The Original Manuscript Said Directions Not Suggestions and I Almost Argued With It 🤣 – Clancy I.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Steve, and I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA memberships. We are self-supporting for our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. In accordance with our Southern tradition, we have no dues or fees, but we are self-supporting for our own contributions. If you are not an alcoholic, please do not put money in the basket. Welcome to the sponsorship group of Alcoholics Anonymous. We meet here every Sunday night at 8.30 p.m. And thank you for coming for our five-year anniversary. We started this meeting to ensure that people seeking a solution to their alcoholism could come to a speaker meeting where they are sure to hear a consistent message of hope and recovery. It is our experience that carrying AA's message is essential in recovering from the disease of alcoholism, and as such, we encourage our members to visit the hospitals, jails, rehabs, and other institutions. If you would like to participate in our group activities and need a sponsor, see any home group member after the meeting. Will active home group members please identify yourselves? Please be mindful that we are guests at this institution, and it's our group's desire to leave every meeting place in better condition than it was when we arrived. And could I please have Joyce to read the original manuscript of how it works. My name is Joyce, I'm an alcoholic. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our directions. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Thank you. Usually, men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a way of life which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to follow directions. At some of these, you may balk. You may think you can find an easier, softer way. We doubt if you can. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that you are dealing with alcohol. Cunning. Being baffling and powerful. Without help, it is too much for you. But there is one who is all power. That one is God. You must find him now. Half measures will avail you nothing. You stand at the turning point. Throw yourself under his protection and care with complete abandon. Now we think you can take it. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. 1. Admitted we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable. 2. Believed that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care and direction of God as we understood him. 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact natures of our wrongs. 6. Were entirely willing that God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly on our knees, asked him to remove our shortcomings. Holding nothing back. 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to completely amends them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except one to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Saw through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with God. Praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual experience as a result of this course of action, we try to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. 13. You may exclaim, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guidelines to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after, have designed to sell you three pertinent ideas. a. That you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life. b. That probably no human power can relieve you of your alcoholism. c. That God can and will. If you are not convinced of these vital issues, you ought to re-read the book. To this point, I'll throw it away. I'd like to make some quick announcements. Next Sunday night, Tom F. from Baltimore, Maryland, will be speaking here at the church. We'd like to have you if you're available. On June 17th, Johnny H. from Long Beach, California, will be speaking at Unity Breakfast in Netcom, New Jersey. If you'd like any more information, there are flyers, I think, still. I think there's a table back there somewhere in those people, but there's flyers going around. At this time, I'd like you to please turn off your cell phones and pagers, and please limit your movement during the meeting so as not to disrupt the speaker. It's sufficient here that we have a home group member speak for five minutes on sponsorship and introduce the main speaker. And I'd like to give you Tom. I'm Tom. I'm alcoholic. Hi, Tom. It's good to be here. It's good to be sober. It's good to see you all here. This is amazing seeing all these people here. My sobriety date is November 18th, 2001. I tell you guys that. I tell you guys that to let you guys know that this program works. And I also want to let you know that having a sobriety date was not my idea. It was not my idea to have it this long. But very early on in AA, I started having fun with you guys, and I like to have fun. Sundays, typically, I did some drinking on Sundays, I'll confess to you. I did some drinking on Sundays, but mainly on Sundays, I was nursing a good hangover on Sundays. And I like the thing that, the part about God that says, he says, Sunday is a day of rest, but, you know, rest on Sundays. But I can't do that anymore because I'm alcoholic and I have alcoholism. And I want to let all you guys know that we're here every Sunday night. You come, you know, when it isn't our anniversary, too. But I have alcoholism. You know what I mean. And, you know. You know what I mean. But I have alcoholism. And it needs 24, it needs a day-to-day attention. And Sunday is my favorite day of the week because that's when my home group meets. My home group is the bookends to my AA week. And from my home group, I go out and carry the message. At my home group meeting, I get to fill up on the message. And I'm sure I'm going to fill up on the message tonight. And then what I do for my home group is engage in our home group activities. And ever since I got my sponsor, I was about three weeks into this program. And I was suffering from not drinking. I was suffering from going to these meetings. And at the end of three weeks, I came to a jumping off point. And the jumping off point was should I get a drink or should I ask one of you guys for help? And, Jesus, that was the hardest thing I had to do in AA was to ask someone for help. But it's the only right thing I've done since I've been here. And I'm so glad that I got my sponsor after three weeks of really a nightmare of living with myself. I had no idea why I drank it as crazily as I mean I know I enjoyed it. I ripped and ran for 28 years. And then I put it down. And at the end of that three weeks of not having anything in me, I mean nothing, I was left with this empty, lonely life. And I was really feeling inside of me. And it hurt. And after three weeks, I asked someone to be my sponsor. And immediately, he began taking me through the steps. And my life has been a living hell since then. And somehow I'm happy for it. And, you know, I need a sponsor. I need a sponsor to guide me. And that's my talk on sponsorship. People over there, I see the hook coming out. And without further ado, I would like to introduce to you Clancy. I get paid a little extra if I usher. There's four and two and a couple there. One there. I've noticed there's a plethora of young pretty girls in this area. My question is merely, where were you when I needed you? And I know the answer. You weren't born. That's right. You're in my chair. Get over there. You're in my chair. You can't sit in my chair. I'm embarrassed here. I'll just stand over here later. I'm sorry, but you said it to me. My name is Clancy Emerson, and I'm an alcoholic. Clancy! I'm very glad to be here tonight. Glad to be safe and sane and so forth. Glad to be here for this fifth anniversary of this wonderful group. When they started, I told them I'd come to their first birthday, if they ever had one. I'm surprised. This is the first year that Tom Flynn has been here to take part. He's in Boston, where there's more drunken Irish than there are here. He's given up on helping the Italians. He's not going to work in the Irish school today. Thank you. Thank you, my host, for picking me up at the airport tonight. This afternoon I had a terrible trip in. The United Express is just like being flogged around the fleet on that damn airline. I flew in from Florida to Washington, and the plane was screwed up and got here way late. I'm terrible. I couldn't find the luggage. I'm just an idiot. But anyway, I'm here. I think I mentioned this two or three years ago. I might as well mention it one more time, because I like to hear it. One of the worst trips I ever took was going to speak in Reykjavik, Iceland, which is really beyond any length. That's a long trip. And you come back to Los Angeles, you come through Minneapolis, and it was Sunday night. And I had to be to work the next morning, of course. And I was sitting in the United Airlines. They have what's called the red carpet room, which is for frequent flyers. And I was sitting there, tired. Nothing going on. I had about four hours to wait. And I finally had to go to the bathroom. So I went and sat in the bathroom. It was a cute little bathroom, two little stalls side by side with little doors. And I sat in one of them just thinking about things. And all of a sudden, a voice goes the other side and says, Hi there. And the voice said, What are you doing tonight? I never put the kibosh on this right away. I'm going back to Los Angeles to see my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. But thank you very much for asking. You guys in the back, there's some seats down here if you want to sit down. Unless you want to just keep your hands in your pocket and do whatever you're doing. The first thing the voice said, We could really have some fun tonight if you wanted to. And I was tired, nuzzled, crossed. I overreacted. I said, Look, pal. I don't know what your problem is. But I'm here for something. Not what you're here for, apparently. Why don't you just get off my back and leave me alone? There was a long pause. The voice said, I'll have to call you back, this asshole. The next door won't shut up. One guy left already. I hit them all cylinders down. But seriously, we're here to discuss our lives with alcoholics. Anonymous and alcoholism. And an anniversary group is a little bit different than most meetings. I mean, at least we get up and tell our stories. And we talk about where we've been and so on. But sometimes in anniversary meetings, we like to call attention to something else or other things. And I was talking to Jim on the phone a few weeks ago. And I told him, you know, I feel like to talk a little bit to newer people about the seconds and inches in Alcoholics Anonymous. All the fun little things that had to come together. Just right for us to be here tonight. And we don't even know about it. I didn't know about them for years. But they're very interesting. For example, most of us know a little bit about AA. But one thing you might don't know if you're new. There seems to be different types of alcoholics. There seems to be a type of alcoholic that any way you measure them, they're an alcoholic. But they drink and get in trouble. But something happens that really threatens their security. Maybe they have to lose a job or lose a family or have a death in the family. And they suddenly realize the gravity of their situation and they quit. And they never drink again. And you know, many of us know people like that. These same type of people, if they have become addicted to alcohol, which a lot of people don't even know about alcoholic addiction, physical addiction. But it's more lethal than drug addiction. Many more people die in the withdrawal from alcohol addiction than drug addiction. But these are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created to medically withdraw people off alcohol. Without the convulsions and the heart stoppages. And these people, this type of alcoholics, each step of the way they're taught about the problems they have and what alcohol is to do. And they really understand it and they quit. And they never drink again. There's a very famous hospital up in Seattle called Shick Shadel. They advertise we can cure your alcoholism in a month. Which sounds ridiculous to us. But they do it. They have a whole list of people who they've solved. 10 days of treatment, 20 days of follow-ups and they're healed. Then there's another type of alcoholic, which seems to be an alcoholic by any way you measure it. They drink and get in trouble. Something happens that really threatens their security. Maybe you lose a family or a job or something. Death in the family. And they quit. But they always eventually drink again. And the same type of alcoholics who go to treatment centers with tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks. I'm no more better than drink anymore. But they eventually always drink again. And this is the type of alcoholic that's baffled people for 5,000 years in written history. Baffled. Science and religion and psychiatry and social workers. And most of all I suppose baffled the families around them. If you were like me, what you might associate with, of seeing that terrible look of disappointment on someone who loves you, or they say, oh, look at you. How could you? You promised. You were doing better. And now you look like, how could you do that? And I have no answer for it. So I have to say, leave me alone, damn it. Leave me alone. Get off my back. Which makes it feel worse. It makes me feel worse. But I don't know what to do about it. And these are the type of people that have never been an answer for. One time they thought they were possessed by devils and they put them to death. And they were deported. England deported a great many of them. They just flogged them, put them in insane asylums, and put them in jails, and just send them away. From my life pattern they're still doing that. There's never been an answer for these kind of people. Because no matter how well they seem to be doing and how much they promise, it doesn't mean anything because the day will come when they'll go again. And that's why it's so important to realize what a remarkable thing this is and how relatively recently it changed. In 1930, a family in New York, wealthy family, wealthy industrial family, had a son in his mid-thirties and he seemed to have a bad nervous condition. He had this terrible case of nerves and it always seemed to make him drink. Then he would drink too much and it wasn't like him at all. He was so unusual. He was a nice guy and they thought, we've got to get his nerves settled. So they looked around and found the best doctor psychiatrist in the world. And they wrote to him, told him about their son's problem, and asked him if he would treat him. Now here's what most people don't know. The first contact was made to Dr. Freud and Dr. Freud refused to take the case, which is the first drink we ever got. Otherwise we'd all be sitting here drunk tonight saying, but I dreamt I was sober. They went to his ex-student and now colleague, a man named Dr. Jung. And Dr. Jung said, yes, I'll try to help him. Certainly tried to help him. So they had two guys take him to Switzerland, just to make sure nothing happened on the way. They took him to Switzerland to the doctor's hospital. The doctor put him in the hospital for about a year, worked for there every day to get you to break through that wall. That wall was making him react like this. And he finally broke down and got him to understand the nature of his problems and what was happening. And he realized now he was all right. He said, Roland, you can go home now. I think you've broken through. I'm very proud of you. So Roland came home and he stopped in Paris with some wealthy friends of his family. And they had dinner for him. And they toasted him with a glass of wine. And he had a glass of wine. And three days later he was face down, drunk again in his own vomit. And people, how could that happen? He was doing so well. He knows the problem. Why would he do that? So they had these guys take him back to Dr. Jung. And Dr. Jung refused to take him back. They said, gee, doctor, he didn't mean any harm. It's just his nerves took him. No. He said, I'm not angry at him at all. I just don't realize I have misdiagnosed his case. I thought he had deep psychological problems. And I was able to help him with those. But I see now he is what is known as an alcoholic. And of that type of alcoholic, I know of no therapy in the world today that is effective in treating it. This was 1931, not all that long ago. And of course, Roland, he said, what does this mean, doctor? He said, what it means, Roland, is that you must keep yourself confined voluntarily or involuntarily as long as you live. Otherwise, you almost certainly will intermittently drink until you die or go mad. Piece of bad news, huh? And Roland says, is there anything else? He said, well, in the literature, there are a few cases, very few cases where people have had some sort of involuntary reversion. Psychologically, they call it some sort of a spiritual experience, but I've never seen one. And I would suggest that you would not depend on that. So Roland came home a very disappointed, sad guy. Didn't stop for any dinners in Paris this time, got on a ship. And apparently on the ship, on the way home, he did something that all of us have to do sooner or later, although you don't always know you're doing it. He somehow surrendered to the fact that he was hopeless. There was no chance for him. He was helpless. And he came home and he thought about that spiritual experience. How could he go about getting... He was a vestment in the Presbyterian church. He was not a bad guy. He was a straight shooter, a good guy. He was a big man in the church. But he hadn't apparently done it. At that time, there was something, just by a stroke of luck, something that had been going on for a few years and had now reached its apogee, its peak in the United States. In 1912, up in Pennsylvania, some Lutheran minister had the feeling that, you know, Christians today just aren't giving it their all like they used to. In the first century, they were willing to give their lives for their relief, to be crucified. We don't want to do that, but they should at least not be so apathetic. So they started an organization called the First Century Christian Association to try to pass along the enthusiasm of the first century Christians. And really, it didn't go very far. Nobody was very interested in it.