The Functioning Alcoholic’s Law Degree and the Gutter – Ray O.

My name is Ray O'Keefe. I'm an alcoholic. It's a very generous introduction. I'm actually here because I've been in the A.A. a long time. You can tell by looking at me, I've Been someplace for a long Time. And they send for me here in Phoenix every four or five years when it rains. I am I congratulate you on the success of the 34 years of Crossroads I was there this morning and I'll probably never be there again but it was very nice this morning and I'm happy it's there and I also got driven by the new place and I think I'm glad that that's happening and in a word I'm just happy to be here and happy you're happy is there anybody in the room who hasn't been introduced would like to stand up I got about everybody there's a couple of waiters the book Alcoholics Anonymous tells me that I am to tell you what I was like what happened to me what I'm like now and this is very interesting, this is a thrill a minute and I don't want you to lose any please tell that guy about my anonymity will you for Christ's sake so I was born and grew up or at least I got a little taller in one of the neighborhoods in New York City in the Bronx, the borough of Kevin O'Keefe's birth and that was a nice place I was in one of the neighborhoods it was Irish you may not understand it here in Phoenix but they drank in that neighborhood you would actually see people on the street under the influence of alcohol now I know this is difficult to believe but it is true now if you look where I live you see a little drinking my mother, the widow O'Keeffe was known to take a drink from time to time and when the pressure got on Kitty would go for the light wines and the spirits and something would fly usually one of the children I found out about four years ago I'm from a dysfunctional family because if anybody knows where there's a functional family I'd like to go visit them That was explained to me It took a load off my shoulders To find out I'm from a dysfunctional family That helps a lot A little attempted sarcasm, you understand And I was going through the parochial school system And trying to stay drunk And that's a very, very difficult thing For a young man to try to do My brother Billy was four years older Billy was very alcoholic, very young, and I tried to do everything just about like Billy did. My father died when I was two, and Billy was my father and my brother and my hero and all the rest of it, and then I drank the way Billy drank, and I try to go through high school that way, and as a result of it I got thrown out of high school six times. I set a neighborhood record for being thrown outof high school, a record previously established by my brother Billy how it happened that I was admitted to a college is to this very day beyond me but it was a combination of a priest and a nun and some relatives and this and that and the next thing I know I'm off to college and not only was I off to college, I went to college in the state of Vermont, and there are no bars in the state of Vermont. People sit around at tables, and they drink beer out of bottles. And the college kids sang these college songs, which are very dopey, and they wore white shoes in the wintertime. So being a man of no particular moral fiber, I got a pair of those shoes and I learned the words of some of those dopey songs and I got very collegiate World War II was just about over and it looked like a safe bet that we were going to win so one day I got hair cut and I joined the Navy and I was put on a minesweeper in San Francisco and they gave me a liberty that was a big mistake and in the Navy we slept three to a tear and the new man sleeps on top. I've always had a little problem with my kidneys when I drink. Don't get ahead of me please, this is not the easiest thing in the world. So I come back from my first liberty in the great city of San Francisco with a full load of beer in me, and I went to sleep. I had one of these attacks, and I met the gentleman that slept below me. I suppose he thought he'd be wet sometime during his naval career. It hadn't occurred to him it would happen while he was sleeping. As we say in the Navy, some guys never get the word. I was immediately transferred to a lower bunk The rest of my naval career was just as distinguished And I got back home some years later, back to the neighborhood Everything was under control in the neighborhood The widow was out in a weed somewhere It took a while to find her My brother Billy had left the New York City Police Department without leave, without permission. There was some misunderstanding about how a citizen flew off a fifth-story roof and lived to identify the Irish cop. So my brother Billy went west and he went back in the Marine Corps for a more peaceful life. The government was giving veterans $20 a week for 52 weeks was called the 5220 Club. Jim Sullivan was a charter member of it. In fact, I still think she's getting the money. So I signed up, I got my checks and I was gravitated to the local bar where I used to drink and I used with a couple of guys I went to grammar school with and we were planning an enterprise which one would, on Christian like say, a stolen car enterprise and I Was going to be the president and these two gentlemen were familiar with how to steal cars but they were not otherwise literate so we were organizing this and then it occurred to me while we were planning this business of stealing cars and chopping them up it occurred that it occurred to me that I had been to college I must have forgotten so I got on a bus and I went back up there and I arrived in the middle of a blizzard and I walked into this place and there they were. Nobody had moved. They're all sitting at a table, they're all drinking beer out of a bottle, they were all singing those songs, wear no shoes. So I got another pair of shoes. And now grateful government was sending me a check every month so I was reasonably solvent and reasonably drunk most of the time. One day I staggering around the campus in my usual condition and I saw a list of names on the bulletin board of people who were qualified to graduate and my name was on the list that was extreme that was very good news I thought I had another year to go time has a way of getting away from you you know so I called a widow about this great event and she came north. Oh, that was a tender sight. What a lovely occasion. The widow and her youngest child staggering around under the elms. Some years later when I become rich enough to be a college trustee, I would go to meetings and they were still talking about my mother. It's not so often in the state of Vermont that a little old lady gets over a train drunk at nine o'clock in the morning. Well, I came back to the neighborhood with my college degree and my uncles who are Irish voted unanimously that I become a New York City policeman because that's what my father had been as my brother had been and that's where all my uncles and cousins were doing except for the two morons that worked for the telephone company but I told him I had received a scholarship to law school and I'd be unemployed for the next several years and that was received with mixed emotions so I went off the law school I didn't know anything about lawyers or law school we didn't have any lawyers in my neighborhood we had cops, we have priests, we really didn't need any lawyers. I hate to be disloyal to the profession that's made of Driscoll a wealthy man but I have to tell you when I got to law school I found out was in the collection in the in the company of the greatest collection of stiffs that had ever assembled under one roof. God, they were deadly and they all had on a blue suit and wore eyeglasses. So I got into uniform, I got a pair of glasses. I didn't need a pair glass. I went out and got a pair of glass. Then I looked around for somebody to drink with, a companion, someone to discuss matters and nobody drank in that crowd. They're all studying or grinding it out. So I went on a wagon for law school and I became the biggest grind he ever had in that place and as a result of that I did very well and as a result to doing well in law school, I was taken into a large white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Wall Street law firm. They hired me as sort of the resident immigrant it was not a total loss however I did learn to say oh really instead of no ship you're not as classy a bunch as I thought my superiors determined that I should be trained as a trial lawyer and so I was sent up to the courthouse in New York City to learn my business. And I went up there because I hadn't been up there very long when I discovered that all the really bright people were across the street in a saloon. So I moved my office into the saloon and I learned to drink in a different, more civilized, more professional, more genteel way. Very few members of the profession were knocking down shots and beers where anybody could see them so I discovered the scotch and you put it in a tall glass with water ice and sip on it takes a little while but I'll get the job done I was introduced to all of the mysteries and all of rituals that surround the very very dry martini. And to this evening and to this moment, my love, my affection, and my admiration for the very, very dry martini is surely the greatest case of unrequited love the world has ever seen. I was so loyal to those things and they kill me after about a year of being civilized it was necessary in my natural development that I be married and I had located this lady or she had located me who knows how these things are arranged I was a bellhop in a hotel and she was a guest and that pretty well characterizes the relationship right now 40 years of undisguised bliss Ms. O'Keefe, my wife My current wife I always call her my current wife I find it keeps her on her toes I may be getting a little politically incorrect here Ms.O'KEEFE is from a totally different background than mine She's highly civilized, highly intelligent From a lovely family with a big house and a fence And a dog In a word I thought they had a buck And I will not burden you with the details of my wedding day But I assure you That when the O'Keeffe's from the South Bronx Hit the Westchester Country Club They set a few records We settled down and set up housekeeping And Mrs. O'Keeffe then began to produce children With a regularity that is known only to the Roman Catholic And after a couple of those events or so I don't know what it was I got a phone call from the Fordham University School of Law to come by and I went down there and they invited me to become Professor O'Keefe and I responded to that appointment with great alacrity. I was 26 or 27, something like that. Too young for that job actually but there I was and I knew I drank too much so I decided to drink less and I went into a period of drinking less and I'm happy to report I think I drank more when I was drinking less than when Iwas drinking more because I drank more while I was making less so I wouldn't drink more and lose the job for drinking too much so I drank a little bit more than I normally would so I had to give it up when I drank less and that's what they say when I teach law what he said and I was very unsuccessful at that however about a few years later it occurred to me because it was true that I was a competent teacher of law I knew how to do it and once I found that out what the hell am I drinking less while I'm drinking more for I used to drink beer when I wasn't drinking somebody said have a drink I said I'm not drinking give me a beer You know, stuff like that And I'd say, have a drink I said, no, I'm waiting to have breakfast I'll have a Drink later So once I found out that I could teach Then I drank the way I'm supposed to drink Which is the way my brother Billy drank I drank until I fell down The place went on fire Or the cops showed up I'd see people leaving And I would wonder where they were going I mean the stuff is here and they're going over there it doesn't make no sense I used to explain that to Mrs. O'Keefe she made no sense to her either why are you out till six in the morning I said because the whiskey's out there no sense of humor so we had it up to five or six kids then maybe seven we had a lot of kids and they all lived in the same place that we did you know so you'd see them they're all over the place and I added up to about three quarts of vodka a day it's hard to drink three quads of vodka a day and still maintain some kind of a perspective on and to be a law professor is a little difficult too let me tell you you know, it's hard to teach law when you're laying face down on them. If he ever wakes up he's a hell of a teacher. And I used to do a lot of drinking around the house in sort of odd hours, you know. I'd be getting up at 3 a.m. and the rest of them. And this made Ms. O'Keefe very, very nervous, very, nervous. As a matter of fact she got a little out of line. this is difficult for me to tell you so private between myself and you know what she said to me this woman you know she's there you won't believe this she said there is something radically wrong with the way you drink what the hell is that loyalty or what what is that kind of I see she's not a lawyer. Ms. O'Keefe does not have the benefit of a legal education, so you never know what she's going to say. She says things like that, there's something the matter with your drinking well she's... Well because she's NOT an attorney I will explain things to her. and one of the things I will explain to her and you will see immediately what I'm talking about when I explain it to you is the relativity of drinking with which we are all familiar and which is to say very simply that some people drink more than other people am I alright so far? nothing strange here right? and I'd say to her you see on a relative scale I'm not a very big drinker at all as a matter of fact I would say I don't drink as much as my mother and she would say nobody drinks what is a person to do I am torn between loyalties here so I'd go over and see my mother we'd really do a number. So Ms. O'Keeffe betook herself to her physician, who as you might imagine is an obstetrician, and he could find nothing the matter with her until she told him about me. And then he sent her to me with a diagnosis and And she arrived back from the visit to her obstetrician to advise her husband, a law professor, that I had been diagnosed as an alcoholic. Oh, I was very upset. I was outraged. I rose to defend myself, as is my custom, and I took a very, very dim view of a physician who would diagnose a patient without ever having seen the patient. A shabby type of medical practice all too common in our country today. And then I went into high gear and I asked Ms. O'Keefe a question to which she has not yet discovered the answer. I asked her what kind of a man became an obstetrician in the first place. You got it And at this point the conversation was coming downhill And then it happened It happened I don't know how this happened I cannot explain to you how this happen I can explain many, many other things to you And I probably will in the second or third hour Of this terrific talk I am giving here But in the middle of all of this shouting and yelling I suddenly stopped and I admitted to Ms. O'Keefe for the first time I'd ever admitted to anyone there was at least the possibility that I drank too much sometimes this was a very serious tactical error three days later I was in a mental institution in Stanford, Connecticut and I was only there a matter of moments when I discovered a very serious architectural deficiency in the building. There was no doorknob on my side of the door. And I was overcome with outrage and self-pity because in addition to everything else horrible that was going on, It happened to be the occasion of my 35th birthday and I mentioned this to a man in a white coat who was hanging around and I very carefully explained to that cretin that on that very day I had attained age 35 and therefore under the Constitution of the United States of America, I was eligible for the office of president. He urged me not to plan any campaigns. He said there were two other presidents in residence. then he hit me with some vile controlled substance and I collapsed I came up again for air about a week later and I was then visited by the staff of the hospital this was a long time ago this is 1963 there were no treatment centers there were no alcoholism counselors there was no insurance there was know anything. It was a happier, simpler world. Alcoholics drank and they died and that was that. And so I was visited by the staff of the hospital and they of course were psychiatrists and the first one in to see me was the head of the hospital and I would have expected no one less. And he fixed his cool professional glance upon me and he asked me in that smarmy way they have he said he actually looked at me and he said these words he said tell me professor why do you drink so much so I told them one doesn't lie to a physician I told him of my wealthy parents I told her that mumsy and daddy used to travel a great deal and I've been left in the hands of cruel servants who were black and I become insecure and turn toward alcohol he was very sympathetic he really was sympathetic he said he had seen this before I said well now you're seeing it again. And he exited and about 15 minutes later his colleague came in and he asked me the same question. So I told him of my impoverished youth. I told him of the beatings I used to get from my drunken mother. I even told him about the time my sister Marie stole my duck when I was about three years old. I tried to kill with a hammer he said help was at hand he said help was that hand it was his health he said with the help of science one day I would drink safely again said he I said you're my doctor doctor and I wasn't as smart as I wanted them to think or perhaps even as smart as they want you to think because they had a staff meeting the next morning and I was brought into a room almost this big. And the man said to me, you are in extreme danger of being expelled from a mental institution. I said, no kidding, yeah, goodbye. But they stuck around and Mrs. O'Keeffe came up and she was determined that I would become sober if it took the last dime her grandfather ever made. And so I stayed. And I was playing Monopoly with three guys and we played Monopoly all day most of the night and one of them was under the impression that I was his real estate broker I don't know where he got this but now if you know the game of Monopoly and some nut thinks you're his real estate broker you do pretty good you know I had the boardwalk I had some hotels and I was flourishing with the Monopoly therapy so to say and I wasn't thinking about drinking I was playing Monopoly all the time and I was getting sober with the Monopoly method I'm thinking of adopting that somehow selling it but I must not digress and they said I had a visitor so I went down to my large executive type bed and waited for the visitor and in the room came this big imposing looking man with a suit. And he said, he was from Alcoholics Anonymous group of Darien, Connecticut. The hospital had given up on me and they'd asked him to come by and talk to me about Alcoholics Anonymous. I said, are you crazy? And I went right out of my home center by the throat. You won't believe this. You know what this man, I didn't even know this person. You what he said to me you will not believe what this guy told me you know what he said he said shut up just like that I don't even know him shut up well I figured he but he didn't know about me I forgave him but I thought they had neglected to tell him about me who I was so I thought I'd fill him in. So I remain standing and start to give him a bit of my biography. You know what he said? He said sit down and shut up. Boy, what a rude person. And then he began to tell me this story that he had just like I'm trying to tell you the story that I have he took around he started to tell me what he was like what happened to him and how he got to AA it was fascinating story the guy was a real bum not like me and he said would you like to go with me to meetings ahem, meetings? He said yes, meetings. Ahem, ahem. What kind of meetings?" He said, meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous where are these meetings he said they're outside I said I'm going besides that he gave me a book of matches very important thing to have a book a match is when you're in the but in them in the loony been. So that's how it started with me, that was 1963 and he took good care of me and I came back home and started to go to the Larchmont group where I lived in Larchmount New York. I don't remember all of that. I was too nervous, too afraid, too everything. In those days hospitals turn you loose with big jar pills. The medical profession in those days in the 60s was under had a some thought that the disease of alcoholism was caused by a valium deficiency so they didn't want you ever to be short and they turn you loose with a big jar and I just walk around carrying my change you know pocket and I'd just eat a couple raw you know and he said whenever you feel like drinking take one of these well I felt like drinking all the time so I'm walking around my head's buzzing a lot but I showed up I dropped by I went when it was convenient and I didn't have a group or I didn' t have a sponsor I didn't need a group I didn''t need a sponsor, I'm an attorney something to matter with that why are you laughing I'm gonna tell you I don't need the group or a sponsor that's for other people and so ten months later I was very drunk oh yeah very drunk drunker than ever I had been drunk and I was drunk and I'm telling you brothers and sisters was I drunk and I fell off that cliff and I never know it and I didn't come up I'm not gonna to take you through it. It's just, it's too terrible to even, but it lasted a while and uh, it was without question, without question it was the worst period of my life. The worst, it was absolute murder. It was pure and simple. It wasn't murder. They should have just taken me out and shot me in the head. It would have been merciful. I would drink a week and then I wouldn't drink a month and drink a months and then I wouldn' drink a weeks and I'd drink can come to these meetings. Then I'd come to the meetings, then I'd go out and drink. I never knew when I'd be drinking or not drinking. I never know where the hell I was going to end up. It was always someplace really romantic like Fort Wayne fucking Indiana. If I may be so bold. And that's always a very interesting thing. Say good morning my beloved. Where are you? It's been Fort Wayne, Indiana. Oh Christ, click! Things began to happen to me in this period of time that had never happened to me before and I do not speak to now of things that happened to me in this time that I no longer consider to be of significance. I do not speak to you of the fact that I was fired and dismissed as a tenured professor of law, and that all of the honors and all of the glory and all the prestige and all of the dollars that are attached to that type of position were taken from me in a matter of about 15 minutes I do not speak to you the fact that I was in trouble and I mean serious trouble personal professional financial very very serious trouble I do now speak to that I do not even speak to of the fact that I had lost the admiration or the affection of all those with whom I was, including my family. I do not talk to you. It does no sense to speak of it. I spent, I guess, the last three or four months that I drank. I, for all practical lived in an automobile. But that's not what I am talking to you about now because it's not the problem. What I now understand was happening to me then was that there was, in my case and perhaps in yours, a very very serious serious diminishment and extinguishment of my spirit my spirit this thing that we speak of that separates me from each of you the spirit which gives to this particular form whatever individuality or personality or character that it might have and this was a spirit which once burned in me so bright and it was extinguished and I knew it and there was nothing I could do about it I had been here and this didn't work for me and by this time I've been everywhere else I've been through all the place ever that they were I was for all the drying out places, the farms, the sanitariums, the doctors, the nurses, the clergy, the jobs, the politicians, the money. It was all gone. It's all gone and everywhere I turned the answer was the same, I drank. I drank because I'm an alcoholic, I drank. And it wasn't as though I didn't know about alcoholism. I knew about alcoholism I had a memory I remembered my neighborhood I knew what happened to those people I'd been to the funerals in my family I knew why they died we used to make a joke of it you know does he look good now he stopped drinking yeah it was part of the part of that thing I knew what was the matter with me but as our book tells us knowledge self-knowledge avails you nothing. Bill Wilson knew what was the matter with him and Silkworth explained it to him, he still drank. I dare say most of you who are alcoholic knew that's not your problem, a lack of knowledge. Your problem is lack of capacity. Our book says the dilemma that you and I have is a lack of power. That's our dilemma. We are powerless over alcohol and I knew all of this and I couldn't stop drinking I just couldn't stop drinking and as I as I stand before you I tell you I never thought I could stop drinking I just didn't I didn't I didn' I didn''t think so and I was I'm a smart guy and if I couldn''t figure it out then it can't be figured out and then one day my time came one day I don't know any more about this than you do but it seems to me that there is a time for all of us and it seems to me that there is a time for each of us. I say to you that there is a line somewhere beyond which we are not permitted to sink. And I say to you that there is a point somewhere below which we are not permitted to go it seems to me that there is a level of pain somewhere beyond which no human is required to endure I don't know where this line is for you how would I know that I only know what happened me and this is an individual and a personal thing and I think it is different in each case and for some it may be death and that's the way it was for my brother Billy they call one night from the Veterans Hospital in Minneapolis and he was dead and he had collapsed on the skid row in Minneapolis they brought him to the veterans hospital and he died there and he die the way alcoholics sometimes do without friends without family he was a long, long way from our neighborhood But I'll tell you this I'll Tell you this My brother Billy Doesn't drink Anymore And that's what we're dealing With here That's what We're dealing with here He killed them For other people it could be something Trivial And I came sort of out of a coma on November 24th 1965 and I was given an opportunity the grace really to call my friend of mine who was a member of this program and I'd known him and I had missed him because they used to drink them. So I called him. He worked, I had this main arrangement to be in sort of a deal with his law office and got sort of a job. So he came over to see me. Geez, he looked so good when he walked in. His name was John. He's my sponsor. And I felt horrible and he looked good and I was comparing, you know, my insides with his outsides. I asked him what I had to do to be successful in Alcoholics Anonymous the way he was successful. He gave me that look. You know that look that sponsors give? And he said, don't drink. If you go to our meetings, you'll be all right. Well, I didn't want him to tell me that. And I told him. You know, I'd already been here. I heard that part. I said, tell me something else, you now. besides I said you see the trouble with you is you don't understand the problem so the real problem is I don't have a good job oh he said well you know if you don' t drink and you go to a meeting you might get a job I said well at home it's worse you know I'm not even supposed to go up there anymore yeah he said well if you dont drink and you got to a meet you can get back in up there I said you know I'm being sued by a bank he said I read about it I said it's a misunderstanding he said he said well you know if you didn't drink and you went to the meetings you probably could settle that case I sensed that there was no dialogue there and so did he I suppose because he said come on you're not doing much he took me over he put me on a train up to Lodgemont about half way up it was a 40 minute ride and I reconsidered what did I do panic I must have panicked don't drink don't drank my ass well this train stops and I get off the train at Lodgemount station and my mailman Al thought he was standing there. He was chairman of the local AA group. He delivered the mail to my house. He said, get in the car. I said, get out of here Al, I don't hang out with mailmen. He said somebody called me about you from New York, get a car. Well I can't have a fistfight with a mailman anybody else for that matter and I got an Al Scar I said now I'm in a little trouble he's well if you don't drink and and you go to the meetings so if you are looking for some advice from me because I'm an out-of-town you know guy from out of town with a tie as an expert you'll be fine don't worry about it just go to meetings everything's gonna be alright don't worried about it I've never been able to be as good a sponsor as my sponsor was to me, I don't have the unselfishness that it takes I guess but I've never been able, I've sponsored many many people but never been able to do what he did for me. I would say to him, I'm just thinking I can see his face, I would said to him I don' feel good. He'd say this may be as good as you'll ever feel. I say well, when will I get a good job? You know the wine and he'd say you had one boy what a person I say listen stop the AA shit now when will I get a good job he'd say when you're ready yeah good how will I know I'm ready he said you'll have a good job I'd say to him I'm a nervous wreck what do you think I should do he'd say hang on I said how do you hang on he'd say let go he got very very Zen we had a guy up there in the group named Charlie nice guy Charlie very smart very smart guy Charlie worked in some he was a chemist he works from a laboratory something and Charlie had about two months more than I did and my sponsor had ten years more so you relate to the guy with the two months right you know if you want to talk to the with the 10 years because she could he sees you know your eyes glaze over you can't talk to people. I used to talk to Charlie all the time because he's very bright and I went up there one night Charlie said I know what it is said you you know what what is he said I know all about it you know it is I said no Charlie I don't have a clue he said it's capillaries what? I did it in the lab it's capsularies the alcoholic's capillaries are so whacked out he said if we can get that back you'll be all set I said Charlie you are a fucking wonder Charlie and I could hardly wait for John to show up and John showed up said John Charlie's got it all figured out in the lab it's capillaries so he gave me that look of his and he said go get the book this book not this book but a book like this the blue book not this one this is the money making book some clown is selling but the blue books and he says to me find a part about the capillaires I was reasonably familiar with the book I said that I don't think it's in there John he said now listen listen to me dummy he said if you had to know about it it would be in this book if it's not in this work you don't have to worry about it if they wanted you to know by your capillaries there'd be a whole chapter in here he says as a matter of fact you'll be much better off if you just turned off that head of yours and just hung out here for a year or two and learned something he said there is no chapter in this book called into thinking what we do here is we act action that's what we don't claim the answers we don't say that, we don' t say that we have the answers, we're not, we don't see that at all. We have a chapter which is one of our basic fundamental and earliest promises there is a solution and we have that chapter there is a Solution because there is A Solution to the problem of alcoholism and if anybody in Phoenix ever needed to be persuaded that there is a solution to the problem of alcoholism all you'd have to do is stand him right over there and tell him to look around and he'll see action sobriety in action you'll see the friends at Crossroads gathered together here I have since learned as my sponsor told me would be true that it is true that everything and I have to know is here all of the problems I've ever had I've had every problem known to man over the years I have found the answer here I would say to him you know I got to have some more dough and all these kids are all going to college he's how do you suppose I should get something he'd say well more spiritual development is the answer to all of our problems now that's got to be communism he would say material progress always follows spiritual progress and never otherwise and I'd say that's anarchy that's the end of civilization and he just stared at me and he was right I'd said well how do I how do i develop spiritually he said why don't you try mopping that floor over there I said I'm an attorney he said so am I but I mopped that goddamn floor for three years he said you want a good job yeah he said make coffee I said what's coffee got to do with getting me a good job he said I don't know but I made coffee for five years I got a hell of a job now there was no talking to this man and he's still sober he's retired he lives in another country now he's just raking it in and I am forever grateful to him to everybody else in Alcoholics Anonymous whoever sponsored anybody because if you sponsor one, you sponsor them all that's how I feel about it very important to be a sponsor to have one, to be one have a home group participate in in the work of Crossroads the work of Alcoholics and Honest which is nothing less than the work of God that's all it is that's all it is I read this page every day I read it to you and then I know you have things to do still you may say but I will not have the benefit of contact with you who write this book we cannot be sure God will determine that so you must remember that your real reliance must always be upon him he will help you create the fellowship you crave our book is meant to be suggestive only we know only a little God will disclose more to you and to us ask him in your morning meditation what you can do for the man who still suffers the answers will come if your own house is in order. But obviously you cannot transmit something you do not have. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and for countless others. and I pause here to say that I count this gathering a great event which has come to pass for me and perhaps for others abandon yourself to God as you understand God admit your faults to him and to your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us surely you will meet some of us as you trudge the road of happiness thus goes the last page of our book I would be remiss if I didn't thank Kevin or the committee or who the hell it was that had the extreme good judgment to bring me back to Phoenix to see my friend Mal and the others that I've known here over the time that I have been I'm one of the alcoholics in the program that roams around a lot I was in Utah last weekend, I'll be in Georgia next weekend I get around and whenever it's time to end I end the same way this is how I end I refer you and I have in my mind a memory of a pamphlet in Alcoholics Anonymous which has been very dear to me since it came out think it's our best pamphlet. It's called A Member's View of Alcoholics Anonymous and in that pamphlets in the very last page the author takes a biblical reference and he reminds us of the time when John the Baptist was once again languishing in one of Herod's prisons and John sent two of his friends to inquire of his cousin Jesus as to whether or not he was the Messiah and so these two men found the Lord and they walked with him and they stopped him one day and they said to him are you the Messiah? Are you the one that we've been waiting for or should we wait for someone else? And he really didn't answer that question but he said to these two men go back to John and tell John only what you have seen and only what you have heard tell John that the blind can see and that the lame can walk and tell John that a deaf can hear and that the sick are made well and tell John that the poor have the gospel brought to them in my early training I was told that the word poor in that context could mean poor in spirit and everyone knows that the word gospel simply means good news and so my dear dear sisters and brothers in happy 34th anniversary dinner assembled if you will accept a report from me based upon my years in Alcoholics Anonymous I will tell you only what I have seen and only what i've heard and based upon that personal observation it seems to me that the blind do see and the lame do walk. And I know, I know that the deaf can hear and most certainly, most certainly the sick are made well. and I have seen over and over and over again through the longest day and into the darkest night the good news of this program brought to the alcoholic who suffers the poor in spirit next