The Disease of Alcoholism and the World Turning Black and White – Clancy I.

My name is Clancy Immersland, and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm very glad to be here this evening at Soberstock 3. There's a girl in our group, or musical organization, led off Woodstock originally. They were the first act at Woodstock. And when I get back, I'm going to tell her that I was at Soverstock 3 I know, I'M GLAD TO SEE EVERYONE HERE All the people back in the Half Measures bar sitting back there I really enjoyed our first speaker I've heard him speak several times I always enjoy hearing him he has a splendid flair for visual imagery that I enjoy very much intelligent and perceptive but there's something I must say when I was a young man when you were growing up in the Bronx hey doofo you stole my car when you're growing up in the bronx I was already sober in Los Angeles struggling to become a better person. And in my early years, in the 1960s I worked in radio and television in Hollywood. I was a promotion director for Channel 9 in Hollywood and another guy and I created something called Boss Radio, became the number one hard rock station in the world and we just all were slick. Everyone around us was Jewish everybody was Jewish in the business it seemed like then later on through a guy, a sponsor named John Frankenheimer got into some movies, it was a bunch of movies surrounded by Jewish people and Los Angeles has a large population of Jewish people bright, alert, receptive but Jewish people and I'm glad I enjoy really I have what's called a Yiddish Akap I enjoy working with it however I am from up here and I am a Lutheran and Iam so glad that now at last you're here where I'm in the majority Jesus Christ why don't you get out of here and i've talked about this i've made i've said this i think a bad action something like this that you know i i have kind of reputation for being cynical and kind of slick and i'm not at all i'm down deep i'm a i'ma pussycat i really am but i i was thinking just think tonight if if i had if the doctor told me i had one day left to live that almost happened recently by the way but if i had now i the doctor told me i had one day left to live i think if i could come to here come to this i wish this procedure would be going on and i would like to sit there while john did the raffle for the cowbell i laugh if you want to make that last day seem like forever But I had to get up at 4.30 this morning, catch a plane out of Los Angeles at 6.30. So I'm really off the top of my game. I'm kind of soft and gentle. And it was kind of a, it wasn't a bad trip. It just was a Northwest Airlines trip, you know. That hideous little thing, mosquito, you fly from Minneapolis. The stewardess, I guess they don't, they call them flight attendants now, she must have had a hangover but it wasn't a bad trip I'll tell you a bad tip a while back I spoke in Reykjavik, Iceland which is about 2,000 miles beyond any lengths and the only thing good about it they're all descendants of primeval Norwegians and they have kind of a bastard Norwegian language and I try to worm my way into their warmth and on the way back it's a long trip you've got to fly air Iceland air I blotted it out in an effort to stay sane Iceland air to Minneapolis then take your domestic airline and I did that and I sat in Minneapolis on Sunday night I was tired and it had been a long trip but I had to wait four hours for a plane to Los Angeles and I was sitting in the red carpet room, which is the frequent flyer room for United Airlines and I had to go to the washroom, nice little washroom two little stalls side by side, little doors and I sat in one of them just doing my business and sitting there thinking much longer all of a sudden a voice comes from the other side says, hi there I'm not a senator, what is she talking to me about I'm sorry I said that I remember one time in 1962 a guy I was listening to a guy talk in Los Angeles who was a very vociferous opinionated guy and he came up and said there are three things we don't talk about this was during the Kennedy administration I guess he says there are three things мы don't тalk about today we don'T talk about sex, religion or politics because it's such a polarizing thing we don't talk about those things but I do want to say a few words about that damn Catholic president screwing those girls but anyway this voice said hi there and I just tell her presumably the voice said what are you doing tonight not that I better quash this now I'm going back to Los Angeles to see my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren but thank you very much for asking I thought that should do it but it didn't long pause the voice said we could really have some fun tonight if you wanted to and I was tired and I should overreact I said look I don't know what your problem is for God's sakes get off it I'm not in here to listen to your damn nonsense now shut up there was a long pause and the voice says I'll have to call you back this asshole in the next stall won't shut up that's what we call a bad trip I always enjoy listening to speakers such as tonight and other speakers who are talking about the program because it's so odd how we come from such diversified places and diversified backgrounds I couldn't come from a more opposite one and a big city Jewish family, the small town Norwegian Lutheran family. And I was surrounded by security and was raised there and became a good student. I learned to sing little songs in Norwegian and I was confirmed and catechized. And I lived in a very strict structure. I was shoved ahead of school because I could read fast. And my dad was a teacher that everybody respected in town. and I just had a perfect childhood and same rooms doing the same thing who can judge such a thing I don't want to blame my alcoholism on that good behavior I guess I'll have to you never hear anybody in there get up and say hi I come from a mafia home so if I came from a good Christian home and shit what happened I don' know in my years in my thousands of dollar investment in analysis, psychoanalysis some years later when I went to see what had happened to me one of the things that stuck out and I believe this to be true too when I was about 12 I was a straight A student, doing well doing fine everywhere, secure felt good. My parents got a divorce now what's the big deal about that all kinds of parents get a divorce can you imagine that at the age of 12 I had never heard of a divorce nobody in our church ever got divorced nobody in my family ever got divorce never heard about it and all of a sudden here my mother and father separated of course someone explained it to me and I understood it but I understood intellectually but I felt put upon somehow and I almost instantly I have a flair for doing the wrong thing I guess because it wasn't certainly given to me I had it all along to almost instantly do the worst thing I could have done in retrospect I can see that I began playing my mother against my father to avoid discipline my mother gave me hell I'd run to my father, my father gave me health I'd ran to my mother, both gave me help I'd running to my grandma and I fooled him again and again and again and again and again by the time I was 15 I was flunking out of high school I had few if any friends I'd become a smart aleck cynical nasty little snot And I was really on the way to some bad end, I'll tell you. And what saved my life is the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And I got interested in war movies. I'd go to war movies, I still have many friends, because I was always making smart remarks and cynical remarks. Nobody wanted to be around me much, I guess. But I went to war moves, and it suddenly struck me, if I could become a war hero, I would really be something. So one day I told my mother I wanted to go to Superior, Wisconsin, and it was my aunt. She packed my little bag and gave me a bus fare and the guy gave me a ride to Minneapolis and I decided to hitchhike to San Francisco to get in the war and I'd never hitchhiked before. I lived a very secluded life even and the guys said, well, stand here. So I stood there in my in a car stop. She says, where are you going kid? I said, San Francisco. So am I. Hop in and away we went. turned out he was going back to his ship he was in the Navy I don't know why he picked me up just out of some he had to be a saint all the way across the country he bought my meals and at night there was no motels he'd stop in a trailer court you'd get me a bed and he enlisted my prattle and I didn't think anything about it I just thought that's what it is when you hitchhike you tell them where you're going they get you there who do I know and I told him I wanted to be in the Marines go over there and kill Japs and he said well kid you're a little small how's about this big and face full of pimples and he said, I don't think you have a little difficulty but I'll tell you what, they're crying for people in the merchant marine I mean all the good guys that go out in the navy and you might be able to get into that I'll show you where the coast guard office is and go in there and tell them, when we get there you tell them you're 16, you ought to be in the merch marine and I said okay I remember the morning one of the golden moments of my life I think about it he dropped me off at the pier in Oakland It was a fog, kind of foggy, and I smelled the ocean for the first time. And he put me on a ferry going across the bay to a ferry building in San Francisco. I remember standing on that thing and just amazed. And all of a sudden, the sun started to come up, and the fog lifted. There was San Francisco, the spires coming out of the fog. Oh, God, I smelled a sea. and I got to the ferry building and he said give me an address on Market Street and I walked up there with my little bag and I went in and said I ought to be in the merchant brain man says okay fill out this application kid I put down 16 as he told me you're only 16 kid you have to have your parents permission so I took it out of the block got my parents permission and they were so desperate at that time they issued me Siemens papers right there temporary ones followed them up with permanent ones took another guy and I down to the turned out to be Montgomery Street I didn't know what it was, to the Union Hall we had to sign a waiver for dues what the hell that is took us to the Embarcadero, put us on a ship that afternoon we were in a load of torpedo warheads going to the South Pacific and it really was fun for about an hour yeah that's where the World's Fair was last year that's Alcatraz that's the Golden Gate Bridge after that there's just nothing ever and they stuck me in a room they called it a cabin people around here in Minnesota know what a cabin is it's got logs in it this is just a room with three of the worst type of people that any small skinny pimply faced Norwegian Lutheran kid can be with and these people are called men what the hell are you supposed to be I could see there was a little tension in the room I told them a joke that I was used to over at Good and Study Hall didn't go over there why did you get your damn bunk there you got that one, shut up I still vaguely remember that bunk and the ship was moving around it was hot in there and these guys started talking and oh my god I felt bad because I was a sinner and I'd want to be a sinner but I seem to need more fun than other Lutherans somehow every time I sin I feel guilt yet I have such a flair for it but I had not remembered to keep the Sabbath day holy several times and I had not remembered to respect my mother and father and treat them with honor and I learned to say some dirty words but I lay in that bunk and I felt these guys start talking and I thought my God I'm in a room with some of the worst sinners in the history of the world these guys had been in San Francisco for three or four days with the ship and they'd done dirty thing after dirty thing even at the age of 15 in Eau Claire I'd had sex but I'd been apprehensive, I'd be afraid, I've been alone and these guys were doing it these guys where doing it with people and i suddenly realized of course they've all got black hair those are the catholics i've heard about but it was kind of a difficult start and uh but anyway a little short time i be i finally had a job after a couple days on the ship i became the ship fool you know hey kid get out of danger tell me we need a left-handed wrench hey kid go up on the bridge tell the captain we need some elbow grease these guys drank every day and they drank whiskey they weren't supposed to have it on the ship but who's going to stop me oh these were really any other era they would have been pirates you know how to walk the plank i suppose They'd drink whiskey after the watch. They all had whiskey in their sea bags. And I was just shocked. To the best of my knowledge, I'd never been in the same room with a bottle of whiskey up until that time. Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans don't do that. And one day, one of these boobs turned to me and says, How about you, Junior? You think you're man enough for a little snort? He shoved that bottle in my face and I decided to get that settled right then once and for all. I was going to tell him you get that bottle out of my face you may not know this but I'm a Norwegian Lutheran and I'm on to what you people do I've heard about you and I don't drink whiskey and my mother and grandmother promised that I never would drink whiskey and I'd want to be like that keep that whiskey out of My Face I was just preparing it he said why do you think you're bad enough I heard a voice say God damn right so I had my first drink of whiskey out of the first glub that I ever saw and it burned my mouth and my throat and my stomach and my throat and my mouth and his shirt finally to this day I don't know a worse emotion a worse feeling than public humiliation embarrassment where someone just makes you look like nothing and there's nothing you can do about it. I wanted to just hit these guys as they laughed. Ha, ha, ha. I thought later there was something I could have done. I'm glad I didn't think of it. It would have thrown me overboard, but it would have been cute. Lean over you. Yeah. Take that. Just give give them one in the old eye but all the way across the central pacific when nobody was around at least once a day I'd sneak in one of these guys' sea bag and take a drink of whiskey and I'd throw it up and I would have to wipe it up so they didn't know but I was so desperate because I had this delusion that the reason they thought I was a non-human non-man, because I threw up that whiskey the reason why they thought I was non-match, I was not I was just a non man but we're coming into Pearl Harbor they're digging up ships all around us very exciting I'm down there the night before my 16th birthday taking a drink of that crap and I stayed down then I couldn't breathe then somewhere along there suddenly I felt significantly different I felt significantly better now I don't really remember this at all A guy gave me a tape of a talk I gave when I was three years sober, and I remembered it then, and I'm now quoting that tape. I can hardly remember where my hotel is for Christ's sake. And I didn't realize, but I had a great reaction to it. One of the problems in my life, it always seemed to be, is that for one reason or another, I always felt different when I Was a Kid. I mean, although I did well, I always felt I didn't quite fit in. It's almost as though there was something missing in me. I didn'T know what it was. At a distance, I could get along with a lot of people, but up close, it's almost that they look disappointed in me, there's something about me that I don't grow on you somehow. I don'T fit in very well. And I thought, it's like if you're going around and you're supposed to feel like this, to feel Like This a lot. And I figured when I grew up, it would be all different. It wasn't different, but I know one thing. That day, I suppose, in looking back, although I never would have guessed it at the time, drinking whiskey made the scale go away. First time in my life. And I felt like men looked. I never realized that then either. I mean, I had no knowledge at all, dumber than hell, because I feel better. But in retrospect, I can see what that does for me. It was wonderful. And I didn't become a terrible alcoholic. I learned to smoke on that ship. you know we talked about well about smoking at night we don't want you to smoke in the building or outside the building or anywhere else Jesus I never know where my family smoked but I smoked and puked and smoked and puke one day I smoked and didn't puke and I smoked two and a half or three packs a day every day for the next forty some years and I I love smoking and I would be smoking now but But, now here's a sad story. In 1985, at the International Convention in Montreal, I was in charge of the field flag ceremony where countless nations moved in and had an intricate ballet where they marched in, dipped their flag. Guys, it was so beautiful. And they said dummies couldn't do it. And one guy from Poland almost killed him. He's just stupid. I didn't judge him. I just wanted to kill him. but we were rehearsing in this big stadium before and they had no PA system and I had to scream my instructions at him and I blew out my voice and it got very hoarse I got back and I just and it never got better again so I had go to a doctor and he said well he said you've blown out your you got a really a growth on the bottom of your vocal cords it may be very very intense dangerous for you. I'm going to have to operate almost immediately. They took out a third of my vocal cords and my voice used to be clear and nice, not and I think about that because for five years my doctor had been saying to me, for you to smoke is to die. Yes, I know it. I am going to quit doc, I really am. The doctor said to me you know smoking didn't cause this problem with your vocal cords but if you smoke and irritate that you could go mute never smoked again after that but one of the great problems in smoking it's getting really bad for smokers wherever you go in any country in any city in the country maybe even in Aberdeen you drive down the street on rainy nights and there's people outside out of the businesses in the day time and not only that but people think they have the right to come up to you and denounce you for smoking strangers why do you smoke? don't you know the harm second hand smoke does for people they were doing that when I was smoking it took me five years to think of an answer then I thought of an answer and I had to quit smoking so I'm going to bring it to you smokers here tonight there isn't an AA meeting in the world where you'd get this kind of information the next time someone comes up to you and says hide your smoke here's what you say why do I smoke I have a feeling that one of these days they'll find a market for phlegm and I'll be rich they never ask you again and I learned drinking and smoking, I became a terrible alcoholic they took me in a hot loo the next day got me three bottles of beer that made me tipsy it made me feel good it's just something you learn as you grow up you learn things I learned that drinking makes me feel good and sometimes if I drink too much it makes me sick and I went on later on the war when I got old enough I went in the Navy at the end of the war I was in a naval hospital in Northern California and they passed around some tests and I've always been good on tests because I read a lot and I took a test nice thing, I thought I thought it was very cute but it really did me a lot of harm over the years because for some reason it happened to just fit what I've read or something and I got a very, very high grade like 99th percentile highest 1% of test takers in the United States Navy and I wasn't that smart and I Wasn't that socially aware but I did it so I got I got a high school diploma out of that from Armed Forces Institute and from then on I carried, if it takes these boobs all of their time, I can get by on 50% or whatever I can get by with. But I went back to Wisconsin and went to college after the war. Got married in college. Went out in the world. I won some trophies for the University of Wisconsin. Went out into the world and became a sports writer, which to this day is my favorite job I ever had in the world because I like it. And I got married in college to this girl with flashing black eyes and black hair and just so mysterious, something you never see in the Lutheran church. And she told me she was a Catholic, and I thought, oh. But I thought maybe I could overcome that somehow. And after I got working, she began manifesting the terrible behavior patterns of Catholics that I never knew about and I never do a Lutheran boy that did know about. But if you marry a good Catholic girl, Olaf, you're about to have a big family and she began turning out children with monotonous regularity that was my second career a national distributor of small Catholics so I had to get better jobs and I got into advertising and public relations all these years I drank and I really enjoy drinking because drinking breaks down the walls and makes me feel the way men look although I didn't think of it that way just thought it was something that made me feel good and I smoked and drank race hell World War II veteran on top of it it's just great I'll tell you if you're kind of new tonight we have a bunch of new people I want to tell you something shocking alcohol is the best friend I ever had I never had a better friend than alcohol friends come and go lovers come and go jobs come and go cities come and go but when a few drinks is just and everything is alright you can do that anywhere in the world not even realize that it's something unusual it's just I've often thought about that sometimes sometimes we wonder if people are alcoholics or you maybe have a friend you wonder if they're an alcoholic here's a test I've created to help you get them to stay sober a week and then give them a big drink here drink this and if they say you're in trouble Jack but alcohol is the best friend I've ever had the only problem I've never had I have a tendency sometimes to drink a little too much or as my psychiatrist pointed out later I have many times been thoughtlessly over served in addition to being confined psychologically by the Norwegian Lutheran Church in addition to being raised during the depression didn't even know there was a depression but once he explained it I could see how it had scarred me a lot of things and sometimes I drink too much and then I act bizarrely the psychiatrist says that's because you've been so repressed you're breaking loose for the first time sounded right to me but I tried to convince several arresting officers of that so somebody said why don't you go to this new thing in town called AA some of the old town drunks are getting sober they're not staying sober at least they're cutting down so I went to my first AA meeting went into a room seven or eight fat guys sitting around the table what the hell are you doing here it was like being back on this ship again I now know why because I was 22 and looked 22 and in that state of Wisconsin there wasn't anybody less than 40 in AA at that time just like somebody 12 coming in now saying I think I'm an alcoholic do you, I think you've got a broken nose I said So some people suggested I come here. He said, do you think you're an alcoholic? I said, no. He said what the hell do you thinks wrong with you? I tried to be honest. He says, I think I'm a little too sensitive. Ha ha ha ha. Listen to this Earl. Well I never said that again for a long time I'll tell you. But I went to AA for a while. New people here at night doesn't take long to learn about AA. AA is a place where alcoholics go. What are alcoholics? People who drink too much, they become alcoholic. They have a problem. They come to the AA and admit they're a problem, then they return to God and live happily ever after, I guess. And none of that is me. My problem was not really alcohol. My problem is all sorts of things, emotions and feelings and feeling different. And alcohol helps me overcome them. That's why alcohol is so good. It seems to... The scale goes away. I can be something. I can do things I can't do, and I'm sitting so obsessed with myself and so obsessed about what I should do next and what's wrong and what I could do. Drinking gives me some fluidity, I guess. And I wish alcohol were my problem, but it isn't. It didn't take me long to discover that alcoholics are people who can't quit drinking. I can quit. I can quite any time. I quit then and thereafter for years. I've quit and quit and quit my problem has never been I can't quit my problem is after I'm sober a day or two or three or something a little longer someone seems to sneak into my bedroom and put an invisible spring in my gut and the next morning when I get up they start to tighten it and it doesn't come out as I need alcohol because I was just a little growing restlessness just a little irritability just a little tired of taking this sermon every day from what I used to do just like watching the world slowly turn from technicolor to black and white and I've tried, I can't tell you how much I've spent and things I've done to beat that I've gone to psychoanalysis for thousands and thousands of dollars I've read books, I've I've done trips, I've done all sorts of things. But I'll tell you how you cut that feeling. You take a couple drinks. That's how you cut it. There's nothing wrong with that except unfortunately sometimes I drink too much sooner or later. Then they say see your problem was alcohol wasn't it? You have to say yeah I guess it was. But you just want to shriek no it wasn't. I don't know what it was but it wasn' in alcohol. Alcohol's helped me. I've got to find some way to control that. It's like modern man, I look back, like a modern man trying to control atomic energy. And every once in a while there's a little three-mile island, you know. Got to find a way to avoid that. And probably one of the most interesting things in the book. You know, I read the book when I first came to AI. A guy told me to read the book and I read it. And I'll tell you what my reaction was. This is terribly boring. Some years later, when I came out of Skid Row, they had me read the book again. And this time I found it was even more boring than I remembered. It's just, you know, I had been busy writing successful advertising and television commercials and take this action and do this thing, blah, blah. Going to the catering truck and cursing at that son of a bitch. and you're looking for action A just read and read if you are thorough at this stage of your development one of the things in reading the book in retrospect, I never discovered I never realized my stories in the book I've read it and heard it read and never paid any attention to it. When I was sober a while, one night I was listening to some boob read chapter 3, which they do in our area some of the time. You know, when you hear reading like chapter 5, as interesting and valuable it is to us, but when you've heard it read 5,000 times maybe, you don't really hang on every word anymore. Rarely have we seen a person, let's see how that thing has gone at work. Maybe I should make that call. God could and would have saw it. Yeah, that's good. And somewhere or other I was off my feed that night, so I was listening to Chapter 3. And much to my surprise, it was my story. If I'd have heard that when I was new and paying any attention, I probably wouldn't have paid any attention at all. But those who are new here, you wonder, we say we're all the same. What way are we all the time? Look around you. Different sizes, shapes, colors. There's nothing we have in common. Different backgrounds, different histories. our first speaker took dope in my era we didn't even talk to people who took dope I talk to them now because I've learned to do that I must say one thing for the speaker I gotta say this it hurts me to say it but I've known him for many years and he was getting a little pudgy and the sickness he's had has reduced his weight I've never seen him looking better how could I get just a small dose of that sickness but anyway in chapter 3 one of the things they say what do we have in common if you're an alcoholic like us here's one thing somewhere along the line all of us have voluntarily or involuntarily and certainly without knowing it, accepted the obsession that somehow, someday I will control and enjoy my drinking. He says the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Just knowing I can't go without drinking, I've got to find a way to do it. And so we continue to fight the term alcoholic because we must sustain our ability to drink. And then we have occasional brief recoveries. We've all had brief recoverries. You think, that's it. When I eat before I go out, that is it. I will eat before i go out and line my stomach. And eventually you just puke more. That is about all. Followed always by still worse relapse. Then that delicate, dainty little phrase in there. Reaching a stage of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I just think that is how drunk these poor people get. That's what that means at all. That's how you feel after you get sober again. And people want explanations from you for your behavior. And there aren't any except to say, leave me alone. And we try dumb little things like changing from one kind of booze to another or drinking beer only. Everybody's tried that, I'm sure. Drinking natural wines, taking exercise, reading books, getting into spiritual movements taking a trip, not taking a trip. I've tried every one of those things except one. I never tried not taking the trip I believe when the heat is on only cowards stay around move it out that's why all my children were born in a different state and all have different I never knew there was any but I always knew my case was different That's the other thing I think we come here with. I've never met an alcoholic who came to AA who didn't secretly feel his case was different, and we all have good reasons for it. And at a superficial level, our cases are all different. That's true, but it isn't until you've been here a while and get down a few layers that you realize what we have in common. But I went in and out of AA for the next... Every time the heat was on, I went to AA until the heat were off. And this went on for years. and finally I went down one more time instead of bouncing back up, it all went my family left my home left they took back my car at Tracy Lock big advertising agency in the south I was going to make my big comeback and I cost them a big account I was in deep trouble I had to get out of Dallas quick and the guy said will you drive my car to Los Angeles for me I said sure I will and I drove it as far as Phoenix and got drunk and lost it never did find it all my clothes, everything, my ID is in there. Got terribly upset about that, and I was drunk that night looking around the streets and couldn't find something. He said, you better cool down, guys. I said, screw you. Trying to be a cop, and he threw me in jail overnight. And in the middle of the night, I was very, very sick, and I had a vomit, so I went over to the toilet and vomited. Turned out it was somebody's bunk. But he wasn't in it. I mean, just, and I laid down on a tile, put my cheek on a towel, and slept. to sleep. The guy came back from wherever he was, some kind of a trustee, found his bed full of vomit and a drunken fool. He said, damn you, damn you! And although I didn't mean to do it, but he kicked my front teeth out. That was one of the few mornings I was ever glad I'd been in psychoanalysis. I was almost instantly able to identify his problem. I remember thinking, this son of a bitch is overreacting. but I didn't want to say anything and make trouble they let me out the next morning blood, vomit, torn coat all of my clothes all of everything I had in the world was in that car and I haven't found it yet and I'll tell you if you want to be a long term slipper let me give you some advice one thing if you really get in a bad shape and really look terrible can't get in anywhere there's always one place that welcomes you an AA club that is the only place in the world where the worse you look the better they like it oh this one's mine Fred so I walked over to the AA club and hustled some old lady for a bus fare to Los Angeles And a couple of days later, I'd run across him. I got up, broke again. And what had happened was I had a guy at KFWB, which was a radio station on Hollywood Boulevard. And I'd given him his start. He was now a big star. It was a rock and roll station. Now it's a news station. But I called him up and said, geez, Ted, I've had a terrible car accident. My teeth got knocked out. I'm waiting for a check. Could you help me? He said, oh, yes. Told me I had to come out in the bus to Hollywood Boulevoir, come up this upstairs. and see him, and he was shocked when he saw me. Oh, my God, you gave me a lot of money. And he said, I just feel so bad. And I went out and I rented a room and got drunk and had fun and wiped the blood off me and ran out of money after a few days. I called him back and said, Ted, my check hasn't come. Could you help me a little bit more? He said, no, I can't. He said... I called Dallas and, yeah, you're a bum. Nobody else has got any time for you anymore. You've burned everybody off. and you make a fool out of me don't do it oh Jesus Ted I'm so sick you gotta help please he said okay you come to the back of the station the alley back of Hollywood Boulevard tonight at 9 o'clock and I'll come out in the fire escape I want you to come up to the station and I don't want to see you again I said oh thanks Ted I was out there in the rain he came out in the firescape he said here now stay away from here he threw a five dollar bill that fluttered down into a mud puddle and I crawled out And I said, in fact, I outsmarted him, boy. And a couple of days later, two big guys threw me out of a Skid Row mission. I said and stay out of here, you mooch. That's right. I'm not a mooch three years ago. I was on the faculty of the University of Texas ads that I wrote to Elsie Delmaraz for the Borden Company. We're running it very weak in life and time and serving post in New Yorker. I've had my picture in The New York Times for one of my achievements. It was really hard to explain these things in mid-air. I stood outside that old damn old mission, the Midnight Mission, fourth corner of 4th and Los Angeles Street. Didn't know anybody in town except Ted. My mouth was bleeding again, sick. It felt so bad. I had a feeling that I couldn't identify, but I'm sure there are people in this room who have had it. And I identified, not because I had seen people with it. When you get to a point where you suddenly realize there's no friendly direction, it's all equally bad. No one's going to be glad to see you wherever you go. And that is a bad feeling. Now, if I were to get to an AA club, I'm going to die. I'm gonna die on the street. I said, where's the AA club here, pal? He said, well, there's an AA Club around here, not downtown. You have to walk out to Wilshire and Fairfax. I said where the hell is that? He said, well, Wilshire doesn't come down this far. You have to walk up this hill to Hill Street and cut over to Wilshire and walk west until you come to Fairfax and on the left-hand side there's a club. I walked off. I went in the rain. I still vaguely remember that walking up Wilshire Boulevard. Turned out to be seven and a half miles. That's a long way to walk when you're sick. My mouth was bleeding and walking up this lovely street full of these big stores and big cars going by and people pointing and laughing at me. I got to this stupid club with the same old crap, the same whole steps and the same wonderful traditions and turn it over and live and let live in God. And I thought, I've just got to get off the street. If I can just stay off the streets until it stops raining, I'll think of something. And I went to this club and I lurked around there all day and tried to stay out of sight. And that night there was a meeting. They served cake before the meeting. I had about four pounds of cake because I could chew that. then they had a meeting on gratitude and I almost puked it up again then everybody went home except the manager and I and he says you have to leave I thought I'm going to die if I go out in that rain tonight so I tried to put on my newcomer look that I'd mastered I'm a newcomer and I have no place to stay and it's raining and cold can you help me please he said you're lucky a guy named Joe Quinn left a 49 Merc in the parking lot last summer doesn't run but it's dry you can sleep in that you want me to sleep in an abandoned car yeah good deal yeah that's a good deal and I vaguely remember sleeping in that with my mouth bleeding and hurting Sunday morning I had some cake and they had a spiritual meeting and I had to get up and leave because I can't bear to hear talk about God. Isn't that funny? People come here from all directions. So many atheists and agnostics come today, and the reason I couldn't stand to hear about God is because I believed in God, and I knew God existed, and I was going to go to hell because by this time I'd broken all ten commandments, and in almost any church you don't come back from that. And when they talk about God and God's love, I just don't want to hear that. I just don't even think about it, don't remind me of it and that's another reason I can't help you, I can' t return to God, I wish I could but it's too late for that and I hung around there and the manager of the club said you know during the week you're supposed to belong to this club to come in here, this is not an all day hangout but you're such a mess you'll probably die if you stay out inside in the rain so you can come in but don't ask anybody for money, none of your smart remarks you have to go to a meeting every night in the club I thought oh God nobody would understand sit in these meetings and listen to these half-wits talk about how wonderful they are just like Scott was talking about miracles and victories I've just become president of the world all this crap three years ago I wouldn't even hire you to mow my lawn, you son of a bitch and you'd treat me like dirt and I had no idea that would be my sobriety date didn't want it to be had no desire for it to me, ever I don't desire to stop drinking. You know that third tradition that we read tonight? The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking? I don' t desire to start drinking at all. None! I had stopped drinking once, and I had a good reason. I used to go to jail every so often overnight. Not because I'm a big felon, but when I get to a certain stage of drinking, I have a tendency to counsel police officers and point out their fascist pig attitudes. So I've been thrown in jail off. And I came out in the morning, take a shower and go to work. You know, handle it. And I come out one morning sick, you know, I felt bad. I wanted to get home and get cleaned up. And a friend of mine was waiting for me. He said, oh, you should have stayed home last night. Oh, yeah, I know,I know. But it's just this cop, this son of a bitch, you know, he's a bad man. And that won't happen again. He said no, you shouldn't stay at home because your little son died and we couldn't find you anywhere. And I had a bunch of little girls and a little boy. And I'll tell you, he was the idol of my eye. And that made me feel as bad instantly as I've ever felt in my life. I just couldn't stand it almost. And we went up to Wisconsin. I was working in Texas, buried him, had a funeral for him. And I put my hand in his little casket and always looked at him. I said, John Emislin, this will never happen again. I promise you, never again. I'll dedicate this to you. And I went back to Texas, and I felt very bad for a little while. But I had a couple drinks that tied me over. then I thought, I can't do this. And I stopped drinking and I told everybody to stop drinking and I came home at night and my kids and I every meal we said a prayer for baby John and we all, it's like Easter, I mean somebody had died but he died for our sins and we all felt, I think the next three or four weeks may be the best three or five years three or six weeks of most of my life unfortunately someone snuck into my bedroom one night and put an invisible spring in my gut and the next day it started just a little restlessness and I got thinking I know I haven't been the best guy in the world but I've done pretty good all in all and this God who I've tried to be nice for has taken my little boy who never committed a sin in his life and killed him to punish me well screw you son of a bitch and I was and that was the end of God for me but it got worse the tension got worse everybody appreciated I hated my job I hated that town my daughters who I was doing it for Mary, take your sisters and go to your room. For Christ's sake, be glad. I'm sorry. We'll play tomorrow. Just hate myself for being like that. I just couldn't do. If I could only have a couple drinks. But when you promise your dead son you can't drink, you don't drink. And one day my wife took the kids to mass and I pulled the car out of the garage and hooked up the hose in the exhaust pipe and turned on the motor and went to sleep and died. I just didn't know what to do. Just beyond belief. And a neighbor next door happened to be sitting dinner's breakfast nook having a cup of coffee told me go in there and heard the motor running i didn't come out and you ambled over see if i was okay and he found me dead in the car and they pulled me out and beat on my chest and breathed my mouth and rushed me to the hospital examined me determined i was seriously mentally ill and confined me to this state insane asylum for an indefinite period now that's how i get when i stop drinking that's no goal for me because drinking is not the problem. The problem is somebody getting a handle on it. I've often thought about that, but nothing in my commitment paper said alcoholic at all. It said schizophrenic, paranoid tendencies. I'd like to go back to Texas someday and find that psychiatrist. He must be about 90 now. I could move him around pretty good. You ought to lose your license diagnosing me as some sort of dual personality, you idiot! If I could have got my personality's down to two, I'd have been fine. My problem has always been this group that gathers in my head when the heat's on. Let's get out of here. I don't think we can. What do you think you're saying about us? I'm not sure yet. I used to hear people say things like, I'm no sure the program's enough for me. I may need group therapy. Not me. If I want group therapy, I go for a ride alone in my car. That's right. Never thought of that, yeah. that's what's so good about alcohol alcohol reduces it to one voice it may be a bad voice but it's one voice why don't you quit your job and punch him in his face on the way out ok but stopping drinking really the thing that prevented me from stopping drinking is that I knew I was not an alcoholic I could not return to God and I couldn't certainly turn my life over to God some of this other stuff was alright but that's the basic requirements and why am I sober now because somewhere in those meetings this first week I saw a guy that I'd seen in the movies I thought, a movie star a movie star what is a movie start? A rich man I bet he'd like to have a new friend and I moved in an old Bob he didn't want to be a new friend and I I found out later he wasn't a movie star at all but I'd seen him in the movies a couple times and later in the week I was having a terrible time people were buying me soft food coffee, but nobody was coming through much and they're a group of fanatics you've got fanatics here in South Dakota Nazi, A-Nazis and fanatics they got into my own group and I just hate it they say things like Better get a sponsor, boy. Living in that car out there, you're going to die. Get a sponsor. So here's my chance. I moved in an old Bob, the actor. I said, Bob, I was admired your program. Would you be my sponsor? He said, sure, but what did I tell you? Oh, sure Bob. So I say, he wasn't a big star at all. He'd been in three movies and I saw two of them. So I thought he was a star, but he wasnít. But they said he wasn't a very good actor, but he was Because he could act nicely at meetings And that took a lot of acting for him Because he turned out to be a right-wing fascist A.A. pig Of the worst sort Just do this, do this Why am I taking this crap from this guy? Because he was the only meal ticket I could see out of there I found out later he didn't like me And I don't blame him I don' t want to brag but I was the worst type of newcomer there is in Alcoholics Anonymous and I know that because I've sponsored a couple guys like that and it just makes you crazy when they come in the room and say hi you just wish you had a rifle here's hi boom I'll tell you what kind of a person that is it's a person who's been around AA a long time year after year and knows all about it and gets drunk every so often and comes back and wants attention and hustles the new girls and goes out and gets drunk and this goes on and on. You can't tell them anything, they already know everything. It's just maddening. But Bob tried to help me and he would talk to me sometimes and he'd take me a couple times to a meeting but I had told him, Bob, you know, I'm not really an alcoholic. I want you to know that going in I'm going to try to do the right thing but I'm no alcoholic. We're at the Brentwood meeting and he took me to a very fancy meeting out in Brentwood and I had to disguise it. I wouldn't want him to think that I knew I was smarter than he was because then I might lose him so I'd always pretend to listen it was nonsense but one night he said something even dumber than he usually said he was talking to somebody, maybe me maybe somebody else, I don't know as long as you think your problem is alcohol you're going to die drunk oh Jesus Bob I said why do you say things like that you make me look bad that's what this program is about I'm not an alcoholic but these people are they need help their problem isn't alcohol if their problem is alcohol they shouldn't even be in AA oh Bob lights kind of hot out there in the set today were they I could always make them crazy in about two minutes if I wanted to and he gave me a long talk then and thereafter most of which I was able to blot out but someone got through but it really has been a cornerstone of my life ever since although I didn't know at the time, had no idea. He said, kid, the problem is not alcohol. If the problem is alcohol, there's a way to beat it. I said, what's that, Bob? He says, you quit drinking and you clean up your act. I say, that doesn't work, Bob. I've tried that a thousand times. He says that's right. That's because your problem isn't alcohol. Apparently, like me, it sounds like alcohol is the alcohol. What could that be, Bob?" He says, it's something called alcoholism. Oh, Jesus, Bob. Don't play word games with me. I look terrible, but I'm smart. Look, alcohol, alcoholism, hooray, I'm cured, I're cured. Shut up, he explained. He said, there's a big difference here, kid. You overcome alcohol by stopping drinking. In this strange thing called alcohol, which unfortunately for you and me looks almost exactly the same to the naked eye. This mind-consuming, perception-distorting, bodily-eroding thing called alcoholism. You'll discover sooner or later that stopping drinking and cleaning up your act has no significant long-term effect on your life other than to gradually make it so painful you can't stand it. I said, Jesus, Bob. I never heard anybody say that before. They always say, stop drinking, it's going to be better. I said nah, for people like us, stopping drinking makes it worse. I go, my God, Bob. Then why do these alcoholics drink when they know it eats them up? He said, they're not drinking because it eats him up, kid. You don't seem to know much. He says, you've been around all these years, you don't know much? He says you understand that an alcoholic is a person who gets an unnatural reaction to alcohol? Yes, I know about that. It sets up a phenomenon of craving and they can't stop and they drink forever and ever. He said no, that's podium talk. The unnatural effect of that alcohol, he had a Coke in his hand. It's simply entirely different. He said, when I have a couple drinks, it almost instantly alters my perception of reality. When I have a few drinks, it almost instantly changes my relationship to the world around me. When I have a few drinks almost instantly makes me taller and more self-contained and them smaller and less threatening I said Jesus Bob what's wrong with that he said because it is not really happening you moron he said you'll drink and you continue to drink it may be phenomenal whatever it is but you're going to drink until you have to get sober again I said huh well if that's the case Bob now these people know it's doing bad things to them why would they drink now he said that's yet another part of it you don't seem to understand much kid he said when people are born and grow up there's a lot you have learn to be a kid or a young person growing up you have to learn there's problems you gotta deal with and conflicts you gotta learn you gotta give to get sometimes some days you just eat a crap sandwich and swallow it and keep going and all sorts of things that procedure is called maturing if you become a mature individual and learn these lessons you can live pretty comfortably you can hold a job get along with your co-employees get along with your kids get along with the neighbors, go on square vacations and enjoy them? He says, but this almost never happens to alcoholics. Why not, Bob? He said, we've discovered along the line when we have a meaningful problem we have to find a solution for or a conflict, we don't have to find a resolution. I can drink it away. Here's to you household finance. here's to you bitch I never liked you anyway hey Mr. Carlson take your job and shove it up your nose and it really works but there's one thing I don't know it sets up a little caboose that follows me everywhere full of unresolved childish emotions and when the day comes most of us, I'm going to straighten out I'm going to do this right, I'm not going to go all just drink and get in trouble anymore and never once know it's impossible for me because no matter how hard my determination is eventually someone will trigger those emotions someone will hurt my feelings someone will put me down someone will make me feel bad and that starts the emotions when I was a young man I'd go over to those people and punch them and quit the job but when you've got a family you can't do that anymore so you receive watch the pressure build try to get away to get rid of that son of a bitch or how can I get even with him why don't you leave me alone it gets pretty bad sometimes scientists say that people like us get to a point where you literally must drink to preserve your sanity and so I always drink eventually then it all goes to hell again why did you drink? I don't know, just leave me along And he said, that's why people always, alcoholics, we don't do reality. We drink until we have to get sober, then stay sober until we half to drink, then drink until you have to stay sober. Whatever they like the period on either side of the equation. I said, Jesus, Bob, I never heard anybody talk about that before. That's the story of my life. In the last few years, I really had some big jobs. I really did well sometimes, but I always blew up emotionally or somebody didn't make me feel that way. It's just terrible. Bob, I got a drink to stand it. He said, there's a name for people like you. I thought, uh-oh. What could it be, Bob? He said you're an alcoholic. I said, my God. If that's what an alcoholic is, that's who I am. I can't believe it. That's not what I thought an alcoholic was. That was in December 1958, a long time ago. I was sober about six weeks, and I came to believe I was an alcoholic, much to my surprise. And it saved my bacon. My life didn't get better. I still insisted I get jobs. I'd get fired off, but I still had a smart mouth that had no emotional stability. But one thing, I knew I wasn't insane. I always secretly thought, I'm insane. I knew there was a name for it. I'm an alcoholic, that's it. And I went to a meeting every night for years. I didn't know any better what to do. And little by little got better. After a while, Bob told me to do some things that I thought were really stupid, but I tried to do them and they worked out. And something happened about a few months over that changed my life. I didn'T even realize it for years looking back, but I hope it's happened to people here. I began to get the feeling, I began to get the sense that Bob knew how I felt which doesn't seem like much does it but I had never known anybody that I believed knew how I felt my dad didn't my doctor didn't my psychiatrist they all said they did we know how you feel no you don't know how I feel and he knew how he felt and what's so good about that I'll tell you what's good about this is because people like us are magnets for advice from everybody that we know. Here's what you ought to do. Have you tried this? Have you read this debate? Passersby, think you ought to go to rehab. But if you can find somebody that you believe knows how you feel, that advice becomes meaningful information. I remember standing again one other night at the Brentwood meeting one of the few times I was there, just a few blocks from where O.J. Simpson didn't kill his wife later. and we're standing there, and he says, see that woman over there? I said, I fear a beast. He said, I want you to apologize to her. Why should I? Someone told me the Monday night meeting at the club, you called her a bitch. She is a bitch! Why do you think she's a bitch? She told her new girl to stay away from me. Well, she's right. You apologize. I can't think of a person in the world who told me that at that moment. I would have said, not said to hell with you I'm not going to abase myself before that woman she doesn't like me and she talks about me all the time she's a nasty gossipy nasty old bag and she tries to get rid of me and I say hell with her but somebody that I believed knew how I felt told me to do that and I found myself going you bitch but he got me from then on to get got found me ways not to quit jobs and to to get along a little by little long terrible process but i finally held a job in my first year at the end of my first birthday for almost four months before i got fired my second year i got a little job as beginning job in a beginning writer in a medical corporation and i determined to make my move boy some guy took me out of the thrift shop got me a couple suits had no front teeth yet but i learned to carry my lip like this they just thought it had been burned in a fire and you're i'm gonna make my move now this i'm going to be something and uh i worked to work there about four first four days and i said i'm not gonna do this and you know what happened somebody hurt my feelings I heard somebody say that guy has no front teeth I thought for Christ's sake what kind of people can't you just let me at least make it do something right and I thought about that guy by the end of the day I was ready to go over and punch him and quit I was there's no way I could ever be anything again the only thing that kept me from it I promised old Bob I'd call him before I quit I said, Bob, this son of a bitch. He said, here's what you do. Tell him this kid. I said that won't work for this guy. He's a malicious, nasty bastard. Try it. So that guy nicely confronted him and he said, oh, I'm so sorry I hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to. I admire what you're doing here. He said I just mentioned that you've come from some tough place and you're really making a great move. And he became one of my good friends in that company. Probably the next year, must have been 30 or 40 times I had to call Bob because my emotions were right on the edge. But he'd give me some action that I would try to do. When I was five years over as Director of Advertising... Shut up! What time does this meeting leave for Minneapolis? When I was a director of advertising for that big corporation, it had a front teeth end. You used to smile a lot. If any of you new people have lost teeth, let me give you hope. When you become spiritually pure, they grow back. When I Was Seven Years Sober, as I mentioned to you, I was in Hollywood, became boss radio, KHJ television. When I WAS Ten Years SoBER, I was downtown doing public relations for an oil company 15 years sober I was a marketing director in Beverly Hills when I was 5 years sober with the same wife and all those children heard the crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to Dallas leaped out of their post office box rushed to my side 9 months and 10 seconds later another Catholic hit the street somebody gave me a book on the rhythm system then we ended all that you know and they're all grown up 3 of my daughters turned 18 this year in alcoholics Anonymous. I'm very pleased with all of them. They don't deserve applause. They're lucky to have a good father. And I'm happy to say they got sober without any help from me at all. I am so glad because parents can't help you. Only you screw them up, it seems to me. I have a son. The last child was a son, so I had a son again. I was so pleased. I've been a fan of his when he was a little boy. He and I did a lot of things together. We got high school captains football team i flew back for a rose and ran the 10-yard chains every weekend and he went off to college became a computer wizard and he had a bunch of guys sitting in a think tank in santa monica and create games they just finished spider-man 3 and they're doing all these big hot shot games and he's an alcoholic and he won't do anything about it and he's you know 41 now 42 his wife has left him he's about to lose his job he said i know about a i've been around my whole house has been full of a's as long as i've been alive i don't look like these people and i tried to help them i really i can't help them it makes me crazy because i sponsor people a lot of people around the world and i can'T help my own son and i know that because i've spent 30 years explaining to people that can't help their own son and so i pray for him i don't even see him much anymore i said it was x y divorce separated wife i said diana clancy and i were so close why why does he want to see me he's old he said he loves you very much but he never wants to see you when he has alcohol in his breath and he always has alcohol on his breath what are you about that you keep going the only one of my children that really ever turned out wrong. One of my, my oldest daughter, she's one of the girls in AA, but, uh, she, she has become a judge. We so much wanted a defense attorney, but no. She came home at Christmas few years ago. She said, remember daddy, when we were little girls used to send us to our room and holler at us? I said, yeah, but you understand why now Mary, your name. She said, of course I understand daddy. But when you come to Albuquerque, I'm going to send you to a little room. I have no need to go to Albuquerque. But very quickly, to get out of this, when I came to believe I was an alcoholic, that was the change in my life. I've said it hundreds of times, I never believed it. And I think, well, alcoholics, you might say if you're new, yeah, as you came off Skid Row, your teeth kicked out, of course you're an alcoholic. That has nothing to do with it. That's just a fact of life. I sponsor the guy that put the flag on the moon I sponsor a multi-million dollar industrialist I sponsor people in the movie industry I sponsor guys who work on the street shoveling crap they all got something in common what? they weren't all thrown into the midnight mission they all get to a point where they had to drink to stand reality and now reality they can't stand reality and they can's stand drinking and there you are and you're screwed but your mind says but you're not really an alcoholic because life is so miserable when you're sober never knowing that that's part of the disease of alcoholism and it's just an interesting thing as a result of that my sponsor pointed out helped me to overcome my problem with God I told him I couldn't return to God he said you don't have to return to god you've got to come to believe in something can't you believe in God And I said, no, I believe in God. I don't want to talk about God. He says, can't you believe in AA? It's all right. I don' like it very well. He says you think I'm doing better than you are? Of course you are. He said, congratulations. I'm your new higher power. And I could accept that because he could not send me to hell. But I could believe that and I tried to do things he said. As a result of taking actions over a period of time, by the time he died, I believed in AA as my higher power and I got another sponsor very spiritual man but he never told me what to do but he showed me by his example and one day I found myself praying to God because he had pointed out to me that day he said kid you're not important enough for God to hate that made me feel better and I prayed to God over a period of time and taking actions I came to believe that God didn't hate me and I came believe that God loved me as much as you no more than you no less than you and each of us I think very well said by Scott tonight, very well we all are in this together and who knows why people get cancer and some people don't and some have heart attacks I know that there's a pattern if I follow it I will feel more at one with myself and with the universe and I can't do it all the time because I'm a human being and I'm fallible and weak but I can keep going to it that's why I keep going what edge I can get and I know that the third step which was going to be my final step I couldn't take turn my life over to God how do you do that I rewrote it to say I'll try to do what Bob says and I'll tell you that's the best thing that ever happened to me so now it's been next month it will be 49 years since I walked off Skid Row this is the signal for applause people at the bar started love offering and moved the baskets up from the back there's one thing I wanted to say just for the fun of it I know we want to get out of here because a lot of us want to hurry and get back home probably got several blocks to go I don't want to miss getting back to my room and listen to the trains go through but sometimes new people say how does it work how does AA work we have the answer to that right here how it works rarely have we seen a person fail but that's not what they're saying at all what they are saying is why does it work and I'm here to tell you if you're new or if you are not so new something you may not have known nobody knows why it works nobody knows why it worked well how can you do it if you don't know why it works for a very simple reason I'll give you a good example 1700s the worst epidemics in the world were small pox nobody what you can do about small pox you got it and just like we thought about AIDS you just wipe out a third of a city I have a book called bring out your dead about philadelphia in 1725 going through the streets with wagons bring out your dad you bring out your mother your baby had just died and throw him on the wagon nobody no nobody ever heard of germs never heard of bacilli nobody heard of nothing and it's just an absolute terror in london there's a doctor named dr jenner and he wants so much to help these people and he devoted his life to but he could find no answer because they have no knowledge of course but he after a while ran across a funny little fact that some girls who milk cows never got smallpox and yet here's some girls who smoke milk cows they got working right with them and they got small pox and died why would that be and he talked to each of them and after a period of time it became another maybe just coincidence they all had had a minor disease that milkers got called cow pox and blood cowpox didn't get smallpox but why would that be? That's silly so he did one of the classic tests of all time he bought a little boy named Jimmy Phipps, 9 years old took him to where these girls had cowpox some of them he didn't know how to transfer illness cut a little slash in the kid's arm and took some positive blood off their eyes and rubbed it in the kids arm and he got sick, got better then he took him to where they were dying of smallpox and this time he didn't use his hand he used a stick, cut a little slash took some blood and pus and rubbed it in the kid's arm and he got sick and got better and for the first time ever they knew how to stop smallpox you get cowpox but it didn't make sense what nonsense is that interesting thing the name for cow in Latin is vacus vaccination means injection of the cow but most people didn't want to accept it take one disease and get another one, you're crazy that's just a coincidence but the people that took it saved their lives and about 100 years later they discovered why when they had telescopes, I mean microscopes and knowledge of things they could look up and see that somehow or other the elements of cowpox stopped the virus of smallpox did not let it go forth And so it did stop it. To this day, it's a variation of the same thing that keeps us from getting smallpox. And then they knew, oh, that's wonderful, but Dr. Jenner was dead, and so all the people had fought against it. And I sometimes think that's where AA is in a way. Why does it work? We don't know. Maybe 100 years from now, some scientist will come lurching out of this laboratory reading. I found the answer. It turns out that when a series of odd actions are taken under the direction of a cruel tyrant, it sets up a reaction in the upper cerebral cortex that makes it unnecessary to drink alcohol or use drugs. Oh, doctor, wonderful. You'll get the award. You'll get the Nobel Prize. It won't help any of us. We'll all be dead. But it's nice to know that some will know. But where we are at 8 a.m. tonight is this. We want to tell you new people, take the damn cowpox. Take the damn cowpox because if you don't, you're a goner. There's no way around it. The last thing I want to say is the purpose of the AA eventually went through the steps made amends and did these things and all the things we've talked about and my pursuit it turns out the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is not to make you dry longer and longer god I'm almost 49 years dry I'd burst into flame up here the purposeof AA is to very slowly do what alcohol did fast to change my perception of reality, to change my relation to the world around me, to little by little make me taller and more self-contained and then smaller and less threatening. And sometimes when you do this, it happens in a way you didn't expect. When I was 15 years sober, as I said, I was doing quite well. I was director of marketing for a publishing firm at Beverly Hills. And one day, in some bad way, something got in my head I found myself leaving a job and for the last 34 years I've been the managing director of the midnight mission on Skid Row the place that threw me out in 1958 and people say why in the world would you give up this career for running this damn Skid row place and there's no good answer to that well it was such a significant decrease in salary I couldn't pass it up I'm still trying to find those two bastards that threw me out once I get there I'll be gone Monday morning I'll do something none of you will do I'm sure I live up by the ocean on the west side of LA and I'll get in my car and go down the Santa Monica freeway and my car still wants to get off at Beverly Hills and I wrestle it back on down in the middle of a big area homeless death and destruction park my car under our building and take a walk around the building and step over the bodies of men, women, and children who are dying on that street from alcoholism and drug addiction and insanity and abandonment. I'll go into the building and for the rest of the day others such as me will try to find ways how can we get these poor bastards to admit their problem to be willing to take actions they refuse to take to do things that will bring them we know an answer and they will not take it because we're not a treatment center we're ten grades below that we're trying to keep them alive and then at night I'll jump in my car and I'll go back out by the ocean and to the best of all my ability put it behind me I'll do an AA meeting and share with people or listen to people share as I did last night in Los Angeles Friday night men's tag and listen to People Talk and just went home feeling wonderful now that isn't anything I would as Scott said tonight he never dreamed his dream in the Bronx was not to come and talk in South Dakota well it wasn't our dream to have you come either god damn it but here we are and if you're new you're just like us take the cowpox Thank you.