The Disease That Owned His Father’s Family – Bill C.

I'm Bill Crawford, and I'm an alcoholic. And sometimes you're more nervous than others when you do this. I'm scared to death tonight. John helped me a lot with that, though. That relaxed me. And one thing, this is a big deal. It's something to be nervous about. 22nd Las Vegas Annual Roundup's a big bill. I didn't know it would be 1,090 people paying. And God knows, I don't want to hear what you had to pay for a plate of food in here. But it's a good crowd. It's an up crowd. First time I ever heard checkbook get an applause, really. And I've been to a lot of these things. So I know I can't screw up too bad if somebody will give a clap for a lost checkbook. The thing I regret most about this conference is I have, and I'm going to miss too much of it. I missed Hank's talk, which I heard was just excellent Friday night because I didn't get here till late. And it was the only way I could make plain connections. And I'm gonna miss Mary's talk in the morning. And I am very unhappy about that. But I've got to fly out at 724. That's the only time they can get me to Charlotte in the mornin'. And I don't like that. But I certainly have enjoyed today's events and today's speaker. Ruby was just absolutely beautiful. I sat in on the Alcathon meeting and enjoyed that, and I thought relationships, what are they talking about? But it was just beautiful, and just every one of them read my mail, and I just enjoyed the people. You know, you come here, you're kind of apprehensive because you don't know anybody, but then you soon know people. The committee, in particular Karen, has just treated me like royalty and just tended to my every need. And I'm certainly thankful for that. And I thank you for asking me to come and speak. With that, I think I'll just sit down. I'm telling you. Just while I was talking, I took the opportunity to count this crowd. I was born 50 years ago in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I was brought into an alcoholic home. I know the power of alcoholism from that other side. You know, if alcoholism is anywhere, certainly in a family, it's in control. It's a powerful thing and it controlled us. Now, we didn't realize that. We couldn't appreciate that. But I know in retrospect, folks like you have taught me that what owned our family was my daddy's disease. And even when he wasn't drinking, we were dreading when he was going to drink. and when he was drinking, you know. And my daddy was a good drunk. He was not violent or abusive or mean like I later came to be. He was a Good Drunk, but he was embarrassing and unreliable and drank at the wrong time. And that insecurity that goes along with that was there present in our house. There's also a Baptist. I don't know if y'all have heard of that out here. Boy, once you get that, that's terminal too. I'm telling you, that's hard to get out of that. You know, I've still got a lot of that in me. And Baptists are not very complimentary to beverage alcohol, at least they didn't used to be. And so from what I lived, my experience in my home plus my religious training was alcohol was a bad thing. I didn't know anything good about alcohol. You know my childhood heroes didn't drink. Now you young people are not going to know who I'm talking about. But some of you will. I can see the white heads out there. I'd go down to the movies on Saturday afternoon and watch Lash LaRue and Johnny Mac Brown and the Rango Kid. These were the B-Western cowboy stars, and if you remember, they didn't drink. Not the good guys. Them bad guys didn't drinking. But the good guy's didn't drinks. So I had a negative view of beverage alcohol coming up. I knew that I'd never drink. I knew what was wrong with my daddy, and I knew it was wrong in our home, or at least I thought I did. It was his drinking. And if he would just not drink, things would be okay. But along came something called peer pressure, and I didn't know it was peer pressure. I know now, you know, I've read a lot of stuff like Ladies' Home Journal and stuff like that where you learn stuff like this, and it's a little story I usually tell in my talk. I was in downtown Greensboro back when people came to downtown Greensborough. Now they're all out at the malls and shopping centers, but at that time everybody on a Saturday was down there, and I was down there. And out in front, I was about 14 years old, out in front of Manzo Henry Drugstore were three of the finest looking boys I'd ever seen in my life. Older than I. Let me tell you how they looked. They stood there and the shirt collars were standing straight up. Their pants, their hair was combed back on the sides and squared off in the back. And they wore their britches real low and the britches were real big in the knee and real small at the cuff. These great britchers. I was the greatest thing I'd ever seen in my life. You could tell they were rebels. And I got up with somebody and I said, what is that? And they said, they're cats. That's what they're called. I wanted to be a cat worse than anything in the world. See, I had already, this peer pressure thing had been at work with me all along. I've learned how to smoke. Lucky strikes. And I was doing a pretty good job of inhaling, too. It was important to inhale back then. I don't know if you remember that or not. And I remember I worked real hard, and inhaling didn't come natural to me. I remember it hurt me so bad to inhale that I'd only do it if somebody was looking. I don' t know if y ou can identify with that. if I'd be with the gang and we all had our luckies lit, if somebody would turn my way, I'd grab a post and inhale a big drag. It looked cool. So I was inhaling pretty good and I was sort of, you know, sort of tough and that kind of thing. And there were the cats. So me and old, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind my using his name, me and Old Charles Deligny, He sort of advised me on how to be a cat. And I don't want to dwell on this too long, but I'll just say I became a cat pretty quick. I got me some pants with the big knees and the little bottoms and I got my mama to starch my shirt collar so they'd stand up. Had a little hair problem. I had real fine hair, still do. It just wouldn't... That was in the day of Wild Root Cream Oil, if you remember that. Put a half a bottle on it and it still would just kind of fall down. Oh, Deligny introduced me to a product called pomade. I had so much fun. You know what pomade is? The blacks in that period were using pomade, and of course some of us cats used it too. Let me say this about pomade in case you're too young to know what tomade is. You may have seen the Final Net hairspray ad on TV, and they've got the gal with the hairspray and she goes through a real rough day and at the end of the day, she's pooped but her hair's still in place. That tickles fine on that to death that that hair stayed together. Parmaid hold your hair for three months. You know, I say if a train hits you and if they found your head, your hair would be in place, right? I say all that to say this. I made my way down there in front of Manzo Henry with the rest of those cats, and you know what all this means or what I'm leading up to. The drug of choice or the drug that was available then was beverage alcohol. And I began to drink simply because the need to be like these people, to be included with these people was greater than my fear of the drug alcohol. And that took a lot because I was really afraid of alcohol. I really had a contempt for alcohol, but the need to be included in this bunch was more important. A stronger pull, if you will, and so I began to drink. And this is my social drinking period. I'm kind of proud of this. It didn't last long, so you have to listen. But I drank, and I don't remember what it was. It might have lasted two months. It might've lasted three or four months. It was that period that I took a little swallow of this or half a can of that until I reached that night when I was 15 and a half years old that I got enough in me to feel it. I'd never felt it before. And it did something for me that I wouldn't attempt to describe to any other group of people. And I've had the privilege of talking to groups of professional people and the Rotary Club and all those things that some of us end up talking to, I never attempt to describe. You know, about half of you or a little over half of me know exactly what I'm talking about. It did for me something that... It was like something had been missing. There was a hole there that this filled up and I've heard you describe it in much the same way. And it just... I just assumed it did this for everybody. I assumed for everybody it put the world out where it belonged. It made them a part of. It made then enough. I was tough enough and smart enough and good looking enough and included enough. I was just enough when I was on this stuff. And that's what I thought it did for other people. I sense who learned better. Only about one in ten of us apparently get this at some point in our drinking, this wonderful reward. And so I became preoccupied with drinking, with alcohol, right then. Didn't know it. I would bet if we used our description, our definition of alcoholism out of our book of experience, the big book, And we believe that alcoholism is that physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession, a mental compulsion. Then I was half an alcoholic from the very first. I was down at the old downtown cemetery there in Greensboro where we'd sneak down and do all sorts of things. And we were sitting down there drinking old Mr. Mack wine, and I felt it. And the moment I felt It, I was Half an Alcoholic. The mental obsession was there that night. And I didn't realize it. I know now, looking back on it, that I set about to drink at every opportunity. And when I wasn't drinking, I was looking forward to drinking. I made sure that I went where drinking was going to be going on, and I made surer I associated with only those people who drank. Half an alcoholic. The physical allergy wasn't there in the beginning. It didn't take long. My whole drinking career was not a long career because I hit the ground running. I didn't have that period like some of you have. You know, where I drank okay for 15 years or whatever and then I crossed the invisible line. I was standing on that invisible line when I was at that old cemetery and felt it for the first time. And life went on. Now, there was that nagging fear and guilt that was there. I shouldn't be doing this. This is bad. It's not only evil, and I've learned that religiously, but it's also something that's going to get me like my father. It's something that may turn on me like my father, but I would rationalize and say, I'm not going to do this forever. I'm just having a good time. And when I'm older and when I set out to be a man, I am not going to drink. Or I am going to drink like those people I am learning about that don't drink and have trouble. I am going to have that mixed drink and have the Great Dane dog at the fireplace or whatever I thought, you know, grown people that succeeded in drink. But I would put that day forward and life went on. And I'm going to try not to bore you with a long drunk-along because I don't have a long drink-alog, but life went On. And it was still doing great things for me. You know, what it does for us is what gets us in trouble with it and what it Does to us is What Gets Us Here, Hopefully. And then it was doing a lot for me The scale seemed to be tipped way in favor of the reward and not the price. I'm doing right much vomiting and stuff until I got it right. There were those things, and I had some embarrassment, and I was doing very little to me. And I had a lot of trouble with authority. Situations and circumstances that I wish hadn't happened. But basically it was doing so much for me and very little for me. and later when it seemed to be demanding its price, when it seem to turn on me, I just almost missed it. Now the blackouts or that amnesia I had right from the beginning. I didn't know that I was having amnesias or blackouts in the beginning, I just thought people would mix me up with somebody else. I don't know if you had that. I'd get a report on something and something I'd done or something, I hadn't been there. amazing things but they'd always have a witness you know I would say no it wasn't me and they'd say well come here Joe and tell Crawford here that it was and I would hear this thing and I'd say well I did I was there and I did that and I forgot it but see I didn't know that that was peculiar to alcoholics I didn' t know that this blackout thing was something that we get and normal drinkers don't get I just wanted to think that all drinkers when they drink too much forget. I started at one of the things that was sort of subtle or seemed to be, I started being less and less able to predict the amount I was going to drink. I would set out to drink a little, and I wouldn't drink a lot. I'd drink a lot. And by then, I'm married. You know, we always do that, don't we? Always. That's how it becomes a family disease. You know, very few of us will go off and be an alcoholic on our own. We've got to take some hostages in there and screw up everybody. I had gone through a very little bit of college, and I know now how much my drinking or the alcoholism interfered with any kind of education I might have gotten, but I went into the military. It was something you better do in my time or you couldn't get a job, and I joined the Army. And they made me, just so you'll know you're hearing from a professional tonight, I'll just say this to impress you, They made me a neuropsychiatric technician. I see a look of awe on a lot of faces. Most of you can't even spell neuropsychietric technician. And I was one. Now what that is, that's a keeper in a nut house is what that was. And by then, I'm rocking along with a lot of... I mean, my alcoholism is going full course. Now, to give you an idea of what a neuropsychiatric technician is in order so you can picture it, if you'd walk on one of these wards, let's say, at the old Valley Forge General Hospital up there in Phoenixville, and now you just walked in cold, you didn't know anything, The nuts were in blue pajamas. And we were in white clothes and we carried keys. So if you'd wonder who to back up against the wall with, we were into white. And they taught me... I remember I went through a training course and they taught just enough psychology to worry about it. I don't know if you've ever had that kind of... When I hear about things like schizophrenia and I'm no secret of mine, God, I feel that way, you know? but you can't let you know what you can' t let them know and that's a big secret to know and I'm just as crazy as these nuts and I stand there on that ward about to go have these panic attacks and some of you know what that is I say it'd be a shame to flip out and then switch my suit you know and it embarrassed me in front of the other people. But that night when I would leave the ward and go to the club, things would change. And this is where if I think of it and I just thought of it, I'd stop and give a quick little educational course on alcoholism. Some of you want to go to work. Some of them are already working in the field and making a living at it and some of you aspire to do that. So I'd start and give them a quick bachelor's degree because they've done a lot of research on us. They have gotten rats drunk for years and studied us and this kind of thing. And I always thought it was interesting. All those billions of dollars they spent on... And they should. I mean, we have a disease, so it should be researched. I always though it was interested that with all that money they researched on us, they never spent a dime researching them non-alcoholics, you know? So, I've taken it upon myself that there's no government grant coming down for the study of non-alcoholism. And it's been fairly simple because I'm married to one of the worst cases of non alcoholism you've ever seen in your life. I mean, this is, I mean the latter stage non-alcoholism. You know what I mean? And ASK has, she'll drink a little now. You know, we'll go out to a restaurant maybe two or three times a year. She'll have a half a glass of white wine or something. And over the years, and we've known each other for 100 years, we've been married 29 years, over the year she's probably drunk enough to feel it. Four times. Maybe. And you know what she does, and this is going to disgust the newcomers, so brace yourself for this one. You know what her does when she starts to feel it? She stops. That demands research. So I've looked into it. You know what she says, and I ask her, and I've analyzed this thing, and basically what she say is the bottom line is she quits because she doesn't like that feeling. You know why she thinks when she starts getting that feeling, you know how you get the pilot lit? You know when you get that, you know what I'm talking about? When she gets her pilot lit, if she even has one, she feels like she's losing control. when I would leave that nut board and go up to the club after thinking I'm going to fly apart all day and they're going to learn my secret I would start ingesting that stuff and for the first time that day I would be in control you know I'm satisfied all kidding aside I'm satisified that that's all the difference I need to know between me and them is the same stuff that makes them feel that they're losing control was the only thing that gave me any semblance of control and even when it was clear it was doing these things to me at times and later on it got at times clear I still had to have that control it seemed to give me because the only thing I had so I would I was losing control of my drinking now I didn't know that I didn' t know that I was losing control I just think I'd screw up now and then yeah we are I just didn't mean to do that I didn''t mean to stay out all night I didn'T mean to drink that much I didn ''t just mean to start drinking liquor or I wanted to just drink beer. It could happen to anybody, you know, this kind of thing. Another thing, and I think this is real similar with all of us, or at least if I understand the stories you've been telling me over the years, I started losing control of my behavior too. I could not predict my behavior. I might be funny in the life of the party, which I wanted it to be, but more and more often I was becoming hostile and mean. and I was doing and saying things that I didn't want to do and say. And there's the shame and the remorse, the guilt set in because of this. And it became evident to me at times that something's wrong with my drinking and that would become evident to those around me real a lot sooner that there's something wrong with mine. Something's wrong in my drinking. And I began to get the fingers pointed or at least that's the way it seemed why do you drink so much don't drink so much when we go tonight don't drink so much why don't you drink like so and so this kind of and I would resent that and I would defend and all that kind of stuff and they were attacking me and everything but secretly I would say well I'm going to do that I'm going to correct it I'm going to be better I'm not going to let that happen again by golly I'm not going to do that again I'm Then I started getting those hangovers along in there sometimes. I thought I'd been having hangovers. But what I'd meant to have wasn't a hangover at all. There was a whole new thing waiting out there for me. And you know, some of you know what I'm talking about. Oh, real hangovers, the hangovers that make you look back fondly on what you used to call hangover. It's like I'm non-alcoholic hangovers today. You know, if you've got anybody you work with or anybody in the neighborhood, the family, and they go out on New Year's Eve, whatever those people drink. And they really tie one on. They have their six-and-a-half drinks or whatever they have. And they brag about them hangovers. Boy, I was telling you, I woke up New Year morning and I was just dying. My head was throbbing. My tongue felt like a foot. I could barely eat my waffles. That's a serious hangover to those guys. But I'm talking about those real deals, you know, where you come to and you don't wake up and every fiber of your being is screaming for more of this stuff whether you know it or not. And the only person in the world was me. And the fear and terror is indescribable. And I got in the morning drink and I discovered the morning drank. That's the term. I discovered that I discovered The Morning Drink. Thank God, by the way, I discovered the morning drink. I've heard a lot of stories from podiums like this and heard, you know, I lost 15 families, a lot OF sad stories, but the saddest thing, the thing that really gets my gut is those of y'all that never discovered the morning drink, I want to grab you and hug you after you talk, I tell you. I couldn't have stood that. Now, of course, the morning drinking turned into the, and I'm going to try to hurry through this thing a little bit, and it became bender drinking. I'm not talking about somebody in his 40s or even his 30s. I'm talking about someone in his 20s. And since Greg, who was with me in Texas a few years ago, who heard me talk at a conference last night, he said he was nice enough to ask me to tell one of these stories. I'm going to tell it because this sort of goes along with this part of my drinking, this period of my drink. I was looking for ways like we always do just like we were heard out of chapter 3 I was looked for ways to have it what it's doing for me without paying that price of what it was doing to me I had to have what it did for me but what it had done to me was becoming bigger and greater and more severe and I was look at all kinds of ways and every once in a while I would discover ways to drink and not get in trouble I don't know if you know that feeling It's the most wonderful feeling in the world. You know, it's like discovering beer, you know, and that you can't be an alcoholic on beer and this kind of thing. Well, I was about 24 or 25, a young fellow, married with a couple of children, and I'm looking through Esquire magazine. And they have all the nice ads in there. And I opened up EsquIRE to a double-page ad, and they didn't even have a pretty girl or the guy with the graying temples or anything. There was no people in there, it was just a glass with a green liquid in there crushed ice beautiful little Google of sweat going down the glass you know how that is and it said mint julep and it was advertised and I don't know what it was advertising one of these sour mash bourbons or was advertising the brand the cream de menthe I don' t know but I was so impressed and he even got a little recipe over there you took a jigger of the cream the mint and a a jigger of this sour mash bourbon, and you did that, and you had your mint julep. I was talking at some deal a few years back, and some lady said this was a bad recipe for mint jules, but by God, it was the recipe in Esquire that day. So I just couldn't wait. It was a Friday. And when I left the office, I stopped by the liquor store, and I didn't get the Rebel Yell or the Wild Turkey or whatever it was. I got me a pint of George Stagg, old Staggg, which is a little bit cheaper, and a pint of creamed mint and headed home with my brown sack to do some dignified drinking. Now, by then I'm getting a lot of trouble with drinking and when I walked in with that familiar looking sack, Kay gave me that look. She hadn't seen the ad and she thought I was going to get drunk. And I said, no, we're going to have, I said, including her, we're going to have mint juleps. I said I've been getting drunk Friday nights and all weekends. But I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to sit and drink some mint jules. We lived in an apartment complex. It was a warm summer evening. And the other couples, young couples, some of them were sitting out back. And I remember there was a couple of gals there. And I hollered out the screen door, would you gals like to have a mint jula? Well, they were delighted. I said I'll mix you one and Kay wouldn't know how to have any part of it didn't have an ice crusher but I rapped with a dish towel around the ice and beat it with a hammer if you ever done it and beat up some ice and made three mint juleps and I walked out and joined these gals and we shipped our mint jules and I remember the feeling that I'm drinking okay now in fact I kind of hated the taste of that creamed mint And I kind of felt like if you were drinking something you didn't like, it was kind of nicer. And so I drank, I can remember, I drank mine faster than they drank theirs. And I went back for it. And as a matter of fact, I remember how their crushed ice kind of lumped up to one lump. It just stayed in there for long, melting in there. And I may have had two or three before they were able to get theirs down. I offered them another one. No, they didn't want any more. But I continued to have mint jellies. And I felt good about it. And I can remember, along about the sixth one, I beat holes in that towel. And Katie won't be beating up any more towels. So I said, you know, in the ad it was crushed ice, but you know the cubes chill it just as well. Put the cubes in there and swirl that stuff and sipped on it. about 10.30 I ran out of ice but you know when I discovered you could just put a jigger of each warm it was fine sort of a mid-jewel totty it's a good thing lost the glass about 11.30 you know my glasses will roll under things you know what you can do you can take a slug of the bourbon and chase it with the cream in it and it mixes just as good K-Far's gonna get drunk but Keith stayed green for about a day and a half so you know I like the all of us have untold number of stories like this the craziness that crazy way that I'm going to do it different this time and life was bad and life wasn't funny and life was sick and my family was becoming sickened by this disease like my family of origin had become sicken by this disease and we were all doing crazy things I'd gone away I was working in some crooked company because I had gotten my employment my resume was getting a little weaker and I was working with this crooked company I was up in St. Louis and I stayed drunk up there for two weeks and I came back and I was in trouble and I knew it and I came back and I just knew I needed to do something and I needed to make some grandstand move I needed to make some promise to her to get the heat off do something say something and she left the house for some reason and I called Alcoholics Anonymous And this was in the middle of the summer of 1966. And by then, you know, I'm standing... I'd always drink down to my underwear. You know, and I would get that morning to night around-the-clock type drinking. Bender drinking. And I was in that underwear that I was always in. There was two things that I didn't do while drinking. Two things that will ruin a buzz. And most of you know it. Booze. I mean, baths. and food. And I didn't take any baths, and I didn' t eat any food. And of course, you know, you can imagine what my breath was like from the no food, and you can image how gamey the rest of me was from the not bath. And my wife, Aunt Pearl, as a joke, would make this funny, crazy underwear. She'd give all the men in the family... It was a joke. Hearts in the rear. Some obscene stuff I won't even share with you, but laced around them. Just kind of a joke with no joke with me. I was not investing a lot in underwear, so this is all the underwear I had, which is an accumulation of Aunt Pearl's shorts that she'd made over the years for Christmas. And if I pictured myself, it would be in Aunt Pearls' drawers with a crotch down at my knees, and a t-shirt I hadn't changed, a little vomit down the front. And this day, in that condition, I called Alcoholics Anonymous. and a fellow by the name of Bill Lynn who was and is an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous he called me back I connected with the answering service here in Greensboro and he called my back and we talked and I was tapering off you know about tapering off yeah some of you know tapering off my daddy used to taper off I later got real proficient at tapering off and I would drink and then I knew I just couldn't quit abruptly so I would taper off you know what I'm saying y'all know what i'm saying but Kay didn't know what I was saying she would confuse tapering off with drinking I don't know if you know anybody you know the difference see she just didn't have that kind of mind where she could understand that you know she'd say you said you were going to quit drinking yesterday and I'd say I did quit drinking today today I'm tapering off. It's a whole, I'm just giving myself a beer every hour. Of course, a couple of times I did have a dosage problem there and I'd get plum drunk tapering off. I don't know if that ever happened to you. And of course, nothing to do but start over. So I might pull a three-day drunk and then taper off for two more weeks. And I wasn't getting to work every day under these conditions and things were bad. And so I called Ed. And Bill and I talked, and he could tell I was tapering off. And he was about as narrow-minded as Kay would about tapering off, but he didn't want to rush to my aid. We made an agreement that I was going to be back in touch with him. Now we were getting ready to leave town. Kay, you know how wives and husbands and family of alcoholics plan all the trips and everything like things are normally. She had planned, God love her the beach trip we were going to go down the next day and spend a week and he said when you're down there at Long Beach call AA it's down there and when you come back call me and here's my name and here is my number and I wrote it down and when Kay came back to the house I had it a name and a number from somebody at the ANA to show her before she could open her mouth I said I have called the ANO Here's the man's name, here's the man's number. Hush! Now he and I agree I'm not ready yet but he said He said, should I be? He wanted me to call. I said, hold on to this. Now if you drink like I drank and you hand your wife or anybody a number and a name that somebody might help you. You don't need to tell them the old owner of this. She'd have let the young ones go first. That name and number was going to stay there. And, of course, I did not call him back. But at one of those times in our home, and I don't mean to tell you what that's like, one of Those desperate times, one of those painful times she called and this was maybe four or five maybe even six months after I'd made that original call and she called and she got him on the phone and she explained who she was and I had talked with him some months earlier and he listened with empathy and he listened as we do but he did the big thing, the important thing when that other, that family member called, he said hold the phone And he went and got Liv, his wife, who was big in Al-Anon. And she got on the phone and told Kay about Al-A-Non. The game changed. I'm going to tell you. If you're drinking and your spouse gets in Al Anon, it probably won't cure your drinking. It's not designed for that. But it'll break your rhythm, I'll guarantee you that. things change she began to change now what she began to do is begin to recover from alcoholism she began to be free of my disease that's all it was that's the you know if somebody somebody in that mess gets into recovery things are going to be better things are going to change and God love her she did Al-Anon has as much more to do with my finding this program than anything else because although I could not appreciate what was going on I was watching somebody get well right before my eyes I was watchin' alcoholism lose its grip on someone even though that's not I didn't understand scene. On June 2nd of 1967, I'm sitting there coming off another one of these grunts. It's not even a particularly exotic one. I'd been in a hell of a lot more trouble on others. Maybe even sicker on some others. I don't remember, but I was just there again and the only person in the world that's full of that terror and full of pain. And I turned to her and I said, let's call that man again. And she had learned enough in Al-Anon that she wasn't supposed to do it for me but she also knew when I was coming off I was drunk that's back when the telephone had them holes in it you know didn't have the button and she knew I couldn't run her around seven times like that so she did dial and got him on the phone he handed me the she handed me a phone and I can remember what he said so he knew about me he knew about the disease anyway but he had kept up with me through Kay and Lib he said are you about ready to throw in the towel now and I said yes I am I think I I was telling him the truth as much as I knew the truth. And he said, I'll see you in the morning. This was a fairly late hour. And he came to that house. I'm a homeowner. That's part of my denial. I'm our homeowner Now, the mortgage company was working real hard to change that. We were about two weeks from the courthouse steps, if you're ever one of those houses. He came into that almost foreclosed upon house and sat in that little old living room. did what we do and he did it beautifully but the main thing you did if you made that deal we always I hope we're still trying to make that deal I know a lot of us are rushing out now since they got blue cross so we can throw them down in treatment but the first first thing I think we ought to do is try to talk to him about alcoholics anonymous and that's what he did and he wanted to be the example that he was proof that any any was and and I couldn't deny that he He was a pretty clean cut and nice looking fella and things seemed to be going well for him and I was convinced of that and he made that deal that I hope we always try to make. Number one, that I would not drink that day and this was a Saturday morning and that I Would go to Alcoholics Anonymous with him that night. Isn't that what we try to do? And I agreed. I'd agreed to anything. I was about ready for him to leave. Do you remember when they came to see you? You know, you just talk and talk and talking. That's what it seems like and it's just time for them to go. but my attention span was short. And so, you know, if he just said, well, we have to take your ear as a deposit, I said, fine, cut off the ear. You see, I was too sick to go to a meeting that night. I wanted to go. I was going to go next week. I was two dollars on sick. But I kind of had a feeling he didn't want to argue about that, so I would just send him, and we could explain to him later. But see, Kay heard that deal. She had her ear pressed to the door, so we had to go. So I got in the old Mercury that Wachovia Bank was trying to take back from me and we went over to the StarMap group on June 3rd of 1967. It was a speaker meeting. Most meetings were in Greensboro at that time. Of all the meetings in town, only two were discussion meetings or what we call closed meetings. The rest were speaker meetings. and I went into a meeting in the Starnout Presbyterian Church that I want to tell you just a little bit about and I hope I never get a podium between my hands that I don't talk about this meeting. You know, I think everybody has his or her first meeting. It may not be the very first one you go to but the first one that lights your fire it may be the 50th. For me, I think through this moment that my first meeting was my first meet. I walked in and I remember old Homer Key was chairing the meeting and he was greeting people at the team meeting and I walked into this small meeting 18, 19 no more than 20 people and I walk into this real nice room and the people got up and did what we do like they did tonight and read that stuff and an old boy got up to some applause and told the story that I'm telling tonight and the story that I've heard 5,000 times in between the story we tell and two big miracles occurred in my life that night and I couldn't appreciate him in present time but I know in retrospect two big deals happened in their life now how had been sober one day remember what that's work. Anything I was hearing, I didn't need to be tested on. But number one, I understood this old boy's message. What he was telling me and those 18 or 19 other people was that he had drunk alcohol hopelessly, that he'd come here to this thing, and he wasn't drinking, and life was good. Now, I remember how long that was. I just remember that was the message. and number two a bigger miracle was that I believed every word he said and I hadn't believed anybody or anything in so long I couldn't tell you I didn't even believe in God I certainly didn't believe in do-gooders or self-help programs or any of this stuff but I believed every word this rank stranger said to me he had no reason to have any credibility with me now psychologists could have a big time with that I guess most of us in here call that the grace of God I was hooked on alcoholics and novice without knowing it in much the same way I was hooked on alcohol without knowing now I didn't have a whole lot of other places to go now I deal with a lot of people now that have to schedule in alcoholics and novices I didn' t have to explain down at the country club what I was going to be doing this was not my problem I did not have a job I did not have a society now the first thing that hooks us is the fellowship that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is first didn't it you know when we read the preamble AlcoholicsAnonymous is a fellowship if they'd have said if you had said and they were going to mail you some steps in a book and you work those things you'll be fine and I couldn't have made it I had to get hooked on you all and you hooked me after we finished that thing And I didn't pick up one of his starter chips. I didn' t want to play it cagey. I didn''t want to pledge anything that night. But we made our way from that room over to what they call the Fellowship Hall of the Church and they had cake out there and they all had coffee. And they were standing there. I hadn' t had coffee in a long time. Coffee made me nervous. That's what I tell people. They often say, no, nothing like coffee makes me nervous and it did. You know, sometimes just getting around it. And I didn't like sweets. You ever notice when you talk to a girl, I don't like treats, never have this kind of thing. So I didn' t eat cake and I didn''t drink coffee. But all of them did, you know. They all had them a cup of coffee, big old cup and a hunk of cake that looked like it was about a quarter of a pound of cake. And they'd come up and say something and they'd spit them crumbs out there. I mean, you could tell they were enjoying it. Swap some coffee in there behind him. And that was my first day of mission. I wasn't even getting one of those big cars I saw in the parking lot. I wanted to eat me some cake and drink some coffee like that. Doesn't take long. Don't drink for about a week or ten days. I had me a new coat and I was spitting cake crumbs on him. Tell him don't and keep coming back. The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, the society, the men that surrounded me in this program. You know, one of the old sayings that we hear and we still hear, and it's a good one, pick the winners. The winners picked me, I guess. I don't know if I could have determined who was a winner or loser right there from the start. I think it doesn't take long to make that determination. But these guys much my senior. I was 29 years old. And these men were at least in their mid-40s and some almost as old as I am now. And they took me up and down the road with them. They were committed to surviving, committed to this program. And these women had what I wanted. These men had that thing that, sure, they had nice cars, they had jobs, and they had suits and pants that matched and all that business. But they had that look that we try to describe. That look of peace. You know, it didn't take long and it doesn't take any of us long to separate who the winners and who the losers are. You can be around here for a couple of weeks and no old-timer has to get you off the corner and say, that guy vomiting over there is a loser and that guy over there sponsoring a half a dozen people is a winner. You know that. You can compute that. And I wanted to have what these winners had. I want to interview them, you know, and I would corner them, and maybe that's good. And I wanted somehow, in fact, Greg and I were talking today in my room, not Craig, but Greg, and we were talking about a mutual friend, and he's never made the program, not really, and he was the type that wanted me or someone else to do the program for him. You ever run into that kind? They wanted me to go to the meetings or want you to go the meetings and work the steps and then they'd come talk to you and let you osmosis it to them. And I wanted that kind of thing. And I discovered that thing I hope we all discover. All winners do the same thing. There's no secret. I knew they were going to tell me something, you know. After six months, called me on the other side and said, Crawford, you know, we work these steps and we go to the meetings, but when there's a full moon we take a dead cat and bury it in the backyard, you know? I mean, it was some mystery they weren't sharing with all, just everybody that came strolling in the door. Well, that didn't happen. And then I discovered that thing that all winners are doing the same thing. You look around. Take the people that, if you're new, take the people that have that thing you want to have. Take the People that you admire. Use as example those people that you'd like to be in their shoes. And even though you think and I thought well they just got it made if they had my troubles you know they wouldn't be feeling that good and walking around grinning all the time even though you think that just take all these people and make a list of what they're doing and I bet you're going to find out what I found out all winners go to a lot of meetings and they're active in the meetings you know they're not just there they're spectating they're there as part of it they're members you know they're chairing the group and they enter the Astros and they've taken an active part all winners talk about this book that we call the big book and even sort of know what it says I don't mean big book quoters but sort of have a gist of what's in there and all winners express the spiritual feature freely we talk about God and the spirituality of this program and all winners I think work the essence of this program which I believe is the 12 step spiritual part of the program in one way or another and most winners will carry this message to a still suffering drunk under any reasonable circumstance at any time because I discovered what really what Alcoholics Anonymous was all about after going through a lot of agony and pinning down some of you old timers that I thought really had it and interviewing you and trying to learn the secrets and following you around and tryingto hear what you're saying see if I couldn't sit in your chair and get some of that stuff to rub off of me and all those things I had a sponsor then I've now moved from that town to have a new sponsor but in the first 15 years of my sobriety I had one sponsor old Rupert, called him Granddad. And Ruperts was a 12-stepping drunk. And he would carry this message to some of the god-awfulest places you've ever seen in your life. And we made a lot of mistakes doing that 12th. I know now looking back on it. I remember one guy, we kept drunk for about three days trying to paper him off. I remember those days. There weren't so many places you could dump them, detox places. and we kept old Sam. It about killed me and old Homer. Rupert had us over to pull his shifts with old Sam and Sam looked like a million dollars singing Rock of Ages on his front porch. And I came over to shift change with Homer and both of us had dark circles under our eyes and we'd been up with Sam for about three or four days and I said, Homer, let's go home. I won't tell Ruperty if you won't and we'll let Sam do his thing. We went home and Sam got sober. we kept doling it we quit doling out that literature but old Rupert would call me and he didn't ask what I thought the person might be motivated or anything he would just call me and say I'm going to come pick you up and we're going to go and it might be the Greenwich Hotel or something one of those rotten places where nobody ever wanted to get sober but then we'd go if the call came in through answering service and I don't know how many calls I made with him and how many people I would sit over at his house he'd bring them to his house and we'd sit out in his backyard or in his kitchen and talk to that drunk guy maybe all night long about this program. And I'm sitting somewhere at some time with somebody who's hurting worse than me. And a strange and new but beautiful feeling overcame me. I didn't know what it was and it didn't last long and I couldn't really identify it until sometime later until I got away from the situation. And I looked back on it and I realized for the first time in my life for a couple of seconds, I cared more about someone else than I did me. Just for a little piece of time. And it's the best feeling I've ever had. Now, I'm not talking about since drinking. I'm talking about in my whole life I had never cared more about you than I didn't me for any period of time and that's when I discovered what y'all have been trying to tell me all along that my problem is self, self-centeredness, selfishness. It's not the kind of booze I drink. It's not the kind of genes I got from my alcoholic daddy. It's none of these things. My problem is self. And this whole recipe for living implied in these 12 steps is the business that's eliminating me. Getting rid of self. Now I can have that feeling anytime I want it, anytime I need it. All I've got to do is reach out. All I'VE GOT TO DO IS BE RESPONSIBLE. All I GOT TO Do Is UNDERSTAND WHAT THE 12TH STEP MEANS. And I CAN BE FREE OF NEEDS. The formula is simple for me. The emptier I am of me, the fuller I am of God. If I come to a big deal conference like this, I've got to realize this is a big thing. This is a good deal, but I ain't a big deal. And if I start thinking it's up to me that this Saturday night banquet goes well, then that's back in the cell. And I'm going to kill myself once again with that. That's the cancer that's going to eat me up if I allow it, if I get away from this regimen that you've taught me. So many good things have happened to me in Alcoholics Anonymous. I raised my children in Alcoholic Anonymous and I was talking... In Al-Anon we raised our children in the program and I can't remember who but I was telling my children and I told them that somebody earlier here that had small children and they were talking about small children and I said, yeah, but watch out they're going to turn into teenagers. You know, they do. And until somebody comes there was a way to freeze them or something and then thaw them out later. So I don't get into advice, but I'll give you just a little bit of advice. If you've got children that are heading into the teens and you don't like this program, find yourself some program because you need something. But we did that and we survived that. I can remember our 18-year-old daughter when she was 18 had to be kicked out of our house. And that was the toughest thing we ever had to do. Ever had to do. And I won't go into all the details about that, I'll just say now at age 26 she and Kay are each other's best friends. They talk to each other every day on the phone, Kelly's in Greensburg and we're in Charlotte and have been for quite a few years the closeness to love is beyond our loudest imaginings and we were able to make the decision and tough decision of asking her to leave the house or making her leave the House because of this program and the reunion the recovery from that was simply because of his work many tough days I've been fired since I've been sober. You know, I thought I'd never be... I'd been fired drunk. Lord, that was no big deal. Sometimes I'd be fired not knowing. I just hadn't dropped back by, you know. So that's no big deal. Thank God I got fired sober. I'd been sober two years and three quarters. Doing a beautiful job in AA too. I like to say, sort of an AA poster child at that time you know the kind I was chairing a lot of meetings and making talks and sort of sort of pillar discussion groups in the county had had no more to say and I was really active made coffee and they fired me the company fired me didn't ask me how many meetings I was going to or anything about how big my talk was he fired me because I wasn't doing anything And part of the thing was to take my car, because the car was part of the job. It's kind of like being in jail. I had one phone call and I called my wife to come pick me up. Because they're fired. Good AA like me. I walked out there on the corner of the lot. This is the Ego. The corner of a lot. It was about 11 o'clock in the morning. I was waiting for Kay to come pick me up. And it occurred to me that people driving by would probably suspect I was fired. This is the kind of ego I had. I swear. So I started looking employed. Checked my watch, you know, looked busy and just kind of stood up straight. I'd just been fired. I had a mortgage and two young'uns. My biggest worry is some guy will drive by and punch his wife So I bet that one's fired. So I got in the car and whined and everything. The important thing about that incident was that I hated that job. I should have quit a long time ago. They should have fired me a longtime ago. And that thing opened, I don't mean the next afternoon or the next week, but over the years, that opened up for me job life, employment life, things beyond my wildest dreams. And a lot of the so-called losses that we experience, the so called tragedies, the so call pain are just those things. Those things that force me to drop something that's killing me anyway. To be rid of some yoke or some burden anyway and only when it's so painful to hold on will I drop it. To clear the way for beautiful and wonderful things. Everything that's good in my life and thanks to you that's much. Everything of value, everything worth showing you. is a direct result of this program. There's nothing else. There are no other tricks up my sleeve or anyone else's that I know. This fellowship that I described, the recipe for living, the therapy implied in those 12 steps, and that's what it is. Dr. Silkworth calls it a moral psychology. The God I found here. If you're bad, I thank you.