The Psychiatrist Who Said He Wasn’t Ready to Be an Alcoholic – Dick M.

My name is Dick Martin, and I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the actions of AA and sponsorship, I've been sober since September 15, 1965, and I am really very grateful for that this morning. I have not always been grateful to be an alcoholic, I have never been grateful for being sober, I've not always been grateful to be where I am, so putting those all three together isn't bad. I'm a member in good standing, active in the Fox Hall group in Bellevue, Nebraska. That may not sound like much to you, but as Peggy described it, 450 enthusiastic alcoholics in a little town of about 40,000. That's not bad. It's really not bad at all. I enjoy being there. I enjoy Being a Member of that group. Peg and I got it started years ago, and 23 years ago as a matter of fact. And it's gradually grown over the years because we've made a very simple request that the people that we sponsor, if it's my home group, then it's your home group. And they say to the people they sponsor, If this is my homegroup, it's you're homegroup. And so we are people of a mind who are going to a meeting together And that's why I always enjoy being there. I haven't always been in AA. I used to drink. I spent a lot of time in bars, and I spent a lot OF time drinking at home, and I spent A LOT of time drinking in the car. I spent ALOT of time DRINKING anywhere I could drink. I didn't care where it was. I really didn't CARE what I drank. As long as it had ALCOHOL in it, that's what I wanted to do. And I started drinking when I was about 14 years old, which is rather typical. I had blackouts by the time I was 15, 16 years old. I went in the service after I finished high school and went to England, and I drank the whole time I Was Over There. I had a good war. And I came back and went through college. I went to George Washington University and joined a fraternity, and that was a good place because people were drinking there all the time, and I could always find somebody to drink with. And it was not so obvious that I was a drunk because I was not drinking with the same people all the time. And I went to work in broadcasting and had a good career in broadcasting, which ended up 27 years later. And it ended up27 years later in Omaha, Nebraska, out of Washington, D.C. So I had a great life. I had good run. I hada good time in broadcasting. I was in sales or management. I was never on the air or anything romantic like that, but I had a good time and I had an enjoyable career. And I was in the latter part of that career. I was threatened many times by my boss. He had hired me as a salesman, and he liked me and he cared for me, and he covered up for me as much as he could cover up for мне. And on the day before I got sober, he wrote a letter to the president of the company and said that if there was one more alcohol-related incident with me, he was going to fire me, as much as he didn't want to do that. And I didn't know that he had written that. If I'd have known, I would have really gotten drunk, I suppose, because that would have been typical. I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I was separated from my wife, soon to be divorced, I left two kids behind, and I had run rampantly through the lives of many people, and I'd heard a lot of people's feelings, and I'd read a lot about their lives. I'd learned a lot from people's attitudes about me and my family itself. I'm not estranged from the remainders, all of them. I am from a couple of them, but I still get along with my sister. I have two brothers that I don't get along with well at all they don't get along with me and so that works okay but i have a lot of brothers and sisters and alcoholics anonymous that i got along with very well and we walk hand in hand through this through this trip and it's been a good trip for me and i've enjoyed it i uh when i say i used to drink i drank as frequently as i could i was more of a drinker than i was anything else. Every now and then I'd get ahold of some little pills or something like that, which happened to help me along. I would take as many as 20 10 milligram capsules of Librium a day just to keep me kind of calm. And what it did was just made me over sedated and I'd go to bed with leaping doze offs and couldn't sleep anyway. But I kind of hoped that maybe I could just fall sleep and die is what I really wanted to do at the end. I had seen two ministers, I'd seen five psychiatrists. The last psychiatrist I was seeing twice a week for a year and a half and he, I asked him I said on my last day there I talked to him and I said doctor I said you know when I came here you gave me a series of tests. He gave me the Rorschach inkblot tests and all kinds of other Minneapolis multi-phasic personality thing and uh i asked him i said you never told me the result of these and he said well dick he said it's really very simple he said you seem to be preoccupied with sex and uh hey he's the one that showed me the dirty pictures i didn't ask to see them and uh I said well when do you think I'll get some relief from these life problems it. And he asked me how old I was, and I said, I'm 33. And he says, it took you a long time to get here, didn't it? And I thought to myself, Jesus, I may have to come to this son of a bitch for 33 years, and he's at least 20 years older than I am. He'll be dead. What am I going to do then? I thought very clearly in those days. And I said doctor, do you think that I should go to Alcoholics Anonymous? And he said no, you're not ready for that yet. He said you have to drink 20 long hard years before you can become an alcoholic and I was 33 and he didn't imagine it was possible for me to be an alcoholic. And I said well I said this isn't helping me and I'm not going to come back don't send me a bill because I'm not going pay it. I had paid all my bills up to that point and I left and that was the last time then that was in the spring of 1965 And I, from there on, I tried to see how much I could drink, I suppose. And as an end result of it, I'd had a girlfriend all the time I was married. As a matter of fact, I knew her before I had met my wife and we had had a continued relationship. I sometimes think back about it and I think that the relationship that I had with my wife was adulterous rather than the other one, to tell you the truth, because the other and was a lot more constant in my life than my wife was. But we had gone out on a Tuesday night, and we'd gotten very drunk, and I'd had to carry her to her car because she was not capable of walking. Chivalry was not dead. I was willing to help her. But the next day was Wednesday, and we had agreed to meet and have dinner. And I remembered that the next thing. day and I called her up and I said look I said I'm fine about meeting for dinner and we can have dinner but I just I'm burning hard coal and I can't do that drinking bit that I did last night I'm just terrible and she said that she was too so we agreed to meet at a not a restaurant in kind of upper Connecticut Avenue rather fashionable area near Chevy Chase and we were gonna go the Avalon Theatre and see the movie that night and I got there and I picked up a newspaper and the movie had changed and we didn't want to see what was coming so I suggested to her that maybe we could go out to old anglers in for dinner which was a rather fashionable country and overlooked the Potomac River and so we went out there and had dinner and I don't have any idea what we ate we had a couple of bottles of wine with dinner and i'm sure we had to drink beforehand we probably had a drink afterwards but I then left and we left then and drove back to the place where we had originally gone and sat there on the sidewalk cafe and drank Remy Martin Grand Fien Champagne Cognac and coffee, at which time I discovered one thing as I look back on it. I didn't know this then, but I know it now. I had exactly the right number of drinks. If I'd have had one less drink, I would never have gotten sober. If I had had one more drink, I never would have gotten sober. If she asked me to marry her, and that's what she did, she asked me to marry her. And I said, I just looked at her, and I had all kinds of things running through my mind, one of which was I can't marry her because I'm already married. And that was one thing that was kind of slowing it down. And then I thought, you know, I'm not a husband to my wife, and I'm nicht a father to my children, and I'M NOT A GOOD SON, AND I'MNOTAGOODBROTHER, AND IMNOTAGOODNEIGHBOR, ANDI'MNOOTAGOODEMPLOYEE, AND WE BOTH WORK FOR THE SAME RADIO STATION. AND, YOU KNOW, I HAD TO GO SEVERAL TIMES AND PULL HER OUT OF BED BECAUSE SHE'D BEEN SO DRUNK THE NIGHT BEFORE SHE COULDN'T GET UP and get her to get dressed and get to work. And so, you know, it was, I thought, you know, if I married her we'd never go to work. I mean, we'd both be so drunk we'd never make it. What would we do then? And I just looked at her and I said, no, I can't do that. And if I had had another drink, I think we would have begun to negotiate the situation. and if we'd have begun to negotiate the situation I would have discovered that she was going to come into her inheritance very shortly and she did end up coming into an inheritance of $26 million net to her and if I'd have known that, believe me you would have a different speaker this morning because I thought lack of money was one of my problems now from the way I drank on that last night and the way I ate, you would think in the circumstance talking about a sidewalk cafe and talking about a restaurant overlooking a fashionable country inn you'd think that I was wealthy or something actually the truth was that day I had received an American Express card in the mail and it was the first time and I didn't want the people at American Express to think I didn' t like them and so I wanted to use it and uh i did in fact use that american express card and i've had an american express car longer than robert redford has but his is better than mine i think but i've had a card since 1965. and i'm not advertising for them but somehow or another was i managed after i got sober to discharge thirteen thousand dollars worth of debt which is about the equivalent of forty thousand today and that isn't bad when you're only making thirteen thousand a year and and paying child support and alimony. So I had a tough time of it, but I managed to get my debts together with the help of a real friend in the banking business and get squared away. I went home that night after a conversation I'd had with Joe and sat on the edge of my bed and said, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with me? Why can't I drink like other people? Why can't I be like other people? You know, I've spent thousands of dollars in psychiatry. I've gone to see ministers. I've seen doctors. You know. I've been threatened at work. I'm alienated from all of my friends and family. And my enemies don't even think of me as a threat anymore. It's just when you don't have any friends or enemies, you're in a deep doo-doo, I'll tell you. And that's where I was. and i thought to myself well i think what i'll do is i'll go to alcoholics anonymous i knew about alcoholics unanimous because as a boy i'd sold the saturday evening post door-to-door and i when i was 11 years old i read the or correction i was 10 years old I read the Jack Alexander article which was March 1st 1941 and I'd read that article and I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd tried to go to AA and I'd talked to a doctor about it and he said I couldn't be alcoholic, and the psychiatrist said that I couldn' t be alcoholic. But I think that the truth is that we end up diagnosing our own problem. I knew I was alcoholic when I was 16 years old and I remember talking to a friend of mine about it. I remember I was at the corner of 41st Street and Military Avenue in Washington, D.C., and I remember telling this fellow, Ed, that I was an alcoholic and that I knew I was. And I said, I drink like my father drinks. He said, yeah, you drink like your father drinks too. And his father was an alcoholic. Both of our fathers died from alcoholism after that. But the truth of the matter was that I thought that Alcoholics Anonymous was kind of like a leper colony. Once you go in, you never get out. And once you get sober, people never drink again once they go to AA. And AA was a place that was filled with bums and near-do-wells and used-to-be's and has-beens and a few gray-haired little old ladies with blue tent who would lead us in prayer and jump us to Jesus. And, you know, it was kind of like the Salvation Army. And I'd seen those Salvation army bands outside of some of the bars that I drank in at Christmas time. And they were playing some song that went kind of, like, put a nickel on the drum, save another drunken bum. You know, I knew what it was. Rattle my tambourine. I knew that wasn't. Alcoholics Anonymous was the last place in the world I wanted to go. It was absolutely the worst decision that I had ever made in my life, I felt. and strangely enough like a lot of other things it was one of those seemingly bad things which in fact was very good i was getting a divorce and that seemed like a bad thing to me but it was the best one of the better things that ever happened to me one of them the absolute best thing that ever happen to me as i came to alcoholics anonymous i called one of ministers the next morning that i'd been to see who had who had agreed that aa was a good place for me and he put me in touch with a fellow who made a 12-step call on me and took me to an AA meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland. And I went to this meeting and it was a service meeting. It was the area chairman was explaining the service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous and he showed a film strip something like Circles of Love and Service. That was where they took this newcomer. Think about that. And i've been sober ever since. I haven't had a drink since that time. Afterwards, I went over to the hot shop and I was 12-stepped in a very traditional sense of the word by three guys. I was sitting on the inside. I couldn't get out if I wanted to. And they told me about them. They told me what it was like for them and what had happened and what it's like today. And I thought that they were, use the phrase, I thought they were reading my mail. I thought that they had talked to somebody, but they hadn't talked to anybody. They hadn't talk to anybody, they were just telling their stories. And I related to what they said and I began to have at that night a little bit of hope that maybe I could stay sober too. If these guys could stay sober, maybe I can stay sober. And I started going to meetings, I went to meetings every night, spent a lot of time with people in Alcoholics Anonymous as much as I possibly could. i uh stayed sober a day at a time and very gradually what ended up happening as i mentioned yesterday uh i was beginning to ask questions and i asked my sponsor i remember we were going across the 14th street bridge from the marriott hotel where we'd had an aa business men's lunch that day which was a bunch of guys that sat around and talked about sex and politics which we didn't know anything about either one of them but we had a good time and uh i asked him i you know i told him i said you know uaa's obviously i wasn't in yet i was around at that time and i said ua's don't fool me you talk about not drinking a day at a time but you really mean forever don't you and he said that's right forever a day out of time and i didn't understand what forever a day at a time mint and i said what do you mean he said just don't drink a day at a dime dummy that's all you got to do you don't have to worry about anything else and then i asked him what a sponsor was and he said i'm a sponsor i'm your sponsor so you know let's solve that problem but it was really very good i i uh asked him i said uh when i had been to see that psychiatrist and the psychiatrist and if i should go to aa and And he said, no, I wasn't ready for that yet. And I asked my sponsor, I said, what in the world was he talking about? And he says, well, it's really very simple, Dick. He said, you still had money. And that was such a cynical answer. I just love that one. So I thought I would go on and reverse the issue and see what happened here. I said what does AA say about recovery? I said this guy talked, you know, intimated it would take me 33 years to have some feeling of recovery from all this. And he said, we think really if you stay sober for one month for every year that you drank and if you took any other alternate, you know, if you take any chemicals or smoked any cigarettes with no names on them or whatever, just add a year to it. And he says at the end of that time, you ought to be able to begin to think a little clearly. And it was really very true. It was really, very true about three years later. I was really thinking pretty good and thinking pretty accurately and being able to have some good, cogent thought without my fears jumping in there all over me and preventing me from feeling like I was normal and average. But I told him, I said, this psychiatrist, he said that I seemed to be preoccupied with sex. And he said, Dick, it's really very simple. He said, you know, alcohol, if you remove the water from alcohol, it's like ether and ether will anesthetize even the smallest parts of your body and uh i don't know i don'T know he'd never seen me i mean i DON'T KNOW where he came up with that idea but uh but uh he was right he was RIGHT no question about that and he says you know if all you're doing is thinking about it you're going to be preoccupied with it and he was right I got such good answers when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous such good simple direction you know just not drinking a day at a time and going to meetings and being in touch with my sponsor and other people in AlcoholicsAnonymous and you know with something like that it was just it was just so simple all of those things that I learned by being a being an active inundated member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I had to learn to do the things that would remove the barriers to sobriety. And there's a lot of barriers to sobrietty. Some people have too much money and some people have two much intellect and some have too many problems, perhaps. I don't know. I think they come preoccupied with themselves like I did. But you know, I had to learn those things. I had learned the little things to do in order to stay sober. I made kind of a list of those things, which I'm going to go over this morning with you just to give you some sort of a picture of the things that we do in AA to stay sober. I watched the people around me. After I was sober for a while, I noticed that I really wanted to be like these people. You know, I began to know them and admire them and respect them. And if you know and admire and respect people, you want to be like they are. And these people were sober. So I wanted to do what they did so I could be sober because I wanted to be sober. I didn't know that I wanted it. I didn' t know that they wanted to be as sober as such, but I wanted to have what they had, and they had sobriety, and I wanted that. So just to key off on the whole situation, you know, stay sober. Don' t drink. Just don' t drank no matter what. It doesn't make any difference whether what's going on in your life. There's nothing that taking a drink is going to make better. Taking a drink isn't going to help you. It's going to take the situation more difficult. Go to meetings. I still go to meetings, and I went to meetings then. I went into a meeting every night for, it seems like to me, for a long, long time. And I say a long time, it was near up to a year that I went to a meeting ever night, and after that I probably only went to six meetings a week instead of going to seven. but I was I got married when I was 11 months sober I know you're not supposed to do things like that not supposed to have any relationship in the first year but actually we didn't have any relationship we were just lusting then when then when we were married a month it began to be a relationship but just don't take our first drink one day at a time get a home group and the reason why I should have a home group and why you should have a home group, in my opinion, is really very simple. You need to have a place where you're accountable because in Alcoholics Anonymous the whole picture is being accountable. It's being accountable one to another. It's Being Accountable to Other Members to the people that you sponsor, to your sponsor and to your friends and if you are at a homegroup every week at least you know you're Accountable then at that time That's the place where I can go, and people, my friends are there, and they can talk to me in a language that I understand. And they can confront me if there's something wrong with me, or they can give me a pat on the back if I'm feeling down, just like I can do for them. Get a sponsor. I've had two sponsors since I've been an Alcoholics Anonymous. My first sponsor is dead. My second sponsor is Clancy, and he's been an excellent sponsor for me. I got him before the first one died. My first sponsor and I had just become good friends, and there wasn't a sponsorship ethic involved anymore. And I asked Clancy to sponsor me, and she said he and I have been friends. And he said, I will, but I am no longer your friend. And he's sponsored me since. It's been over 18 years. and it's been a great relationship for me and it has been I think a good one for him I managed to keep him sober he made 40 years what the hell but having a sponsor is just one part of it sponsoring others is the key I believe because in sponsoring other people what I end up doing is I end up discovering what I am like because I can see me in them and it is a very fortunate thing that it allows us to do things like see ourselves and others, but it allows to be helpful. For the first time in my life I am doing something, being of service to other people, and I am giving a positive tone to my relationship with other people. And that's what sponsorship is about. Study AA literature. And when I say study it you can just read it and glance at it if you want to, but you're going to have a glance at AA is what it amounts to. It's not difficult, but it's really very simple, and the simplicity of Alcoholics Anonymous is what confuses a lot of people. It is so simple we would like it to be much more complicated so it will fit our minds, and what we have to do is we have to become simple in our thinking so that we can absorb what AA really means. Pay attention. When you go to meetings, listen to what the people say. Listen to what's being said. Take it into your heart what's being said and don't take what you want and leave the rest. Take everything because you're going to need those things that you don't want much more than you ever need the things that you want. The things that you watch, you already know. The things thatyou don'twant are the strange things to you, the things that seem difficult. But as you stay sober they become less and less difficult i can remember writing a fourth step and i can think just writing it was a hard thing to do but sitting down and doing a fifth step thereafter when before i did it i thought that was a terrible thing and there really isn't anything in my in my fourth and fifth step that i wouldn't say from a podium of alcoholics anonymous except those things that wouldn't be polite to talk about and I wouldn't object to telling anybody what they were privately but I'm not going to do it publicly but it just really now it doesn't make any difference those things are not important anymore it seemed like they were at the time but I just did what human beings do I didn't do anything different than anyone else so paying attention was great at meetings meetings or monologues. We only have one person talk at a time. We don't have any cross-talk. There's no argument in Alcoholics Anonymous. We do not have disagreements in the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and that way we can listen to what people are saying, and not having a conversation going on, it does not distort the idea to some newcomer who may be sitting next to you, and if you are talking while the speaker is talking for an example, it will make them think that what's being said is not important, and that's not necessarily true. We need to become involved in our own recovery. I have a responsibility in my life. I am responsible for doing the things that I do, and not doing the thing that I know are wrong. So in other words we have to learn to do the dos and don't the don'ts. How about that? Learn to do Do the do's and don't the don'ts. It's really pretty simple when you think about it that way. Clancy talks about doing what you're supposed to do when you're exposed to do it and be where you're opposed to be when you are supposed to be there. God, there isn't anything any simpler than that. We all understand what that means. It's sometimes difficult to do and we have to pick up a phone and call them and say we can't be there or something happened and we didn't make it. We have to do as good as we can do but we have keep our own commitments. That's part of being a part of our own recovery. Act better than you feel. Sometimes you don't feel worth a damn. Sometimes you want to go to a meeting and you're not feeling well. I have a guy that I sponsor who came down with MS, and John's in a wheelchair now. He attends three meetings a week, and he's constantly in pain. If he gets out of the wheelchair, he invariably falls. You know, it's just a sad thing. He comes to meetings, and I wheel him to the men's room, and he relieves himself. I'm not a nurse that isn't what I'm supposed to be doing but I do that because I love John John's a good man and he goes to meetings and I think if John can go to a meeting then by God I can go if he can humiliate himself by his life then I can be there to be a friend to him if he kan do it, by God I can do it he doesn't do much else than that But he is a tremendous example. And I think that's what we have to be in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have to Be an Example because people will more watch our actions than they will hear our words. I can stand here and I can talk about these things, but if I don't do these things then it's useless. It's just like wind. It comes and it goes. but if you see me and you see me doing these things where if you try them and you do them and you'll gain the respect of other people around you so we have to pursue the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous of honesty and open mindedness and willingness be there for other people just to open our minds and open our hearts I'm going to recover because I'm a real alcoholic or as Bill talks about he talks about alcoholics of our type, and he talks about real alcoholics. And I think to define those people who are real alcoholists or alcoholicses of our time, as Bill describes it, I think that those are the people that have to take the steps. There seem to be some people who don't have to take the step. I've seen them. I don't know that their lives are good, bad, or indifferent. I won't make a judgment call on that. But they don't seem to do those things. Sometimes they're almost nasty about it and they they fight over well-meaning people they they tell a newcomer you don't have to do those things i've i've been sober for 10 years 15 years i've never done a fifth step and i've seen people do that and they're killing them it makes those people take a choice as to whether they're going to recover or not but they don't know that they're making that choice they just taking what they think is the is the softer easier way set by this the example of the person that's there but the steps if you're a real alcoholic or necessary you will not recover without it you won't stay sober not on the long-term basis you will not if you are a real alcohol i don't want to take a chance on the fact that i may or may not be i'd rather be in aa by mistake than outside by mistake so i got to do what's here Clean up your act. Dress up for Alcoholics Anonymous. Don't dress down. Don't see how bad you can look. See how good you can Look. It's a program of attraction. That's why I'm wearing A coat and tie. I'm not wearing a coat and Tie because I like to wear a coat And tie. I'm wearing a coat And tie because I respect Alcoholics anonymous. Alcoholics anonymous is my way of life. Another definition for way of Life is religion. Or conversely, a definition for Religion is a way of Life. And this is a way of life for me. And I expect the people that I sponsor to respect it as much as I do. I've learned to pray in Alcoholics Anonymous in a very simple fashion. I never knew that I was praying. Peggy taught me one thing. I can remember when we were first married. Well, she only taught me once. I remember when I was first married, I remember one night I heard her mumbling, and I said, what did you say? She said, I just said goodnight God. And that was really simple. It's really simple to say goodnight, God. It's real simple to good morning, God It's easy to report for duty. I'm ready for what goes on, whatever comes up. Let me know what I'm supposed to do with it. It's easier to think nice thoughts of people. it's easy to think god i hope he gets well i hope she does better i hope you stay sober i hope she stays sober i hope their family gets better up this little child doesn't suffer and that's a prayer and that is important a prayer meaningfully as we can ever make and it doesn't require any more than that we don't have to do anything we can just our good thoughts are good prayers and we can pray that way i think that going to an aa meeting is a prayer I think it's a foot prayer. We're putting one foot in front of the other, and we're walking into an AA meeting, and what I'm doing when I do that, I'm saying, I can't stay sober. Of and by myself, I can drink, and of and by himself, I can stay sober, and I'm going here because we can stay silver. And I know that, and that's a prayer. I had to learn to put Alcoholics Anonymous first in my life, and a lot of people say, well, how can you put AA first? you know what about this what about that what about the other and sure i have a life and i've got a i've got a profession i've gotta i've Got family, I've got kids. I've got grandkids. I got got a dog you know and she's a dog all right but these things all require time and all require part of my life but if i don't put a first i have none of that if i Don't stay sober i can't have a wife and my children would learn to hate me quickly, I can tell you. There's no possibility that my grandchildren would have anything to do with me. I would lose my business. And that's all there is to it. So I must stay sober. I must say so because I want those things. And I have reasons to stay sober aside from just simply not being drunk. I have a lot of reasons to say so. I have you and I have the people that I sponsor and the people that I care for, whether I sponsor them or not. So I have to put AA first in my life. I have go out of my way to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I have put me aside and go to AA. And AA, I've found, works best when it's inconvenient. It works best for me. When I have got out of MY way to do it, I really gained more out of it than I would if it was just some simple act. But I think putting an A first is kind of… If you would have an imaginary… If your life was a pie, let's say, and if you were going to balance your life, you would some focal point in the center of that pie where you could balance it on one finger. And if that one finger was alcoholics anonymous, that's what I'm talking about. Alcoholics anonymous and God are synonymous as far as I'm concerned, they mean exactly the same thing. So whatever is good, whatever is AA, whatever's God is right in the center of my life. That's the most important thing in my life and I know it is. And then I can have all of the things that are on that plate. I can have a slice that's my wife. I can Have a slice That's AA meetings. You can Have religion if you wish. You can have job if you Wish. You can Hav hobbies and so on. Recreation doesn't make Any difference. But as long as AA comes first, You can HAVE all of those things. And you can do well in all things If you have God and AA, Which mean the same exact thing In your life. when i uh um when i went to my first meeting there was a guy standing door and his name name was reds god what was his name red spanning he's dead now but he was standing he was there and he stuck out his hand and he said welcome to alcoholics anonymous we're glad you're here and as innocuous a meeting as that was and it was innocuous I felt different walking into that room than I had ever felt walking into any other room in my life I felt that somehow or another walking into the room walking into this room was going to change me I didn't know how it was going to change but I had that feeling that it was perfectly okay and I felt alright by doing that And I've felt that way about Alcoholics Anonymous ever since. I have not felt apprehensive about walking into an AA meeting, a room full of people that I don't know or that I know. It doesn't make any difference. I haven't felt apprehensitive or afraid or alone ever since that first night. I felt that walking into the room. But once I was in that room, I never felt thatway again. I have never feltthatway again." So I think we ought to greet the newcomer because greeting the newcomer gives them the opportunity to have that feeling that it's okay, that it is going to be all right. I think that when I go to a meeting, I don't sit down immediately, go in and sit down. I stand around and I talk to the newcomers. I try to shake hands with as many people as I can. When I am feeling down and out, and I feel that way occasionally because I'm like my sponsor. I have moments of being down, and I don't think I'm really depressed. I don' t think that's it. I think what it is is just a feeling of this is not quite it either and just being down. I mean, I don''t know any... When you're depressed, when you're clinically depressed, you would wake up in the morning, and I have been this way, so I know what it ist, and everything is in tones of black and white. You don't see color. That's what clinical depression is. So I don't think that I'm depressed. I just think I'm down. I'm just having a bad time. I'm having a Bad Day or a Bad Week, whatever it happens to be. But I can walk into an AA meeting and I can actively go around and shake hands and greet people, acting better than I feel and I end up feeling better for doing it. It ends up making me feel better because I forget about all my little crap. Maybe I stop and talk and listen to you and listen to your little piddly-ass problems and pay attention to them, and I don't think about my little puddly- ass problems is what it amounts to. So being at a meeting ahead of time and staying afterwards and being there for the newcomer, the purpose for meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson said, was a place for us to take newcomers so they could be 12-stepped. 12-step in that sense of the word so they could see that other people stay sober, so they could see AA works. We're here and if you're new, you're looking around here and you're seeing a room full of people and you think, you can't help but think, this must work. All these people wouldn't be here if it didn't work. It wouldn't make sense. Dick wouldn't have come in from Nebraska, and Clancy wouldn't have come in from L.A. These people wouldn't do this unless it worked. Why would they do it otherwise? It wouldn't make any sense for them to do that. So if we do that, we feel better as an end result. Do what you're supposed to do when you're opposed to do it. Be where you're suppose to be. On time in Alcoholics Anonymous is 10 minutes early. We have a way of being late, you know, and I don't know why that is but uh i think on time it's 10 minutes early if i'm supposed to meet somebody at nine o'clock i try to be there at 10 of and uh that way generally i make it by nine o'lock which is what i'm opposed to do in the first place why don't you save yourself a lot of trouble i've done this a few times in my life you don't do the things you're not supposed to do how about don't do in those things i've done that a few times in my life and saved myself a lot of trouble up and tell you now but in alcoholics anonymous what we really do is we share we share our experience strength and hope these are the things that the people have done who came before me that i saw them doing and i that's that kit of simple spiritual tools perhaps that we pick up and we run with to try to do and we share because we're talking about in a we talk about the language of the heart and the language of the really means we're just sharing our lives we're sharing our experience we're showing what goes on with us and how we're doing and you know it amazes me that before I came to alcoholics anonymous I might ask someone how they were doing I didn't really give a damn to be very honest with you I was just being polite but But I find myself now, I am really interested in how people are doing. And I want to know exactly—I want to how they're doing it. And I ask them and I'm interested. And I remember. It's strange that I remember so the next time I say, well, how is this going or how is that going? And it's important for me to do that because it makes me feel good. I don't know how it makes them feel but when people do that with me, it makes me feel important and I like to feel important to somebody. It makes me feel worthwhile. If you approve of me, I approve of you. If you don't approve of my, I don't approve of either. It's really just that simple. That doesn't mean that I have to go around trying to get your attention or trying to get you to approve of me because that doesn't work. That's not the kind of approval that I'm talking about. I'm talking about the approval of kindness and the approval of caring or at least seeming to care, feigning as if you are caring. Clean house. We used to go for a walk every morning down in the park and pick up the beer bottles and whiskey bottles and throw them in the trash can and the various insomniac papers and I really kind of miss that. We moved recently and we haven't walked in that park for a long time. Maybe we should go down there again sometime. If I can get her out of bed in the morning, she'll... The dog! The dog. The dog, not her. Not you, dear. I'll bring you a cup of coffee at 6.30 and see what happens. But cleaning house, Just picking up a cup. Picking up your cup and somebody else's. Think about the two-cup rule. Think about your cup and somebody elses' cup. Think about when you get a cup of coffee, why not offer to get someone else a cup o' coffee? Why not go out of your way to do that? See if someone else wants something. See if you can be of service in some small way. If you can pick up your Cup and put it in the trash, you can pickup somebody else's Cup and do the same thing. There is no reason not to. Because some people are not going to do that, and we need people to do those things. That way AA is not a burden to anybody. It's kind of difficult to imagine that we can disagree without being disagreeable. But learning to do this kind of just makes all the difference in the world. You know, I don't have to agree with what you're saying, but I don' t have to say anything about it either. I can keep my mouth shut at least some of the time I can. Most of the times I keep my mouths shut. Occasionally I open it at the wrong time. But really in AA I had to learn to be a friend among friends because people cared for me that I didn't know they even cared. And I found that it was easy to be your friend. It's easy to be friendly to people who are friendly in return. And all we're doing sometimes is waiting for a little chink in your armor to break so that we can be kind and we can considerate of you. I talked about accepting the seemingly bad as well as the seemingly good when I felt that divorce that I got involved in was a seemingly bad thing, but that wasn't my intent to ever get a divorce. But it was one of the better things that ever happened to me. I don't think I could have stayed sober had I stayed married to her. But being married to Peggy has enhanced my sobriety. Strangely enough, you'd think it wouldn't, but, I mean, you heard her talk Friday night. I don' t know how somebody like that could help you, But she's a great gal, and she's been a great companion and a great AA member. And I'm proud that she's my wife, and I'm pleased that she is my wife. She's taken up for me in some areas that I couldn't do anything about, and she has made me a better man for it. And I am very proud of her. She's a good gal. I can't think of anyone else that I want to continue my old age with. except another old-ager there. It's not easy sleeping with an old-timer all the time, however. You might, you know... I would much rather think of, you Know, sleeping with some 20-year-old or something like that. But I'd rather think that way. I'd better not act that way I think we have to learn to elect trusted servants and alcoholics anonymous we have elections in our group and groups and I think that we ought to elect people who will do the job not our friends not people who might do the job not people need to do the jobs but people who will do a job we have two know this by their actions and we've seen what they have done in the past I mean if they're if if they are brand new and an embezzler, I really don't think that they should be the treasurer of the group. I'm sorry, I don't think we should give them that opportunity because I don' t think we need to put temptation in their hands. I think we need to find people who are good members of Alcoholics Anonymous who want to do something for AA and there are a lot of those around. So we elect trusted servants, not necessarily our buddies. And I believe absolutely in rotation. I don''t believe that everyone should hold a job over and over and over again. I think it's okay to hold every job, but not to stay in one job any longer than one or two years is out of line. In meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, we talk about the solution. We don't talk about the problem. Isn't that funny? If you go to a little discussion meeting and they say, well, let's talk about resentment. Everybody, well I resent this one, I resent that one. And you kind of walk out of there and you say, I resent the whole damn meeting. But if you pick some topic, some positive topic to talk about, everybody leaves the meeting feeling better, even those that had a resentment when they came in there. So if we talk about the solution, then people can recover. They can't recover with the problem. They can recover with the solution. We can recover with the solution so if we talk about the solution it's going to be a good meeting if we talked about the problem it's gonna be a bad meeting and I've been to bad meetings you've been to bed and we don't need to go to any more of them that's all there is to that the if we take the steps obviously we're gonna study them and we're going to think that Alcoholics Anonymous if we learn this if I learn how to do this, I can stay sober. If I learn what they do in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll be able to stay sober." But the purpose is not for you to learn anything. We may learn a lot of things and we did. I certainly learned a lot of things since I've been in AA. And I learned a lot of thing when I was brand new. But I found that learning and my knowledge was not helpful. What was helpful was something else entirely different. And what it was, was I discovered that Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of action that brings about a spiritual existence so that we change, so that мы are no longer psychically the same person that we were before. We're entirely different people. I went back to see my psychiatrist after I'd been sober for a year. and we sat there and we talked for 45 minutes they have a distorted sense of time but they call that an hour but well your hour next week will be at 10 o'clock you know and at 10.45 it's Outski but I went back and I saw him, I made an appointment and came back to see him and I told him about me and I tell him that I've been in AA and he said, I recognize you, but you're not the same man. You're an entirely different human being. You have really changed. And my whole psyche had changed. I was a different human Being. By going back to see him and by letting him know about Alcoholics Anonymous, he became an expert witness for alcoholics and he was used by some of the guys in court. He was the dean of psychiatry at Georgetown University. He demanded that all of his psychiatrists attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for six weeks and get a sponsor to explain what AlcoholicsAnonymous was. Out of that simple little act that I performed, he did those things because he saw the value of Alcoholic Anonymous. We have to tell our doctors and we have to tell our friends that we're members of Alcoholics Anonymous, that we have changed. That's what it's all about. Because if we do that, it'll help the still suffering alcoholic. Those are efforts that we make to help somebody else. We need to 12-step our doctors and we need to 12- step those people so that they find out about Alcoholics Anonymous and they can recommend it to their friends. So we take the steps, we live the traditions. We learn to get along with other people. The first tradition is read this morning, explain what the problem is and the twelfth tradition explains what happens if we take the ten in between, if we make those a part of our lives that we'll have some peace and understanding in our lives that we never had before. Celebrate Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a celebration we're at right now, right this morning. Celebrating AA, celebrate Celebrate anniversaries itself. Celebrate your anniversary. Celebrate staying sober. Make staying sober important to you. Put money in the basket. I always, you know, I've been sober a long time and I've been graced. I put two dollars in the basket no matter what meeting I go to it just doesn't make any difference but I always put extra money in my home group because I want my homegroup to have the financial capacity to be able to do whatever they want to do and we do some things are a little different in our group, perhaps. But we have enough funds to be able to do that because there are those of us who kick in a little extra so that we can do those things. Give AA World Services a buck for every year that you've been sober. That's the least I can do. I send in a buck for the Foxhole Group and I also send a dollar for everyyear to the Pacific Group because that's my sponsor's home group. So it cost me $66 to stay sober this past year. I don't know about you, but I could easily spend that in one afternoon in a bar. That was nothing. Sixty-six bucks is nothing. But it might be of help to somebody else, and I think it's important. In AA, we're all treated equally. We're given an equal opportunity to recover. And it's up to you to take that opportunity and to take your recovery and make it important to you. By taking these actions, which cause us to be different people, which cause me to be a different person, which cause this to have an entire psychic change as is described in the doctor's opinion, what we're doing is we're acting our way into a new way of thinking. We're taking actions that change our thinking rather than trying to think ourselves by what we know into a New Way of Acting. We take the actions and what ends up happening is that our thinking changes, and we become well from that. I use my last name in Alcoholics Anonymous because we're not anonymous within AA. We're anonymous outside of AA, and if you're new, we're nicht going to tell anybody you're in AA. We don't want you to tell anyone that we're in AAA. It's just that simple. It's not any big deal, but if you know who I am, if you knows what my name is, if there's something I've said that you think might be helpful to you or you want to know more or whatever it is, then you can call me. You can get in touch with me because my name is in the phone book. Believe me, Dick Elman is not in the phone book, but it really isn't what we say in A that's so important. It's really what we do because we lead by example in Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a program of attraction and we attract people because of our example, because of what we do, not because of what we say. So, if anything, if I could learn to do anything well, it would be very simply I would like to learn to give without remembering and remember everything that I've received. And I want to thank you for receiving me. I wantto thank youfor having me here. I enjoyed the weekend. It's been a great weekend with friends and a couple of guys that I sponsor, and my wife, and some new people that I've met. It's good to see Terry here. He's had a hard year. It was good to see him here smiling, a little bit cheerful whether he wants to be or not. Good to see Charlie and James and a number of other people. I'm just glad to be here. I want you to remember that I really appreciate being here. Thank you. Thank you very much. St. Nicholas must have known that kiss would lead to all of this. It must have been the mistletoe, the lazy fire, the falling snow, The magic in the frosty air that made me love you On Christmas Eve, a wish came true That night I fell in love with you It only took one kiss to know It must have been the mistletoe It must have been the mist let go Oh, oh, oh. Oh come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant Oh come ye, oh come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him, born the King of angels O come, let us adore Him, O come let us Adore Him, Christ the Lord. Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing, all ye citizens of heaven above. Glory to God in the highest O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord © transcript Emily Beynon