The Great Enemy: Taking Sobriety For Granted – Clancy I.

My name is Clancy Immerslin, and I'm an alcoholic. And I don't live in Venice Beach. Venice Beach is where all the freaks are in California. I couldn't make it there. I live inland with lawns and trees and cat burglars. I'm very glad to be here tonight. I'm glad to be safe and sane and sober, as I like to say, because I didn't used to be. We had a very nice trip down here, all in all. We had a very good time. I want to especially thank Pedro and Caron, who came and met us at the airport. No applause, just a simple nod will do. And I want to thank them very much. And incidentally, I shouldn't tell you this, but today is Caron's birthday. Happy birthday, Caron. You don't have to clap. It's just a natal birthday. It means nothing. Now, I'd like to congratulate the new lady who got her book tonight. It says something for AA when someone two days sober looks better than the speaker with 46 years old. Stick around. You'll get old, too. I want to thank Mary R. for an excellent tour. And I want to thank all the mansions in Palm Beach today. I saw more mansions than I knew existed. When I was a boy in the Lutheran church, they said, in my father's house are many mansions. They must have been talking about Palm Beach. But it's been a good trip. Well, I have had some bad trips, but this is a good trip. A few years ago, I had kind of a bad trip. It sticks in my memory. I went off to speak in Iceland. And what's the name of that city? Reykjavik, Iceland, which is way beyond any length, of course. And on the way back, it's a long trip on the way back. And you get tired. You take Air Iceland, which is really a, you know, you say to the stewardess, can't you go any faster? She says, yeah, but I've got to stick with the plane. And you get to Minneapolis at about a four-hour wait. In Minneapolis, a tired Sunday night. I had to go to work the next morning. Sitting in there, waiting for the United Airplane. And went to the red carpet room, which is the United Airlines frequent flyer room in Minneapolis. And sat there and eventually read and had to go to the can. And went to their washroom, lovely little washroom, nice little clean little room with two little stalls side by side. And with little doors. And I sat in my little stall and thought about things. All of a sudden, out of the other stall, this voice says, hi there. I just ignored it. Pretty soon, the voice said, what are you doing tonight? And I thought, I better get this settled right now. I said, I'm going back to Los Angeles to see my wife and my children and my great-grandchildren and my grandchildren. And thank you very much for asking. It's very nice of you, but I'm going to take care of it. Thank you. And I said, I should do it. There was a long pause. And the voice said, we could really have some fun tonight if you want. And I was tired. And I overreacted. I wasn't a good old-timer that day. I said, I don't work, pal. I don't know what your problem is. But I'm just trying in here to do something I need to do. And why don't you do the same thing? And why don't you just shut up for a while? There was a long pause. And the voice said, I'll have to call you back, this asshole. The next stall won't shut up. That's what you call a bad trip. I know we have a lot of people here tonight. Who are visiting or have not been here very long. I noticed the back row. There's a lot of people, I think, from the local treatment facility. Plus some other people. And you may wonder what the big deal is about staying sober. And why we make such a big deal about it. And I'll tell you, it's because it isn't anywhere near as common as you might think. You know, there seems to be types of alcoholics. Nobody ever seems to talk about it much. Bill Dr. refers to them in the book. There seems to be a type of alcoholic. There's an alcoholic by any way you measure. They drink. They've lost control, apparently. But something happens that really threatens their security. Maybe they lose a job. Or maybe they lose a family. Or there's a death in the family or something. And they quit. And they never drink again. And they're often held up for examples to people like us. Why can't you be like who used to drink too but stopped drinking? There's some of these people who have also become physically addicted to alcohol. Which you may think doesn't mean much. But the withdrawal from physical addiction to alcohol is more lethal than the withdrawal from drugs by far. They are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created to be medically withdrawal alcoholics, step by step. Each step of the way, they show them the nature of the problem, explain why they have to stop. And by the time they're ready to go out, they've learned their lesson. And they quit. And they never drink again. In fact, up in Seattle, there's a very big hospital called Chic Chez Del. And they've advertised, we will cure your alcoholism within 30 days, including follow-up. And they have a long list of names of people who have successfully done so. Of this type of alcoholic. Then there's another type of alcoholic. That seems to be an alcoholic by the way you measure them. They drink, seem to have lost control. Something happens that really threatens their security. They lose a job or they lose a family or somebody dies in the family. And they quit. But they always eventually begin to drink again. Sooner or later. And these same people come out. They're treatment centers with tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks and they quit. But they always begin to drink again. And these are the people that have baffled humanity for the last 4,000 years. Written records of people like this who just at one time they thought they were possessed by devils. There's no explanation for their conduct. They put them to death. They flog them and put them in jails and send them away. And England would transmit them to Australia and colonies. Just endless, endless. They went to Georgia a lot of them. I'm not judging people in Georgia. I'm just telling you that's where they went. And if you stay around Georgia very long, you'll know it. Yeah, I'm the first family of Georgia. But even up until my lifetime, there's never been an answer to these people. There's never been an answer. And these are the people that just baffle everyone. They baffle. Ministers try to help them and doctors try to help them and families try to help. If anybody here, if you're an alcoholic like me, I'm sure you are if you're in this room, what you may, what you'll see, my reaction to it and probably where you see it is this. That look on the face of people who love you. When you, and they look that terrible look again. Oh, how could you? You said you wouldn't. You promised. And now look at you. You're worse than ever. And the children are, you were doing better. How could you do such a thing? And there's no known answer to that except leave me alone. Leave me alone. Get off my back because I have no, I don't explain. I understand it either. And these are the people that cannot stay sober. And oddly enough, those are the people who wind up in these rooms who are noted because for 4,000 years, people like us can't stay sober. And it's just a, it's just a miracle. And the only problem is we have a tendency to forget. You know, it's an interesting thing, you know, for 4,000 years, they've been battling alcoholism of our type only in the last 70 years. And at first, there was hardly any exposure to it, just very few. But has there been any numbers of people who've staying sober and you and I through no merit of our own have been born in the only window in the history of mankind where there's a place for this mic. I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry. It's now, you know, my problem is he looking. But we live in the only window in the history of mankind where there's a place like people like us to go and get sober. And the greatest enemy we have to fight here is to take it for granted and not do the things that keep us sober. Isn't that amazing? The streets are full of people who used to be successful in AA. Some of them try to get back. I can cancel them die. Here's an interesting thing. According to, I guess, the most recent figures, as far as I know, late 19 or 2002, the National Institute of Health is estimated of alcoholics of our type. In America, which is the, this is the heartbeat of alcoholics, anonymous in the world, more sober people in America than ever was anywhere. And there are 840 countries now, but in America, which is a heartbeat. It's estimated that something over 90% of alcoholics of our type still die drunk or is a direct result of drinking. I think it's safe to say a number of people in this room will die drunk, long, hard deaths. I'm not trying to scare you at all, but I mean, it might be me, might be you. I remember my sponsor told me that. I thought, what a dismal recruiting talk. But some years later, when he died drunk, he put an exclamation point on it because in his day, he was as good an A as I knew, but he somehow drifted away. And when you drift away from here, because it turns out there's a kind of a misunderstanding, I think, about alcoholism. That is, if you do bad things, you'll get drunk. And that isn't true. I've known bank robbers who stayed sober. I've known terrible people who stayed sober and good people who haven't. Why is that? Because it isn't bad things that get you drunk. It's the failure to do the things that keep you sober. We're talking about that this afternoon. In one of the North Hollywood clubs. It's the failure to do the things that keep you sober. We're talking about that this afternoon in one of the North Hollywood clubs. In one of the North Hollywood clubs. Some years ago, Secret Service came in and took three guys out of the front row and it turned out they had a long chain of bank robberies. And how could they stay sober? Do you know how they stayed sober? They went to meetings and helped newcomers. They probably weren't terribly comfortable at night, but I mean, they could stay sober. They robbed banks and gave the money to the newcomers. This is the signal for group participation. He's going on a cruise tomorrow. He doesn't care. But it's kind of funny thing about talking about the heartbeat of AA. You know, it seems generally accepted that Southern California is really the heartbeat of AA in America. There are more sober alcoholics south of Santa Barbara than there are in New York and Illinois combined. It really is a remarkable thing. There are over 3,000 meetings in our meeting list in Los Angeles now. And there are still people who think Akron is the heartbeat of AA. Akron has the same relationship to AA that Bethlehem has to Christianity. Something nice happened there once, but not for a long time. But I'm in a situation today where I see people like us die and go mad and have terrible lives. And people like us and people, also advanced narcotics addicts, until we moved recently. When I go to work in the morning, I leave my house out by West Los Angeles, which is out by the ocean. And I can drive downtown on the freeway and park in my parking lot. Then step over the bodies of men and women and children dying of alcoholism and drug addiction to get to my office. Work all day, see what we can do to not, we're not a treatment center, way below that. We try to keep them alive and step, go home and step over the bodies of dying men, women, and children. And you think how horrible, but it really isn't horrible because nothing is horrible after you're used to it. Nothing is wonderful after you're used to it. Nothing is horrible after you're used to it. That's one of the stories I think about sometimes is that it's hard to explain sometimes to new people when they finally get a hold of the program that it isn't going to be all red and all roses. I get these calls sometimes when they say the magic word that just sends a shiver down your spine. They say, hi, I want to talk to you about my new relationship. have an aha machine on your desk and put the phone on that and walk away oh I know this is the one I swear to God I know I thought the last girl was this but God when I saw this girl walking out of detox I just you hate to have to tell them the truth you know this is not going to last pal this is alcoholic infatuation and it's not going to last but this is going to be the one when we were having lunch today and we both reached for the salt and our fingers touched and I saw a spark I swear to God there was a spark really that's interesting you have to hate to tell them the truth you know look pal this isn't going to last in the one in a billion chance that you and she have a successful relationship and maybe we'll say you'll get married later on and maybe in three years you'll have a little bungalow you know with a little white fence and maybe a toddler playing in the front yard and you'll be having lunch with your darling and you'll be sitting at the table and you'll reach for the salt and your fingers will touch and you'll say give me the god damn salt that's the way it goes but nothing is really wonderful but I see a lot of people it is really horrible because I've seen it for so long I was going to go down there and do it for a couple months many years ago and now I've been down there 31 years I don't know what the hell kept me there but I when I first went there I was full of zeal I was going to help these people and get sober I had no way to get sober and I'm 15 years sober and I'm going to show you how to do it it's going to be great and one after another after another very few responses I think what is wrong with these people I got a message for them and they don't want to hear it then I just suddenly remember if alcoholics anonymous could be transmitted by good intentions why did I drink? why did I slip year after year after year after year after year after year after year the worst years of my life came after I was acquainted with alcoholics anonymous and going to meetings and good people trying to help me and then I went through terrible I went through started as a high bottom drunk kind of and worked out through a medium bottom drunk and the last day I drank two big guys threw me out of a skid row mission and said then stay out of here you damn mooch! and I said I'm not a damn mooch I tried to explain to you I'm not a damn mooch three years ago I was on the faculty of the University of Texas ads that I wrote the old Elsie Delmar ads for the Borden company were running that very week and Life and Time and New Yorker Shady and the Post I've had my picture in the New York Times for all my achievements how many people do you know who have their picture in the New York Times? but it's really hard to explain these things in mid-air I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know and I stood outside that damn old mid- hè cold rain rainy sick morning and so I had a terrible feeling I didn't know what the feeling was I know what it is now because I've seen other people have it but it's a feeling of suddenly realizing there is no friendly direction there is no direction to go it's gonna be better than any other direction there is nobody out there glad to see me anymore and I had a terrible I stood there in the rain and twenty some pounds you've lost your wife and children you never see them again you've lost your career once upon a time they called you a boy genius you didn't get a job washing dishes you lost all your clothing all your identification remember when you lost that car you were supposed to drive from dallas to los angeles you got drunk in phoenix and lost it now you never did find it wait till i get to the part where i get cancer and die pedro why don't you get the car started but uh he said that's the night that you got in a fight in the street corner with the policeman they threw you in jail overnight and that's the night you vomited on somebody's bunk and he got so mad he kicked all your teeth out your front teeth that's why you have no teeth that's why your mouth is tense you're bleeding down on your shirt he might have said you're an only child your little mother up in wisconsin is no longer allowed to accept phone calls from you because your stepfather's so tired of watching you play on her emotions till she'll go down to a little tiny bank account take out a few more dollars and send it to her little boy and think that'll help him and you'd rather have her think you're dead than the way you are and he might have said you know you've been going to a for 10 years now sitting in meetings and smirking and hitting the meat till the heat is off and pretending to be interested in sobriety and you just laugh and joke at these idiots and make fun of them go back to bars again we talk about them how ridiculous they are and now you're dying he said what if he said if you'd go back why don't you go back to a one more time and admit you're an alcoholic and see what happens and if someone had said that to me and if i were in a mood to be honest which i may or may not have been but i have to say pal you don't understand not the way it looks i'm not an alcoholic i wish i were my life would have been so much better but i'm not and he might as well prove you're not an alcoholic i couldn't have done that i wouldn't have had the objectivity to stand back and delineate the differences so i probably would have to do what guys like me do when we get cornered and we get afraid of the fact that we're afraid and we take defense behind bluster and say things like get away from me you son of a i'll crack you and leave you out get out of here because i'd want to get him close enough to know that i'm afraid but i uh if i would could have i would have told him i know i know what i'm going to do i'm not an alcoholic based i'm sitting in these meetings for 10 years off and on all over the country and listening to these alcoholics talk and i'm not like that now we have a whole bunch of new people back there that you know what alcoholics are i learned that my first week when i first went to aaa alcoholics are people whose problem is alcohol and they have to learn to accept their problem as alcohol and come to alcoholics and admit it and then they return to god and get some new values then they show their gratitude by helping others and that doesn't work for people like me because my problem really isn't alcohol and i for one because having been raised in the strict strict norwegian lutheran church maybe some religions their god is a little softer but ours is not and i have broken all ten commandments and there's no way to go back you can't go back then and i don't know that i'll have enough gratitude help anybody because i just feel put upon all the time i wish my problem more alcohol i wish i wish that was simple like these people who knew me oh i remember uh people talk about how they stopped drinking and their life improves and i or some of them say they couldn't stop at all. But I always have been able to stop. I've quit so many times. And my problem is not that I can't quit and not that I can't resolve to do better but it seems like sooner or later somebody sneaks into my bedroom in the middle of the night and puts an invisible spring in my gut sooner or later. And the next day they start to tighten it. And it doesn't come out as anything it's just a little growing restlessness. Just a little irritability. Just a little getting tired of getting these sermons from people who are living off my abilities. Just a little tired of being treated like a second class person because I had a few drinks. Just a little tired of all this crap. A little tired of this job now. A little tired of my kids are making a little too much noise. And it gets pretty bad. And I've tried a lot of things for that. I spent thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis over a period of time. I read books. I went to meetings of weird people sitting in the back porch without that answers to things. I did a lot of things. But I'll tell you what stops that feeling. Two or three drinks. That's all. That's why I drink. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I drink because I'm a feeler. And I take those drinks and then sometimes I drink too much again and they say, see your problem was alcohol wasn't it? You have to say, yeah I guess it was. I guess you were right. But inside of me a voice just wants to shriek but you don't understand. That's not my problem. There's something wrong inside of me. There's something inside of me that's missing. I don't know what the hell it is. I've noticed this since I was a little boy. I don't know what it is but I know when I get close to people they seem to recognize there's something missing in me. They don't seem to like me as well as they do at a distance. And I don't seem to fit into groups very well. And I, when I'm around people I want to look good to I feel awkward and the people I'd like to run with and class above me, I feel clumsy. And the people that think I'm alright are not the people I want to be with. And I don't seem to make small talk as well as a lot of people do. And a lot of things and I discovered as a boy that when I was 15 years old on a ship in Pearl Harbor running away from home that when they got me to try and drink a whiskey that I finally held on it changed that. I guess the thing was always this. If you're supposed to feel like this in life kind of inside for some reason or another I always mostly felt like this. For always different reasons I studied them a lot. I didn't know what they were doing. And alcohol, what alcohol does for me, it gets rid of the scale. It may be temporary but I feel, that's the only time I feel the way men look. And when I'm not that way I'm putting up a front. And that's why I drink. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. And stopping drinking does for me just makes, there's the scale again. And there's all the thoughts and all the memories and all what might have been and all the despairs and all the criticisms and all the problems and maybe this time I won't drink quite so much. And drinking is the best. If you're new tonight I'll tell you something that may sound shocking to any of you. Alcohol is the best friend I ever had. I've never had a better friend than alcohol. Friends come and go. Lovers come and go. Jobs come and go. Cities come and go. States come and go. But a few drinks wherever you are, if I can bring about this change, it's the best thing I ever found. And my only problem is how can I keep from doing it too much? How can I can't do without it? You say you can't, you can stop if you want to stop, bad enough. I stopped once. I stopped once and I gave it all I got. I was in jail overnight once. I was in jail overnight several times because I have a terrible weakness. When I get to a certain level of drinking it is necessary for me to counsel police officers. And tell them they're blue-bellied snots who shouldn't go out on the streets. And so I've gone to jail overnight several times and after a while you get used to it. I get out in time to take a shower and go to work, you know. This one morning I got out and somebody said, boy, you should have stayed home last night because your little son died and we couldn't find you. And I had four little girls and a little boy and it just about killed me. I thought, oh my God, I felt so bad about that. I just couldn't stand it because I he was going to be my heir. And I remember sitting around on Sunday I went back to Wisconsin sitting around in the living room with my wife's father and her two brothers, big farmer guys, good old guys. They all treated me so well. Here, Clancy, have some coffee. Here, have some pastry, Clancy. It must be a tough time for you. But in their eyes you could just see, you dirty bastard. You dirty bastard. You did this to our sister. Oh, here, have some coffee. Ha, ha, ha. And the next day when we buried him I put my hand in his casket and I said, John Emsland, this will never happen again. I am so sorry. It's going to be a better life for your sisters. And I went back to Texas where I was working and it was almost like an Easter thing. You know, the someone had died but it had a great effect. We're all going to do better. But my kids and I started doing things together and I'm feeling good and I felt like I should do more. We all missed and loved John but we all were together and go for rides. Oh, great. And it just, I deal. Except after two or three weeks somebody sneaked into my bedroom one night and put an invisible spring in my gut. And then it began to change. Just a little growing resentment, nervousness. And now in addition to all the other things I had a new a new campaign against God who would kill my little sinless son to punish me because I'm a sinner. What kind of a God would kill a little boy to even though the father was a dirty rotten bad guy? How could he do it? And he gave me less God. God, I hope to hear you. And it just got worse and worse and the pressure mounted. And pretty soon I didn't like that town anymore. I didn't like that job. My kids who I was doing it for, their noise would make me Mary, take your sisters and go to your room. Please, for Christ's sake. Then hate myself for being, I'm sorry, we'll play tomorrow. And it just, I didn't, I just couldn't stand it. One day my wife took the kids to church and I came home and pulled the car in the garage and hooked up a hose in the exhaust pipe and shut the door, turned the motor on, went to sleep and died. I just didn't know what to do. Fortunately some guy next door sitting in his breakfast nook having a cup of coffee saw me go in there and heard the motor running and I didn't come out so he ambled over to see what was wrong. Found me dead in the car and pulled me out and beat up my chest, breathed my mouth. They rushed me to the hospital, oxygenated me. Studied me for a while, determined I was seriously mentally ill. And committed me for an indefinite period to the Texas State Insane Asylum in Big Spring, Texas. That's how I get when I get sober. That is not something I want. I must say though, I was there about two weeks and my strength came back and I thought, Jesus, what am I doing in an insane asylum? And so I took me out another week to find a way to get out of there. I found a way to get down a corridor and through a door and across the yard and over a fence and now it's gone. But I didn't know that, I don't know if you've ever been in West Texas but after you get over the wall you suddenly realize they can see you running for three days out there. It's just a matter of time you're left in your white bathrobe just while there goes that little Yankee sumbitch now. They snatched me back and gave me two or three months of electric shock treatments for that run. And I didn't run anymore, I'll tell you. When you take two or three months of electric shock treatments you just stand there as, what's your name boy? I don't know. They know at the desk. And I might never have gotten out of there except the next year, the next spring they put in an alcoholic ward. First one in the state of Texas. A pilot study. And my sense had come back by then, most of it. I was in a kind of a sea-dive ward with old people because I was no longer in danger they felt. And Mr. Ross apparently had set up a ward in the other hut and I thought if I could get that guy I'll get out of here. And I made a point, I was a hospital mailman by this time, I made a point of stopping and seeing him. I said, Mr. Ross I put on my best newcomer look. I'm here on a suicide commitment from El Paso. I was on the college faculty there and I don't know how to explain this to you sir but I've always had this trouble with drinking. It makes me drink too much and I don't stop and I obsess over it. I'm sober. Do you have any kind of a book I could read or is there any kind of meetings or things you could help me with? God his eyes went boom. He had never seen a sincere newcomer before. All the people who were in there the practice at the hospital at that time was in Texas. They'd tried a law where you could commit somebody in your family, a known alcoholic, they'd have to go to this hospital for 30 days to stay there no matter what. And so nobody was in there sincere. What are you going to do to get out of here Fred? I'm going to kill that bitch. So I went to the ward there and I was the best one they ever had because I knew what they wanted and I gave it to them in spades. And eventually I got to be secretary of the group. Eventually I was I mean they used to send me out to give little talks around the area to show the wonderful work AA was doing. Two of the hospital guys would take me like over to one of the nearby towns, Midland or Odessa. I'd give my little talk. Hi. I'm here on behalf of my fellow patients at Big Spring State Hospital. I want to thank each and every one of you for bringing meetings and messages to us in our despair. It's as though we were going across a vast desert of alcoholism. We came to the tall green hills of sobriety but they were too steep for our weary legs. People such as you pointed out 12 golden stairs that we could climb one at a time until we got to the height of this wonderful hill. Now as we start to reach the hill of sobriety at the top we're going back to our homes throughout Texas. We're looking for other lost people in that desert and they're all because we can show them over here. Over here there's a way to go. And it's because of people like you. May God bless you. And you can laugh I got me out of the Texas nut house. And I never had another drink until I ran out of Thorazine. But that's how I get it when I stop. Stopping drinking has no incentive to me. It just makes whatever reality is impossible. But I stood in that street corner and nobody came up to me. Nobody talked to me. I just I looked so terrible. I got torn clothes on. Vomit on me and blood and nothing else. No front teeth. Drank. Un-shaven. There's only one place in the world you can go and you look like that and that's an AA club. Oh look there's a newcomer Fred. Where's the nearest AA club? Well it's Wilshire and Fairfax. Quite a ways from here. Wilshire you have to walk up this hill to Hill Street and then walk over to Wilshire and then walk west until you can you find it. I still walked up that hill and then walked west. I still remember vaguely walking up that street Wilshire motor all this luxury and junk and crazy bastard walking up the street in the rain. People in cars going by and pointing and laughing and ha ha ha. I counted later in my car about six miles, seven miles. Long walk. But I got to this club and it was the same old crap you get in every club. There's the 12 steps where you go. You really have to go miss. Nick your time. Anyway, kind of say well live and let live and let God do it and all these things in Jesus. And some old goof said Hi welcome son. You're home now. Ha ha. Thank you I believe I am. Ha ha ha. I looked around there and that night they had a meeting and they had about some cake. I had about four pounds of cake and I could chew that. I had a meeting on gratitude and I almost puked it up. Oh man these simpletons. How do they know how lucky they are not being forced to have to think. Just I'm an alcoholic. And the next day I lurked around there and there was another meeting that night. And went to that and it kept raining. I was waiting for it to stop raining so I could get out of there. And you're supposed to be a member of the club to go in during the daytime. You could go to the meetings at night. And the manager of the club took mercy on me. He said you know you're such a mess. You need the cake I guess. But you can come in here in the daytime. But I don't want you asking anybody for money. And no swearing or cursing or profanity. I said okay thank you. And this went on for days. I just drank. I mean didn't drink. I mean listened to a piece of crap. I remember thinking maybe I'm dead. Ha ha ha. Maybe my sins have caught up with me at last. Maybe hell is not fire and brimstone like you think. Maybe it's just being cold and sick and you hurt all over. And you look at people who have contempt for you. And somebody talks to you about AA every day. Ha ha ha. Can you imagine this for eternity? Ha ha ha. And I had no idea then or there after that would be my sobriety date. Didn't want it to be. Had no intention for it to be. And what happened of all the things that saved me sitting in those meetings I thought about this many times and looked back. In a couple of the meetings I saw a movie actor. A movie actor. I'd seen him in the movies. He was a character actor. I didn't know later he was just a second rate character. Probably the only two movies he was ever in. I've been in a lot more movies in the last few years than he ever was in with better parts even. Movie actor. And the movie actor said to me rich and famous. Maybe that man needs someone to share his fame and fortune with him. Ha ha ha. So I began sucking around him a little bit. And about after a week or so they all was doing these rabid AA clubs. Time to get a sponsor. Better get a sponsor. You got a sponsor yet? Ha ha ha. So I said Bob will you be my sponsor? He said yeah but I want you to do what I tell you. Oh sure Bob. Ha ha ha. They said he wasn't a good actor but he really was. He pretended to be a nice guy at meetings. That took a lot of acting for him it turned out. He tried to be a right wing fascist AA pig. Just the worst start. Do this. Do this. Ha ha ha. Why am I taking this crap from this guy? Because he was my only meal ticket out of there. That's why. And I had a plan. I hate to even confess it but I had a plan. I was going to get some money from this jerk. Get some teeth. Get some clothes. Say yes I know I had some problems drinking. I was fired at Tracy Locke because it cost him two big accounts. I'm very sorry about that. But I've learned my lesson now and I'm sober. You see my eyes are clear. They said but what if he could trust you? I'll say I'll work for nothing until you believe you can trust me. Okay. And I'll work for nothing and I'll get a job and I'll make some big dough. And I'll come back to Los Angeles finally. And I'll buy this AA club. And I'll burn it down. Ha ha ha. And I hope they're all in it having a club meeting that day so I can hear them scream in pain. And Bob was this tough guy but I found out later he didn't like me. And I know why because I've had I don't want to brag but I was the worst type of newcomer there is. And I know that because I've worked with a lot of people in the last few years and I've had two or three guys like me and I just want to take a gun out of my desk and say here, here's your answer. And what that type is is someone who's been around AA year after year and knows all the answers but keeps drinking. And everything you tell them they already know. I know, I know that, yeah. I remember Bob once he almost went over the edge he'd give me about an hour of some conversation something out of the book I said Bob, that really is interesting pal but I think you misquoted the book didn't you? Ha ha ha. That makes your sponsor crazy I'll tell you. But he tried to help me because he was a good aide. I heard him say something once that just boggled my mind. And he said as long as you think your problem is alcohol you're going to die drunk. And I thought, now what? New Screen Actors Guild breakthrough there Bob? Is that? And I said I started writing Bob what do you say things like that for? Does it make sense? He said it does make sense that holds the name of the game. I said Bob that's everybody knows the problem here is alcohol that's why they call it Alcoholics Anonymous Well it says it isn't. And what is it Bob? Are we all are we all psycho cybernetic? Is that it? And he said he'd get red around the gills as he often did He used to say to me sometimes if I ever really missed my front teeth I'd but I wouldn't give them the pleasure of gumming it I'll tell you that but he explained to me over a period of time he said kid the problem here is not alcohol for some people it is alcohol but for people like us it isn't alcohol I said what does that mean? And he gave me a long talk on it he said the problem is something else it's called alcoholism I said Bob Jesus don't play words games with me I look terrible but I'm smarter than hell alcoholism oh I'm cured I'm cured shut up he explained and over a period of time he gave me a long harangue off and on and most of it went through me but the one thing that stood in my mind always is letters of gold still today he said boss down to this kid if your problem is alcohol all you have to do you clean up your act you quit drinking ok and I said Jesus Bob that doesn't work I've tried that a hundred times he said that's right that's because your problem isn't alcohol your problem is alcoholism and unfortunately for you and people like me it looks almost exactly the same to the naked eye but the difference primarily is this if your problem is alcohol you stop drinking and clean up your act and you're home free in this strange thing called alcoholism this mind consuming perception distorting bodily eroding fatal thing called alcoholism this strange thing called alcoholism you'll discover sooner or later that stopping drinking and cleaning up your act has no significant long term effect on your life other than to gradually make it so painful you can't stand it and I said Jesus Bob I know that feeling that's the first time anybody told me that if that's the case but people know alcohol is doing bad things to them why would they drink he said that's the whole point kid they don't know alcohol is doing bad things to them they're not drinking because it's doing bad things to them he said alcoholics of our time have an unnatural reaction to alcohol what do you think it is I know what it is you can't stop he said no that's podium talk the unnatural effect people don't seem to realize this alcohol does something remarkably extra for me that it doesn't do for most people but I have no way of knowing that I have nothing to compare it against I'll have it myself he said when I have a few drinks perception changes almost instantly when I take a few drinks it changes my relationship to the world around me when I have a few drinks it makes me taller and more self contained inside and then smaller and less threatening I said Jesus Bob what's wrong with that he said it's just fantasy it's in your head kid it's not working and also it eventually sets up this phenomenon of craving where you just keep drinking a lot he says there's never been an explanation for that I can't explain it to you but that's there no one's ever explained that yet to this day the phenomenon of craving I have an idea of what it is at least for people like me when I'm living in the grey or black and white and desperately curtailed existence and I drink and that's a few drinks the technicolor starts to come in and I start to relax a little bit oh boy and you start to sag a little bit it seems like you have another drink to hold it you take another drink to hold it you get to a point you see these old guys so drunk they can't even walk crying out give me a drink they don't want a drink they're trying to hold it and eventually you can't of course you go down you get so drunk you get sober again no matter what your story is I said Jesus Bob that's happened to me so many times I said ok now you're sober and you know better why would you drink now he said that's the other end of it kid and he had an explanation that I never did find in the book it's hinted at in the book somebody gave me a tape of mine from when I was three years sober I heard it I wanted to listen to it see what I sounded like without front teeth I went a long time without front teeth my sponsor made me pay for them myself I heard myself talking about something he had told me and I hadn't talked about it for thirty years but it's still as true as it ever was people are born they grow up they face a lot of problems they face conflicts they face long term problems you face nice things you learn you learn bad things you learn what hurts you you have to cope with things and work your deep long problems through he said that problem is called maturing that process is called maturing and when you become a mature individual in this world you live a pretty comfortable life you don't do things that hurt you we drink to get rid of it here's to you household finance here's to you bitch I never liked you anyway and my closet gets filled with emotions that have never been dealt with so now I'm sober I'm grown up and I'm sober I'm going to change my life I swear this time it's going to be different I'm going to go back and get another job I'll hold that job I'll go to work on time every morning I won't miss any time and I have my my wishes are just to be right and I never knew ever my sponsor pointed out to me but I wouldn't have known it on my own in 10,000 years all of these wishes all of these aims all of these goals are at the intermittent beck and call of childish emotions we call them alcoholic emotions because it sounds a little nicer I guess that's my alcoholism hahaha what are alcoholic emotions you hurt my feelings I'm going to run away I'm not going back there I love you let's get married and eventually he says these emotions become almost obsessive and you got to get some relief so you have a few drinks to ease off then you drink till you have to get sober then you stay sober till you have to drink then you drink till you have to stay sober and every time back and forth your head says see alcohol wasn't the problem at all you have all these other things that people don't understand your case is different from them you have needs you're more sensitive perhaps you're a little more vulnerable and on and on and if you could just get things going your way it wouldn't be necessary to drink so much and people pursue that will-o'-the-wisp right into the grave and you go to AA and they talk about stop drinking and make it better and you have to say I wish you did but it doesn't maybe for you pal not for me I said Jesus Bob that's my story exactly I've never heard anybody talk about it like me he said there's a name for people like you I thought uh oh what is it Bob he said you're an alcoholic I thought I'll be damned I'm an alcoholic for the last 10 years I've been sitting I've thrown away every opportunity every chance I had I had chances to meet tremendously powerful people nice homes living room and all of it gone I stand here in the street corner with my mouth bleeding a bum because I never could understand what my problem was I said Jesus Bob why doesn't AA explain alcoholism the way you do this obsession of the body allergy of the body whatever the hell it is all that crap he said they do kid look at the wall look at the one that says one you have to admit you've lost your power to control alcohol then there's a dash which means end of thought beginning of new thought and you've lost your power to control sobriety I said huh I guess that was in January of 1959 and I've never had a strong desire to drink since then and you may think oh has life turned out wonderfully no it didn't because I knew I was an alcoholic but I was still a terrible person I mean dab attitude sarcastic that was my defense I was sarcastic to people I'll tell you something else I learned in that period nobody likes to take crap from people without front teeth that's how it works and I got my sponsor made me get jobs all the time and I get fired for my mouth and my attitude and you say well why don't you think of drinking I'll tell you the best reason I can tell is this all those years I sat in those AA meetings all over the country Chicago and San Francisco and a lot of places where I was working and I'd hear these mooches talk about their slips oh I just came back from my slip and it was just terrible my brother had a slip and wrecked his car and died or I backed up over somebody and it was just terrible it was just all these terrible stories and I thought I'm glad I'm not an alcoholic Jesus give me a drink but once I knew I was an alcoholic I thought God if it was this bad now what will it be if I slip it would be terrible so I gave myself permission to commit suicide but not to drink and two or three times I got good enough over to drink and my sponsor I got so desperate in pain sometimes I'd talk to him and tell him the truth something I never told my psychiatrist my weakness I'm so weak and what happened then I guess I look back and see this now probably the greatest one of the greatest things that ever happened in my sobriety and nobody ever talks about it but I know I begin to slowly feel that my sponsor knew how I felt that the Rotary Club did laugh so what but I had never known anyone who I really knew thought knew how I felt my dad didn't he said he did but he didn't my minister didn't my boss didn't my doctor didn't my psychiatrist I know how you feel Clancy no you don't no you don't you think you do but you don't and what's so important about having someone who knows how you feel if you're new you might listen to this I hope you find someone all of us have had enough advice to last us 10,000 years everybody's had it people like us just draw advice like flies just here's what I think you ought to do thank you very much that's why you just shine them off let it bounce off the wall the invisible wall you know but if you can find someone that you really believe knows how you feel that that advice becomes meaningful information from him or her and that meaningful information I may take actions they're telling me to do things that I think is absolutely stupid but the guy knows how I feel maybe he's right it's a remarkable thing the trouble is you know once they get you like that they give you dumb things to do and dumber dumber things they don't actually say this ever but it seems as strange as this see that poster son that's bright red no Bob it's kind of an off white cream colored tan I'll tell you it's bright red ha ha ha that's cream colored to me well god damn it you act like it's bright red they don't tell you the color of walls that'd be too simple to check out they tell you things equally stupid see that woman I want you to apologize to her why Bob you called her a bitch why do you think she's a bitch she told her new girls to stay away from me well she's right you apologize ha ha ha ha bitch I want you to stay on that job till you get a better job Jesus Bob they got me stuffing envelopes for a dollar and nine cents an hour I used to have an office bigger than this company this is terrible Bob I don't care you stay on that job till you get a better one you hear me ha ha ha ha understand you didn't go to the Thursday night meeting oh Jesus Bob I'm not going to that meeting they'll suck around each other whiners and bitters they treat me like a piece of crap Bob or maybe they know something you go to that meeting and this goes on and on and on embarrassment and humiliation one day you turn around and the damn wall is red then you have to spend the rest of your life dealing with dumb bills who think it's off grade and for the first time I understood what they meant about action action is doing things that gradually change the way things are it's amazing the same things look different and I finally held a job and I was about two years sober and I got a little job as a writer finding a medical corporation and I went to work every day I was able to talk to my sponsor about how weak I was and how vulnerable and he told me what to do and over a period of time a lot of people thought I'd been burned into fire you know but I went to work every day he was crazy about that and I was five years sober I was director of advertising for this medical corporation I had teeth then smiled a lot if there's anybody new in the back there who's short of teeth let me give you some hope once you become spiritually perfect they grow back I don't remember exactly how it happened when I was seven years sober my dad and I were brought into Hollywood we created something called Boss Radio became the number one hard rock station in the world we all wore shiny suits and said things like what's coming on down baby when I was ten years sober I was downtown doing public relations when I was fifteen years sober I was a marketing director in Beverly Hills when I was five years sober the same wife and all those children heard the crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to Dallas leaped out of their post office box attached themselves to me like a group of starving chiggers kids have grown up three of them turned sixteen this year in AA three of my daughters we had another little child who was a son he's forty now all of my kids that are alcoholics are at AA I guess only one of my daughters turned out bad I hate to talk about things like that but she became a judge she comes home at Christmas she says daddy when we were little girls remember how edgy you were I said sure honey she says when you come to Albuquerque I'm going to send you to a little room I don't take any speaking engagements in Albuquerque and then I was I want to say one more thing for those in the back this may or may not help you but after I was sober a few days a few weeks I started on the steps I can't take the steps I cannot return to God I wish I could but if God exists I am damned there's no question about that in my mind they say oh that's just childish belief it's like Hitler said you give me their minds until they're twelve and they'll be Nazis as long as they live somewhere inside of there and I knew that if God exists Bob I can't do it I cannot return to God he says it never says you return to God oh to a power greater than myself does that fool the other boys and girls doesn't fool me we know who they're talking about he says it doesn't say that either read the damn thing you come to believe in something you come to believe in something you don't go back to anything never in age has it ever said you go back to anything in your sickness you come to believe in something can't you believe in God I said no I can't Bob he says can't you believe in AA I said parts of it but it's too religious all that religious and I can't make that he said do you think I'm doing better than you are he says congratulations I'm your new higher power and he became my higher power and I could accept that he could not send me to hell he tried but he couldn't but I believed in him and I began to do things he said and little by little things began to change and I began to believe in what he said and my terrible terribly strong emotions it wasn't such strong emotions he was able to steer them you know if you kind of knew an example of that a few years ago I sponsored God a guy who put the flag on the moon the first flag on the moon and he called me one day he says you know the Russians are having a convocation of astronauts at the Russian legation in France and we're going to go over in the SST and I'm supposed to bring a guest but you know my wife and I are divorced and the children aren't in America who could I possibly take hmm I thought I'll sacrifice myself just for him so we went over in the SST you know the SST doesn't run anymore it's too bad I don't know if you've ever been on it but it was a long narrow plane two plush seats on each side of the aisle and about 30 rows of them in the front of here there's a clock with one hand on it and you take off and the clock goes to about 3 o'clock and you circle New York get over the ocean and then they turn it on that arrow goes all the way back to 12 now the speed is sound 700 miles an hour and it keeps going and you're way up high you can see the curvature of the earth like hmm and when you land I hope we got good brakes on this son of a bitch probably going to be in Belgium or someplace but what they really do they land the same way we landed in Fort Lauderdale the other day they just reverse the thrust of the jets the same jets that push you this way now they stop the plane that's as simple as ever and I've often thought about that that's in a sense one of the great values of AA AA you can have emotions strong emotions it is absolutely essential that you drink in fact when people like us get in that mood some doctors say we drink to preserve our sanity and it's necessary for me to drink and what I can if I can find it to find someone well I'll give the power to reverse the thrust of that emotion and use those same emotions to get me to take actions I would never take in a hundred years if I were feeling good do this and little by little you get through it you don't necessarily have someone you can talk to that you can believe in but I little by little did better but the one thing I began thinking because as much as I hate to admit it most people like me want to find a reason for this mysteriousness is fine but it isn't and the reason what does that mean come to believe a power within myself will restore me to sanity what the hell is sanity you can read ten mental health textbooks definitions of sanity but oddly enough insanity is easy to define psychosis and really over simplified psychosis is when the brain under sufficient conflict and cannot find an answer to the conflict the pressure runs and eventually in an effort to maintain its neural integrity it will make a portion of reality look different than it is that becomes psychosis and sometimes it's all of it but you know temporary I mean modular psychosis these are the guys who gee I lived next door to that guy for fifteen years and all of a sudden he starts shooting people and shooting the family so what is psychosis it is the ability you don't choose to do it but you change perception of reality and once you do that it stays that way people today say things like well I was psychotic for a while but if you're psychotic you're going to stay psychotic alcoholics almost never become psychotic alcoholics almost never become psychotic you say but they say it's the second greatest cause of insanity it is but not from psychosis from a different type of insanity anyone here who's ever been drunk knows how it feels to get up in the morning you're on fire you have to get something to put the fire on something cold and wet and the reason for that is because alcohol is probably the only fluid I know it dries out your body it goes into your blood eventually kills the cells it comes in contact with but when you drink fluids the cells revive and they come back to life there's only two organs in the body when the cells die they don't revive one is your liver one is your brain they've got millions of cells you have a lot of drinking before it affects them enough but eventually you can dry out enough cells in your brain so you can't function this is ironic what we call a wet brain is a dry brain it's called the Korsakoff syndrome and you think maybe I've got that part of not at all if you've got it you're not sitting anywhere in the world you're sitting in a ward and they come and change your diapers and feed you and put you to bed and get you up and feed you and change your diapers and put you to bed and get up and this goes on and you can never get better and the families come down and see if dad knows them or mother knows them who the hell are you get out of here they cry and go home that's what alcoholic insanity is most of you will never see a case of it I see it all the time but alcoholics don't become psychotic why not because when it gets bad enough long enough they drink alcohol and drinking alcohol changes their perception of reality we have the power without knowing it I can induce temporary psychosis isn't that amazing and we drink it until you have to stop so what I had to come to understand for me I had to come to believe there's a power here and the great thing is this newcomers you have to believe in a power but you don't have to understand how it's going to happen you just have to believe it can happen because it's happening to all these other people around you all these old timers here it happened to them so it's reliable to happen to you you don't have to understand why there's a power greater than you somewhere that will enable you to live without having to induce temporary psychosis to stand it came to believe that a power greater than you will restore me to sanity living in the world without having to drink or take medications to make reality different and that was a great breakthrough for me and of course there's a third step I'm not going to talk any more steps than just that step that's scary because it says came to believe that I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand it I had to read that as saying do what they say do what they say, do what Bob says that's turning your will and your life over as best I know we don't mind you leaving but leave the chair for God's sake this is a tough crowd I'll tell you but that's really what it boils down to and when I was 15 years sober it changed my perceptions too much and one day I found myself resigning a job in Beverly Hills where I was a big shot and the next day I was running a mission on Skid Row in 1958 and for the last 31 years I've been the managing director of the midnight mission in the middle of Skid Row and every day we watch people die and every day once in a while we get somebody out of there and try to change them but it's been a great experience I know there are probably some people who think well how do I get to get a mission well there's only so many missions to go around I got mine and just a fact of life but I'll tell you the one thing I learned in the early years that I've always believed in I've worked with new people I've done a lot of things but action you keep doing the things the reason old timers get drunk is not because the age changes or because they change they just stop doing the things that keep them sober it's such a it's a great example of that I mean it still can change my life and it's ridiculous when I was about 5 years sober I was doing pretty good I was working for this medical corporation I thought it's about time for me to become a secretary the biggest group in this here town maybe and the biggest group in town was the Brentwood group which meant just 4 blocks from where old Jay didn't kill his wife and so I they had they had a system where the steering committee appointed the secretary and I had a stooge on that steering committee and I said Smokey bring up my name see what happens and I saw him the next day I said well did I make it he said no it died for lack of a second actually I realized there was not a groundswell so I I ground my teeth and pided my time somebody said this little meeting hall over there called Ohio Street the Tuesday night meeting just died you know anybody who wants to take it over start a meeting there yes I do and I took 12 of my weary compatriots and went over there and rented this hall on Tuesday nights something like that and I got one to make coffee and one to do this and that sat in my office I was working in an advertising agency by that time sitting downtown and I wrote a basically everything that helped me I put a format together and we had a meeting and about 15 people came and it was just wonderful I gave some very good announcements come back next week and bring a friend won't you and the next week we had about 22 people and apparently I offended somebody in my announcements the next week we were down to 12 again but little by little it grew up to about 30 or 35 after a year and I was feeling good I remember thinking we are coming to our anniversary probably a lot of groups would have an election now but that really would be unfair to these people they are new and they are still finding their way and they need guidance and oh hell I sacrificed myself so we didn't have an election at the end of two years we were getting about 60 or 65 people and I thought well God they are like an emerging third world country they are so close to self government but not quite we just won't even bring up the election why make them worry about that and a couple of months later I was sitting in the kitchen and some boob came up whose life I had saved and he said are we going to have an election in this group I said Jimmy is there something wrong with the group we are following the traditions we are getting a good name around town the drones are starting to hate us so we know we are doing good he said no no it isn't that at all but people in other groups say you are a dictator and if we had an election and elected you nobody would say a word I said good idea Jimmy so we had an election and they swept me out of office I don't care I forgot all about it but I have the balance home I am still checking handwriting but I to show you what a good job I had done in building it even after I left it really took off now it is going to the largest meeting in the world 1000 people every Wednesday night some of you have been there it is famous all over the world we send our tapes our weekly tapes to 120 some subscribers all over the world and I am not the secretary anymore of course but I am the founder and I sit in the middle and I give little signals nobody seems to pay any attention but it makes me feel good at the end of the meeting people will bring newcomers over and say this is Clancy he has been sober almost 50 years he started this group he flies all over the world to talk to members of Alcoholics Anonymous he says and I say things like glad you came tonight hope you brought your problems many folks leave them here once in a while some puke will come up who doesn't know who I am hey buddy can you give me a ride back over to the VA Psych Award after the meeting and the great thing about A is you can think whatever you want I can look right in his sick little eyes and say what give you a ride back to the VA you crazy bastard you shouldn't even be out of there there's a thousand people in this room who need action desperately there's one who is given all year after year after year I'm not just some guy in a suit and tie I'm Clancy I from up in the sky now you can think that as long as you say ok after I drop the puke off at the VA and I'm driving home my head says oh Clancy is there no end to your goodness but it's such an amazing thing that my life has changed I knew all about AA and knew more about AA than the people helping me when I got sober it really boils down to this you knew people in the back no matter how much you know or think you learn it means absolutely nothing and you can't get it out of the book in my opinion because the book is just information until you have experience that makes you say my god that's true that book gets smarter year after year after year I read it several times before I got sober I thought it was dull and pedantic but after I was sober I think it was the smartest damn book I ever read I believe that today and the purpose of AA that's the last thing I'm talking about what's the purpose of AA well you're going to get sober and drier and drier not at all if that were true I'd burst into flame up here I really believe this with all my heart the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to very slowly do what alcohol did fast to little by little change my perception of the world to little by little change my relationship to the world around me to little by little build me up a little inside and then make them less frightening and threatening to me so I have some degree of invulnerability a tiny amount anyway and that day is such a great such a great moment in life when you start and the bad thing about it is you take it for granted you take it for granted how many there isn't a person who doesn't know somebody who used to be around AA and gradually drifted off not because AA doesn't work not because AA doesn't work but I'm ok now it's very similar to I think in my mind's eye to like diabetes where they give you a regime to follow you can't eat these foods you can't eat these foods you have to take your insulin and after 5 years say hey I've been feeling good for 5 years I don't need that crap anymore I'll eat what I want I'm not going to take the insulin it sounds ridiculous but that's what it boils down to so you have to come here sit in the meetings and you don't have the last thing I thought you had to do you had to show your gratitude by helping other people that's wrong you get gratitude by helping other people that's what you do and days when you feel crappy and our book says when all else fails you work with another guy or another girl and in working with them and getting out of self it starts to get better again and again because that's what it's about all you have to do you people in the back of the treatment center and this girl over here who used to be here but left for their book oh she's standing in the doorway waiting to make her move you sit down there when I was your age I was in the nut house all you have to remember is this remember this that you can't drink because you proved or else you wouldn't be here and without something you can't stay sober because people like us are always going to have to drink somehow here whatever it may be there's a power of some kind in some way that you don't understand I told you not to have to drink and you have to find somebody and listen to them it'll be worth everything it took thank you