The Feelings of Loneliness and Utter Defeat That Preceded the Solution – 1966 – David B.

Good evening, good evening ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of your regular chairman I have the honor and the privilege to extend a hearty welcome to each of you here tonight. The Saturday night group of Alcoholics Anonymous which has been meeting almost every Saturday night for the last 20 years extends a special welcome to beginners if you're here for your first second or third time we'd like you to feel comfortable don't be awed by the be afraid and we like you we need you it's a special occasion but don't feel that there is anything more important than your sobriety here tonight well we celebrate a special occasion here this evening. I feel that no meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous should start, actually, without everybody being told or reminded why we're here, what AA is. AlcoholicsAnonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that we may solve our common problem and help others recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. AA is completely self-supporting. We're not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. We do not wish to engage in any controversy. We neither endorse nor oppose any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and to help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. In AA, we have 12 suggested steps of recovery. These 12 steps are the basic ingredient of our prescription for recovery from the sickness of alcoholism. And at each of our meetings, a member reads the 12 steps. And tonight, I'd ask Dr. Ron if he would be good enough to do this for us. Thank you very much, Daniel. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him 4. Made us searching in fearless moral inventory of ourselves 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs 6. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects and charity. Seven, humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends for such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal injury, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it is. Eleven, thought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Thank you very much, Brian. My friends, I hope that you won't be awed or frightened by this little speaker that's up here. We weren't sure about the CBC strike this afternoon, but it having been called off, we were prepared. And our friend Tommy is taping the meeting for us. Tonight, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Saturday night group. and it's fitting that we have for our speaker one who saw this group start somebody who can tell us something of its history see there were no groups there was no group in montreal when dave began a he was alone There's always some inspiration, help and hope in Dave's talk. He has given so many of them and so much help to so many people. I do feel though that tonight there will be something a little special in what he has to say to all of us. Ladies and gentlemen your speaker Dave Beecher. Thank you very much. I'm very proud and I'm very happy, really, to be here. I see a good many of the real old-timers here tonight and it makes me look back makes me think of the tremendous tremendous changes that have come into Alcoholics Anonymous and into each of our lives over this past twenty some twenty-two to be exact years I'm not going to dwell too long on my story tonight, but I am going to qualify. And just as your chairman said, this group was really started by Clarence and I to enable Edmund to stay sober because every Saturday Edmund took a powder and we never could find him or see him we had a saturday after saturday evening affair going on prior to this but it wasn't a meeting it was a social gathering which we had down in the forum and i don't know i think there are some of them still around today but there were a lot of people in those days who like to make something for nothing and on saturday night we used to have a crown and anchor game going we used the have a poker game going we used they have a oh i can't what's the name of the thing where they call the numbers out we had that one going we had a wheel of fortune going and Saturday night was the night we made the money that we hoped was going to pay for our great rehabilitation efforts which consisted of sending people down to the Belgian brothers when they got drunk. I can always remember how that ended up. It ended up with a man named Jack. jack was a man actually who in 1945 had got me my first job when nobody else would hire me he was an old sweat real old sweating what a guy and i can remember jack had an awful time he never did stay sober for any length of time and after we had got together a little bit of money out of this fund we decided that we would send Jack down to the Belgian brothers of the day. They don't have that now, but that was a place where people got sober. And what a place. But nevertheless, we sent Jack down and we all sat there. You know, we were pretty naive in those days. We used to think, well, everything was going to work out fine, everything was gonna be good, and Jack would come back sober and he'd never have another drink. I never really thought about what had happened to us in similar circumstances. The end of that plan we had of rehabilitation of alcoholics was the night that Jack got out of the Belgian Brothers and came on up to the meeting, he landed at the door and And he was really stiff, and we had one more thing where we sent a gent to a psychiatrist and then we didn't have enough money to pay the psychiatrist's bill. And so that ended up our welfare center. Of course, we learned an awful lot in those first few years of Alcoholics Anonymous here. And we learned mostly like every other group learned. We learned by trial and error. Nowadays everybody reads the Twelve Traditions, they're part of our way of life as Alcoholics Anonymous. They weren't written in those days, there weren't any Twelve Tradition. The 12 traditions were made up out of the experience of all the groups like us, who had tried all kinds of different ways to do all kinds different things. And our hospitalization plan perhaps was one of the things that started off the tradition that says we're not allied with any hospitals or any such thing. our members may work in them if they so desire. And that was a period when Eddie and quite a few of the other members that I see here tonight, the old-timers, came into alcoholic synonyms. Now I'm going to tell you just a little bit, a very brief sketch of my own an alcoholic. A career in our AA got started here. We don't tell that very often, and someday I'm supposed to write a book, but maybe I won't last long enough to write the book if I keep on procrastinating the way I am. I'm an alcoholic, my name is Dave Bancroft. I like to say that. And I like to say it really, I think, first for a selfish reason. I like to say it so that I will remember. And that's one of the reasons I like to tell my story, so that I will remember that I am an alcoholic. And that isn't the days and years gone by in the first few years of my drinking when you could shake your head get over a hangover and life was fun those aren't the days that can never come again they're gone never to return they can't possibly come back the days i've got to remember are the last few years of my drinking the last to those last terrible horrible years and then i think it's awfully wise to remember the tremendous things that have happened to us since we came into alcoholics anonymous i don't know in the last three or four days there's been people up at the house and i've and we have compared notes and we've just thought and you can't believe that we were the same people that quite a few years ago were so hopeless and so helpless and so nobody wouldn't have given it a nickel for our chances of even being alive now and here Here we are, wives, families, homes, friends, every kind of thing that you can think of. Every kind of a thing that a person could want, and these are the things that we've got. And we've got them all really by saying and meaning what I just said. I'm an alcoholic. My name is Dave. I think perhaps this does something else to me. It gives me what I like to call and what I constantly pray for, and that is a grateful heart. Because I can look around sometimes, you know, at home, and all of the things that I could have and so nearly lost. Dory sitting over there, little Mary, she's not so little now, she He's 17. And Paul, a little boy who's 12. They wouldn't be here at all. And Bill, my big boy. And his lovely wife. And my grandson. Oh, I get a great kick. I suppose that's kind of self-pride, but I get a great kick out of that grandson. He says, somebody asks him his name, what's your name? My name is Jeffrey, but Grandpa calls me Jefferson. I love that. And these are the rewards. I never got any great monetary rewards, any great job kind of rewards or any other kind of thing. these are the rewards that I have got things that fill my heart with gratitude sort of peacefulness somewhere there's an old prayer that says God give me a calm exterior a tranquil heart and a simple faith in God that seems to me really what all you need to come into Alcoholics Anonymous and that really basically is what makes any good life work I think that all my life I've had all the characteristics of the alcoholic basically the main characteristic as I understand it certainly with me is fear a feeling that you can't cope with things a feeling that you're all what they used to in the old days call an inferiority complex the feeling that there aren't as good as other people and embarrassment and shyness and idealism and all the things that maybe they mean a great deal but don't mean much to the world outside when i was a little boy i had tremendous fears and then my mother died and i was taken in hand by two maiden aunts and an uncle and an aunt and grandmothers and everybody else who made a tremendous fuss over me. I think this gave me one of the other characteristics of the alcoholic. You know, that poor motherless boy and so on and so forth. Things got to be pretty easy for me. I had everything I wanted and I was badly spoiled and they did things for me they mightn't have done for other youngsters. that very reason and then my father remarried and that's where the rebellion which is really part of an alcoholic's makeup that's for that started i rebelled at the thought first i there was the fear of losing this this comfortable life that i had found where i had everything that i wanted and everybody looked after me and i could do everything i wanted it was wonderful then of course there was that fear that i couldn't cope with things and then when my father remarried there was a terrible rebellion that i wasn't going to go home and if i did go home i wouldn't do what they told me and i made life a hell on earth for my poor stepmother and very shortly i was shipped off to a boarding school. It was there my last year that I had my first drink. Well, I can remember prior to that, and there's another thing that somebody or another calls the will to fail, and I think that I have that certainly, or perhaps it's that inferiority. I can member my father, we lived in Quebec at the time I can remember my father bringing me up here to Montreal and introducing me to the general manager and the president of the bank and saying this is my son he's going to follow in my footsteps you know right away there inside myself I kept saying well I'll never be able to do that I'll never may be able to measure up for the things that they expect of me and they used to be always saying there's been a bankrupt in the bank of montreal since 1817 and you're going to carry on the line and so on but there was that feeling that i couldn't measure up to it and i think that's part of the thing too and that defiance and rebellion and all of these I had every characteristic that you can read in a big book that has to do with alcoholics. I used to go around with older people, as most people who feel inferior do, and bigger boys. And I can remember in my last year of school somebody said, let's go in and have a drink. Oh, there's another old-fashioned virtue you don't hear much about now. It's called moral courage. And I didn't have the moral courage to say no. I thought, what will these boys think of me if I don't go? I don' t know. Nobody ever had anything that's wrong with drinking in our family. My father used to take a drink on occasion. I don''t believe I ever saw him the worst for it. And if friends came, there were some. i don't know why i never thought much of having a drink and nobody's ever offered me one so i hadn't had it but i had it this day because i was afraid not to and a whole new world opened up for me all the things that i'd always wanted to be were there right there in my hand i had them now and all this came out of that bottle and this was a wonderful feeling you know i'd always been shy and small and in the background when i got back to school i can remember little little boys saying boy did you smell pancraft he's been drinking and that made me a big wheel and i had never been a big wheel before i had and this was really something this was a lesson i never forgot and i have a feeling that was then that the the jekyll and hyde the old man of the sea that's alcoholism crawled onto my back i'm not going to go on too much farther with the part of my story that most of you know so well that was in the year 1925 24 24 it was let's look ahead to the year 1929 I've been transferred from one branch to another branch to another bunch in the bank. I've been transferred from Quebec City down through the Maritimes through Ontario and finally out to Manitoba, to Winnipeg. And most of the time the idea was that I was getting in with bad companions and it was supposed to be good experience in those days to get around the different parts of the country. But my drinking by this time had progressed it had progressed to a point where I had become defiant and resentful if anybody spoke to me about it and some people would say oh he's sowing his wild oats and make all kinds of excuses for me and other people would you better calm down now don't you think you're growing up a little bit and the time has passed for all that and I would say I'll look after my affairs you look after yours. I can remember the previous year in Hamilton where I had not looked after my own affairs, and alcohol had been a problem. And I think that's part of where this dishonesty of this program comes. I think most of the dishonesty that they speak of in the book is a dishonesty with ourselves because i kept on saying that alcohol wasn't a problem but at the same time there had been a time when i had arrived in hamilton when i landed there drunk and i hadn't got into work and i knew very well that there was something wrong with my drinking and i'd hidden all those things that i didn't want to see about myself you know again like most alcoholics i'd like to see myself in a good light i like to be not such a bad guy after all and this makes you that jekyll and hyde business because inside you know that this is a pony it does interfere with all kinds of things in your life I got married in Winnipeg I was about 21 years old and I was making 800 some dollars a year I got married to a young lady I hadn't known too long and certainly who didn't know all about me and the day we were married I left for Vancouver. I can remember the resentment and bitterness, and to show you the self-centeredness of the alcoholic. I remember saying to myself inside, they just picked on me to transfer because I was so fond of Dory. But in actuality, you know, I don't really think it was that. I was the available guy that knew the job, and so they sent me. I got into quite a few jams in Winnipeg, and maybe that was the reason. Maybe they wanted to get me out of there. I embarrassed them terribly on many occasions. I was a guy who set off rockets off the top of the Bank of Montreal at the corner of Portage and me. I can remember in the morning coming to, I was also the one who stood up there with a fur coat on and not a stitch of clothes on underneath and a bottle in my pocket and fire engines and the police and everybody else trying to come down. Oh that was great while I was still drinking but it wasn't so great on the Monday morning and I had face the manager of the bank and go down to court and i can remember what the marriage manager the bank said he just took a look at me as a look of utter disgust and said what's the matter with you are you crazy and you begin to wonder you know just a little bit but there's an aftermath to that story it was some 30 years later i was out at the Winnipeg Roundup as they call their banquet and you know they look on us from the East there's a little bit sissified we characters from the east and one of them said to me as we were going around before the banquet started uh you're from the Easter and I said yes used to work in the Bank of Montreal yes you know I work in The Bank of Montréal and I'll tell you there's one story you won't top. So years ago, 30 years ago there was a fella out here from the east he stood up on the parapet of the bank there that had a damn stitch of clothes on except her fur coat and I didn't say anything till I got up to tell my story and I told that story. Those things are funny now but believe me it wasn't funny then. I went out to Winnipeg and started to Vancouver. I hadn't told anybody we were married. I was scared to tell anybody. I wasn't making enough money. I knew I'd be fired out of hand, but then again, there was another one of my problems. My father got me out of all the jams that I had ever been in. And after a while, when I got up enough courage, I wrote him a letter and I called him. and he said this is something I can't fix you'd better go and speak to the superintendent and take your medicine and I did and I was fired on the spot and that's when the fear started and that'S when I really started to drink really hard again because I can'T face fear or I couldn't face fear I couldn'T face things like that without drinking but that got fixed up too a little while after that my father arranged that I'd be taken back on the temporary staff he sent me $500 and Dory came out and I landed in the hospital mostly on the proceeds of the $500 and there was no toes left on my foot because I'd arrived drunk the cash elevator one morning or pretty well shot and unfortunately hung my foot over the edge of the elevator you know they were still saying that he's sowing his wild oats he'll get over it and they moved me around from this place to another place and finally they moved m e to the old hotel vancouver branch which certainly wasn't a place for me because there was parties going on night after night with a bar downstairs and one night a party started there some early hours the morning we ran out of liquor we've got some bootleg stuff in the morning i woke up home in the bathtub with terrible headache and something else i'm sure every one of you in here that's an alcoholic knows it a little feeling of fear a fear of the unknown a fear that you can't define a fear or something you don't know what it is, but it's there just the same. And that's worse than being afraid of something you can see right in front of you. But I had the answer. There was a bottle or some beer in the icebox. And I started to drink it and the fear increased and the headache got worse. Then I felt my side pulled paralyzed and my face pulled over and I called Dory in terror and she got the doctor he looked at me and said alcoholic neuritis you'll get over it, feed him this, feed them that but I didn't get over and then a couple of days they called the bank doctor and it turned out that I had had cerebral hemorrhage i was paralyzed down this all one side and i left vancouver came back here to montreal in disgrace and that's the first part of my story really because up until then there'd always been the thought that i'd straighten around and things were going to be different and and this is what life was going to be. But now I wasn't going to be different. If I'd ever had, if I'd had faith in God which I had lost, I began to think there couldn't possibly be a God who would do a thing like this to me. I hadn't been so bad really, had I? And here I am paralyzed, crippled, going around on crutches no toes on one foot oh the self pity was really something and a miserable job they gave me remember that too counting cash day after day after day after day and they tried hard to help me but it didn't do any good now I'm going to jump on now because the drinking just got worse and worse and worse and then came 1939 I don't remember whether I'd already been in the Western Hospital once or I was about to go in I don'T know whether I'd already seen the first psychiatrist yet or whether I was still to see him I can't remember but this was to come shortly I remember the great illusion that most alcoholics get their families get that all i needed was more responsibility now and if we had a son everything or a child everything was going to be different and i can remember that night i can remember the night that my oldest boy bill was born I can remember because I made a damn fool of myself I can remember because it took me some time because I had to stop at the Ritz to get Dory up to the hospital I can't remember it because I didn't go home afterwards I got the dog and I went down, I stayed in the old Ford Hotel. And this is a kind of thing I'd like to remember if I ever feel like taking a drink again. And it wasn't too long after that, oh we moved again, we kept moving from one place to another from one place to another and i started going in and out and in and out of that western hospital and i can remember how it finally came i can't remember a good friend who's now a bishop his name was wilkinson and he was the man who gave us our first church to meet in here in montreal came up to the house and said to me david nobody can stand this anymore something's got to be done dory can't take it she'll have a nervous breakdown i don't know what's going to happen to your little boy and i went down for my first time to be interdicted to spend some time in the verdun protestant hospital I can remember that interdiction I can remember the family council and I can remember the hopelessness and I can remember why I was interdicted because I was a common drunkard and a vagabond and I can remember all of that and I also can remember a real alcoholic personality I'm not down there two days and I'm feeling fine again wait till I get out of here what did they ever put me a place like this for? A lunatic asylum. Oh, brother, wait till I get out." I got out and very shortly I was right back in. And I got out. Not too long after that I was right back in. It just didn't seem possible for me to be able to cope with life. You'd be able to live on the outside the way other people lived and not to have a drink. I can remember the words of Dr. Porches when I left. I could remember why I left because i begged dory to get me out of there i can remember him saying that dave is an alcoholic of a type with whom we've had very little success there's nothing more that we can do for him he'll probably have to have custodial care for the rest of his life and i can't remember the hopelessness of that and then I can remember another year or two this was a year when everything in the house went my clothes went the wedding presents went everything went Dory got a job this This was a year when I was really hopeless. Had a small pension from the bank. This was the year when I learned that there are an awful lot of other things besides alcohol that you can drink or take. This was time that I learned that you cant go on forever because you begin to get in people's way and they take you and lock you up. drunken disorderly or loitering or some such thing as that until you become to be kind of known down there and always when I was in there I felt a little superior to the others after all, hadn't I gone to a good school didn't I come from a good family wasn't my name bankrupt well, put me in here with this common herd the thieves and pickpockets and all this kind of thing I can remember when I first started going down there asking them to put me in a separate cell I didn't want to be in the bullpen with this bunch but then I soon learned these guys got cigarettes in there and all kinds of things that I never could and so I thought I'd rather be out to the hoi polloi let's come to 1944 the spring of 1944 I'm in there again for what I hope is the last time I pray it's the last there's no hope left really there's no one I can turn to there's nothing I can do suicide I'm too scared to or too cowardly so I tried a couple of times but not too energetically I think perhaps the greatest feelings were the feelings of hopelessness and loneliness just absolute hopelessness that there wasn't any way out and it was going to be the end it was St. Paul who said it was utter defeat and it wasn't Paul who said out of defeat comes victory because for some unknown reason while I was in there I remembered a book it was a book called Alcoholics Anonymous my sister had brought up to me when I was in Verdun and because the doctor who was our good friend Dr. Dancy who wasn't my good friend in those days though he is one of my best friends today threw the book on the bed and said this can't hurt you any and immediately he did that I said to myself it'll be a long day before I read that thing but like most drunks I did and it talks about drunks just like me drunks who found a way to get sober just as hopeless as all the rest you know I sometimes think in fact I know that at that particular time my concept or my idea of God as I understood him if I had any at all is completely and utterly wrong. I had the exact opposite view that I have now and that I have come to believe because now I believe it's a loving God and I think maybe that what he does that if we make even the slightest little effort that he looks down and says you know, some or another I think it's I don't know where it is it says God is love and I think that's really a good part of it. And I think he looks down and he says this poor guy has had enough and if he'll only do his part I'll help him. Because for some unknown reason I remembered that book and I wanted that more than I ever wanted anything. And I got out of there get out to Knowlton I asked my father if I could stay there and he can stay there he said you can stay here if you don't drink I asked him if I could get in touch with these Alcoholics Anonymous people and he said what have you got to lose at long last I got a hold of a girl named Bobby in the little small New York office they had then. Bobby said, I'm an alcoholic too. Boy, those are wonderful words. I hope I always remember to use them. There are a lot of us down here. And if you want help, we'll help you. And that's how I got into Alcoholics Anonymous. The next day, I got the two pamphlets. They only had two in those days. And the day after that, I get the big book. And I read it and re-read it and read it again. And kept on reading it. i'm not going to go in too much into the value of the 12 steps to me tonight because i've spoken already too long on this first part but they are a way of life that has given me all the things that i told you about in the first place as those 12 suggested steps to admit that I was powerless, to come to believe, to make a decision, to be entirely ready and to humbly ask him. There aren't any gimmicks in AA. Those are the answers as far as I can understand. And when I can do that, I can have a life so wonderful that you don't really understand its existence until first you've lost it and you get greeted. It's like the story of the prodigal son. We get greeted when we come back far, far better than we deserve. I had a couple of the things here that I thought maybe seen this Eddie's night and I've spent all the night talking about myself as I just tell you a little about the things you see I've got everything in a file for all years for that day that someday somehow someway I'm gonna write that book so I pulled out the file of 1946. This was the year that Eddie came, and I thought maybe you'd be interested to see just a little bit about how AA operated in those days, and you no doubt will wonder how in God's name it ever survived to be like it is today. I sometimes wonder myself that's why I have a still greater faith in God as I understand. The first one here written by our old friend Fred, oh a lot of y'all know him, who was the secretary for a good long time when we first started. This is the minutes of a meeting held in November 1946. It says beginners classes. These classes will be held every Monday and Thursday night at the forum. Beginners will attend four meetings consecutively before they are allowed to attend a regular meeting of their group that they may elect to join. Beginners, however, may be brought in for refreshments after the regular meeting. So we made it a little difficult to get in this thing. I think perhaps we've forgotten how we felt when we first came, and not one of us knew anything about 12 Steps or any other thing. And then, as I understand it, Clarence being me, Eddie's brother, being the legal light of the small fraternity we had then, and we were troubled with drunks, you know? Drunks used to come to this meeting, and we had troubles and people used to go away and get drunk. Well, there was one time there was a person who came and we told him you can't do that and finally he sent us in a formal letter of resignation because they wanted to get drunk and the membership's blank. Now, I'm going to read you this membership blank. I've got one copy left. The membership blank, this is part of these minutes, as some of the groups do not wish to use these forms, it was decided to leave the matter to each group to decide. See, groups weren't autonomous. To each group to decide whether or not they would be used. You know, it's a wonder to me that as I told you, the traditions weren't written, it was a wonder to me that any of us were eligible to be in AA at all. And this is called Application for Membership in Alcoholics and Honest. And Eddie had to sign this when he came because his brother was the guy who thought it up. It says, having read the 12 steps and having taken step one, I apply for membership in the Montreal Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. When admitted to membership, it will be my desire to cooperate with the group as fully as possible and not to harm it, interfere with its work, or impede its progress in any way. Therefore, one, I agree not to attend any meeting on a day on which I have taken anything to drink whatsoever of an alcoholic nature. I think probably about 80% of us would never be in A.A. if you couldn't go to a meeting when you'd had it. And then it says, In the interest of complete honesty, if I do any drinking whatsoever at any time, I will make the fact known to my sponsor or in his absence to some other senior member We had senior members in those days of the group and will not attempt to deliberately hide such drinking from the group. Three, further, in the event that I continue drinking intermittently, while ostensibly a member of this group, I agree to relinquish my membership if asked to do so by the group through my sponsor or the group secretary. And forward says, understanding that although the aims and objects of AA are well known, names and affairs of the group are definitely secret. I agree not to divulge names of members to outsiders or to discuss private affairs of the group with non-members. I undertake to introduce new members to the group only after they have fulfilled whatever qualifications for men's membership the group may from time to time require I undertake to familiarize myself with the duties and obligations of a sponsor when called upon to sponsor an applicant will make every effort to see that he becomes a good member, and it's signed by the applicant and the sponsor. You know, it's lucky we never stuck to that too closely, because I doubt if there'd be any of us here today, I certainly wouldn't have ever been able to answer those things. Only I was already in, so I was all right. And so was Clarence, so he was all rights. We were just making the tub for the others. And then here is a little thing that was in the old Herald, I don't know if you remember the Herald newspaper. They were very good to us mainly because one of their top men was one of our group. A group of men and women who a few short months ago were looked upon by their friends families and business associates as perhaps belonging more with the walking dead than the living gathered quite happily in a downtown office last night and quietly told a group of visiting newspapermen doctors and welfare workers how they had taken a new hold on life and the part we like the men and women probably above average in intelligence now all very much alive physically and mentally and spiritually are members of that unique non-profit life-giving organization known as alcoholics anonymous A spokesman for the group told the Herald that there are now, in Canada and the United States, about 26,000 members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I suppose you could multiply that by a hundred now perhaps not even come up to the figure. It's been a wonderful life really for me, for all of us. I'm so happy tonight to see so many of the old-timers around here my gosh you know I get to wondering where they are sometimes sometimes I think maybe I'm the only one left because I never see them around so much and actually I don't get around quite so much myself but I need AA if I don t have AA to remind myself of the things that went before. If I don't have AA to remind me of the tremendous gratitude I owe to my fellows and to Alcoholics Anonymous, I don' t know what might happen to me. It's happened to a lot of other people. I'm going to read my, you know, we didn't always have 12 steps. We used to have six steps. And those six steps are pretty wonderful things, and I think they have everything in them that the 12 steps have. And all in all, they weren't just the same. and the semen the seman of Alcoholics Anonymous you know semen are pretty strange guys they don't want to change and they still use the six steps and have never taken up the twelve steps they said he admitted that he was powerless to solve his own problem of drinking he got honest with himself as never before made an examination of conscience. He made a rigorous confession of his personal defects. He surveyed his distorted relations with people, visiting them to make restitution. He resolved to devote himself to helping others in need without the usual demand for personal prestige or material gain. by meditation he sought God's direction for his life and helped to practice these principles I'm going to close on that note it seems to me within those six steps as in our twelve steps the whole story of each of our lives is written thank you Thank you.