called me in there that night and said, began to talk about my problem and that if I didn't do certain things, I was going to get drunk. And that's a heck of a thing to tell the backbone of the group that you're going to get drunk, but that's what they were telling me. And said, if you don't get a hold of these steps and get honest with yourself, you're going to gets drunk. And I got mad. I got made, and I got ready to go out of the room, and my sponsor stopped me and said, I want to ask one question before you leave. And the question was, when's the last time you thanked God for a day of sobriety? And that made me mad, and I tore out of there and went back to the boarding house. And you know, you've been through sponsorship, and you want to do something to them once in a while. You want to hit them or do something. And so I sat down and I wrote a written resignation to Alcoholics Month. My God, I let them know how it was with me. And as I was doing this composition, I began to hear his voice, and it became an echo until I was forced to go into a bathroom and look at myself for the first time in my adult life, eyeball to eyeball, Dave to Dave, and know what I really was. I was just a speck on this universe. Someday I'll die and soon be forgotten. And the only way I had to go was through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because I tried everything, and that's what happened. I went back and rejoined Alcoholics Anonymous the next night. I didn't get drunk, but I rejoined, and every time I get a year chipped, that's when I tell myself I'm rejoining AA. And so things got good, and it wasn't long before the work problem, and I often said I learned much more from people with less education than I did. A man solved my own problem, and I had a third-grade education. They called me in that room one night to talk to them about my employment. And there was a doctor, a lawyer, a registered nurse, my sponsor, and Red. Red had a third-grade education. He was a sign painter. And they began to talk about what I ought to do. Red speaks up and says, Dave, it seems to me that if you studied engineering in college, that's what you ought to be doing in life. Well, hell, nobody ever explained to me the way before. and uh so through his advice uh that's what i did i was interviewed he had told me said tell the truth tell them the whole story and i did and i got over there the man says if you're willing to help yourself we are willing to help you too i got sober in september and this is the middle of december just before christmas sue and rid had taken me over there to talk to this man they were waiting in the car and he said when can you go to work i was scared to death i said It would be about the first quarter where we got a lot of business to do. I was scared. And so he said, fine, you come back and we'll put you to work any time you want to go to work. Went back to the car and said, what happened? I told them I got the job. When did you go to war? I told him they carried me right back in there. I went to work that afternoon. And that's what I've always said. A.A. in action is really what it is. And so I moved to Raleigh in 59 on account of, I had to get that bad marriage I was involved in when I was drinking so bad resolved so I could marry Sue. And eventually got the divorce from that woman. And then a man took me over when I got to Rraleigh. He was one of the first 100 members of Alcoholics Now in New York, and a man named Tom Morrell. Tom was a man that gave me a great lesson about standing behind one of these podiums. I had got real active and involved in going to a lot of these conventions and concerts and watching these jokers talk and everybody hugging and kissing them when it was over with and clapping. Again, they were people to me. So one night I told him I wanted to talk to him And he said, he was one of these men, you sit down and he stood up and talked down at you. And he says, what's the problem? I said, Tom, I think I'm a convention speaker. Well, I can't repeat from the podium what he said but I'll tell you this. He put a moratorium on my speaking for two and a half years. He said, you go to all the discussion meetings, you discuss anything in A but you don't tell your story until I tell you. It was about two and half years later. So he called me one day and said, come over to the house. I sat down and he stood up and he said, Dave, you're going down to Columbia, South Carolina to talk at a state convention. Before you go, there's something I want to tell you. And he said you do this, you do that, you say you do it. You do this or you do you do there. Before you know it, there is something I'm going to tell ya. They asked me to go first. I can't go. You're going as a damn substitute and don't you ever forget it as long as you live. And, you know, every time I get up here, I think, well, I'm just a substitute. I don't know how many people you asked before me to come up here, but just the 17. Look, my time's about running out, I understand. And my present wife, Julie, is a member of the fellowship. I was fortunate enough after Sue died, she was with me for 37 years in my sobriety. My mother took me back in her life after nine and a half years, and she lived to see me so well 32 years before she died. And now I'm busy in AA as I always was and still active in Alcoholics Anonymous, sponsoring a lot of people and doing the things that they told me I had to do when I got here. And I really believe that if there's anybody here tonight wondering about this thing, it better work. Let me tell you something. It'll work if you want it to work. I heard a man say in my early sobriety, that said when Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth from the body of man, he didn't say I'm a truthful man. He said I am the truth. I believe from this source and this root that we inherited this program called Alcoholics Anonymous because I've seen enough in my time and age not only to believe but to know that there is a power behind this universe that stands ready to help us if we're willing to help ourselves. Way back yonder I used to call it the Man Upstairs. Tonight I call it The God of My Understanding. The God that I found in alcoholic phenomena is by your love for me. And that's how I found it. I'm one of these that really believe that I was loved sober. I was love sober. And in spite of this God-given sobriety, there are still things I have to do and I have still go to meetings of alcoholic phenomena. You know, the first thing, I told you when I got into A that I wasn't willing to go any length to get it. And that's the way I have to remember it today. But when the phone rings sometime and some guy or gal wants some help and I wonder if they can work it out after breakfast, those three guys then drop me off and say, we will see you after breakfast. Hell no, that's not the way it works. They stayed with me and told me what I needed to hear and what I should have heard and helped me. The second thing I have do is I have go to meetings of alcoholics among us because that's where it's at. That's where we survive among individual egos. That's where we share and care for one another. And we find out, you know, the most priceless possession you have, whether you know it or not, is the love of your home group. The love of our home group is the most precious possession we have. The love for your home groups. And there's always a little laughter in good times. I've got to be around people that are a little crazy. We had a guy in my hometown, Henry, he had a hard time staying sober. he died with 26 years of sobriety but he had a hard time to get in and he'd get on the drunk and his wife would call and we'd go pick him up and carry him home and then one night she called and told her where I was and said don't bring him home so we called old John down at the funeral home who worked at the burial home see if we could bring him down there and we carried Henry down and put him you know where they have all the caskets lined up for display we put Henry in and one of them laid him down and that hell had passed out and left him. And the next morning, John came in, you know, dusting. They were cleaning up and dusting those things. And Henry riled up. And he said, where am I? And John said, Henry, you're dead. And Henry said, how long have I been dead? He said, you've been dead two days. And Henry says, well, John, what are you doing here? He said、I'm dead too. and he said how long have you been dead he said I've been dead 10 days Henry said well you ought to know where we can find a drink of liquor now that's the kind of people I got to be around let me tell you the greatest things ever happened in my life is alcoholics anonymous and the longer I stay sober the greater it becomes and I'm going to close with a few words that I could have said this and sat down because it tells my story and probably yours and is very powerful because it's truly how I feel about the whole deal. And it goes something like this. I used to tell people, I left them with an impression of what were my words. Some people began to ask me questions. I had to tell the truth. It's in the book in case you're interested. So you know I'm a truthful person now. But it goes something like this, and I like to close with it. This great experience that released me from the boundaries of hatred and replaced it with love is really an affirmation of the truth I know. I get everything I need in alcoholic synonymous and everything I needs I get. And when I get what I need, I invariably find that it was just what I wanted all the time. Thank you very much. Thank you.