The Divine Alchemy of Colossal Human Failure – Tom B.

I was so delighted as the years passed to find out that you were crazy as we were. Well, you had a reason for us. I'm Tom and I am an alcoholic. It's good to be here. It's great to be anywhere. A year ago, the 5th of September passed, my dear friend Bob, who is a member of AA and who I work with at that time, who had just arrived back from the West Coast in a state of insanity from a lack of oxygen—I had a lot of smoke but no oxygen. And a little gal who cleans my apartment for me in AA, and she'd come in early in the morning and I struck up a conversation. I guess it wasn't too bright because she phoned Murph and said, get over here, he's dropped a button or something, slipped a disk or something. And I was feeling fine, I thought everything was copacetic. He came in and had a look and listened and called the ambulance. I thought, you're going to embarrass me. You know, these guys are going to come in and take one look at me and say, what the hell did you call us for? Well, they didn't do that. They came in a little earlier than that. They loaded me on that cart, and I'm smoking. Now, 10 years ago or 12 years ago, I saw a doctor that said if you don't quit smoking, you'll be in a wheelchair in five years. But I won. I took twelve. Now that's alcoholic thinking, and Al-Anon thinking, I suspect. And they wheeled me into the hospital, and I was in intensive care, wired up to all them buzzers and bells. That's when I started coming around. I looked around where I was, and had never seen anybody in that ward who was doing real good. You know, they don't put you in there because you're well. And I thought, holy gee. And a little doctor I'd never seen before in my life, a little Scot, who I'd Never met, a little sawed-off runt. His name is McDonald McMurdo. You just got to know a guy with a name like that has got to be a nestle bee, you know. He was born one. At a Scottish brogue yard wide, And he walked up to my bed, and I mean, I couldn't have got away anyway. I'm all wired up, you know. I'd been wired up before, but not like that, you see. And he said, Mr. Brain, andI said, Yes. He said, My name is McMurdo, and l thought, God, I'll bet it is, you know. He said... I'll be your doctor while you're here, andl came to tell you that if you have one cigarette, you're going to die. And if you do die from that, you'll die without a doctor because I'm not going to mess with you if you're smoking. I'll see you tomorrow and run out. And I thought, well, who the hell is he? He obviously doesn't know who I am. And he didn't. Nor did he care. And He was the first guy that got through to me in 25 years. And I haven't, thanks be to God, had to have one since. But I can't breathe good. Well, I'm still breathing. And he said, I ought to keep doing that. Quit anything you like, but don't quit that, you know. Well,I haven't quit breathing, but I've been working on a few defects and the ones I haven' t got rid of have left anyway. You just hang around, they'll leave. If you keep breathing long enough, they'll drop away from you. And I am so grateful to be here. This is the first time I've done this in a long time. And I've had a little trouble with myself. There's Bob and Joan and Dennis who came with me. All very dear, dear AA people and friends of mine. As are many of you. Most of you here in this room have been a very important part of my life. Your joy and your laughter and your love and your hugs and your tears have helped to sustain me. And when I'm down and I think about you, I get up. But I've had days recently when I have a little trouble getting myself off my own mind because I don't suffer good. I'm just not good at it at all. And there are days that matter to hell that I can't get up and do what I've been doing for 30 years, you know. And I don't handle it well. A week or two ago or three, I woke up and I just wasn't good. And it got progressively worse because I had decided not to do it. And I get my glad to go and the mail comes and Hazelden sent me their latest catalog full of all that profundity I wonder who'd written a new book on alcoholism and 27 people had who didn't know a damn thing about it but they'd all written a book and you know one thing about us we love books and I'm perusing through this thing deciding that not much of it was reading but I wanted to see what they had on ACOA because that's going very well and a few other things Then I came to the gadgets and the medallions and the slogans and what all, you know, that we drunks love so much. Praying hands. Oh God, one more set of praying hands. I'm going to quit breathing, I'll tell you. Just to get back at you, I got praying hands up to my tushy and I... and they got a slogan it cleaned me out and I sent for 12 because we never buy one of anything because I knew a lot of people that needed it you know and it said have a nice day unless you've made other plans and I thought oh God they could have gone all day and not said that And that's what I was doing. Did you ever do that? You know, decide this is going to be a crappy day. And if you do, you can bet that's what's going to happen. It's goingto be a louse, you know? And it's just been something else that I think I've grown. Last November, I couldn't get out too good, so these turkeys decided we're going to have a meeting in my place, in my apartment. And every Thursday they come up. now I don't want a meeting there every Thursday but it doesn't bother them a damn bit I'll cancel it three times and they keep coming because I'm not important there anymore I just provide the facilities I'm like the guy who owns this school you know so you want to come to meet and you can if not go in the bedroom and be quiet but Bob and Joe and Dennis here and Heather who many of you know and Toby old guy Bill and Garth and we've become very close Charlie and very dear to each other we toss things out on the floor at that meeting that I don't think we would anywhere else it's important to us and I thank God for this because I learned that this fellowship is like your Al-Anon and I love Al-Alanon to death I truly do And I know that she has many miracles as we do and more, and should. And I go to a lot of Al-Anon. I have. I love my old dad. And so I just love what Gina said and said it so beautifully in such marvelous humor. You must have been hanging around the drunks a long time, honey. That's rubbed off as well as that bad. You can't live with a dinghy and come out not a dingy, you know. There's no way in the world you can do that, you know. But I love dinghies, and that's why I like you people so much. I had so many dinghys in my life, I was working with them kids. I used to number them. And they'd phone up and say, this is number one dinghy. Never say their name, you don't know number five dinghy? And then Chris would phone and say this is a head dinghy, self-appointed. But I am an alcoholic and have been for some time, never set out to be. But by God's grace and the sharing of a loving program by loving people, it has not been necessary for me to have a drink of booze or any of them mood changers, pellets, or smoke any of that marijuana or snort any of that other stuff. God, I never knew there were so many apertures to put places in. I didn't know we had that many places to put drugs, you know. And through you, I haven't had to have a drink or any of this stuff. Come January the 5th, it'll be 31 years. Now, I hasten to tell you before anything happens that I didn't come to AA to stay sober for 31 years. That idea would have killed me. Did any of you come to stay sober? Jesus, if you'd have told me the night I got here that I wasn't going to have a drink for 31 years, I'd have had a heart attack and thrown up on you probably. Right, 31 minutes was longer than I could fathom. You know, and I met a guy who was three years sober and I knew he was lying, you know. but in those days I was in my late twenties well I was 28 and I'm now 59 every other year I've said I'm in my 39th year my 40th year I refuse to say I'm in my 60th year to hell with it I never wanted to be 60 till I became 59 by God then it became appealing as hell and it's looking better every day I want you to know that My mother said, I never want to be 90 until she was 89. I thought, by God, I think we'll go for it. You see, there isn't anybody in the world except the people in this room and rooms like this who know that you and I, who for years have been kind of the scourge of the world, can have fun and laugh. You see, I never dreamed for a second in my life I knew I had to quit drinking or do something But it never dawned on me that not doing what I was doing I was going to enjoy Did it ever enter your mind that going to AA was going to be fun? Oh, Lord! This was the last leper colony in town I wanted to have anything to do with When anybody suggested AA I thought, Lord, you know AA Hey, gutless wonders, religious fanatics, pious slobs, and you don't drink. That's the biggest thing you had going against you. And somebody would say, we always got a bulletin in my house years ago before I got here, but anybody that I knew within a thousand miles had quit drinking or gone to AA. we had a newscast at the dinner table. So-and-so joined AA, you know. Who cares? Well, he should join something, this son of a bitch. The Foreign Legion, hopefully. Never had any guts anyway. You know, says I can't get up off the floor. But I never set out to be an alcoholic. I believe I was one from the beginning. I don't know whether I was born one. Who cares, huh? I've finished doing research on this stuff. You know, I love what old Father Hilary Draper says, you know. When old Juby, his sponsor down in Coleman, Alabama, he's an abbot, old Hilary. Have you had Hilary up here? Oh, God, yes, you've got to get Hilary out there. He's the biggest abbot I ever saw in my life. Weighed 300 pounds. Now, an abbott, I guess, is a bishop, isn't he? That's kind of a high rank in the Roman church. And he's a big bishop. And he went to Hazelden for the quick three-week course and didn't let him go for six months. He's got more degrees than a thermometer, you know. He's so smart it's nauseating. He just knew that a guy as smart as he could never be an alcoholic, but he was. And he got well, and he went back to Coleman to the Benedictine monastery where he was... Yeah, it wasn't Abbott at that time. They didn't like drunk abbots. Not there, anyway. and he was the head of the university but they canned him from that because every time they had a commencement Hillary fell off the stage you see and Hillary falling off the stage was a major production for God he's a big man so he went back and he went to a few meetings but didn't like it knew he didn't belong because he was too smart we got a lot of drunks like that haven't we too smart God I'd rather work with a dumb drunk any day than a smart one I got a couple of smart ones now they're driving me crazy You know, they're too smart. They can't get simple enough to see what the problem is. They're still talking about outward manifestations of inward frustrations. They'll find out if they don't die. But old Hillary, every time you go to a meeting, she had a little sponsor, a little cracker down there named Juby, who I met and called me just out of Birmingham. Hillary couldn't figure out why he was an alcoholic. It really bothered him. Why me? You know, he could understand. I could too. I can understand why you turkeys were alcoholics. You know. I just talked to you for five minutes and know that you just didn't have it. You know? But me is a different situation. And he kept harping and driving that group nuts wondering why. Why me? Why me ? Why me ?? How come a guy like me, a man of God, highly educated, PhDs and hanging like grapes, you know? Why me?? you know, and old Juby old Jubey said Hillary it really don't matter why the jackass is in the ditch, just get him out laughter laughter laughter no, it don't really matter damn why I'm an alcoholic just get the hell into sobriety you know laughter well we work on that read books by the score, you know and I don't know why I'm an alcoholic maybe I was reversed on the pot when I was six months old I suspect that would have been very traumatic but I doubt it had a hell of a lot to do with my drinking you know a hundred years ago in the Yale school which is now at Rutgers they decided the primary problem with alcoholism the main cause was alcohol we could have told them that you know without that grant you know we'd have done it for nothing probably phoned them collect about three in the morning to give them that information you know oh god you know dob said keep it simple we sure screwed it up not a thank god we haven't touched that So I don't know if I was born an alcoholic I wasborn thirsty I'm Irish, that gives you a leg up on it I wasborne a rebel Never met a drunk who wasn't a rebel Never met an addict of any kind Who loved authority Did you? Did you ever meet a drunk Who loved Authority? I found a lot of Alamans Have our trouble too They don't like being told how to live I'm still as bad at that as I ever was my family still won't say take out the garbage they say don't you think it would be a good idea if you helped us and took we're not the kind of people who stay to the cop as he stops us on the highway oh officer I'm so delighted to see you this afternoon we don't tell him we say who the hell are you Don't you know who I am? You can't do this to me right after they've done it. You know? So I'm a rebel. I was a coward also, which I thank God for today. It's not a big deal. I'm an inherent coward. Always have been. If I hadn't have been, I'd have never lived to get to Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I was drunk with a big mouth, you know? I was the guy that started the fight in the tavern and ran out and watched them. when the cops came along I'd look and say to them isn't that disgraceful a couple of times I never get out quite quick enough which is why I've had a lot of dental problems you go home with a heel mark on your forehead that's very difficult to explain where have you been oh laying around walking on you So who cares, you know? I suspect that that's something to do with drinking. But I think I was all ready for it. You know, I didn't have to like some of these people, old-timers I used to hear in AA, where they drank with comparative impunity for 10 or 15 years or whoever the hell they drank. And then all of a sudden they crossed a line into something. My line was right here. The minute that sauce went past there, you had one, you know. But it saved a lot of training time, you see. You know, John, you didn't have to screw around being a social drinker. I have a very humble opinion of social drinkers. I'm really not. I have, oh God, I have family full of them. And I'm sure there's some of you Al-Anon visitors tonight are social drinkERS. And you probably think that your alcoholic in your family is kind of a screwed-up social drinker. You know, a social drinkers who jeed when they should have hawed somewhere, didn't pay attention. Or my mother, who's 30 years in Al-Anon, says, I still think if you'd listened to your father, it would have been all right, but they're going to die that way. But I'm convinced there's no relationship at all between alcoholism and any other kind of drinking. We don't drink like them, act like them think like them react like them. They do not do it the way we do. I have a whole family full of these idiots. I have an old friend I have young cousin he's 40 married couple of kids and he's ahead of the the wine thing. You know there are 1,200 cases of wine in his basement. He did that after I got sober. And I go over for dinner a lot to cook good. I'm a professional freeloader. And they bring up this crap, you know. First thing they do that amazes me was they take it out of the brown bag, you see. Well, why would they do that? I didn't ever bother doing that to leave her in. Waste time. Then they pour a little in the glass and they look to see if it's the right color. That was never a problem with me. Then they sniff at it a while to find out what the bouquet was. I didn't know what bouquet was. They said, what's that? They said smell-o. Well, I've smelled some pretty rank wine, you know. Then they say things like, I don't think it's quite mature yet. Jesus, I never drank a mature wine in my life. Mine was vintage on root. from wherever I left to where I was. That's how old it was. It's not mature yet. Go around the block a couple of times. Well, God damn. I just don't drink like that. I never did and I don't want to. Social drinkers have funny language. They don't talk like we do. They have phrases like, no thank you. When there's some left. Stupidity. I've had enough. What the hell is enough? I got a relative who says, let's save some for tomorrow. I'll run him off to the psychiatrist we'll save some of mine until tomorrow but none of yours they don't like being out of control my mother's 92 will be presently very sick mentally and physically you know for three years she's enjoyed a drink, as many of our beloved people do. Oh, they ain't. Well, I'm going to have a drink too. We lose a few here and there. I'm gonna have a drinking. Dubonnet on the rocks, you know, a little itty-bitty straw. And they'll have one of those. She was stuck on that for 45 minutes before dinner. She said, would you like another drink? She said no thanks, I never had enough. And I always wondered, how do you know? How the hell do you know when you've had enough? You knew when I'd had enough. I never knew when I'd have enough, and I always thought you was crazy. So there's no relationship I don't think to any kind of social drink. We're just not in that ballpark. So who cares? But people after 30 years or more they still say isn't it too bad you can't have a little wine at Christmas? And you go along with these people. You say, no. It may make them think you really care, you know. I never wanted a little wine at Christmas or any other time. If I meet a guy on the street and had a half pint, he said, let's have a party. I got a half punt. I'd say, I don't drink with cheapskates. Or I felt sorry with him because the minute he gave it to me, his party was finished. I said, how was your party? He took a little honk and that was it, you see. You know, Tom took the rest. But I think I was in left field before I ever took a drink. I don't think I know. I've got the same old talk with me. I've been toting this talk around 25 years. Someday I'm going to give it. God is good. Page two. There's a drunk. and I was about to say don't start on page one start on stage six you know yeah I'll put it on my oh there you are some of you are getting older what do you do we're not in a pot for cracker jacks we may just go right into the morning meeting If I grew up in a family where drinking was accepted, part of our way of life still is. My father was an alcoholic, but a protected alcoholic. He was a very successful man, a very dynamic man. I was always in fear of him, lived in awe of him and intimidated by him. It wasn't his fault, that's the way it was. He was just a protective person, he wasn't mean, he just drank too much. I was a coward rebel had a speech impediment couldn't talk and I came to AA couldn't walk I put two words together without stuttering and it disappeared for people who pray it may come back someday but not tonight honey and today for the last quite a few years I've been making my living shooting my face off and that's impossible because when I got sober I couldn't talk and for the last quite a few years I've been making my living yakking about this thing we have and things like that so it's phenomenal I was intimidated by my father they weren't a close family I couldnít communicate because of my speech impediment my father was not a man of patience as drunks aren't he'd sit at the dinner table and say how was school today and I'd go hi hi hi you die right there any of you have a speech impediment I know what you're living in but you can survive and you don't have to drink with it if I didn't take the first drink the last 14 years of age why I don't know it was always around the house just never dawned on me to have any I saw what it did to my father And like many, he said, well, nothing ever happened to me. And it did. My father gave him my first drink accidentally. It was always some prohibitionist trying to make a big thing out of that. Why didn't you take your first drink? Somebody handed it to you. You make something out ofthat, you know. I'm sure there's a deep Freudian reason somewhere, but I don't know what the hell it is. Somebody asked me once if alcoholism was a Freudian disease. God, I said, I hope so. He related everything to sex. And I said, I think we go opposite, you know. Our performance don't nearly match up to our reputation in any department. And I found after my first drink, my father gave me my first bottle of beer in my life. We were out together. He was six foot two or three. Great big guy, bald as an eagle. and weighed about 250, God, six foot three. And he said something that was sad, you know. We didn't have long discussions in my house, you know, other than that was it, you know. He didn't say but or anything like that. We were out in the country hunting or shooting or something. And I was driving. I was nearly as big a 14 as I am now physically. About the same since I've lost weight. Very stuttery, couldn't talk, very intimidated by this man. I held him in tremendous respect, but tremendously intimidated by him. And we run out of pop, and he says his father was an alcoholic, but he wasn't drunk all the time. And we'd stop at the side of the road, and he said, would you like a bottle of beer? And that was the first time anybody in my family who was important to me anywhere in my life had offered me a drink, a booze. And I grew up conditioned to believe that by the time you reached a point in your life where you could drink, you'd reached a points of maturity in your live that you were then a man, you know. And God, I just soared. I thought, oh, I've made it, you know. And I'd never tasted beer or anything before for no particular reason, just hadn't done it. If I'd have known what I was going to do, geez, I'd started when I was two, you know. But got here a hell of a lot quicker maybe. But I had never. So he gave me a bottle of beer and he took one and he cracked it and he was sitting on this side of the car with his feet out and I'm on this side and I took a swallow of the bottle of beer and God, I thought, isn't that terrible? What the hell did I see in that? Took another swallow and began to find out, you know. Because it works real quick. You know, it starts moving around down there and you begin to... It tends to, you don't know, level out the lumps and bumps and humps and, God, you shake your head and cough a couple of times and, you now, finish that first bottle of beer. Felt good. Stole the second one right... Second bottle of gear in my life I stole. Right out from under my own man knows. I don't know if there's instant alcoholism, but there's constant larceny. I was a bandit from the first belt, you know. And I drank the second bottle of beer down and God, my world changed for me. By this time, Daddy was standing up beside me. I'm 5'10", and he's 6', 2 1⁄2", or 3". Anybody that's normal would have a flat podium you could put a drink on. but not AA you got a PA that gets fixed by the plumbers or four bookkeepers and I walked up around the car and daddy was standing up this is one problem in my life and he's standing up there and I'm looking at him six foot three and a half I'm five ten and after the first two miles of beer in my live a wonderful thing had happened old daddy, he had shrunk. Man, he was right there. And he didn't look so big or so mean or so smart or so tough. And I proceeded to tell him so. And that was my first mistake as a practicing alcoholic. But my father did not become successful by conversing at length with idiots. First of all, he hadn't heard me talk much, you know. You know, two bottles of beer and here's this guy, 14 years, hadn't said 20 words. You remember the look, you You know, holy jeez, what do we have here? And I told him what the hell I thought of him. But as I say, he was a fairly intelligent man. He knew right off the bat he wasn't going to win this one, you know, because you don't win with dinghies, you might as well let them run down and get later, get at them. And all the way home I lectured him. He didn't say a word. you know got home went to bed got up the next morning got up felt good you know I was pretty good shaped physically I was a swimmer competitive swimmer and all that stuff track guy got up did the one thing that destroys an alcoholic quicker than anything a practicing alcoholic I got to thinking now we have a sign in the AA club that says think, think, think, but that's after you've quit. Don't think and drink. It'll kill you. Either do one or the other, but don't get them going together, you know. Because I kept thinking, hey, I think I can handle that old boy now. And I thought of a few things I hadn't told him the day before. So I went, I didn't know it was the beer. I went sailing down to his room. We lived in a big old home. Opened the door kind of like Loretta Young used to, you know, And as I opened the door, I said, Hey! I had never spoken to my father like that in my life. I looked over my shoulder hoping somebody else had said that, you know. But I was all alone. And there was Father laying on the bed. He had a big belly. He looked like Mount Everestian. He looks up with that old Lord that's still going on, look, you know, hoping it wasn't contagious. And he wheeled around and sat on the side of the bed and stood up, and oh, my God, there he was again. And I thought, now what the hell's gone wrong? Yesterday I could handle this monkey, and today I can't. And I got to thinking again. And I thunk myself into saying, yesterday I'd had two beers, today I haven't had any. That must be it. I said to Father, who's standing in his pajamas, don't go away. You know, he wasn't going anywhere. But he began to think that Junior wasn't too tightly wrapped. I ran downstairs, had two beer down, he came again, you know. and I proceeded to finish. And he wasn't one, really he was wondering what was going on, you know. Because for 14 years I didn't talk much because I couldn't. And now I didn' t stutter, you see. And even if I did, I didn''t care. You know, who cares if you're drunk? Well, boy, I had found something that did something to me. And I started to move it out. That's what you do. You broaden out the influence, don't you? You know? I was the guy at 14 or 15 who was at the high school dance in a gymnasium like this on a Friday night at the High School Dance who was up against the wall, you know, looking good. Smiling my face and shoes glued to the floor. Dying to be in the middle where you were dancing and talking and singing or whatever you were doing and I couldn't move a muscle. Good defense mechanism. Keeps the nosy people out of your life. If you sit there looking like you're sucking a lemon Some of you are going to come and say, what the hell is the matter with you? And you don't know. But you give it a lot of porcelain, you know. And they all say, Tom always looks so pleasant. And I'm dying in shock. I had a fear of rejection and a necessity for approval and I'm lying. And yet I'm over there looking good. And a week later, I'm back there at that dance doing the same thing I've done my whole life. Feeling like I never belonged anywhere. My family or in school or my peers or nothing. I didn't know what peers were because I didn' t think I had any you know and the guy walks by he said how are you doing and I said f-f-fine and died he said do you like a little drink I said yeah so we went out I followed him out now I don't the first two beers in my life I'd only had two each a week before I followed them out to the car that's when I found out drunks didn't park their car across the school lot the social drinkers do that they can wait we opened the school door and fell right on the hood. If he had a drover in there, he'd have done it, you know. But there we were. And he went around and he opened up the trunk and he pulled out a half a pinder and Mickey's, we call it in Canada, same thing for the same purpose. Easy to pack around. And he took the top off that and took a honk out of this straight whiskey. Cheap stuff, you don't know. An old keg or whatever the hell it was. God, it was frightful. Now I never drank straight booze and he gave this thing to me and I took a hunk out of his straight whiskey and you know what happens to you when you took your first drink of state whiskey when you weren't expecting Jesus comes out of every aperture in your head your eyes are running your nose is running you're snorting and your ears are holy jeez you're coughing and spitting and you don't know and they said ain't that good well I guess that's good that's great he took another hunk and I took another one did the same thing and we went back in I hadn't swallowed a quarter of an ounce you know because it came out of everywhere else I thought gee that's heavy stuff and I remember Clance years ago saying you know alcohol does something for the alcoholic it doesn't do for the rest of the drinkers does the same thing to us you know chemically and metabolically you know it's an anesthetic it's a downer it's you know excitation and sedation and all this nonsense you know and does the samething for them wets your appetite and all that garbage but he said it does something for us and what it does says Clance and I believe him it changes our relationship with our environment without changing us or the environment and that's exactly what it did for me that night you know the guy who was up against the wall he couldn't move a muscle for fear of rejection and necessity for approval you know looking good the mask on the image on drunk your image people aren't we you know I love Johnny Harris It's a great, you know, thing. Take ten minutes to shave in an hour and put the image on in the morning. And Sally Forth looking good. We were experts at looking good! Somebody say, how you doing? You say, fantastic. You know, hope to hell they can't see inside. And suspect they can. You know? God, all of a sudden, the guy like that went out and didn't drink a half an ounce of whiskey and walked the back that the same guy walked in with the same person to the same people to the exact same building to exactly the same situation to a whole new relationship with it. Man, my life had turned around 180 degrees. I walked right in the middle of the dance floor asked some doll to dance. I hadn't done that in my life. If she'd have said yes if she'd has said no I'd have just said I don't want to dance with anybody you old blister, you know. I could have cared less And I thought, man, where they've been hiding this stuff. And I continued to move it out. Where it became very quickly to me addiction. I used it for everything. For everything. I don't know what the quantity was or how much the dad drank. Who cares? You don't measure this disease by the ounce. We don't measurement alcoholism by the ounces. I don' t give a damn. I never asked an alcoholic in my life how much they drank unless I was worrying about their physical situation. I know why the doctors do. Of course they want to know how you are physically and what your withdrawal will be. I don't care how much you drink. I don' t care what you drink . . . I don''t care if you drank scotch, rye, gin, rum, brandy, vodka, sneaky peat . . ." You know, I drank stuff that had lumps in it, you know. Jesus, you just head for the highest tree. Had to shoot you down to keep you from starving to death, didn' t it? I'm not slightly interested in how much you drank or how long you drank, whether you drank six months or three months or 60 years. Well, I'm kind of interested in the way you look, but not that much. But I'm awful interested in what your life is and how you feel. God, I am real interested in that. And I look in your eyes, and you're dead. you want some new kids walking in the door of our society kids meeting young or old when they get a smile on their face God has been glued there all our life how you doing God yeah but the eyes are dead they're dead eyes there's nothing there because I hate you and I hate me and I hate what I've ham and I hate what I've become and I don't like me at all. But I can't take the blame, so I blame everything and everybody else. And I started the geographic cure. At 14 it took two beers to shrink farther where I could handle them. At 16 it took 10 beers or a quart. At 18 it wasn't enough. That's the name of the game. It's addiction. It takes more to get the same effect over a period of time, right? Not a better effect, same effect. And we say, they ain't making it like they used to. You know, geez, you're drinking it by the pailful. You can't get drunk and you can't see it sober and you don't know what's going on. You can live and you won't die and that old chuck says, there he is, there is he. You don't understand what the hell's gone wrong because it's not doing what it used to do. It used to make me comfortable. Comfortable is the name of the game. I was uncomfortable before I found booze and I got comfortable. And then the stuff that made me comfortable started making me uncomfortable, and I didn't know what the hell to do about that. And then all of a sudden, I couldn't drink anymore. At 19, I was diagnosed by a doctor in my community as a chronic alcoholic. I thought he was a stark-ravened man, and they told him so. They said, you're a quack, Doctor. Gave him a name of a couple of medical schools. Thought he ought to do a little postgraduate work, eh? And I used to think I was dishonest and lying, but I wasn't, Because what I knew an alcoholic to be was not what I was. What I knew and alcoholic to me had nothing to do with me at that point in my life. Nothing. I knew what an alcoholic was, a 70-year-old derelict laying in the gutter in Skid Row, you know, trying to chin himself on the curb, drinking a wine out of a brown paper bag in his overcoat in the middle of July. I hadn't done that yet. So when he said, You're an alcoholic, I thought, You are nuts. You are a stark-braven man. I come from a nice family. God, don't we all, you know. Nice Christian family. I'm highly suspicious of those. Most of the people in my group come from nice Christian families. Except Toby, she came from a nice Jewish family. We got one guy who came from a very nice Muslim family. I thought he was nuts, but I wasn't being dishonest with him or with me because I didn't relate and I kept going. and people talk to me about backbone, willpower standing up and being a man turning over new leaves and pulling up my socks sin and salvation and outward manifestations of inward frustrations environmental disillusionment and psychological maladjustment and I said absolutely I know what the hell they were talking about you're half in a bag and a guy's talking to you about psychological well really you're suffering from environmental disallusionment that means the grass is greener on the other side of the hill we invented that stick with me honey it'll be better when we get to Edmonton we'll go to Minneapolis and things will be good well if you go to Minneapolis and leave you in Fargo or Moorhead you'd have her licked a friend of mine said everywhere Tom went Tom went right the first guy I met was me and nobody quit drinking to help but I tried went to Vancouver with a case of scotch to quit drinking never met any social drinkers doing that or who admitted it got off the train in Calgary went into a bar there met all the fellas coming to Vancouver going to Winnipeg to quit drinking we got drunk together I said you'll never make her there they said you will never make here there and I got to Vancouver nobody helped so I went to Seattle it was worse, Portland was worse San Francisco they drove you home then in San Francisco, if you could remember where it was. The cops, yeah. Get in, son, we'll drive you home. I've never met those kind of fellas. Where do you live? And I'd say, well, and I didn't know. But I thought, aren't they nice? So I moved down to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston. And for a few years, I was in New Orleans like a bouncing ball. I'd go straight north of Winnipeg and wind up in New Orlando. I don't know any social drinkers could do that. The idiots would wind up in Churchill, you know. I wound up in New Orleans. It's warm down there. You know, I had a little trouble with the gendarmes there. They're very narrow. I didn't do anything particularly. But in the road, I guess. A lot of drunks just get in the rode, don't they? Just a nuisance, you see. I got charged in New Orlando with cluttering. Cluttering up Bourbon Street. If you've ever seen Bourbon Street, there ain't no way you can clutter it up. That's curve-to-curve bodies. But they bagged me down there. I was laying where you weren't supposed to be laying. But we were visiting. There were two or three of us laying there that day. We were visiting and had a little gallow going. And the gallo in those days, sirs, hell wasn't the gallow nowadays. We'd never heard of Ernest and Julio, you know. You could buy a tail full for ten cents. You know, gee, if you couldn't drink anything else, you drank gallo, you know. Jesus, they've come a long way. Well, I guess it tastes about the same. But as I'm laying under a palm tree in Jackson Square, I was 19 years old, weighed 132 pounds, looked like a picked crow. And there was a few of us. I said we were talking politics. A cop coming along nuzzled me with his toe, and he said, if you're here when I come back, we're going to jail. I said, let's go. He said, what? He wasn't too bright. I said. Let's go, he said. Why? He says, I'm going to be here when you come back. He said. You are? I said yes. He said why? I said I can't move. Well, I couldn't, but we could. And they bagged me. But I wired old Daddy. Daddy did not like his only child being in the pokey, and I beat that one to death the last time. And I wired him from New Orleans Parish Prison. It was not a joyous joint. Have any of you been in the old parish prison in New Orleans? God, I'll tell you, you've got to hang over to kill an ox. That cold grits and greasy gravy don't do much for you. Spiritually it does quite a bit, I think. Physically, holy Jesus. so I wired old daddy and I knew he'd get me out in 30 minutes I had a wire back two words on it said stay there God I hated his guts well after all I've done for you I wouldn't dwell on that too long brethren in Chester but oh it was hellish it wasn't the physical sickness it was the things inside of me I found a doctor who I went to see we're good at finding doctors who don't know anything about alcoholism, and there's quite a lot of them. And I found one just graduating too late, nice young fellow. And I went in to see him about my tension. Now, drunks have a lot of things, but tension ain't one of them, you know. Geez, we're as loose as a goose, you know, right? There's your speech. And I sold him. I was half in the bag. I had a little granddad on the hip or something, you know. And I told him I had a lot of tension. I wasn't sleeping. A lot of places but not too good. So he gave me a popcorn sack full of second-all tablets. This was pre-tranquilizer days. Thank God. I thank God every day of my life that they hadn't invented Valium and those things when I quit drinking there. Jesus, I'd still be hanging on a tree out there somewhere. You know? Oh, man. But he gave me a popcorn sack full of second-old with a verbal prescription that said, take one when you don't feel good. I never felt good. I felt a little better some days than others, but never good. So I went outside on the sidewalk with my little sack of pellets and, you know, he said, take one, and so you take three, naturally. That's the way we do things. Did you ever see an alcoholic drunk or sober? In AA or drinking who used a spoon for cough medicine? I have never met what the hell are you going to do with a spoon take one tablespoon that's it and we're fairly accurate now that we're sober when we were drunk take a tablespoon so he said take one so I took three took a little honk out of the granddad now if you're drinking booze and taking sleeping pills and you got somewhere to go you got a timing problem because you got to get there before you go to sleep and I remember him telling me Tom yeah you got to get more rest promise me when you get tired you lay down rest and I said I'll do it so I popped a few more pellets took a couple of honks and sallied forth over to Bourbon to lighten back to Jackson Square to entertain the citizens some tourists over there needed help on the way I get tired so doc said if she get tired lay down so down I went and I'm on the sidewalk and a cop comes oh god there was a lot of them those days comes along says what the hell you doing I said I'm resting he said well geez you can't rest there I said my doctor said well that didn't impress him a damn bit in the way we went again tried to take my own life I couldn't even do that successfully jumped off a balcony in the middle of November 20 below zero in my shorts into six feet of snow I couldn'T even do that good they wouldn'T let me in the Grand Forks jail once because it smelled too bad now that's bottom friend many of you ever had trouble getting into jail getting out yeah but not getting in they said you can't come in here I said what the hell do you mean I can't get in here I can' t come in you smell too oh I was just a child I'd heard about AA they started leaving things on my chair articles God I hated that I had a shredder long before Richard Nixon ever did you leave an article on alcoholism in my chair of my drinking days I had it in pieces you couldn't see how dare you suggest that I have a drinking problem if you had to live with the conditions I did you'd drink too, right? nobody appreciates me and they don't pay me enough of course I wasn't doing much I never related those two but all God inside was hellish the last two or three or four years of my drinking I can't remember very much about except it was helldish I couldn't tell you where I was or what it is I remember New Year's Day 1956 I had got through Christmas and I hated Christmas God I hated Christ I hated it with a passion I come to see now it wasn't Christmas I hated it was what I did at Christmas and ruin it for the people I loved that I hated. And I couldn't stop doing them. Then I got through Christmas without screwing it up for me and everybody else. And I'm with my family, we're out in the country. New Year's Day, New Year'S Eve, I didn't do too bad. I didn' t get any drunker than anybody else. Of course, I drank with a lot of good drinkers. We don't drink with social drinkers, do we? Who the hell is going to... An alcoholic does not sit with sippers. Geez, they'll drive you crazy. You know, I hate people who put a drink down and go somewhere. You know. When I went anywhere, we went together. Where are you going? To the men's room. Leave your drink here in front of you. Can you see me leaving a drink in front of Donald, you know? The vulture. We did everything together, my drink and I, you now. That's why you come to AA with your hand like this. You know... You've got to break it. and I New Year's Day I got pretty loaded and I remember I went into this house and this guy's son who lived there I'd gone to school with and drank with a little bit we lived poles apart in life I'd heard he'd had a lot of trouble with booze but I knew he was kind of a wimp lost his wife and kids and briefly wound up in Toronto on Skid Row I'd hear he joined AA because we had a bulletin I thought good for him he needs it and there was Bernie he'd been sober since September this was New Year's Day 1956 January 1st, 1956 and I went to this party cocktail party sort of thing New Year'S Day with my family I tripped over the front stoop as I went in slid into the living room under my belly button I said there's Tom this was not a new experience for them I do this quite often then I arrive horizontal but I always arrived You know, there was booze. I arrived, you know, I picked myself up and went into the kitchen. Here was Bernie, this guy had gone to this AA thing and he was pouring drinks. He was tending bar. I never knew you could do that. You know? I had been on the wagon after my suicide attempt for 30 days and got in there, died. And when I was on the wagons, I didn't go and sit where anybody was drinking. It was isolation. and here was a guy I'd been sober for three months and he was up to his eyeballs in booze and the drunks were hanging on his shoulders spitting in his face telling him how much willpower he had and I thought you know well he's probably and he's smiling this guy that blew me right out of the pulpit I thought well he probably had a pill or two because I stayed on them second alts for a year and finally got off no credit to me I can't take any credit for anything in my life because it all happened in spite of me I can not take any credit in coming to AA this is the last place in town I wanted to come. There wasn't anywhere else to go. That's how I got here. No big problem, you know. If there had been anywhere else to go I would have gone there first. But I'd been there with all the psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers. I met all the justs that don't even exist. I drove three psychiatricks into Alcoholics Anonymous. So I came here and there was Bernie and he was smiling and I thought, well, he's got to be because I never knew anybody who didn't drink and smiled a lot. The only people I knew who didn' t drink by choice belonged to the Women's Christian Temperance Union. And I don' t know about yours down here, but ours up there really ain' t a joyous-looking bunch of girls. They all look like they smell something, you know. They talk about the joys of sobriety. I thought, geez, if it' d like that, I' ll die drunk, you kno. If it' s so good, what the hell do you look like you' re sucking a lemon for, honey? But I never know anybody who did' n drink who was real happy. And yet here was this dinghy, Tandon Barr, who was an alcoholic, supposedly sober, smiling. So I went and sniffed him, you know. He didn't smell very good, but he didn't smile a booze. I went to wish him a happy. I used to do that. I didn't know whether it was Christmas or New Year's Day. You say, have a happy, covers everything. I'm no fool. I still got my Christmas lights up. Somebody came in the other day and said, you got your Christmas lights? I said, no, they're not. They're Thanksgiving lights. Then there are Easter lights, Labor Day lights. You know, why the hell take them down? You've got to put them up again. Social drinker's not very smart. You can always tell a drunk's house he never takes his Christmas lights down. You know. And as you're walking in to see him, the grass is tickling your armpits. And he's laying saying, I must cut that sometime. There's a car out there somewhere you know and that's my car wearing the front lawn told you not to buy that MG and I went and wished him a happy he poured me a drink I said thank you turned around walked five steps stopped turned around went back now on the way up to him the first time if you'd have said You're going to talk to Bernie about going to AA out of a laugh in your face. But when I turned around, took a honk out of that drink, stopped dead. Turned around, walked five paces back, said, Bernie, I've got to talk with you. He didn't know about what? He said, fire away. I said, not here. God didn't want anybody to know I had a drinking problem. I can't think of anybody who didn't. When I came to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and said, I am an alcoholic, that made it unanimous. Mine was the last vote to be registered. All the rest of them had voted a lot sooner. And he said, well, go down to the basement. And down we went to the damnedest set of stairs I ever saw in my life. I said, after you, sir. I wanted to fall on him, you know. His foot hit the floor. And I cried out, Bernie, how do you quit drinking? I can't quit drinking. and he did something nobody else had ever done in their life that I'd asked and screamed at and yelled at and pleaded with he turned around and he chuckled nobody had ever been like that nobody had never done that but I knew he wasn't laughing at me and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said sit down and he started to talk and he talked like nobody else has ever talked people had talked to me in love for years I didn't call it love in those days I called it interference and persecution but they always talked to be about me The minute you talked to me about me, I had the answers for you. You thought up the questions. Hell, we've been fielding those for years. Why do you drink? Can't you see? Quack, quack,quack. He didn't talk about me. He talked about Bernie. And he didn't talking about backbone and willpower and standing up and being a man. He talked of aloneness and hopelessness and fear and futility and guilt and remorse in his life. And he never quit smiling. And he smiled at his eyes and his face and his mouth and his... God, he lit up like a Christmas tree. And I never saw anybody like that. And he built a bridge of understanding I've never experienced before in my life. But through God's grace, I've been a part of it since. Many times. And I said, I want to go to a meeting. I hadn't had a meeting in a while. And I was supposed to go Tuesday night and I phoned him Tuesday and said, I can't go. I have an important business appointment. I did. I was trying to keep breathing. Oh, God, I was sick. And you wouldn't want to go to AA looking like you had a drinking problem. Say, I'll weigh something else. Don't go shaking. You know, they might think you drink. Have you ever been to an AA meeting when a drunk drunk walks in the door? An AA say, hey, he's been drinking! Well, of course he's been drinking, dummy! we're in the drunk business but we're indignant as hell when a drunk walks in spoils our meeting he had to get drunk to get there how many of you came to your first meet and half in the bag show me your hands how many now be honest now got a lot of liars in here if I could have kept one down I'd have had one before the meeting he said phone me I phoned he phoned Thursday I said I can't go he said phone me when you're ready and I thought I'd lost him and he said I said I'll go and he picked I picked him up he never drove a car I was sober three months before I knew your sponsor was supposed to pick you up I had a line of the cheapest people you ever met in your life God and I walked into AA and there they were as I met a colonel in the army you knew him Don Dow Well, Dale, I guess sober about the same time as you. He's out in Victoria. He's still breathing and sober. Big, tall drinker. I'd seen him because I used to stop in the officer's mess between where I was supposed to be working and where I were supposed to live. And I'd stop in and entertain them for a while. And this guy was a light colonel, you know. Lieutenant Colonel, he'd come in. He'd never drink. He'd have a ginger ale. And I thought, geez, he's got to have political connections, you know. I didn't trust people who didn't drink, did you? And here was this colonel who didn'T drink. I thought, oh, really? You know, what's the service coming to? They were improving. And Dal was there. And he walked over and he put his hand out. And he said, well, well. Well, I see you finally decided to join the professionals. And I didn'T know what the hell he was talking about. He'd come into my place of business, my father's business, and I'd see him there and I'D see him in the mess. And I'd say, what do you mean? He'd say. Tommy, these people know more about acquiring and booze, drinking it, and getting over it than anybody on the face of the earth. He said, come on in. We're glad to see you. My immediate reaction was, well, you find out what kind of guy I am, and you won't be saying that. I really believed that I was lost. I really believe that nobody had done the things I had done and felt the way I had felt and hurt the people the way they had hurt. And I really knew if they found out what I was really like, they wouldn't love me anymore. and they'd throw me the hell out. And I went into that meeting and I sat down and I started to listen it was a little discussion meeting and I'd never seen anybody except Dal and Bernie who took me before in my life and every time they opened their mouth I thought they'd been following me around. Have you ever talked at an AA meeting and some monkey gets up after the meeting and a wet hen comes up and says you've been talking to my wife you never saw him before in your life he doesn't know that when he was going down one alley we were coming up the other we don't have to talk to his wife if he's a drunk We know what he's feeling like, you know. That's the great identity in this thing. You know, don't ask me, you know, I don't care how much you drank or what you did or how much you smoked or what your popped or snorted or dropped or whatever the hell you did with it, you know. How do you feel? There are things behind your belly button. Are you lousy? Are you suffering from that loneliness that Bernie talked about to me? Oh God, it could be a room full of people as this big. every one of them who I would know and love and felt like a fifth wheel in a wagon crying out from my belly button silently but you don't understand. Oh God, if you understood how I felt you wouldn't ask those stupid questions you'd know why I do this. You wouldn't answer those questions if you knew that they were trying to help and they couldn't help until I heard a drunk talk and I never heard anybody talk like you talked to me. I've never walked with anybody like you in my life before I never knew you existed and that's not just AA that's Allen 9 and 11 I never know I'd look at you and say where the hell have I seen him before I never saw him before but his old what's-her-name medicine hat says we were going down one alley I was coming up the other you know hopelessness and futility laying in bed they're trying to explain Why, why, why? God, that's not the way I want to be. I don't want to get up and trample to death the people I love the most in the world. I want To help them. And when I promised not to do it anymore, I was as sincere as anybody in the world. I did not want to do It anymore, but I could not do It. I had no defenses. I could not go out there in the business of living in that rat race and live without that sauce. I'd swear on the stack of whatever you have a stack of and meant it. It wasn't a con game. I really meant it, but I couldn't stop starting. Our problem is not quitting drinking. Lord, they're quitting as drinkers in 48 counties. Nobody quits more than we do. And every drunken moorhead tonight saying, I'm not an alcoholic, I quit drinking. If they say that, get them to a meeting. I never heard a social drinker say that in my life. They know they can quit drinking, they don't have to convince anybody, and they don' t care what the hell you think. But a drunk will say, I quit drinking every time I want. You know, if he says that, run his buns into a meeting. He may not want to belong, but he belongs. It may take a while for him to figure that out. Then they had a program and I better shut up, President. Why? I haven't talked for six months. I've got six months of meetings to catch up on. And he handed me a book called Alcoholics Anonymous. Some of you may have read it. You'd be amazed how many meetings, groups you go to have not heard of it too much. They read Sobriety and Beyond and Beneath and Above and Below 24 hours and 48 hours. But there's no book in the world, none. There is no other book inthe world written by alcoholics, for alcoholics that tells our story like that one does. Not only tells us what's the matter with it, it tells us how we feel. What we can do about it. It lays out the problem and the feelings and the solution. There's no other book that does that. I don't care what the hell you've heard or what you say. You know? A friend of mine a few years ago said, well, how long do I have to keep going to them meetings? They've been going six months. I said, well, you've got to go to the meetings until you want to go the meetings. And when you wantto go tothe meetings, you don't have to go anymore and you'll be at all the meetings, right? I don't. I don' t have to go to meetings now. I want to go to meetings. Now I can't get there. But I get there." He said, "...I think I'm going to quit AA and go somewhere else." Good. Where are you going? Well, I'm not sure. I said, "...Well, until you figure out where you're going, better hang around." Well, he's still trying to figure out where to go. But I don''t know anywhere else that gives us this. Sure, this isn't the only way to stay sober. But if you want to quit drinking and have a little fun in your life after a while. Cover this crowd. You know, I love dinghies and they're all in the main meeting. God, I hate those people that sit around talking about the weather or politics. Jesus, they need help. Yours and ours. I like people that sit down and talk about the business of living. When they say how you doing they really want to know. If you met a guy in the street and he said how you do and you started to tell him, Jesus, he'd be gone like a shot. Say, well, my resentments are brought, holy Jesus. They beg you. It's amazing. But you have a program of living called The Twelve Steps. A design for living, Bill called it. A recipe. A recipe doesn't do anything. It tells you how to do it. You know, drunks are still saying, well I tried AA and it doesn't work. It never works. AA doesn't doing nothing. Just sits in the book. There it is. what are you expected to do come up and knock the drink off the bar you know my little friend Sam still drinking in Atlanta he's a midget or a dwarf or whatever the hell he is three foot two sits on the big book in the bar because it lifts him up a tad and he passes out right off the big books and he can't understand what the problem is and I keep telling Sam it's a direction problem that ain't the direction the program comes you don't soak it up through your keister it comes through the head and the heart he's going to hatch that book shortly before he dies I've got to just cry for him but he's a beautiful man the twelve steps suggested that alcoholic synonymous is probably the greatest snow job that's ever been perpetrated under citizens in the history of the world here are the steps which are suggested as a program of recovery. So you said, isn't that interesting? Now if that book had said, here are the steps you better take or you're going to die, you'd just throw that out the window. Don't tell me how to live. Yeah, you keep reading that book, it also suggests what will happen if you don't do them steps. Like dying. Yeah. But oh God, it made it palatable. God knew what he was doing through Bill and Bob and those early drunks. Here are the steps we took which are suggested. It made it psychologically palatable for me to hang around. It took the heat off. It took The Pressure off. They're not telling me what to do, they're suggesting. And by the time I figured out they were lying, I liked what I was doing. Yeah. don't you love that part Jim Red on a personal our personal adventures before and after geez if you'd have had my family when I was drinking and said where's Tom they would not have said he's out having one of his personal adventures they'd have said he's in New Orleans tank again drunk as a skunk but yeah our personal adventures before and after right I told Willie one day I said you are marvelous he said well you gotta give him a little shot oh God marvelous but I loved him I came to A believing in God A God having no faith in anything but dollar bills and whiskey they both let me down I wasn't sure either I was not a religious person But I truly believed there had to be something going on. I called God because I was convinced, I was taught that's what it was. But I was not a churchy person and still am not, no credit to me. I couldn't differentiate the difference between spirituality and religion. And I had a terrible suspicion of religious things based on nothing. We're judgmental people. But since I've been with you and discovered and kept my eyes and ears open for a number of years I found out what spirituality is you know spirituality is loving and being loved without any conditions spirituality is hugging spirituality is that beautiful sunshine today spirituality is walking through the woods in the wet day when you get sober smelling things you haven't smelled your whole life smelling as your kids or your family or your wife or whoever coming up and hugging you and saying I love you. That's spirituality. You have taught me about God as I watched Him work in your life. I watched those dead eyes of yours all of a sudden get a little light in the corner. And then six months later you come in like stars and you hadn't done nothing except go to them dingy meetings and read that book and tried to do things in your life that you'd never tried before. And I watched dead eyes turn into live eyes. Oh my God, these monkeys have got something. They do everything backwards and they're crazier than hell but it's working, you know. People don't understand us, you know, the more horrible our story gets the more you laugh and then when we start to sort our life out and things start getting better everybody starts crying explain that and then I went to jail and my wife left great and now I haven't had a drink for 31 years oh God really but that's great You know, I don't have to sit around and feel sorry for myself. I do from time to time, you know. But I don' t have to unless I want to. Oh, God. Bill said this, you don' T have to wonder what's happening in AA. You've got to take a lot just on faith, you knoW. Don' T spend a lot of time dissecting it. analysis can lead to paralysis you know drunks love analyzing you know I've got to find out why I'm an alcoholic I wonder what the fifth chapter really means what do they really mean by rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path do you know what they really means they mean rarely have we see a person fall or a person failed who has totally followed our paths and not another bloody thing but you start reading the little white lines between the little black lines and you get into trouble. You know? We start analyzing. And you've got to take them out just on blind faith. You've just got to know it, that it works. And Sam Shoemaker, Reverend Sam, Episcopal minister, friend of Bill's, Sam's church where Bill first met in the Oxford movement. And Sam writing, talking day A and love day A. I'm talking about step two in my spirituality. I came to believe that a power greater than ourself can restore us to sanity. Shoemaker said, that is not a theoretical statement. That statement is evidential. It is evidentiaI. That's not a theory. I can reach out now and touch the proof. I hugged a lot of the proof before I got up here. I kissed some of the truth. The evidence is here, sitting in your life. I don't have to ask God. Ask if there's a God in my life and to help you get sober. Do you really believe so? There you sit. Sober, Saturday night. You ain't supposed to be sober Saturday night, it's damn near indecent. And here you are. And if you knew, it was still not too comfortable, but hang around. It's like shoes, tear-tight shoes. Keep wearing them and they'll loosen up. Someday you'll discover it's a part of your body. Just a part of your life, that's all. God, I love this thing and its people. I've been pulled out of hell several times in my sober experience. I can't love you any more than you love us. But I want you to know I do. And I resent the hell out of it for some time. oh god i hate not being able to do what i want to do but every time i talk to god he should mind your own business talked to him last weekend about the storm said the same thing just lay back and enjoy it they didn't have any choice when you have no choice it simplifies things do you notice that as long as you think you can drink you're under problem But once you discover you can't drink and that's it, the end, 30, no problem. That's surrender. Surrender is a miracle, isn't it? One second I wanted to drink and one second I didn't want to drink. Explain that to me. I can't tell you anything I did to bring that about. Nothing. It happened. Had to be something working in my life. How come people like you and I want to drinking more than life itself and drug and whatever we're doing and then the next day we want to not do it? You know, I didn't sit down in a moment of great clarity of mind and say, I think I'm in trouble here. I wonder what the problem is. Do you think I drink? I never asked anybody, do you think i'm drinking too much? I didn' t have to. I knew what the hell they were going to say. Maybe I'll go to AA, that wonderful spiritual fellowship. When you mentioned AA, I went, You go to EA. I'm going for a drink. I don't ever remember sitting in a bar with people saying, well, let's have a couple of belts and go to a meeting. Once you figure out that it's a terminal disease and you can't drink, the problem is half over. If you're wondering if you've got another drunk left, oh, you could be in trouble. That's like a guy getting out of jail, you know, saying, well, if I can't go straight, I can always steal. Stay in jail because you're going back. Well, if I can't stay sober, I can always drink a little. When the hell was the last time you drank a little? If you could drink a Little, you'd have never got to AA in the first place. I never met anybody here who could drink a Little. I never met anybody who wanted to drink a Liddle. We didn't mingle with people who drank a Liddell. Yes. I didn't know there was four quarters to a football game club. Came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I went back the next year to the ball game after the third quarter and got up to leave the family said where the hell are you going I said it's over they said no we know you don't know this but there's another corner left I said is there yeah I'd never seen it I'd been there I didn't go to ball games see ball games I went to ballgames drink I went everywhere to drink because I couldn't stand it The coffee's better hot. There you go. Bill and I'll shut up. Bill said years ago that Alcoholics Anonymous is not a personal success story. It's not a person's success story, it's not you and I getting together to tell each other how wonderful we are. That's not what it is. Bill said it's rather the story of our colossal human failure. Failure as a drinker and failure as a man or a woman or a husband or a wife or a father or a mother or a sister or a brother, a citizen, or whatever. It's the story of our collosal human failings. Our human failure converted, converted, changed to the happiest kind of usefulness oh God I'm so glad Bill didn't say converted to a life of good works I have never been big on people who did good works I always had the feeling they had their hand in my pocket and they always appeared in January in a blizzard with sandals and I don't have a hell of a lot of respect for somebody who's wearing sandals at 30 below zero who wants to help me I've met people who do good works there are wonderful people doing good works but he said no convert it to the happiest kind of usefulness not to a useful way of life or not to be useful to our fellow citizens to the happiness kind of usefulness When a new drunk walks in the door, in the name of God, go up to them and smile and tell them you're glad to see him or her. They're not going to believe you, but do it anyway. When you said you were glad to See Me, I thought, well, Jesus, they're worse than I am. They lie better than me. Nobody had been glad to Seek Me. Who would want to be glad to seek people like me? I could understand that. what I couldn't understand was the members of my family who kept allowing me to come back been me, I'd have put the run on you permanently but they forgave converted to the happiest kind of usefulness by as Bill said the divine alchemy the divine mixture the divine texture what's that mixture? rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path the path of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the twelve traditions of Alcoholic Anonymous and the privilege of service in Alcoholics Anonymous, the divine mixture are the people of Alcoholix Anonymous who walk with us and talk with us and teach us who put their hand on our shoulder say it's okay who walk up to us and say, I love you. And we know they're not meaning it. And we hang around and find out they are. I'm fine, God. I have never heard the trumpets or the tambourines or seen the white doves flying by since they quit drinking whiskey and taking second-all tablets. Then the doves flew by in cages. I haven't had that kind of a thing I've just had an increasingly greater feeling inside of warmth and hope and belonging where is my beloved Chuck who's gone now said we move from a condition of separation from to a condition of unity with ourselves, our people our loved ones our beloved A.A.'s and Al-Anon's and we'll walk down the high road together I don't believe anybody was meant to walk through life alone nobody God, nobody in the world knows what lonesome is better than alcoholics and those who love us we're meant to go we're not meant to walk down a high road with arms about one another sharing our experience, strength and hope and love until something happens from the sharing you keep sharing we'll both change ah nothing becomes perfect I've had more horrible days but I brought most of them about myself but I've been more beautiful days since I've been sick, since I went to hell again. I found out what love without conditions means. I truly have. And those of you who think you're the worst, please know that we don't love you because of the things you've accomplished. We love you because of your weaknesses and your frailties and your failures. You don't have to do anything for us to love you. You don'T have to be sober for us to love YOU. God, we want you to be sober. We pray you'll be sober. We'll pray you're happier than you are, but it's not a condition because there aren't any conditions, you see. There's no such thing as I love you if. No such thing. I've learned with that awful sick old 92-year-old of mine to go and say I love you honey and peck her on the cheek and leave because she still doesn't understand that she doesn't have to say anything. These gorillas come in and hug me they tote me around and abuse the hell out of me push me in that thing God I hate that thing but not anymore that's better than falling down let me tell you I fell down a couple of times I said that ain't good I'm going to get me one with a motor and then look out I got everything I need today I just didn't think I had you know every day I wake up now it's winter I go and breathe on the glass and if I can see it I get dressed good shake the old bits no not there God every second I get my doctor said I wasn't going to die but I'm an alcoholic I thought that's what you think how many drunks you and I know that have passed on and died exactly when they were ready not when the doctor said they were going to my sponsor didn't die when the doctor said he heard a little intern come in one time when he couldn't talk he was so sick from heart my beloved ross who many of you knew and his idiot intern came in the room and in a stage whisperer you could hear in fergus falls said i think you'll go tonight that old ross opened his eyes and give that guy a look that's still going through him now he didn't say a word but what he said was who the hell do you think you are to tell me when I'm going. I'll go and I'm bloody well ready. Get out of here, and he did, and we ain't seen him since. Chuck went when he was ready. You know? That old Bill Bathey up in my town, he's supposed to be dead ten years ago. Everybody was telling him, you're going to die. He said, right. I met him in Denver on the street. I walked right by. He said what the hell is the matter with you? I said I ain't talking to you. He said why not? I should have been to your bloody funeral five times and you ain't show it up once. I said, I ain't going to talk to you no more. That was in Denver ten years ago. He just passed away. When he was ready. God, I ainít worrying about that anymore. I just know that Iím the luckiest guy that God ever put in the world. Nobody in this fellowship has got more people in their life. I donít understand it. I have the faintest idea why I'm out this way. I just thank God that you do. And I can say with every fiber of my being and every ounce of anything that I have that I love you so much I can't see. God, you lift me up and you carry me along. You know, when I couldn't pray you prayed. When I couldn' think you thought for me. When I could' get to a meeting you took me or brought it to me. You know? Stay close to these people in this outfit. God, if you can't do it, they'll do it for you. But stay close. And you'll walk in the damnedest way of life you've ever had in your life. And you're going to have more fun. You'll laugh more. And you cry. And I found out it's okay to cry. Oh, God, I had the feeling when I told Don the night before to me, and I said, Jesus, I'll probably get up and blubber all night. you know but I look in your eyes and that bunch of crew with dinghies that I've loved to use these people follow me up you're not well some of you I went to Zim, Minnesota I don't even know where it is and 45 of them showed up for Christ's sake who the hell if you knew where it was would want to go there see the mad Finlander 350 people and there we are in Zim a crossroads with the biggest municipal hall in the world for 30 people and they'd never done much with it until the drunks got there and there we are and you come up to Winnipeg and you lift us up there God promised us in the carpenter fulfillment, peace and joy if the failures in the world can find that through a program like this God we've got something going for us stay close to us and to me and to each other love care chair