The Disease That Progressed Even in Sobriety – Gene D.

My name is Gene and I too am an alcoholic, and in identifying myself as an alcoholic I base that identification on how I interpret the definition of the word alcoholic as defined in the third chapter of the book Alcoholics Anonymous a book written by alcoholics for alcoholics and in that chapter they said that we alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking and that's really all they said they didn't make any reference to how much we drank, what we drank where we drank what happened as a result of our drinking didn't say in order to be an alcoholic you have to drink wine live on skid row, go to jails and institutions, marry the same woman three or four times. Those things in most cases happen to a lot of people who drink, period. I'm certainly glad to be down here. I enjoy coming down here almost on a yearly basis. I live in Northern California up in the wine country. But, yeah, where I live they call winos connoisseurs. But I know one thing, and I've been saying it for about 25 years coming down here. If I lived in Los Angeles, the Pacific Group would be my home group. I love this place down here, and I love the people who represent this group. And you're certainly a credit to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's always a refreshing feeling to know that AA is alive when you come down through here. I was trying to think of something intelligent to share with you this evening. and I didn't come up with anything which won't be unique to you. Many of you know that I have problems with education and I don't have the swiftest mind there is. I'm born and raised in the Lower East Side of New York City. Oh, thank you. Who said boo? That was polite. And as a matter of fact talking about education and talking about school. When I was driving down to the airport this morning, I had to go through one of our more affluent counties up there in the Bay Area. Marin County landed the peacock feathers and hot tubs, quiche, stuff like that. Quiche, it looks like cold pizza every time I see it. It looks like old pizza. But I'm a stonemason by trade or was a stonomation by trade. I've been retired from that for a few years. But I still have an active interest in construction projects, and whenever I drive past a large construction project, sometimes they get a little nosy, and I drive in and check it out to make sure they're doing it right and things like that. And as I was going through Marin there, the building, obviously what's going to be a new high school, they have a huge sign out in front advertising the contractor's name, the architect and all of that, and the school board. And this may not sound too interesting to those ladies here, but maybe the guys will understand. Because it sort of gives me the crawls, you know. Here on this big sign, it says, Future Home of the Francis W. Pennington High School. And Jesus Christ. Can you imagine telling somebody you go to Francis W., Penning? The logo on their football helmets must be a canary, you know. The high school I went to didn't have a name. It had a number, you know, and if it had a name, it would have been something like Lucky Luciano Tech or Al Capone Prep. Driver's education in our school was how to leave the scene of an accident. I spent the first year, eight years of my elementary education in what New York State Board of Regents refers to as special education. Out here in Hollywood, you call it welcome back, Connor, because that's the kind of a situation I was in. And after eight years, depending upon which came first, dating the teacher or smoking, determined whether you graduated or not. And I forget what it was with me, but finally I got sent on into the high school, which was a very traumatic experience to me. But something was going to happen there that was going to be very important in my life later on because the day that, that first day, you know, that orientation day that you go to school and they outline the subjects that you're going to take for the coming year and they informed me that it was a requirement of all high school students in New York State at the academic level that you had to take a foreign language. Now, the reason that was strange to me is I had been getting F in English for eight years And I sort of figured that if I picked up on a foreign language That that may be where they were going to send me or something like that And my older brother Jack was along with me And I'm an old Irish Roman Catholic So, of course, as a small lad, I served on the altar of the church And when they gave me the choice of the languages I think it was something like French, German, Spanish I don't even know what the other one was But my brother said, you don't have a chance in any of them. He says, but you know the Latin of the mass, you know that you can feed here and a few things like that. He says maybe you should take Spanish. It's a little bit like Latin that might help you out a little bit. So as a freshman I took Spanish one. And as a sophomore I took Spanish one and as a junior I took Spanish one and I was still taking Spanish one when I was 16 years old in 1941 and I split from high school and I enlisted underage with a fake baptismal certificate in the United States Marine Corps. And I lost my virginity in a house of ill repute in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And I learned more Spanish that night than I did in the whole four years of high school. I don't really tell you that to be vulgar or try to be humorous or anything like that because it was a significant learning experience in my life because it instilled into me a belief, if not a strong belief at that time, but a belief in knowledge can come better from practical experience. And when that time came in my life as it came in yours, when I had to reach out or die, reach out for a program like this, I am convinced of this one thing that if Alcoholics Anonymous had been an educational process or I would have to come in here on a Monday morning and read chapter 5 and then on Friday afternoon answer true or false to 40 questions I couldn't have done that I'd be back in the penitentiary or if I had to come here on Tuesday and read Chapter 3 more about alcoholism and then write a 500 word written composition on the end of the month on what I read, I'd be back as an animal on Chicago's skid row for another year and a half. I don't believe I could have understood this program if it had been presented to me in a formal educational process. God, as I understand him, placed into my life men and women like you. Men and women like you whom he used as his instruments. And for the three men that he placed in my life, I owe my life because I believe I was extremely blessed in Alcoholics Anonymous, because even though I couldn't understand the words in that book, I tried to read them, and I'd do fine as long as they were only one or two syllables. But when they got into that tough stuff like pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization, I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. But the three men that worked with me walked me through the book Alcoholics Anonymous. They exemplified the words of Alcoholics Anonymous everything that was in that book they walked and i don't say what i'm about to say to hurt anybody in this room i'm just telling you how it was with me then and sometimes i wonder if we're losing this because you see often i hear people saying nowadays that they want the newcomer they'll approach a newcomer and say i want you to go to 60 meetings in 60 days or i want you to do 90 meetings in 90 days or I want you you to go to 30 meetings. The men that worked with me never said that, never said that. They said we are gonna go to 60 meetings in 60 days. I think the deadliest thing you can do to a newcomer is to send them to a meeting by himself. How the hell is he gonna know if he hears right or wrong? We've got nobody there to guide him. So you just can't say go on off and go to 90 meetings in 90 days then call me up every night let me know you went. What the hell does that mean? You know, he might just as well go on outside and eat a pizza pie, as far as I'm concerned. But those were the kind of guys that worked with me. And thank God for them. But you know, how we got here is just another story of drinking and whining and dining and all that stuff. And I guess only on an individual basis should we be concerned about how we get drunk and what we did. I was having lunch the other day, as I do just about every week. They went back home, and I live in what they call the Napa Valley. And I have lunch every weekday at an Italian restaurant in a little town called St. Helena. And we've been eating in this restaurant for about 25 years, the same 12 guys, with the exception of maybe one or two of them. And then replaced. And I'm the only guy at this table. It's a table of 12. We sit around the round table. Looks like 12 little old ladies, you know. We get upset if somebody sits in our chair and that kind of crap, or if the window's not open. And all of the men that I enjoy this hour of camaraderie with, hour and a half, whatever it is, every day at a lot of fellowship, are all active in the wine industry. They're all big names in the vine industry, you know, martinis and mandavis and people like that. It's just a good hour and an half of socializing, you known. And I'm the only one, as I say, who don't drink And they all bring their own estate wines And they're different blends And they try them out on each other And they tell jokes and we laugh And just have a lot of fun And normally, maybe one or two times during the week They'll have a visitor with them From some foreign country You know, France, Germany, Spain or someplace And they invite him to come and sit down with us And they always reach to the table Right directly behind where I sit and they grab an extra chair and so I always wind up with the visitor sitting alongside of me which is fine, it doesn't bother me one bit until he notices you know, after about five minutes that my wine glass is turned upside down and that I'm not drinking and he asks that inevitable question that question that is asked to many of us in this room don't you drink? and I think up them little white lies in AA, you know, and I say things like, well, I'm going to the dentist this afternoon. He don't really like it. Or my mother-in-law's coming over or going to confession or some kind of crap like that. And that would be fine. That would be fine if they would leave it at that. But about 10 minutes later, when you got your mouth full of tortellini, they come up with, why? My mouth just watered when I said tortellino. My stomach should show you that I love to eat. Matter of fact, I gave up sex for food. I even put a mirror in my dining room ceiling, you know. And so when these guys say, why? You know what are you going to do? Are you going stand up and say, well, my name is Gene and I'm bound by moral obligations or what it was like, whatever, I'm not going to go through all that, you know. And really, for many years it was embarrassing to me because I've always wanted to tell people why I don't drink. I know why I Don't Drink. But I've never had the ability to convey my feelings or my meanings to people, you know, in an intelligent way, you knows, so that they would understand it. Down in my gut, I know every day why I make a decision early in the morning not to take a drink to the best of my ability today. I know why I do that, and it's not because I can't, and it'S not because l'm a member of AA because l drank plenty as a member of AA, and lt's not becausl l'm an alcoholic because l drank plenty of an alcoholic. I know now why l made a decision this morning at about 20 minutes after to five, not to take a drink, put a needle in my arm, chop a line or two, smoke a joint or whatever the hell my game would be for today. I made that decision this morning for this reason only. And now I can explain it because some years ago I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in any activity in a place called Stockton, California. Now come on, let's face it. Stockton is not the French Riviera, you know. Stockton is about as exciting as an empty paint can, you now. For excitement in Stockton, you go through the work clothes department of the J.C. Penney store, something like that. And I'm sitting over there on a Saturday afternoon waiting for this function to start that evening and I'm watching one of them Saturday afternoon classics on TV, you know, Shirley Temple makes it with Godzilla or some crap like that. And then all of a sudden the commercial came on, and you've all seen this commercial, the nationally award-winning commercial, and how ironic because it advertised a beer and it made such an impact on my sobriety that I actually researched it to find out that it was actually filmed in San Francisco Bay. And it was filmed up there on one of our October days and those of you who aren't familiar but October is the real summer, you know, in San Francisco Bay. And there all the sailing boats were out there, and the bay was just a shining piece of blue glass and all these little white butterflies, sailing boats going around. And they zoomed in on one of these sailing boats with the zoomar lens, you known. There was a bunch of young people running up and down the decks with cut-off blue jeans on and funny little hats and weird T-shirts and shimmying up the mast and diving off the yard arm and swinging on the lines, dropping into the bay. Just jackassin' around, havin' a big ol' time. And then the punchline came on. And it said, you only go around once. Grab all of the gusto you can. And I didn't know what the hell gusto meant. And I went out to the desk. It was a little mama-papa type motel. It had a little apartment in the back. I asked if they had a dictionary that I could borrow, and they did. And I looked up the word gusto and it said gusto, slang expression for living. You only go around once, grab all of the living you can. That's why I made that decision this morning. because I want all of the living I can get. I want to go every place there is to go. I wantto see everything there is to see. I wanto read every book that was ever written, hear every song that was never sung. Damn it, I want it all! And there's really nothing wrong with wanting it all as long as I have enough sense to know that I'm not gonna get it all. But I know this and you know this too. I can't get a hell of a lot more of it clean and sober than I'll ever get drinking and using, because I've already found that out. That's what makes me a lot better off than them so-called normal people out there yet, because they don't know that. I already know that I can get more clean and sober, and that's what I want. And life is an important thing. It's the most important thing that you or I or any other human being will ever experience. It''s the epitome. and there's some very cold, cold, cold facts about life that sometimes are worth recalling. Here's one that'll louse up a good night's sleep. The moment that life starts it begins the process of getting shorter. Each unit of time that goes by whether it be a minute, an hour, a day or a week, whatever unit of time you choose as it goes by that is a part of your life that is over done finished 30 out in a much colder vein each unit of time that goes by brings you that much closer to the end of your lives that's how precious these minutes and these hours are that's how precious they are and life isn't of course a VCR you know can't put that on rewind or fast forward or anything like that life's gonna go at its pace towards its inevitable end so this program as defined by our late co-founder Bill Wilson attracted me by his definition of it sometimes I think you know if Bill had said hey the program for people who can't drink, most of us wouldn't even be here tonight. Or if he said AA is a program for drunks, a lot of us never would have come. I know I wouldn't have. But boy, when he said Alcoholics Anonymous is a programme designed for people who seek a new way of life. Man, that was it. That was me. Like many of you I had been trying all my life. Jesus Christ! If I only had a chance to do it all over again with what I know now. Well, here you are, Charlie. Here you are. A chance to do it All Over Again and benefit with the knowledge that we have. And that's what I wanted, a new way of life. But it wasn't something I could pluck out of a tree, and it wasn' t something that came overnight. I had to discover things, I had to learn things. The book told me that. It said there's going to be a long period of reconstruction ahead. I had a hell of a mess to put back together again, and I assumed so did you. And it wasn't going to быть something that I could tidy up tonight and discard and forget all about. It was something that perhaps for me I would have to remember for the rest of my life, because remembering what I was is one of the strongest defenses that I have against the possibility of taking a drink today anytime i become insane enough to think that i might be able to drink again all i have to do is pause for a moment and reflect what it was like the last time that i thought those same thoughts the last kind that i saw things like that i was in the 70 cent flop house on west madison street in chicago illinois a long long way from disneyland i assure you of that And I'd been holed up in that place for about 11 days, they tell me. And whatever the hell was going on in there must have scared the living Jesus Christ out of me because I had kicked out the mirror behind the door. I pushed the bed up against the door and I convoked my own blood all over the goddamn place in fear. So obviously I must have saw something that just scared the hell out of you. A guy from AA, a guy by the name of Bob Lambrick is the guy that found me in that room. And he poured a half a pint of whatever the hell kind of booze it was, and he doesn't ever recall it. There's no need to remember. But he poured half a pine of that booze into me, not for any party or revelry, but in order to sustain my life just long enough for an ambulance to arrive and haul me off to the VA hospital out of Hines, Illinois. That was it. And any time that I'm crazy enough to think that I can drink again, I've got to remember I'm only a drink away from that 70-cent flophouse And that in all probabilities, whatever is worse than that is in store for me. Because I totally accept the fact that my disease, even in sobriety, has progressed. Has progressed. Now we spend a lot of time trying to find out why we drink, why we use dope and all of that stuff. Hell, I don't know. I'm not intelligent enough to know those things. But I've formed sort of an opinion, and I don'T think it's so unique, and I don't think we are so unique, you know. I think basically alcoholics and people like us drink for maybe two basic reasons. In the beginning we drink because we think that initiates fun. And then near the end of our drinking we drink just because we insanely believe this is going to get us well. I don'T think it's any immature behavior on my part or emotional immaturity or my grandmother smoked a pipe or that kind of crap, you KNOW. I drank because I liked booze And I wound up in A.A. because I was drinking I drank it too much The thing that brought me to A.E. was a quest for fun Quest for fun I was doing a shopping center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin And living in northern Illinois And my job kept me away from home during the week And on the weekends I'd get drunk like any other weekend Until going back to work on Monday mornings I'd pass through a little town called Beloit, Wisconsin And I had developed a habit And I call it a habit, not as a cop-out Because I had seen other construction guys doing this The older guys, the roofers and the older masons They seemed to... And we were working in the winter in cold weather You know, 30 degrees, 28 degrees And these guys used to put a double shot of brandy In their one-quart thermos jugs, you know And drink it during the day And nobody ever gave them hell for drinking on the job Nobody staggered around on scaffolding or anything like that And I was just a young pup So I just think, well, that's not a bad idea, too. And so I would stop in this saloon in Beloit, Wisconsin at about 7 a.m. as they opened up and I'd get a double shot of brandy thrown into my quart thermos jug. But I must have been a little alcoholic then because the alcoholics are never satisfied with the norm. Everybody else is getting two shots put into their thermos mug and going. I get two shots to put in my jug and have one while he's filling it up. So I'm having three. Now, that went on for a while. I don't really know how long. And then one morning, I hustled in there, and usually I was the only one in there that hour in the morning, but I walked in there this particular Monday morning, and there was two salesman-type guys in there and nice suits on and three ladies of the evening still dressed. It was obvious they were on a weekend party of some sort, you know, and raising hell. I just walked past them in my work clothes in my lunch bucket, and I got down to the other end of the bar, and I no sooner sat down than bang, a shot glass came up, and the bartender filled it up, and he said, Son, the guy in the blue suit up there. I turned, and I said, Thanks a lot. Put the glass down, bang, they filled it right back up again. He said, That's on the guy In the brown suit up There. Well, I'm no mathematical genius, but it didn't take a lot of thinking. I thought to know that these guys were in trouble. They had three women and two guys. They needed help. So it wasn't for any emotional immaturity, and it wasn'T for any psychological reason. It was no great obsession that took over. I just thought it out plainly. If I go with them, I'm going to have a lot of fun. If I don't go with dem, I got to go to work. Now that decision isn'T hard to make. I handed the bartender my lunch bucket. and I said, I'll be back to pick this up sometime. And I woke up the following Thursday in an Amish colony in Ames, Iowa with the executive secretary of the Parker Pen Company from Janesville, Wisconsin. And to this very day, I don't know her name and she don't knows my name. But we had a hell of a lot of fun. And I'm recounting this experience on Friday noon All the construction guys are sitting around in piles of bricks and blocks and stuff. And I'm holding court, you know, and telling them about the fun that I had. And they're all laughing and getting a big kick out of it. Except one guy. One guy. And he was you. He was one of you. There was a little bricklayer by the name of Eddie Friel from Dixon, Illinois. About 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Eddie walked into the construction shanty where I was hiding. and he walked up to me and he said words that changed my life. He said, Boomer, he says I'm an alcoholic. He says I belong to AA. Would you like to go to a meeting? Well, you know what my first reaction was. I looked for a pickaxe handle, a pair of brick tongs, a machete, anything. I was totally humiliated, you know, totally humiliating that this guy would associate me was people like you. Hey, hey! And I wanted to tell him that. We were talking at dinner tonight about divine guidance and about the things that take place in all of our lives that defy logic and that in many cases can't be even explained no other way. Now mind you this, I'm standing there full of hate Because I hate this man And I want to let him know that And I'm mustering up all of the filthiest, rottenest words That I can think of inside of my gut To spit out right in his face And tell him what he can do with his A.A. And I got them words all together down here And I brought them up here And I mixed them in with that poison And wham! And when they came out it said When is it? Now, I want to tell you how I feel about that today. I know if I had been an alcoholic on that day, I wouldn't have wanted to do anything about it. And if I'd known there was a thing called AA, I would've wanted to go. There's nothing in the world that would've interested me in being around a bunch of alcoholics. So it couldn't have been me who said, when is it? And I thought about that for a moment so I looked to see who said that. I looked at my right and there was nobody there, and I looked on my left and there was nobody then. And I just let it go as a coincidence, until it happened again some years later, as I was standing in the yard of an institution and the same man who was to become my sponsor — a man I hated! I detested him because every Sunday night he used to show up at this institution with that cardboard box full of AA crap. The only reason I went to them damn meetings was because they used to throw a couple of packs of loose cigarettes out there. I'd latch on to a few of them and grab a couple of them chocolate chip cookies that their stupid wives made for them. But one night, through a set of circumstances which take too long to explain, I walked up to this guy and I said something I thought I'd never say. You see, the book tells us that the self-centeredness must be smashed because of the high egotistical nature of the alcoholic, you know, that we're hard to do business with. I never thought I could ask anybody for help. And I stood there and I can hardly believe it even now that the words came out. I said, Bob, I said would you be my sponsor? And I should they're waiting for the big hug and the purple heart and a couple of campaign ribbons and that gray-haired, white-haired jackass said, no. Well, I could have killed him too. No? I thought I was offering him sort of a prize, you know. And before I could tell him how much I hated him, he said, Duffy, I want to tell you what it's going to be like if I'm your sponsor. He says, that way you can think it over for a week. And he says, then come back next Sunday night and we'll see what we can do. Well, I stood there, the cocky way we stand there, you know, thinking, come on, come one, what have you got that I can't handle? Throw it my way, Daddy, you now. And he said, if I'm your sponsor, I'm going to make every decision in your life for the next year without any question or comment from you. And I knew he meant it. So I told him what any self-centered asshole would tell him. And I wouldn't repeat that word in here. But that inaugurated the worst week of my life, because I fought with myself that whole week. Because I knew he was right and I knew I was wrong. I knew what had happened to my life with me running it. I'm in an institution. That's where I have gotten me. And so I'm saying, well maybe he's right, and then in the next breath I'm sayin', ah screw him, what the hell does he know, you know? And I said, well, I better ask him one more time. Well, yeah, it's easy for him. He's the vice president of General Motors. And all week long, I'm arguing. And then the next week, I had my mind all made up. And I went over there to tell him what he could do at AA. They got all them hate words down in there, you know. Mixed them all up again. Got him in the parking lot and I said... Hey, would you be my sponsor? And I looked to my right. I looked at my left. Nobody then had another one of them coincidences, you know. Now the book tells us, and I believe it's in A.A. It Comes of Age, it says generally a dilemma will precede our decision as to whether to continue on in this madness or to reach out for recovery. That we all have to face a horrible moment in our lives. A moment when we're our best therapists, you now. There has to come a time when you've got to go one-on-one with you. Because, you see, you can lie to the doctor, you can lying to the shrink, you can lied to the spouse, you can lies to the boss, you can lies to the whole army. But you're pretty sick of your lying to yourself. So eventually it gets right down to you making that decision or trying to make that decision. But when the book referred to a dilemma preceding that decision, I didn't quite know what it meant. I looked up the word dilemma in the dictionary. Dilemma is used twice in our program. It's also used in the big book where it says lack of power was our dilemma. A dilemma precedes the decision. Dictionary didn't help me at all and I asked a school teacher in our group, and he must have been in a little bit of a hurry because he'd just give you a quick thing. He said here this is the best that I can do for you. You wouldn't understand anything else. He says a dilemma is when you have the opposite answers for the same question and both answers are valid. Well, I thought he was going into early male menopause or something, you know. How can you have opposite answers for the same question? And he told me to continue taking an inventory because pretty soon you'll stumble upon it. And then one day I did. And I came to a realization of a lot of things in AA. I wouldn't call it a moment of clarity, but it was a time when I began to think about the things I had been hearing and I thought about my dilemma I thought about guilt I'd like to share something with you about Skid Row, many of you have been there so you know what I'm talking about but for those of you who haven't I can tell you a little secret sometimes about Sked Row in most cases you can always distinguish the alcoholic from the chronic drunk on Skid row because that alcoholic generally cries before he has his first drink in the morning. And you know why I think he cries? He cries because he's still got some guilt. Now, a lot of us are concerned about guilt early in our recovery. We say, I feel so guilty. That's the best thing in the world that can happen to an alcoholic. Let me tell you why I believe that. You see, guilt tells me that there must be inside of you yet a little bit of decency. Because you have to have decency to experience guilt. And you haveと have decencey to become willing to express a desire to stop drinking. Common drunks down on Skid Row who don't give a damn for other people, just themselves, Have no guilt They don't feel No guilt at all They do Give me another God damn drink What the hell Do I care If my kids Ain't got any shoes They don' t care And then another thing You do while you're Down there You look at that drink And we're not dumb And I can remember Looking at it You know by now You're drinking There's nothing more Than you've shuffled in And you've thrown Whatever the hell Comes to 15 cents Up on the bar You've got electricians, washers, nickels, dimes, Japanese money, buttons. And you just hope that Christ has enough there to add up to 15 cents so you can get more ounces of wine. Because you're convinced if you don't get it, you're going to die. And you look at that damn drink and you know it's killing you. We're not dumb. You knew that. Good God almighty, if I drink this, it's going to kill me. And I knew it. But in the back of my head, something else is saying, but if you don't drink it, you're going to die. And that's the opposite answer for the same question that is both valid. If I drink it it's going to kill me and if I don't drink it I'm going to died. And it's at that moment that I have to make a decision. And you have to make a decison. And we are not capable of making a decision at that movement. So who makes the decision? You look to the right and you look to the left. Thank you. The group is an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and all members of the community are welcome to attend. The single most important aspect of AA recovery, however, is the principle of one alcoholic relating to another alcoholic. Therefore, only alcoholics actually participate in our meetings. If your primary problem is other than alcoholism, we think it would also be helpful to you to contact an anonymous organization which more specifically deals with your addiction. In any case, we hope that what you learn here may be helpful for you. We hope this will be helpful to your recovery and or understanding. Our first 10-minute speaker tonight is Bill McD. Hi, everybody. I'm Bill McDonald. I am an alcoholic. I was just thinking this is a... I came to this meeting in November 1974 and I think I've missed it maybe half a dozen times in that fifteen and a half years. I've slept through it a few times but I've only missed it four or five times. It's just remarkable for me me because the fact i think about the consistency of a lot of the people who are here today and of the consistency that's been current in my life since i came here when i came to the pacific group i've been sober for eight months i thought i was going insane and uh i uh was uh hanging out with a guy in south orange county sort of aa's man who came to dinner and he ran out of sofas And he turned himself in, and I came to some meetings up here. And I like the meetings because they're so much different than they were in Orange County. They're sort of like, you know, they have a real freedom sense down there. You know, if you want to stay, ifyou don't like the speaker, you get up and leave en masse. And this was 16 years ago. Or if you don'tlike the coffee, you leave. Or ifyoudon't like what someone says, youleave. And that was just driving me nuts. I'm Irish and German, you know. It's sort of, you want to be a perfectionist, but you're too laid back to care, you know, and it sort of causes a conflict in your life. And so I came up here, and I think the first meeting I was at was the men's stag. It was on California Street at that time. And they really, at that meeting at that time, they were really talking about issues, you know. Not issues about whether or not your relationship with your cat when you're a child will cause you to drink or not, but are your concept of the third step, are your intellectual comprehension of the seventh step, are what surrender truly means. But how do you pay your bills? You know, or I don't like this guy who lives across the street from me and I want to shoot him, you now. And they got serious feedback from the other men in the group with sobriety. And I liked that. And on our way back down to 405, back towards the border, and I'd be sitting there ranting and raving about how crazy I was. You know, and I've since come to find out that most people when they're eight or nine months sober are a little bit insane, you know? Because the glow is gone, you're... You know, by the time you're eight or nine months sober, you're pretty much chemically free. Or at least I was alcohol free. I wasn't a very good drug user. He used to put me to sleep. And I never wanted that to happen. I drank because when I drank, I felt right in the middle of things. And when I used drugs and drank, I felt even further in the back of the cave that I'd lived in most of my life emotionally. than I did when I was clean and sober. But, and Vince was my friend, and he said, you ought to talk to Clancy, find out about this group. And so I went up and talked to him. Vince and I went down to Laguna one night, Laguna Niguel, and sat up in the front row and listened to Clantic give a pitch. And afterwards he sort of shook his head and said he'd talk to me. And I went out downtown to the midnight mission I sat down and I talked to him I told him, you know I hear people out in Orange County And I seem to hear them talk about the fact That they went through a normal life And at a certain point They started to drink And they got to a point In their drinking Where they would You know, start drinking alcoholically Then they found AA And everything was wonderful again And I felt insane And dis-alienated And disorganized my entire life From the get-go Long before I drank And I feel better when I drank Than I was sober And he said, you know, that seemed to be his experience. The fact that sometimes there are those alcoholics who do drink like that and do cross a line and reach a certain line of maturity and then their drinking takes over and they find alcoholics not often have something to go back to but in some other cases there's not much maturity to begin with and the use of alcohol seems to help them to maintain and do the things they can't do normally. And he says it sounds as if perhaps that was my case, that maybe if I was willing to take some actions in my life, I'd feel better about myself, and my life would change. And that's why I'm still here, because it continues to work. I've been here for 15 years and a couple of months, And, you know, all Alcoholics Anonymous is wonderful, you know. I see people changing all over Alcoholics Anonymous, right? The people who I see successful in their change are the ones who become active in Alcoholics Anonymous and take responsibility for it and become involved, you know. You hear a lot of talk about issues in Alcoholic Anonymous now, whether or not your relationship with your parents or your job or your pets has something to do with the fact that you're here, and that's not the case with me. I was raised out in the suburbs, out in Orange County, and I felt weird from the get-go, and it never got much better than that. And then when I was a junior in college, I fell in love with a group of people who were all history majors and were all pseudo-radicals of that period. We were the last of the Tweed Coat and the Elbow Patch generation, smoking Camel cigarettes and drinking scotch, you know, and it was just wonderful. We're going to go out there and change the world. They wanted to change the world. I wanted to rip it apart, you know? I just wanted to level it, you know? And when I drank, I didn't feel like that, you know? Most of the people I started to drink with are either dead today because of our disease, some of them are locked up, but the rest of I'm teaching at major universities all over the country. And I drank for less than ten years. I drank about nine years, and in the very beginning, within six months of when I began to drink when I was 20 years old in a junior in Long Beach State, up to that time I had set goals for myself and my goals was power. I was going to get so much power that you couldn't touch me. When I got there, I was gonna rub your face in the mud and I didn't even know why I was mad. And within six months of that first time that I got drunk, I didn' t care. It was all over with. You know, I had it. Why work for it when you just go across the 49er and chug a couple beers and by God, you're there. You can experience, you know, for $1.54, you can achieve anything you want in the whole wide world, you now. You know? And a half hour later, be something else. You know. You know... I'm the kind of drunk who can be covered in my own excrement, laying in the gutter, sneering at the people looking down at me. When I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, alcohol had put me in jail. And I thought that I was different then because I looked at myself and I felt bad. You know when you're bad, you don't have a real flashy story. If you haven't spent half your adult life in prison before you get here, by God, you feel pretty bad. or if you haven't gotten sober by the time you're nine or murdered somebody, by God, you really feel out of it at that time. And I had to look at it. It wasn't until I finally did a fourth and fifth step that I really felt a part of. I really realized that I was an alcoholic on a gut level. And I remember I was reading my fifth step driving up the coast to Camarillo. Well, it was appropriate at the time. And we were coming back and all of a sudden I got this tremendous feeling of relief. you know that's what came out of doing my fifth step you know the fourth step because the fourth steps you know there wasn't anything there that I didn't know or had before I put it down on the paper there were no secrets there from myself but it was the fact of reading it you know reading it to someone I respected enough and respected whose opinion enough and the surrender that I had made to take any direction just in the hope that perhaps in taking those actions that my life would change And he told me, you know, in four or five years you're going to look back on this and you're gonna have a whole new set of problems. You just laugh at these, you know, and at the time, four or five years seemed like a long time, but that was, you know, that was ten years ago, you know. And my life has changed, you know, it hasn't been constant. You know, life has continued, you know? I've been married in sobriety and, you know, that blew up and all we had in common was our disease. It was like two lepers staring each other across the room watching each other fall apart you know if you're new or have been around for a while just cooking up insane, just reach out to someone here reach out for someone who looks like they are involved with Alcoholics Anonymous and the steps of the program and looks like somebody who has experienced some change in recovery in their lives reach out to them and grab a hold of them and ask them, what shall I do? And I tell you to go and pick up the cups and wash them. By God, don't question it, just do it. And I guarantee your life will change because that's what's happened to me. And I want to thank Pat for asking me to share. Thanks, Phil. Our second 10-minute speaker tonight is Jen Gee. Hi, everybody. My name is Jen Good, and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm glad to be here tonight, and I'm happy that you're all here. I would like to thank Pat for asking me to share here. It's very nice. It'll be nicer in ten minutes. It's funny that Bill McDonough should be the first ten-minute speaker because I came from Orange County also at almost exactly the same time as Bill and he and I are in the same class and we celebrated 16 years of sobriety and he was considerably younger than I I didn't know I had seen Bill in Orange County I didn't know him too well Vince on the other hand I used to see frequently and when I went to meetings down there and he was a couple years sober and I thought he was very well I thought Vince talked and gave people more hope God, when I got up here and heard his story I just couldn't believe that he could talk that convincingly when he just felt so bad himself I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in Orange County because I was unable to stop drinking alcohol and if you're new here tonight that's most probably the reason you're here I had very little hope that I would be any better emotionally, physically mentally or anything else by coming to Alcoholic Anonymous But after I had been to a few meetings, I began to believe that I probably wouldn't have to drink anymore. And the reason that... And that gave me some feeling of comfort because really I was tired of drinking. I was very frightened because up until that time when I came here, i always thought that if i were sufficiently motivated i'd be unable i would be able to stop it because i grew up believing in free will and uh all that stuff and when i found myself really drinking when i didn't want to and drinking like a bottle of wine in 20 minutes or something you know which may ring a bell to some of you I got very frightened that wasn't the first time I had chug-a-lugged a lot of booze or anything I didn't have a lot of problem with alcohol when I began to drink I began to have problems with alcohol when I was in my 30s I began to have problems with it when I began to use it I have a low threshold for boredom and And alcohol made me feel better. But it just seemed to take more and more to make me feel like I was a worthwhile, useful human being and that I didn't mind fixing dinner and blah, blah, bla. I began to sneak drinks. I was the housewife where I come from. Wives didn't work with their husbands because it would seem to be that it reflected upon your husband's ability to provide for his family. So women like me could drink and hide it very well, and I hid it for a very long time. Hardly anybody except my immediate family knew what a drunk I was because of the way that I lived. And I enjoyed a lot of my drinking. and I but I remember the fear I first I'll tell you the first meeting of alcoholics I came to was probably for myself in 1962 or 63 and my sobriety date is 1974 so you know there was a little time there where things weren't so good and when I came here and I saw those people in Orange County and they were all smiling and laughing and I was very grim and hopeless I didn't hold out much hope because I thought the thing that was the matter with me was not the same thing that would happen with those folks down there at the e-bill club in those places but because they told those stories like Bill said you know, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I stopped drinking and I feel wonderful. Well if you're new here tonight and you have stopped drinking and you don't feel too good, you're where the rest of us were when we came here because when I stop drinking, I begin to feel worse and worse and more. Worse and worse. And the only way that hideous burning in the pit of my stomach goes away is to drink again. And there was a time when I didn't drink for several years when my children were teenagers because it was worth it to me, and the book tells us we can do that. For prolonged periods of time, it's possible maybe for an alcoholic not to drink. And I wanted my kids to have some sort of a decent family life and memories and so forth, and so I didn't drink. And when they were grown, I started to drink again. And I remember saying to my now ex-husband, I'm going to drink when I want to. He said, are you going to start that stuff again? I said, yes, I am. And I'm a drinker as much as I want, when I'm not going to hide it, and I'm no longer going to apologize to you. You know, I can't talk smart enough when I don't want to, and that's what I did. And so I got here very fast when I started that again. And when I was about seven or eight months sober, I was not doing too well, which is when I began to talk to Clancy on the telephone from Newport Beach. And I was still married then. I didn't hold out much hope for anything. I had done an inventory because I was terribly frightened that if I didn't get rid of this horrendous resentment toward my husband that I might kill him. And I did the inventory with a terrific guy, a priest, who was on the program down there. Some of the people here knew Dave. But things weren't still good in my marriage. So finally, and that was an old story because we both drank. You know, we just sort of killed the whole thing. I packed up my duds in November and brought my puppy and moved up to this area to learn how to live sober and not just absolutely want to kill myself and stop thinking about suicide and so forth because I was impressed with the Pacific group And I am still impressed with the Pacific Group. Marianne King came down to talk at one of our meetings, and she talked about learning to drive. We heard her talk about that a couple weeks ago. And as I said to you, I couldn't figure out what those people were doing down there to stay sober. And I thought, you know, and I don't like to... I'm not as judgmental as I used to be, but I was very judgmental when I was new. And I saw, what the heck are these people doing? I'm reading these steps. i live better drunk than most of these people are living sober i have no chance here i'll never make it here i will be struck drunk tomorrow and then when i heard marianne talking about her sponsor had her learn to drive a car i thought by you know that's what people do here they help each other to live productive lives and the more i saw the pacific group the better i liked it And then when I came here, I stayed with you people. I didn't run all over the Los Angeles areas to meetings. I didn' t do the things I had done in Orange County. And do you know what? I got well, or I started getting well. I am still not whole. You know, I hear people say that, and I think, well, I have no expectation of ever being really whole. But I'm able to get out there every day and go to work When I left my ex-husband, it's yellow now, Lauren. I hadn't worked in about 25 years and I had very little wherewithal when I came up here and it was like you better learn to take care of yourself or you're going to have to admit defeat and go back home or God knows what's going to happen to you. So that's what I did with the encouragement of the people in this group in the direction of my sponsor. That's what I learned to do, to do what we do here, earn a living, go to meetings. I stuck with this group. I have a lot of good friends here. I have a lot women whom I sponsor and have sponsored in this group and all over the world whom I care about. I saw Marlena B. here tonight. It's always great to see her. You know, she was here when I came And the thing that gave me the most hope when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous was that you come to this meeting every night, the same people would be there. Morris would be here. Vince would be their pet. Hodges would be near. At least I'm blowing everybody's anonymity. I beg your pardon. Everybody would be dear. Those people, they were still sober, three years, four years, five years, and they were there every night. It gave me so much hope. And, you know, the jobs that I've had, the place where I've been working now for 10 years, Susie N. called me and told me about that job, and she worked there. And everything in my life that is good has come to me because of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, and this group. Clancy's was my sponsor for about nine years. And Evelyn's been my sponsor for about eight years or seven and a half years. And I have had lots of love and caring and direction from them both and from all of you. And if you're new here tonight, I hope that you stay. I hopethat you know this one thing, that it's the first drink that gets you drunk. And ifyou don't drink and you come to meetings and you get a sponsor, what has happened to me will happen to you, and I wish you the best. Our first one is for one year for Aaron F. My name's Aaron Foster. I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank Ed, my sponsor, for giving me that cake and helping me achieve reality. I'd also like to say thank you to my co-hosts, I'd love to thank Clancy for the structure of this group, Clancy and Charlotte for the yard, the Pacific Group men's basketball team, the unmanageable softball team, AA and all of you. Thank you. Happy birthday, Aaron. We have another one-year birthday for Diane H. My name is Diane. I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank Sharon for being a very loving but tough sponsor this last year. I'd also like to say thank you I'd love to thank my first sponsor, Barbara, God, AA, Clancy, my husband and son, and all of you. Thank you. Happy birthday, Diane. We have another one-year birthday for John R. My name is John. I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank my higher power that I've come to know and love. I'd also like to say thank you to my wife, I'd want to thank Hugh O. for that cake and your sponsorship. I'd love to thank Clancy for the structure of the group, Clancy and Charlotte for the yard, AA as a whole, and All of You. Happy birthday, John. We have a two-year birthday for Guy P. My name's Guy Paul. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, Pat, for allowing me to take a cake this evening. And thanks, Matt, for the second year of love and support and direction and for always leading me to want what you have. special thanks to my creator for getting me here and keeping me here and a very special thanks to Clancy I for creating this group and for his special brand of loving hostility I really like his style thanks to the MOA thanks to Class of 88 Thanks for being my antidote You're out of sight Happy birthday, Guy We have another two-year birthday For Brenda F Hi, I'm Brenda Markaholic I'd like to thank my sponsor Rennie for all the love and support This 11 months I'd also like to think My previous sponsor Norma Johnson Karen L Norma Jean And I'd like to thank my financial sponsor, Nancy McDermott. I'd also like to say thank you to Tracy C. for bringing me to the Pacific Group. I'd love to thank God for keeping me here. I'd want to thank all of my friends and family for helping me get through this. I'd really like to give a shout-out to the class of 1988. Happy birthday, Brenda. Another two-year birthday for Nobby H. Hi, everybody. My name's Nobbey. I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to thank Jim for his past two years of sponsorship. I'd to thank God for doing for me what I could do for myself. I'd thank my family who came from Virginia, my father and sister. I'd thanks the Zip Group as a whole, and I'd like to thanks Clancy and the class that he's in. Happy birthday, Nobby. We have another two-year birthday for Doug H. My name's Doug, I'm an alcoholic I want to thank Matt for the cake and this year's sponsorship I wantto thank the Pacific Group Clancy for the structure of the group Alcoholics Anonymous and all you folks Happy birthday, Doug We have a three-year birthday for Tim A Hi, I am Tim Akins I'm not an alcoholic I'd like to thank Jim for being my sponsor and for that cake Clancy for the Pacific Group, and all of you. Happy birthday, Tim. Another three-year birthday for Larry H. My name's Larry Hunnicutt, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Larry. I'd like to thank my higher power for getting me here, Casey Crane for his sponsorship, previous sponsors Frank Jones, Michael Key, Sandy Kay. Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole, Clancy for the Pacific Group and all of you Thank you very much Happy birthday Larry Another three year birthday for Chris N Good evening My name is Chris and I'm an alcoholic I want to thank God For my life Clancy, for the cake And introducing me to the Pacific group Alcoholics Anonymous Thanks Happy birthday Chris Four years Kelly M hi I'm Kelly I'm an alcoholic the gifts I've received this year are incredible one of those gifts is Corky and I really appreciate her and thanks for the cake Corki and your love and your strength and for being there for me all the time I want to thank Rennie for being my first sponsor, for saving my life in this group and for being a good friend to me today. I want to thank my husband, Mark, for everything. He's been so wonderful this year, so patient and kind. And I wantto thank the people I sponsor and I wantta thank the Pacific Group, AA as a whole, and Clan C, and all of you. Thank you. Happy birthday, Kelly. Six years for Lisa P. My name is Lisa. I'm an alcoholic. I'm real grateful to God for getting me sober. I want to thank Clancy for my home group, and I'd like to thank Sue for being a really good friend and most importantly for being my sponsor and always having a good judgment that I can defer my better judgment to. I'm really grateful for that and for having you in my life. Thanks. Happy birthday, Lisa. Seven years for Michael C. Hi, I'm Michael Alcoholic. I want to thank God for my life. I wantto thank Clint for his contribution to my sobriety. And I wanto thank my wife, Lori, all of you, AA and Clancy. Thank you very much. Happy birthday, Michael. Eight years for Candy M. My name is Candy. i'm an alcoholic i'd like to thank pat for another year of loving direction clancy for the group my special women friends god for getting me here and all of you for keeping me here thank you happy birthday candy another eight-year birthday for richard w my name is richard i'm a real alcoholic I'd like to thank my higher power for getting me here and keeping me here this year and first off I'd love to dedicate my cake to Marvin L who's no longer here I'd also like to say thank you to my first sponsor Dave Hardick for the first four years of the foundation Dave M for the second three and my new sponsor Larry he reminds me of my father that's why I follow his orders and I love him very much too and I'd just like to give a shout out I'd want to thank Tom Hoy for all his help this year And Frank J., he walks like he talks, too, and he's helped me out a lot this year. And I'd like to thank Clancy and Charlotte for the yard, Clancy for the structure of the group, the class of 82. And last but not least, I'd Like to thank my roommate, Wayne. He's been a real help to me this year, and I had a lot of problems, almost died a couple of times, and he's also my hairstylist and my doctor, and you know, I appreciate his friendship, And that's the longest I ever lived with anybody, over four years. And that is a miracle. And last but not least, I want to thank all the women in the Pacific Group. They make me keep coming back. Thanks a lot. Happy birthday, Richard. Nine years for Marilyn M. hi my name is maryland i'm an alcoholic i want to thank clancy for another year of sponsorship for giving me that cake and for all of his love and support i wanna thank millie g for getting me started in this group and for always being there for me i want a thank uh... lois who shares her life with me AA God and all of you. Thank you. Happy birthday, Marilyn. Ten years for Dan H. Hi everybody, my name is Dan Hanrahan and I'm an alcoholic. It's a one day at a time program and I am sober today by the grace of God. I thought today was going to be just like any other day and until I saw those candles. I've never done anything for ten years. I'd like to thank my sponsor for being a good friend of mine and being an example. I'd also like to say I'd love to thank my former sponsors, Rob Kosicek and Clancy. I'd like to thank my fiance they're pointing back there Katie, I'd like to thank Katie my fiance I'd like to thank the women of For the Lake Street Blues softball team, I'd like to thank the class of 80. I'd to thank MOA for being my brothers and for being my friends. I'd thank the newcomers for being the lifeblood of this program and the old-timers for being the examples. I am grateful tonight to be sober 10 years. I'd like to thank God for that. Thank you. Happy birthday, Dan. 11 years for Casey C. My name's Casey. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Casey. I'd love to thank Clancy for the structure of this group Thank you for giving me some place to go. Birthday for Denise McPhee. My name is Denise and I'm an alcoholic. Happy birthday, Denise. We have a 16-year birthday for former secretary of this group, Joe S. Hi, I'm Joe. I'm alcoholic. I want to thank God for the wonderful gift of sobriety. I'd like to thank the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, my sponsor Clancy, my former sponsors Bill and Clint. 21 years for Bob M. My name is Bob and I'm an alcoholic. I want to thank Clancy for that cake, for being my sponsor. I wantto thank God for my life. I wantt to thank Godfor giving me a rebirth on May 7th of 1969. Birthday Bob. A 23-year birthday for Marlena B. I'm Marlена B., and I'm an alcoholic. I've got two feelings going on. Happy birthday, Marlona. That's all the birthdays. Tonight we had 22 birthdays celebrating 154 years of sobriety. In the Pacific group where we donate a dollar for each candle on our cake, each birthday recipient donates a dollar for each candy on their cake at the end of the year. we take that birthday candle money, and that is our yearly contribution to New York World Service Office. And last year, we contributed over $4,500 from our birthday candle money. And so if you took a cake tonight and want to participate in that custom, the person to see is our treasurer, Sarah, who will be all the way in the back of the room after the meeting. A couple of checks this week for people who are not regular attenders of the meeting, $4 from Kim F. in Pony, Montana, and $15 from Corky B. right here in Los Angeles who gave a cake to somebody earlier and we wish them both a happy birthday.