The Sense of Well-Being That Only Comes From Giving – Norm A.

My name is Norm. I'm an alcoholic, and I certainly want to thank the group. I want to thanks Mac and Claude and Pauline, the entire committee for the invitation to be here this evening and to participate and to be part of this particular meeting. And also welcome out there tonight to any newcomers, any new people that are here for your first, second, or third meeting while you've now made a giant step forward. You've now associated yourself, you know, with the most popular, unpopular fellowship in the world. Nobody wants to get to Alcoholics Anonymous. But I can speak, of course, only for myself. I'm sure I didn't go down to my high school counselor and he said, Norm, what would you like to be? And I said, man, I'd like to become an alcoholic. And he said that's great. Here's a program. And I went out there and tore them up for 15 years and here I am. No, but I can say if you're new and you're sitting out there in the audience and you have a drinking problem, you never have to take another drink again if you don't want to. What you're going to find here is a group of people who will know most everything about you, they will still accept you, who are not necessarily interested in where you've been or where you're trying to go, but were very interested in what you're doing today. And what you'RE trying to do today is the same thing I'm trying to DO today, you're TRYING TO STAY SILVER. And here in Alcoholics Anonymous, we've got the sobriety. To qualify the beginning statement I made, I am an alcoholic and I'm not by any stretch of the imagination an authority or even a consultant on the program AlcoholicsAnonymous. I'm an example, good or bad, today works That it has been necessary for me to take a drink Steal anything or go to jail now For 17 years and four months I don't believe anybody out there tonight is Maybe you are But I really didn't think anybody was impressed With that amount of time, you see But I'll guarantee you one thing, man I'm impressed with that amount. I'm not impressed with the amount of Time, you know Not only that, but you never know When we may get a pension program going here and if we ever do I want to get credit for all my time you see so you've got to bring this thing up from time to time at any event you know you go back and you remember the first coming in now you stand up here in front of a group and tell them you haven't had a drink for a long time and the new people out there in the audience they find that very difficult to believe and I can remember sitting there in that first AA meeting and I'm 29 years old and the guy stands up there and says I have not had a drinking now for nine and a half years and I said to myself the biggest liar I've ever heard you know because I couldn't visualize it. Had the guy said he hadn't had a drink for two and a half weeks, I'd have come up to him after the meeting and said, the hell you have? How'd you do it? You know, I can understand two weeks or two and an half weeks but I sure can't understand nine and a half years. What I didn't hear him say that day was that he'd been doing it one day at a time. And that's the way it's been for me. I've been working this deal one day at the time. One day at time, the weeks run by and the months run by and the years run by. And pretty soon, you're standing in front of a group telling them you haven't had to drink for over 17 years and it seems just like yesterday that I walked through that door into that first meeting and I sat down there and heard that gentleman make that very profound statement. And sitting there in that first meeting, I had a lot of things running through my mind. I thought, man, why am I an alcoholic? God, of all the things I could have been, why Am I an alcoholic? As a matter of fact, the day before I got here, I wasn't an alcoholic. I was a heavy drinker and a victim of unusual circumstances. But by God, I was an alcoholic, you see. And I thought to you, oh God, I come from a family of heavy drinkers. Hell, everybody in my family drinks, and they're still out there drinking. And I'm the only alcoholic. We're Irish and Italian. That means, number one, you're not too bright. Number two, it means you know a little bit about that booze. Well, we know how to make booze and drink booze and we're still laying out there making and drinking booze but I'm The Only Alcoholic and I thought, God, I'm best they got. Why is it that this happened to me of all of the other people in my family? So I went through the gyrations that a new guy goes through. I read a couple of pamphlets and I asked some questions about it and I even may have read a chapter or two out of the book, and I was able to come up with one giant conclusion. I'm alcoholic because I drank too much whiskey. That's the reason I'm an alcoholic. And I had a few other things going for me, too. I got an alcoholic personality, if there is such a thing. I'm a rationalizer, a justifier, a compromiser, and I got a rotten attitude. And man, you don't need much more than that. I got it. I've got a lousy outlook on living all of my life. I've traveled half the world, and half my life made a complete jackass of myself. I spent money I didn't have buying things I didn t need trying to impress a lot of people I didn d like, and that's the story of my life. I m sure you ve heard the story, but I m the guy laying out there in San Bernardino or the San Gabriel Valley, and it s 110 in the shade, and I m driving around town in my automobile, and I got all my windows rolled up because I want everybody to think I got an air conditioner you know. I spent a lifetime out there impressing the human race. I was all things to all people. Today, you know, I drive around and I see them guys driving around with their windows rolled up in their car and the first thing I think about is does he or doesn't he? You know, lousy alky out there trying to impress me again. He can afford that kind of money, you know. I don't know whether you heard the story, but several years ago I was down in Texas and I heard this story. The guy didn't know it, but he was telling my life story right down the road. It's a story, and it's clean too incidentally. It is a story about the blacksmith that's making the horseshoe. And he pounds that baby out and he throws it down the ground, and there's an old cowboy standing there watching that whole process. And he reaches down and he picks up that horseshoe and quickly throws it out. The old blacksmith turns to him and he says, hot wasn't it? And the old cowboy said, no, it doesn't take me long to look at a horseshoe! You gotta think a little on that, will you? And I thought, man, that's the story of my life! Yeah, I'm the guy laying out there picking up them hot horseshoes, you see. And then I got to justify all the stupid things that I've been doing all of my life. The guy says, Norm, you're laying drunk on the street. And I said, no, I'm not. I like streets, you say. That's why I lay on them. Well, if the program hasn't brought anything to me other than the fact that I haven't had to go through any of that, I am overpaid. The fact that I don't have to justify my existence out there in the human race any longer. I don' t have to compromise my life or my living. I'm n ot coming from behind. If I learn nothing else from the program, I learned that I can walk in here and I can be myself. I don't have to be all of them people out there anymore. All I've got to be is just be Norm. I can spend a lot of days out there on that city street walking down that city Street of mine being myself. And it's a gratifying experience if you've been as many people as I have. As a practicing alcoholic, I was a general manager many times, the vice president of my own corporation. I own many businesses and I did a lot of things all up here. I get a kick out of people that say alcoholics really aren't too bright and basically they're lazy. But you and I know a full-blown alky out there in that jungle, he has got to be alert from time to time. He's got to remember things like, where was I? You know, a lot of people go through life and never have to remember where they were. How dull can it be out there? But the alcoholic, he wakes up periodically, where Was I? I better not go back to it wherever it was because I can't remember what I was when I was there or what I said, like I'm going to pay him the money I owe him or some other thing. Always out there being all of this, spending a lot of time and effort trying to be all things to all people. And all I really wanted to be in a whole life is to be able to spend a few days being myself. When I walked into the program, the man says, Norm, don't impress us here, buddy. We've been impressed by experts in AA, you know. And by golly, this was true. I made the cardinal mistake one evening. I mentioned to a guy, I was new in the program. I mentioned during that I'd been in jail 25 times it, he laughed. He said, man, I did that in a year, you see. So no matter where you've been, somebody got there long before you did. No matter what you drank, somebody drank more of it. The only way you can win a story in AA is to be last and then you're marginal. Some guy comes through the side door and gets you, you know, so you might as well give up. You might as wel just come on in, sit down and relax and be yourself. Grab a piece of that package and take it out out there in the street and spend those hours out there being yourself instead of all of these other people. To that, I'd like to talk a little bit about what I was like, what happened, and what I've tried to be like today. I've told you a littlebit about it. I'm a guy laying out there on the street with a bad attitude problem, and I started having a lot of problems and trouble, and incidentally, to the new people here tonight, I don't talk about the jails and the problems and the trouble and the booze I consume to try to impress you. It's part of my life. It's alcoholic synonymous, as I understand it, and that's what I like to do. That's what they like to say about. When a man says to me, well, how does AA work? Well, AA works because it's one drunk talking to another drunk, and between the two of you, you stay sober. Well, what does a couple of drugs talk about? They talk about all of the wreckage of the past and they bring it up. And tonight I'd like to talk a little bit about the wreckages of my past or what I was like and what I'm trying to be like today and a few things that I've used to stay sober over a given period of time. My problems started in the middle 30s, not with booze, but for stealing. I happened to be a thief by trade and alcoholic by absorption. I opened up the midnight auto supply in the San Gabriel Valley in the mid-30s and what that consisted of was popping hubcaps. We started out, you know, give them hubcabs and found out you make a little money out of them We kind of branched the program out. And we was getting hubcaps and all of the other assessors you get off of a car. And then it got to be such a job to gather up all that crap, we stole a whole car, you know, and overnight that thing just blossomed out. It was a marvelous experience. I always felt that God gave everybody something and that's what he handed down to me was a touch for that business, you now. I was blessed with having absolutely no conscience whatsoever. I never lost a minute's sleep over anything I ever took in my life. My attitude towards that is, buddy, if you park your car out there, you're asking for trouble. It was that simple. I could rationalize it. I have been able to rationalize all of my life, and that's why one of the reasons I am here, I rationalized myself right down the chute. Well, I laid out there hooking for about a year and a half, and I was arrested. I was brought in front of a judge. I was sentenced to seven years in Whitty Reformatory because I couldn't get along with the people. Well, if I was a nonconforming person, this is right. If the judge said, there is a thing then called retribution. What's going out is coming back. If you're going to play, you've got to pay. Now, I think, frankly, it's kind of a rotten setup, but that's the way it is. You know, I know that today. I understand it. I believe it. But then no. No, I couldn't believe that. I felt that I was a victim of unusual circumstances. I felt what I was taking the people could afford it. I was stealing out of a high-priced part of town. It kind of made a guy feel like Robin Hood. Steal from the rich and keep it. And I feltthat way. So standing in front of that judge and going through all of these things it never dawned on me that Iwas the guy. That the biggest enemy Norm ever had was Norm. No, it was always these other people. And so when I went through this I felt, you know, this isn't right. But I learned later on, if it's lousy going out, it's Lousy coming back. There's a thing called retribution. And if you've got to play Norm, you got to pay. And I'm sure they're not going to get me even while I'm here, but I'm also sure they're going to see me later on. You know, it's all going to work out one way or another. But then in those years, I couldn't believe it. Through some circumstances, the time that I was awarded, it wasn't necessary to do and I'm back on the streets. And later on after that particular experience, the attitude is set, but maybe a year or two years later, it would be about 1940. It would be 30 years ago. It would be Easter week, and booze came into my life. Easter week in L.A., everybody runs down to Balboa and Newport, and we drank that booze down there and got a little junky and went down to the rendezvous ballroom and danced to the big bands of Stan Kentons and the rest of them and had a good time. I'm not alcoholic from the first time out of the shoot. I'm no looking for the answer to living in a case of beer or a quart of whiskey. In the beginning, I haven't crossed the invisible line to the compulsive aspect of it. No, I had a pretty good time with it in the beginning. A little sick a couple of times and maybe worked over, beat up once or twice, but nothing, you know, serious. I started out in that old Padre beer. Used to go for a nickel a pop, I think, at the Safeway stores and I moved on. I always was looking for something bigger and better. And I moved from Padre Beer to that Rainy Rail, that old Green Death. And when I got through with that, I moved into that whiskey. And I found whiskey up in the state of Oregon. The reason I'm in Oregon, I had a little trouble again in Los Angeles and I had to get on out. And then I was up there in the State of Oregon, I was running around with a bunch of guys and one night we're out at a dance, the fella said, Norm, would you like a drink? Well, I never turned nothing down in my life. Why, sure, I'll take a drink and handed me a bottle of whiskey and it was about glove compartment temperature, you know, I tilted that baby up and it burned, boy, did that baby burn all the way down and it was coming up. And you know how it'll run out your nose and your eyes get all watery and your buddy says, God ain't that good. Oh yeah, that's good, you know. You can barely talk, you know. But you don't want them to think you can't handle that stuff. That was the beginning. The Oh, Ten High. I didn't drink Ten High because it was cheap whiskey. I drank Ten High because that's what was available on the guys I was running around with. Hell, I never even knew Ten High was cheap whisky until I got to AA. Ah. It's amazing how your education branches out once you get here. I heard a fellow say one evening too, he says, Norm, when you drank that cheap whiskey you had other great advantages to it. When you threw it up, you weren't losing much. Don't that make a lot of sense? It does to me. It takes an alky to figure that out. Why, if you was laying out there today drinking that $8 bourbon and you're watching that baby roll up, boy, $8, you know why, man. That's enough to make you sick all over again watching $8 go out. I think that Ted High was going for about 65, 70 cents a pint at that time. And on that pint of whiskey, I could be all things to all people. I like that whiskey good. I love that whiskey. It got you there faster, and that's where I wanted to get. I want to get that buzzy feeling And get up to that plateau Where you can just God, you're all things All people I could be good looking Well built Intellectual and wealthy And I got the job done In two hours That's the best deal I ever had in my life And you never got the feeling You were being cheated When you drank that tan high Because you felt Every loving drop As that baby went down There And that was the beginning That was the start Now things are getting A little bit different Now I'm starting to have A blackout here or there I'm trying to get A little more trouble But it was not significant I didn't figure It was a booze It was a rotten people, and I got to get out of Oregon and left Oregon. Not because I wanted to, because they wanted me to. I got the sideline a little bit up there in the car business again, and I had to go. A man in my part of town told my life story, too, several years ago. He said if it was too big to carry, I laid down beside it and claimed it. That was about the story of my life, really, until I approached the program. Well, I came back down to LA, and it's January of 1942, and The United States is in a state of war, and I'm in a state of complete shock, needless to say. I got the heat on now in two states, and I gotta do something about it. And so they gave me an alternate program, they being the police department. They said this boy could either go into the service or he can go to jail, and I'd been to jail. It was no deal, so I went in the service into the United States Navy, and it was no deal either, you see. What had happened to me is I'm sure it's happened to several other people here tonight. All of the enemies I had in LA joined the Navy the same day I did. I got in there and it gave me a lot of trouble I no sooner got in And they're trying to tell me what I gotta do And what I got to wear And when I can go And all of these things And I felt sincerely You know, I had a lot Of deep-seated emotional things Going on within myself I felt I would be The youngest lieutenant commander The Navy ever had I was the oldest seaman They ever had, you know I just couldn't get it off the ground In the first six months That I was in the service I had three court-martials I had an attorney I had two deck A summary And a general The general court, incidentally, was the highest the Navy had to offer at that time. They didn't go any higher than that. What has happened? I was doing 90 days as a prisoner-at-large aboard the ship. We're tied up out of Mare Island, and I went and got a liberty card, as you know you can do, and i went on a beach. I went up to a little town called San Rafael, and I borrowed a fellow's car because I was tired. He was a 37 Lincoln Zapper. I'll never forget it. And I'm going to San Francisco in it. And I am crossing the bridge, and when that fellow reached out for that quarter, I fell out in his loving arms. You see, and that was the end of that. They called the shore patrol to come back to the ship and I went in front of the captain and he was probably one of the first guys in my life that ever told me, he said, you're ruining your life, son, with that booze. And the Navy doesn't want people like you and I'm recommending to the Navy Department that they award you a general court-martial. You couldn't do it there on the ship and had to go through the Navy Dept. of Washington and come back. Now, there for a minute I felt rather bad about this general court, just for a moment but I never went back to digress. I never felt that it was the booze, I felt it's the rotten people. I'm a victim of unusual circumstances, and it's the rotten people. That's my trouble. Once I get off this ship and once I get over here, somewhere else it's going to work out and be altogether different. But it never was. Through the grace of God and the pretty good attorney that I had while we went to court and on the specifications I was given an 11 1⁄2 months in a Navy prison up there on the top of Goat Island that every time I come up here, you know, I kind of think about it a little bit. It wasn't a pleasant experience. Navy penitentiaries are run by the Marine Corps, and we had a fellow up there running that brig called Big John, and he was a Marine gunnery sergeant, and he and God used to go to breakfast together. You know what I mean? He accounted to no man. Well, you can imagine the problems I had. Me and my attitude went into that brig together, so I had a little bit of trouble when I was there. As a matter of fact, several years ago when that song came out called Big Jon, every time I'd hear it, I just got to jump all over again, you know. But I was restored to duty through the efforts of this attorney. I was able to fulfill my obligation, and on Christmas Eve in 1945, I was discharged with a under honorable condition discharged and came back to Los Angeles in 1946. And 1946 was going to be one of those years. Like it was every year, you make the restitutions within yourself that you're going to make the Restitutions on the outside. I made a lot of think. I did a lot thinking that particular year. I was going fulfill my education. I was gone back home. I was gonna tell them I was sorry. I was gonna be like my brothers. I was goin' quit the booze. I was go'n do a lot o' things. But it was like all o' the other years. I was going to get going pretty soon, or later on, or tomorrow. I couldn't get going now because I've got so damn much to do. I'm sick, for one thing, and I've gotta get a little bit to drink. Or I'm remorseful, andI've gotta have a little to drink, or I'd made such a complete ass of myself the night before that I gotta havea little bitto drink, but I'm gonna make out all right. I'm going to do all these things. And 1946 is going to be my year, and i'm gonna get goingpretty soon. But in 46, I couldn''t. Forty-six plays a big part in my life. It's an important part. God moves in strange and mysterious ways. You and I know that. no matter what you do, buddy, or you don't do, that's the way it's going to work out. Many times I stood out there on that street and said, well, God, why me? Why does this happen? It's for a reason. I don't know why it is. I give up trying to find out. I only know that strange things have happened in my life, that he moves in these strange and mysterious ways, that out of all of the evil of my life and living a certain amount of good has got to come from it. And each and every year there was these evil, these things that happened. And in 1946, I mentioned plays a big part. I had a lot of trouble. I got picked up five times by the police department in the same lousy city. Every Elkie's got a city that picks on him. Mine happened to be a town, I don't want to break his anonymity, but they hold the Rose Parade there. That lousiest town, every time I go across the city limits, you know, they got me. I used to think they had an alarm system running around and when I'd go in and go off and it'd say, he's out there, you'd better get him, you know. And by God, they got us. They got me five times that year before spring and tall cotton. They got me on two plain drunks, two 502s, and a 501 felony drunk driving hit-and-run bodily injury involved. And but for the grace of God that looks after damn fools and drunks that didn't kill me four folks. I missed them by three and a half feet. That's all you're talking about is just that fraction of a second. I hit that car in the back end. Had I hit a broadside at the rate of speed I was traveling, I'd have killed all four people. There isn't any question about it. There is no question in my mind that the gentleman looks after things. That he moves the checkers on the master checkerboard. that he's going to maybe hurt you a little bit from time to time, but maybe he's gonna move you over to let you go for one more day. As I look back through my life through many written inventories, why, I see I've been very lucky. I don't stay sober from the fear of it all, but a guy'd be a darn fool not to recognize how lucky have you been, Norm? And I've had some problems and trouble, but not the great big one. And maybe the next time out of the chute you'll move over that three-and-a-half feet and there'll be that fraction of a second, and maybe it won't work out this way. A guy would be crazy not to sit down and take a look at that from time to time. Hitting that car that night, I had a year suspended hanging over my head from that judge, a judge in this city that I knew as well as my father. This judge and I had kind of grown up together. I'd known him all my life. I met him when I was a delinquent or whatever they called us then, thieves or drunks or whatever. And I met them later on when he got up on a police court bench and he was looking at drunks, and that's me. And he's no meathead, this judge. He studied, and he got out there on his superior court bench, And I'm no meathead either You know, man I'm right with him again And there we stand And as I say I knew him as well as my father And I had this year suspended When he told me You know that if I come back I was going to do the year And here I am back And I I'm going to be I'm gonna do the ear I stood in front of him That morning He looked down at me And shook his head And said off to jail He didn't know And I didn't knows But things are moving Kind of in my way 140 guys are doing time In that city jail In 46 One guy gets out of the bucket Once a week To go to AA meetings Now they got 140 guys That I can pull time with to share a cell. Who do I draw? I draw this fanatic that goes to AA meetings, you know. You can't get them odds at the track, I'll guarantee that. 140 to 1. No, I got this guy. Oh, and he upset me no end. He'd sit there once a week, you know, and he was dying to tell somebody all about this AA program. Well, you don't have a big audience in a jail cell, you know that. Sure, so I got the full treatment that went in one ear and out the other. And I told him, I said, Sullivan, I don't know I don' t have a drinking problem, you don' ll understand. Man, I'm a victim of unusual circumstances of rotten people out there. The people are my problem. Once they get going the way I'm going, it's going to be all right. You're different. What the hell? You're 36 anyway. When a guy gets to be 36, what's left? You're over the hill, and I honestly believe that. On the downside, you might as well quit drinking too. I don't believe that today being 47, I'll guarantee that. But that, of course, means that it was altogether different. Yeah, you're all through. You should go. You and your brothers are all bums. You need the program or whatever you do there. Now, what he didn't know and what I didn't know was the seed was planted. But the old guy upstairs, evidently, he knows about these things. Here I am back to a city I swear to God I'd never go back to again. And that one night, I'm out drinking with a couple of guys. That one particular night at a particular time. And while I'm drinking, I commit the cardinal sin. I began to think. That's a bad deal. You should never do that. You should either drink or think But never get them both All at the same time I got to thinking about That rotten judge In that lousy town of his And this is a free country And God knows I'm a veteran Yeah, well now You've rationalized that out So I drove back And hit that car And you say Well, why? Well, what? Why? The seeds planted Eight and a half years later I picked up the telephone Looking for a guy named Sully In an outfit called Alcoholics Anonymous I found the program But I never found Sully In the sober sense When I located him He was up in Camarillo Hospital Because he went back to drinking After three years of sobriety, he drank up his mind. And he made it before he was 40 years old. Why should I be so dumbfounded over something like this when they talk about to the gates of insanity or death and they talk abut this in chapter 3? What could be worse? I say to myself in those years, maybe death would be better than insanity. Yet you and I know that crazy miracles come to pass. And the miracle of this particular incident was that eight months ago, this man came back to the streets and he has over eight months of sobrietty walking down the street in Alcoholics Anonymous. I haven't run across him yet, but at a meeting across town in December, I ran across his brother. He moves in strange and mysterious ways, which kind of proves the thing is you never really give up. Maybe it's only a prayer from time to time, but don't quit sending them up. If you've got a buddy or a friend or just anyone out there still hacking it and you think, man, he'll never make it, from time-to-time maybe keep sending that prayer up because you never know what's going to come to pass. The miracles of Alcoholics Anonymous are insurmountable. Needless to say, when I left that city jail, though. I wasn't thinking about AA. I wasn't thinkin' about sobriety. I went back out, I went to work for one of the largest construction firms in the world. I stayed with these people for 11 years. In that 11-year period of time, I was blessed with being at the right place at the right time and ended up with a good job. And a good job means that I'm making some money, and money is a necessary part of my life, because I'm a bar-drinkin' alky. I'm not a home-drinker. Home-drinking, and I'll be the first to admit, is low-overhead kind of drinkin'. And it has a lot going for it, but I never liked that home drinking for a lot of reasons and that red-headed Irish woman I married was all of the reasons I could think of, you see. Who's there to tell how good you are? Her, and she don't believe it anyway, you say. But man, when you're a saloon drinking alky, when your a bar drinker, God isn't that something. I like them joints and they could work for the next 500 years and they'll never build anything just like a bar. God ain't they something. Them dark lights in there. And today they got them so dark, a guy go in there and three, four days, they'd never find you in there, they got him so damn dark. And they have other side attractions today we never had when I was out there too, I noticed. But anyway, I like them dark lights. And I like that music that just hammers at you. God! But greater than anything else, I liked them intellectual giants you met. The big money. Where do you find the big money in the world? You find it sitting on the barstool about midnight. Shut up. Talking in millions and spending in thousands, wondering what the poor slobs are doing tonight because the big dough's there. Jesus, you feel it. And you build the castles in the air. You form the corporations and you put the partnerships together and you lie a lot too, don't you? Yeah, when you get tired of talking and lying to each other, you can sit there and you can look in that mirror and you know why they put mirrors in bars? They put them there for alcoholics. Alcoholics, see. So he can sit there about midnight with that Maybelline look, that wide-eyed, you know. It's like you never saw yourself. There I am! God, you good-looking devil, you. And as you bring that drink up, you happen to catch sight of your arm. Oh, Jesus! And you kind of give a thing. You're so well-built, too, you don't. 150 pounds ringing wet, I couldn't lick my lips in them days, you know, but... That whiskey makes a killer out of you, doesn't it? You sit there looking at that mirror And you're a lover and a killer You got that $50 smiling Frankie Gordon suit on And $2 worth of whiskey all down the front of it A little mustard on your necktie You had a snack, you know You smell bad and you can't talk And you wonder why all the dollies aren't down there See? You're one step away from total disaster But there he is, you know The lover of the San Gabriel Valley Straight out on the floor one more time Well, I sat there on them bar stools for years In 1957, I happened to be over at the Riverside Conference And on Saturday night There was a speaker that made a very profound statement I'm sure some of you know him His name was Eddie C He was a primary speaker that night And he made this statement He said, I spent 15 years out there Looking for my girlfriend I came to alcoholics and out of us that I got sober And I went home and found her It turned out to be my wife And I thought, my God, isn't that the truth? I spent a lot of years out there looking for a lot Of things And I had most of it But I didn't know about it Some of it I had to lose And I didn' t know how dear it was really Until I came into a program And I met a lot Of other losers Who explained to me norm, you have lost a lot of things, but you got a lot too. That particular night, that particular statement, and I've carried it on. Each and every meeting has something to lay out. That night I thought, yes siree, I spent a lot time out there looking for a lot things. Isn't that the truth? A lot of thing I already had. But those joints and those bars and all of it. As I mentioned, I am married about this time, this red-headed Irish woman. I don't think there is a man in San Francisco or this Bay Area had my problems. I happened to marry a woman who never really understood me, never realized how sensitive I was. Alcoholics are very sensitive people. I'm laying out there drunk for two or three days and you're coming home. God knows you're tired. If you've been out there in that jungle for two Or three days, you're retired. You've been busy and you're sick and maybe a little drunky too. And you walk in the house and what do you want? I want a little love, a little appreciation and a little understanding. And I'd walk in the house and the first thing she'd say is you're drunk again. And I was always dumbfounded and I'd say who me? Like 37 guys are there you know who the hell she's talking to. And yet I'd go through the same thing time after time. How does she know? Who tells her that I've been drinking? One Sunday afternoon I'm standing there And I've had a little trouble A guy opened my eye up I got dried blood On the side of my face My shirt's torn And I got one shoe on And I'm trying to figure out How the hell she knew I'd been drinking Well, I had a marvelous story I was going to tell her About falling out of the car Or something I never got an opportunity And the only thing I could think to say to her Would hit her with that Big $64 question Man, you gotta get him On a defensive That's the deal And I'd say to that woman Do you know Who you're talking to? and mimic me is the only way them lousy Irish can do it, you know. Oh, I know who I'm talking to. Oh, God, that gets you right there. Sometimes that happens when you have your best friend with you. That's the fellow you met in the saloon last night and you invited him home. And the reason he's coming home with me is hell, he don't want to go home alone either, you know? I've been on both sides of that deal. And there you're standing with your new business partner. And I'd say to this woman, I said, Woman, you've embarrassed me in front of one of my best friends. And then I couldn't remember his name. And then go ahead and give her one more chance. I'd Say, Okay, if you don't, I'm leaving. And you know something? This time is different than all of the other 15 times I've left. This time, I'll never come back. You have gone too far this time. And I go on to explain to her what she was going to miss out on. I want to let her in on this deal I say, you know this home You're living in here, woman I buy all that All the food you eat up there I buy that You're closed, woman I buy it I buy everything I'm trying to let it in And by now she's hysterical Because she knows the deal You're two months behind In the house payment The food and the coverage It isn't Her wardrobe She's standing in it Right there, see She knows the bill And that's why she's laughing As she goes down to the bedroom And throws all my clothes out And I pick him up And I carry him out to the automobile The old clothes packet alky He's a joy to the neighborhood Every neighborhood ought to have one When you get tired of watching the television You can watch the old alky Staggering in and out, you know Staggered Stagger the clothes in the back seat of the car Mumbling, you don't know Telling the neighbors You're a bunch of slobs out there, you do Driving off down the street Saying I'm never coming back again That lousy woman's gone too far I am not coming back again. And two days later, here I come, you know. That's all you can take out there. Two days of sleeping in that car. God, that car sleeping will help get you to AA. I'll guarantee that. You can tell a car sleeper he's the guy who sits in his first AA meeting like that, you now. From having your head screwed under that armrest all night and the old door handle stuck in your ear. Isn't that an experience? And when the sun comes down through the windshield at six o'clock in the morning You hit your right in the eye That's called a spiritual awakening before AA See When you wake up The front seat of that car You're sitting there In that automobile And your head's throbbing You know Your stomach hurts And your mouth tastes terrible Your teeth itch Oh You look down on your dashboard You threw up on it And you left your lights on Or did you ever think The window was down But it was up Blah, all over that shit out And then you sit there and roll it down That squish, squish, squash You know Like it never happened, see And I sat there thinking Drinking's fun Yep I'm having a good time with that booze I just got to get the hell out of L.A. They got bad whiskey in L. A. I got to go I got get on down to Big Spring, Texas God, did they love me in Big Spring Or was it El Paso they loved me Or Moses Lake, Washington or Seattle or Stockton or Phoenix or on and on. When essentially, you know, it was always the same. Nothing changed much except it got worse. It never got better. Time and time again, I'd sit there and think, I'm going to be able to drink like my old man and my brothers and the rest of them, my friends and the people I'm working with. And I'm gonna find the answer to that booze somewhere. I'll be able TO control it. The next city, the next town, or I'll go back. But in reality, it always ended the same, somebody's working me over, I'm laying in the tank, I'm calling the old man saying Mac, get me a hundred and a half I gotta make bail I'm telling my wife saying Woman, don't go to the airport I ain't left yet I'm still here Nothing ever changed Except it always got worse It never got better The marriage started to get worse The marriage got worse after two months As a matter of fact We had a lot of problems This temper she had Very violent woman I walked around for two or three years With sore sides Drinking in blackouts I thought somebody was working me over occasionally and I'd think I gotta quit going there wherever it is what was happening I'd be passed out on the floor and she'd get me with them pointed shoes right in the like I can't take a lot of that and then my bar associates had told me before I got married that I ought to make sure that woman had a decent job well she had a good job and everything was lovely for those two months and she came home from the doctor and said I'm pregnant and have to quit work and the whole house comes down around you you know did you ever tell an elkie something you don't want to believe I don't believe that but she assured me she was home free well then you become rather big hearted about it and I thought well that caper takes about nine months I'll give her two to get on her feet we'll get the rotten job back and everything's going to be like it was that's the story of my life everything's gonna be like it wasn't that was 24 years ago I went on turn of taps that day she got herself in that shape eight times I couldn't believe it Instead of the locusts coming in every other year, there she'd be going to St. Luke's. I'd tell them bartenders can't make a bar bill. God! All of this pressure. So you keep drinking to eliminate the pressure. And as I ran through the lottery of my life and living, the whiskey took away every loving thing I had. Some of this pleasure I had was eliminated. The day came when I went home and everything I had that was of significant value was placing the porch, and she says, Norm, get the hell out of our life. Norm, you're a drunken bum. You'll never live to be 35 years old. We don't want to be here at the end. The kids are neurotic because of you. I'm scared to death of you! I never know how you're coming home or when you're coming home. You're going to shove that refrigerator through the wall again? You're going to stand there with that loaded .25 automatic in your hand, and you said, drunk, you can't move, and then you got the thing up against my head? And one of these days, it's going on. Norm, I'm sick of hearing the old kids scream at you for you not to hit me. Norm, i'm tired of coming in the morning seeing you laying on the kitchen floor as a drunk you can't get up and trolling come in and see it and they start to cry because you're the father and I want to tell her baby I'm crying too. I don't want to do this. Guys give me a chance. One more lie, one more promise baby. Jesus don't throw me out but you run out of lies and you run Out of promises. I'm tired Of sitting here night after night wondering where you are Every time I hear a siren run down the street, I wonder if the police got you again. But this time they find you laying dead in the middle of the street. Norm, you're never coming back. Norm, you're going to have to get out of our life. And as you walk out to your automobile and drive away, you think to yourself, but how can it happen? You always think it's going to happen to everybody else. But if you're an alcoholic, if you've crossed over the invisible line, if you are drinking by compulsion, if one's too many and a thousand aren't enough, if you look for the answer in that quart of whiskey, it's just a matter of time until a whiskey's going to get it all. Sure, there's isolated cases where people put up with this crap for 30 years, hoping this jackass is going to straighten out. Can you imagine living with an alky for 30 years as he flops in and out of the house? You know, 30 years of picking up the pieces, putting him to bed, changing his job, all of it. 30 years. God gives him a lot of strength, but I don't think he does him any favor. It's a left-handed thing. I wouldn't put up with it 30 days, 30 weeks, let alone 30 years but this does happen. There are these isolated cases but we don't guarantee this will happen. No. Generally, as a rule of thumb, the family starts to move away. And then the day came when my boss called me and brought me into the office and he says, Norm, the next time I catch you drinking on the job, you're through. You're out. And Norm, you'll never leave L.A. County Forest again. Never. We'll send a guy on his outside jobs, have as good as you think you are. At least we can depend on him. At least мы know where he is. And I sat there in that man's office that day humiliated. You know what it's like the first day, the first time that the first boss calls you in and trims you down for booze. The humiliation of it! And I sat there thinking to myself, why, that rotten bum! How can he say that to me? A man that I respected as much as my father, how can he do that? When all that I've done for that company, God, I left his office on the humiliation of that experience. Alcoholics could write a book on humiliation because they've been humiliated so many times. And I was humiliated from that experience And that within itself is not enough. And the jails aren't enough, and the beatings, and the whippings, and the family, and all within one by itself is not enough." The day a man walked into my life and he says, Norm, you've abused the privilege of owning it, we're going to have to take it away. And he took my self-respect. The day that they take away your self- respect, that bodes. That's the day you lose the big package. That's the day you stand there and there's nothing. You can have all the money in the world and it makes no difference because self-respect is not something you can buy. Self-respect you don't check out at the supermarket. Self respect is earned. And the day that the alcoholic stands there and takes one good hard look at himself and he knows he has no self-respect is the day you really start dying fast on that installment plan. You're dying within yourself and the amount of remorse that it brings, there's not enough whiskey in town to put it down. Not permanently, Maybe for a little while The day arrives when it's not important What the human race knows about you But it's awfully important What you know about yourself And what I knew about myself in February of 1954 Was rotten And I wanted to change it And I picked up the telephone And I called the central office in Los Angeles And I talked to a very fine gentleman By the name of John Carroll And I'm sure John wouldn't mind If I broke his anonymity He passed away many years ago John, and the reason he was such a great man is he'd learned early in the program in order to keep what he had, he had to give it away. And so he used to work down there at that central office giving away what he'd found, working for beans, giving it away, and you go down to his home group in the Alhambra Group and you walk into that meeting, and who was sitting out there on the porch greeting everybody after many years of sobriety would be John, shaking your hand, saying, come on in, sit down, have a cup of coffee. He was a marvelous man, and that day that I talked to him on the phone And he asked me if I had a drinking problem. I assured him that I did. He said, would you like to do something about it? And I assured Him I did and he gave me the names, the numbers of three people to call and the second guy called. He came out to see me and he was to become my sponsor. My sponsor was one of them hard-hearted sponsors you hear about in AA. You know, I went to school for hard-hearted sponsors. He didn't believe that you take a guy to a meeting, you drove your car and if you don't have a car then you're going to have to take a bus or a cab and if I haven't got money and you're in bad shape you're gonna have to walk Because he believed if you want this thing and you want it bad enough, you've got to be willing to go to any lake to get it. And any lake, to get us started, getting off your can and getting down to the meeting, he gave you the address. Now, I don't necessarily mean that this is the way that it ought to be. No, as a matter of fact, I think it's the right way. I don' t think it' s right for all. I can only say it worked all right for me because everything in my life has been the hard way. Why not the program? And I was a little upset over his approach to me. As a matter o' fact, the only thing I could really agree with him on is when my sponsor said, You know, son, if I can make it, you can make i And I thought to myself, that's true. If that old jackass can do it, anybody can do whatever you got to do here, you know. Because he is a rotten old man. I agreed with that to myself. But I'm rather ill that day and I have a certain amount of curiosity and I got the heat on all over town and I want to do something better than what I'm doing. I'm really tired of hurting myself and without knowing it probably I'm willing to go to any length to get it. As I look back now, this is probably true. Hell, I went to any lengths to get that booze. I lied for it, cheated for it conned for it stole for it any length to get the booze so why not go any length Norm to get the program any length and I drove down to that Temple City group I met him at the Temple City group that Met and Rose meet the Temple City group today meets in Arcadia incidentally it never did get to Temple City I've often wondered about that but I've never had enough nerve to ask anybody you know because you know how it is with an alcoholic after he gets sober he is sensitive while he's drinking he becomes super sensitive after he gets sober. Now, if I was to ask him why he didn't change the name of the group, he'd tell me, what are you trying to do? Run this place? Go to another meeting if you don't like it. So I never asked anybody. I often wondered about it. We never had anybody that even lived in Temple City went to that group, as a matter of fact. They were either from El Monte, Baldwin Park, Monrovia, or Azusa, but we never got anybody from Temple City. Well, I walked into that group and there were 75 of the finest drunks That had ever come out of the San Gabriel Valley All standing around sucking on that lousy coffee And I'm subjected to the alcoholic sense of humor immediately You know, after an alky gets sober He gets that sense of humour You know God is it A twisted thing They take delight in the strangest things That group had a lot of money We had so much money in that group We used to have donuts before and after the meeting Can you imagine that? And they'd always buy a half a dozen jelly donuts. They'd save them for the new guy. They see that new guy walking through the door, and he's all green and hung out, you know. And they go on and say, God, we're sure glad to see you here. Are you new? Yes, I'm new. Why don't you have a cup of coffee and a hair of jelly donut? You're looking... There's no one perhaps, you don't know. Well, you're looking down at something you left out there last night. The only good part of the whole thing was if you stayed sober long enough, you could do it to the next new guy that come through the door and all. Oh, he did have some advantages to it. And the cliche of that group was we used to meet next to a cemetery and the first thing they'd tell you was if we don't get you here, we're going to get you next door. And then everybody would laugh about that. What the hell's so funny about that? When you're new, that's not funny because you don't know whether you're going quit drinking or not and this guy's telling you You drink, you're going to die. I don't want to die." Well, I sat down in that meeting and I heard this gentleman with nine-and-a-half years of sobriety stand up there and tell everybody what a jackass he was and they laughed. He's telling things I've been hiding all my life. You know that? A guy asked me two days before I come to the program, he said, Dorm, you ever been to jail? Oh, no. No. Oh,no, I went down to bail a friend out one time but I don' t run with that kind of riffraff. But you and I know you spend two weeks in this AA. And you're dying to tell anybody that'll listen and a lot of people that won't listen how many times you made the can. It gives you a sense of well-being. If you made Lincoln Heights in L.A. County in the same year, they'll rate you in the top ten up there, you know. Sure. And this guy stood up there and told everybody all of these things. And I as a new person sat there and wondered, what is it really all about? He talks about getting beat up and Go to jail and throw it up. They're hysterical. He talked about drinking Jamaican ginger and they give him the Jake Lake and cripple him up so bad they put him in a hospital for two months and they almost rolled out of the chair over that. And you're sitting there thinking, don't they know what's going on? The poor guy's dying and they're laughing about it. And if you're as egotistical and self-centered as I was, you sit there thinking I'm probably here to do something for them. Yes. because they don't really know what's going on. But it works. That's the marvelous part. And then he went on to relate how he came to the program, how he bought the total package and made the transition, how his life changed. And this woman of his who had divorced him and remarried would never come back to see him, but the children, who there were many, one by one came down to see them. And over a period of time, they learned to like him and then appreciate him and then to love him and dann to respect him. And had I had the foresight to look around, I'd have probably seen a half a dozen guys, big strong guys probably, sitting there and all choked up and maybe a few with tears in their eyes because they were happy, because another guy was happy. The man told a story as I've heard it hundreds and hundreds of times, the story of Alcoholics Anonymous. They laughed because they were miserable, and they cried because they weren't happy, and he called it AA. And it sure enough makes sense to me today. Because how do you clear away the wreckage in your rotten past? How do you move that garbage out to start to begin, to make the amends, to buy the total? How did you start at all? God, the remorse that tears you to pieces when you come in, how do we start getting it out? You learn to laugh. You're laughing, and despite yourself in the second or third meeting, you start to laugh a little bit and the wreckage of the past and you start moving it aside. And then you buy a piece more and you make a list of the folks you hurt and you run out and you start to make the amends. And maybe you're a guy like me and up at the top of the list is your family. My mother never saw me out of a jam from the time that I was 13 until I was 27. She was killed in a car wreck, San Diego, two years before I got here. At the top of the amens list was her name. And I so desperately want to go home and say, baby, you'll never have to cry again. Because year after year I go home and say, baby, you don't have to try again. I'm going to be all right. I make amends to you. I am going to quit the booze. I will be like the old man. I'll be like my brothers. I want to be all right." But I was hooked. The booze had me. I wanted to do it. I had good intentions in Hellsville with good intentions. I couldn't do it! And when they come to the program, you see, and I want do it, it bothered me quite a bit. And I made that cost a little bit bigger than what was necessary. And one evening I heard the serenity prayer, and I must have heard it 20 or 25 times before that, which says, accept the things you cannot change. And I sat there, and it dawned on me. Accept the things, Norm, you cannot changed. For all the money in the world, I can't change the way it is. That's the way this is. I can bring it back—the tears, the money, the prayers. None of it is going to change it. It's wreckage of the past that I've got to move aside. I don't believe it's a rationalization on my part. It can't be. It's tough enough to live today with today's merchandise, let alone trying to do something about yesterday that I can do nothing about. I've got to move it out. And I know somewhere, someday, I'll check in and I'll be able to say in a physical sense maybe, baby, I'm really sorry for all the trouble. As you know something, after you left, it got a lot better because I met a marvelous group of folks and they called themselves Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was able to move aside some more wreckage of the past. and as I continued to go to meetings and continued to be willing to buy the total package which I believe is the transition from the taken I'm a taker by trade most alcoholics are I laid out there in that rotten jungle and I stole every loving thing there is I had a man tell me well Norm I'm different I stole nothing I said buddy you stole the biggest thing you ever had you stole time time alcoholics steal time out there I stole time for my people and time for myself and time from my family and time of the people I worked in this business with and time form myself I'll never live long enough to pay back all the time I've stole. But here through the program, I got an opportunity to give a little of it back, to be able to sit there and feel something for somebody. You know, I thought because I was a taker out there, I had the key to happiness. Hell, I never had the Key Ring. I didn't know what it was all about. I didn' t know what living or happiness was all abou until I came here and I find myself one day sitting in a meeting and feeling happy because another guy is happy and I want nothing back. I started to give for the hell of it The giving we have here in the program The no compromise kind of giving The running out on that 12-step call Or making the coffee Or picking up the ice trays Or the secretary of the group Or central service, general service Institutions of work Dozens of ways you can give Just for the pure hell of giving And in the bitter end That's all that's going to count anyway, isn't it? Don't get me wrong I'm still a guy who wants to make That big score out there But I know in the better end When I'm standing there and they're hanging me out to dry. It isn't going to be what I've accumulated. It's going to make a great deal of difference. It's gonna be what i give away and through the program I got a chance to give a little bit away and I'm rewarded by something I look for in the whiskey. I'm awarded by a sense of well-being. That's what I look for in that booze. I drank myself up to that plateau where I had that buzzy feeling and that sense of will-being and it was there for a little while but it was only temporary And when I woke up in the morning, the sense of well-being was gone and in its place was remorse. And that remorse would tear and dig and the only thing that put it out of my life was whiskey. If I get some whiskey, I'll get rid of the remorse today when the remourse within myself is digging. All I got to do is give a little of myself for the hell of it and it will be replaced with that sense of wellbeing and being able to walk down the street of your city and you feel so good all over and you wonder, why do I feel so Good? It's because maybe I went out on that 12-step call and I sat with that drunk and I tried to tell him what the deal was. And maybe I didn't get across or maybe I did, but it didn't really make any difference because I did it and I want nothing back. I give for the hell of it. I could be in a taker. I'm a giver. I sat at an AA meeting. I watched the guy stand up here and he gets a cake for one year of sobriety. And I was able to sit in that meeting and look at him. And he's trying to tell you all about it. And the tears are coming down and he's try to say, Jesus is so good. And you sit there thinking, tell him, Charlie. Jesus, tell him I know what you're talking about. And you're happy because he's happy. And it's a new experience. And it'S something I never knew in my life because I never give nothing to nobody unless there's something in it for me. I'd like to try and tell you that every day in AA is a holiday and every meal is a banquet, but that's not the way it is. What they give me here was the equipment to stand out in that jungle and face my responsibilities just like everybody else. I've had the good days, the rotten days, and the lousy days. As a matter of fact, after the second meeting I attended in AA was almost my last meeting. The second meeting I went to was over in Pasadena. Where else would I go to a meeting for crying out loud? Lousy Rose Parade town. I went into that group over there and that group was surrounded by a lot of old-timers. You know how them old-timers are. And I walked in with all them old timers and I sat down and I was very upset about the whole process. And the guy got up there talking that night and he was an old-timer too. He'd been sober 132 years, I think. An old arty, God love him, he passed away but he was a great man, and I gotta love him to pieces today. But that particular night, I didn't like him. That particular night when he talked, and in those years he talked he always showed a great big picture of himself. It was a blown up mug shot taken of him when he was doing time in the L.A. County Jail. And the point that Artie tried to get across was, look at me when I was drinking and look at me now. Well, I looked at the picture, I look at Artie and I think, he looked better drunk. No doubt about it. This AA outfit ages the hell out these guys are going to get out of here, you know. So I went out and I took a drink of whiskey the next day and I threw it away. And from that day to this, it's not been necessary to take that drink. And you say, well, why? And what makes it? What rang that bell? I said, I don't know. I had a lot of help from a guy upstairs that knew probably I was tired of hurting myself and I sincerely wanted to do something about it. That and the fact that I got a lot ego and I didn't want my sponsor to think that I couldn't go three days without taking that drink. And the third meeting that I went to and met my sponsor and he introduced me to a half a dozen guys, and we're all about the same age, and we started going to meetings together, and we started having a big time. And we started, you know, sitting there in the back of the group at the back of meetings and criticizing all the old timers. We would go over to Pasadena, we'd sit in the back, and I'd go, hate all them guys too, you know. Take a lot of notes down, that way we could have coffee after the meeting and really get down to hate them that way, you know. Oh boy. And we had noticed in our passing, we went to a lot of meetings, four or five a week, and we noticed in a lot of these meetings that there were a lot of cliques. So by God, we formed our own clique to be against all them other cliques out there. Very important, this growth in AA. And then we selected this one group. It happened to be the Arcadia Group. It had a lot of stuffy fellows there. And we decided we're going to get our, one of our guys to run for secretary of that group, and we're gonna change that whole thing and run all them old-timers and stuffy guys out. That's what we'll do. Fine. So we ran this buddy of ours for secretary. We politicked for him. He made it. And then he joined the other cliques. Hell of a note, isn't it? Putting me and my buddy on the coffee detail, he did. So we started moving from the back of the meeting through the meeting up to the front. And as you pass through, my friends, as you pass through a group at Alcoholics and Olives, you come to find out that there are only cliques that are there is a click, click, click in my head. The only thing I've ever met in AA is just a whole bunch of people from all walks of life. There's a lot of folks out there I wouldn't do any drinking with and there's a Lotta folks that aren't going to do any drinking With me. There's A Lotta Folks That I Don't Share A Lot Of Sobriety With And They Don't Share Theirs With Me. But There's Not A Guy In This Program God Love Them All That Dislikes Me So Bad He'd Like To See Me Take A Drink. And What Better Deal Can You Find Than That? the greatest bunch of folks I ever met. They would go to any length if I called them to come down there and sit and talk to me. He may disagree with all the philosophies I have. He may agree with me, he may disagree với the way I do business or the way i live my life but if I call him and say Charlie, I think I might take a drink I need some help he'd be there and he would talk about the program because he will not dislike me so bad he'd like to see me laying drunk out there in the middle of that street or anywhere else. As I said every day is not the holiday, is it? But sure, I've had mine out there and I'm going to have some more and I don't like the lousy days. In 57, I had a few. In 1962, I walked out of St. Luke's Hospital and I said, Christ Almighty, why? God, why? You're going to rack me up again. You're gonna cause me the heartbreak and the misery and the grief. Why? Why? Why? I forgot to remember, didn't I? I forgot to remember who I was and where I came from and what I have. Instead of standing there Norm and crying a poor mouth about what you didn't get, why don't you think about what you have? What do you got, Norm? The man says, well, Norm, what do you got? In a material sense, Norm I got not a lot, no, but I got a hell of a lot more than I had when I got here. Yes, I've got quite a bit really. It doesn't take a mathematical giant to figure it out. When I came in, I had nothing. And any way you want to cut it, nothing from nothing leaves nothing. So every little thing I got, a few change in my pocket, the clothes I might wear, the car I might drive, or the peace of mind I experienced. But above all, I got 17 years and four months walking down the sunny side of the street that you know that guys are going to die and never see 17 days or 17 weeks. They're going to walk down the street of booze and fantasy and busted dreams and broken hearts and tears by the bucket full of jails and institutions and the whole thing. They're never going to see my street. They're not going to walk down the sunny side. They're ever going to be able to wake up in the morning and make the decision which way they want to live. Today, I make the decisions of which way I want to leave. Today, when I wake up, I don't have to justify my existence out there to none of them. No way! I'm not coming from behind. They don't even have the heat or the screws on me. If I do something for somebody today, I do it because I want to do it, not because I'm being jammed into it. I am not coming from behind. I will not compromise my life or my living this day. This day, I won't. I was clean today. I was cleaned yesterday and God willing, I'll be clean tomorrow and I'll walk down the sunny side of my street and I will be respected. I am respected on that street. I'm respected by myself and the people I do business with. And one day I got in my car, I drove home and I saw my woman and I'm expected by my woman And she's mine, that redhead I'm her old man And I'm respected by her and them bandits That are still living in my joint Not for where I've been Or where I'm trying to go But what I'm doing What I'm going to do this day I respect it I haven't heard a kid of mine scream at me for years Nobody cried at my house today Because their old man was drunk and tore it up I've watched them go from little ones into big ones I took a daughter downtown one day And bought her first pair of high-heeled shoes And got choked up so bad I thought I was going to die I stood there looking at her. She was a chicken before she put the shoes on as he stands and she's a woman and she looked at me and she respected me because I'm her old man and I respected her for what she'd become and in that second, I say, God, but for the grace of God and A.A. Norm, you could have missed that. That feeling that you have for each other and the boy that's going on to school and he's going to be about half smart before he's done with this. Nobody in my outfit hacked it that far and a ball player and an older daughter two years ago not quite. I got her married. It was me and her that day for a few minutes. She was just a little girl one day. As we stood there, I thought, yeah, it was just yesterday you were just a little girls. But now you and I are standing here, and there's 350 people who are out there in that audience. But there for a minute, it as just me and her. And I walked her down that aisle and give her that big jackass she married. But before that, before that it was just me and just her. As you can't help but think as you stand there and looking out at the folks and you think, little girl, if you really only knew these folks out of the 350, there must have been 60, 70 guys from AA. And you think if you only know those guys out there from the program, those are the guys you see out there with that special look on their face. They're the guys that give you the high sign as you walk by. You know how an Elkie does it to the crowd? You know, he wants you to know. Yeah. And, you look out and see them and you kind of give it to them back. And there's something that goes between the two of you. And if something says, Norm, buddy, you look sharp. God, you look all right, huh? The norm buddy of the rest of these guys here only knew you. If they only knew who you are, where you come from and what you got, did you think, yeah, Charlie, if they only knew you, if они только знали тебя, если они только knew who ты и где ты来 из и что ты получил, God, if only they knew our friends and I'd say, yeah little girl that you're here, if you only knew the folks that made all of this possible, all of it possible. They called it the folks in Alcoholics Anonymous. In closing this evening, I'd like to read to you, I rarely ever do it, I've done once or twice, I suppose, but I'd like to read you a little piece in a letter. And I got this letter and it says, congratulations for another wonderful year towards AA. I can't begin to count all the times your achievements and Alcoholics Anonymous have entered my life. I'm awfully proud of you, Father, and very happy. Times like this, it is hard to find the perfect words to tell you all I feel. Maybe you can read between the lines to the new folks that are here this evening for your first, second, or third meeting, maybe you too can read between the lines. Between the misery and the tears and the happiness, there's Alcoholics Anonymous. God love you. We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our tape and CD of the month club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.12steptapes.com. ¶¶