The Pursuit of Solutions Over Causative Factors – 1962 – Jack S.

Thank you, Doris. Are you a little worried there for a minute? He said, I don't want to take any of the speaker's time, but I hate to go to those damn meetings where they start off that way. I know you're not supposed to talk about drugs, but. And I know you're nicht supposed to do this, but you know, but it reminds me when I came in today, that's all I knew was but Anyway, my name is Jack Sullivan. I'm an alcoholic I come from Louisville, Kentucky and as I was told to do when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll give you a sobriety date. It was the 21st day of August of 1962 and my home group is the South Louisville Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. It meets in Louisville, Kentucky on Wednesday night, an open speaker meeting. I hope if you're ever up that way, you come by and see us. I think it's the finest home group in the world. If you have a home group and you don't think yours is the best, then my advice to you is just stay there. Don't go screw up somebody else's. So we do. I appreciate Mike and his committee. I assume he had one. For inviting me, and he is responsible for me being here, in case anybody would like to know. And sometimes people do. Hey, people are very gracious. So you'll talk and they'll tell you how wonderful you are. And you leave town, they go to the program chairman and say, where'd you get that bastard at? And you never know anything about it. You still feel good. And I'd like to thank Bob for that ride in from the airport. I guess that's the plightiest way to describe it. But anyway, we've had a good time. We always have a good time wherever we go. I was brought up in an AA at a time and a period and they taught you to enjoy living and I appreciate and treasure those memories every day that I was blessed to have known some of the older old-timers and legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous that taught us that we learn how to live and we learn how to laugh and back then all those people got sober and told their face. You see a lot of people and hey, today they're sober and their face don't know it. They just look real sad all of a sudden. And they're always working on something. And they are always learning. They're into the in-depth studies of most everything. They have to know more than their brains are used to. They get so damn smart, their intelligence far exceeds their ability to comprehend it. They're always buying books and things on pursuit of causative factors, why you're the way you are. And they've lost all conscious contact with the fact of what Dr. Bob Smith said many years ago, that leave the Freudian complexes to the scientific mind. They have no place in here. And if you'll come to Alcoholics Anonymous, you'll soon learn that it's in the pursuit of solutions. And they'll tell you immediately they don't really much give a damn how you got the way you are. That's the way we are, baby, like it or not. And you can start today doing something about that. And if your care to go by all of those other books that give you the pursuit causative factors as to why you're that way, even if you ever wished to find out, it wouldn't help you a hell of a lot. It's a weakness all of us have seemingly in the new era of AA people, that desire to learn. I got into it myself. Even after I was sober about 25 years, I thought, I wonder if my daddy really had anything to do with what's wrong with me. Well, I mean, it's a thought everybody... You know, it bound across your mind when you pass all those books they sell. So I checked it out with an old-timer in AA, older than me. And I like this conference. I heard Liz last night and met some old friend Charlie again. And it's nice to be around people who still call me boy. I was a boy when I come into AA, you know. And I see Charlie and he said, ah, boy. So that really makes me feel good. But it crossed my mind one time about maybe my father had something to do with it, and so I went to one of them old-timers and I said, Brandy, do you think it's possible that I came from a dysfunctional home? He said, were you in it? I said, of course I was in it. He said, you can bet it was dysfunctional abuse. He said you're dysfunctional and orphaned zone. I couldn't argue with him. I love those old guys and they keep you straight, you know. You don't have any problems with ego or all that kind of stuff if you hang with them, you know. Listen to them. Listen to Bob talk about that tape. one day my doorbell rang and I opened the front door and there was a guy from UPS standing on the porch he had a little package square package and he handed it to me I had no idea what it was or who it came from and I got to look at the return address and it was from the Melton Tape Library and Buck Melton does all the taping up through the Carolinas and I opened a package up and there were two cassette tapes in there and on the cassette tape it said The Best Talks of Jack Sullivan All Across the USA. Well, my first thought was a big smile, you know. I thought, damn, that's nice of Buck. He's taken excerpts and all those pearls of wisdom I've expounded over the years and condensed them into a couple of tapes. And I dashed for the tape recorder at home and I threw one of those suckers in and turned it on and nothing happened. And I took the damn tape out and looked at the cassette and there wasn't even any tape in it. It was a damn empty box and I looked at tape number two, volume two, he said. I mean, he went to great lengths for this one. and volume two didn't have any tape in it. And I thought, that's a nice old fella. About three days later, my telephone rang, and it was Brian B. from up in the Carolinas. A lot of you all know Brian. Brian said, Jack, Buck Melton sent me a copy of those two tapes. And he said, the reason I'm calling is that I thought Volume 2 was so much better than Volume 1. And he says, well, if you put out Volume 3, I want a copy of it. And I hung up on him. Yeah, that's the kind of fun we have at AA. I enjoy being sober and enjoy being here. And I think back some time, I had my 32nd anniversary in AA last Wednesday night at my home group with seven other recovered alcoholics. We had 108 years of sobriety there. And it was such a tremendous pleasure to have all that going on one time in your life And then we've got a new fellow there that's just starting in the program, and he's looking forward to next year to celebrate with us. I think you get a true picture of Alcoholics Anonymous. At least I did that night, that there was all of this 32 years and 15 years and 7 years. It just seemed like that whole group and all those people were concentrated on that young fellow with about three weeks of sobriety that was waiting for next year. I know one day at a time, boy, next year I'm going to celebrate you guys. And everybody seemed more pleased with his enthusiasm for sobriety than they did with what we had always accomplished. And you have to act like you enjoy that. It's part of being an old-timer. But you sometimes stop and wonder how you get here from there. You know, I came from a background of a skid row wino. Well, I wasn't a wino, I used to say that, and a guy in Indiana told me not to tell people that. There's no such thing as a winos. He said there are alcoholics that run out of money. I was an alcoholic that ran out of the world. I ran out on money. And I think about that 32 years ago, about the 20th of August or the 21st of August, And I was thinking about coming down here, and I said to my wife, I said, you know, there's just no way to get there from where we came from. You can't get here from there. But as we all know, you can get here form there, wherever you come from. And you know that you can git here from ther because of the people that came before you that already got there. You know, and Alcoholics Anonymous is such a wonderful program for the simple reason it's based on fact and not theory. And it presents no argumentative values at all to it. There's nothing argumentative about Alcoholics Anecdotes because it's already worked for somebody. All of the steps are written in the past tense for that very reason. Somebody has already worked them. And when anybody comes in and says, I can't, you know, you don't have to theoretically argue with him. You just point him in a direction of somebody that did. And so there's no such thing as I can hear because there's already somebody who did. And if you decided you want what they have, and it becomes quite apparent what they had was a hell of a lot better than you got. You know, I said something to my old sponsor one time. I said, I get so damn sick and tired of hearing that crap. And I came in AA when everybody would come off of the street. There wasn't any treatment center back then, so when you come in AA, you didn't know anything, and therefore you had to act like you knew it all. And you were new to the AA program. It's not like today where you come out of treatment and want a five-year chip. But I said to that old guy one night I said, I get so damn sick and tired of hearing that crap You've decided you want what we got What in the hell you got? That old man looked at me and said A bed that's indoors for one thing And I thought, oh well that's good I'll stick around for a while Try that And just great. I never travel anywhere without my bride over there. We've been, I met Gay in 1962 or the first part of 1963, maybe a little bit before that. And we got married in September of 63. I was sober 13 months. And my sponsor immediately sent her to Al-Anon, assigned her to al-Alanon. I was sober about ten months, and I said to him one night, Hillary, I'm getting very serious about a lady. And I was at the hospital meeting where I first started in AA, and he said, That's the way them old fools talk to you back then. They're not like we are today, sort of mellow and refined. They were even known to use coarse language. And he said... up here. I said, what in the hell do I want to bring her up here for? He said, because I told you to bring Her up here! I said oh, that makes sense. And that's the way those old sponsors were back then. If they told you, you did it. And even though you didn't want to and you knew it wouldn't help and didn't work and all that stuff, you did it and I don't remember if that was out of fear or respect or what it was. You just did it. You just did it if you wanted to stay here and they didn't give a damn if you left. You know, he offered me ten dollars many times to get a drink. I'm not sure it'll work for me. Here son go try something here. See if a jug will work for you. You've got a decision to make to stay here or go back out there. And I said well I'll stick around for a little while longer. One day I was saying something to somebody and I said Well, you know, in my opinion, he stopped dead in his tracks and turned around and came back. And I thought, oh, I wish I hadn't said that. He said, what did I hear you say? I said, well, I'm just saying in my own opinion. He said who in the name of God would be interested in your opinion? And you know what hurt? I couldn't think of anybody. I couldn't think of anybody but anyway I brought Gay up there and he called Mandy's wife over and said I want you to take her to Al-Anon meeting she's going to marry him live with him she needs a program that teaches you how to live and teaches you and gives you an understanding that there are many dimensions of love and happiness but you must find it within yourself and you cannot under any circumstances is react to life and people and do that. So you have to learn, and Al-Anon's the greatest teacher in the world for people who don't have the alcohol problem. And he just told her to go, and she went. They took her, and she's been a member of Al-Al-An now for, that was 1963, 31 years. And she don't like talking from these podiums. They make her awful nervous. She's good at our home group, one-on-one with people, and I never leave home without her. She's just like that American Express card for me. That way I've been able to keep her. We have a wonderful marriage, get along just fine. She's now my best friend, my wife, and, you know, we're good to each other. And we've come to the brilliant conclusion over all these years that if you treat people like you like to be treated, you get along well with them. And so we don't have any quarrels. She does her program, I do mine, we do ours. And I'd like for you all to meet her. Gay, would you stand up? This is her. Isn't she a pretty lady? Yeah, she is. She's just... Well, you know, I see... I don't know the only objection I have to her is I have a lot of friends that tell me stories. I don'T believe in telling jokes behind these podiums. I never have. But I've heard a few stories that I share with people along the way. and I believe this podium is a place of honesty, so every story I ever told anybody was true. And the reason I know they're true is because an alcoholic told them to me. And she has a tendency to doubt that at times. And I understand some people she tends not to believe, but we had an old friend of mine up there. He's deceased now. He was a state delegate from Kentucky, a wonderful man, and never knew him alive in my life. His name was Billy Moore. Some of you all knew Billy Moore, and if Billy Moore told you something, you'd go to bank on it. And she thought Billy Moore was bigger than an iron arrest of them. But Billy Moore would tell me about a lady that went to Al-Anon constantly and her husband kept drinking. He never would quit, and he finally died. And when he died, she had him cremated and mixed his ashes with some marijuana and smoked him. And she went all across the United States telling people that's the first time in 25 years that sucker ever made her feel good. And that's a true story. And I know it's true because Billy Moore told me, and state delegates don't lie. And I thought, okay. I don't know how I got to be an alcoholic. It's nothing I planned on. I came from the worst place in the world for alcoholics, I guess, a good Christian home. Seems like that's where most of us are from. I have an older brother who retired recently as an executive with the General Motors Corporation. When he was young, he was offered a free scholarship to GM Tech in Flint, Michigan and jumped at the opportunity. It was offered to me and I passed it up. I have two younger sisters who both married early and when they were 19 or 20 years old, they still today have the same husband. They both had four children and lived normal lives, I guess, whatever that is. I had a mother who was deathly sick all of her life. I never remember my mother being well. She died when I was about 19, 20 years old, and she's not really a part of my story. And I had a father who is one hell of a lot more of my history. And in case I forget to tell you, my father lived for eight years in my sobriety. I got sober in 1962. My father died in 1970. And before my father passed away, we became the greatest friends in the world. My father had the greatest respect in the World for me and for you in this program. My father loved me dearly, and I was able to reciprocate that because of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when my father died, he never worried about me again. And some affairs had to be handled. He remarried into his estate and things like that, and he entrusted me to take care of all that for him. And so that was a tremendous, tremendous reward for me, what had happened prior to that. I went to a Catholic grade school and went to Catholic high school for two years. I was taught all about God and religion and that kind of stuff, and I never had any feelings for it. I'm not sure I believed in it. I don't really know. I just never had anything for it at all. I thought that God was one of those condemning, judging type of spirits that tormented the hell out of people when they did wrong, and I just Never got tuned into it. for a great number of years. I don't really know what I thought, but I was listening to an AA speaker one night and I know I'd been sober 20 years and he was talking about that period of time in his life and he said what they taught him in school and taught him at church and then he said, I'm not real sure that's what they said. I'm just sure that is what I heard. And I went up and told him afterwards and I said that explains a great, great many things for me over the years that I was younger and went to church and school. I'm not sure that's what they said. I'm just sure that'S what I heard. But when I was 16 years old, up to that point, I don't remember anything I could share with you that would help you identify with me. I was just kind of normal. And I got out around the corner at Louisville, Kentucky at 4th and Central. And if you're not familiar with Louisville it's where the Churchill Downs Racetrack is. And most people have seen the Kentucky Derby on TV if they've never been there. That's where I got my start. I worked at a Gulf filling station At night with an older boy And I needed that job To have a little bit of spending money My father never had any Because of my mother's sickness And I got out that corner And things began to happen At the age of 16 World War II was just about over But not quite and everything was still rationed You couldn't buy gasoline without ration coupons You couldn'T get good whiskey or cigarettes Or anything like that They were scarce And at that gas station, people would turn in their coupon books at the end of the month and didn't use all those coupons. And we could turn them into Washington, and we still had the gas in those tanks. The moral of that story is we had a lot of gasoline out there we could sell without ration coupons, and guys that owned liquor stores and beer joints around here had big cars and no gas, and they would come down there, and мы бы fill those Cadillacs up with gasoline, and they'd bring the good whiskey, the Fitzgerald and the Old Forrester and the good beer which you couldn't buy over the counter, the Budweiser's and the Miller's. And we'd put them in a storeroom in that station and we either drank it or sold it. And that's literally where I learned to drink. And the guy that owned the drugstore across the street had big cars and no gas but good cigarettes and you couldn'T buy them. Lucky's Camel, you just couldn'T by them on the open market. And he had a few cartons of them and he'd come over and we'd fill those Cadillacs up with gas and he'd bring old cigarettes over. And we put them in a storeroom and we either smoked them or sold them. And that's really where I learned to smoke. And there were some girls out there that didn't have any gasoline. You'll have to draw your own conclusions with that. but it was an interesting time in my life, and I fell in love with it like that. And, you know, I know you can fill psychiatric libraries with why people are that way when they're young. And God knows we've got them by the hundreds today, more so than we had back then. I don't know why, if I knew I'd share it with you, I'd tell you. I just don't now. I fell en love with that environment and that atmosphere. And,you know, it was the greatest thing in the world. My schoolwork went to hell. That Catholic high school asked me after I finished my sophomore year not to come back there. And I wasn't a drunk. I just didn't have any interest in anything anymore but that corner and that environment and those women and that booze and everything that went on around that racetrack and everything. I mean, my whole life was wrapped up in it, and I just Didn't Care About Anything Anymore. And they told me at that Catholic high School that, you know, we don't like your attitude. We don't Like Your Lack of Attention to What's Going On. You know, you've changed the past four or five months. We don't know what's wrong or what's going on, but go somewhere else. And so I finished up my high school education in a vocational school up there and hung around that corner. As soon as school was out, I was at that corner I'd go home to my mother and say, are you going to eat? No, I've got to go to work, which were the lies out that corner and I stayed as long as I laid as I could I knew they'd let me back in the house and my dad would raise hell with me about being out there and I didn't want to hear it, I just fell in love with her And I really don't recall getting in any trouble until I was about 20 years old. I don't remember being drunk before I was 20. If I was, I don' t remember. And if it did, it was no big event or whatever. I don''t think I was. But I was tuned into all of that with that attitude. And I always had that smart-ass attitude. Whether it was around my father or other people, whoever it was. I knew it all. And I didn' t need anybody to tell me anything. And I tell my dad that. You know, my choice word for my father was he was a dumbass old man. And I tell him that constantly and I don't want to hear it. We were at war altogether. And the only thing that ever changed my opinion of my father was a squad car. It's true, it's an interesting thing with an alcoholic. It'll change his opinion of people. He has a squad card in a jail. The breeding ground of humility is probably the back seat of a squad car, you know. I was 20 years old. I was arrested for the first time in my life for drunken, disorderly, and put in jail. And I didn't have anybody else to call. My father was a very strong man. My father believed if you're looking for a helping hand, it's on the end of your own arm, provided you know where to put it. My father said after I got in AA that he regrets that neither one of us ever knew where to Put Your Arm. But he said if you look for a help in hand, It's on the end of your own arm, provided you know where to put it. But he also believed if you dance to the music, you pay the fiddler. I'm not paying for you. When I came in AA, I never had to ask my father what I owed him. I knew what that was. Nothing. I mean, he never parted with a dime. He would have done anything in God's world to help me help myself. But he never would contribute to my delinquency. And the first time I was ever arrested, I could hear it as if he was talking to me today. I dropped that dime on that phone, and he wasn't a dumbass old man anymore. You know? I dialed, and He answered, and I said, Daddy, Daddy. He said, What do you want? I said I'm in jail. He said Why did you call me? I said Well, I thought maybe you'd come down here and get me out. Oh, he said If I had you, I wouldn't worry about that. Well, I was worried about it. He said, as smart as you are, why? He said. I'm sure if you figured a way to get in, you'll figure a way to get out. And he hung up. And when I got out and ran into him somewhere, he said, I've never been in jail in my life. But he said. I understand they give you one phone call. If I was you, I wouldn't waste it. Well, I never called him again. He didn't seem to have any understanding of the situation. And I was to be arrested 27 more times for public drunkenness. And the only reason that that happened to people like me back then, there was no place. You were a drunk and I went to the city streets, and when you went tothe city streets you went to jail. There was no doctors, hospitals, anyplace would fool with you. I did have an arrest one time by the police and taken to a university hospital up there because I was suffering from alcoholic hallucinations on the street. And they would push you in a place and see whether you lived or died. They didn't give you medicine. And you would hear the university doctors talking about people like me when you were in that place, what a waste of taxpayers' money people like we were because they would treat me and get me well and try to restore me to health and I'd be drunk the day I got out of the joint. And they were always right. People like me were always drunk. You were not called alcoholics, and you were not treated for alcoholism because there was no such thing back in the 50s as any type of treatment for alcohol-ism as per se. And so whenever you disrupted anything, you just went to jail. And all the people you hear at my age under those kind of situations that went to jails a whole lot simply because they had no place else to go. I drank for 13 years, tried like every human being on this earth to find some way to live out there in that world peacefully and comfortably without alcohol. And I couldn't do it. I was miserable as hell sober. And I tried to learn to control the chemical that seemingly made me feel good on occasions without drinking it to the extent it created a hell of a lot of problems, and I couldn'T do that either. And so the battle was on, and it's the life story of any alcoholic. The battle is on to learn how to live, and then the battle is one to learn about alcoholism. And then the two never, never do the roads ever meet. And whenever I got sober and whenever I went back to that quote-unquote normal way of living, I became miserable enough to take another drink. And as hard as I tried not to, I did. And the people I was around never, never understood it at all. I'd gone to work for a railroad up there, the old LN Railroad. And when I was 20 and I had no respect for that company or no respect für my job, I was just the type of guy that drifted. And if you wanted to go somewhere, I'd go. And if he wanted to stay, I would stay. And responsibilities didn't mean a hell of a lot to me. My father asked me to leave his home and I went to live in a nice apartment up in Louisville. Hell, I don't need people. And I drank my way out of that apartment and went to living in a one-room place. And I drink my way of that place and I want to live on a flop house a quarter of the night. And I couldn't afford it after a while and I finally went to life on Skid Row. And the older I got, the tolerance dropped. and it just seemed like the alcohol now made me sick and instead of taking a drink and feeling better and being somebody and doing something, you know, I just kept getting worse and less mobile and I couldn't drink and I could not work and I cannot do much of anything. And I lived on Skid Row about a year and a half. I never married. I never had any children and I have never regretted my life. I think I had the easiest life in the world for any alcoholic that ever lived And I say that simply because I had no wife, I had No children and I left the home with my Father and I went to live in a city gutter And I see many Many, many of my friends in this program Go out and get a gutter And bring it home with you I've seen some of the stinkinest, filthiest Gutters running down through the middle of some of The finest living rooms in the country I've see alcoholics in their Sick minds honestly to God believe And the people that love them the most are in some way Responsible for what they've become I've seen them reach out of their living room gutters and try to drag people that are their parents or their wives or their husbands or their children and drag them through that stinking emotional mess of garbage that alcoholism breeds. I've seeing them teach their loved ones very well on how to be lonely and afraid and insecure, and they've taught them well. And that never happened to me. I've never been close enough in my life to love somebody for who they were and totally despise them for what they've become. My father used to say that's the most emotional heartbreak in the world, is to have to look at somebody that you dearly love for who They are and totally despise Them for what They've become, as if you love an alcoholic and hate alcoholism. and that's what my father had to endure with me and I never had to endure that with anybody all I had was just an old street gutter nothing exciting about skid row people in street gutters occasionally you meet some outsider from that crazy world out there that's comical story I tell all the time I get sure how dumb some people are I was living in a cardboard jungle at 4th and Central, there was a hardware store and they'd throw out all of that cardboard boxes that the shipments and stuff came in. And you can really be a snob wino if you try. If you got there early, you'd get one of them big freezer boxes and you can lay down in them and you look at some guy trying to curl up one of those TV console boxes and you know you're better than he is. You think we ought to get rid of him, he's ruining the neighborhood. And, you know, it's a place to stay out of the elements, and they do it everywhere. And we'd drag those cardboard boxes over behind an L-shaped building, and the police would leave you alone. It's a cardboard jungle. I saw a guy snooping back there one day out of Churton Town, and I had borrowed some money from a finance company. They called a railroad about two years before that, and a clerk over there with a friend of mine, I gave him his number, and he told them what a wonderful person I was, well-respected. and they gave me $500 on my signature only. I hadn't paid them in a couple of years. I think I owed them $10,000 or whatever. Third hell it is you owe those places. And they couldn't find me and that tears them up, you know, those friendly loan companies. They don't become so friendly when they can't find you for a couple years. And finally, a bartender I found out later told the guy, he said, hell, look back there in that cardboard jungle. I think that's where he is. And this guy comes back there one day and he's snooping around through their shirt and tie and knew he didn't belong. It was raining and I was sitting in one of them freezer boxes and had the flap closed and had a three-day-old ration for him and a pint of wine. And I saw him and I thought, who in the hell is that? He finally came over and he got up enough nerve to tell you it was uneasy about it, but he finally came back and he came over and he'd got up another nerve and he knocked on my box. I opened the flap to let him in He asked me if I was Jack Sullivan. I said, yes. And he told me who he was. And he said something I haven't understood to this day. He said, do you know you borrowed some money from us a couple of years ago and you ain't paid a damn dime on that loan since? And I said yes. He said I'm going to tell you something. If you don't start making some payments on that lawn, you're in a hell of a lot of trouble. And I don't know to this day what he had in mind. Look at that. I lived there and the only thing you ever learn on a place like that is to hate. You learn to hate, you learn to hide everything and everybody including Almighty God and you learn the curse and you curse everything and anybody and Almighty God And you try your best to become resigned to the fact that that's where you'll die because there's no escape from a place like that for people like me when you've been through all the channels. The doctor says if you don't quit drinking, you die. The priest says you go to hell. The boss says unemployment line. The policeman says the jail. The judge says the prison. And all those things are going to happen if you Don't Quit. The interjection of fear into the life of somebody that's literally scared to death. You know, if psychiatry is right, and I'm sure they are, that the strongest emotion in the human body is fear. And the only thing known to overcome it is faith. When I look back upon my life like that, I certainly believe that to be true for the simple reason that if I'm afraid of life, why is it that I am that way? And if I realize that it's because of the faith I possess and the only damn thing I believe in is me, then I'm in a lot of trouble. You know, I never, until Alcoholics Anonymous, could free myself from the bondage of self. That is what encompasses me in a life of fear, when there's nobody in there but me. You know that's horrible. All I can do is sit on a curb and think. You know an old guy years ago told me, he said, don't do that when you're new. Don't think. He said your mind is like a real bad neighborhood. Never go in there alone. And that's all I had was me, you know. And so surely I would die where I was, you know. And you really don't care. You really don' t care except I could look at my family, I could looked at my brother, I could looks at my sisters and I could look and think, I wonder how in hell I wound up like this. A good friend of mine one time, a physician, told me that most people that commit suicide are resigned to the fact that's the way their life is meant to end. And he said, I really believe, and I can't prove this, that alcoholics should get in the kind of bottomless positions that we get ourselves into sometimes and that I was into sometimes. He said, But I really believed that the people that don't commit suicide are the people who are not thoroughly convinced that's where their life has meant to be. And it's generally by a classic example of somebody they know. And he said, I'm sure that you've never been able to convince yourself That's where you were meant to die, in that alley And I'm certain that he's right But I knew I'd never escape from there There is no escape for people like me And on the morning of the 21st day of August of 1962 About 10 o'clock in the morning And I know this from what they tell me I was sitting in the back room of that saloon with a bottle of wine And the back door opened and my father walked in with a man I'd never seen before in my life. I hadn't seen my father in a long time, and I didn't want to see my father. I'm sure my father knew where I was and how I looked, but I didn' t want to seem. I didn''t want to him see me looking that way. I had a real long hair and a beard. I was filthy dirty. All my teeth had been kicked out. I was suffering from malnutrition and dehydration, and you bloat and change colors. and I was just a pitiful-looking piece of human flesh. And my father said he was stunned when he saw me that he had some idea I was in bad shape, but he said, I could never imagine you looking like that. And I saw him and I would just terrify. I didn't want to see him. And there was no place to go. And he went over and sat on some stools that went around a lunch counter in his saloon and the guy with him came to where I was sitting, well-dressed, distinguished-looking gentleman. and a smile on his face. Obviously, better things to do that day and better places to go and different people to see than to come to a place like that to see somebody like me. And he stuck his hand out and he wanted to shake hands with me. And he said, Hi, my name is Jack. I understand so is yours. And I said, Yes? Dumbfounded. He said, I've come here to help you. I'm a friend of your father's. You don't know me, but I know your father, and I'm also a friend of the vice president of labor relations on the L&N Railroad. And they've told me about you, and maybe I can help you. I've come out here to try. He said, I hope you'll let me. I can't help you if you won't let me." I mean, that's true with anybody you ever cross paths with. I can'T help you If You Won'T Let Me. And I was so sick, I guess, and so desperate. And I looked at him and I said, why? Why, stranger, would you want to help somebody like me? And he said, I'm here because I used to be like you are and somebody helped me. And I said what did you say? He said the reason I'm hear is because I use to be like you're and somebody helps me. I go to 5 AA meetings a week. And people say, why do you go? I say, maybe I can help. Maybe if I try to help, it will help me. But I come because I used to be like you are. And somebody helped me. It was an unbelievable thing that that man could have ever been like me. I found out later he was. He was a Skid Row Lionel. and he had gotten off the skid row with the help of an old guy in the city of Louisville who knew about Alcoholics Anonymous way back in the 40s. He said, come go with us. I've made arrangements to have you admitted to a psychiatric hospital and a psychiatrist friend of mine will accept you as a patient. Your father has kept up your medical insurance premiums on the railroad. I was discharged in the railroad And he said, we want to take you there and see if we can't help you. And I was just so sick and so desperate. That's the reason I went. I don't remember that much or anything else about him wanting to help or that kind of stuff. Most of the stuff I remember and talk about is what he told me, but he was a sarcastic old fool. I said, do you want me to go to a hospital looking like this? and you know how them old people like Charlie were back then, the old meaner than hell. He said, of course not. Do you have some place to change? And I thought, you son of a... Well, on the 21st day of August of 1962, they admitted me to that psychiatric hospital in Louisville, Kentucky under the care of a psychiatrist who was a good man. And I want to tell you that. I had a lot of respect for him. He's still living, and he's a good friend of mine. He was a psychiatrist who admitted alcoholics but didn't treat us for what was wrong with it. It does not mean he was wrong. It only meant that's what he believed at that time in his life and that time of his practice. Psychiatry was wrong, and every time I hear somebody criticize a minister or a psychiatrist or a doctor or something, I immediately want to know what they said when you went back and talked with them. And for God's sakes, if they mistreated you and you haven't been back, you ought to go because they'll mistreat somebody else. And that doctor, well-meaning as he was, was wrong. But when I went back and had a chance to sit down and talk to him about Alcoholics Anonymous and what it could do, I'm sure I swayed his opinion. Although back then those people thought we were competitive. And by that I mean if a medical doctor got a hold of you, it was a medical problem. If a minister got a hold of you, it was a moral problem. If a psychiatrist got ahold of you it was an emotional problem. And never the train met. Nobody ever looked at it as probably it could be a three-fold thing that's wrong with us. You know, we do have medicine and emotional and spiritual problems. And they need to be addressed in a proper order. It's a fascinating thing about Alcoholics Anonymous and my career around it. I have noticed that about half of the people that come here one day have fallen on their knees and said, God help me. And he does. And they come in gentle believers. And other people come in kicking and screaming. And some old guy will say, let's put his soul on a side burner. He needs his ass saved first. And they're right. My old sponsor used to say, get him two. Somebody said, you be getting two. Two, two. Every alcoholic needs two sponsors, A soul saver and an ass kicker. Any more of them. He said, Ass kickers are absolutely necessary because they open your mind. And I said, That statement makes no sense to anybody. He said that's because people do not know that in alcoholics God put an extra bone. Are you crazy? It runs from the base of their brain to the base to their spine, and only alcoholics that come kicking and screaming have one of them. I said, I didn't know that. Absolute, absolutely a necessity. I said what the hell good does it do? He said what it does is if you kick an alcoholic in his ass, that bone vibrates and opens up his mind. And he said you hang around here, we're going to get your mind open. Well, I went in that hospital and I'd never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm 33 years old. It's 1962. I'd Never Heard of AA. And I guess a lot of people in that time and era never did either. Now, I don't think AlcoholicsAnonymous would have helped me any sooner. I was one of those people that you just couldn't... I just couldn' t learn from other people. It's interesting to watch people come in AA. There are a lot of people coming in AA, and especially the younger ones today. You can almost tell they have the capability to learn from others. Somebody can share an experience with them they identify. And they're willing to say, I've had enough, and I can learn from what you've been through. And there are other people who come here, they don't have a shot. Because they just can't learn from other people. They have to have their own experiences. and you just pray they live long enough to come here or to stay here. But damn, they won't learn from other people. They just can't surrender that aspect of their life. I was telling a psychiatrist friend of mine one day, we were talking about those lines about people, why are they that way? And he said, I don't know why they're that way, they just are. But he told me a story about a lady that owned a polyparot and that parrot cussed like a sailor. God, it was filthy mouth. And she got disgusted with it one day and grabbed it by its feet and threw it in the freezer and after the bird had been in her for a while, she felt sorry for it and opened the freezer and laid him out and the parrot was shaking. She said, I get so mad at you the way you cuss. That parrot said, I'll never cuss again as long as I live. He said, but tell me, what the hell did that turkey do? Well, the interesting thing was, the parrot learned from the turkey. I'm sure that sitting in this room and sitting in your home groups when you get back there and looking at those people, there'll be some parrots in that room. They will learn from others. But you can bet there'll been some turkeys sitting in there, and I'm certain there's some turkies in here. There are some people that come to AA, they have to skin you, wrap you, and freeze your ass before you will ever learn anything. And I want you to know you're looking at the biggest turkey of them all. I'm turkey material. Well, I'm sitting in that room on the 28th day of August. That doctor's treating me for my valium deficiency. Well, that's what they thought was wrong with you and they were preparing me for that electroshock therapy that levels off the ruts of your mind. And, I mean, they really believed that back then. I've got an old friend down in Evansville, Indiana. Even today, you shake hands with him, you watch him light up. I mean long before G.E. ever thought of it, those guys knew you could live better electrically. But he said, You're going to AA. I don't know what AA is. Never heard of it. A nurse comes in and gives me that Al-Anon handshake. She said, don't you go anywhere tonight. We're going to the AA meeting. I said, what in the hell is an AA meeting? Alcoholics Anonymous. Are you insinuating that you think I'm an alcoholic? She said I'm not insinulating a damn thing. I said I'll have you know I'm no alcoholic. Alcoholics are people that have problems they can't handle. I could handle my problems if it wasn't for them. Now, everybody has them. And if you ain't real careful, they'll still get you. I mean, they're out there. Them ain't gone nowhere. You can be sitting in the living room some night in the lounge chair and you'll hear them. Jack, come on out and play. And if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be where I'm at. And I said, I want you to know, I am no damned alcoholic. And she said, I want your name on the list of people who are not alcoholics. I want her to know that if you're not one, there ain't any. She said, Did you ever think that maybe you could be wrong about that? And I says, He had a hell of a thing to tell any alcoholic. He was wrong about something. I knew Billy Moore told me another story, I'll tell you all. I know it's true. It was about an old cowboy out west, an alcoholic, drunkard, and he comes staggered out of a saloon one day and an old man rode in town on a mule and that alcoholic cowboy went up to that old man. He said, Hey, old man, can you dance? And that oldman said, No, I don't know nothing about dancing. He said. I bet you can. and he took that six-shooter out and shot that old man's feet. That old man got to dancing, that alcoholic cowboy laughing at him. When he counted, that oldman counted that sixth bullet. He reached up on the back of that mule and got a shotgun. He stuck it up in that alcoholic's face. He said, did you ever kiss a mule's ass? He said no, but I've always wanted to. No, but I've always wanted to. The lengths we'll go to keep them admitting we're wrong. Well, she said, you be back there with me tonight or I'll put you over where the doorknobs are on the outside. And if you've never been in a sanitarium or an asylum or a nut house, whatever you want to call it, I've got news for you. There are architectural defects in those places. Some doors only have one knob that ain't on your side. I said, well, I believe I'll go. Didn't want to go. One week I'd fallen in love with a drunken broad in there. And that's the most interesting thing I've ever seen in my life, you know. It's two drunks that fall in love in those nuthouses. You see it all the time. They're walking down the corridor holding hands and blinking eyes at each other. They can't wait till they get out of there. A lot of times they don't. The only thing I know that's dumber than that are people that work in there and try to separate them. I'm serious. You ever see people working in treatment centers or nuthouses, and they've got two drunks in love, and they go, get away from me, leave me alone. Hey, if you work in one of them joints, and you've got that going on, leave them alone. Trust me. If you separate them, they'll screw up four people. They're just meant for each other. Well, I had to go back to that AA meeting. That nurse had me by my earlobe. A grown man. The nurse said, come on, we're going. Took me back down a corridor to a student nurse's classroom where them AAs met. There was an old lady standing in that doorway when I got back there. And Marguerite Hughes was the nurse's name. She said, Margaret, this is Jack Sullivan. He's one of our patients here. Margaret was an older woman. An old gray-haired lady about 60 years old. Smiled all the time. Lifted me and she said, hi, honey. put her arm around my shoulder. She said, honey, would you like a cup of coffee and a cookie? I thought, a cup of coffee and a cookie? Where in the name of God does she think I've come from? I'm thinking along the lines of a half a pint and a hooker. A cup of coffee and a cookie Well I go in and sit down And some old fool like me gets up talking Trying to share with me A story The greatest story ever told In an AA meeting He's trying to tell me I used to be like you are, partner. Tried like hell to live out there sober. Couldn't do it. Tried to like hell live out here drinking. Couldn't deal with it. Damn near killed me. Took everything I had. Tore up a family. Destroyed my life to whatever degree. Couldn't know it. Came in and some old fool said, hey, buddy, sit down here. We'll tell you a story. I usedと be like yoу are. I found a way out of the trap. And if you want to find a way out of your trap, you stay here And you'll find it. Now, he told a lot of others, but that's all. I mean, what the hell can any speaker say? What the hell can any Speaker say? But not me. I wouldn't listen to him. Hey, old man, what the hell are you telling me for? I don't care what the hell happened. I didn't want him to come down here and go shh, shh. And I'm going, whoo. I mean it's a disaster. I made an ass out of myself in that room. You wouldn't believe. And that old guy kept talking and so did I. Horrible. And the damn meeting was over, and I started out that door and that old woman grabbed me again. And Marguerite smiled. She said, Honey, you come back next week. She says, Alcoholics Anonymous needs people like you. And I thought they ought to put that old broad in a home somewhere here. Get her off of the street. And and I went back to tell my roommate all this weird stuff, you know, coffee and cookies and old women and some jerk talking and trying to drag me in that cult, you know. And I said, I ain't going back there next week. And Marguerite said, the hell you ain't. Now, I went by and I said to her, I went down next week and I sat down next to some old man and little did I realize this was about to change my life. I had no intention of going. I had not intention of talking to him. and I certainly had no intention of that change in my life. And little did I realize that my intentions don't amount to a whole lot around here. It's a fascinating thing on the journey to recovery, what happens in your life when you had no intent for it to happen. You know, and I went in there and I sat down madder than hell because I was there and I said down next to some old man, he said, Hi, boy. Boy, how are you doing? I said, I'm doing all right, old man, but I ain't no damn alcoholic. They make me come back here. He said, really? I said really. You're not an alcoholic. I said no, I am not an alcoholic. He said well, if you ever find out what's wrong with you, you ought to do something about it. You look like hell. Well, I got up and left from him. Up in the back row. I went back the following week, and he still sat there, and he said, how you doing, boy? I said, oh, I'm doing okay. You still not an alcoholic? I said hell no, I am not an alcoholic. He said, that's neat. I am glad to hear that. He said one nice thing about not being an alcoholic, you won't have any trouble quitting drinking. The only people who have trouble quitting is alcoholics. And if you ain't one, it will be real easy. My son quit drinking any time I want to. He said how come you haven't quit for now? That's none of your damn business. That's right. What other answer do you have? I stayed there for four weeks, and they sent me to an insane asylum down in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where there was really nothing in there but people who are brain chemistry insanity. Not like us. You know, we're crazy because we can't even see the truth about ourselves. I stayed here for 40 days, and I came back to Louisville to live with a sister of mine. And I started going to A meeting with them old guys, and They talk around you. Well, when I first come to A, we admitted we were part of Sober Alchemist. My life began to change, and sure people do that. You know, it's always nice in the crowd to have an example of people that can't. Tell them, Jack. Tell them what? Tell them why you're not proudest over alcohol and how you have managed your life for the last 30. Well, I ain't doing too good. How about you're insane? I ainít crazy. Really? No, Iím not insane. that you have absolutely no idea what sanity is, do you? What makes you so damn crazy, you can't see yourself for what you are. I mean, I see what you're about to sit at this table and see what your heart is about. You don't see that. The insanity of Alcoholics Anonymous is not the insanity you saw in that nuthouse in Hopkinsville. The insanity in AlcoholicsAnonymous is your inability to see yourself for whatyou really are. Want to know something? You'll be as sane as you are honest. When you can see the honesty in yourself, you will begin to get sane. When you see what I see. And you know the interesting part about it? You don't even have to wait to see it. Sit down there and let me tell you about it. And by God, they tell you. You're goofy. And I said, I want one of them books that girl read this morning, More About Alcohol. I want them big books. For what? What do you want with a book? Well, read it wouldn't help. nothing changes till you change and you ain't changed nothing changes don't ever forget it nothing changes till you changed and you aint changed damn book ain't gonna help you well that fellow there has been sober less I don't care how long he's been sober you'll get a book when I say you can have a book well I stayed around a couple more months and he said give him a book I got a book he told me he wanted me to read this chapter I don't want you to read anything else. Read this. Just read this. Nothing else. Read it, read it, read it until you've memorized it. I said, I'm going to get me one of them... I didn't know what you called them. I'm gonna get me one of those things I see all these other people with they draw lines through things. He said, What the hell are you talking about? I said. You see people coming up with these books and they got yellow lines through some of the things that's in that book that pertains to them. He said. Are you talking about a highlighter? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Now he said, Let me get this straight. You want to mark through the lines of the big book of things that pertain to you. And I said, yes. He said, get a three-inch paintbrush. I said. I don't believe in God. He said. Who cares what you believe in? I said, I couldn't care less what you believe in. But I just wanted you to know that. Well, you told me, so what? I don't believe in God. He said, who cares what you belief in? He said you dummy, don't you realize what you belive in made you what you are? Everything you are is because of what you believ in. You're a master artful piece of work of your own making. Look at you. what you believe made you what you are. Why in the hell would I care what you believe in? I said, you don't care I don't believe in God? He said, I couldn't care less. I said how about God? He said he cares less than I do. Don't you understand at all after hanging around here for a year what we're trying to tell you is nobody cares what you believe in. I'm your sponsor, and I believe in you. I believe that if you don't drink, go to meetings, get in the car. God, that was awful. Pull up in your driveway. See you tomorrow night at 630. Back out of the driveway. Didn't even ask you if you wanted to go. You'd sit around there all day figuring out why you couldn't go. Yogi Berra's on, you know, something important. They'd pull in the driveway, and then I'd dash out there and say, Listen, I get in a car. But you don' t understand. Get in the damn car. I got in the damn car. Three hundred and sixty-five days that first year I was there. If you don't drink, go to meetings, and get in the car, you'll be all right, you know? I believe that. You want to know something else? So does God. God believes you'llbeallrightifyoudontdrink,go tomeetings,andgetinthedamncar. And I did. And I could see what they were talking about, that I had to surrender my will to an intangible spirit of truth that we call God. and let him realize and understand that his direction in my life is a lot better road map than I ever had. And once I could see that in my heart, I was able then to proceed with Alcoholics Anonymous as all people must do with the steps of the way. I became willing to take the action that was necessary for me to be here with you today. And I still must do that on a daily basis. Gay and I got married. I got my job back with the L&N Railroad, and after I was sober for about 1974, so over about 12 years, my company came and asked me to help start an alcohol and drug abuse program on the old Louisville and Nashville Railroad. We ran down here, merged with the C-Board, now the CS Act. We were the first one in the state of Kentucky to ever have such a program. I'd worked like hell all those years far. I worked with labor unions and personnel directors and it was really a tremendous effort on my part, And I'm proud of that, with the labor unions and companies, to see that alcoholics were treated for alcoholism. In the state of Kentucky, the reason insurance companies start paying for alcohol in the 70s was simply because of our work and our effort. You know, and I did that for that company from 1974 until I retired in 1988 when they moved and merged and all that kind of stuff. And Gay had one daughter when we got married. She's a fine lady who lives in Mount Vernon, Indiana. Just recently lost her husband to cancer. and she's having a hard time with that at the present time, but that will pass. Two children and one great-grandchild. So I'm a great- grandfather in their very own kids and love every minute of it. We get to travel around. I'll do eight of these a year. I only do eight. It's all I can handle. Probably all you can handle, but I know it's all you're going to have to do. I know I can. But then we go different places and we just have the greatest life in the world. It's the greatest Life in the World. you know and you can't get here from there but I'm here to tell you you can wherever you are you can get there from here and you know what I know it's true because somebody has already got there and all you have to do is follow the directions and the directions are simple don't drink go to meet get in the damn car and you'll be alright I'll tell you a story I close every AATOP with that I make. I love it. A guy told it to me many, many, Many, many years ago. I'm not real sure even where it came from. I get postcards sometimes from people and they'll say, Jack, I picked up the snake. But it was a story about a guy that was walking down a very cold and lonely road in the middle of the road laid a snake. When he stopped and looked at the snake, the snake spoke to him and said, Mr. Undyne, please help me. I'm cold and freezing. I can't live in this kind of weather. Please help me pick me up and put me under your coat. that I may get warm and live. And the man said, I can't do that. You're a poisonous reptile. And surely to God, if I pick you up and put you under my coat, you'll bite me. It's your nature to bite. And the snake said, I wouldn't bite you if you saved my life. Please help me. And the male said, The man picked him up and put him under his coat and when the snake got warm he bit him. And the men grabbed him and threw him out from under hiscoat and back to the road. And he looked at him and the snake had a snickering grin on his face and the man says, I thought you promised if I'd help you not to bite And with a snickering grin on his face, the snake looked at him and said, You knew what I was when you picked me up. My friends, if you're ever sitting somewhere in the confines of your own home, cocktail lounge, bar, wherever it may be, if it's your decision to take the cap off of the bottle or the cork out of the jug, explain it to those that want to listen. Rationalize it to ceux that care to hear. But if you've been here, if yo've met me, if y'know us, you know what it is when you pick it up. Thank you for having me and thank the Lord.