The Higher Power That Watches Every Alcoholic – Jack B.

and there was only one time that I ever met a mower at a convention and that was in Paducah Kentucky and he was a woman I don't know whether it's I think somebody should send the mayor of a little literature and I would like to see if the police chief was here tonight and ask him what would they what would you do if they all got drunk? That would straighten him out pretty good. I arrived here today, this afternoon. I almost didn't arrive. When we landed in Augusta, the damn pilot hit the ground so hard that all of the oxygen mass came out of the cabinets and I was a little leery. I hate flying. Flying is for the birds, as far as I'm concerned. You know, I try very hard always to fly American Airlines. It's most reassuring when they come around with the coffee and there's a big AA on the cup, you know. The only damn thing that goes out here is Delta. Well, anyway, I made it. And I'm happy to be here, really. And I'm happy to see all you lovely people. It's a very warm convention, I know that. And I would certainly like to be here for the rest of it. But unfortunately, I have to leave early in the morning and be in Indiana tomorrow evening for another convention. So I'm going to tell you why that I came here tonight. I didn't come here tonight to enjoy the lovely meal that I did have a little while ago. I came here tonight because my friend upstairs wants me to be here And I don't know how you feel about this program But I do believe that it is a God-given and God-inspired program And that each and all of us sitting here, alcoholics, are miracles There is no earthly reason for us to be sober tonight No earthly reason Many people that will say, well doctors do this and psychiatrists do that and I say no I say God does it all he has the last word always and when the phone call came for me to come here I looked at my calendar and I said I'm sorry but I have another meeting on that same weekend and they said that they would settle for here I am because any telephone call regarding AA to me is a direct order from the higher power because I should not be able to stand here and talk to you people. I should never be able I should be able I should now be able to work I should know I should have I should not be not be able to do anything I should be sitting in a corner of some little institution facility whatsoever to be able to think or I should be dead and buried many years ago and the only reason that I do stand here and talk to you and get on planes and fly all over the damn place is because of Alcoholics Anonymous. There is no earthly reason. If Alcoholics Anonymous is, like Bill Wilson told us, higher power then I'm here because of the grace of God. And the God that I feared for so many years, and the God that I cursed, and a God that I hated I find since I come into AA as a very gentle and very understanding and very loving God. I call on my friend upstairs and I don't move about in this world not even five pages unless my friend downstairs knows that I'm going because I know from where my help comes. I tried every which way in this life in this whole world to stay sober and live a normal life and do the best that I could with work and what have you and I never ever succeeded not until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous so then as I say I came here to talk not to everybody I came to talk because there is one individual out there that's supposed to hear something that I have to say tonight my friend upstairs knows how I hate flying and how petrified that I get and I'm sure that he doesn't fund me on any wild goose chases and I am here for a reason one individual whose life will change because of something that I say here tonight and it will not be me speaking all I am simply is carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous the work you must do yourself and let our friend here read from his book that half measures of and that if you want what we have the first hundred speaking if you want what we have then you do as we did and what the first hundred did and the first thousand that went before me did they took the twelve steps of AA and used them for a guide for a new life so my new life was here in Alcoholics Anonymous and I came into AA twenty-eight years ago and I haven't had the desire for a drink or any thought of having a drink in all that time. My life is a form hindered by my alcoholism. I work in Kansas, and I have what is laughingly called a small business. I do the work, and I hate work with a passion. I hate it. I hate to work. But they frown on the other ways that I know to make money. And you know, of stigma and never leaves you because you know who he gave the key to the city to. It certainly wasn't me, a key that would fit every door. So that one individual that I came to speak to, please listen. Please listen. The rest of you can sit there quietly, and I won't keep you too long, really, but I came here to talk to you about the disease of alcoholism and how that affected me and what that I did and what that it's like now. Speaking of your health by Dr. Lester Coleman, reprinted from a Philadelphia newspaper in 1965. Very important piece of paper. There was some up here if you'd like to take one home would you please do. It says alcoholism is an actual physical illness sometimes described as an allergy because it reflects a lack of tolerance to alcohol. And it says, it is not a mental illness and changes in the alcoholic which are too often mistaken as mental illness. But these temporary changes of personality disappear when the alcoholic returns to sobriety. It goes on further to say that the alcoholic may not want to drink, but he cannot control the impelling drive for the chemical need of sustenance of alcohol. And it goes on further to say that the only effective treatment is greater to say that those people that are suspected of having the disease of alcoholism should associate themselves with the members of Alcoholics Anonymous in order to learn to live with the disease that they have. That is not my words, that's the words of a very fine doctor and I reprint these things from this newspaper. They're not supposed to be reprinted of course but so far I've reprinted about 500 and I just wonder what the hell Lester Coleman is going to do about it you see, I always thought that I was crazy I always taught that there was something wrong with my head I knew that I wasn't a good person I was different from the very first moment that I remember I came from a family of nine children nine children, eight normal children and one alcoholic, and that was me Of course, in both times, nobody knew about the disease of alcoholism because AA has only been with us for 40 years. But when I was a kid, I knew that there was something wrong with me because I was born afraid. I was afraid of my father. I was scared of my mother. I was worried of the nuns in school. I was afraid of anything at all that was slightly different. I didn't like to be caught, and if I knew the answer to a question, I wouldn't even tell the answer. And I would sit in a corner like Denny the Dunce Petrified and I went to bed at night I had to leave the light on. If my mother went out shopping and stayed overly long I would worry about her I would feel in my mind's eye under a taxi cab hurt and dead. I never ever knew what it was to draw a pleasant happy breath in my body with the disease of alcoholism. The doctors tell us today that the disease of alcoholics causes us always to be filled with ungrounded and unfounded fear. I didn't know anything about these things all I knew I didn't feel good. I hated Christmas because Christmas was a time of trial. My father was an alcoholic and when he came home drunk, I was petrified and I would run down the basement and Iwould hide behind the boiler. And when he sobered up, I would come out. I would sit there and Iwould cry. And I would curse God and I wold curse everybody and I will say why don't I have a father like the kid down the block? A father that would buy me a pair of skates. I never had a pair of skates. I never had a bicycle. I never had any of the things that the kids usually have. I'd never played baseball. I've never played football. I would sit on a stoop and wait for my father to come home from work. That was the extent of my life. And when he forced me to go to school in the morning, I would get halfway there and I would be so terrified I would run home again. And my mother didn't know what to do with me. And she would tell me, Jack, why don't you be more like your brother Jimmy? Now Jimmy was a fine lad. He was a good boy. He went to school. He got good marks he slept he hung up his clothes he did everything right and i hated his guts because i don't you see i never could do anything right i was over the round block in a square hole and no matter if it was raining soup i would be out with a fork that's the way that it was and i tried to be like my brother and i said to hell with my brother i just couldn't be like him so i hated him and this was an early childhood and my father used to come home, and he used to pick me up and rock me on his knee. He'd tell me everything's going to be all right, and it's going to get another job. And he'd say, Jack, I'm going to drink no more. And I'd say that's good, and I'd run and tell my mother, and she'd say yeah, I know. I've been hearing that for a long time, Jack. Let's see. Let'S see how that it works. And then I would wait for two, three, four weeks, and the next thing you know here would my father come around the corner with the hat thrown on the back of his head hitting both sides of the street, and I knew he was drunk. The bottom used to fall out of my world and I used to run in the house and say, Mom, he's coming, he is drunk and I would hide all the knives in the kitchen because I didn't want my mother or my father to hurt each other and then it was a time when all the boys and girls in the House went to bed except Jack and Jack used to sit in the kitchen between Mom and Pop and try to keep them from hurting each other and this is the way that I lived as an alcoholic I was born with a chemical imbalance in my system, and I didn't know anything about it. All I knew, I didn�t feel good. And when Christmas came, I hated it. Generally, my father would fall through the Christmas tree or there'd be a big fight or a big argument, and then I used to hate Christmas. And Easter used to bother me too because I always wanted to have enough money, don't you see, to tell my mother to go out and buy herself a new dress, and they never saw her with a new one. Because with nine kids and a drunken husband, a husband that would quit a job just as quick because look at you. Well, then there was not much money in my home and we were very poor people and I remember even got to the point where when meat was put on a table, I even didn't feel like much to eat because I knew that my mother would always leave herself short in order that the kids would have enough and I used to under quite thoroughly, quite well. Why? Why were we so poor and why did I go up and catch my mother crying in her apron, you know, very softly but crying in her apron. And I knew the answer, my father's drinking. I knew that my father was something wrong with him and I thought that if he would just make up his mind to stop, that he could stop. But he didn't want to and he was just a bum. And on, I hated my father. I hated him good. And I used to say to my mother, I'd say, mom, when I get big, I'll make, excuse me, I make a whole bunch of money and I'll buy a little house in Jersey. And how about you and me? We go out there and live together. And she'd say, okay, Jack, we'll do that. And I'd say we'll leave the old man home, huh? And she said, yeah, we're leaving him home, just you and me. And I know now that my mother was just trying to pass because they were always forever taking me to doctors, you know. I didn't sleep well at night and I didn' t eat well and I lost weight instead of gaining it. And I was a very nervous kid. I'd sleepwalk all the time. They had to tie me in a bed. I was upset tremendously with my father's drinking. So for me to stand here and tell you that my name is Jack Brennan, I'm an alcoholic, that's ridiculous. It's absolutely asinine. I hated alcohol. I hated booze. I didn't want no part of the damn stuff. And when my cousins would come from overseas and they would bring a bottle, I used to curse them. And I'd say, you know, they'll leave here and everything will be fine for them, but my father will be drunk and there's going to be hell to pay and my mother's going get hurt again. And I said, why do they bring it? And I couldn't understand it. I knew that alcohol and my father, and I hated alcohol and I hated my father and I hated anything to do with it. Then why do I stand here? Why do I stay and tell you that I'm an alcoholic? Because the Lord upstairs, the higher power saw fit to make me an alcoholic. That's what it is. I had no choice in the matter whatsoever and nor does any alcoholic because the good doctor tells us in that paper that the heavy drink at any time that he wants but not solely alcoholic different chemical body so therefore i stand here and tell you that my name is jack brennan i'm an alcoholic and i didn't like it and i didn't want it but isn't that proof enough for anyone that i do suffer from a genuine bona fide disease very similar to diabetes very similar in its results diabetes because diabetes is a chemical disease just the same as alcoholism. Chemical imbalance in the system and if there is a history of diabetes in the family then it's four times to one greater chance that one of the children will be an alcoholic too, although the disease is not inherited. The same statistics hold true for them. So my father was an alcoholic, I'm an alcoholic and I have a a son who is 30 years old, and he is an alcoholic. Nothing so strange when you know the reason. You see, it's not just a question that I shouldn't drink. It's just simply a question with the chemical body that I got, I just damn well can't drink, period. Because the disease of alcoholism, alcohol in the body of an alcoholic affects the alcoholic in three ways. It affects him mentally, physically, and spiritually. It effects him mentally in that he doesn't know what he's doing and is capable of doing things that normally he would not want to do or do. Mental manifestation of a chemical disease that I suffer from. And then we have the physical manifestation of the same disease. Physical, when an alcoholic is coming off a drunk and you put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him, he will show up in the plate. Physical manifestation of disease of alcoholism and if he's waving to somebody on the other side of the street and there is nobody on the side of street physical disease a physical manifestation of the disease of alkalism and he walks down the street and talks to himself and he looks like he's taking the cure comb for eye drops you don't have to look very hard to find the physical manifestations of the the disease of alcoholism. And then we come to the big one, the spiritual manifestations of the disease. What is spirituality? They tell us here in AA that there is no religion, and I believe that with all my heart. There's no religion in AA, but there is a spiritual part of our program. Well, I had to find out what the word spirituality meant. A spiritual person is simply an individual who is wanted and needed and loved by his actions. Well, you can damn well sure see very quickly that the alcoholic is a very unspiritual person. Who the hell needs them? Who the heck wants them? And what idiot could love them? That's the way that it works. For here we have the one physical disease affecting us in three areas of our lives. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. It did me. I can only speak for me. I can only speak for me and with many, many years of experience watching alcoholics live and die. I look at my own son, 30 years old, 16 years fighting the battle in and out of AA like a yo-yo, in prisons, in hospitals, on skid rows, stealing, lying, and cheating, hurting little people, his little children, and there is nothing in this world that I could do about it. But I tell you how the AA works. My being here tonight and helping one individual, perhaps back in New York, there is somebody tonight that is helping my son. I don't know. I hope so. I pray so because I have done everything that I can for him. There is nothing more in this world that I could possibly do for him. So I must turn him over to higher power. And I will say this to you, that any time that he wants AA, it is here for him, thank God. Any time that he wants to throw in the sponge and accept defeat and thereby win, AA will be here for And I say the same to you. There is nothing that I can do for you. I pray that you make the right decision because the life that I live today is not to be compared in any which way, shape or form with the way that I used to live. You see, I picked up my first drink at age 12. A kid's trick, that's all that it was, a kid's tricks. My brother and I were in a bedroom because it was Saturday and it was raining and the old man was just starting on another. Take Joe with you and be quiet and maybe it won't be too bad this time. And all I knew, I had that big knot of fear again in my belly and I said he's at it again and it's going to be another long weekend. You know how that you have to walk on your tippy toes around him. Maybe he's sleeping, maybe he's awake, maybe he out, maybe he in. Oh, I know what Al-Anon goes through. I know well. I lived it. Because my father and I prayed for him at the same time and I never ever knew anything about the disease of alcoholism until I came to AA. Well, my father died without ever coming into AA. In fact, AA was quite young when he died. But here I was in his bedroom on a Saturday morning looking at four walls with a stupid brother and he come up from under the bed with a bottle of wine and he said, Jack, look what I found. And I said, oh, shut up. because I considered him to be a nitwit. Sometimes I still do, but... He said, Jack, let's try some of it. I said, no, I don't want none of that stuff. I said you try it. So he put it up to his mouth. It was a gallon jug and he took a drink out of it and he said, oh boy, it's good, it sweet. So I watched him for a couple of three minutes and he didn't fall down or anything, you know. And there was nothing else to do. I said give me that stupid thing. Let me see what that is. So I took my first drink. It wasn't sweet I don't know what the hell it was Sweet, sour But I know one thing It was magic Pure magic Because that went in my mouth And it hit my stomach And all the feet In seconds And I said Man alive No wonder the old man Is sipping on this stuff Yeah And I sent to my brother Joe Go have another one Joe Hurry up And he said, okay, okay. And he had another one. He said, oh boy, it's sweet. I said, man, I know you're stupid because you see what I was getting. He didn't need the chemical alcohol. He was not an alcoholic. So he took alcohol as it was intended to be drunk. He took it and said it was sweet and he enjoyed it. Me, I took my second drink and I was wondering then a quiet little kid that I was, you know, up until that time. I wondered out loud. I said, I wonder how hard a man behind the ear with a milk bottle to kill him. See? Complete change instantly. Mental manifestation of the disease that I suffer from. I used to go to church and pray for my father. Now here I was wondering how I could kill him I said to Joe, hey, have another one. He said, no, if you drink any more of that you're going to get sick. And I said you're stupid. Made anything better than this he'd keep it up there for myself. And I believed it with all my heart. So, I said, okay, you don't want any more? I'll have one. And, I had the third one. You know something? That's over 40 years ago. My brother Joe, if you meet him in Lindbrook, Long Island, don't drink with him. He'll do the same thing to you. See, he took two drinks and then he quit. He left mega in my face. If you go to his home, He'll give you one drink. And then after a small space of time, he'll give you a second drink. And then the cork goes back in the bottle and the bottle goes back into the closet. And you just lit the fire and he's all through. And he's been doing that for 40 years. And that's what he did to me 40 years ago. And the next thing that I remember, and my mother's bending over me and she's crying very bitter tears. And she woke me up, and I came to her like a scared deer. And I said, Mom, what happened? And it was just that horrible feeling that is so peculiar to alcoholics, remorse in the belly. You don't know what you did, but you did something. And I looked at her, and they said, Please stop crying. Please let it happen. And she said, Jack, please. One in this family is enough. I couldn't take two. And I thought, What do you talk about? And she said, Jack, you drank almost three-quarters of a gallon of wine yesterday. And then you passed out unconscious. And your father and your brother put you in bed, and you slept all night, and now it's Sunday morning. She said, jack, what are you doing to me? That went bewildering. And I said, mom, I didn't intend to do that. I said it was a mistake. And I should please stop crying. It won't happen no more. No more will I ever do that, I said. Please stop crying because for me to hurt this woman, it was just like to cut a baby's throat. I couldn't do it, you see. But even while she was talking to me and I was assuring her that there was going to be no more I was scheming because you see I'm an alcoholic and I love that relief that came with that little wine that I had the day before. I love the feeling of security that it gave me. I love being at ease and the world is all right and that's what I wanted. I didn't want to be that round block in a square hole. I wanted to be like my brother. And if I had a little wine, I could be like my brother." In fact, if I could go to school and I used to tell a nun, "'Sister, you sit down in the seat and I'll take over the class today.'" And I used to go to school with a little wine, too. Because, you see, there's no use to be an Irish Catholic if you don't use your head. And I was an Irish Catholic and I was a North boy. So I got the early mass, 6 o'clock. Nobody wanted to sit, only an alcoholic. And I used to get there and go into the sacristy, polish all the people. I was in business. I want to tell you, they go first class in those sacristies too. And then I used the man to go over to the school and I had it made. But you see, I used run into alcoholic priests and instead of, they used to give me a glass of wine and I used get there a quarter to five, see, instead of a quarter after. And that day I didn't have no wine. And that day I was back in the corner, didn't eat a dunce, right? Couldn't speak, couldn't talk, couldn'T do nothing. But what the whole point that I drive at is that I drank in order to live in this world. That's all I drank for. I don't know what it tasted like. I don'T care what it tested like. I drank IN ORDER TO LIVE. I drank In ORDER to be like everybody else in this WORLD. I drank IN ORDER tO feel AT EASE. And they tell me that that's a sign of an alcoholic. If you need a drink in order to do anything, then you best look into this program of Alcoholics Anonymous. You see, 3,000 years ago, the Chinese in their earliest recorded history, they had a perfect description of the disease of alcoholism. The Chinese 3, 000 years ago wrote that the man takes a drink and then the drink takes a drink and then the drink takes the man. And that's exactly what happened to me. You see, I had no shoes and I never had a bike and I had an alcoholic father and I wanted nice things and I went out and I got nice things. And I would stand here and tell you that what I tell you, I'm not proud of, but I've hurt an awful lot of people in this world. I've heard an awful amount of people and I've stolen an awful lot of money because at the age of 16 I was a confirmed thief. I would do anything and if you had money and I wanted it, I got it and if I hurt you in the process that was just too damn bad, wasn't it? And I want to tell you something I ran with a mob up in New York on the west side of New York and I was the wheel man and I'd driven a car at tremendously high speeds when it was not stylish many years ago it was and we used to use cars that were weighted down in the fenders and I could take turns that police cars couldn't and I've watched many a cop's car go over the drive and into the woods and I used to laugh and I traded shots with police and I shot people and I been shot and I be stabbed and all the while that I was doing all these desperate things I was a 12 year old scared kid you see I used to be a nasty individual when I drank, a tremendously nasty individual. And I was not quite satisfied with just picking up a joint and getting out. I invariably hit the guy that we stuck up over the bridge of the North with a gun, and I can still see the results of it. I can see sometimes when I wake up and I have a nightmare, and I sit on the end of my bed and I thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous, and I thank God for the 12 steps that enabled me to live with my garbage because sometimes I see guys bleeding out of both corners of their eyes and I can hear bones crunching in noses and I could see the terror in people's eyes when I stuck a gun into their belly and laughed at them. Thank God for AA. You see, I was a nasty thief and I cared not for anyone. There was no love anywhere in me I hated each and every individual because I thought that life had dealt me a bad turn. My name was Crazy Jack the Umbriago. Umbrago means drunkard in Italian, and Crazy Jack was just about exactly what it means to you. Give Jack a drink and he'll do anything. And people used to say, give him another drink and let's see what he does next. But you see, people never saw me waking up in the morning. and I would wake up in some high-class hotel or maybe a $75 a day hideout or some fleabag and every time that I woke up it was the same thing 12 years old and scared and I used to sit on the end of my bed and I'd say, my God, what am I doing? And I would smell my gun and I generally had a whole pile of it and then I would try to put the night before back together again and I never could and it was this way that I lost my first job on account of booze because how would you feel if you were a member of that mob and I was driving you at night and I got up the next morning and I started asking you how did it go last night and they used to get pretty shook up and they would say to me Jack don't you know you drove the car I said yeah but I was busy you know one day they called me in they said, hey, Jack, you know, you're a good wheel man. You're a lot of fun and you're nice people, but we think you drink a little too much. And they asked me what would happen, Jack, if one day instead of taking us home, you took us to a police station? Well, I had to admit they had a point. So I lost my first job on account of booze and I went out on my own and I got in a lot OF trouble. I stuck up banks that were closed for the evening and I stuck up joints. The guy had just come back from the bank after depositing everything and I struck up payrolls on Friday afternoon, payrolls. I got there on Thursday. I had one hell of a time because I didn't know too good what I was doing and when I took a drink, anything went and generally it was me and people all along the line tried to help me, don't you know? social workers and psychiatrists and doctors and priests and ministers and they would come in where I was locked up I've been locked up and arrested over 225 times now you can figure out exactly what for everything except murder I have a police record that you wouldn't believe and I would say that AA works because on the other hand I'm an honorary policeman in six states after AA see so you figured that one out with my record everything worked fine anyway to get back to the beginning there I was locked up and locked up and locked-up and people used to come in and say Jack we're going to help you it's too nice a kid to be in here all the time now I'm not having any trouble and he would say how come did you get locked up I said well you win a few when you lose a few and a guy used to say to me well don't you think you're losing pretty good I say yeah but you know that's the brakes and when I get out it'll be different well they all tried to help me by telling me that if i stopped drinking they would do this and not for me and i used to run them i say go away don't bother me go down there and help somebody else because all you're after is my booze and i can't live without it i need it and when i get out of here i'm going to get some booze and i'll be all right in here i've nothing but outside on something i couldn't see the the handwriting on the wall. Well, I got down lower and lower, and along the way, I got married. My wife was a very innocent girl. She was very naive, very simple girl, but not for long. Not married to me, because I taught her all the nasty tricks that a person could. And I remember very clearly how it was in the beginning. She loved me very dearly, and I loved her as much as an alcoholic can love anybody. and I'll tell you something that she did everything for me that a wife could do and then she started asking me questions Jack when do you work and that was a dirty name I didn't you know and I would get her off that subject and she would say oh when do your wife when do stop drinking and I'd get her off that object and she'd start on something else and one day she told me she said Jack it's no good you drink constantly 24 hours a day I never see you anymore you're out more than you're in and I was getting what is known as the treatment. And she said, I have to help you. Well, she didn't help me because I left home. I went away to sea when it was not a good time to go, but I went. I went in order to get away from prying questions. I knew that there was something wrong with my drinking. My brother had once told me, Jack, you're more like your father every day. He lost two teeth when he said it because I bashed him. And I said, don't ever, ever again tell me I'm like my father. He's a bum and I'm not. He is nothing and I am something. And he said to me, Jack, why don't you be more like me? Take two drinks and go home. And that's what I was trying to do. Be like my brother. Take two drunks and go back. Go home. Meanwhile, I left home. I went to sea and had a lot of trouble. See, trouble follows me somehow. I used to think that I was just, it was just awful. Everything would be fine. All of a sudden, the eye of blue. For instance, tonight, I stayed here in this place, what is it, hotel or whatever that it is, a simple thing like a shower. I got all undressed. I got a bar of soap and I jumped into the shower to take a shower before the meeting. No water. Yeah, you see? That used to be a regular occurrence with me. Tonight I was a little shook up. I stood there kind of stupid, you know. You turn on the boat faucet and nothing comes out. You say, what do I do now? But they fixed it anyway, and we had a shower. But then it was a problem with me because I was always wrong again, and I tried so hard to be right. I tried hard, figured things out so good, and didn't big. And I figured I'd go away to sea, and I'd get away from my wife, and I could send her money from here and there, and I went all over the world, and I had a ball. but one time I was standing on the dock of a ship the deck, in the rear deck drinking a cup of coffee half coffee, half booze I was happy I was really happy had my booze nobody questioned me and all of a sudden I was in the water and I couldn't understand it and I asked the guy next to me what the hell happened and he said you better hold on to this jacket you don't look like you swim too good I don't swim to this minute but there I was in the middle of nowhere swimming and he says well there's a war on and I said who's fighting and he told me who was fighting and I said Jesus if I could get height over here you know and I asked him where the ship was he said straight down three miles you know I got out of that and they picked us up and they took me into Cardiff in South Wales and I stayed there for a couple of months drinking and I had a ball I had it wonderful and one day they said to me the ball game is over now you either go home or fly your home or you take another ship what do you want And I thought about going home. They said, no, I don't want to go home. I don' t want to die either, but I sure didn' t want to come home. And I figured if I went home, you know, here it was again. You're drinking too much. When do you sober up? When do your work? And I couldn' t take it. So I said, get me another ship and I'll take another ship. So I did. I got torpedoed twice more. And finally, I did get home. I got home from a hospital ship in the harbor of New York and I had been in a coma for 16 days I had a fractured skull broken ribs broken arm I was busted up completely had been in a cold for 16 day than when I came to they told me you're going home and I said no I don't want to go home well he put me in a hospital and it kept me in the hospital for two months. Then he sent me home, and I'll never forget the day. I walked into an apartment I had never been in. There was a kid in a chair in a high chair screaming bloody murder, and my wife was looking at me. She's so surprised to see me, and i said hey where's the booze? And i remember her face, and she said Jack i don't have any booze. I live here with the boy, our son and she said no booze aren't you glad to be home i said no i said run down and get a bottle of booze and hurry up i need a drink and she went down and when she came back with the bottle i said now take that kid and go over to your mother's and stay over there till i call you boys that's the boy that's the alcoholic today you see and i went into a bedroom in brooklyn and i looked out over Brooklyn. I fought the war 45,000 times and I did everything I did. I just dreamed my dreams and couldn't work, couldn't do anything, sit in a corner and drink. I was afraid to stop hearing little people talking at me and it was a terrible way. And I had to have a bottle next to me and a bottle behind that all the time. I couldn't live without it. My wife came in one day and she said, Jack, you know, it's not right. You're killing yourself. And I need a husband and my son there, our son there needs a father. And she said, why don't you let me help you? And I said, get the hell away from me. You are just like everybody else. All you want to do is take away my bottle. And if you take away my battle, I'll be dead. So leave me alone. Leave me alone and go away from me. Well, she was a good wife and she said I'm going to help you and she went out and she got a big book of AA and brought it home and gave it to me and I said take it and you know what you can do with it and I wouldn't read it. I wouldn'T touch it and I thought get off my case leave me be don't bother me and I drank and I drunk around the clock but she was a determined woman and one day I came home after quite a few days And she told me, she said, if you're not an alcoholic, then I want to tell you something. You better perform like a normal patron. And the minute that you don't, there's going to be trouble. One day she shut me off in my bar. She wouldn't bring no more booze into the house for me. I had to go out. And I went out one day and I walked into a bar and the bartender almost died. He said, Jeff, what's wrong? He said well I'll tell you, your wife was here. and she said, if I even give you one drink today she's going to burn my bar down tonight and I said, she has lost her stupid mind so I left there I went to a delicatessen he had the same treatment I couldn't get a drink nowhere and I went home, I was going to murder her and she says to me, before you murder me I'll tell you something I'll buy you a drink if you come with me and I say, what do you want? and she said, just get on the subway come to New York with me and I'll buy you a drink so I got on the Subway with her for a drink and when we got over to New Yorke I was shaking so bad she bought me another drink and then I said, now what? she said we're going into this church over here and I said go in there she said yeah, you promised now you've got to come I said what is it? she said AA and they're going to help you and I say yeah, they're gonna help me just like everybody else helped me I said, okay. I said I'd go, I'll go. So I went in and I sat in the back of the room and I said to the guy that was speaking from the back of the home, I said all right hurry up and help me I gotta get home. I didn't hear nothing that man said, nothing. All I heard was one thing and that was the end of AA for me. I was sitting there shaking and shivering waiting for another drink and this guy is going on and on And then he says, if you don't take the first drink, you won't get drunk. I said, I'll kill you, you bastard. And I told my dad in Brooklyn, what the hell do I have to come here for? And I broke up that meeting. I got out just before the cops arrived. And I called him and I said to him, I told her on the sidewalk, any time that you do that to me again, I'm gonna bash you I'm so hard and you'll never ever straighten out again I'll kill you I won't complete and she said you're hopeless there's no more with you you're homeless so I went my way and she went hers and I said you go home I'm going to stay here in New York for a while I'll be home I come home about a week later and it was two cops in my apartment and they were sitting there waiting for me to come and I I couldn't understand it you know I ran with the mafia you and you don't have to have cops. If there's any here, by the way, tonight, peace. I don't want no trouble with you. But then was a different story. You don't have cops in your home. Nobody even talks to cops. You know, if you keep quiet, they'll go away eventually. But here they were in my house and I asked them, what do you do here? And they said, we came here because your wife needs protection from you. And I laughed. I said, you're crazy. Oh, Jack, you were home last night too. Do you remember? I said, no. And she showed me her neck and her neck was full of my marks. She said, you thought I was some German or Japanese or somebody who killed me last night. She, I'm going to take no more of it. That's it. You've had it. And I said all right, we'll fight this out among ourselves, get rid of these guys. And they wouldn't go. So I threw the two cops out the door. And that was a big mistake, a big mistake. Because they went out and they got reinforcements and then they came back and then they threw me out. And for about the next six months we were playing King of the Hill with my apartment, you see. And I would get out of there and I would walk the streets and I didn't know whether I was going or what. And one day I met a couple of them in the street. And so I said a few things to them and they asked me was I a tough guy? And I said, yeah, I was a real tough guy. And the next thing you know, there were six of them. And we were in the back of a building. And I'll never forget it. I had asked to go into the back of the building. I'm a hard guy. And I bounced a few of them and then they come at me with sticks. And I remember laying on the floor and one cop with his knee in my throat begging me not to get up no more. He said, please kid, don't get up no more because we're going to have to kill you. And I said, that's about right, yeah. Take your knee out of my throat. Well, to make a long story short, I wound up in Kings County Hospital in a stray jacket strapped to a bed. My boat jaws were wired together. My eyes were shut. My head was a mass of stitches. Five fingers broken on my right hand. My chest was caved in. And the horror of the whole, a big lump of blood that I had at the back of my throat and I couldn't spit it out. And every time I made a noise, some nurse came by and said, shut up or we'll put you in a violent ward. I lay there and I cried. I cried bitter tears. I cried maybe not outside so much, but I cried inside, and I thought about my mother and what she had tried to do for me, people I had hurt, and my wife, as stupid that she was, but how nice that she was, you know, and my kids. I wasn't going to drink no more. I said, I'm going to drinking no more, that's it, I don't care. It's gone too far now, you see. 20 days later, they turned me loose out of that place. They told me, go away and don't come back because there's sick people. And you're not sick, you're alcoholic. So I went home. And I went at night because I was so ashamed I wouldn't walk in the street, you know. And I came home and it was nice and quiet and I thought maybe everybody would be in bed, but no, my wife was waiting on me. And she said, well, Jack, what are you going to do now? I said, I don't know, but I ain't going to drink no more. That's it. Well how does an alcoholic not drink no more? How do you do that? It's impossible. If you're an alcoholic, you drink. You have to drink, you have to drink in order to live unless that you come to AA and the people in AA teach you how to live without drinking. That's the only answer, the only answer. Now I sat in a corner and I was a 12 year old kid and I was scared again and everybody came to see the monkey in the zoo you know my brother came he said what's the matter kid you having trouble and i said please go away and leave me alone and he said come on i'll get your job you want a job he didn't understand i couldn't walk in the street i couldn'T go fill out no forms i'm an alcoholic i'm full of thought that every moment was going to be my last one my heart used to pound like this in my chest and i put my head down in the pillar at night to sleep, I could hear boom, boom, boom, who understands that? Who? Only another alcoholic. And when the telephone rings and you fly into the bedroom because you know it's somebody for you and if the kid drops a toy, you scream. Yeah, I know. And I sat in a corner and I sat in a quarter because I needed a drink with all my body. I needed to drink and I was afraid to take it. But the fear is overcome, it don't take long, and the past becomes the past very rapidly. And while maybe it wasn't that bad I'll try again and I'll do it a little differently to be all right. And we con ourselves into believing this. And I told my wife one day, I said, I can't sit in the corner no more, six days I'm going crazy. She said, all right what do you want to do? I said give me a dollar. I'll go down the corner and I'll get one drink and that's all. And then I could get on the subway and I'd go to New York and get a job. She said, Jack, I'm afraid. I said, don't be afraid. I know what I'm doing. I've been sober. I know exactly what I're doing. I don't want to drink no more. You think I want to wind up in that dump again strapped to a bed? She gave me the dollar. And I went down to the corner. And I had one drink. And if God is above me, that's All That I Wanted. One drink. and it was like somebody turned a key in my head. Mental manifestation of the disease of... One drink is too many and 500 is not enough. So I had my second drink and now my mind has gone completely and I'm back to being insane as it tells us in the second step. And I started thinking about the cops that beat on me and I said, I'll find them and I found them. And would you believe I found him 12 times, beat half to death, wrapped into a straitjacket and stuck into a hospital and tied to a bed and left. I don't talk too good because my jaws have been broken so often and I don t see a blessed thing out of my left eye because I've been blinded with police clubs. And I don t hear the sound in my head. And if I turn my radio up real loud, I can hear pretty good on this side. And my equilibrium is pretty bad. And I walk sometimes like I'm half loaded. But I want to tell you something. I swore before god and everybody in this world that i was having no trouble with alcohol alcohol was my friend was the only friend that i had i couldn't do anything except drink it kept me alive and my wife the 12th time that i came out of the hospital it was a little bit different just a little but they didn't let me go home two detectives grabbed me and he carried me to a police station or courthouse and my wife was there and with my two kids and one was an infant in arm and that boy that's out there growing besides and i said to her what are you doing to me and she said i'm not doing anything to you you did it yourself and she says the judge will tell you all about it smart guy and the judge got to me he said jack how do you feel i said i feel fine how do you feel? See, inside I had milk in my stomach, ice water. I was scared, but I couldn't tell nobody. So when the judge be flipping smart, real smart guy me, I feel fine. How do you feel? I wanted to beg him, please let me out of here. I feel like a butterfly on the end of a pin. I didn't know what was coming next. And he read me a piece of paper. He said, the law makes me read you this piece of paper. He said, Jack, please try and understand. And I listened. I said, I don't think you will. He says, because you know you're sick. You're more sick than you know. And he said, it's unfortunate, but you don't want any help. So he said listen. And then he read me a piece of papers. I thought he was talking about five other guys because they said that I was a homicide maniac and that I might wipe my family out overnight and not even know that i did it and it said this man will not five years and if he does live five years it would be in a mental institution suffering from wet brain it says he is incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong he just doesn't understand anymore and it also said that i would never work another day in my life and it was also said and that it was highly recommended by the three doctors that signed it that I'd be removed from my home, you know, my family. And I said, that's not me. He said, yeah, that you when you drink, that few. And he said, Jack, we can't tolerate you no more. Your wife is going to be dead and we just can't have it. So we will have to take you from your home. And that was the day that I turned to my wife and I said that's the way you want it. That's the way you got it. And every moment you're going to need me before I need you. You think more of them two damn kids than you think of me. And she said, you bet your life I do. And I want to tell you because my children are going to have a chance to live and they can't live with you.You are a maniac. And he said, Jack, I warn you. I'll tell you right in front of the judge. I stick a knife in your belly when you're sleeping. But if I catch you near my home again, you're dead. She said, now get out of my life and leave me alone. I went and I was full of big ideas. You know, I told the captain, oh, you shut up. I'll be back. And they said, no, don't step foot in Brooklyn no more. Did you ever hear of anybody getting thrown out of Brooklyn? Unbelievable. Well, I got thrown out Of Brooklyn and I swore vengeance. I'd be back Little did I know, little did I know, as little does alcoholic know that we are always going down you see, down. The greatest gift that God could give me that I see myself as others see me the alcoholic can't see himself as others sees him because when he's on this level he associates himself I am not as bad as that guy and tomorrow he's as bad as that guy, and he will find somebody else just a little bit worse to be not as bad as. Now I was at the end of the line. I went to New York, and I told my wife, I'm going to get a gun, and make a few fair scores. I'll be back with a bunch of money, and everything will be all right. She left, and well she should have. I couldn't get a gun. I could see me. I disintegrated into nothing. I Went to the Bowery. I Went up Mulberry Street. They wouldn't even let me on Mulberry Street. Mulberry Street is the home of the mafia where I used to operate. I didn't know nobody up there. They didn't known me. I was a bum. But I wound up where all bums live on the Bowery in New York and I lived there for two and a half years and I looked in the summer and in the winter and in the snow and in ice and I was full of body life and I would pull up blood my own puke and my own filth and I never took a bath and I'd ever eat and I drank, and I drank just little bits of anything that came. I drank painted alcohol, I drank ruby dub, shaven lotion, anything that had alcohol in it. And I couldn't stand the stink of me. And I blamed my friend upstairs. And I blame my mother. And I blaming my father. And I blamed my wife. And I claimed my children. And I brained everything. And alcohol was still my friend. How sick can you get from a simple disease? How sick? I'll tell you how sick you could get. I cursed God every time that I opened my eyes, laying on the sidewalk in my own filth in New York's Bowery. I cursed anyone that came near me that had a pair of shoes on their feet. I cursed my mother for burying me and then I went out and found myself a drink of something to put me in Never Never Land again and I used to wake up with big gashes in my head where I'd get hit with trucks or taxi cabs or fall down cellar stairs or subway stairs and I never felt any pain and I've never felt the heat and I'd never felt cold the only thing that I felt was the hate in my belly I hated everything man upstairs 40 years ago told Bill Wilson you stay here and watch this guy when he wakes up and don't leave today and when he wake up you watch him because now from what I tell you in this room you understand him don't go stay help them when he comes to. It was Bill Wilson leaving a hospital for the 57th time, charity wards of hospitals. Not a big stockbroker, a helpless, hopeless, chronic alcoholic, Bill Wilson. Unemployable. And it was he that received the gift of AA from the man upstairs 40 years ago in a charity ward of a hospital in Akron. I understand completely in my mind. The man upstairs did not want alcoholics hurting little people, little children. Did not want wives crying in their aprons. Did not what these people who were insane with alcohol. They're only 5% of the world but hurting millions. He finally gave us a way or gave us a complete, gentle, easy way for the alcoholic to change his whole life and take care of his disease. the length to live with it doctor told bill that day bill it's a shame i gotta turn you loose but the lord says i do and he said next week you'll be back here again 58 times and one of these times we're not going to bring you back we're going to have to leave you dead because you're going to die or you're gonna go insane he says bill before you leave go look at that guy down there we brought him in last night go look a week from today so bill went down in that room and he looked and he understood. He knew exactly how that man was going to feel and he tells us in his own words that the whole room was filled with a great white light and suddenly he knew that he didn't have to drink no more and he didn's. That was the miracle of AA 40 years ago and that's why we're all here tonight. The God-given God-inspired program. If you don't like the word God try higher power a power greater than yourself anything that you choose to call it but you'll one day come to believe as I did and as Bill Wilson did that the guy upstairs loves us all very well and he doesn't love me any better than he loves you none of you we are all equal in that respect Bill came out of that hospital and that was the beginning of AA and some years later, my time came. Every alcoholic is watched by the higher power. Every alcoholic has his moment and I say that the moment that you are sent or brought here to AA by your sponsor, the man upstairs has a job for you to do. Don't go away. Stay and do the job. Learn and stay. You see, I was in a Bowery in a dirty, filthy bathroom in the back of a dirty filthy bar and I was trying desperately to get down a morning drink so I wouldn't die. And I remember falling about in that filthy place and I remember the first drink coming back and I knew it was going to be a tough day and that particular day was the toughest day of my life and yet it was the best because after a fourth or fifth try I'd gotten one down, hemorrhages of the stomach and I fell down on a filthy floor because I was so weak and I hooked my chin on the bowl and I literally watched myself running down a toilet bowl and every time I retched more blood and finally, finally I looked at the bottle that I was holding in my hand and I said that's my trouble alcohol can't be anything else there is nothing else nobody's bothering me I got it, and I couldn't drink it. And I took the bottle, and they threw it over my shoulder, and I said, I ain't going to drink no more. I'm going to die. And I lay there waiting to die, and I didn't die because the man upstairs watches every alcoholic, and pretty soon things started to happen. I kept trying to stop from bleeding, and I tried to hold my breath a little longer at a time, and finally I did pretty good, and now I couldn't move. I was so weak. And I want to tell you, I started to see pictures in my head and my head was not too good but I started seeing a lot of pictures, color pictures and beautiful and clear. My wife, places I had been, good times, bad times, mostly good times and I was kind of starting to enjoy it, you know. It was like a coma and then came one picture where I was up in the light looking down at everybody in a big room all milling about, all drinking coffee. And I couldn't figure out what the hell it is. And then suddenly like a bolt out of the blue, I knew. It was that AA meeting I had been at years before where the guy said, don't take the first drink and you won't get drunk. And I let out a scream and I said, you damn fool. You had it in the palm of your hand. and you had the answer, and you threw it away. And I said, you're a stupid idiot, and I cursed myself good. And from somewhere, I don't know where, I can only attribute it to my friend upstairs, came one thought. Maybe it's not too late. Maybe. And I crawled out of there on my hands and knees onto the sidewalk, and I begged anybody that came by, please call AA for me. and people were afraid to get near me because I stink so bad and I remember trying desperately my mouth was all busted up and my throat was all infected nobody could understand me and I remembered people running away from me and I remembering people pushing at me finally somebody said okay, I'll call them for you and they called AA for me and I sat down and I waited and I trembled and I shook and I wondered whether I was dreaming things again I said maybe you thought dream because the doctors were right you know my mind was badly damaged by booze and I didn't know what was reality and what was unreal but I sat there and I just sat and I held on and A.A. came A.I. came a little guy stood in front of me and he had his wife with him and she was littler than he was. And she said, Oh my God, look at him. And I remember he said, Gene, it's all right. Don't worry about it. He won't hurt you. And then he come to me and he said My name is Sam Cohen and I'm an alcoholic and I am here to help you. And I'll never ever forget if I live to be 2,000 years old I can never forget the look in that man's eyes. I can ever ever forget the understanding that he had in him. I knew then what the gift was that Bill Wilson was given 40 years ago, the gift of understanding one alcoholic for the other. You don't have to talk. You don' t have nothing. You can see him and feel him across the room. This is the empathy that the alcoholic has one for the another that they can' t put in bottles and they can't put it in pill form and no doctor can learn it and no priest or minister can absorb it not fully it has to come from the heart a gift from the higher power one alcoholic understanding the other he said to me do you want to stop drinking I say yeah and he was a brave man he got up close to me and he said I tell you if you wantto stop drinking and you come with me in jeans we'll carry you to AA and you don't have to drink no more and everything is going to be all right. This man had insurmountable faith. He flew right in the face of the doctors. Three of them said, I was going to bed in five years and I was pushing six and I would never ever work again. I could not understand right and wrong. They gave me my ticket to death and they were right. They were right but they figured without the man upstairs he has the last word. I came to AA And Sam Cohn was right. He was my sponsor till he died two weeks before Bill Wilson did. And he taught me so much. He was a little Jewish fellow and his wife was a little Jewish woman, and the pair of them had enough love for everybody sitting in this room. How did I come to AA? I came to AA one half of one sneaker on one foot, a dirty bottomless sock on the other a filthy pair of pants full of blood and a shirt that's all I owned in this world I was not allowed to step foot in Brooklyn hadn't seen my wife or children for two years no self-respecting cop would even club me I was truly one of the least of anybody's brethren if I can stay sober and I can learn how to live in AA you can too there is nothing that is impossible to a person who has fate fate will move mountains you can move a mountain with a spoon if you got enough guts and there is nothing that you can't do in this aa program because when the third step comes around and you turn your life and will over to the care of god you understand them impossible things happen impossible well I came to AA and I was just happy to be where they didn't throw me out and I often wondered I said I want to go find out what a bum I was and dump me never happened people used to say to me Jack keep coming back we need you you see my definition of spirituality to be wanted and needed and loved is to be spiritual I asked Sam Kornbund, I said, Sam, why do you say you need me? And he said, well, we haven't got a dishwasher for a long time. Well, we need a dishwasher. They had lovely cups for three weeks. I broke every one of them and nobody ever fired me. Nobody ever said a word. They brought paper cups and on. They said, Jack, keep coming back. You're doing fine. And then one day things started to get better. I got a job as a dishwasher didn't keep it long because the broke too many dishes then I got a little room and I had to step outside the door to change my mind but it was mine it was my room and i paid for it and things started to get so better one day a guy called me up from Kings County Hospital and said Jack I'm the morgue attendant over here he said we got a guy in today just your size got hit with the car, come on over and get a suit. And I got my first suit from the morgue in Kings County Hospital. And it was a nice suit too. It wasn't badly damaged, although he was. And I asked Bill about it. I said, is it right? He said, I don't know if it's right or not, but he ain't going to use it no more. So I wound up with my first boot and a job, and I thought that the world was beautiful. Sam called me one day and said, Jack, you're helping an awful lot of people. And I said, how do you figure that? I can't even talk to them. He said, you don't have to. He said when we get new people in we sit them next to you and we tell them to watch you and if they keep drinking they're going to get like you. And I was so happy, you know. Oh, I thought that was great. and then one day he said to me Jack you know we all love you and I said Sam you know where I come from men don't love men and I say you're not one of them funny kind of people are you and he said no no he said we love you because you're an alcoholic now I want you to chew that one over for a little bit does your wife love you because you are an alcoholic or does she love you in spite of of being one, which I know many people tolerated me in spite of my being an alcoholic. But now here for the first time in my whole life, people loved me because I was an alcoholic and how good that it was. I went on. I started to remember a few names. I thought that the man upstairs had done me so very well oh i was so filled with gratitude and one day i said to sam i said sam you know how are you my life and he said you're an ungrateful irish bum and i thought he was kidding and i asked him why do you say that to me you know he said because you are he said jack what i did for you was done for me and the guy that did it for me had did it from me had it done for him and if you carry it all the way back to the first one the guy upstairs did it for Bill Wilson so we all owed higher power and I had to chew that one over I said what are you telling me he said you're ungrateful because you never said thank you to the higher power and I said well you know I hate a lot of people he said that don't matter he sent me out to get you so he loves you you're here and you're growing in AA and you got shoes and you gotta room and he said you don't still speak to the higher power shame on you i said you're right so i went out that night and i didn't take the bus home i walked and i told my friend upstairs i said you know hey friend that little holy stupid over here is wrong so anyway thank god i do go along day by day for 28 years my wife came back and she came to meet him one day i thought she was going to have me arrested. I ran the kitchen. Sam Cohn spoke to her and he came in, he said, she wants to talk to you. I said, I don't want to talk with her. She's going to hate me again. And he said no, you're wrong. You're in AA now. The guy upstairs is working for you. Things are going to get better. Go out and talk to her. So I said oh boy, you something, you. So watch her hit me with a warrant or something. So i went out and you No, she didn't want nothing from me. She wanted me. And I was so amazed. And I said, well, what do you want with me? She said, Well, you have a room and you pay for it and I'm not doing too good on welfare with the kids. So you come home, sleep on a couch in the living room and pay me what you pay to live there. You pay for the room. Oh, I said that's great. Yeah, I'll do that. So I came home and I was a boarder. My kids went to school. I used to wink at them. I'd say nothing to them. You know, I just looked at them. I was so happy. And then one day she said to me, isn't that couch getting kind of hard? And I said, no. Talk about the use and abuse of alcohol. Oh boy. And then she started making improper advances to me. Yeah. So I went up to Graymoor Graymoor is monks retreat you know and I went up there and I talked to a monk and I said hey that woman is you know she's making noise like a wife again he said oh that's good go home I said how the hell do you know it's good you're a monk yeah so I went home Hardest thing I ever did in my life. And everybody was so nice to me. I had three children. Now, I had two then. And you know, my daughter used to sit on a lap when I was eating and she'd say, come on, Pop, you could do it. And she'd stuff a knife in my hand and make me squeeze it as she would work it forth and back and cut the meat. Because I had 203 stitches in that part of my right hand. They told me I'd never use it again. My daughter said I could, and I did. And when the kids went to bed, you know, I used to go down the basement with my wife, we had a big mirror down there and she used to sit me in front of the mirror and she'd say okay now you say this word and you say that word and you say it until you stop spitting on a mirror. I have no ego. I didn't know nothing about these things. I did know that people could love you so much you known. I didn't understand nothing about anything except hurting people and stealing and lying and scheming and conniving. And I learned from my children and from my wife what love was all about. And, I put all the hate and misery out of my heart. I made my past a past and I started to live a new way of life taught to me by a little stupid Jew in New York and Brooklyn. I don't know what that it is that's so important. The only thing that's important about me, I think, is that I have guts enough to stand up here and tell you how that it was, that's all. I work hard for a living. I worked with my hands. I didn't make a hell of a lot of money but I get tired around two o'clock in the afternoon and I go home and have a little nap and get at it again the next day. I'm 58 years old, I'm not a kid. What's important? The important thing is that I've been able to survive and reach out and help other people to survive too by telling them about my bad times and also my good times. See, I have enough faith for everybody sitting in this room that you wouldn't know it when you see me on a plane with the White Knuckle Club, but I have faith. I have faith here in AA. I had faith for my son that one day, one day he will see the light and he will come too. Two years ago or three years ago, I don't remember when the doctors were right, I have a little trouble remembering dates, my wife died suddenly at one o'clock in the morning. Some kind of heart trouble, never sick. And here was a woman that we were just now enjoying. My third son had come along and he was in college and we would sit by the TV and we would laugh at stupid things you know. We were really living. And then one day at one o clock in the mornin', the guy upstairs decided he needed her more than it, I did. And at five o'clock in the morning she was dead. And it was a January and it was bitter cold. It was almost zero weather. And I had gotten out in the car without a shirt and without shoes. And then I remember leaving her in the hospital on a hospital bed, dead, and walking out into the cold and saying to my friend upstairs, what the hell are you doing to me now? And you know, he didn't do anything to me. The word came back to me real quick. Jack, I gave her back to you for 24 years. You had your chance. You got another boy and you put your life together. She died happy. What am I doing to you? I didn't give nothing to you. And he's right. So I was very lonesome for a little while and then I went about my business, you know, in AA and I got to Oklahoma and I met another girl down there no thoughts of being married or anything another woman and she had had a hard life too when she was in AA we got acquainted and I made her here and there and the other place so now I'm married again and I live in Kansas and I still go out and speak at AA meetings and I love AA so much. I love AAA because it's just not a way to stay sober it's a way to really live and for the alcoholic he goes like a meteor head and shoulders above normal people because he is specially blessed by the man upstairs I believe that and the Lord must love alcoholics pretty good to give us all this AA that we have. And if I lived to be a thousand, I would say to anyone coming in, put your heart into the program. Program into your heart. Take the steps and absorb them and study them and practice them because there are greater things at the end of the twelfth step than you ever dream of having. I never knew that I would be a banquet speaker. It's a joke to me, really. People call me and hear people tell me about my tapes, and I say, no, no, not me, my friend upstairs. I simply open my mouth and out it comes. So if I've helped you here tonight somehow, I thank you for letting me. Because for me to carry around such a burden of gratitude that's in me, it would surely strangle me if people like you didn't allow me to come and get rid of it. I woke up this morning and I said my little prayer as I do every day. It's called the secret. Did I meet my God in the morning when my day is at its best?