The Steps Are Numbered for the Intellectuals — If You Do Them in Order They Work – Jack K.

I'm an alcoholic of the hopeless variety, my name is Jack K., and I'm delighted to be here, I have a lot of friends in this room, people I care about, and people who care about me, and that's in itself a miracle coming from where I came. And I'm delighted to see the birthdays of Pat's dear friend, and I just am very pleased to get a chance to show up here again, as I have had a chance to do a few times, and look around at the faces I know, and at the ones I don't. It's great. I suppose that it's... At least some of the newcomers in the room tonight, today, this morning, aren't anything like me. Much of what has been said so far is really sickening, you know? Oh, geez. Get insulin shock from it, you know, it's just so sweet. But that's the way it is, and there's not much I can do about that. I'm going to have to... You know, add to that same thing. And it... Inside of me, it is amusing, because, I mean, I know how I felt, and what I thought. And, I mean, you could sort of boil down the advice that I understood at the earliest stages of this thing, and it was basically, you know, stick with the fellowship, go to meetings, and work the steps. And I couldn't do either of those. I mean, I didn't want any of that. There was no way that I could be in on that. We're going to sing the whole meeting, I guess. I don't know how to get this a little less reverberating. Let's try that. I had... Enormous resistance to the solution. I had plenty of problems. I wasn't lacking in problems, you know, when I came here. So, I had a lot of chaos going on in my life. My friend Chris and I were talking about that at breakfast. I mean, I had plenty of chaos going on. I mean, just a little summary of that. When I first... Just before I got here, I had been hallucinating for about a year and a half, roughly. My liver was failing. I had been arrested ten times. The first one was for manslaughter when I was 17. I had been married 17 years, and she was divorcing me. My four children had disowned me. The youngest was seven. The oldest was 20. And they had a special... A little meeting in which they explained to me that they didn't love, want, or need me. And they told me to get out of their lives and to leave their mother alone. I was killing her. And they had packed a suitcase for me. And I had no friends at all. I had not worked in almost three years. Other than that, my life was going pretty well. I had plenty of problems. Plenty of chaos. It's just that your solution seemed to be inapplicable to me. And even if they weren't, I didn't like them. I mean, even if it felt like some sort of awful capitulation after all the endless real efforts that I had made, you know. And it turns out I was right. I mean... Laughter. And I got in here and you started saying really, really offensive things. Like, surrender. Come on. I'm doing my best to fight this thing, your life, through. I'm doing my very best to eke out a miserable existence in a hostile universe. You know, and you're telling me surrender. How am I going to do that? I mean, I just can't. I can't bring myself to do it, you know. And I remember one guy, in fact, I talked to him the other day because a meeting that I helped to found invited him to come speak. And my friend Joe Lopresti, I remember him saying, when do you surrender? You surrender when you run out of ammunition. That's when you say, okay, where do you want me? You know, where should I go? You know, I mean, that's when you surrender. And I knew I was there. I mean, I had no card left to play. I really felt that. On a particular morning, it had finally gotten through to me that that was it. Nothing left. I had lost numerous jobs, and some of them were careers. As the result, of my alcoholism. And not, not, I never was fired for being drunk. You know, and I mean, I'm talking about a lot of jobs and several careers. I had, in 1958, I had 32 W-2 forms to turn in, you know. I mean, that's a lot of jobs. And that was just one year. I have done a lot of things. I was, for example, one of my more interesting jobs. I was an investigator for the welfare department for a year in Harlem, in New York. That's an interesting job, you know. And, you know, I just had done all these things and struggled and fought and tried and tried and tried. And now I wasn't working and couldn't seem to do it. Just couldn't seem to do it. But I never did once get fired for, for, for walking in drunk. I got fired because of my behavior and my attitudes, because of my alcoholism. I got fired for defiance and rebellion and irresponsibility and insensitivity to your needs. I am very sensitive, don't misunderstand, terribly sensitive, but only as it refers to me. I'm not at all sensitive about you, you know, just me. And, so for immaturity, just discounting anything that was you and that was good for you or important to you didn't matter to me. It didn't matter to me. So, conditions, that set of circumstances and my sense of the end of it. I couldn't work anymore. I just couldn't do it. I was trying to because I felt humiliated. Because my wife was supporting us then. And, and she, when I met her in Greenwich Village in New York, my wife was a kind of an easygoing, fun-loving, friendly, gregarious, kind of party-going kind of a gal. And over the 17 years we had been together, her attitude had deteriorated considerably, you know. I mean, she wasn't friendly at all. At least not to me. And, and she made hostile little remarks, you know, mean-spirited little jokes, you know. She used to say, for example, she'd say, I have five children. He's the oldest, you know. Oh, it never struck me funny, you know, it's just. She, and she took them doing little practical jokes that were, that were hurting, hurting ones, you know. I, there was a little beer bar occasion, you know, that I occasionally went to. They had a nice pool table. Once in a while I'd stop in, that's all, you know. It was named J. Sloan's on Melrose. And, and Jean started to forward my mail there, you know. I mean, that's really embarrassing. You walk in, you walk in and the bartender says, there's mail for you, you know, oh. It was humiliating to be, you know, to be under her wing. And, and, and. And having to let that hostile person take care of me, you know, and, and put the food on the table and all that. It was just, I hated it. So, I wanted to work, but I just couldn't seem to put it together. And, I was working on a few big deals, you know, don't misunderstand. I, I could just hit one of them, everything would be all right, but I wasn't doing very well. And, and I had this problem of hallucinations, of, of. See, in those. Today's, Gene's job was to support the family and to parent the five of us, you know, and to be my wife and lover and confidant and accountant and to do the dishes and clean the house and mow the lawn if it needed it. And my job was to try to keep everybody from finding out how sick I was, you know. I mean, I knew it was over almost. I really sort of knew it was over, but I just didn't want it to go out looking good, that's all. You know, if I could just keep you from finding out how sick I really was, if I could just keep you from never quite realizing the depth of my terror, the enormity of my rage, and the desperation that I lived in daily, if I could keep you from that knowledge, it was very important to me. And when you are hallucinating, it isn't that easy to do, you know. See, there are a few people, there are a few of us in this room who have had this difficulty of trying to keep them from finding out. It's very tricky. Let me explain to you if you haven't had the problem. See, what you have to do is key your behavior off of them because you can't trust what you are seeing and hearing, see, because you're never sure if what... I was never sure if what I was seeing and hearing is the same thing that they were seeing and hearing. So I got to watch them carefully to be sure, you know. I mean, for example, this is the kind of thing that would happen. I'd be sitting at home in the boozer, of my family, you know, four hostile kids and a wife who's divorcing me, and the phone would ring nine times and nobody would go get it. So finally I would march over and get the phone and then everyone would look at me funny, you know. Maybe it didn't ring. So I would listen intently to hear if there is a voice on the other end and thank God there would be. But I would listen intently. How do you know for sure? I mean, you can't very well hand the phone to your seven-year-old and say, honey, do you hear a voice on the other end there? Is there somebody there? I mean, you just got to fake it. And so I faked it. And that's that delicate problem every day of trying to keep them from finding out how sick I was. And that was the kind of condition that I lived in all the time. Now, Jean's job, admittedly, was difficult. Mine was impossible. Eventually, they are going to find out how sick I am. Eventually, there's no way around that. And on a particular morning, just a series of events came together and made it clear to me that it was over. Now, that didn't mean that I felt some hope. I just knew it was over. And I presumed that my next move was, as was already referred to, was Skid Row for me. Because I couldn't support myself. And she just resigned from that job. She said, what had happened is that that morning when the kids told me they didn't love me or want me, they had kicked me out. And the next morning, she let me back in. And the next night, after I got out of jail, she kicked me out. Only that time, she said, a little talk, a little speech to me, she said, the kids were right, they never should let you back. And I never will again. And if you're, this actually had happened, I got out of jail at 5.30 in the morning and I called Jean. She had come down to bail me out, but they wouldn't let her. And then they gave me a kick out and then I called her. And our conversation was typical of our relationship. I called her and I said, where the hell were you when I needed you? And she said, I was there. I'll come back and get you. And I said, don't bother, I'll walk. And I hung up on her. I don't know why I called her. I guess just to make her feel bad, you know. So I had walked home and stopped on the way to get well. And when I got home, it was almost 8 o'clock and Jean was going to work. And she gave me that little talk. She said, the kids were right, never should let you back, never will again. And I'm going through with the divorce and if I find you here when I come home, I will have you ejected. And she left. And I had developed over the 24 years that I had been drinking and using a variety of skills that are necessary to the survival of an alcoholic of my time. And one of the abilities that I had rather keenly developed was the ability to tell when they mean it. And I got it. She meant it. I mean, I'd been in and out of that house about a hundred times. I mean, my wife was incredibly able to withstand pain and humiliation. I mean, you know, she had taken endless and always believed that next time it would be better. You know, I mean, let me tell you how sick she got. All right? There was a time about, I think this was about two years before I got sober, when I was living with two young women over here in the valley in Studio City. And every evening I would go home for supper and she would serve it as well as she could and as attractively as possible try to keep the kids from fighting so that, the home would be so peaceful that I would stay. And then every night I'd go back. I'd leave after supper. You know, I mean, that's, so I, I'd gotten pretty used to being able to push her around and to, I knew the magic words. The magic words for an untreated Al-Anon are, I don't know, these are kind of lethal. Maybe I shouldn't tell you. But what the heck. The magic words, and, and I knew them, were, I need you. They'll do anything then. I mean, they will walk on razor blades if you need it. They'll just do anything. My wife would do anything. And I said, I need you and she'd forgive me and da-da-da-da. This particular moment in time, it was quite clear to me that was over. I couldn't do that. I would never work again. It was finally over. And, and I felt a sudden rush of the feelings that I had felt all my life. The same ones. Same set of feelings. I never felt differently. I just tried to put it in a nice package. I always felt the same. Lonely, separate, different, angry, and afraid every day, all day. I always did. And I drank and used and felt lonely, separate, different, angry, and afraid. But I was able to keep it at bay a little and I was able, I thought, a better picture on it. And I needed the anesthesia and so on and so on. So there it is. I mean, I just, so that day, I felt lonely, separate, different, angry, and afraid to a little greater degree. So I went into the kitchen and got a bottle of white wine and and smoked the very last bit of weed that I had and licked the baggie, you know. Waste not, want not. You know. Passed out on the bed and before I could got to the bed that morning, it was quite clear to me that it, that it was over. That there was a, and I don't know even what I meant, but it's just, there was, there was no fight left. The best, the best image I have ever thought of about it was it felt to me like one of those, one of those sad, god-awful things that you, that you may have seen sometimes in, in a boxing ring where the one fight, the one fighter cannot raise his hand anymore and just reels from the next punch and there's no fight left. It's just gone. And that's what had occurred that final morning. And I knew that. I didn't know what to do about it, but I knew that. And I just, I wasn't even all that upset. I was just exhausted. Just really exhausted. A couple of days later, when I had one day of sobriety, a guy said to me, the most comforting thing that I have yet heard in AA. It came upon that terrible need of mine. And it was a great relief and it still is for me. I had, had this sudden revelation that maybe I could do this thing. Maybe I could do Alcoholics Anonymous. Even if I didn't believe in it. Maybe I could do it anyway. Maybe I could just do it. And I was willing to try anything. And I called this guy. And I said, are you, do you have about an hour this morning? And I'd like to come over and take those steps. Well, I was willing. And he said, Jack, you don't have to run anymore. You can walk. You can walk. Now. You have all the time there is. It just, it just made everything different. As soon as he said it. I didn't know if it was true. But I had never thought of that. I'd never even thought of the possibility. I don't have to run anymore. He said, just slow down. Just work on the first step. And give me a call tomorrow and we'll see how it goes. You know. And I started trying. You know. To be willing. To be willing. To be willing. To be willing. You know. Just to some extent. And there were so many resistances in me to, to this. Including, I didn't, I discovered after a while that I really didn't want to get well. That I was afraid of it. That I, that I was familiar with being sick. And I'd rather stay there. At least I know, you know. I'll live with the demons I know. So, but at that moment there were other things standing strong in my way. I mean, like I said, your solution seemed truly inappropriate. And also, uh, kind of stupid in some ways. And God knows not couched in very intellectual terms. And, and I didn't like any of that. Uh, I had no, I was an atheist. I mean, a rather angry and determined atheist. But, uh, if I had any sort of religion, it was intellectuality, you know. I believed in that. And I needed it. I, I needed it because, uh, of a variety of things. It was an effort on my part to gain some control. If I could understand the nature of the human psyche or the universe, then maybe I could gain some control. And I'd been out of control since I was 16 years old. If I could impress you with some esoteric piece of information neither of us were interested in, then maybe it would relieve me for a moment of my self-loathing. If I could make you believe for an instant that I was a superior person, then I could stop hating me and despising me so. For a, you know, a brief instant. So, I mean, you know, and the arrogant stance that I, my intellectual posture was, was intended to insulate me from my complete understanding that I was inadequate in every respect. So it was very important. Uh, I now define an intellectual as someone who has been educated beyond his capacity, you know. But in those days it was a very serious matter to me. And the book did not meet my literary standards. You know, it just was, I just thought that it was too uh, plain spoken and I thought simple minded to be of any use to someone of my complexity, don't you know. And so, I, I had that as, as one of the obstacles to any, any likelihood that I could benefit from the thing. And, and this guy had said, read the book and I read the book and I found things in it that seemed just pointless. Like, for example, it suggested, I guess seriously, in that book, that, that I should substitute for my drinking, substitute the fellowship. Uh, that's just not gonna work in my case, folks, I'm sorry, but let's, it starts out with the fact that I don't like people, okay. Hanging out with you is hardly gonna keep me from drinking. It'll probably cause it, you know. So, the fellowship is not gonna be any use to me. I didn't even like the word fellowship, you know. It sounded to me like a Baptist softball team. I don't wanna be part of your fellowship. Why would I do that? That's dumb. And, and then, I mean, clearly the, the most difficult thing of all was the fact that it, I could see through that book's feeble efforts to hide its real intent behind euphemisms like higher power. I mean, it was obvious to me that that book was intending to cram God down my throat. And I didn't believe in God and didn't think you should either. I mean, one of my little entertainments in the last couple of years of my drinking was to find bars named Duffy's or Molly Malone's and, and find some preferably big Irish Catholic and get him into a discussion. I'd say, do you believe in God? And he'd say, oh yeah. I'd say, a loving, just, and merciful God, right? I'd say, right. I'd say, yeah. What about malformed children and disease and war and poverty and bigotry and death? Where is your loving God? Usually about then, they would beat me up to show me there was a power greater than myself. And that is the resistance with which I approach them. So what I said to that Buch and that program, that was quite a learning to do in order to see how that was going to work for myself. And I also learned something in there. How I should have chosen what I had to offer in one of these books and that program. I was desperate. I had a lot of trouble. I was willing to try but what you had to offer means, the existence of God, and what it proved to me is there ain't one. It didn't work for me. How's it going to work? How can I come to believe? It just seemed impossible. However, because of that moment of surrender, when I couldn't lift my arms anymore, when I just didn't have the energy to struggle, when that enormous comfort that came from Bud's telling me, you don't have to run, you can walk, that attracted me to try something. I mean, he just said, well, give up, just give up. And I said, well, I don't really know how to do that. And I kept trying to be willing, to be willing, to be willing. And I said, okay, what can I do? I could go to the meetings. I'm not going to like them, but I could go. I mean, I never liked the, my father used to belong to the Elks. I didn't like that either, you know. So I could, I can go. I'll show up, you know, I'll let him punch my card and that's it. I'll be there. I had no expectation of enjoying it. And I did. I mean, I did. Very soon. I mean, I, I loved to go to speaker meetings. I like to hear the adventure stories, you know. One guy got up and said, I stole a battleship. Now you got to like a guy like that, you know. I mean, that's great. That's terrific. There was a, and they had a sense of humor about themselves. They really did. I mean, they, they, they told embarrassing little stories about themselves. You know, I heard incredible stories. They were funny. I didn't identify. I used to hear people say, identify. You go to the meeting and identify. I didn't identify at all with those people. It seemed to me that they were sort of mythological in size, colossi striding the earth. You know, they, they had this sense of humor about themselves. They had had these incredible stories. I mean, they, they, they, they told embarrassing little stories about themselves. I mean, they, they, they told embarrassing little stories about themselves. I mean, incredible adventures. And then one day they decided to, you know, stop flying their airplanes across the Mexican border and get sober. And they just did that. I mean, but that isn't possible for me. I mean, I just sat out there feeling lonely, separate, different, angry, and afraid, inadequate, unloving, unlovable, too small. I mean, how the hell was I going to do it? Now, I couldn't do it. They were very different from me. I didn't identify with them at all. I mean, Susie was living on Venice Beach with her children on welfare, and she'd get up to the podium and talk about it. It was hilarious. It didn't seem funny to me. I couldn't find that sort of cosmic sense of humor that I heard from the podium. So I just figured they were different. It just couldn't work for me. But I showed up, and I liked the meeting. And I looked around to see what else was possible to try and allow this thing to happen. How could I try not to shut it out? And another thing I was, it was suggested is that I get a sponsor. And I said, well, okay, I'll do whatever I can. I don't believe in God. I can't pray, but I'll get a sponsor. And I got one. And a day or two after I got him, I realized that it was probably another case of bad judgment. I was good at bad judgment. And I had sort of raised bad judgment to a high art at one certain time. And I realized, oh, geez, I made another mistake. This man, he's very well-meaning, and he's a nice guy, I'm sure. But I mean, he just doesn't have enough education to deal with it. I mean, how the hell is this guy going to, he was a, barely got out of high school redneck from Alabama. He's just not going to be of any use to me. I mean, he's a nice enough man. I don't want to hurt his feelings, but, and I devised a little test. And I gave him an oral exam. Well, I didn't tell him. I mean, I just slipped it past him. I asked him a question about the, a rather complicated question. I asked him a complex question about the psychological interrelatedness of the steps. Let's see how he does with that. And Fred looked at me with these huge, gentle eyes. And he said, Jack, the steps are numbered for the intellectuals. If you will do them in order, they will work. And I thought that was pretty adroit, so I didn't fire him. And I kept plodding forward, but I just, I saw no hope. I finally got pretty hopeless. And I began to trust Fred a little bit. And so I went to him and I said, the truth is, I cannot work the second step. I just can't come to believe that there is a power, so I'm stuck. I can't go any further. That's it. I'm done. And he said, I'm done. He said, it always seemed to me when I asked him a question that Fred had not heard the question, you know. Always seemed like that. So very often I'd find myself repeating the question, make sure he heard it, you know. I had a fight one time with Gene, and I mean it was, that fight was 16 years and three months ago. And I tell you today, in that argument, I was right. I know it. And I explained it to him with great care about what she said and what she did and the insensitivity of that woman when a sick, desperate alcoholic was doing his best to recover. And he listened, and then he gave me his solution, and I asked him again. I went through the entire event again. I said, no, wait, Fred, I don't think you heard me. Let me see. See, she was standing over there, and I was over here just finding him, and I went on through the whole thing again. And he gave me the same solution. I mean, the solution was, just to finish that little digression, the solution was, he told me to go to her and say, I am a sick son of a bitch, but I'm trying. She was wrong. No, don't you... It wasn't me. And I was desperate enough to be willing to go to her, and she was standing in front of the kitchen sink with the water running, hitting the pots, you know what I mean, pretending she was doing the dishes, just banging things. And I tried to say to her what he had instructed me to say, and it rose, oh, probably about that high. Couldn't get it out. And I didn't want to drain, so I went back, and I wrote it on a note. I am a sick son of a bitch, but I'm trying. And I slipped it into her Al-Anon book. And just to give you an idea of the kind of good program she was working, it took her three weeks to find it. I said to Fred, I can't work the second step. And he said, God comes to me through other people. Go to the meetings and search for God. I'm sure it was just, you know, his lack of education. Of course, they had to come to him through other people. In my case, if God were to come to me, it would probably... It would probably be a white light, you know, in a quiet space. He said, go to the meetings. And I was desperate. So I went to the meetings. And I listened intently to every speaker in the hopes that one of them would unlock this mystery. You know, and it... I mean, it seemed to me that every one of the speakers that I heard on my search for God all had a third grade education, and they all got sober in Tyler, Texas, and they were dispensing folk wisdom. I swear to you, one guy got up and said, if you do not believe in a power greater than yourself, then jump up and stay there. What the hell is that? I didn't think that was funny. I'm sitting out there trying to find God, and this guy is telling me that gravity, will restore me to sanity, you know. Not in this lifetime. How the hell... It's crazy. So, I didn't know what to do. And I kept calling Fred. I said, I can't do it. And he said, well, don't drink, don't use, no matter what. And I held on to that. I mean, I held on to don't drink, don't use, no matter what. No matter what. And I made lists of no matter what. If those four children, the youngest was seven, never speak to me again, I will not use, I will not drink. No matter what. No matter what. If I never am able to work again, I will not use or drink, no matter what. If my mind is never restored to me, I will not use or drink. And I mean, I was three months, I was three months sober before I could remember the serenity prayer. I just couldn't hold on to it. You know, and the hallucinations did not disappear the day I got here either. I remember one time I was sitting next to Fred, it was on a Thursday night, about three months sober, on a real hot night at the Brentwood meeting, and this huge black bug came flying right at me and then darted between my sponsor and me. And we ended up looking at each other. Right? Now, I didn't say anything, you know. The first thing that was said, Fred said. He looked at me and he said, it was really there, Jack. I didn't ask him, you know. I'd be damned if I'd ask him. But I was grateful to hear it. And I said, if my mind is never restored, I will not use, I will not drink, no matter what. If my wife of 17 years goes through with her plan to divorce me, I will not use. I will not drink. If she stays, I will not use. I will not drink. No matter what. And when I was clean and sober, 30 days, I had a spiritual experience. It consisted being clean and sober for 30 days. I mean, I really knew then and I know today, I can't do that. I mean, I'm not, I'm not able to do that. I am not a periodic. I never was. I don't know how they do that. But I could not stay. The longest I ever managed, one time Jean, through intimidation and nagging and bullying, managed to get me to stop drinking in New York City once for three consecutive weeks. And it took an enormous quantity of cocaine and grass to get me through those three weeks. And I never tried it again. And I was 30 days clean and sober. 30 days in a row. I'm looking at a guy that's got 28. 28 days. I mean, you know, I had one of the most lovely experiences one time. I was asked to share at a convention, which, I mean, is just an enormous honor for me. I have a lot of ambition, you know, and stuff and showbiz and all that stuff. But no honor I can imagine comes close to being asked to share this miracle anywhere. But, you know, the convention, I blow it up in proportion a little bit. And so I got at this convention up in Sacramento and Fred had taught me how to sort of bring myself back to the ground in conventions. He said, go to a marathon and just sit in the marathon. And I said, go to a marathon for a while and that'll help. Because, you know, you get centered and you hear new people sharing about this and that and it's good for you. Just sit there. And I did that and I was sitting next to a guy who had what Jack Bailey, my sponsor's sponsor, used to call not the shakes, but the jerks, you know. It's a myoclonic seizure is what it actually is. And, I mean, things just happen, you know. And, you know, the arm suddenly flies up. People wave back at you, you know. It's very embarrassing. I was sitting next to a guy who, you know, he was very quick, as Jack used to say. And I turned to him and I said, are you new? And he said the dearest thing. He said, oh no, I got 30 days. And, oh man, because he's right. Absolutely. Dead on. 30 days in a row. Are you kidding? Not me. And there I was. 30 days. Clean and sober. And that is a spiritual experience precisely as it is described in that most profound of books. Alcoholics. Anonymous. In a rather obscure section of our book called Appendix 2. Where it says we tapped an unsuspected inner resource. Which we presently came to identify with our conception of a power greater than ourselves. Some of our more religious-minded members call that God-conscious. And I had done that. I had tapped an unsuspected inner resource that made it possible for me to stay clean and sober an incredible length of time. I mean, it was obvious to me. That's a miracle. And I went to Fred and said, I think I'm working the second step. And he didn't seem all that impressed. He told me go on to the third step. And I did that. And I've been doing the rest of them and trying to practice the principles to the best of my limited ability ever since. And, you know, it turns out that that sponsor who didn't have enough education had definitely enough wisdom and compassion and patience and generosity. March me through it. I think maybe because of Frank's here, I'm thinking a lot about Fred today. AA lost Fred in March. And I took great comfort from his presence on this level. And, boy, he was an inspiration. God, he really was. My sponsor got cancer six years before he died. And he was 59 years old. And it metastasized. It started out as prostate cancer. It metastasized his bones. And he was 59 years old with bone cancer when he became interested in doing the triathlon. And the triathlon, if you don't happen to know, is swimming in the ocean for an incredible length of time and then getting out of the ocean and riding a bicycle for an equally incredible length of time and then running a marathon. And obviously, a guy 59 years old with bone cancer couldn't do that. And he tried it. He failed. And then when he was 60 with bone cancer, he succeeded. Three more times. He started a organ. Some guy sent me an article from a magazine, a special magazine about triathletes. And he started an organization that's now nationwide called the Old Gents, which are guys over 60. They didn't have to have cancer to get into his organization. Just guys over 60 willing to do the triathlon. We talk about powerless. We are powerless. And our lives are unmanageable. But by the end of the course, by the end of the steps, we have asked for power and have been given it. I mean, I watched Fred's power, God's power. I mean, I saw there is no question. I saw there is no question about the power that flows through us. The various healing and helping professions would give anything to have the power that has been entrusted in you and me. It is us who has the ability to reach out and touch each other and to pass it on. It's us. We don't have to be well educated. We don't have to have any of the enormous knowledge that is now current on the disease. All we have to do is, like Fred had done the day he told me it was really there, Jack, he had the one qualification necessary to be able to pull that off. There isn't a psychiatrist or a therapist, there isn't a wife, a mother, a pundit, a wise man, anywhere in the world that can answer a question that hasn't been asked. There's only one way you can do that. You have to have been there yourself. And Fred had been there himself. And we have been there ourselves. And that's how it's possible. For us to reach out. At least that's the beginning of our ability to reach out. And in our hands lies the healing. We're here and we touch each other. And the healing comes from our presence with one another. And, you know, the most famous thing about us throughout the world isn't easy does it or first things first. It's one drunk talks to another. And it always amuses me that they never say what we say. And the reason for that is it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. As long as we are talking to each other, as long as we are in each other's presence, the healing is here. There is an old timer who found some words in Gibran that describe for me, better than any I've ever heard, our association. The words are, through the hands of such as these, God speaks. And from behind their eyes, he smiles upon the earth. I came to you feeling lonely, separate, different, angry and afraid every day of my life, drunk or sober. And if I work the steps... ...and practice the principles and live in the fellowship of the Spirit, I don't feel that at all. Instead, I feel at one, at peace and full of joy. And then I live in the infinite now. Thank you.