The Promises Are Not Just Words, a Sick Angry Man Lives Happy Joyous and Free – Cliff R.

Hi, I'm Cliff Roach and I'm an alcoholic. Glad to be here, grateful to the committee for inviting us, my Al-Anon and I. You know how they introduce us, have you met my alcoholic? Sit up boy, sit up, sit. So, my, Al-Anon and I are tickled to death to be here. We've got a great basket in the room. I can hardly wait to get up there and start eating. It's a real superior one. I might not be the best speaker you ever heard, but I'm the ugliest one you've ever seen, I'm sure. I have been constantly being exposed to the sun all my life. Because I'm retarded. I have pre-cancerous things all over me. If you let them go, they become cancers and that's not a good idea. And so the doctor suggested I put on this stuff called Effudex. Just spread it around. And I look like I just walked through a forest fire. The lighting here is terrible. that's how I'm not usually grateful for that but she's great tonight I just got these and of course it anyway anyway you know as of Wednesday I just didn't see how any way I could wear clothes and then those airfare they're so narrow on those airplanes you know know what I mean? They want you to be clothed. But I'm very grateful we could be here, and I'm really glad to be here. And I really enjoyed Nancy's talk. She is a very sick Al-Anon. I'm always glad when AAs get to hear a real sick one, you know what I mean. You know, you'll leave feeling a little better about yourself. Well, that I was in Al-Anon. She's crazier than me, for Christ's sake. That makes you feel good. So thank you, Nancy. It's really interesting that your son drank after almost 11 years. We had a daughter just a couple of years ago who did the same thing. And she has over a year now. She's going strong. She's back in the program. It seems your son is too. So not everybody gets sober and lives happily ever after. If you're new here, I'm sorry to let you know. And I knew you had your hopes up too. Freedom in sobriety. You know, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Freedom in sobriety, whether you be an AA or Al-Anon, sobriery has a broad spectrum of meanings. The one in AA, we're pretty sure what that one is. You know, we don't drink one day at a time. But freedom and sobriety. I remember March says, F-I-S. I said, what the hell is the F-O-R-E-S? Sounds like some Irish organization to me. And she said, well, freedom and subriety, I thought that was obvious. You're talking to an alcoholic, FIS, I could do a ton of stuff with that. I could give you 45 of that. But freedom in sobriety, amen, amen. I was sober maybe close to two years. And I had been working on a second inventory. And it was really late one night and I was reading the big book. And I'd read the big books. I'd written the big week by that time probably six times. And in the middle of the night, 3 o'clock in the morning, I'm reading and all of a sudden I saw the promises I'd read them six times but I saw them you're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness you will not regret the past and the reason I hadn't seen them for two years is because they had up till then And it's only just about then they had started to come true in my life. They had started to happen to me. I was a slow learner, but what the hell, you know what I mean? And I love the phrasing and the promises, don't you? A new freedom and a new happiness. You know, my ideas of freedom and happiness would make you vomit. You would be terrified, run from the room, because my ideas of freedom and happiness were pretty sick but Nancy touched on the freedom and the happiness the third step prayer says relieve me of the bondage of self and that's why I love Al-Anon's I adore Al-ANon's I love mine you're through if you give me half a chance I love Al-Alanon's individually Individually, collectively, I love the organization of Al-Anon's and I appreciate them. I appreciate them very much. I don't understand them at all. Spending all that time thinking about somebody else. What a waste! You know, I'm not much, but I'm all I think about. Relieve me of the bondage of self. I was dying of self when I got here. Completely dying of it. And I'm still far too obsessed with self. But you, you know, there's so many sickos here that you always can find somebody worse off than you. and trying to give this thing away as nancy said trying to give this thing away learning to love you and to care about you and go out of my way for you relieved of the obsession for self it says right in the middle no matter how far down the scale we're going we'll see how our experience can benefit others i love this phrasing here that feeling of uselessness and and self-pity will disappear. Bill took an English class one time, Bill Wilson, and I taught English. So everybody knows that that's not correct. It should be these feelings of uselessness and self pity. Bill knew just exactly what he was writing, didn't he? That feeling of uselessnes and self pitty will disappear disappear. They're the same feeling. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. I'm waiting on that. Growth, not spirituality. Spirituality. We're getting there. We are not saints today. And Nancy didn't much drinking. I talk much about drinking, so I better talk about drinking so we'll know we're in the right meeting. I love to drink. I like to taste the booze. You ever hear these weenies? You know, get up here and say, I never cared for the taste of alcohol. I always want to say, would you care for the Taste of These? I love booze. I like sour mash bourbon whiskey the best. Ah, there's one. There's one, there is one. I like the ones that go, when I talk about taking a triple shot of Yellowstone and just a little water, it's enough to rinse your mouth, you go, and there's usually somebody who goes, you know, and you let that slide down. I love the burning when you swallow it. Oh, I love that part. I love that part and then you just take the water and rinse your mouth and if you want to, you swallow the water in a real nice restaurant. I used to like to go I made a rainbow Oh, that'll put an Ellen on right under the table What the hell are you doing under there? You married guys, you remember that? Don't you think you had a few too many? I used to say you had a few to few. That's your problem, lady. Counting, counting That's your fifth one today Will you just shut up and eat your breakfast for Christ's sake But I had a drinking problem long before I met Pat I always have been you know I was raised in an alcoholic family oh really it was an Irish family and everybody my family's are drunk and I'm the only one alive because I went to the a&a you know but in also in my family we had a real macho thing an Irish family you know my dad Dad and my uncles were really tough guys, really, really tough boys. I had this back problem, a big yellow streak down the middle of it. But when I would get enough to drink, you know, I could be brave. I always thought brave and tough were synonyms. No, no, no. That's called step two. Because, you know, the very millisecond that I would get enough booze to become brave, I would lose my muscle coordination. You can get seriously damaged doing that. And I was kind of a spectacular drunk and did a lot of wild and crazy things. And then I met Pat in college, my Al-Anon. She's going to be speaking tomorrow at the luncheon. If you want to hear what happened, listen tomorrow. What the hell would I know about it? Most of my life is hearsay. I spent my life saying, I did? oh I'm sorry when I married her and it became her say so I don't know but she remember you know she remembers as Bill sees it and Lois remember pretty good right on. And I met her, I met Pat in college. She was down on Skid Row looking for an alcoholic to abuse her. And you're looking to be abused. And we entered this 20-year suicide pact. We had that dreaded dual disease, and some of you might have had it, alcoholism and Catholicism. Consequently, we had a kid every nine months and 20 minutes. What it seemed like to me, you know, every time I came out of a blackout, eee! Not another one! And they're all right when they're little like kittens, huh, Nancy? And unfortunately they grow, and the older they got, the weirder they got. God knows the weirders she got, and I was the head nut. And a lot of great times we had, a lot o' great times. A lot of it around booze, lots o' good times. Lots o' horrible times, lots of things I'd rather never remember. I became a schoolteacher guy commits felonies and blackouts becomes the school teacher just a hobby I never had a good blackout I've been looking for years for somebody in a who says I had delightful blackouts yes not what I never woke up in the morning and found out helped the Little Sisters of the the poor all night. Mother Teresa and I had not been an 18. All kinds of trouble. So then I became a teacher. I became very paranoid about blackouts. I began terrified of blackouts because, you know, when you commit felonies, then they call you up to Sacramento and take your license away. And so I became more and more and More and more a daily drunk. I had had to drink every day because I couldn't stand to be alive unless I could drink every day. And that's the part of my drinking I like to remember, that day, getting up in the morning, remember calling Ralph? Ralph! Oh, see, you just get down to just you and Ralph! I hate that part. There's a freedom right there. I was sober five years and I I got some bad food or something. We've been up to a roundup or something, and I'm barfing about three in the morning, you know, and I am down to nothing just calling Ralph. And I had a spiritual awakening. I'm not joking. This was one of the greatest spiritual awakenings I ever had. I realized that I had not puked in five years. And I also realized that that I don't like to puke, but I thought it went with life. You know what I mean? At least four days a week, you puke. Uh, I thought everybody did except her. Couldn't get out. down down and we had these five kids and they were getting crazier and crazier in life was getting crazer and crazer I went to a a the first time I gotta watch my tongue here uh-huh I went went to aaa the first time in 1965 uh we were living in oceanside where we still live today oceansides is 30 miles north of san diego and another guy and i'd gotten a surf shop down at the beach in the summer uh gonna make a fortune never have to teach school again i was a surfer dude that's where all this crap came from uh that's why they're burning me up today uh but But we loved the place. It was great. We had this right down on the beach. If I move my feet, it comes through here. Gives me an idea. No, never mind. And the mayor of the town gave us this little building right on the Beach, you know, and donated us the building because he was saving it to make a fortune later, which he did. But it was right on water. Can you imagine? Sitting right on The Beach. We had to fix it up. It had been all beat up. We put windows in and fixed it all up And got a refrigerator A little slow tonight, folks Later we got some surfboards too Oh, we'd sit there in the evening And we became sunset connoisseurs Woody and I We used to measure sunsets by martinis I said, looks like about an eight tonight Woody somebody come down say i'd like to rent a surfboard get out of here we're watching the sunset now the best one we ever had was a 15 martini sunset oh it was glorious you should have seen it the sun and woody and i went right together they found us in the morning with sunburned mouths remember that I think that should be on the 20 questions you ever had a sunburned mouth nah get them real go on back out you haven't had enough yet and we did really well that one summer but the next winter in February of 1965 I went down on a Sunday morning to repair a board it was freezing cold we weren't open because we were both teaching school again I just went down to fix the board on a Sunday morning, and I had a hangover. Oh, on Sunday morning. And I was really thirsty. Oh, really? And I went to the refrigerator, and Woody had been there the night before. Now, I'm not a morning drinker in 1965, but Woody had left about this much vodka at a half pint, about a little. My dad would have called it a lick and a smell. And there was some orange juice in the refrigerator and I thought, ooh, that'll put the fire out. So I just mixed up this little bitty drink and drank it and went on about my business and I'm standing on the board and about 10-15 minutes went by and that little bit of vodka circulated and then it went and my mind talked to me. It said, shame on you Cliff, left, shame, shame. That was Woody's booze you drank. Why don't you go up to the liquor store? And I did. I got Woody a pint. That's the kind of guy I am. That afternoon, I got him a fifth. And I ended up drunk. Remember when you would say you were drunk? I won't only been drunk twice in my life. I crawled home. That was a tip right away there, you know, on my hands and knees, 11 blocks. The shop was a mess, resin all over me. The board was screwed forever. And the next morning I got up sick and said to Pat, I got to do something about my drinking. I'm getting drunk when I don't even mean to. And she had cut this thing out of the paper about the ANA. I don't know why she thought to do that. And it said what it's always said, huh? If you want a drink, that's your business. If you wanna quit, call Alcoholics Anonymous. Only ad we've ever had. Perfect as far as I'm concerned. It's perfect. We're not a treatment center, you know? We're nicht a do-gooder society. We're a bunch of drunks hanging out together to stay sober through the help of a spiritual power. We are not even very nice folks, you now what I mean? So if you want a drink, pal, have at it. Go! You know, when you're ready, come tell us. And then we'll go to the ends of the earth for you, if you wanna quit. We'll go to the end of the Earth for you. This room is full of people who would go go to the end or for any newcomer in this room tonight because we have to to stay alive we lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows that's how we stay here but uh i went to a couple aa meeting a little stand came and got me in i realized right away i'd made a grievous error i had been hasty So you've got to remember, I'm a highly educated man. I have degrees, you know. And these people seem to have the collective IQ of an orange. I mean... I tried to help them. About the third night, this guy said, Hey, we keep it simple here. I said, No! You sure could have fooled me, Leroy. And anyway, I didn't like AA, so I used to come to a Sunday night meeting there once in a while where they had a speaker and I would sit in the back and judge, you know, because I teach speech. And none of them measured up at all. And what I really couldn't tell them was that But when I drink, after I drink a half an hour or 40 minutes. And I don't care whether it's beer or what the hell it is. I love it all. You know, I love the taste of all of it. Vanilla extract. I'm not real crazy about vanilla extract. But if that's what you're drinking, hey, okay, let's go. You have to admit it has bouquet. but after i drank about 30 or 40 minutes something happens to me i don't know about you it's my story after i drink about 40 minutes something happens to me now before i ever drank when i was four years old i had this big black rock in the middle of my solar plexus and that rock ruled my life on a good day it was the size of a softball on a bad day it It was the size of a basketball, but the size isn't as important. It ruled my life. I never had a thought or a reaction or an emotion in my life that wasn't generated, controlled by that black rock in the middle of my body. And if you don't know, and I think some of you do, it's a hell of a way to live. It's horrible. It's painful. But I thought that was the way I was going to have to live, but when I was 16 years old, I found a great secret. After I drink about 40 minutes, something happens. As I look back on it from my vantage point of sobriety, it was like I would disengage whatever lobe of the brain was connected to that black ball. And then for like eight minutes, everything in my life was all right. I wasn't mad at you and you weren't mad about me. I'm okay, you're okay. As a matter of fact, I like you a lot. I mean I am enough for eight minutes every day and I'm grateful for that eight minutes because it kept me alive till I got to you because if I hadn't had that eight minutes I'd have had to kill you or you would have had to kill me I could not have lived in the world without out that eight minutes and you try to explain that to a lion's club and they look at you funny you know what i mean but in a matter of fact in al-anon you live in the damn eight minutes most of your life show offs but the people in this room who do understand what i means i could not stay alive without that eight months that's what made me an alcoholic that's what got me membership in this club but at the time i said i was sitting in this sunday night meeting one night listening to some lame brain and I thought they want me to give up the eight minutes to hang around with them and I went back to drinking and then for the next five years I'm in and I get I drink for two years then I come to a for 30 days then I drink four year and a half now that's a slip and I come Come back for 40 days. You know, just a loser. A loser's loser. With a smirk on my face, you know? Knew it all with my degrees. Making fun of when I'm here. Oh, you see how popular I was. But you always put your hand out and you always said, Welcome back, Cliff. How are you, Cliff? Sit down, get a cup of coffee. In spite of my snobbery and my smart-ass stuff, They used to have these little cards they kept in a recipe box. They'd put your sobriety date on it at the Sunday night meeting. And this guy that was the secretary, he'd been secretary for... He'd see me come in the back of the room and he'd get my card out. Cross out the old date. You know, that's kind of embarrassing. But the worst night was he saw me come up and he picked the card up and went, tore that one up, got some new one now. You'd think I'd have been embarrassed enough to stay here. Embarrassed enough to say, no, no. Just a loser. But I almost died of alcoholism, I believe, because I'm a functioning alcoholic. I go to work every day and I do the job. And I do it better than you. I do a ten times better than anybody. I got to prove, I got do ten times more than you to prove I'm half as good. Does anybody identify with that? You're in the right place. I'm a goer and a doer and achiever, a functioning alcoholic. The kind that die of alcoholism. The experts say that 95 to 98% of the alcoholics who die of the disease of alcoholismo are functioning alcoholics, clowns just like me. And I'm dying of alcoholisme, but I'm doing the job. the week I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I weighed 163 pounds at 4% body fat I used to surf for like three hours and then get out and run five miles bench press 285 took me 25 minutes to pass a mirror Don't ask me for directions, you know Because I'd say it's right over My daughters would say Oh daddy, V up, V out Oh, can I have some money? Yeah, oh sure I was two years sober before I figured that out. But I'd like to tell you, A.A. has made me twice the man I used to be. And I was one of the top three debate coaches in the United States. That's like being one ofthe top three prostitutes in Elko, Nevada. But among speech coaches, it's a big deal. I became one of the top speech coaches by accident. The principal called me in one time and had this flyer in the mail about a debate in a speech tournament down the road at San Diego State College 30 miles away. He said, you're teaching a speech class. You ought to take some kids down there. I bet they'd get a lot out of that. I was in trouble, as I was always in trouble. I said, oh, what a good idea. And I found about eight dummies wanting to give it a go. and we went down the road to San Diego State. We were astounded. It was unbelievable. There were like 50 schools competing. 500 contestants. All the boys in three-piece suits with ties, with vests. The girls in these lovely business suits wearing Levi's and sweatshirts. They killed us. They slaughtered us. They butchered us. We did not win a round. I mean, they ground us in the dirt for what they did. not the kind of drunk you are but I don't care for losing it ticks me off and I go in the coaches room I'm already steamed there's about 20 of them in there and they're pals they're buddies you know and they snubbed me the new guy it seemed to me so I hung around all day so they could snub me longer you know how we are one guy that really pissed me off he had a lot of hair That bothered me right away. Beautiful gray hair. You know that steel gray hair? It took nine barbers to get it right. He had about a thousand dollar suit on. The other coaches did this when they went in front of him. About two in the afternoon, this guy suddenly turns to me and says, where are you from? God, I was grateful to be spoken to finally. I said, Oceanside. And he said, oh, where's that? 30 miles up the goddamn road. Where's that?" I don't know what you're like, but he gave me a resentment. and i went back to oceanside high and i built the speech team took me several years took me in tremendous amounts of time i worked from seven in the morning till 9 30 or 10 o'clock at night in their faces screaming yelling coaching guy next door said i'd love to watch them leave in your room wiping the spit off their glasses reporter said to my captain one time what's the secret of your coach's success the kid said terror hey you know how much work that is to make 150 people do what they don't want to do i mean no wide jump and the nerves hang out into your fingers that far head gets too big for your brain get too big from your head in here every muscle and your body gets to the knot. All day I'm in there screaming and yelling and coaching and out in the glove compartment of the car is a half a pint of hot vodka waiting for me. Oh, I love to talk about hot vodka at Al-Anon meetings. They go, hey! But you guys know, huh? And I didn't touch it all day. That's kind of alcoholic I am. I'm a functioning alcoholic. I don't drink all day I just got to know that the half a pipe in the globe compartment when I get through here it would call to me all day go get him cliff baby I'm waiting darling not finished with that last kid the evening let him lurch out of the car and open up that hot vodka like the big cheap cigars I smoked in those days and I would always drink half half the half pint. I'd puff on that stogie. Damn, you're a good coach. And then I'd go home and destroy my family. Pat remembers this more clearly than I do, but I remember I remember it more clearly than I'd like to. I'm a real violent drunk, and I'm sarcastic and mean, angry drunk. In the last seven or eight years that I drank, I drank every night at home. And we had these five kids. And we were all crazy. outside of a locked ward you won't find seven lunar tunes Ozda had nut but we were all crazy no human power could relieve my family we were nuts three of the kids were in high school some of them were doing drugs it upset me so much I had to take more Valium and everybody's rattling around that house I remember the one son called her man, hey man what's for dinner you know and anyway but I built that speech team I destroyed the family but I rebuilt that speech team and after a couple years we won one of those speech tournaments but I'm saying to the gray haired guy wasn't time yet we know when it's time don't we the next year there were like 12 or 14 tournaments 30 schools in each tournament we took first place in every single tournament I can wait I think revenge is better than Christmas don't you laughter the next Next year there was a tournament. There were 25 schools competing in the tournament and my team scored more sweepstakes points than the other 24 schools combined. Then I went up to the gray-haired guy and I put my nose right against his and I said, Do you know where Oceanside is now? And he just looked blank. He said, What are you talking about? I said, don't you remember about four or five years ago? You said to me, Oceanside. Where's that? And he said, we just moved here from Nebraska. I didn't know where it was. The story of my rotten life. Four or five years this guy's been in his bed in San Diego every night. I'm up at Oceanside, I'll get you! You think I dare? She's naughty. I got to tell you this story. A couple of years ago I had a, they call it a terp. It's a trim of your prostate is what it is so you can sleep at night. and this butcher screwed it all up and I'm having a terrible time and I was just going crazy finally I just called the doctor's office little girl come into the doctor'S office that's Mr. Roach that quack screwed everything up I did about 5 minutes I told her where the pain was and where it moved on and on finally I ended up saying I even wet the bed a couple of times I didn't even do that when I was drunk for Christ sakes she said I said, Mr. Roach, this is your eye doctor's office. So we don't get all well here, do we? To my credit, though, I fell on the floor laughing. I laughed so hard I almost died. So she laughed and we laughed and then I went in a few weeks later I said, where's Regina? She said, she's over there. And I said I'm Mr. Roach She said Oh hi Mr.Roach Everybody else in the office went I said You fink That's fun But right after that I deal with that Coach Pat and I had one of our main events which the neighbors have come to miss so much We never got Our neighbors never got television until after I got sober. They had all the entertainment in that neighborhood they needed. They all had those Venetian blind marks on their forehead, you know. And I threatened to move out and everybody said, yeah. And I moved out and I'm living down at the beach with my surfboard and this buddy of mine where I'd wanted to live anyway. way i'd said for years if i could unload that witch and as long-haired dope fiend children i'd be okay i'd gotten rid of them and it wasn't okay i was drunk all the time i started missing work which i'd never done i went by the house one afternoon i was haranguing my wife about money and uh the oldest son was kind of bobbing in the background there humming a tune from the planet Pluto. And I turned to him and I said, Dave, what's it like not to have your old man around the house? Dumb question, dumb, dumb. His old Dave looked me right in the eye and he said, It's beautiful. And I didn't know it for maybe a couple of hours, but that was my bottom. I went back to that dump on the beach and sniveled and whined and ranted and raved and pissed and moaned. But I didn't take a drink, which I think is interesting. It's been a long time since I didn'T take a Drink that afternoon. And I went out and sat on the screen porch and I watched the sunset. To this day, still the most beautiful one that I've ever seen. And about the time that the sun was going down into the water, I had that moment our big book talks about. the big book calls it the moment of clarity Polly my friend in Seal Beach calls it the moment of grace the gift the free gift the power of the universe is willing to step in if I can just be empty enough if I could be whipped if alcohol could just kick my butt but to where I have no more excuses and no more sleight of hand and no mehr lies and no meer judgments of other people. If I'm just through, and everybody in this room who's happily sober today knows exactly what I mean. Al-Anon or any of that, it doesn't make any difference. I had to be through. and I had this moment and I went in the bedroom and dug out the big book which I had read in my travels through the program and being an English teacher I thought it was very poorly written I read a lot better this time I read it cover to cover if you're new here tonight I read all the stories And in the second edition, there was a story called The Professor and the Paradox. And he was another egotistical schoolteacher, and he saved my life. And I read the appendix in the back. I read it all. But the third time through the book, on the 13th of January, 1970, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I was on page 63 again. and on page 63 as you know there's a little prayer which is step three I always call it the formal terms of surrender and I knelt down and I read that prayer out loud to myself God I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as you will relieve me of the bondage of self and the power that runs the entire universe that power came into my life and I knew I was going to be alright I didn't have anything like billhead you know, any winds blowing through me or anything like that I just knew Iwas alright that I was not in charge of my life anymore and that power has never left me and I haven't been drunk now since the 13th of January January 1970, and I look like one of those jocks. All power. By the way, I didn't welcome you. Thank you for coming. Appreciate it. Sometimes I do tricks on signers, but not tonight. You're too too big and tough-looking. We had a little girl in South Dakota, remember? A little tiny girl, actually about 11. This friend of mine, though he's dead now, he said, when I drank, it made me feel like I had brass balls that clanged when I walked. This little girl's going... So I repeated it the next night. So there I was on my knees On the 13th of January 1970 And I knew what I had to do I had go to this little guy Named Bill Blake's house Bill Blake was this former wino In the streets of Oceanside This little degraded Filthy little wino Who eight years before Had gotten sober Got a hold of that book And became an AA fanatic There's no other way to put him He helped you whether you wanted to be helped or not But I knew, you know, I had sneered at him when I was in and out of AA And made fun of him And that night I'm at his door knocking And I never want to forget this as long as I live The door opened, I'd been standing on that porch all alone And Margie, Bill's wife, opened the door Now I told you, I'm a five-year loser I'm an loser's loser I'm smart aleck, over-educated jerk loser loser. And here I am on the porch again. If you're new tonight, I have never seen anyone so glad to see me in my life. That lady, she died just a few months ago. She lit up when she saw me. It's like the Pope's here. She said, oh, Cliff, come in, come on. Oh, this is wonderful. Come and sit down, Have some coffee. She said, Bill's been nuts lately. He's had nobody to work with. Oh, this is so great! And then Bill comes in. Bill comes and... Ah! Cliff! About a half an hour, I'm thinking, anything else I can do to help you folks? I'll be glad to help any way I can. They made me feel like Cliff's here. We can start AA now. But you know, three weeks later I was in a newcomer meeting and one of the other newcomers said, what do you mean this is a selfish program? And I knew the answer. See, those people had been praying for me for five years, but they really weren't glad for Bill and Margie because they knew the great secret. You can't have it unless you give it away. There's no happiness. There's not freedom unless you're giving it away and they used to give it way. Boy, those two could give it way better than anyone I've ever known. And I'm sure you know people. You know, I don't know what your gift is. My sponsor believed this. He used to say, everybody who comes to AA has alcoholism. Or in the case of Al-Anon, Al-A-Non-ism, whatever the hell that is. And that we all kind of bring our own particular brand of insanity too. Do you know what I mean? I'm crazier in a different way than Nancy is. But we're both crazy. Okay. Believe me, we're both crazy. She's crazy, I know for sure. But he believed that everybody who comes to AA or Al-Anon has a gift of some kind that you could bring and make this program better. And he believed that if you didn't bring your gifts you had to go back out there and die. And I believed him. And I believe him today. day and uh there's a guy who's a physician up in the san fernando valley i just met him a few weeks ago a big huge meeting to have it at some church and they get a lot of people coming in from treatment program stuff who don't respect the program you know who leave cigarette butts around on saturday night meeting this guy's a position he gets up at three o'clock in the morning on sunday morning goes down and cleans the parking lot so that the church won't kick him out out. My little sponsor was the worst speaker in the history of AA. He used to say, I've talked everywhere in AA once. But you put my little sponsor in the front seat of a car with a newcomer. That's the great gift, I think. You know, to be able to 12-step a guy and nobody escaped him. I certainly didn't. Other guys came after me. He was the greatest 12 stepper in the history of the world he was magic one drunk talking to another and we didn't become almost three million from two in less than 70 years from people standing in microphones we got to be almost three billion from two and less than seven years from one drunk talk into another drunk in the front seat of a car on the way to a meeting and that's how I got I work in central office there on Tuesday afternoons. And I know, you know, the cards that I go through when somebody calls in sick and looking for help, that they represent perhaps 15% of the members of AA in my area. And isn't that sad? Isn't that the saddest thing you ever heard? the greatest benefit a person can get is to carry the message to another drunk. And you know, there's a guy in our group named Carlos. And if you're new, he'll find you. We have a huge group. I might be up in the front pontificating with somebody. But if you are new and you try to sneak in that back door old Carlos... And what a gift that is. There's a group in Long Beach where this young man plays the piano before the meeting. You know, background music. He brings his gifts. We've got to bring our gifts. And by the way, that night that Bill was so glad to see me, that was the last nice thing the man ever said to me. Until the day he died. When he was dying, he had emphysema for you smokers. A terrible way to die. But I went to see him in the hospital. I said, Bill, I have to go up to Alaska. I'm going to talk up in Alaska. I'll be gone for four days. And he's lying there. He says, yeah, they told me. I told them to send you as far away as possible. My kind of AA. He was so cruel to me. I think the nicest thing he said to me the first three years was, shut up. I told him, I have degrees, you know. He says so does a thermometer. You know where they stick that sometimes? He used to say about me, he said, he's educated far beyond his intelligence. But he swept me up and I thought the first step was when I was new, shut up and get in the car. You know, now I'm 31 years sober and I realize the first step is, shut up, get in a car. and he said shut up get in the goddamn car and we went somewhere every night 100 miles to LA twice a week because his sponsor is Clancy we had to go up there twice a year Sandy I went to a meeting every night for two years I thought everybody did it was just you pull up, get in my car but he took me to meetings where people were laughing he took meetings like this He would have loved this meeting. He took me to a meeting where people were roaring with their feet. Because he knew I couldn't live without that. I don't know about you, man. You might love great tunnel meetings. I don' t know. Clancy talks about great tunnel meanings. Clancy says you sit around the table, six of you, and stay sober. And to get the expression right, you have to have really bad hemorrhoids. hemorrhoids. And it's just sobriety is like a long gray tunnel and you trudge. Every year a trap door opens and a cake comes down. Not me. Not me. I'm going to where they're laughing. The laughter, I believe, is the most spiritual. It is the spiritual part of the program of alcoholism as far as I'm concerned. When we're laughing together there's not that's the most spiritual thing i can well tomorrow when i'll be out there and when we're all laughing together aas and alanon's laughing together there's a concept for you right there about the same things the tears running down our face when i'm sitting in the middle of the room we're always laughing together god always comes and whispers in my ear and says it's gonna be okay cliff it's going to be okay because we're laughing nothing I laugh at will ever come back and haunt me again nothing I laughs that'll ever come back invite me on the but I'm through with it because now it's funny and that's where we bar have we find our happiness laughing at the pain we used to cry over laughing at this stuff that used to just kill us i like to get me a new guy you know some real scuzzy one you know take him to a meeting take him to another meeting take into about the ninth 10th or 11th meeting he goes gotcha gotcha now oh pat and i we get these brand new little alanauts and we take them to a speaker meetings like this you know And the guy's up here at the podium, you know, and he says, and I fell in the Christmas tree and smashed all the presents. You know, we all go, yeah! This new little Al-Anon's going... Not funny to her. So we just take her to another meeting the next night. And one night she throws her head back and she laughs. And when you laugh, we gotcha. I tell these new guys that I have, once you're laughing in AA, you're not going to be able to go back in the bar and tell them what a good time you're having because you heard the laughter of Alcoholics Anonymous, the spiritual laughter of alcoholics anonymous. And so I went to a meeting for the, you know, and my sponsor took me through the steps of the program of Alcoholic Anonymous. He didn't believe you read the steps. He didn'T believe you studied the steps He didn't believe to listen to the tapes about the steps. He didn' t believe you meditate about the steps. He believed you did them, to his satisfaction. And we, you know, we did the steps, we took the actions or changed the attitudes that needed to be done. I just go crazy today with these guys I work with, you know they got to read some more stuff and it's simple directions right there. You know what I mean? it reminds me of the story the old priest is back in the sacristy and this young priest has been out in front and he comes running back to the sacrist he says, father you'll never guess what happened he said a young man came into church he was on two crutches and took some holy water and he threw it on the left and he took some Holy Water and threw it onto the right side and he throw away that crutch and the old preacher said it's a miracle where's the young man he said flatten his ass I heard that story, boy. I said, that's the steps. And you know, you'll hear a lot of Al-Anon say they don't need the steps Well, I don't know anybody who's going to find the freedom because it says we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. Halfway through what? Step 9! Then we get freedom. them. Hey, there's some other Nazis here. Good. Get all those others out of here. Now I got to wind this up because I know some of you have several blocks to go home. The cruelty the man showed me was because he loved me and I knew he loved me. I knew He loved me more than anyone else had ever loved me before. he always told me the truth and he made AA fun and he may be the most important thing in my life and I've hung on to that a paddle talking a lot more tomorrow about the family but I want to tell you when I was five years over I wrote all my eldest three kids who were different parts of the country or different parts other world and I wrote him a letter of amends and all of them wrote back loving letters to say, you were a hell of a good dad. Sure, you drank too much and did some stuff, but then they all remembered different good things about my fatherhood. And Pat and I are married now 51 years. She calls me her present husband. I don't know. This makes me a little nervous. Well, my present husband, and she's been just as active in Al-Anon as I've been in AA. We wouldn't have made 51 years, there's no doubt about that. And my sponsor today is John A., who's a Swedish guy, sober many, many years, and his wife Karen is my wife's sponsor, so we can't go whining to them very much. And our youngest son has over 12 years of sobriety. our eldest daughter kind of went wrong she's been in Al-Anon about 16 years and like her mother is one of the greatest examples of the power in the steps that I've ever seen I've seen miracles just as great in Al Anon any time as I've see in AA we don't have a lock on the miracle anybody who's willing to work those steps to the best of their ability something's going to happen to them. Something's going to change them and my wife and my daughter are two of the greatest examples of the power in the steps. As I said our middle daughter Jan who had been the most disturbed of all our children had almost 12 years and was just a dynamite AA but she got a bad back and the doctors started giving her all the pills and I'd never known anybody who went out after a lot of time who didn't go on the pills first and she finally drank and then she drank for several months and got back in. Now she's doing well, and she's taking care of her back with yoga. The eldest son lives here in the state of Washington on the Columbia River. He's had a tough time making the program the last couple of years, but he's doing great now. He's the vice president of an international corporation. So he couldn't possibly be an alcoholic. alcoholic, but no one told his liver. But he's really, he's having a really shot at it now and we're very proud of him. We're very pride of all our kids. I'm just talking about me, their mother and they have an incredible relationship, but I have a great loving understanding relationship with every one of my kids which is the greatest miracle of all because by any stretch of they should hate my guts but this program has just led us all back together and when we get together as a family you know it's so much fun that i can't understand it we just laugh all the time and that's what aa has done for us if you're new you don't have to believe that all this crap is going to happen to you you don'T HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT AT ALL BUT YOU DO HAVE TO to believe that it happened to me that a sick neurotic angry crazy man lives happy joyous and free just like that big book promised me when i came here and that's how i live most of the time happy joyless and free i hope you do too