The Equalizer in a Life of Chaos – Norm A.

Thank you very much. My name is Norm, and I'm an alcoholic from Monrovia. And I'm extremely happy to have the opportunity to be here, and I want to thank Bruce and Henry and the entire committee for the opportunity of being here tonight and to participate, The opportunity to see some old friends and to reunite myself with some new from old friends and to meet some new people here. To have the opportunity to say welcome to all of the new people that are out there tonight for your first, second, or third meeting at Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you will tonight, why try to keep an open mind on what you can use, why take it with you, and if you can't use it, why be good enough to kick it out of the chair and leave it here. And you've got to remember that anything I might try and say here tonight are going to be things that I personally believe in. is going to be what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous means to me. It's going to mean some things that I've used to say sober over a period of time, that I'm not by any stretch of the imagination an authority, a consultant, or a counselor on the program AlcoholicsAnonymous. I'm an example, good or bad, that AA works, that it has been necessary for me to take a drink, steal anything, and go to jail now for over 28 years. I'm sure that... I really didn't think anybody would be impressed. I am, obviously. I never brought it up. And you never know. I've been talking about it for years. You know, we've had a lot of changes in AA and I keep thinking, you know, somewhere down the road we're going to get a pension program going and by God, if we ever do, I sure want to get cut for all my time. So I bring it up anytime I have the opportunity and if I don't have the option or the opportunity, I'm going to talk about it anyway. But to the new guy that's sitting out there tonight it's difficult to digest when you hear people talking about this sobriety. You know? You're sitting there and you're a couple of days sober. You're nervous as hell you're sitting on your hands jumping out of your knickers and you hear a guy say I haven't had any booze now for 28 years and you probably want to run outside and throw up and I can I can understand that I can still relate to it I hope the hell I never forget you know I'm sitting there in that first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and at that time I was 29 years old and a guy stands up in front of the group that night and he says I haven'T found it necessary to take a drink steal anything and go to jail now for nine and a half years and I felt the same way what a liar Jesus what a lawyer but man There ain't no way a guy could go nine and a half years if he doesn't drink. How can you make it out there in that rotten jungle and deal with all those lousy people and meet his responsibilities and be sober for nine and the half years and I just couldn't visualize it? Anybody could do it. And I hadn't come to AA for nine иаn and a halу years to compound the problem. I'd come to AAA for a little while. I think most of us did. I came in here because I had a lot of heat on out there and I wanted to get that heat off. I wanted find some way to control this thing that was giving me so much trouble. I wanted to get back out and get going because I had a great deal to do. Alcoholics are busy people, and I had enough of them. I had quite a lot moving out there, and I want to get out before it's all gone. You know how that goes. And I had... A lot of my friends were out there. My best friends, and they were out here, and I couldn't think of their names, but they were my best friends. And I... I was concerned about their well-being, and I was quite sure that they'd have a difficult time to survive if I wasn't there, and I went on and on with this damn thing, and I almost rationalized myself right out the door and back into those gin mills, but I kept going to meetings. And if I'm going to say anything tonight that may be significant, why, you've got to go to meetings, you see. It's so very, very important. Whether you've been around for 28 days or 28 years, it really doesn't make much difference, not as far as I'm personally concerned. You see, if I am going to maintain any semblance of sanity and serenity and peace of mind and sobriety, if I have gone to find the equalizer in my life, I'm gonna find it here on Alcoholics Anonymous. The answers to my problems, most of my problems. where I'll be able to relate and talk to the people here. You see, if the people out there on that street could have answered my problems, hell, I'd have still been out there. There's no question about it. But they couldn't, and so I came here, and so they became the equalizer in my life. And today more so than ever, last year was kind of a mass exodus. There were half a dozen of my friends. They were from 16 to 26 years, and they all went back out again, and they're all still out there, and I've talked to several of them, and their stories are all the same, that they just hadn't had any time for the last 10, 15 years to get to any meetings, you see. The equalizer in their life was long gone. They got involved in other things that they felt were more important and now they're out there struggling to try to get back again. Easier to stay here, you say. And when you're new it's so very important because you've got a lot of questions and like, hey, I'm concerned about the next nine and a half years and they assured me in a short period of time that I needn't be concerned about what's going on about the rest of the next five years. All I had going for me was now, right now. They said, Norm, it's now. And there isn't any more. You couldn't change what happened a couple of hours ago. And I can't tell you what's going down a couple of hours from now. That if there's anything moving in my life, it's moving right now. And you better get all you can get right now, good, bad, or indifferent. Because you may not be through this way again. Or maybe it's not going to be through again, so you better get a hold of it. All you can bet. And if you're sitting out there and you're brand new and it's going good, for God's sake, don't talk. Don't say to your sponsor, how come it's going so good? If it's doing good, man, get it. It's all you've got to do. All you've gotta do is get it right now because I'll tell you, buddy, it'll get salty later on. I'll guarantee you that. And by golly, I come to find out that if I just kind of take care of it right now, the day would take careof itself and I've been moving that way now for over 28 years. It was just the other day, really, that I walked through the door and I sat there in those AA meetings and I'm a brand new guy and I don't know what's going on. What I'm going through the mental gymnastics that everybody goes through is what the hell am I doing in AA? Why am I an alcoholic? This isn't something I've Been Looking Forward To over a long period of time. I had not gone down to my high school counselor and he said, what would you like to be? And I said, an alcoholic. God, he was overjoyed, my counselor was. He said, marvelous, we got a hell of a program for jackasses, boy, yeah. And I took that program and I ripped that city for 15 years and I ended up in AA. As a matter of fact, I was not even an alcoholic the day before I came to the program. None of us were, were we? We're all heavy drinkers. Victim of unusual circumstances and rotten drivers. If I'm mad, I ain't no alcoholic, you know. And so I'm sitting there wondering, why is it all of a sudden here I am and I am an alcoholic? I'm an alcoholic probably by virtue of my family. My family are all heavy drinkers. They did a lot of boozing out there, but I was the only alcoholic in the whole rotten family and that bothered me a lot, Jizzy. I thought, why have I been given the cross to carry when I'm the best they produced? And there was never any question about that because I talked to myself about that several times and the answer always came out, you are the greatest guy you know, yes, well. Why are you an alcoholic and nobody in your family is an alcoholic? And I couldn't solve that problem. And my people were fine people, don't get me wrong, and I loved them and they love me. My people are Irish-Italian. They're not overly intelligent, they talk a lot with their hands, they're too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash, and that'd take care of us for about 75 years out there. But, by God, when you want to know something about booze, you come to see us and we'll tell you about it. We not only told you about It, but we made It. The Italians made It, the Irish drank It, and I got to AA, and that's about the way it went. Yeah. I felt between my family and the environment that the problem was there. I'm a product of L.A., and anybody coming out of Los Angeles had a lot of trouble with it. Well, L. A. is a city, isn't it? And you can get out anywhere you want to get out of. If you want it bad enough and you're willing to make the sacrifices to get her to do it, people, places, and things don't make anybody anything. Now, whiskey made me alcoholic. And if you're sitting out there new tonight, well, maybe your problem is identical to mine, you see. And I figured all that out by myself. It was the whiskey. That was it. I drank that whiskey out there as hard and as fast as I could drink it. And somewhere in that lottery of my life, I crossed some invisible line from the social aspect of drinking to the compulsive area. Once too many and a thousand aren't enough. Looking for the answer to living on a quart of whiskey and I can't find it. The whiskey was the problem and I'm the guy that did the drinking. So when you get down to the bottom line, I'm a problem. And that hasn't changed up to or including today because no matter where I go, I'm not the first guy to get there. I don't think any of us had to call somebody up and say Charlie I'm down here on Vermont will you please come down and help me get it screwed up I have never had to do that I've been able to overreact to any situation anywhere anytime I don' t need anybody to help me out there I had all that before I ever took a drink I still revert back to that old personality from time to time I'm the first guy to admit that making money is good but getting even is better a lot of times sure And that's the way it used to be. That was me. These were all the qualifications I had long before that booze. I traveled half the world in half my life. I made a complete ass of myself. I spent money I didn't have buying things I didn'T need, trying to impress people I didn' t like. I sat around them bar stools and talked to them high rollers about being all things to all people. I built the castles in the air and formed the corporations. I talked to millions spent in thousands and never had a dollar in the pocket. I drove the Cadillacs up and down the barn night after night after night. And when them big money people said, what do you do, man? I said, I do it all, boy, I thought, yeah. I'm the general manager of the universe, and don't you ever forget that. The alcoholic spends a lifetime impressing a group of people he's never met in his life that he is something he isn't. You might find me in August driving around L.A. with the windows rolled up in my car to make him think I had an air conditioner, you know. And the beauty of it is, when I came into the program, I found out that I didn't have to operate. I didn' t have to live that way any longer. When I got to AA, well, the people said to me straight out, Sonny, don't impress us here. We have been impressed by experts in the business. And because everybody in AA is an expert. And the beautiful thing about it is The beauty of that statement is you needn't take my word for it. All you gotta do is just kind of talk to the guy next to you. about anything I don't care what it is he's going to comment on it if he doesn't know what you're talking about he'll probably say that's true yeah so you discover you're around a lot of experts and no matter where you've been there's guys got here before you did I remember one night I was telling this guy I thought he'd be impressed it was new and I said Si, you know I've been in jail about 25 times he says the hell you have son I did that in a year you know so you learn real early just lay it all down and grab the package that's available to you here and be yourself. I don't have to compete with anybody today. I don' t have to complete with you or you with I. All I got to be today is to be sober and be a little bit better than what I was yesterday and that's enough. And if you're new here this evening, you might give it a little thought and you just might grab that package and you might take it out with me tomorrow on that city street and you may spend the day just being sober and being yourself and being a little bit better than what you were yesterday. And I can tell you without any reservation whatsoever, it's the best deal I ever had in my life. And I'm the guy that looked half the world out there trying to find the best thing for the best of me and the best deal. And I didn't find it. Not until I got here and was surrounded and introduced and subjected to a marvelous group of people that chose to call themselves Alcoholics Anonymous. This evening I'll tell you just briefly about what I was like. I've told you a great deal. I got a bad attitude and by virtue of my bad attitude I got an unruly attitude as a matter of fact. And because of my unruley attitude I had a lot of rut and trouble out there. My rut and troubles started in 1939. I wasn't drinking in 39, I was stealing. I mean, I was too young to drink. I'm a thief by trade, I'm an alcoholic by absorption. Was the vice president, general manager of all the outside operations of the Midnight Auto Supply in the San Gabriel Valley. I was in the car business. If I could sum it all up by saying if it was too big to carry, I laid down beside it and claimed it and that was the way it went. I became one of the greatest and finest car thieves that ever came out of the valley but it was illegal, I was arrested, I went to jail and that was the end of that vocation after I got out of the can I started, I suppose looking for something that was going to get me all moving, that fantasy land and that booze walked in the first time I was drunk in my life was in 1941 it was Easter week in Los Angeles Easter week, Balboa Beach the Rendezvous Ballroom, Stan Kenton and Padre Beer, and what a deal Jesus, we'd drink a little Padre and we'd get a little buzz on we'd go in that dance hall and we danced with them dollies and we'd act four times drunker than what we were and we would breathe on them girls, you know, let them know, you now. Big man's in from L.A., baby. What do you say, huh? Got a little booze out there in the car, you know. Oh, yeah. It was a lot of fun. Hell, it was fun. In the beginning, I didn't have any trouble. I didn' t get any jams. I didn''t wake up in the morning and have more to drink. On the weekends, it''s the way it went. We either went to the Cotton Club down in Culver City or the Treen Island Southgate or the Pasadena Civic or the Rendezvous Ballroom and down in Balboa and there was the Dorsey Brothers and Kenton and the rest of it. It was fun. I kind of ground it out. I moved out of Padre because it never gave you enough. You had to drink a lot of it to get a buzz on it, and I'm going to have to look for the buzz. And I moved from the Padre to the Rainier Ale, the old Green Death, and from the Green Death I moved into whiskey, and when I got to whiskey, I found it. The greatest thing made since money and girls was whiskey. I even got to the point in my life where I liked the taste of it! Yeah, God, what a break! My sponsor drank for over 30 years and hated every drop he ever drank, you know, But I've got to the point that I like the taste of it. But I like The Buzz. Man, that whiskey gets your attention. And it gets it right now. It gets you downtown. And man, that's all I ever wanted to be. I want to be downtown. And I don't want to get there in a little bit. I want it to be right now and... And you've got admit that whiskey does. Difficult in the beginning when you're young and you're training out there. And I broke in on that ten high. and that was about as rotten as you can get that old tan high burn going and coming and ran out my nose and made my eyes water but I I hung in and I think that's important you know the guy's gonna be an alcoholic he doesn't give up cause he heaves a little does he you stay in there man yeah and the day comes you can drink a pint of whiskey and you don't heave anymore and you kind of feel good all over about it don't you yeah and that wasn't the beginning of the end that whiskey started getting me in more trouble than I had been in before. I violated my probation in the end of 1941. They were going to send me back to jail. The war broke out by then, and rather go to jail, they gave me the opportunity to join the service. So I joined the Navy. I went into the Navy in January 1942. I stayed four years. I went in as seaman, came out as seman. That's pretty hard to do. People said to me, Oh, Norm, how did you do that? And I said, You just put your mind to it, that's all. Right? An alcoholic, he can do it if he wants to. The other guy said, well how come you didn't get a kick out A BCD or something worse I said, I'm sure like most alcoholics Hell, I am a hard worker You can say that about most of the Alkies They are hard workers They got to work 25% harder than anybody else Just to stay even out there, right? That old Alkie is always coming from behind He's always got the heat on In order to get the heat off When he's right, he's got to go Our best day is Tuesday We miss Monday Man, we give her hell Tuesday, don't we? We run all over. We're doing four jobs in one, getting that heat off out there. And that was the story of my life. I like ships. I liked the sea. When I was aboard a ship and I was at sea, I did a good job. I didn't get into any trouble. Sure, I drank some of that shipboard juice, a little Aquavalva Vitalis Sneaky Pete, a little fermented coconut juice, you know, a few things like that. Stuff made by all those amateur distillers, but I was able to kind of keep it under control. When that ship pulled into port and I Was on the Beach, man, I'm in a jam. One jam after another. I never got back to the ship until they hauled me in. And I was court-martialed for many, many things. I had a deck of summary in a general court. I did 11 and a half months in a Navy brig up on the top of Goat Island off a general cord marshal. Had 70, 80 days solitary confinement on bread and water, some other miscellaneous things that aren't important, but all directly due to booze. I survived the service. And I came back to L.A. in 46. In 46, that invisible line I made mention, I passed it. I'm that guy out there really looking for that answer to living in that quart of whiskey now. Can't live with it and can't live without it and don't want to. I crossed that invisible line, I really couldn't tell you. 1920 doesn't really make any difference, but in 1946, I'm now starting to always come from behind. In 1946, strange things happened in spite of myself. I heard about AA. In 1946 I was having a bad time in a rotten town down south called Pasadena. Bad town. Bad cops, rotten judge, terrible jail. I was having a lot of problems in that town. I get picked up on my second 502 and I went in front of the judge and the judge says, a year, suspended, three-year probation. He said, your probation stipulates, son, that if you're in a place that serves or sells alcoholic beverages, you're under probation. You're in violation. If I hear about it, if the probation department hears about it you're going to be violated and you're gone back to jail and you've got to give me that year. Get the hell out of my courtroom. And I remember that day like yesterday. And I'm walking out of the courtroom in that sigh of relief to know that I've got through one more jam, and I'm saying to myself, self, don't drink in Pasadena, right? You don't have to have 130 IQ to know you're having a hell of a lot of trouble in that town. And it all seems to revolve around this booze, so don't do any drinking there. All right, I'm not going to. And I stayed out of town two or three months. The inevitable happened. Things are going good. Well, I'm drinking one night down one of the beach towns. I came out of the Cardinal's Sin while I was drinking. I started to think. An alcoholic should never do that. He should think or drink, but he should never do them both at the same time. Because I got to thinking about silly things like I'm going back to Pasadena. Yeah. Well, that makes a lot of sense. About 10 o'clock and you're half smashed. And so I got on my automobile and I drove back to Pasadaena and I pulled into a place there called the Green Terrace. I met a buddy of mine and we decided to close the place and we did and the last thing I remember is we were heading for Eagle Rock there was an after hours joint over there and that's the last thing I remember until a car made a left turn in front of me and I couldn't see it and I smashed into the side of it and when I woke up in the morning I was in jail in Pasadena well I pull the book and slip out of my pocket and I'm sighted on a 501 felony drunk driving hit and run bodily injury involved and I might add but for the grace of God that looks after damn fools and drunks I didn't kill four people out there on the city street that night you see alcoholism is a game of seconds and inches. You know, a few inches, a few seconds, a snap of the finger. Three and a half, four feet. That's all you got to talk about. If I'd have been over about three and a halftoes or three and half feet on the broad side of that car at the rate of speed I was traveling I would have killed the people. I recognize that today. And how strange it is. God moving in these strange and mysterious ways and no matter what I do or I don't do it works out that way anyway. Here I am and I'm back into a town that I said I'd never be back to again to hit a car to walk down and stand in front of a judge who has no choice but to send me to jail. And in the city jail, I shared a jail cell with a guy who was going to AA. Now that's crazy, isn't it? Two hundred, two hundred and fifty guys are doing time. One guy gets out of jail once a week to go to AA Some people used to pick him up They'd take him to a meeting He was a trustee, he was an honor system They'd taken to a meet And after the meeting they'd bring him back And they would lock him up And we would sit there And we'd talk about this program I didn't want to talk about it He wanted to talk abut it And so we talked You know, you don't have a big audience in a jail cel and he would always come back to say Norm why don't you come to a meeting you're in here because of booze and why don'T you go to a meeting with me and I told him words of this effect I said Sully I'm not an alcoholic now I don't need this thing whatever you know this AA thing I'm having a lot of problems and bad luck and rotten people out there and a hell of a lot of bad drivers I'm an alcoholic and good God I'm much too young to be an alcoholic. I said, Jesus, I get to be your age. You're 36, you know. What have you really got to look forward to? What do you have to contribute to anybody out there? You might as well go to AA and they have nothing else left. And that was the end of that. He went his and I went mine but you know that seed was planted and I never forgot about that guy and over the next eight and a half years periodically I used to wonder what the hell ever happened to Sully. I wonder if he's still around. I wonder If AA is here. I wonder if he is gone. In 1954 in February I'm laying on the floor, and I'm about as sick as I've been in a long time. I'm lying there thinking, I just can't go on this way. And I got to wondering what the hell is old Sullivan doing? I wonder if he's still going to sing A.A. And you know, I went in and I picked up a telephone and I called the central office in Los Angeles because I was trying to find a guy named Sullivan I'd shared a jail cell with in 1946. That seat is extremely strong. I didn't go to any meetings. I knew very little about A.I. If you're sitting out there new tonight, why, the seat is planted. Now, you may choose to go back out again, and you may be sitting around them gin mills out there, but rest assured, we're going to be with you, by God, I'll tell you that. And because the one thing we guarantee here is we'll absolutely louse up your drinking. That much is for sure. I hope to hell you don't have to go, but if you do, I hope you come back to see us. Well, I stayed out there eight and a half years. I drank a lot of whiskey in order that I might qualify for this program. I went to work for one of the largest construction firms in the world I stayed with them 11 years The company at that time was owned and operated by three Yugoslavs That came from the old country They made all their money with hard work and good whiskey So I fit And we got work going in the 11 western states We're in a pipeline business and a tunnel business I hit that high road You know, I'm at the right place at the same time At the right time And the jobs are bigger and better And the money's coming in I'm drinking better booze in better places, and life is good. And then I had a little setback. I met and married a red-headed Irish woman. Had a violent temper, a rotten disposition, yelled at me a great deal, never recognized my sensitivity. And was pregnant every other year. It was incredible. I know my bar associates have told me norm don't ever marry a woman ain't got a job you're in deep trouble make sure she's working you've now doubled your income about midnight that makes a lot of sense I've been running with old red we've been going around together and we decided one night we'd turn the trick and we got married she had a hell of a job things couldn't have been better couple of months later walk in the house house in the impossible scene. She says, Norm, I've been to the doctor. I'm pregnant. I have to quit my job. I've got to get off my feet. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Did you ever tell that to an alcoholic? Tell him anything else and he don't want to believe it. I don't believe that. Well, I even asked for a second opinion on this thing. What the hell? But her being a hard-headed Irish woman, she assured me this is the way it was going to be. And I got to thinking, well, hell, that isn't all that bad. That caper takes about nine months. We'll give her two to get on her feet. We'll get the rotten job back and everything's going to be just like it was, huh? That's the story of the alcoholic's life. Everything's going to be a mess. It's going to be just like if it was. Jesus, that was 34 years ago. She ain't turned a tap since that day. No! She got herself in that shape eight times. It was unbelievable. I used to sit around the gym and wonder how the hell could it happen. I'm not home that much either at all. That Vatican roulette, that number had come up 14 every other year. Here she go, you know, Jesus. And that rotten disposition of hers. You know, I'd be gone a couple of days and I'd walk in the house and Jesus, I'm tired. I've been busy out there. And I'm sick and a little drunky and I would like to be greeted with a little love, affection and understanding. Oh no, not around that house. Hell, you walk through the door and from ten feet she's yelling, you're drunk again, you're DRUNK AGAIN! I used to stand there dumbfounded wondering how the hell does she know? I remember a Sunday I'd had a bad day I'd been down to Helen's Peppertree in Baldwin Park And I was having a conversation with the guy. We had a disagreement, and he opened my eye up. And I got dried blood all down the side of my face. My shirt's torn. I got one shoe on. And I Was trying to figure out how the hell she knew I'd been drinking. I had that marvelous story I was going to let her in on. She never gave me the opportunity. You're drunk again. Now, what conversations? I say, who me? Like 30 guys are with you, you know. Yeah, she say, yeah, you. And then I'd get her with that big one. I say baby, do you know who you're talking to? And typical alcoholic, I would introduce myself. I'm old Norm, baby. That's who the hell I am. And don't you ever, ever forget that. You're trying to let her in on a hell of a deal, aren't you? Yeah. And then she would mimic me as only the way an Irish woman can do it. I'm all Norm. That's how I am, you know. That's so degrading for a high roller. who's standing in the kitchen with his new business partner. That's a fellow you met in the bar last night and you've invited him home. And the reason he's coming home with you is, well, he don't want to go home alone either, you know. He's married to an Italian girl. There's that, yeah. And so there you are, the blind leading the blind. You'll embarrass me in front of my best friend. I couldn't think of his name, you now. And then she'd tell me what I could do with best friend and I'd say, if that's where you're going to be, I'm leaving this dump, ain't never coming back. What do you think of that? And she'd throw them the clothes out. And then I'd pick all the clothes up and I'd pack them out to the car. In and out, you know, loading up that car. That old clothes-packing alcoholic. He's a joy to that neighborhood, isn't he? The neighbors around on the porch go, there he goes. You're exciting. Beats gun smoke, doesn't it? Watching the old alky out there loading up his car in and out. honking his horn, driving off down the street into the sunset never to return to wake up a couple of days later on the front seat of your car because that's where you're sleeping with your head screwed up under the armrest and the door handle in your ear, right? man, that car sleeping will get you to AA I'll guarantee ya you ever wake up about midnight and you're sick as hell and you think your window's down but it's out and you heave right into your window and you knock the hell out of your head and then you sit there and roll it down squish, squish, squash right? what do you say to yourself? I wonder why I don't roll it down for a heave on it I wonder yes these become giant problems in the life of an alcoholic now I gotta go home because I gotta wash the car and on the way home I have a flat tire but no self-respecting alcoholic would change a flat tire when he's drinking. He drives on them. Because he knows they will go away. Everything that is disagreeable in our lives will go away. We drink enough booze, it all goes away. The tire goes away and gets all chewed up. you're driving on the rim we have a lot of rim drivers in AA do you ever see a rim driver coming home he's got the death grip on that wheel you know turning that car into that driveway up on the lawn opens the door he falls out and he lays out there for a while so the neighbors can inspect him oh there yeah but then the poor old alcoholic gets up off of the lawn and he says to himself I wonder if anybody saw me yes because he's deeply concerned about what people think about him we as alcoholics worry all the time about our reputation we don't do anything about it we just worry about it isn't that the way it is well I did all my boozing out there in the gin mills I like the dark lights and the rotten music I like to drink I like sitting here at midnight looking in that mirror you gotta get that Maybelline look Kind of wide-eyed There you are You devil, there you are It's incredible how good looking You get in it Sitting here wondering why all the dollies aren't there Good looking, well built Intellectual and wealthy You got a $30 smiling Frankie Gordon suit on 50 cents worth of chilies All down the front of your hair You smell bad and you can't talk You go to the men's room and it's a pay toilet And you haven't got the money to get in You got to slide under the door I bet there's some door sliders here tonight, sure. You slide in, and then you slide out. Because you're so drunk you don't know. Once you get in, all you got to do is just turn the handle and walk out. But not the alcoholic. If he slides in, damn it, he'll slide out! Well, we'll show him. and we laugh but it isn't very funny when we're going through it is it huh because we're grinding up every loving thing we own that means anything in our life the inevitable little by little it's gone the wheels of alcoholism they grind very slow but very fine you give it enough time and eventually there you are and there's nothing one day the people I worked for and did business with said that's it The old slab sold out in 51 And an eastern firm pulled in And they said, that's it The next time I ever smell booze on your breath You're through, get out of here And then I drove home one day Yeah One more lie One more promise The schemer How many times did I stand there With the tears going down Saying, baby Jesus, baby, give me a break Don't throw me out Hell, I got a deal A new priest she was telling me about. I'm going down to take another pledge, baby. That's what the hell I'm gonna do. You think of them kids now. God! The schemer. To this day, she says, Norm, you're a drunken bum. She won't even sore at me. You're drinking yourself to death. Hell, you'll never live to be 35 years old. You're gonna have to get out of my life. I'm a neurotic. The kids are neurotics. All they do anymore is sit around all night looking out through the front room window just to see your car come up the street. And the nights you never come in, I don't sleep. And the night I don' t sleep, I hear the sirens run. And I'm thinking the cops got you. Or you're dead. And I' m not going through it anymore. I've called an attorney, Norm. I filed for separate maintenance. I put a restraining order against you, Norm! I'm going to divorce you! Get out of my life! I'll always love you. But you tore out all the feeling. I haven't got any feeling for you, one way or another. As the alcoholic, I can't believe what I'm listening to because these things always happen to everybody else. They never happen to you and I. Drink enough booze long enough, hard enough. Be alcoholic,I guarantee you it's going to get it. And you find yourself driving on down the street wondering, Why me? Why, why, huh? Well, you know and I know. Give it enough time and it gets it until the inevitable is you're standing there in the morning and you're washing your face or brushing your teeth. Or you're sitting there in that saloon and you look into the mirror and you've got to hang your head because what you see is something you can't tolerate. Because you lost the sweetest thing you ever owned in your life, the respect for yourself as a human being, as an individual. A man walked in, he says, you've abused the privilege of owning it and he took it away. And you walk around continually with that knot in your stomach. That remorse eats you alive and you canít face living. And it becomes a psychological second in your live when youíre sick and tired of being sick and tried. And maybe itís the first time you come into the program or maybe itís a tenth of the fifteenth time but itís that time you just say, I surrender. and you don't even know you say it I'm laying on that floor in February of 1954 and for some unknown reason I just don't want to go anymore as I made mention I walk in and I pick up a telephone I get information I get a hold of the L.A. Central Office I call and I get hold of a guy over there and his name was Johnny C and this John was one hell of a guys one of those guys you hear about in A.A he gave away what he'd found he worked for beans in that central office giving away what he'd find L.E. Central Offices has made it possible for people like me to be here today. There's absolutely no question about it. That same old guy, on a Thursday night, if you went down to the old Alhambra meeting, and you walked up the stairs, and up the top of the stairs sitting on the railing was a guy named Johnny C. And he had an eye for the new guy. You walk in the meeting, and he'd grab you. He'd spot you, and then he'd take you in, and he'll pour you a cup of coffee, and he would say, You're new, aren't you, son? And you're young! And keep an open mind, will you? Keep coming back. Go to a lot of meetings. Get a hold of three-and-a-half and buy yourself a book. He says, son, if you do those things, you'll never have to take another drink again if you don't want to. And that's the guy that I talked to on that Sunday afternoon. That's the man who said, that's a guy that said, do you think you've got a drinking problem? And I told him I thought I did and he gave me that information. He also gave me some phone numbers. He says call these numbers. He said, these are people who live out in your area. He said you'll get a hold of one of them and they'll be happy to see you. And so I started calling and pretty soon I got a hold the guy, and he says, hang in. I'll be on in a couple of hours. And a couple hours later, a guy walks in, and he sits down. And he starts to talk to him, and she's one of them old hard-hearted sponsors you hear about in AA. I used to think they sent him to school to be a hard-hearted sponsor, you know. And his attitude was, boy, you want this program, you've got to want it as bad as you wanted that whiskey, and if you don't want it that bad, you're wasting our time, you're wasted my time, you're losing your time. He said, don't you ever forget this. You need us, and we don't need you. That's the way it is. And you've got to come and get it. He said, if you've Got a car, you drive. And if you haven't Got a Car, you take the bus. And if You haven't got the bus money, you walk. He said you walk for whiskey, you can walk for the program. It's a better deal. He said if you want me to, I'll be your sponsor. I thought he was kidding. I didn't know what the hell a sponsor was. But whatever it was, I didn' t want him. That was for sure. All I could think about when he left was, all I could thing about is, I'm going to that meeting. He says, I' m going to be down at the Temple City meeting tonight. He says the Temple city group meets down in Rosemead, in a town called Rosemade. I wanted to ask him why the hell he didn't change the name, but I didn't have the guts to ask Him. He said, I'm going to be down there if you want to come on down. He says, I'll be there. He said. I'm gonna show you around. I'm Gonna get you some numbers. I'm Going to take you. I'm GoNna meet you at three meetings and he says then it's up to you whatever you want to do. Yeah, as a matter of fact, he believed, you know, if you had a car, you weren't even ready. He said the last couple of years though they'd soften up a great deal. They'd been taking chances on guys with cars and he said a lot of guys are making it. And they even have wristwatches, some of them too, you know. Miserable. Well, I went down to that meeting. I went there in spite of him. I don't even know why I went down. I want down there to show him I had a car maybe, run over him with it. I didn't know I'd like to do that. God directed the angels on my shoulder, call what you will. I pulled into the parking lot there and, my God, he was waiting and I was kind of surprised. He walked up to the car and he opened the door and I got out and he put his arm around me and we walked into the meeting and, God, I loved him from that day till the day he died. I love him today. Very controversial individual. Tremendous speaker. Carried the message to hundreds and thousands of people out there. God knows how many people he helped. I mean, he had a very difficult time. He couldn't turn his will and his life over the care of anybody on an all-time basis. Chapter 6, that was for everybody else out there, but chapter 6, you didn't have time for that. Tolerance, a God-given quality that says let another man live his life the way he wants to. Let him work his program the way he wants it to work and not the way I want it directed. He couldn't do it. He couldn' t release anything. People resented that and then he resented them. Then the resentments had him alive with the luxury of the alcohol he can' t afford, the resentment. And he made a decision he'd drink a little. And he stayed out there 12 years. he tried to come back time and time again but his ego wouldn't let him stay that ego that killer of the alcoholic because his ego kept saying I'm the guy to carry the message to help the people how many times I heard him say Norm, Norm, Jesus all the guys I sponsored Christ I'm they're my sponsor now and he'd go back on then he had a severe heart attack after damn near 12 years and he came back to see us and he spent a year and a half and then he died and I love him because he's the guy that took the time to come to see me he's a guy that took time to meet me down there on that Sunday evening and bring me in, pour me a cup of coffee and introduce me around. 70-80 of the finest drunks ever came out of the San Gabriel Valley, I'll tell you that. An extremely wealthy group in those days. My God, we had so much money in the group in Those Days we had donuts before and after the meeting. Can you believe that? Red jelly donuts are saying a true status. Red jelly doughnuts. Not crummy old plain doughnuts or rotten cookies. Red jelly donuts. They were extremely good eating. Good for new people. My God, you see a new guy coming through the door and he's all green and hung out and the red jelly donut committee would slide up on him there. Nice to have you here. You're new, aren't you? Would you like a donut? Oh, Jesus, no! Did you ever look at a red jelly doughnut when you got a hangover? God, it'll make your teeth itch, I'll guarantee you. And then the meeting began and a man stood up there in front of the group. And he told what he was like, what happened, what he's trying to be like now. The old L.A. Central Avenue group put the whole meeting on. In those days why once a month why some outside group would come in and they'd put the whole meeting on. That night it was the L. A. Central Avenue group. The only two speakers that I remembered their names they were the short speakers one of them was a fellow named Tokay another name the gal her name was Willamame she was a domestic for one of the movie people in Hollywood and she'd found the program through him he had never made the program but she had. And then the major speaker was that guy that stood up there and said, I haven't found it necessary to take a drink, steal anything, or go to jail for nine and a half years. And I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Nine and a halve years. He talked about how people knocked the hell out of him and how he went to jail. He'd been in over 80. Eighty jails. He drank some stuff called Jamaican ginger and you give him the Jake leg and then crippled him up so bad they put him in a hospital for a couple of months. And everybody is hysterical because the bugger can't walk. And your spies are sitting there going, did you hear? Did you hear he can't work? You know. I'd, you know, what the hell's so funny about it, you know? Jake leg? I don't even know what he's talking about. I'm sitting there thinking, what the hell am I doing here? I'm underqualified. What kind of a story have I got? For God's sake, I've been in 25 rotten jails at the outside. I drank a little Vitalis and that sneaky peed. It ain't nothing compared to that guy. Then I'm too young. And then he hits you with a big one. Doesn't make any difference. Doesn't make any difference what you drank or where you drank it or how much you consumed or how old you are. It's what it's doing to you. He said, if it's tearing up any part of your life, you don't have to go any farther. And as I sat there that night, the one thing I knew past a shadow of a doubt that it tore the hell out of my life. I'm not so sure I want to quit drinking now. But I'll tell you one thing for sure. I'm tired of hurting myself. And I looked at that guy that night and I knew that I didn't have to ever, ever hurt myself again if I didn' t want to. because he hadn't and he is AA and he has nine and a half years and he is an example and that's what AA is a program of example what he is speak so loud I cannot hear a word he says stood a street man out of LA 125th and Figueroa maybe stands there that night and he's clean and he sharp and his eyes are clear and he dressed good hell he's got on a set of threads probably cost him a hundred And I'm thinking, boy, if he didn't get anything else out of AA, what a set of drapes he got. Isn't that all right? I just might hang around. He might have another issue going through here. Who knows? And I am really impressed with what I see. And he says, I can do it. If I can, do it, you can. And I think he's talking to me and I'm thinkin', maybe. What the hell, he's had a tough go. His woman had divorced him and remarried. His kids, they all hated him. Yeah. But one day he bought the whole package of this program and his kids came down to see him one day because he had a change of attitude and they learned to like him, to respect him and then they loved him and then if you wanted to that night and you look around and I didn't but when I look around I see the big tough guys sitting there the 200 pounds, 6 foot hay shakers out of South El Monte Garvey Acres, Wilmar sitting there and the tears are screaming down their face and they don't care they just let them roll with dignity they cry for the joy of it. And the story was told that they would laugh because they were miserable and they cried because they weren't happy and they called it Alcoholics Anonymous. And you may sit there tonight and say, that's oversimplification and a maybe. But it's the only program I got. You see, I found through the laughter of the program I could clear out the wreckage of my past. Through the laughter of the problem I discovered a way that I could clear out any wreckage of the future. Would you walk down to see me? I hope you don't. But would you? Give me the strength to laugh a little. And through the laughter I found a way to take a thousand pounds of gild off my back and I laid it down. And through that after I was able to walk out and be among them I made a transition and I quit taking and I started to give a little and taking you see is by nature that's me I'm a taker of things and a user of people I'm not a takers I'm just a loser all takers are losers you're looking at one here I had absolutely nothing in my life until I learned to have something, you must give something. To pick up an ashtray, a coffee cup, to put away the chairs and become the secretary of the group or central service, general service or they're going to call on the guy that's suffering out there in the street. And we don't guarantee that you're going find anything necessarily in a material sense but in a sense of well-being. I'll give you the world. A sense of will-being I drank whiskey because it gave me a sense of well-being. I felt good. It gave me a buzz. I hit that plateau and I'm buzzy all over. Man, I feel good! And I'd order one more just to stay even down the chute. And when I woke up in the morning that buzz was gone. And in his face was that old friend of mine, Remorse. What do you say, Norm? Now, jerk out your guts. Now drink a little whiskey. He's gone. But it was a temporary thing. I traded that in for the sense of well-being I've experienced here. And all I've had to do is be willing to be willing to give a little for the hell of it and nothing in return. Helping people to help themselves to get in a day, and that's what the bottom line is all about. As I look back now and I think, you know, there was days when I damn near turned it all back. The second meeting I went to was almost the last meeting I ever attended in Alcoholics Anonymous. I went as I was walking out of that Temple City meeting my sponsor says tomorrow night I'm going to a meeting over at the Ville Street Group. It's in Pasadena. I said, you're kidding. He said, no, I always go to Pasadena on Monday night. I said Pasadenas is a rotten town. Why would you go there? And he says, I'm going. If you don't want to go, don't go. And I'm thinking, what the hell? You don't think I can drive that far? I'm gonna go by God. I was a little nervous, but I pulled into Pasadeno. Went to that Villa Street group. It was the old timers group. You had to be sober 10 years to read the steps. They had a speaker that night been in AA 137 years. He was an old timer. The guy's name was Artie. I got to know Artie, got to love him. When Artie spoke at these AA meetings, he always showed a picture of himself. It was a great big blown-up mug shot taken of him when he was doing time in the county jail to the point that he tried to get across, right? He says, look at me here when I'm drinking. Look at me now. I look at the picture. I look up at Artie. I thought, he looked better drunk. Yes, he did. Ha ha! Yeah! I got to get the hell out of here. Hell, ageism. The next day on the way to work, I'm coming down here to Ohio. I went to Irwindale, and there's Tony's Liquor Store in Irwinddale. The car made a left turn, and it always did. Pulled into Tony's Licor Store, and I walked in, and there was Tony there. He gave me a pony. Yep, there it is. Took it out of the car, broke it, and took a drag. Threw it away. From that day to this, it hasn't been necessary to take a drink. God moves in strange and mysterious ways, and no matter what you do or you don't do, it works out the way anyway. My sponsor said, You've got to go to three meetings, and I didn't want him to think I couldn't get to three meeting. So I went through the third meeting, and I met a half a dozen guys, and we were about the same age and we started going together, running together, having meetings together. Having meetings after the meetings together, getting that in-depth inventory taken. Notice there was a lot of flakes in AA. A lot of cliques. Formed our own clique to be against some other cliques out there. That's what you got to do. Oh yeah. Run one of our guys for secretary of the largest group in the San Gabriel Valley. Politicked a little, got him in. Week after he's secretary, he joined the other cliques. The damn fool, yeah. Put us all on coffee detail and a lot of silly things. But we all stayed sober through it. And we woke up one day to find out that the only clicks in AA is the click, click, clicking in your head, isn't it? What do you got in AA? You got people in AA. You got People from All Walks of Life. You gotpeople you wouldn't do any drinking with and people you're not going to get sober with. But as a guy told me years ago, and the guy's name was Glenn. Glenn said, Norm, let me tell you something sunny. There ain't a man or a woman in this program who'd dislike you so bad he'd ever like to see you take a drink. Do you know that? Hell, Norm, those guys might hate your guts. But if you called him up and said, Charlie, will you come to see me? You know what, Norm? He'd be down to see you because he wouldn't want to see you go back out there in that jungle and get torn up in that grinder one more time. That's got to be as good a deal as you're ever going to have and I believe it. I'd also like to be able to tell you tonight that every day is a holiday and every meal is a banquet that there ain't no pucky on the street. But that isn't what we guaranteed them out there. There'll be sobriety in the way of life, buddy. Whatever you are, you're going to be better at. You're a ditch digger, you're gonna be a better ditch digder. You're gonna have to be your responsibilities and you're Gonna Have to Stand and Be Counted. And I can almost guarantee you that you're gonna have some things out there that aren't gonna go too good. In 1962, that eight-year syndrome, the eight-year itch, I couldn't hit a lick. Everything I touched turned to pucking. God! Financially, I'm in the worst condition of my life. I let my ego overrule my good sense. I'm making a deal with a guy I know that ain't gonna run but I couldn't see it. And I got an honest desire to take a drink. I got the A-Ram first. I can taste that whiskey going down. I got a bad program moving. I'm going to meetings, and I'm hating it, and I're hating myself. And I'm sitting down in Miami Springs one night, and the bartender says, What do you have? And I said, Give me a double. But for the grace of God, huh? That quick. But forthegraceofgod, he didn't find it necessary to snap that angel off my shoulder. you took me back for a minute and let me remember the important the essential of who I was and where I came from instead of sitting around crying a poor mouth about what you didn't get or what you did get you better remember who you are you better say thank you very much for what you got yeah you better think about it you better know everything's cut to size the big loads the big horses and the small ones the guys named Norm I'm trying to prepare you maybe for what's coming later on. And later on that year, I stood in front of St. Lou's Hospital and I said, Jesus Christ, why? Why me? One more time, why. And then again, I knew. It's a heavy load, but it's not as bad as it could be, I guess. I better say thank you. And I better says thank you today. Thank you very much for the 28 years and a few months that you let me walk out there on the sunny side of the street, boy. Because I know guys that died and never saw 28 Days. They died out there in a street of booze and fantasy, busted dreams and broken hearts and tears by the bucketful. That old Sully that brought the program to me in 1946, that after three years he went back out and he drank and he had an internal hemorrhage and he bled to death and he went out as hard as you can go because he had the heat on and the screws down and the terrible part of it all was that he had to justify his existence to the bitter end. Today, you see, I haven't had to justify my existence to anybody. I'm not coming from behind. I'm doing the best I can do with the equipment that God gave me. I spent a day on the street, and on the straight it was clean. And I'll get all done. I'll go on home. When I get home to my house, I'm going to walk into that house. And in the house, I'm living as a woman, and she's my woman. She's red-headed, and he's Irish. And she's generally glad I'm coming in. Most of the time, you know. You don't get the whole thing straightened out after 34 years. It takes a little time, you know, But above all, she respects me because I'm her old man. No more, no less. And the beauty of it all is that nobody has cried in my house today because their old man was drunk and tearing it up, huh? I haven't heard a kid of mine scream at me for years. I had the opportunity to raise him from small ones to big ones and see him go out and get some education and go to some schools. Not that that's a big deal, but it's a great deal. It's a good deal to my family because nobody cut it that far. I got two sons that are my business partners today. I got daughters that I take in downtown one by one by want. and I bought them the first pair of high-heeled shoes they ever put in their feet. You know, it don't sound like much unless you missed it. Then you know what I'm talking about. To say to a chicken, come on, chicken, we're going downtown, baby. And I'm going to buy you a pair of shoes because you're going dancing tonight. And we went down, and she put on the shoes. She became a woman in front of my eyes. The chickens are my life, and they became the women of my life. And they made me cry. They cried a little too. They cried because I'm their old man, kind of. I cried because they're women and they attract jackasses. Yeah. Them jackasses have been coming through my house for a long time. They're coming back through again. I still got one left in the house. She's a caboose. She's 17. And they're coming through and they're going back through. About three months ago, one come through that you wouldn't have believed. I couldn't believe myself. He's the worst I'd ever seen. And I've seen a lot of bad ones. Maybe I'm getting older. He walked into my house, he had his hat on. I said, for Christ's sake, boys, your head cold? Oh, to tell you something, when I was stealing, breaking into houses, I took my hat off, for God's sake. Yeah. And my daughter says, I'm embarrassed. I says, baby, I want to tell ya something. I'm gonna tell you what I told your sisters. Because I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been sober 28 years. You never had to say, that's your drunken father on the kitchen floor. You never said that, baby. And I have participated in your life. You've invited me to the music center. I go, I see you dance, huh? To your jazz concerts, and I see ya. To your football games when I get splinters in my butt. And I've been a participant in the things that you want to do, that you enjoy. Which gives me the privilege to say I don't like that flaky bastard right there. Yes. And we disagree without being totally disagreeable, huh? But the beauty of it is that I've walked the older ones down the aisle and I've given them away and I'm married to them and I cried every foot of the way. My son-in-laws, they got a good deal. They're all working and taking baths. I got one's a driller in the oil business. I got another's a dentist. I'm going to have teeth and gas any way you want to cut it, right? I got five granddaughters. I got a grandson. They come to my house. They take the knobs off my TV. They put peanut butter in my slippers. They make me cry all the time. As I look at them, I think about people who never saw grandkids do nothing. I'm overpaid. And buddy, if you're sitting out there new tonight, I'd like to tell you how overpaid I am but I couldn't find the proper words. How the hell do you tell anybody every loving thing you are? Is it because of Alcoholics Anonymous? Every loving thing I'll ever be in my life is going to be because of the program. I can totally tell you, friend, it's been a long walk from Lincoln Heights to the L.A. County Jail and the point that I stand today. And but for the grace of God, Alcoholics Anonymous and friends like you, I could have missed it all. Thanks a million. God bless you.