The Lethal Part of the Disease Is Sobriety – Clancy I.

My name is Clancy. I'm an alcoholic. I just have to give a little personal opinion, if you don't mind. I really enjoyed Woody's talk. I always do. One of my favorite speakers. But whoever the people were who set up two main talks, one after another, planned badly. The last time I went to a meeting where they had a long Al-Anon talk and a long AA talk, one after another, was the 1960 International Convention. Lois Wilson talked for an hour and a quarter, then Bill Wilson talked for an hour. So it got so long that people were getting up and leaving Bill Wilson's talk. So I'm just saying, if you want to get up and leave my talk, I understand. But if you don't, you're just in a state of stunned inertia, and I'm very happy for you. I was sitting there thinking, Winnie caught me off balance. She's so effusive and so conveys things so well. And since I heard her talk last, she's introduced a poem into her talk. And I don't have a poem. I could get a hold of Bob Lemke and get one of his. Let's see if I can just, in response to her poem, let me think of something. Of these things, does my wealth consist of sunset skies bathed in amethysts, emerald seashells, roaring wild, of golden forests undefiled, of diamond teardrops glittering bright with pearl like snowflakes drifting white. But most of all, I'm always ready for another talk from Winnie Eddy. See? Now let's get down to it. I got to be careful. I know we're on a tight schedule. It's always embarrassing for a speaker when you're just finishing your talk and they're dancing by in front of you. I'm sorry, Mitch, you're still going. Well, I used to drink and I was, I lived with an Al-Anon, a pre-Al-Anon and it made me bald and wrinkled before my time and now I'm in a, I come from a different milieu than some people here. I guess I grew up in a little small town, although I live in Los Angeles, I grew up in a little small town up in Northern California. I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, a little town called Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and it was a wonderful little town, the kind of town you see in Andy Hardy movies, two-story houses and the trees grow together over the summertime over the streets, makes it kind of a tunnel and fall, they rake the leaves and burn them in the streets. It's really a haunting aroma. The only time you ever smell it anymore is at rock concerts in the wintertime, the snow would fall and it looked like a Christmas card and little church fires and smoke coming up. The springtime, the snow would melt, to this day, when I smell a lilac, that says it's springtime in Wisconsin and I, you know you're about to fall in love and you hope it's with someone you like this year and summertime we'll go down to the river and we had made little rafts, we'll go down the Chippewa River towards the Mississippi and be like Huckleberry Finn and it was just a perfect life. I couldn't wait to get out of that goddamn town, I just, where have you been? I have a clue, his face is flushed, anyway, and early in the Second World War I had a lust for adventure, I had a lust for excitement and I wanted to be something and one day I told my mother I was going to Superior, Wisconsin to visit my aunt and I hitchhiked to San Francisco. I was 15, small, skinny, little, pimply-faced, with a dumbbell and I thought I was smart and I had no idea how far San Francisco was, I looked at the school map and it didn't seem very far, a page and a half about it. I'd never seen a yellow state or a blue state, I wanted to see one of those and thank God I got one ride most of the way or I never would have made it, some traveling salesman or something. He gave me a ride all the way from outside of Minneapolis to San Francisco and we'd stop at that and he'd give me a little room and I just took it for granted, that's the way the world is. I grew up, I had no idea what a stroke of luck this guy was, straight and straightforward and wanted to help some dumb little kid. And I told him about how I was doing and he said, well, you know what, you're going to go to the Marine Corps and help John Wayne exterminate chaps, the ones that hadn't been moved over here to a camp. And I, he kind of, as we came into here, Oakland, he told me, he said, you know, I don't think you can get into the Marine Corps, they really watch that age, you're 15, they want kids 17, they have to be a little bigger, why don't you go into the Merchant Marine? They all were crying for emergency. And he told me where to go. And he must have had something to do with it. And I said, well, you know what, I'm going to go to the Marine Corps. And I said, well, why don't you go to the Marine Corps? He said, well, you know, I'm not going to be a Marine Corps. And I told him, well, I'm going to go to the Marine Corps. And he said, I'm going to go to the Marine Corps. And that's where I am going to go. So I went to the Marine Corps. I went to the Marine Corps. And I told him, well, I'm going to go to the Coast Guard office in San Francisco. He gave me an address. He said, tell them you're 16. And at about six o'clock in the morning, we pulled up at the Oakland Mall. He put me on the ferry boat, going across to Harbor. I tell you, one of the golden memories of my life, I was dumb. I'd never been to a big city. He's never done anything. even been to Chicago or Milwaukee and went across in the fog and out of the fog come these hills and these spires of San Francisco, this bridge and I got off the ferry building and he told me where to go I walked up Market Street at that time there were two different competing streetcar companies in San Francisco so there are two streetcars going each way four streetcars side-by-side plus traffic and people and tall buildings and it's just sickly excited just and I walked up to the Coast Guard office waiting for it open I guess by 8 o'clock and I walked in and I told him I want I knew there's a guy told me they were crying for emergency myself I wanted to get some Seaman's Papers he gave me a paper and I filled it out and I put down 16 instead of 15 and I guess they were crying for a merchant Seaman you know he said well it's all right I'm just not to have your parents' permission, so I took the application around the block, got my parents to okay it, brought it back, and that day they issued me semen papers, if you can imagine that. And I didn't know nothing. And they sent me down to the National Maritime Union down on Montgomery Street, and I schlepped down there and carried my little bag, and just the sick smell of the ocean. I'd never smelled that before, and great things going on in there, and they were crying for merchant semen. Took my semen papers, had me sign a waiver, said, take a union dues out of my first check. I didn't know what the hell they were talking about either. And they referred me over to, they said, well, get over to Pier 16 right away, or whatever pier it was. I took my little bag, and they showed me how to get there, and I ran over there, just a god with excitement. It was an enormous ship, bigger than anything I'd ever seen. Now I know it's just a Liberty ship, just a dumb little ship, but it's bigger than anything on Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And I got on that ship, and I got on that ship, and they were just about to leave. I just barely got on. They hooked up the gangplank, and the way they went, we went by under the Bay Bridge, and I was so excited to see that big bridge. And then we went by Alcatraz, and I'd seen pictures of that. And under the Golden Gate Bridge, and see, just a golden moment in my life. But then we kept going. And the known earth began to disappear in the distance, and the ship was moving around a little bit. I suppose I, I hope I did, I hope I had an intuitive feeling that I had made the first in an endless series of career errors. All I know is I didn't feel good. I went up to one of the officers, and I said, I really appreciate this opportunity, but I should get back now. We have a big test Monday, and I don't want to miss that. And he wished me well. He told me to luck off. And he said, get to your folks, all. And I said, well, I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. I'm going. And no one tells me what to get out the door. I sat and said, okay, I'm planning to get on the guest phone. Look at this. Oh, you can't prepare for this. You'll miss your ещ а a tent or a beer. And I was like, oh. You can't. My thing? Now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sache. I was going to be their fourth member of their squad, and they'd be carrying me all the way across the ocean. And I could feel a little tension in the room. So I told him some jokes that used to just kill him in study hall. Shut up. Why'd you get in your bunk, punk? I was overcome. I got in my bunk. That ship was moving, and I felt so bad, and I really wanted my mother. But I didn't want to say anything and ruin my image. And these guys got to start talking about what they'd been doing in San Francisco the four days they'd been there. I hadn't been there, and I couldn't believe it, because I come from a religious family. And Eau Claire, Wisconsin is a Norwegian Lutheran stronghold. And these guys were talking like they were sinners. I thought they were Catholics. They could have been. They had dark hair. God, they're just sinners. Talk about their sexual exploits. I just... I want to turn my head to the wall. I don't leave the wrong impression. At the age of 15 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, I'd had sex. But I'd been apprehensive, and I'd been afraid, and I'd been alone. I didn't know these fantasies came to life in San Francisco. But I felt as bad as I ever felt before or since. One of these guys went to a sea bag and took out a bottle. Absolutely forbidden on a ship with all those old rummies he had. He took out a bottle. I turned to one of his faces. You want a little snort? I said, yeah. You want a little snort? I said, yeah. He turned to me and said, how about you, Junior? Do you think you're man enough for a little snort? He had a very unpleasant look on his face. Now that I'm sophisticated and slick, I'd have called it a demeaning look, or a supercilious look, or a denigrating look. But then there were just pleasant looks and unpleasant looks. And that was unpleasant. And he shoved that bottle in my face. Now let me tell you something strange. I had never been in a room with a bottle of whiskey at the age of 15. That's the kind of background I get. And he shoved that bottle of whiskey. Of course, I knew what it was. And I looked up at him. Something happened that's happened to me many times in my life. There's a phenomenon. Some of you know about athletics. The phenomenon of athletics is called choking. That is when you're so overcome with emotion. An invisible hand comes out of your shirt. The third strike goes by. Or you fumble a punt. Or you throw the basketball into the other guy's hand or something. But that happens in conversation, too. And I was so overcome, I couldn't say anything. But I knew I was upset. I could feel my pimp standing up. I wanted to just shout at him. But I couldn't. I thought at him. I thought, How dare you put that bottle in my face? I guess you don't know I'm a Norwegian Lutheran. Norwegian Lutherans don't drink whiskey. And even if they did, I promised my mother and grandmother I would never drink whiskey. And even if I hadn't promised them I wouldn't drink whiskey. I wouldn't have drank whiskey because my values were predicated on what I had learned in the late 1930s, early 1940s in the movies. Really. And Life magazine. And in my era, heroes never drank. Villains drank. For example, Errol Flynn never took a drink in his life, as far as I know. Never in Sherwood Forest he didn't. Paul was some old crap-head like, like Claude Rains or Basil Rathbone or one of those goofs who were trying to get the Queen's secrets and sell them to the King of Spain or some goddamn thing. Buck Jones never took a drink in any movie he was ever in. Some old rustler named Slade. That's who drank. Come on. Let's go kill Buck Jones' horse. Ha, ha, ha. People like me don't drink. And I just so, I wanted to just shriek at this guy. And he, you know, you think you're mad enough for a little snort? I was trying to think of something to say and I heard a voice say, Goddamn right. And I had my first clue that I, I buckled quick under pressure. And that day, the first bottle of whiskey I remember seeing close up, I drank from. And it burned my mouth and it burned my throat and it burned my stomach, burned my stomach, burned my throat, burned my mouth, burned his shirt the last I saw of it. And what I remember most about that is the, is the humiliation, you know, the coarse laughter, the humiliation. Get the bottle away from the little son of a bitch. Ha, ha, ha. Oh, I'm sure you are like me. There's no feeling quite as bad as public humiliation. You, if you had a gun, you'd just kill someone. There was no, I had no tools. I could do nothing. I thought later, there was one thing I might have done. I'm glad I didn't think it was the time they'd have killed me. The one thing I might have done to get that big boob, I might have said, lean over, buddy. Yeah. Take that. Sit. But that, that's the way that cruise started out and it stayed that way all the way and, all the way across the ocean. These guys treated me like a stupid little punk. But the way human, the human mind is, you gotta find reasons for, I gotta find reasons for things. Always find reasons. That's what I like about being a, you know, I wish they had find, started a group called the Adult Children of Berwich and Lutheran, so I could, blame my parents for all that shit. But anyway, I always had the impression that they were treating me badly because I had thrown up that whiskey. They, it never struck me that they treated me like a stupid little punk. Because I was a stupid little punk. That's why. But every day when nobody was around, I'd go sneak into this guy's sea bag and take a drink of that and try to hold one down. Because I wanted so desperately to look like a man to be accepted that I just couldn't stand it. And I'd get sick and throw it up and I'd have to wipe it up so they didn't know. And this went on day after day. And then, finally coming into Pearl Harbor, and we were off watch. And so these guys were getting ready to go down the deck and I took a drink of that slop in Pearl Harbor. And it burned my mouth. It burned my throat. It burned my stomach. It stayed down. Oh, I thought, I'll never be able to do this and smile. Oh, oh. And I thought about it for a minute and then something happened. It turned out a mind-boggling, earth-shattering, life-changing thing happened and I didn't have the slightest clue that it happened. It turned out that my body is one of those that, which are almost immediately responsive to alcohol. Some people are almost immediately responsible to alcohol. Some are, drink for years before they get the response. Some drink for many years. But it turned out that I had an unusual response to alcohol. But I had no way of knowing it was an unusual response. I never did know. I almost died from it years later. And that unusual response I have come to learn in my sobriety is what makes an alcoholic. It isn't whether you've been in jail. It isn't whether you've been in a nut house. It isn't how much you've lost. These things are all nice podium flash but they have nothing to do with the nature of the illness. And that's still what kills people. The inability to understand the nature of the illness. I remember a few months ago I was listening to one of the most beautiful movie stars in the world. She's in her forties now and she still looks like she's in her twenties. And she's just so lovely. She's so talented. She sings in Vegas and dances for a hundred grand a week if she wants to. She acts and she's just beautiful. There's no thing she can't have or do. I hear her talk at a meeting much smaller than this from a podium like this and say the reason I drank because when I stayed sober I felt awkward and clumsy and unattractive. And the studio insisted and it was beautiful. The only way I could do it was to drink. She got an unusual response from alcohol. I sponsor a guy who used to play center for the San Francisco 49ers. Big lump. He played in the early 1950s one of the kind of glory days of the 49ers. Norm Aldrin, the quarterback. And he talks about the whole team. Great team. But he and one of the guards always had to find a way back to the dressing room before the kickoff. Always have a reason to go back because he didn't feel he could block the linebackers to handle it. But once he had the pint in his locker he knew he could knock that linebacker out of his can. He got an unusual reaction to alcohol. And I got an unusual reaction to alcohol. I didn't know it was unusual. In fact, it took me years later to think back and identify what it was really the best I could determine. Now it's a reaction that to any other group in the world except possibly Al-Anon they would not understand. Because I could say it in Rotary I could say it to doctors and psychiatrists. They wouldn't understand it. I've addressed doctors and psychiatrists and just thrown it in to see if they really get the identification. They don't. But it's a little difference. Everyone here knows the difference. It sounds the same but there's one little difference that makes it all different. I drank so that I would look like a man. And instead the reaction I got was it made me feel the way men look. Which sounds almost the same but it's entirely different. Entirely different. And years later I found out that men don't feel as well as they look. So I was feeling better than they were. I had no way of knowing that. And then I got sick and threw up and I went back to being normal again. I'll tell you a funny, funny coincidence. Last July I was invited to come and speak at the anniversary of the alcoholic facility at the U.S. Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor. The Pearl Harbor Naval Yard. It's right in the water. And it was on July 8th. And I was giving a... On my way over there I thought about this and it really sent a shiver down my spine. The day I talked on the afternoon of July 8th I could look out at Pearl Harbor and see the spot where my ship was that I'd had my drink 44 years before that to the day. And the reason I knew it was to the day was not some mystic reason but the day after my first drink after I had a couple more drinks I turned 16 and I remember on my 16th birthday I had my first hangover. And this year, the next day after my talk I turned 16. And in many ways I felt younger than I had when I was on that ship out there. But what a spooky feeling to be able to look where you had your first drink 44 years later to the day. And I didn't become a terrible old drunk. I didn't go wild. I tried... Alcohol is like everything else when you grow up. As you're growing up you run across things. You find things out you heard about you discover that after a while people want you to work they don't want to take care of you anymore and after a while you find that love comes to you and you find out pleasures and displeasures you find out the world requires you to do something to get what you want you discover that sex was not made for fun if it was why would they punish us with children? I wouldn't want this tape played in front of my children I'll tell you that. But you know it's just everyone as you grow up you find out things and you learn things and alcohol is just one of the things I learned I just thought that's the way alcohol is. And you've got to be careful because if it makes you goofy sometimes you've got to watch out. And later in the war I went in the Navy and at the end of the war I was in a naval hospital getting fixed up up in Pleasanton, California and they gave us some tests so I didn't ever have to go back to high school. I'm still a Jew. I was a junior in high school in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I went to college University of Wisconsin. Got out of there and went out in the world and got married in college. I'd met this exotic girl who had black hair and was a Catholic. It's like meeting someone from another planet. And she and I we decided to get married when I was in college and that's what the steely eyed sex crazed killer veterans were doing. And my grandmother, you know, it's funny to think today there would be such bigotry but she said, oh Sonny, don't marry a Catholic. You'll be very sorry. I said, Grandma, we went over there fighting the Japanese for the right of self-determination. In the new post-war world there's no bigotry and there's no discrimination. We have love and that's all we need. So I married this girl. And my grandmother was right. It's not that she was a bad girl. Worse than that, she was a good girl. She was a good Catholic girl. Fine, church-going, God-worshiping girl. And the one thing they never tell little Lutheran boys who marry good Catholic girls, you are about to become the head of a rapidly growing family. Ready or not. I guess they've chosen us to speak tonight in honor of Children's Day or Mother's Day tomorrow. And I used to plead with her. I'd say, Charlotte, this is the brave new post-war world. We went over there fighting the Japs for the right of free determination. Not to have our lives governed by some old Italian in a dress in the Vatican, you know. Can't we use birth control? No. How about getting something just for the prevention of disease? They sell it in a vending machine over here at Rocky's. No. So she had a priest come by one day and he gave me a long hour and a half on the rhythm system, which is the Catholic version of birth control. And I listened intently, but I just couldn't pick up that beat. So in addition to my other problems, I started a career as a national distributor of small Catholics. And I went out in the world and I got a job as a sports writer and she kept helping kids so I'd do a better job and I got into advertising and public relations and up and down. And I had a lot of problems and I drank all these years. And the main reason I drank was because drinking was the best friend I have ever had. I have never had a better friend than alcohol. That sounds terrible at an AA meeting. But I'll tell you, I hate these people who get up and say, that damn alcohol was always terrible and rotten and crappy. It's like hearing somebody badmouth an old girlfriend of yours, you know. Oh, she's a pig now, but she used to be nice. But alcohol, I love. Because I always, I spend a lot of time, because I've been in writing most of my life, I've been a writer. And I've always felt that I had a deeper insights than those around me. And that God had given me one great advantage. He gave me the advantage to examine myself that other people didn't seem to have. I spent a lot of time analyzing and examining myself. I thought I was the only one doing it. I didn't know everybody else did it too. But again, I used to spend a lot of time thinking, what is it? Why do I have all these damn feelings? Why do I have these emotions? And it seemed to me there was something, an analogy perhaps, is that all human beings have been given some kind of a suit of armor psychologically to prepare them against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. There seem to be holes in mine. I seem to have a hole, for example, in the sensitivity. I shouldn't be so sensitive to things. And I know it. But I react so strongly and I feel so strongly about things. And things are, they're easy to get my goat, get me upset. It makes you crazy. And you look at other people, they don't get that way. Why did God make me so intelligent? I seem to have a hole over that area of my armor that covers anxiety. I have a tendency to become more anxious than anyone else in the world. And I can tell that by looking at it. They don't look anxious. I'm anxious. I get anxious a lot. I get anxious in the middle of the night sometimes when I think. And sometimes I get waves of anxiety that are much greater than any reason I can think for them. You know, that's terrible to be more anxious than you can find a reason for. You're just anxious. And it's almost a blessing when something bad happens. I guess I saw that coming. I have a lot of insecurity. I have waves of insecurity. Winnie talked about that. I get in a good, work my buns off to get in a good job. And after I got there for a while, I start doing these things, these feelings. They're going to find me out. I don't know what the hell they're going to find out, but they're going to find me out. They're going to realize I'm faking it. They're not faking it, but I'm faking it. That's it. So you work to get a better job to overcome that feeling, which now makes you feel they're going to find you out quicker. Endless goddamn trauma. One thing I noticed years and years ago, I have a different form of loneliness than people. And it makes me crazy sometimes. I don't hear people say, well, I was kind of lonely, but I called a friend and we had a good night together. God damn it. When I get lonely, really lonely, it makes me depressed. And when I get depressed, I withdraw, which makes me a little lonelier and a little more anxious. And that's what makes me depressed. And when I get depressed, I withdraw, which makes me a little lonelier and a little more anxious. And when I get lonely, I withdraw, which makes me a little sadder, a little more depressed. And this spiral continues for two or three days. And eventually, the time comes and it's come many, many times in my life over the past years where I just refuse to get up in the morning. Just pull the covers over my head. And it's hard to justify that. What are you doing under there? I'm lonely. Of course you're lonely, you boob, you know. There's not much you can do then. Last defiance you got, you got behind the top of the covers without releasing your head. And you know what? Other people aren't like that. I remember sitting in a big advertising agency in Dallas where I was a hot item briefly at that time. And listening to my secretary talk on the phone 30 some years ago. Yes, I was lonely last night and I called up Betty and we went to the show and had a wonderful time. I remember just sitting and thinking, looking at her thinking, I wish I were simple like you, you bitch. What in the hell is wrong with me? And I went to, I went to, I went to psychoanalysis as soon as I could afford it. A lot of people today say you shouldn't go to psychoanalysis. I made breakthroughs there that staggered me. I discovered why I had many of these feelings. I discovered I'd been repressed as a youth. I hadn't known that. I'd been, I had been, didn't have any material things as a child. I didn't know that until I got psychoanalysis. When I found out it made me pretty sad I'll tell you. One of the classic stories I've said many times, the best way I could, I remember one day the doctor said to me, he said, do you mean the same as Jim was told in 1935, the period we're talking about? You didn't mean to have a bicycle? I said, no. But I got thinking about it on the way home. I began to remember I never had anything. For about two months after that, every time I wanted to throw myself into a terrible depression, all I had to do was visualize in my mind's eye a little tousled hair apple cheek, blue-eyed little tyke standing on the streets of Eau Claire, Wisconsin watching his little friends ride their bicycles too. Don't worry about me, I'll go into analysis later. Took me almost two months to remember in 1935 nobody in Eau Claire had a bicycle. One kid did we thought he was a freak we beat him up and broke his bicycle. But I discovered I had deep senses of rejection because my parents they were teachers and they had to go to other cities to teach and I'd live with my grandparents. I never remember I remember I was glad to see him go because I loved my grandparents and they gave me anything I wanted. My parents were mean I thought. But later I found out that when my parents left I felt rejected. God, I came out of there sometimes I try to just have a big drink it's amazing I'm doing as well as I am for Christ's sake. So I did a lot of things and later on a few years later I was on the faculty of the University of Texas and I was going through more sophisticated deep problems I got into metaphysics then and I found another new series of reason why I was wrong emanating from the fact that my oneness extending into the universe had not found a sympathetic chord. I have spent I read books I read Nietzsche I read did all the things imitation intellectuals do I just studied because all my life I've been under the guise if I can find out why I feel this way it'll get alright and I found out why and then I found out why again and I found out why again I'm sure this there's a lot of people in this room who are looking to find out why you feel these feelings let me give you some information you can find out why and it doesn't help there's a certain feeling of ecstasy briefly but then the ecstasy goes away and now you feel crappy and you know why the only possible use for the information is late at night in a bar some guy will say hey what the hell's wrong with you and you can tell them turns out they don't want to hear it I've tried a lot of things over the years I've when I found out one thing in Pearl Harbor in 1943 that served me in good stead when all else fails a few drinks fills my holes better than anything I have ever known and I that's why I drink I don't drink because I'm a drinker I drink because I'm a sensitive feeling sometimes mask-ridden person living in a world most of my life I live with something and I'm sure most of you live with it and I never knew about it until I was sober a while and I heard a guy talk about it in his inventory that I was listening to I almost resented the little puke for knowing more about it I gave him some penance I'll tell you but here this you think about this how because of my emotions and my introspection I have spent most of my life under the with the feeling that they are what they seem to be I am the only one faking it I am the only one having to change my posture to change my defense mechanism they are just what they appear to be and it took me almost all my life to discover that isn't true they are all all humans are like me to one extent or another but it's hard to understand that because you know it's hard to realize other people use defense mechanisms too you assume that that's just the way they are and the world is full of defense mechanisms and every human being's got them alcoholics may have more of them and they vary from all kinds of things from the super intellectual you know what we've been talking about did you ever read Nietzsche on that subject no I didn't think you had keeps him away to the way to the other end of the spectrum the guy who says I got a new Harley and I'm gonna run it up your ass same thing same thing and all the tools in between but I've spent my life thinking I am the only one faking it they are what they seem to be and I discover when I drink alcohol that it makes me feel the way they look as though I know what I'm doing I feel my holds are filled I'm a better worker I'm a better raconteur I'm a better I'm a more jolly father I'm more fun around the house I'm more fun at work I'm just that and it never I never thought I was getting anything unusual I thought I was just catching up to what the rest of them had all along who would ever know but I've filled my hold there's only one problem I've ever had in my life I have an unfortunate tendency to overfill my holds and I don't seem to have any runoff mechanism for this overfill and it goes to the electrical works a new change takes place and I have a tendency to become sometimes what judges and policemen have described as bizarre now there's nothing wrong with being bizarre when you're a kid that's kind of fun you know why did we have fun after the prom last night we had a pint and went over to the hotel and peed in the hotel lobby but as you get older being bizarre becomes a handicap I'll tell you you stop enjoying being bizarre so I worked very hard on against being bizarre and I I was sent to my first AA meeting in 1949 that's a long time ago that's before some of you little snots were born snots were born remember this young folks you're the AA leaders of tomorrow and I I'm so glad I won't be here to see you I could barely make it to the ones that are here now I went to AA and AA had served no interest to me because there was a bunch of old fools sitting around talking about how they were doing you know it looked like God's waiting room that's what it looked like wait for some voice to say next besides that they all kept saying again and again your problem is alcohol you're in the right place and I knew that my problem was alcohol but that wasn't my number one problem my problem were my sensitivities and my feelings and the way people treated me and so I went to AA for a little while and it just went on and for years I went to AA every so often in the early 1950s I was having a lot of fun I had a lot of problems and I went to psychoanalysis got out of there and I started drinking heavily again at that time AA was kind of a mystic thing and I could come home be it come off a terrible drunk or something and tell my wife Charlotte I've gone back to AA and she said well maybe it'll work this time honey I said you know they want me to taper off and there wasn't any AA on them to screw it up for a minute ever since AA has been functioning it's been just a hideous life for slippers everywhere what do you mean may I want you to taper off we have our program too we know about you you son of a bitch I did a lot of things and I had to and then I was consumed with guilt and dry hearted all of my life I have been a champion 50 yard dash man for 50 yards I can be the best you'll ever see I'm a good employee I'm a straight shooter I'm smart I'm slick I'm doing everything but there's no race that runs for 50 yards the rest of them are running some kind of a marathon out there and I I could do good for a while and one day start to start to think these people are using me I'm too good for these people they're screwing me around and that's the beginning of the end and pretty soon I'm in jail somewhere and they're saying you're gone one spring I was nominated to be junior chamber of commerce young man of the year in a suburb of Chicago 10 months later through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings I was playing piano in a cheap bar in San Francisco in a hotel where girls kept taking guys upstairs and only the girls ever came back I said what happened to those guys great place great place though for a lucha and see what's going on then I came out of that and I said you know you know you know I had terrible terrible guilt and I ran to a guy I'd been in the navy with and we hitchhiked to Texas and I got a job in a paper there and I got a job in an advertising agency and I did so well a year and a half later I was working days at an advertising agency nights on the faculty of the University of Texas writing a weekly sports column my wife and children moved down nine months and ten seconds later boom a little Catholic up the streets in Texas I was really doing good and then I was in the spring and the pressure's mounted and one day I couldn't hold it together I'm through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings three months later I was committed an indefinite period up to the rest of my life in the Texas State of Insanity at Big Spring, Texas and I wasn't there was nothing on my commitment paper that said alcohol at all because I hadn't had a drink and I hadn't had that insurance so they told me at the University you can't drink you've been down going out of Mexico and raising hell and you can't do that so I went on the wagon and I said you know you know you know I went back to AA I got the medicine they did all sorts of things and I'll tell you when you get sober that's when you know you're not really an alcoholic because the pressure's come back the anxiety the tension feeling the difference and all these kids I love them but god damn it they just make me crazy and pressures and three jobs and trying to make up for lost time all the time and one day I couldn't stand it my wife took the kids to church I didn't know what to do I couldn't drink so all I did was I parked the car in the garage hooked up the hose turned the motor and went to sleep and died that's the best I could think I just can't stand it and I died and the neighborhood motor running and kicked open the door and pulled me out and beat on my chest and they rushed me to the hospital transferred me a couple days later to the psych ward and examined me for two weeks talked to my loved ones and all my employers and so on and determined that I was a badly split personality a badly psychopathic schizoid funny huh when I get to the part where I get leukemia you like that this is a tough group up here I'll tell you a man just died and you go ha ha ha ha ha Gentile bastard I'll tell you when you wake up and find yourself when you're trying to hold things together and you want your kids to have a good home and you want your wife to be happy and you want my parents I was their only child and they were so heartbroken about it when I get to these jams you wind up and find yourself committed to doing what you love what you love what you love what you love and you're committed perhaps for the rest of your life to a state insane asylum it just gives you a feeling that this is going to really screw up your resume how will I ever work this in well fortunately for me the next spring after my shock treatments they put in an alcoholic ward in that state and I was able because I'd been going to AE off and on for seven years those old fools, and I pretended to be an alcoholic, got transferred finally to the alcoholic ward, finally got out as a recovered alcoholic. One of the things I wanted to do, I wanted to go back to that psychiatrist and just grab him by the shirt and say, you idiot, you call yourself a psychiatrist, you're the worst diagnosed I've ever heard, calling me a split personality. Christ, if I get my personalities down to two, I could make it. My problem has always been this committee that forms at the drop of a hat. I hear people in AA's say they needed group therapy. Not me, I just go for a ride alone in my car. That's one of the things drinking does for me. It gets it down to one voice. It may be a bad voice, but it's the one voice. Why don't you quit your job? Why don't you quit your job and punch the son of a bitch in the mouth? I got out of that nut house and people thought I was cured and had a job, a big job in Dallas, the largest advertising agency in the South, a firm called Tracy Locke. In a couple of months they thought I was the most brilliant little thing they'd ever seen, and four guys and I were sitting in a bullpen writing these ads. Some of you have read them, the old Elsie and Elmer ads for the Borden Company, all these cows talking to each other, and the pressure was on. I had to, my wife, I was signed out of the nut house to her. That's how they did it in those days. She had to file a report every Saturday night on whether I was acting funny. That adds a lot of fun around the house. Don't you think you ought to take the garbage out now, Clancy? Good idea, honey. Why don't you bite yourself and get rabies? And I was trying to hold it together, and we had another baby nine months and ten seconds after we got home from the nut house, and a show came on television, and then I thought, Jesus, that's all I've ever wanted to do. That's all I've ever wanted to do. That's all I've ever wanted to do. Because I'm really a square down deep. I'm the square guy. I just want things to be right. There's this new program called Father Knows Best. I used to, when I could, I'd try to watch that. I'd think, that's what I want out of life. You know, that's what I'm made for. But these things running around here. There's no Princess or none of Bob's, none of his kids are around here. Princess and no Bud. There's things running around here, screaming. And I'm like, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? And that thing in the kitchen isn't Jane Wyatt, I'll tell you. It's pretty tough to be Robert Young alone in Dallas, Texas. So it built up, and one day, much to my surprise, it exploded. I didn't mean it to. God, I didn't want it to. But I went off the terrible drunk. I lost my job. I knew my wife turned me in. I had to get out of that state. I came back to my house. She had moved, taken the children. Sold the house. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. I had to go back. Hey, I got the wrong new phone. I'm sorry. Now I'm going to give it back. The phone's gone, and my clothes were laid on the floor. I grabbed those, and a month later, I woke up one morning out in the Phoenix, Arizona, drunk tank. I was laying on the floor. A guy had just got done kicking my front teeth down that show. He said I had just vomited down his bunk, and he called ... You find many masochists that you like to play with? And that was one of the few mornings I was ever glad I'd been in psychoanalysis. It all paid off that one morning, because when you've been in psychoanalysis, at least you have ways to put things in perspective. The next morning, as I lay on the floor. the floor, too sick to move my head the way this guy shoots, I was almost instantly able to identify his problem. I remember thinking, this son of a bitch is overreacting. And I'd lost my clothes by that time. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't go back to Texas under age, because I knew I was going to go to the nut house to get shot treatment. And about a month after that, I found myself being thrown out of a skid row mission in Los Angeles. Shown out of a skid row mission. And I tried to tell him that I'm not a bum. I'm not a bum. I'm a talented guy. I'm a good writer. An ad I wrote is running in Life magazine right now. If you can get a copy. I've directed a grand opera at the University of Texas. I'm a sensitive, creative guy. But it's hard to explain these things in midair. And I stood in front of that mission, dying. I'll tell you, if a guy were to come along and put a lie detector in my arm and said, are you an alcoholic, based on everything you know? No, I'm not. And that needle wouldn't have quivered a sixteenth of an inch. By that time, I would have been glad to be an alcoholic. If being an alcoholic, stopping drinking would make it better, I would have stopped drinking a thousand times. I stopped drinking a lot of times. But unlike alcoholics, my problem is not really alcohol. Sometimes it looks like it is, and that's what people can smell, but that isn't what it is. And one morning it was a cold rain, and I walked 71 miles. I was in the A.A. club in Wilshire and Fairfax. Bob also used to be around there. And I'd been asked to leave two weeks before, because there was some coffee money missing. And I felt terrible about that, because that seemed so damn unfair, because the guy that got most of it didn't get caught. Have you ever noticed how that goes? Some people just go through life, and they... The guy didn't want to let me in, but he finally let me in. I lay in the back. I slept in an abandoned car in the A.A. club. I was in the A.A. club. I was in the parking lot that night. And I thought, I'm going to have to do here what I did in Texas. I'm going to have to pretend to be an alcoholic. No matter what it takes, I'm going to have to fool these old fools, because I can get some teeth, and get it back on my feet and be something. Because I'm as smart as anybody. At least I don't have a family holding me back now. I can make my move. And I hung around that damn club, and I went to meetings all the time. There was nothing else to do. There was no time. I ate a lot of days, with coffee and cookies and cake. But then I got to the A.A. club, and they ate then, and they do now. So I got a sponsor. The guy seemed to be a rather chummy sort. And it turned out he was. He was a power-drunk, egocentric sadist. That's what he was. I tried to reason with him. He said, I don't want to hear what you've got to say. You live in an abandoned car. He made me take, I think, the worst, one of the worst things in my life. That first few months, he made me take actions that humiliated me even further. Because up until then, I was in the A.A. club. I was in the A.A. club. I was in the A.A. club. He kept going on and on. And until now, I may be down and out and I may have lost everything, but god damn it, I've got my integrity. And he was selling out my integrity piece by piece, making me pretend to be interested in pukes that I wouldn't even talk to if I had my power about me. And taking jobs that I wouldn't hire someone to do years ago. And on and on. Telling me to do things. Go do that. I don't want to do that. Nobody cares. And he would intimidate me. That's what I hated the worst of all. He intimidated me. When your secrets be weak. There's one thing you hate, is to be intimidated. When you're strong, you enjoy being intimidated. But when you're weak, you hate it. I've come to that conclusion. And I remember sitting, thinking a lot of times at meetings, thinking, when he comes in tonight and says, Clancy, I'm not going to be intimidated. I would say, yes, Bob! And see what the old son of a bitch says. And I'd be standing there thinking, he went behind me and said, Clancy! And I'd go, hmm. Lie awake, thinking about this. And he got, one day I was going to commit suicide, and he took that pain and made me write an inventory and said, you're sick things like that. And somehow during that year, no thanks to him, but I started to get better. And little by little, I started to feel a little better. And when I was two years sober, I had a little job. I didn't ever hold a job when I was a year sober in a little advertising agency. Not a writer, I was wrapping packages. When I was two years sober, I had a little job as a writer in a medical corporation. And now I had some money saved. Bob, I'm going to get some front teeth. I need them for this job. Send that money to your kids, Jen. You might have sent it hardly for two years. Send them that money. Send my money? Christ, they've got front teeth. So I don't care. Just send them. Try to act like a father, even if you can't be one. So I sent them the money. I had to learn to curry my lip like this. A lot of people didn't know I didn't have front teeth. They just thought I'd been burned in a fire. But I went to work every day. My first year there was when I was asked to come out to West Trovina and share on Christmas Eve, because they couldn't get any decent speakers. They got a toothless old fool to come out. I always played with John when it was Christmas. It's shitty. And these guys liked it. That tells you about them, huh? Well, when I was five years sober, I finally had front teeth. I was director of advertising for that corporation. Now, seven years sober, another guy and I went into Hollywood, and we created the number one hard rock store in the world. And I went to Hollywood, and we created the number one hard rock store in the world. And I went to Hollywood, and we created the number one hard rock store in the world. He named it Boss Radio, which is all-wars shinies. He said things like let's jump it on down the... and Ponty Husanian and Cher out of my office as talentless people. I said, you'll never make it. And I guess they had some success after that, but you notice today they're not together. Was ten years sober in a downtown public grocery oil company. Was 15 years sober. I was a marketing director at Beverly Hills. Was five years sober with the same wife, all those children. There is a crinkle of green in my wallet. You just change it. TV. It's like only the bills are given to you, but there's always a news power. all the way to a post office box in Dallas, leaped out of the post office box, rushed to my side, attached them so they could group a starving chiggers. Nine months and ten seconds later, I could tell you stories that would make tears roll down your cheeks. Isn't that a nice story? True. In fact, the next Sunday I'm going down to watch one of those kids get a master's degree, and a couple weeks after that I'm going to watch another kid graduate from college, the last one, the last little AA baby. I'll tell you, he was raised a Catholic, of course, and played football for St. Monica's Catholic High School in Santa Monica. And I ran the 10-yard chain. I had sportsmen, and I also had a good father. And I remember when they played the Lutheran high school, I was so glad to be a schizophrenic. Get them Catholics, get them Lutherans. I cheated for both teams. Then I started, but let me tell you one more thing. All of this is true, but if you're a guy like me, when I was new, it doesn't mean a damn thing. It's just another one of those endless, interminable success stories. Another guy is wonderful, and I'm still crappy. Let me say, the most important thing I've said tonight, or I'll say before I sit down, no one paid any attention to it, nor should you. But I'll say it one more time. My name is Clancy Emeslin, and I'm an alcoholic. That was the single most difficult thing I ever had to come to believe in my life. That was the single most difficult thing I ever had to come to believe in my life. That was the single most difficult thing I ever had to come to believe in my life. I did not believe I was an alcoholic when I was drinking. I did not believe I was an alcoholic when I got sober. I didn't believe I was an alcoholic after I was sober. I could swap drinking stories with anybody. But I am not really an alcoholic. I'm a different, if I'm a different type than they have around here. There's something different about me. My emotions, my feelings. And I had to take these actions as a nod. I took them as a laugh to myself. Like maybe this makes alcoholics feel better. Makes me feel humiliated. And on and on. And over a period of time I took actions and did things. And went to meetings and tried to follow along. And sometimes for the rottenest of purposes. And over a period of time, maybe in a year or two, little by little, something, I began to learn something that has changed my life more than anything I've ever known except alcohol. Alcohol changed my life significantly. And this little by little, this didn't come fast. This came piece by piece like the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle. I'll tell you. Because you get a little piece and there's nothing around it. You get another piece, another meeting. And that's over here somewhere, right? It takes a long time before you find pieces. Oh, why it's so horsey. You get a lot of pieces here and it seems like it's a waste. But I had to overcome the biggest problem I've had. And I'm sure there are people here who have. How can you be an alcoholic when your problem is not really alcohol? When it looks like it is. And you can say it is. But you know it really isn't. There are worse problems than the alcohol. And the information I had to survive long enough to discover, and I hope you listen because it almost cost me my life to learn this. I had to come to understand that if my problem is alcohol, I am not an alcoholic. And conversely, if I'm an alcoholic, my problem is not alcohol. Doesn't that sound upside down and weird sometimes? It's an occult thing. But I believe it. I believe that book is written to that extent. I'm one of the few people in this room, I'm sure, old enough to have sat with Bill Wilson and asked him if that's what he thought. And he said to me, that's what he thought too. He said, but how can that be? Of course the problem is alcohol. I can disprove that in 10 seconds. If the problem is alcohol, detoxes turn out winners. And they don't. Hospitals turn out winners. Treatment centers turn out winners. Jails turn out winners. And they don't. If getting sober and being sober is the answer, there is no need for organizations like the one we are in tonight. You get sober and you shape up. What is it then if it isn't alcohol? Well it's something that sounds like alcohol. And we talk a lot about drinking. And it's easy to be confused. And there are people dying every day because they have it confused in their mind. Govinda AA is something that sounds like alcohol. It sounds like alcohol, but it isn't alcohol. There is something called alcoholism. You say, what the hell is the difference? Is that the debate or the trick? Alcohol, alcohol, it's the same thing. It's not the same thing. If you come to understand it is not the same thing, you've got a chance to survive. You say, what's the difference? The differences are... Well, let me give you an example. A couple of years ago, the psychiatric convention in Orlando, Florida asked me to come down there to talk on the differences between alcohol problems and the disease. The symptoms of alcoholism. They weren't alcohol. I felt almost ashamed to get on there because I thought I could tell them the answer over the telephone. Then I thought, if I do that, I'll never get to Disney World. Let the old fools pay off, I say. But I can tell you in one sentence and you will understand it. The difference between an alcohol problem and the disease of alcohol is this. In an alcohol problem, stopping drinking brings the remedy. But in the strange, denigrating, destructive, eroding, sanity-threatening thing called alcoholism, you will discover, sooner or later, that stopping drinking has no significant effect on you, except to gradually make you feel so bad you cannot stand it. I thought I heard my grandma. Make some homemade root beer, Grandma. I'll be home soon. It sounds kind of strange, doesn't it? But... You know, the lethal part of the disease of alcoholism is sobriety. And yet we're conditioned to think all of our lives. Getting sober is what makes it better. That's what makes it worse. It feels good for a while. But one day, here come your old pals in. Two in the morning through your window and door. Anxiety and tension. Feeling different and the knowledge they're screwing you around again and things aren't working out. People that you'd like to have care for you don't care for you. They care for each other. The world is full of selfish people. The world is full of unfair people. The world is full of unfairness and it's just so crappy. And if I do it today, they didn't have any chance. It's too late now anyway. It's all so screwed up and on and on. But that doesn't make you an alcoholic. That gets you halfway there. That makes you what science describes as an intense or acute neurotic. A person who lives in reality but reacts obsessively and badly. One thing more must be present to be an alcoholic. And I never knew this until I almost died and I never knew anybody who told me it. You have to have an unusual reaction to alcohol. We've all heard that. The question is, what is the unusual reaction to alcohol? Well, some people lead you to think if you stay drunk all the time, that pretty much indicates you're an alcoholic. You hear guys get up and say, I drank and stayed drunk around the clock for 25 years. You think, now that guy's an alcoholic. But then in the medical corporation I ran across something funny. It is physically impossible for a human body, under controlled circumstances, to stay intoxicated 14 straight days and nights. The body will not stay intoxicated. It will not accept any more alcohol. In fact, that's the rottenest part about being a drinker. When you think about it, you get sober all the time. If you get sober again and again. It's just hideous. If you stay drunk, you'll have a very small dinner tonight. You'll have a different speaker, I'll tell you that. I'll be out in a Chinese palace in Juarez, Chihuahua. Here I am back again. You lucky spicks. Well, maybe the reaction is this. If you're an alcoholic, you can't handle alcohol. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? False. Alcoholics traditionally can handle alcohol better than non-alcoholics, any time. If you as an alcoholic have ever been to a social event where you and social directors drank the same amount, I'll bet that you will drive them home. The trouble is you can't get them to drink. the same amount. They say things like no more for me I'm starting to feel it. Why did you feel this wimp? Worst night of the year to be out. We talked about this in West Covina a lot. Worst night of the year to be out. What? New Year's Eve. All those social drinkers are out there drunk and they don't know how to be drunk. Anyone in this room that's an alcoholic has at least 15 to 20 seconds knowing you're going to vomit. You just recognize it. Anybody got a cert? Those people, those social drinkers don't even recognize you're going to be talking to them. When I said to Billy, I said, bleh! People like us go, they fall down. I don't care if roadblocks do. We have a lot of them in California. There's a traffic who tries to catch them in the holidays, catch drunken drivers. They're not trying to catch alcoholics. They're trying to catch non-alcoholics who are drunk badly. They're out there bumping into cars. There's two or three kids in posts of decent citizens like you and I sit behind them and say, hurry up up there! Is it maybe the reaction, maybe the unusual response is alcohol makes you act bizarre. That's what makes you an alcoholic. Turns out you get a lot of bizarre stories. False. In my job today, I see alcoholics die almost every day. Most of you never had that experience. I see it almost every day. You can see it in history. alcoholics go irreversibly insane and some of these guys never been bizarre once the more they drink the more introvert they become they become almost catatonic just the opposite there's what the hell is it that alcohol does to me that it didn't do to my parents it doesn't do to my any my children in fact it's almost humiliating today because everywhere I go today there are some buddies says well now my son Billy's in the program two years and little Francis in treatment and we have a real AA family I go home and look at those natural normal little kids tonight what's wrong with you when I was your age I was in the and see the style what is alcohol do to me it doesn't do to them nothing nothing in fact it does less to me than it does to them to this day if I were willing to die over it I could drink but to me it doesn't do to them nothing nothing in fact it does less to me than it does to them to this day if I were willing to die over it I could and drink them under the table. I might have to get sober again if I could do it. Then what is this unusual reaction they keep talking about? And here is the $64,000 answer, folks. If you remember this, you've got a chance. When I began to understand this with my betters, it saved my life. It isn't what alcohol does to me at all. It's just the opposite. It turns out it does something special for me that it doesn't do for most people. And they don't know it does it for me and I don't know it does it for me. But what does it do for me? It almost instantly alters my perception of reality. Boom. The thing that I... When he was talking, he was fine to learn. Husband had that drink and then he became unresponsive. Reality changes. I'm no longer under your beck and call. It almost instantly changes my relationship to my environment, whatever the hell that may be. It almost instantly makes me taller and more self-contained and them smaller and less threatening to me. It almost immediately fills my holes. It turns out only about five or six people out of every hundred drinkers get that reaction. And it's the greatest feeling you'll ever have. It almost is temporary omnipotence. And the only thing wrong with it, if it does that for you, your chances jump then to about 97 to 3 that you will die from. That's the funny thing. People die from it every day. I'll tell you something sadder than that. A number of people in this room tonight, sober and happy, will die drunk. Because that's the nature of this illness. You think, how could that be? Because all you have to do is go back to allowing yourself to feel different long enough and stop taking simple actions that don't seem to make much sense. But it turns out there's a name for this condition where sobriety is untenable and alcohol brings you down. It brings an answer and now alcohol becomes a problem. That is called alcoholism. And you drink until you get sober and you stay sober until you've got a drink and you drink until you've got to get sober until you get sober until you've got a drink. There's no time element. But if you've got that, you're going to die from it. You're going to die whether you have $10 million or there's no way to buy out. People go to treatment centers again and again. You can't understand why. What the hell is it? And the loved ones say, why are they like that? He has everything to live for and yet he gives back the drink. They don't know that conflict is being resolved and the guy doesn't know alcohol doesn't do it for everybody else. So if I have to drink, that means you don't have the troubles I have. And it's absolutely a disease of misperception. And the reason that's important to know is so that boobs like you and me will not come to these rooms and sit here and stay sober a while then begin to feel bad. And think AA doesn't work. The natural state of sober alcoholics is anxiety and depression and tension. Anything apart from that is progress. The purpose of AA and its steps, not sitting in a room talking about deep subjects. Its steps, its actions, its doing the things, not knowing the things. God, that's hard to learn when you're an imitation intellectual. Because I can know a subject, I can know a quick. But knowing it isn't worth a pitch or a warm spit around here. You gotta do it. You gotta do it. And I hope if you're lucky you'll have a sponsor who intimidates you a little bit. Because you will take more actions for an intimidating sponsor than you ever will for a pal or a chum. Why do I wanna do that Archie? Okay. Wherever you see enthusiastic strong AA, if you go there, you will find a strong sponsorship ethic. Because strong sponsorship ethics, it gets people to take actions beyond what they would normally do up to their own devices. But the purpose of all of AA is to what? What are we here for? To make you holy? Nah. To learn to understand God perhaps? Nope. If that were true, I've been phoned across 73, four times now to talk to a big home in the East where they send clergymen from all over the world who weep in frustration because they love God and they can't stay sober. And AA's run a home that teaches them how to take 12 steps. That will enable them to love God and stay sober. And yet in our meetings we find someone who barely is able to pronounce God suddenly decides he's God's messenger on earth and is spiritually superior to all of this crap. Screw him. No matter how hard you work the program here, you never rise above human being. You never will become perfect. The purpose of AA is to what? Become, understand the nature of alcoholism? That helps a little bit, but only to keep you going. The function of AA, I've come to believe of, much to my surprise over the years, the function of AA is to little by little do the only thing that I needed alcohol to do. Alcohol did it fast. AA does it so slow it's almost imperceptible. It's designed to gradually change my perception of reality. To little by little alter my relationship to my environment. To little by little fill up my holes. But I'll tell you something, AA will never fill your holes the way alcohol does. Because it's not. Because alcohol gives you an unnatural feeling. Human beings can't fill their holes. You get them up there, they're up and down. That's part of being a human being. You will always have emotions. What AA helps me do, keep them from becoming lethal obsessions. But you will always have emotions. What are you talking about today? It happens to me. Remember in 1970, I was pleased to be asked to speak at the International Convention in the Miami Beach. On the noon of July 4th. I was kind of so thrilled. I was sober 12 years or so. And I said, The first speaker that morning was the guy that had taken me to my first meeting in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 1949. And the last speaker that night was Chuck C, who was my current sponsor. And I thought, My God! I came back from there just walking on air. And I thought, I have found the spiritual experience I need. And no more upsets. No more problems. I'm going to live in peace with the world. And the next morning, I was working downtown in the advertising industry. I got my car. Got that set up on the freeway. I just felt transported. I just transformed. I came onto the San Diego freeway. And I said, I'm going to live in peace with the world. And the next morning, I was working downtown in the advertising industry. I got my car. I was working downtown in the advertising industry. And the next morning, I was working downtown in the advertising industry. And I said, I'm going to live in peace with the world. And the next morning, I came out on the freeway. And a little old lady in a Toyota came off the freeway. Missed me by about a sixteenth of an inch. And the new spiritual leader of the West Coast had his window down, saying, You silly bitch in a goddamn Toyota! God damn you! I went, Well, I'll go to a couple more meetings. But unlike Winnie, the difference between Al-Anon and AA is this. Over my years in AA, gradually, I have learned. I still chase them. I don't know why, because you can't do anything when you catch them. You go by them and give them a ray, but I never chase them past my exit. That's the way it is. If I haven't caught them by 4th Street, I say, good flying, Red Bear, and we'll meet again. Last year, I came by, a girl almost killed me, and I came by her and gave her a triple ray. And I looked at her, she was just a little girl, about as old as my granddaughter, who was 18, and a little long flowing hair and sweet. Here's a little girl, she's probably learned to drive, and here's an old curmudgeon son of a bitch. And so I, what am I doing? I smiled at her, and she went, she almost went to visit my grandma for Red Bear on her record. But that's the nature of life. That's why I keep going to AA, because there's a lot of bad people out there hurting me. And the greatest, that's what AA is about. You know what AA is about really? It's to little by little, keep them looking, looking all right. Because I don't change, but when I don't go to meetings to do these things, I stay the same. But they all go to hell, and act funny, and talk funny, and get weird. And I got to go to meetings and they shape up gradually. So that's what I'm asking you to do. Go to a lot of meetings as long as you live, not for your sake, but to help them. There's really only two bad times, dangerous times in AA, I think. The first is in the first 90 days, when you're just looking for some way to hang on. And the other is all the time after that. It doesn't mean it's bad, but it can be dangerous if you don't do these things. Because the purpose of AA is to little by little, fill up holes that only alcohol can fill. There's one more thing I want to say. I know I'm talking over God, am I ever? Well, who cares? This is where you got any place to go. St. George. Today in AA, as for as long as I've been around AA, I've been hearing this from 1949, even. It's always been here, but it's even a little stronger today. The voices, the voices on the perimeter of AA who say things like, well, AA is all right to get you sober. But if you have deep emotional upsets, you need something much more intense than AA. AA is nice, and they mean well. Have you tried Therapy X? Or... Or... Or... Therapy Y, that'll teach you that your parents caused all your problems. Or maybe you could take Medication Z, and that'll, it's a breakthrough. On and on and on. Because AA is not enough. Let me say this. I have been in jail 34 times. It's not a record, but it's good for an executive. I have been in a veterans' hospital padded cell, cold sober. I have been chained down to a bed in the city hospital while my wife came into that hospital, had a baby, and went home again. And I was still chained in. I always felt she induced labor to humiliate me. I have been committed for the rest of my life to the Texas State Insane Asylum. I think I can speak on behalf of the emotionally upset. Speaking on behalf of the emotionally upset, let me say this. AA as it is, if you keep doing it, and hopefully have an intimidating sponsor, and hopefully open your mind to a growing awareness that God first exists and then is not trying to kill you, but wishes well for you if you let him. If you continue to take these actions and never get so busy, you don't have time to give a pat on the back to someone behind you. If you keep doing these things, AA, as it is, works at least 29 and a half years. It may not work any longer, but I can tell you from personal experience, it works 29 and a half years. And it works good. So if you don't have 29 and a half years, try it. You'll be surprised. Thank you.