The Periodic Drunk Who Thought He Could Stop – 1950 – Bill Y.

The main speaker for tonight, his name is Bill, and he is from San Rafael, and y'all help me welcome him, please. Hi everybody, my name is Bill Yeager, and I'm a very grateful alcoholic. I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since June 15th of 1950. I look around this room and I see a lot of kids and a lot of them weren't even around when I hit the program, you know. But anyhow, I was born in Sacramento also. Only I was born there in 1910, a long time before Jan arrived. And we moved up to the Bay Area and I lived in Marin County and San Francisco and Oakland and Berkeley and Christ, I went to 17 schools before I got out of high school. And they always call my family the phenolax family. We're always moving. You probably don't know what phenolox is, so it's a physic anyhow. I bumped on that right off the bat. But anyhow, we were living in a little town called Courtney, Madera in Marin County and my mother and father were divorced when I was about 10. And my dad was an alcoholic at that time, but I didn't know it he was a motion picture operator and he stopped drinking when he was 42 but uh that's ahead of my story but anyhow uh we moved to san francisco i'd been ill quite a bit my mother put me in a catholic school although we're not catholic but i attended the school for a couple of years and uh i had a really screwed up background as far as a religious or spiritual outlook. My mother had practiced Christian science and Lutheran and she'd practiced unity and then she, now I'm in a Catholic school and when I was 10 or 11 years old I had appendicitis where we were living in Corte Madera and she's practicing Christian science on me and I god damn near died. My pedics blew up for two days before they operated and of course in those days that was 1920-21 they didn't have any kind of drugs like they have today but after we left San Francisco we moved to Oakland and I went to junior high school there called Lake Merritt which is on Lake Merrit and that's where I had my first drink and of course you kids have to remember these days with liquor is like these days for you with drugs liquor was illegal prohibition was in and it was at a Halloween party and we got some stuff we used to call Dago Red which was wine. Jesus, I got bombed. Oh boy, did I get bombed but I loved what it did for me when I first started to drink. You know, when I took my first five or six shots of that wine I think I was 13 as I remember and I thought holy Christ I'm for the stare you know, no kidding I'm the big lover that's me and anyhow to make a long story sick I sort of formed a pattern that night I got drunk and I threw up and I got sick as the son of a bitch and that's the way I seemed to go. I went into the stock and bond business when I got out of high school and I went in the stock and bond businesses right at the top of it in 1928. It blew up in 1929. Now, I look like an old fart but I've got to tell you kids something. When I was 18 I was quite a cat. I was working at a stock and bomb business I was making 90 bucks a month I had a double-breasted Oxford suit on. I had at Derby, and I had spats. And I also had my own bootlegger and my own flask that I used to carry. And I didn't really do a lot of drinking in those days. We got drunk now, and it seemed like most of the time I'd have a few drinks and we'd go out and I'd wind up getting drunk. And I belonged to a secondary high school fraternity when I was in Berkeley High and Oakland High. and of course the market went to hell in 29 and I stayed in that business until about the end of 30 first part of 1931 and the company I'd been with had probably a couple hundred people it's like today our economy and the stock and bond business then though I'm talking about our total economy they're down to about six and I lose my job of course I'm drinking with my friends all the time and we're going out and of course we drank bootleg booze we drank booze that was so god damn lousy the only way you could hold it down was take a shot and chew on the lemon to keep from churning it up and it came from England we used to say they scraped it off the bottom of the boat you know it was so lousily it was terrible stuff we used make our own gin we used drink straight grain alcohol and we did in those days we did a lot of what they called hotel dancing lobby dancing and we'd go to somebody's house and buy a couple of pints of alcohol and then we'd all get half-swacked and then would go down like the Palace Hotel or the St. Francis of the Mark and during the intermission when everybody was going to the can then when the music started we'd altogether in and start dancing and it was fine for a while but, you know, not too many people had money in those days so there might be 25 people or 25 couples in there and all of a sudden there's 100 couples on the floor Well, they stopped that about a year. But, you know, I used to... I ran around with a couple of guys, real close friends of mine, and we used to discuss what we were going to do with our life and how we were gonna run the world and all of these things. Like all kids do. And what we did... I never heard the word alcoholic. We called him a no-good goddamn drunk. And he chose his way because we were the captains of our soul. We could quit drinking anytime we wanted to. the end result of that reason was that I'm here in Alcoholic Anonymous one of my friends died of alcoholism and cancer, the other friend came around in about 1955 or 60, hung around the program in and out for five years and committed suicide, jumped off a wharf in San Francisco I'm the lucky one, I'm a survivor but I'd been out of work about a year, nine months 31 end of 31, middle of 31 and I couldn't find a job. I couldn' t get a job for 50 bucks a month. There just weren' t any jobs. And I was living with my mother and sister and my sister was working for a dental supply company in Fort DeSata Building which is the big medical dental building in San Francisco and she called home one day and she said there' s a job down here delivering on a motorcycle. And I said Jesus Christ I' ve never been on one you know. She says but it pays the magic word. I couldn't find a job for 50 bucks a month she says it pays 125 dollars a month I said Jesus Christ her name was Faye I said I'll be right down I'll see the old man I went in I told him he said have you ever been on a motorcycle oh yeah I did a lot of riding anyhow he knew I was bullshitting and then he hired me anyhow and I used to have a big leather coat boots that kind of stuff and I was on a big Harley Davidson with a sidecar I hated this son of a bitch Oh, jeez. Well, we had to eat. We had to stay alive, you know. And I used to ride that goddamn thing 125 miles a day bouncing around San Francisco. And of course, I'm going out with a lot of these guys at night and we're getting bombed. And I'm coming home at 3 o'clock in the morning and then I'm getting up at 7 o' clock and going down and getting on that goddamn thing and bouncing all over San Francisco But you got to remember one thing. I was 22 and 23 in those days. I could take it then, I thought. Liquor was never going to be a problem with me. Just like I had made my mind up because my mother and father were divorced, I was only going to become married one time. I'm on my third working on my fourth now. I was in that job for almost two years. and I was lucky I only had one accident really didn't get hurt I hit a truck one time and spun me around pulled me out of all my clothes and jeez I'm like this you know and the worst part about that accident that I can remember they sent another motorcycle out and I had to get on the god damn thing and finish the delivery you know on my 30th birthday in San Rafael they had a roast for me my sponsor's got 36 years and one of his smart ass nines to me was Bill Yeager who used to deliver teeth on his sidecar, and now he wears them. False teeth. But in the early part of 1934, I was taking off the motorcycle and I came inside and I went behind a counter and I was learning a little about the dental supply business. In the summer of 1935, we had quite a change in some of the management and a job came up as a college representative that would be to go to the dental colleges in San Francisco and get to know the students and try to sell them. Nobody else wanted the job, so I was it, you know. They always say, you can always tell a good salesman we hired him. Oh, shit, I didn't know if I could sell or not. But anyhow, now here's a good job for a potential alcoholic. I go to the dental parties, I go Tolliver School parties, go to all their formals, all their dances. I drink with all of them. Expense account. Office is paying for it. And it was pretty good, you know, because I like to drink. I like what booze does for me. I look at a group like this and if I'm a little nervous, I always think when I first start out, I think, Jesus, if I had about six martinis under my belt, I'd knock them on their ass, you now. But I'm glad I don't really, kids. But I stayed in that job and I learned the dental business like we all have to learn different things in life. And then in 19, I met a gal, and we did a lot of drinking. And I didn't realize that she was alcoholic when we were married. Because I didn' t know what the hell alcohol was. I didn''t know the first goddamn thing about it. And her folks were fairly well-to-do, and they bought us a nice home, and we had a son. And my first contact with Alcoholic Anonymous, we lived in the Parkside District in San Francisco, and we had twin beds. And we're lying on our twin beds and I'm reading the Saturday Evening Post. And it was the article on Alcoholic Anonymous. And it's rerunning in the Saturday evening post. It was in last month, and it's in this month, and it' s in next month. In three issues. And this is the first article ever on Alcoholics Anonymous And I can remember like it was yesterday. I can remeber the thoughts going through my mind. Jesus, I could only find this for my wife. For Mark, you know? Not me. Because I can kick a door down and a few things like that. Whack a few people on their ass, but have a few automobile accidents. But I don't have a problem because I can stop. I used to get sick as a son of a bitch. Have you ever been out at the beach and you heard the sea lines up by the cliff house? That's Jaeger when I'm going, you know. That's jaeger. As I used say, that was my spiritual awakening. Oh, God! Get me over this one, you know. The bathroom situation. But in my case, anyhow, for me, and I can only speak for me. I was very fortunate that the liquor worked on me the way it did. Because the way liquor worked upon me. And this is before I got married when I was running around a lot. We'd be going out on a party. And we'd all be doing a lot of drinking. and they used to stop at a grocery store and say, get us a box of soda crackers for Jaeger. And the girls would feed me soda crackers just to keep me from throwing up. And I ran around with some cute chicks. And I used to think I was the great lover of San Francisco, you know. I sure was, kid. You ever try to be the great love passed out under the bed? So I used to tune them up for somebody else. I lost more stuff than you could shake a stick at, but maybe it kept me out of trouble too long ago. But anyhow, I continued along as a salesman and I liked it and I like working with dentists. They're pretty good heads and I especially liked being at the dental colleges because I was pretty much my own boss. In other words, it was up to me on how hard I worked and what I sold determined my income. But in 1942, early part of 42, my wife and I were divorced due to her alcoholism period. And I had a little studio apartment in San Francisco. You know, the gay guy, that's a lot of crap too. I shouldn't use that expression today, should I? Get trapped. See what time does. We live in different worlds, really. And I had a lot of fun. And I have a bum elbow, and I still have it. I broke it when I was 10, and it dislocates just like that. And the war came along, and I decided that I had better go into the service. Now, I'm not a hero. Don't misunderstand me. Christ, I've not a fighter either. My first name was Wilford, W-I-L-F-O-R-D. I changed it early to Bill because I got tired of fighting. I can't fight, you know? But anyhow, I was working with the Coast Guard on some dental equipment. Oh, incidentally, I'll back up a little. I went out one night with my boss and there was a chick that I used to know that had a lot of connections with the big Kaiser shipyards. And she was a good-looking little doll but she liked to have the attention of every man. And anyhow, I thought, well, if I outget her again and we'll talk about this over some dinner and some drinks. And maybe she can get me into the people so that I can sell some dental equipment to the shipyards and, you know, people won't have to say, well, I've got to leave today because I have to go to the dentist because he's right there, kids. And we went over to a bar that we used to go to a lot in San Francisco, my boss and I. And I called her and she came down in a cab and we had a lot of belts on us. And then we went off over to North Beach to have dinner. Well, of course, when I'm drinking, screw the dinner, You know, what the hell? Why waste a good heat? So they're eating and I'm drinking. And we go up to the Fairmont Hotel and I had a room there called the Cirque Room. I guess it's still there. I don't know. Anyhow, it was quite an evening. And my boss' kid was a Navy Flyer. And there was a great big Navy captain. Great big tall, nice looking guy. Gray hair. And this gal and my boss lured her up mid-dance. and I'd stagger to the bar and have another belt and I can go out and have one with them and I kept bumping into this big native captain and I've got a short fuse sometimes but it's not very healthy either and anyhow I'd bump into him and I had a brand new double-breasted gray suit on and I gave him that crap you know I know there's a war on and I respect your uniform but goddammit respect mine and knock this shit off about bumping into me Well, my boss had invited him over to the table to have a drink with us, but I didn't know that. Well, anyhow, when I decided to go into the service, I decided that the Navy wasn't for me. I'd still be in the bills if that guy ever got a hold of me, if he remembered too the next day. And I didn' t want the Army. I'm lazy. Who in the Christ wants to walk all around and then the infantry and all that? And I had sold some equipment to the Coast Guard. And I thought, boy, there's a sea going out. But now you have to realize, I was a well-traveled guy. Born in Sacramento, lived in Marin County, Oakland, Berkeley, had been up to Eureka, once to Reno, and down as far south as Los Angeles, you know. Now really, that's a lot of traveling. So I thought, I'll go join the Coast Guard, and I'll do it as an apprentice seaman, because I didn't want anything to do with the dental supply business. I could have gone in as an officer or a chief and got a rate, but screw the dental supply business. I'll work my way up. That's a crop, too, kids. So I picked the Coast Guard because I'd have a bed to sleep in and I'd eat off a plate and maybe I would see some of the world without getting shot at, you know. So we took our boot camp over on Government Island in Alameda and they shipped us from southwestern Oregon and oh, I did get there as far south as Seattle, far north, really. and they sent us down to a little town on the southwest of Oregon called Bandon. Bandon by the sea. What a joint that was, Christ. So here I am and I don't like to walk and I'm on beach patrol. I'm going 16 miles a night with a goddamn radio on my back, you know. With a great big Doberman pincher used to hold on me and I'd let him hold me but I tell you there's something those dogs. But I'd been up there about five months I guess and we went to a dance at a little town. And to this day, I really can't tell you what happened. I was bombed. And I got to tell you, I'm a little heavy today, but I used to weigh 135, 140 pounds dripping wet. So that was a cocky burn. And there's a 180-pound maroon there. And I don't know what I said to him whether I told them to kiss my ass or what. I really don't. The next thing, I'm on my back. They belted me one. And someplace in my life, someone said, if you get knocked down, get up. Don't believe them, kids. I got up two more times. He knocked me down two more time and broke my jaw in about four places and really screwed me up. And I came home on leave and met my second wife. Anyhow, I conned her into coming up to Southwestern Oregon and by that time they'd found my elbow and put me on limited duty and I knew I wasn't going anyplace. And then they made a mess cook out of me, and I would go every three months up to Seattle, which is about 600 miles away, and shake left-handed with the captain, medical man, and he'd say, go back, you're all right. The old man would say, when I get back, what'd they say? Can't lift anything over 25 pounds. Can't do any boat drills. I used to hate that. We used to tilt those goddamn boats over and drown near drowned, you know, and freeze to death in writing. and uh so i i became a manuscript and um i got so that i couldn't carry over 15 pounds but i worked and the only reason i and i was a captain of the head a lot of times that's a good job i tell you i can scrub and clean a head better than anybody ever met and uh but i knew that when i get back into civilian life that i was going to be a salesman and if you're a lazy salesman you don't make it kids because it's perspiration and shoe leather and you've got to work. Well, I got discharged in 1945 when I came back to San Francisco and went back into the dental supply business. And then I left this Edwards company I worked for and went to the big lab a friend of mine was opening up and then I was going to get... Oh, and I went on a wagon. I went in the wagon and quit smoking. Goddamn retrieved my fingernails right down with the nub. And I was a real calm kid. so uh i uh i went to this friend of mine who was a reconstruction man and he said well it costs you a thousand dollars to fix your mouth and uh which was a gift really during his fee and you paid for the lab bill today that would probably be about 15 grand or more so i did the thing that all alcoholics do i went through the bank and i borrowed some money and I bought an extra $300, and I stopped and bought a bottle, and I was off and running again. And now I'm getting into trouble. So we, my second wife, we had a son, Brett, and we're living out in 7th Avenue in kind of a dump. It's real hard to find any place to live in those days. And this doctor that was treating me was telling me that he came out to the house. that was it this night and he said if I could help you if I had more time I'd be able to help you to find out what you drank tried to get me in the veterans and couldn't get me in there so he said will you go to the San Francisco Psychopathic and I said sure fine if I played golf I'd have taken golf clubs with me I thought I was going through a real rest period Jesus Christ what a fucking snake pit oh I tell ya it was a great big room about oh, maybe ten times bigger than this with beds all over and guys shaking. I couldn't even light a cigarette on this one, you know. And they give you some Peraldehyde. You talk about getting something to knock you on your ass. You've got to try that stuff. Really make you go mellow. And I want to get out of there, you now. I'm saying that they've got these great big orderlies. And I say, Jesus Christ. Guys are tied down and moaning and groaning. This is no rest cure, you kno. So I went for a rest cure. I've been working hard, kids. Working hard. two ways at the bottle and trying to keep my bosses from catching me drinking so and of course I had to be careful because these artillers reminded me of that Marine Jesus he's a great big guy he's not about that wide so finally they turned the lights out at about 10 o'clock and about 11.30 a guy shook me and it was a doctor and he said I understand you don't like this place and I said Jesus Christ who would and i said i know i got a bruise problem but this isn't the spot for me well he said if i let you go can you can you get home all right and i was like hell yes it was i remember it was a three day holiday so it must have been memorial day or something like that i take everything away from you've got a buck and i think your toothbrush and that's it so i gallop home my poor patient wife is thinking jesus that guy's gone for a week i can get some rest and i come staggering And then I'm worse off than when I left, you know, because I'm full of paraldehyde. Jeez, I'll really rock you kids, I tell you. So I stopped drinking. But, you now, I was off and on. I was always a periodic drunk. I'm not one of these people who can really drink day in, drink day out, day in. I had a habit of drinking. I'd start to drink. And then, I'd drink some more. And then、 I'd get sick as the son of a bitch. You ever hear the seals out at Seal Rock? That was Jaeger, boy. I'll tell you that. I'd let him go. That's where I used to do my praying, my spiritual progress, with my hands around the can throwing up saying, Dear God, get me over this one and I'll never go again until the next time. We moved to Marin County in the fall of 1949. I was reading the paper and it said, Veterans, if your income qualifies and we were living in a cracker box in San Francisco and I galloped over and it was a block, two blocks from where I lived as a kid. And I could get in there for 500 bucks down payment which I didn't have. But anyhow, I went ahead and applied for the loan and the boss lent me 500 bucks to stick in the bank while they checked my credit so that I had some money. And then after we moved in they lent me the down payment and I moved in there and I was there about a week, and I went on with pretty good heat. And that was in October of 1949. And, of course, I was in that setup where I wasn't intentionally drinking, and I didn't want to get drunk, but when I would drink, I'd get drunk. Bingo. I didn'T seem to have any control over it. And I was a periodic with the periods getting closer and closer. so uh i remember uh we had a flat top and i can you had a big bird feeder out in the yard well it was mostly lawn anyhow in the beginning and he used to have a goddamn blue jay that would land on top of that we had flat top you know gravel land on that thing with his boots on when I had a hangover. So, but I was still Oh, incidentally, I'm back with my old company, the Edwards-Denis-Circum, the Afrigari. I forgot. I missed a little part there. I left the dental laboratory where I was for a couple of years and now back with my old family. And I'm beefing with the general manager. I never did like the son of a bitch. he's dead now so I'd had an argument with him and I used to at this time I'm just working one dental college I work in University of California so I came in one morning and I'd left a little earlier the night before with a friend of mine and my sales manager said to me Benjamin wants you wants me to tell you the hours are 8.35 and I said what the hell's the matter with him telling me and he said i'm telling you and i said since when i'm a salesman since one of my hours 8 30 to 5 i don't see you paying me any overtime and i worked with 12 o'clock at night or weekends or anything else well he says that's what the story is and i was like fine you go back and tell ben what he can do with it i'm going straight from home to uc college and i'm going straight home from the college to home you find out when the hell i get there and you learn that when I leave. Not to mention once a week and pick up my expenses, which is about the way it went. I got the guy that was in charge of the student store out there, I got him his job. So on Monday, I'm drunk and I can't get out of bed and I pick the phone up and I call Bill Bill Price is his name and I say, Bill, cover me. So the office calls home and says, is Bill home? My wife naturally, she's going to protect me, we've got to pay the bills. No, he's gone to work. They'd call out to Cal and he'd say, yeah, he was here, he used to down at one of the fraternity houses or something. They couldn't find me for two days. Christ, by that time, you know, I could walk again, see? I'm getting out of it. But, just, I was having some terrible times down there. Jesus, I hated the sun to come up in the morning when I was drinking. Absolutely just hated it. I hated that goddamn blue jay, too. I, uh... The phone would ring and I'd break into a cold sweat, you now. but I didn't know what the hell to do about it. I knew I had a problem, I knew how he was drinking too much, but I did not know where to go. I had not remembered Alcoholic Anonymous. Geez, I was flat on my ass and we did not have any dough. I did NOT have a car. I had sold my last car in 1942. I drove an office car off and on for business. Anyhow, my wife got a condition in her hands and she was going into the hospital. And my mother-in-law was coming down from Sacramento. Incidentally, I had my son by my first marriage and now I have a daughter and a son. A year and a half to two years and six months, one and something like that. She's going to take care of the children. So I'm in one of my sober periods. And the big boss was east, so my sales manager said to me, who we used to go on a lot of tubes together, do you want to use the office car? And I said, sure. So I came home on a Friday night and stopped and bought a lot of stuff for my mother-in-law. I used to like Behringer Brothers Chablis wine. I picked up a nice bottle of that, had a couple of belts. Next morning, it's a nice day, I get out in the vegetable garden. We had a big yard and I was in shorts. They used to call me Mahatma Gandhi. I was really built, kids. So I came in about 11 o'clock. I came into the, opened the refrigerator and there was the wine and I belted it down and I went galloping downtown and picked up another half gallon and she said I was off to the races. And I was buying a lot of half pints of, then I got tired of it. Screw the wine. I began to buy bourbon. And I Was Buying Half Pints So My Mother-in-Law Wouldn't Know I Was Drinking. and uh i uh let's see i had a deal i'm trying to remember about this a long time ago but anyhow i had to deal down the peninsula and i lost that and i was in menlo park on tuesday and that deal was all right i went someplace else on wednesday thursday i drove down the monterey or pacific grove and i for the first time in my life i carried a bottle in the car and it wasn't my car. It was an office car. And in the meantime, of course, I'm drinking. I've been thrown out of the hospital about four times. So I lost this deal in Monterey and I came home in the afternoon, turned the car into the office and went home. And that Friday night, it's kind of like it was yesterday in some respects. We had big windows, you know, four feet wide up and down. I remember about 11 o'clock crying and telling my mother-in-law, Well, you know, I had this problem with Bruce, but I didn't know what to do about it. I didn' t know who to call. We had Alcoholic Anonymous that ran a little ad in our local paper. Post Office Box such and such. Jesus Christ, where's that kid? So she said, well, you go to bed and I'll get in touch with him in the morning. So I popped down probably another half a pint and I was nice and warm and went to bed. I always woke up with a hangover. and she said there'll be some gentlemen over to see you about one o'clock now I god damn knew they didn't get here because I came into this a little back asswards she called the chief of police in the little town of Cordo Madero and she said I need someone to help my son-in-law he's having a drinking problem and he said well I know Peter James Reichel who lives in Larkspur and he's an alcoholic anonymous call him So she calls him. And he said, well, you've got this little back-asserts. He said, the son-in-law's supposed to call, not the mother-in law. He says all son-ins-laws are drunks to mother-ins laws anyhow. She said, Well, Mr. Weichel, the chief of police, according to the dairy, requested I call you. Well, he owed them a couple of favors. He says, Ruby over. So that's how close I came, kids. They dragged me up and gave me a couple shots or something. and I went to my first meeting on a Monday night and I felt like somebody had hit me with a two-by-four. We had two meetings a week in Marin County then. We have 105 now. I don't remember what the hell anybody said, but I do remember it was like losing 100 pounds off my back, you know? Really. I was at home or something. I don' t know. We had a little old lady there that started AA in alcoholic anonymous and she reminded me of Whistler's grandmother, you notice? She was sitting there knitting. And as I was leaving, I said to my sponsor, Jim, I said, well, I'll buy everything I heard tonight. I couldn't remember any of it, but don't tell me that little old gal's an alcoholic. She'd ridden the donor out of World War I in France. She rode a horse naked into their offices club drunk and a few things like that. This is somebody's grandmother, you know, sweet-looking little thing. and I wish I could say that everything just got marvelous from that point on and I was on cloud nine the rest of my life and all that stuff but that's not the way it went for me kids I've never had a drink from that day to this day but I was working harder and I didn't realize what was happening when you're sober you always work harder and if you work harder you're going to sell more people If you sell more people, you're going to make more money. And my income... I'm moaning and groaning and crying and my income doubles and I'm still moaning and groaning and crying and, you know. And I don't like some of the things about the program. Screw the spiritual side. I was as agnostic as I can and I was a cocky... Well, I won't say it but too many ladies here. But anyhow, you know what I'm talking about. And I rewrote the big book I guess twice My version was pretty good, kids. But it weren't the whole water. And a funny thing happened. I stopped drinking and my second wife, her alcoholism showed up. So now I've got an alcoholic wife, two small children, and my 10, 11-year-old son by my first marriage. And things are getting much better. I'm making more money. Finally buy a car and a few other things. You know, I was around A a long time. And I thought, you know, I hear these people talk about 502s. I never had a 502. And one day I woke up and thought to Christ's sakes, I didn't own a car for 10 years. They don't give too many for walking, you Know. So anyhow, things financially kept getting better. And I had decided that if it was the last thing I was ever going to do, I was going to sober up my wife which I never did but by God I was going to try and I liked AA I was lucky even though I didn't have a spiritual side and I was argumentative on a lot of things I realized when I hit the program that when I look back over my life I could not really honestly say that getting drunk had ever accomplished anything for me it hadn't accomplished anything really I had a lot of negatives geez I'd hate to tell you how much, well we didn't get into that one either kids. How many times I tuned them up and missed them you know. But anyhow things kept getting better. I kept making more money and we had a nice home now. We still have a house but it's expanded and things are coming along real good. And so then I start dragging my ex up to, we have a place called Truman's in Northern California. I don't know if you know about it. It's a dry and hot place, and we have another one called Azure Acres. And I'm popping her between these two places, hoping she'll sober up. And then I popped her into the Ross Hospital program. We had a month up there. And of course, in those days, things were a little different. I couldn't get her to go, so I would have to go up to the district authority and put charges on her for drunkenness, and the cops would come down and pick her up and then we would go to court and then she would agree to do it. But of course, it wasn't making any points for me. I mean, this is getting a little tough on the relationship. But what the hell are you supposed to do? Let them lay there and die, you know? It's real difficult. It was for me, anyhow. Well, and let's see, she was in and out. Oh, I tried to start a business in 1958 when I asked over tea cattle and didn't work. And then I went out in 1962 with a friend of mine, 62, and we were going to buy a dental supply company by selling stock to dentists. By this time, I knew thousands of dentists and I had a good reputation and I was going to sell and I have a good reputations because I've learned how to call a denominist and my reputation was that I was propped and I wasn't going to screw anybody and the program was working in my business as well as my life But I, where in the hell was I? 62. That's right. I'm starting another dental spy company. We're going to buy this big company and we're going to sell stock to all the dentists and live happily ever after. God bless you all. Anyhow, what happened was that, and my partner was going to finance me. He had some money. And the day I started, he got sick the next day and went in the hospital. And this guy was an alcoholic, and I didn't know it. Never dreamed that he had a booze problem. So I'm knocking my brains out, and we're selling, it's going good. Everything's going along pretty well. And I need money, so I refinance the house. And I refinanced it a second time right up to the hill. and after a year we went ass over teak cattle geez I'm ready to throw up my sponsor said to me well you're in a better position than you've ever been and I said what the hell are you giving me I'm in a bad position than I've ever had and he said well things really you're not in a good position and I say but you know Jimmy you're quite an a-hole I got $1500 in the bank I used to owe $6000 in the house and I owed $20 or $24 whatever the hell it was and I don't have a job, well, you just keep praying. That's all. Keep praying. So I got a job offer here. I'm not that good. I guess it was just tough that time that I needed some help. And I got the job offer there and I'd call him up and he'd say, well, what do you think of it? And I'd go on it. And he'd said, well, keep praying and finally I got that job offer. I got job offer out of a company up in Portland. I knew some of the guys and it was strictly commissioned which I had never done before. And I called up and I said, well, I'm going to take this job. What do I do now? And he says, well, for Christ's sake, stop praying. Just previous to this time, when I'm running scared, I decide, now I've been around 12 years, kid, and I decide I want the spiritual side of the program. Boy, I want it right now, you know. It doesn't come that way. And I've got things in the car, let go and let God, and boy, I'm really serving on the mount, nine pounds and everything, really going after it. but it was working I didn't know I used to smoke four packs a day and I had the flu one time the doctor came by gave me a pitch and I've never had a cigarette from that date it is and it just left like that I can take no credit for it it was looking I didn' t realize it was walking and as I say this job thing came up this new job came up and I went up to Portland to where the company was located and my ex's home, Brock. And I always know this as a cat. I've never been strictly on commission in my life. In other words, this is if you don't get any sales you're not going to be dough kids. If you don' t have any dough you can't pay your bills. I was a great one always for running the show. I always thought I'll run the goddamn thing. They always said let go and let God win and for Christ's sake who's going to run it if I don't run it? I found a lot of things happen. And if we don't surrender easily, boy, I'll tell you they'll drown you a lot of times before you get the message. So this job turned out very well. And I made quite a bit of money. And everything was going great. And I had an older brother who came into AA in about 1955. And I didn't know him very well, and he came galloping over the house one time, and he had left his life, and then he lived with us for about four months. And he was kind of a no-good son of a bitch, but he was still my brother. And unbeknownst to me, he and my ex-wife started playing house. And I didn't know this. I was back east, Chicago, on a big dental convention. I came back. My brother said, Jimmy, Barbara wants a divorce. And I said, well, why in the hell didn't she tell me? And he said, well, she's nervous, I'll tell you. So I took her up to Reno and paid for the attorney and agreed on everything and gave her a thousand bucks and I had a few bucks in. And the night I left, she got dead drunk, fell down compound fractured an ankle. And so my brother and my sister, or my daughter rather, went up to stay with my ex-wife and I wondered at the time, what the hell is he going up there for, you know? well to make a long story short she had to have future surgery so she gave up the divorce and came home and then again i make another trip i went to elko for a five-day trip and i came home and i was home two days and my ex ran away and what happened was that my 16 year old son who loved his mother dearly walked into the bedroom and found them in bed together and of course was afraid to tell me. And, of course, I'm a very vindictive type of person. I'm the son of a bitch when I get going. And I'm just glad I didn't catch him the first six months or the first three months. I wouldn't be here. I don't know where the hell I'd be. But I just burn up. I burn up with hatred. God, I used to go to bed at night and I'd say this serenity prayer time after time after town. And it had been about two or three days we used to have a Sunday breakfast group in Marin County. And I went to the breakfast group and some little chick tripped me up and that was the end of the ball game, kids. Jesus, I never knew what happened. I'm never going to get married again. We've got 14 years now. We do pretty good today too because we stopped taking each other's inventory a number of years ago and it helps. but but Jan and I were married she had three children my oldest boy was married and things went along pretty good my youngest boy went in the service he came home on a leave took an overdose of drugs and killed him excuse me that's 14 years ago. You know, it still looked tough when you get out there. Anyhow, we went to a friend's place up in the mountains and stayed there. I knew a guy down south by the name of Clancy Ishmael. I'm not going to repeat this. Some of you have heard him. He was quite a prominent speaker. And I said to Jan, Jesus, I've got to get help. I couldn't go to Marin County. I couldn't talk to my friends. I was too emotionally upset, and we went down south, and I started getting better. And things went along pretty good, and I got a different type of job, and things were going pretty good. And then my oldest boy killed himself over booze and shot himself. And I thought, oh, boy, here goes the ball game. And then, my daughter went into deep mental depression and tried to kill herself a dozen times. She had hyperplasemia, low blood sugar, but we didn't find this out for seven years, and nobody ever gave her a test. But you see, what carried me through was my friends in the program and all of the things that we learned in the program. One of my friends said to me one time, what we do today when we can take care of ourselves will determine what happens to us tomorrow when we're helpless. I thought that time would never come for me and it hit me three times. You know, it's like the time that the guy was talking to his friend and they were playing poker and the guy says i can't play anymore and he said well why not he said christ my wife gives me hell every night i come home he said tell me what do you do he said i sneak up the house coast the car and take my shoes off and he says if i have to go to the can i don't even go to the can I'd sneak into bed and she says god damn you how much did you win and if I don't win she gives me hell he said I just can't stand it the guy said you got it all wrong kid he said I got a nice car and I drive up in front of the house and I zoom the motor and I come in I turn all the lights off. I spent a lot of money in that house. I want to look at it. I run upstairs, and if I go to the can, hell, I flush it twice. He says, I walk into the bedroom, I take my coat off, and I swing my coat around, and I said, well, who's for some lovin' tonight? And he says, 99 out of 100 times, she won't work out. But, anyhow, Well, we tried a lot of different things. I tried to start a business with a friend of mine. And it was a high-speed handpiece, and it was going to be my retirement. I'm 72 now. And really, I guess things happen that help us as we go through life because I'd never be satisfied being retired. What the hell would I do if he's sitting on my ass and I like to fish and we have a boat, but who in the hell can fish all day? and, you know, it really doesn't go. It's not that good. And it took us instead of three months to get this thing on the market, it took me three years and we sold all our stocks and bonds and the price we were willing to get up through our, I'll say, forehead. That's politer. And then we got production going and in the first year we had $30,000. And that was our share, around 10% of them. I thought, boy, we're off and running. well anyhow to make a long story short the guy we had a limited partnership and this friend of ours who was manufacturing changed something and blew us out on the market we put another $50,000 in it got back on the market again and he came out with a competitive handpiece and blew his right out of the picture and he'd never been in the business or soon but you know how long that'll take I'll be dead when it's all over but seems like if you behave yourself and if you try things take care of themselves and I started doing I'm an independent worker. I sell services. I started doing inventories and appraisals and evaluations for dental practices, and I get a pretty good fee for it, and I never know where I'm going. We haven't been in the San Jose area for about a year, and we've got seven deals and two months down here. One dentist died, and another guy got hit by an automobile accident, another had a divorce. You know, these things happen, and I come in and tell them, do the inventory and appraise and tell them what the equipment's worth. My lovely wife does the typing. Oh, incidentally, my daughter, Linda, who had hypoglycemia, which, incidently, we all, most of us have as alcoholics. I don't know if you realize it or not. And it'd be wise to take a hypoglycemic low blood sugar test. Everything's fine now. Limited diet. Marvelous little girl. 32 years old. But they stole seven years of her life, you see. but if you continue to work I don't know how well I've worked the program or how well I've looked the steps I try and sometimes I think I do pretty good and sometimes oh Jesus it hits a fan you know and just doesn't work but if you try to be honest and if you're trying to be fair and try to help other people I'm one of the co-founders of our Alana Club in Orange County which I'm quite proud of. We are now selling dental practices. I'll bring this one up. Ken and I went to a real estate school and really got cracking on it, studied and everything else and passed the goddamn thing, believe it or not. And the kids asked me to talk up in Marin County and I said, well can you hold off a couple of weeks because I said to the secretary I think I'm going to hear from the real estate board and they would make a nice pitch that I could say, you know, Jesus, look at my age. If your kids are worried about your future, you can get anything you want if you're going for it. So they said, okay, we'll wait three weeks. And so I made a nice pitch that night and I sat down and Jan said, yeah, so you forgot to tell them about the real estate license. But it's a hell of a program, really. I'd have been dead a long time ago. Long, long time. And I like the little 24-hour book. i do have a strong spiritual program now there's not a long long time coming for me kids you don't have to follow my tracks my tracks weren't too good other than i stayed sober and as long as you stay sober you got a shot at the deal you know as long As you stay so when you don t drink regardless of what the hell happens a uh my worst hang sober is so much better than my best time drunk. And I should have been in the canyon. You know, I drive across the San Rafael Bridge a lot of times and I look at San Quentin Prison and I think, Jesus Christ, boy, am I lucky I'm not there. You now, I could have killed a lot people. I remember driving across the Bay Bridge before when World War II was on and it was one lane and I'm hitting both sides at four o'clock in the morning and stuff like that. And, I never got picked up. I had one accident in Marin County, and in those days you stopped and gave your card and your driver's license and would continue on. And I hit this guy, I thought I missed him five feet, and I blew all these tires out, and he had two kids out, but I gave him a card and I get back in the car, and this was during my drinking days. As we passed, you could end up down the Golden Gate Bridge, you make a swing like this to pay the toll, and I had a piece of metal out this far. And this is the boss' new car, he just bought it after the war, but I took the whole side of a new Buick. But anyhow, I don't do those things anymore. I don' t have to drink any more. I'm one of the survivors and one of the lucky ones. And you know, we all want to change life as we go through life. I always wanted to do a lot of things that I've never accomplished. But I found out one time that And I can tell myself I can change the world. Thank you.