The Structure of a Higher Power-Directed Life – Paul K.

Mr. Missouri, would you help me welcome him, please? Good evening. I would like to congratulate this group on the first annual CHATTACHOOCHE Valley Fellowship. Ed told me if I could spell that, he'd give me a note that I could drink beer. I'm not sure it'll work. I was rather pleased when I received a call from Ed to come down here and participate in this conference, and I was a little bit taken aback. Well, I had been down here some months before and attended this Georgia State, which was a bang-up deal, and it was a high point in my experience. I enjoyed it, and I met a lot of you people, and all I can tell you is that I left here with very, very warm feelings of your camaraderie and your hospitality and your graciousness. And believe me, it was very much impressed. And when I got home, I of course told everybody about these beautiful people from Columbus, Georgia. And when Ed called and said that you were going to have another swallow right on here, he kind of veiled not like Ed either. He kind of creeped around a little bit, and I said, Ed, I don't know what it is. I'll make the coffee, I'll beat the rugs, beat your wife. Whatever you want me to do, I will come down. I agreed before he dropped the other shoe. And I said, what do you want Me to do? And he said, we want you to talk. And I say, my God, I was just down there. And it's awfully hard to repeat what you said before, so I've got to be honest tonight. That's a hell of a job, you know, to remember what I said some time ago. And I think also that the farther I get from home, the better off my story is, you know. And so it's a chore. But nevertheless, I not only agreed to it, but I look forward to coming back. And as a bonus, I brought along a little beautiful little lady that my wife and I have taken into our hearts. And she did her dog and pony show, and I thought quite well, and so it's been a real nice experience. So again, I have the opportunity to see you and to meet with you, and for the past two days I've been freeloading all over town with barbecue and been treated pretty damn well, better than they do at home, I'll tell you that. So I could probably stay down here to my profit if you'd, but I guess I'd wear my welcome out sooner or later. So with that, all I can say is I am delighted to be back. And one of the privileges and one of the experiences we have in AA, we are privileged, I think, to form deep, warm, affectionate relationships which we carry with us. And oneof the beautiful parts about this thing is that we begin to share, we begin to think, and in our consciousness we take this. And it's a beautiful thing to know that God is alive and well in Columbus as well as St. Louis. And so I think this is true all over the world, and for that I am indeed grateful. With your indulgence, my name is Paul Keebler, and I'm an alcoholic. I am enjoying 44 years of sobriety in this beautiful fellowship. Now that may not impress you, it impresses me. but it doesn't impress my wife and the reason it doesn' t impress her soon she will have her 46th year in this fellowship all I can tell you is never marry a woman that's been in longer than you have there just ain't no profit in it and it's been quite an experience, and I am totally, completely dedicated to the fact that we have an AA family. Now, I have a little ritual, and I'd like to put you in on it this evening. Prior to talking at any of these conferences or at the podium, I call my wife I've done this for a long time we have the same ritual we go through this thing as though we'd never done it before and she said how's the conference and I say it's beautiful how are the people and I go through the routine of telling them what a beautiful bunch you are and she says how's your day how's a conference and I said great and the speakers are good and I Go on with my story and she Says how are you feeling and I said well not too good I'm intimidated and she said why is that and I says well you know Marina spoke Friday night and she covered all the absolutes and the steps and the recovery system and that damn Charlie Parmley came over here today and did the rest of it and took sex all apart and I thought hell all I got left now I said, get up and say my name is Paul Keebler and sit down. I said I ain't ever going to a conference with Marina and Charlie again. I ainít got nothing left to say. She said, well, donít let it bother you. And she said, let me give you a little advice. You know what I mean. And I said whatís that? He said, donít let it intimidate you. Just get up there and do your thing. talk about only the things in the first 164 pages of the big book. Don't tell your corny stories, don't do that. And don't preach. And she said, whatever you do, put on a nice dark blue jacket, gray slacks, nice dark tie, and be nice. and get up there and do your thing. And I have the phone and I thought to myself, just because she's my wife and a self-appointed sponsor, oh, what's her name? Ain't going to tell me what to do. So I'm going to take off my coat and I'm going to tell some corny stories and I am going to preach, you know I'm going to preach. And so I'm going to have a good time this evening. I think that in all seriousness you have heard a great deal about the fundamentals of AA. All due respect to my pretty little girlfriend here and Charlie and so on. I think they have very adequately and very beautifully discussed in detail the recovery processes and so on. And I think it's beautiful that we have these people to have these interpretations that have implemented this thing in our living monuments to and exhibit days of what the recovery process is. And God knows we need these people because without the power of attraction, we don't have very much going for us. and so they are indeed this. But I think there's something else that's going on, and my little friend pointed it out this evening. There are those who went before us, and those who had went before brought us a message that at times is being interpreted from various elements and areas, and I think it's getting deluded a little bit, But nevertheless, the hardcore is still here. And I want to stand up here tonight and talk to you about some of these things. And as Charlie said this afternoon, there is no gurus, there are no experts, there are no anything. We all start from the same place every morning. But there is this thing that I think that they're structured, and I want to talk about a highly structured recovery system because I was taught that the more that I am structured, the freer I become. And when I'm structured, I don't have to have a paper and pencil to analyze everything that goes on in my life. I don' t want to live that way. I want to live in the spiritual tune and in harmony with God and His will and it's possible to do this without being a genius. All you've got to do is look at me. And so I took back, and we have 12 steps. And that's kind of a magic number. We have 12 traditions, and that's a magic number. And we have12 concepts, which we don't hear much about these days. And wehave 12 promises, which everybody's familiar with. And wehave 4 absolutes, which is the basis for the whole damn smear. And we never hear about these today because our contemporaries in New York decided this was a little spiritually heavy for us primitives here in the Middle West. And I resent this very much, and I want to get into that today, this evening, with your permission, with your indulgence, may I say. And I think that if I could possibly ask you in your mind's eye to take this trip with me, I hope to be able to articulate and take you on a trip of which there is a series of spiritual experiences that we who came into the Akron area had the beautiful experience of having those real pioneers those people who took these spiritual concepts which had never been used before and implemented it into a life and treated this disease of alcoholism for the first time in centuries alcoholics had been written off for years and years and we were thrown out in the garbage can we were untouchables we couldn't be reached and I guess I've said this before that I understand from the bible people that the first alcoholic or drunk on the record was Noah and he got drunk and God called him to task for getting drunk and Noah said I didn't know the strength of the grapes so he devised the first denial system that we've been using ever since and so down through the centuries there seemed very little if anything was ever done for the alcoholic but I think that the light of day and as I heard Charlie say today the sunlight there seemed to be at this particular time and I guess the good Lord above said this is enough and I'm going to somehow intercede or put this thing into motion and when I look back at my own experiences and the things that I've been taught and observed and have know about in AA I see the hand of God in this thing from the beginning from the very beginning not that the people who were in the beginning were perfect they were not some of them failed as far as sobriety is concerned but at that particular time they went through an act of love which has been carried on ever since and I think in looking back the first time that I can find out anything in the annals of this ism it seems that this great great doctor Jung was the first one that brought to the consciousness of the people who were suffering from this disease the fact that it was a disease. And I think it began with Roland, a young man from New York, a very, very wealthy family. They had a socially connected... He had a hell of a track record and nothing could be done and they sent him over to see the great doctor. And he stayed there for a year and went into psychotherapy and treatment and so on and recovered physically and mentally and went back to New York in a matter of weeks until he fell on his butt. And he established, I think for us, the precedent or the truism that this is a progressive disease. And when he fell off the wagon or got drunk, he was worse off than the day he quit. So that truistism and he brought that information to us. He went back to see the great doctor and the doctor greeted him and said, Roland, there's nothing we can do for you. You have to equate your alcoholism with a desire for oneness. Psychiatry can't help you, medical science can't help you. You are in need of religious experiences, spiritual awakening we call it. And he said you have to find a pathway to a higher understanding and we can't do this. Roland left there and went back to New York and got in touch with the Oxford Fellowship. And that's where I think our spiritual concepts were put in the crucible and tested in reality from those early pioneers that had nothing to go with them except these spiritual tools which had never been used before in addressing the aberrations of this disease. And so he went to the Oxford Fellowship, and he found out about these beautiful people. they had come to the conclusion the only way the world or anyone could be changed is by changing themselves and most of the people in that fellowship were all people who had personality traits and problems of some kind they couldn't live with also some of them were alcoholics and so as they got into this fellowship they found that that public admission inventory and catharsis that we talk about in fourth and fifth step adjustment of personal relationships, which is our 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th step. Prayer and meditation and working with others and sharing was the answer. That if they would work together and share this experience as witnesses for God's love, they could acquire and change and go about the business of this pathway to a higher understanding. And so Roland went through this. I can't tell you for first hand whether he got drunk or not, but he was the fellow that put in motion this act of love that made it possible for us to stay here tonight. And he took it to a guy by the name of Abby Thresher. And Abby fell in love with the idea. And he had been a friend of Bill's, had been going to school with Bill Wilson. And Bill fell in Love with the Idea and went to the fellowship for three or four months and found he had to go back to work and he had to go to Akron on a business deal. And he had a number of names, and they got out there, and to make a long story short, through these names and Henrietta Cyberling and then they finally got to Bob. And so Bill took the message to Bob In the meantime, Bob had been going to the Oxford Fellowship for almost two years. He knew a great deal about the spiritual concepts, a great deal more than a lot of the Bill or any of the other people. But the ingredient that had been missing in both of their recovery systems was one drunk working with another. So now you had the thing that comes around and goes around. You now had drunks working with each other, implementing spiritual concepts, developing a relationship with a power greater than themselves called God. And this phenomenon of this act of love and the healing power of love came in and they began to get sober and stay sober. And there was an amazing thing about this. Not only were they staying sober, but they were finding that a God-directed life was a great way to go. And they also found that God knew the sense of proportion between material and spiritual needs. And these guys weren't pious. they didn't surrender and fall over dead all they did was take this thing into their lives implement it and go about doing it and found that sharing this thing was just a beautiful thing and sobriety could be joyful it could be a lot of fun and not only that they found that they could take it to others and so I think if we look back and see the events in time Nick the Greek wouldn't give you 50,000 to one that you and I would be here this evening no way at least my experience it wouldn't have been and when I take a look at you people tonight and sometimes I look in their mirror and sometimes when I'm home and other places I think it's an illusion I can't believe that I'm here and you're there it doesn't make sense think of this for the first time in centuries here we are with something that is so mystique the mystique the spiritual essence of this thing is just beyond comprehension but it's here and for that I'm very grateful and so when I look back and I think this is the year we look back because this is our 50th year now when I say it's our 50th year there was a very damn little growth in the first three or four years 2,000 people in the late 30s 8 out of 10 people were getting sober they were being screened and we were moving on it was very quiet they protected the fellowship they protected movement anonymity was then a useful tool it isn't any longer but it was then and so this act of love that Bill and Bob put into being has been going on and on and on and it will never stop it will ever cease this phenomena will go on and on to those people that are not here tonight they too through you will find this precious gift of sobriety in a second life what a beautiful thing the prospects are beautiful provided that We don't dilute this program. That we don't let the outside influences denigrate and put aside our primary cause, which is booze. Not social misfits. Not polyaddictions. Not chemical dependence. Somebody told me recently I was a chemical dependent. I don't want to be thrown in a garbage can with chemical dependence, I'm an alcoholic. And that's what the book says, and that's What I Want to Follow. To say that we don't have other addictions is ridiculous. I have plenty of addictions. I was addicted to Dane nicotine. You want to have something, take Dane Nicotine on. Stop smoking. You'll find out something about addictions I'm addicted to food. I like to gamble a little bit. And I'm sure in hell addicted to mood-altering women. But nevertheless, I'm here because, as Charlie pointed out this afternoon, we don't have gurus. We don'thave experts. We don' t have anybody with a leg up on anybody and certainly not a legup on God. What are my credentials? I don'thave any credentials. I'm up here as a witness to this beautiful love that we can't comprehend that comes from God And that's why I'm here and that's why I want to pass it on to you because that's my joyful obligation is to stand here in front of you or any place else as a witness to the love of God and his beautiful will that I should be reasonably happy in this life and perhaps supremely happy with the next if it's there. So with that in mind, let me tell you a little bit about my own recovery and how I came to be standing here. And in order to do this, I've got to transport you back to Akron, where A.A. was born, not New York or California. If I and you were at Cleveland or Akron tonight, and when I mention Akron I'm talking about the influences and the interpretation of the program as we were taught, in back of me would be a big placard that says, But for the grace of God. and in the front would be four placards of the four absolutes the spiritual concepts of this recovery and this program absolute honesty, unselfishness, purity and love the twelve steps which used to be six steps are now twelve as a philosophy the spiritual concept are these absolutes and they are blended together and they're part of the recovery system and as we go through these steps there is a spur of spiritual momentum there is the telescoping of these steps and there is a coming to believe process and the path to a higher understanding is there for us provided that we are willing to make a commitment and I want to tell you about the commitment I made now to put this thing in its perspective let me tell you who I am or who I'm not I guess in my group in St. Louis they refer to me as Killer Keebler. Also, I am known as a pain in the butt. My fundamentalism places me to the right of Genghis Khan and Attila the Hun. But that's the way I heard it, that's how I implement it, and that's why I believe it. And that's where I structure my recovery and I hope anyone that I work with can find this same structure. And that's the structure that was given to me by Bob Smith and the early people who were spiritual giants. These people, you don't even know their names. They didn't write any books. They didn' t want to. They didn''t stand on the street corners and they didn' d join Betty Ford's public address system of advertising your drugging and alcoholism as candor. Uh-uh. These people were quiet, beautifully carrying a message. They were serious and they were effective. And they were the people that brought this program into being as I understand it. I want you to please as I will you. You have your interpretation and I have mine and I am going to give you my interpretation as the truth as I understood it for your acceptance or rejection, but this is the word. and as I went up there to that fellowship and as i was taken into the bosom of these people through an act of love and marina said it last night that she was loved in the sobriety so was i but i'm going to throw a little sex in so they keep you here tonight a little bit so to begin as it says in the beginning I was raised over in a little town in Missouri, a German community. The community was based on the old world ethics and ethics of who you were didn't mean what you had didn't mean a thing. Who you were is what happened. And a community was a family kind of a community. and you were known by what you contributed to your family, your neighbors as a God and your fellow man and that was it. And I was raised in this atmosphere and in this environment and these people were hard-bitten, highly principled and there was no nonsense to them. There was a way of life and everybody loved it and it was a beautiful community. It was an affluent community and I came out of an affluent home. Now I can say that I think that I had better say that I did not come out of a religious home. I guess I subscribed to the minister who said, I've been to a lot of AA meetings. You people get up and say, I'm an alcoholic. I came out of a good Christian home. He said, I'm beginning to wonder if a good Christians home is a place to bring up a kid. I did not come out of a good religious home. But I guess I also subscribed to the same minister who stopped the kid, and he said, you know, I've been watching you for the past two or three years. He said, ever since you got an NAA thing, it's just remarkable the turnaround that you've had in your life. And he said it was just amazing. And he said we'd love to have you join our church. And the kid said, Pastor, I can't do that. And they said, well, why can't you? And he He said, well, you've got too many hypocrites in church. And the pastor said, don't you have any hypocrites from AA? And he said, yeah, but you can smell ours. But I was given every opportunity any youngster could possibly have. My family aided and abetted me in every way that they possibly could. There was a lot of love and respect. was one thing in my family that was an undeclared civil war, I suppose. My mother came from the deep south. She was a southern belle, came out of a fundamental religious home. They were teachers and educators, and she just thought the world was beautiful. I loved her, but I didn't have too much respect for her street knowledge. But she just felt everything was great. She refused to accept the idea that I was an alcoholic. I had merely fallen in with evil companions. And the thing you had to do was stay in God's grace. The minister ran away with the organist, he'd fallen from grace. She had an answer for everything. And that seemed to be the way it went. Now, I don't know much about this fundamental religion they had. I think they were the kind that prayed for the Catholics, if you know what I mean. But nevertheless, she was kind of my father's floor show. He had an amused contempt for her religious activities without her knowledge. And he came to me one day and he said, Paul, you're in trouble. Your mother, your grandmother, and these people are going to get you in the church and want to make a preacher out of you. He said, my God, be careful. He said stay away from that church or they'll get you into trouble. and I said well what's going on he said I'll tell you what it's all about he said the women are the spiritual leaders of the home they're the givers of life they do the praying church belongs to the women provide and protect them and stay out of their way and stay away from the church he said it's just real simple you become a sportsman a gentleman you believe in God give the other fellow a break and that's all there is to it that sounded real good to me I didn't know anything about believing in God I knew there was a creator but the abstract idea of a personal God was too deep for me as a youngster and I couldn't handle it but becoming a sportsman and a gentleman that pressed the button that's what I wanted now briefly and to the point for my next years elementary school, junior schools prep schools, colleges I did nothing but train to be a professional athlete. Every waking moment was involved with my coaches or training in something, and the sports heroes of the days were my gods, and that was it. That's all I was interested in. And modesty aside, I could do it all. I came into some national attention for some of the major schools and professional schools and professional teams, and I was given every opportunity to go along with this. And at the same time, before the days of television and radio, which a few of you might know something about, I found that I had some commercial value and I began to do some clothes modeling in some advertising agencies and so on. And an automobile agency gave me a fancy high-performance car or a tool around town, and we dressed up and played the man about town. And it was fun. And I handled it all right. There was no problem. But I was building a reputation which gave me an opportunity to select the school of my choice, the fraternity of my choice, and all of the things that went along with this reputation I had built. So I arrived at the campus at this university with a pork pie hat plus six knickers, a coonskin coat, and a ukulele. Joe College, I guess they called them in those days. And I immediately got a hold of the coaches and the administration of the school and my fraternity brothers and I tailored all of my classes, what I was going to do and who was goingto do my lab work, and that was it. and I guess I I guess that's the reason I'm a Ph.D. today poor helpless drunk I worked everything out to suit myself and so I went into this new way of life and everything was made streamlined for me and I got into this thing with both feet doing real well now along comes a new dimension and the kids today they call it peer pressure we didn't know much about it in those days but one of the older classmen came to me one day and he said Paul we've got jocks like you in this fraternity and we've got some scholars but we all have to be socially adept you represent the fraternity and you go to the prom pick up the girl and so on so I got all dressed up got a corsage, picked up this little girl and went to this prom. Now, at this prom they were doing something, a dance called a Charleston. It was like scrimmage of Notre Dame or Alabama or something. You wouldn't believe this nonsense. But I got in this thing, and I'm doing pretty good. Cutting the rug, as the cats say, and moving around. And the next thing I know, somebody introduced me to something called Mastika. I understand this was during Prohibition, and Mastika was bathtub gin with some anise in it to cut the burr off the juniper so he could drink it without vomiting. Good stuff, this was. Bootleg. So I started drinking this stuff, and my feet got loose, my head got loose. And I began to move around pretty good. and sometime or another the dance was over the prom was over and we went out and got in our automobiles and we started off and the next thing you know I got to hugging and kissing this gal and I lost my virginity now in case you don't think I was an athlete this was pulled off in the rumble seat of a car She was an athlete too Now the reason I'm telling you about this nonsense The next morning I got up at the Paterni house And I had a hangover I'd never had one before I was sick Morose I felt bad I went down to the dining room And I thought sure as hell The committee would get together the discipline committee and upstairs and get myself beat around for my bizarre behavior. You know what happened? They patted me on the back. I was now a man about time. I'd gone to a prom, I danced, I got drunk, and I had sexual or whatever it was. And so now I was a citizen. I was the citizen. Now, I'd been programmed as a kid as a straight arrow, and when you did things that were not right, at least in my mind, you were chastised and someone took umbrage and you got tailored for it. Nobody said a thing. This started out as some confusion in my mind I never quite got over. I couldn't reconcile this double standard and I began to take a look at my coaches my fraternity brothers and this whole system and I said to hell with you people. I'd had it up to there. And I think the thing that happened was not so much the booze, unlike most alcoholics. I didn't think I had to take a drink to release my inhibitions and get euphoria and energy. Hell, I never had to make a mistake. I never had to drink to do anything. I was always comfortable wherever the hell I was. I didn't need this stuff. But the thing is, I did happen to me. The tap me on the shoulder was that these people were having fun. These people were not restrained or constrained. They had a lot of fun. They were joyful people. They weren't the least bit inhibited. And I thought, man, that's for me. I didn't know that people had fun. I'd been used like a team of mules or a piece of meat all my life. Go in there and get your damn brains beat out. How many fingers do I hold up? Bed checks, this, that, and something. Now, I didn't know that there was such a thing as a social life or fun. And this was the decision. Now, a very subtle thing. I lost my interest in the school, my fraternity, everything. And I wanted to go with these high rollers, these fun people. And so I gravitated, of course, in that direction. Now, one of the things about the old-time Dutch families, they don't subsidize rummies, you know. So they decided that if I wasn't going to go this way to school, that probably I ought to go to work. My coaches in the newspaper and everybody wondered what the hell was going on, but it didn't make any difference to me. I had made a decision, and so I moved. through my company, by family's influence. I joined a very, very fine company. They were doing some work internationally and nationally and it was a beautiful opportunity for me and within a matter of weeks these people found out that I was in there for my business career. This was not some sojourn for me and in those days they picked up tramp athletes like me and tried to do something with them. But hell, I got involved in this thing and I was going to school at night again and I was going into training course and I was also in my daily work and of course I was learning how to drink pretty good now and so 26 hours a day I was active and sometimes I never even went to bed. I just took a shower and went to work and the bootleg days we played all night, worked all day. You were known whether or not you could hold your booze so in a matter of a few months I got a stack of bootleg cards that thick, and I got the reputation of being a hard drinker and a hard liver and a fun guy. So what went on, of course, I moved into the National Sales Department, where all good drunks go. This was fun. I was getting paid for getting drunk and playing golf, and the company was picking up the bill for the festivities and the girls and so on, and hell, it was great. But we have some sort of an affinity. We gravitate towards the people who drink. And in the middle management and upper management of this company, I had found some people that thought I was all right, and I thought they were all right. And they moved me along very fast on this company in the next few years. And even as young as I was, they gave me a lot of responsibilities, and it never occurred to me that I couldn't use it, couldn't take it. Nothing ever looked too tough to me. I just thought it would be a good way to do it. At that time, the war clouds were gathering. Industry was in chaos and disorder politically. The industrial military complex was brought into being. We became the arsenal of democracy, and you may remember all of the displacement and so on. And I would It had been assigned a couple of operations up in Connecticut. I was not a seasoned operating man, but at least I took these things on. And they sent me to Washington and the War Production Authority. And so I went down there, and I got involved with this, and I was working three jobs and drinking at the same time. And there was now a movement away and a change in personality. I'd lost interest in my friends, my immediate family. I'm no longer interested in sports or sports people and I began to drink very, very heavily and as I began to drink, I found out that this was causing me a great deal of trouble. I was doing my job. I wasn't doing as well as I should but I was doing the best I had with what I could get And I began to notice something. I'd go into meetings, they'd hand me some plans and specs, and I couldn't pick them up. I was now shaken. I never took a cup of coffee because I knew I couldn'T keep the coffee in the cup. So now, I'm going to use the term that I'm not sure I understand, but I'm sure that this is one of the things that happens in AA today. I was then a functional alcoholic. The things that were ultimately to happen to me had not happened yet, but they were sure in hell in the grind, in the mill. And as I began to try to handle this, I found that if I got up in the morning and I drank myself some bitter ale, splits of ale over ale, I could cover my dehydration and then I began the sponsor to take my drinks and schedule my drinks for the day and have some kind of manageability. But boy, by the time I got around to noon, I'd be needing it pretty bad, and by 4 o'clock, it was murder. And so now my addiction was in place. Now while I was there, I was given something called acute clearance, which enabled me to have some kind of immunity. I could develop information and go any place I wanted to without, let's say, reporting to anyone except certain people. And I was given information, several of those information, which I was not to discuss with anyone. And I considered this to be, I reported directly to the President of the United States. I ran this thing in the ground. And I'd get on trains and I could get drunk or on trains in any place in the world. I can't understand it. Get on a train to Washington and go to New York and wind up in Boston. I just rode these trains like streetcars. I don't know how the hell I could drink those two ounces and get so drunk. But anyhow, this was bothering the hell out of me. And I was in bad trouble. Now, we always come to this point in time where there is a climax. I got a call from the president of my company, a guy that ran my company. And he said, I want to meet you over in New York. And I went over and I said, all right, I'm glad to see you. And he was like a wet noodle. And I said what the hell's the matter? and he said, I want to talk about you. And what about me? He said, you know, you've been down here in the East for three or four years. He said you never tested my judgment. You don't write me and so on. He said I got news for you. He said You work for me. I don't work for you I said that's right. No problem there. And he said but we have a team operation. And he says you operate in a vacuum. He said. I never know what you're doing. and I find out about it sideways and so on, so on. And I said, well what the hell would you have me do? I said the P&L stated that I wasn't worried about that. He said, you're a loner. He said recently our board decided that we had an awfully nice job in our European operations and we selected you for the job. Everybody approved you and I turned you down. And I says, you're not your friend. He said I'm not your friends. You don't have friends. You have acquaintances. And it liked to knock me backwards, and I couldn't handle this thing. And I said, well, Howard, what the hell's going on? He said, Well, you ought to be married. He said you oughta have a home and some kids, a mortgage. You oughta need your job. He said the way you operate, you're like Quicksilver. He said we need you, you don't need us. And I says, Well I'll tell you, it's just real simple. If my work isn't satisfactory and you don't like my lifestyle, to hell with you. And the Keebler syndrome, if you don' t like something, turn around and walk away. And I don' T know whether the man was going to fire me or not, to Hell with him. If he hadn' T, I would have put in here. I walked away. I walked way. Now this bothered me. The guy had made an imprint, impressed me. I wasn' T sure whether he knew what he was talking about or not. So I went to see my spiritual advisor, a bartender by the name of Sparky. And I said, Sparky, here's what this idiot told me. And I says, Sparkie, you know, I don't get it. He said, you're right. I said what? He said yeah, he's right. He said you ought to be married. I said I don' t want to get married. Who would marry me? He said be over here tomorrow night. said I got a girl from Europe jet setter socially adept he said I think you ought to meet her and as a measure of my insanity one week later we were married and I'll tell you this was not exactly this marriage made in heaven she married me to get her second papers to keep from being deported and I married her for a mortgage on some kids or at least I thought I had So I put this thing together, and this was my beginning of being a citizen. I now was a citizen, I was now a substantial citizen, I was married. I'll make it very short, I also found out that being married you had to have some income, and when I was in Washington, and I had picked up a lot of information about some things going on south of the border. There had been some unofficial embargoes for people down there that needed very heavy tonnages of refinery equipment, impressive vessels and piping and drilling equipment. And I went over to Houston and I picked up some plants over there on an arm's length basis and became sort of a representative for them. And I began to honorize some very, very heavy tons of this equipment. in a matter of a few weeks, months I was making more money in a month than I'd ever made in my entire life I didn't know anything about money I'd been raised in a manufacturing home, a loaf of bread's a loaf a ton of steel's a ton and this money kept coming in I don't know what the hell to do with it so I decided to spend it I went up to Connecticut and I bought a nice country place up in Connecticut over in Sport Hill I went down to Milford and bought a yacht I joined all the country clubs, athletic clubs, and I was functioning as what I think society would say was an up-and-coming young man. And this stuff kept coming in. And all of a sudden, the thing that had happened to me at school began to happen to me in my business career. I began to be attracted to, or they were attracted to me, some very sleazy people. These were the financial geniuses were going to show me how to steal somebody's company without putting any money in it and all kinds of financial things, and I wasn't interested in this kind of stuff. The hell with them. And I didn't like them either. In the meantime, every time I went up to Connecticut, it was fully idiots speaking foreign languages, and I didn' t like that. And so I began to withdraw. And this was the beginning of isolation. the thing that my little friend talks about in removal, this personality thing and you couldn't find me I was now missing for two or three days at a time and now I was drinking around the clock and I was in real damn bad trouble and I began to have physical and mental problems and I didn't know what the hell to do about it I found out my wife was under surveillance and she was a spy and I got some lawyers together and I said wipe everybody out I want a nut and I want it in hand and I took the geographical tour and pure and I began to drink at the better clubs and hotels in the descending spiral and I kept moving and as I kept moving Charlie said this afternoon, I acquired this impending doom. The little guy that walked around with a cloud of his head, I knew something was wrong. I knew nothing was going to happen and it wasn't going to be good. Now, I'm not going to go into the details of this protracted drunk, and that's what it was. And I was going downhill fast physically and mentally, and now I was drinking medicinally. Because if I didn't drink, I was beginning to hallucinate. I now was having trouble physically with control of my body and so on. And I'd been being picked up now and put in drunk tanks. I'd known before the magistrates. I had been screened once for commitment. And to make a long story short, I wasn't drunk. I was sick and I was in trouble. I found a place underneath the railroad track in a town over near Akron the specialty of the house was purple death and this dregs out of the wineries was pulpy you could keep it down not only that but it had enough alcohol in it to keep your skin on and it was dry you could drink it without nausea so I lived on that and this subculture this group of people over there kept me alive, really. And they did the best they could for me, and that was about it. Now I'm going to mention this because as I said earlier, I see the hand of God in this thing from the beginning. This is now where Paul Keebler reached this point of no return, No future, no past, no nothing. No logic, no place to go, no plans, no-nothing. No mental faculties, no anything, and sick physically. It occurred to me that if I stayed in that bar, I was going to die. If I left, I Was going to Die. It was about five or ten below zero, and I started... I left the place, and then I started up the street, putting one foot in front of the other. No plans. I didn't know where I was going. I cared less. And I seemed to, even today, I could feel as though I was detached. I seemed like I was looking at myself. I could hear the whispers and the bells and the paranoia and all the things that are going on. And I kept walking up the street. I went to a hotel. I went in the hotel, and the assistant manager saw me and put me in a room. at the same time some guys from Akron were on their way from Detroit back to Akron and stopped in this village, and they were talking to the assistant manager of the hotel, he was an in-law and he said I got a rummy over in the hotel that needs help they said we don't do that he said this guy's in trouble, go see him in a matter of a few hours or whatever it was in came these two beautiful guys bushy tailed and bright eyed, and they took one look at me and they said, you know, it looks like you're in trouble. And I said, I sure in hell am. And they said we'd like to share some information with you. What the hell I got to lose? Fine. So they said we want to tell you about our drinking experiences. And I won't go into the details, but I will tell you this, that there seemed to be a point or a period of lucidity or clarity of some kind. And as he began to share with me and I shared with them, there seemedto be an affinity of somekind. There was no, they were not talking from here. I had been talked down to by every son of a bitch in the United States. These guys did not talk down, they talked with me. And as we talked and began to share, I knew that they were giving me the truth. Instinctively, I knew this. And as we talked, they mentioned AA, they mentioned Akron, and some other things, and finally they told me about the fellowship in Hollywood, and I said, well, guys, I'm not like you. I'm not like you. And they said, why? And I said I'm a drunk and I'm nuts. They said, that's right, that's what you are. But we think you're an alcoholic. And I said, what the hell is the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic? And they said, you are one of those singular people. We don't know why, but there's a predisposition of some kind, and over a period of time when you drink, you have done irreparable damage to yourself physically. Now this is Contrary to most information that you're going to hear in AA. A physical addiction. It'll never be repaired. You'll never been able to drink successfully. As long as you live, it's progressive. You're a dead stinking fish. This physical addiction that cannot be repaired is the root cause of the compulsion. The compulsion takes your will away and you can't function and the next thing you know you're drinking and when you once have that first drink, the obsession sets in and you're gone. Reality flies. And I thought, my God, that's right. And one of them said, did you go to your high school counselor and tell him you wanted to be a drunk? I said, no. He said, Did you marry a woman to embarrass your family or country? I said no. And they said, Why do you think you did that? I said I didn't have the least idea. And they say, That's right, you don't. Your life is totally and completely unmanageable because you can't exercise your will. you have a disease. You are not responsible for the things you've done or not done as an alcoholic. Not guilty, but you are responsible. And that made sense. I said, do you mean to tell me that as a disease that I cannot function entirely? He said, you can only get worse. And I looked at my track record and I could see where the progression was going. And it scared me. And I said my God if we have no chance what is it? They said, well, we know how to do this. If you'll go with us, we'll show you how you can live sober. You can get emotional stability, your mental faculties. You can function as a human being and be happy with your sobriety. We have a group over in Akron and we'll get you a sponsor and we're going to show you how to live sober and how to deal with this. And I said, my God, you think it'll work with me? They said absolutely. But we want a commitment. And this is where I think the qualifications of people who came to AA in those days was the efficaciousness that I believe is the way to do it. And I said, what is a commitment? They said, you will do what we tell you. And any time you don't like what we ask you to do, you can take your misery and go. We're not going to fool with you. You know what an alcoholic is. you know what we have and if you give us a commitment to do what we tell you we're going to assign a guy to you who will be your sponsor and what we want you to do is get into something called HALT Hunger, Anger, Lonely, Tired and we will see that you get the best information and you will be given an opportunity to live in a dimension you never dreamed of before and I go what the hell I'll go on in any conditions so they took me warts and all they didn't say you got any money they didn'y say are you a mason or republican or whatever they didn''t say anything they said come with me and so I think that this beautiful force called love was put into my life by a couple of strangers imagine guys going out of their way to see a rummy like me and putting forth the effort and the information to come with them. And so I think the first act of love that I have ever really understood was that effort that was made in my direction. And so all of a sudden now, I'm no longer a drunk and a bum, I'm an alcoholic. And it was a kick upstairs. I felt good about it. particularly the fact that they said I was guiltless. And from that moment on, I'll tell you, friends, believe it or not, I have never looked back to decide what kind of an alcoholic am I. Am I a bad one, a good one, or anything else? I have ever even considered being anything but an alcoholic. And I'm not about to have anybody tell me that science or anything other is going to contribute something to me, a pill or anything else about my alcoholism. That's all I have to know is that I cannot function, my track record says so, and I am also an alcoholic of a type and kind of the people who were in that fellowship at that time that I could go with. Now they took me into their homes, they took me into Their Offices, they put me through the whole fellowship up. And when they said lonely, they didn't let me. I didn't spend an hour alone that I didnít want to. I ate in their homes. I went in their offices. I saw this thing in action, not at the meetings, but in their home. And so these pioneers, these early pioneers were demonstrating to me that this thing worked. And I think Iím very fortunate to be here and came into AA at that time. Obviously, I wasn't there at the beginning. At the birth, I was there at The Christening. I guess that's about it. But I had to see these people, and I saw these people and I had a demonstration in front of me at all times that this thing worked and how it worked. So I've never had to look back. I'm not interested in anything at all beyond that my recovery system began. now at the end of four months I was still sober and crazier in the day I stopped drinking I was wound so tight I couldn't do anything I couldnít even buy a newspaper without a fist fight it was just awful and I knew that the moment of truth was coming and I wasnít going to make this thing I went down to the meeting and I got a hold of Paul Stanley who was our fourth man in who was to become my sponsor and I said Paul there ainít no way I can make this And he said, why not? And I said, you and Bob Smith and Gene and Davis and all, you're all smart. You know all about the King James Version of the Bible and the Sermon on the Mount and all these kinds of things. And I thought, hell, I don't have any religious orientation. I don' t have any philosophical. I don''t have any classical approach to any of these things. And I'm just a stupid tramp athlete. I don ''t belong with you intelligentsias. He said, that's fine. You don't ha nd to unlearn anything. what do you mean Paul he said it's just this simple I think you are now ready what he meant was that I am now teachable and I said well Paul what do we do and he said well I'm going to take you on a series a series of spiritual experiences a step between the third and the ninth and he says these spiritual experiences will be the result of these steps Not Bob Smith or me or anybody else. It says, here's what you do and you do it. You don't have to understand it. You do it this idea that you have to understand something before you do it. Forget it. It'll get you in trouble. So I started out on my knees in front of the group with a third step prayer that I delivered my will and my life into God's care that he removed the bondage itself. All I knew was the words. I had no idea what the hell was going on. And I said, Paul, what am I going to see? God knows well. He said, you've got a long ways to go. And what do you mean? He said the operative word is decision. And he said, Paul, the rest of the steps are designed to remove the barriers between you and God and your fellow man. And the decision is that you will make a decision to do what we tell you in the steps. Ultimately, as you look back, as I'm looking back in retrospect tonight, you will understand this thing that you're looking for. And he told me something I've never forgotten. He said that every alcoholic that he ever knew, including his own soul, had an overwhelming, overriding, deep-seated need for a union with God and didn't know it. And I look back at my own track record, and I was always searching. The new girl, the new job, the news something. When I got there, there wasn't there. I was always on the search but there was nothing there and there was a void I couldn't fill and he said we begin with this third step I'm not going to go into a whole litany here of how these steps work you've heard it backwards and forwards from these people but I am going to say this I'm no longer too fond of what the book says today about how you take an inventory because I think we're dealing with spiritual concepts, not psychology and not philosophy. And I don't think social, sex or anything else has anything to do with our problem of alcoholism because we're all different. We all have different personalities. We'll have different practices and sexual persuasions. We're dealing with our conscience. We are dealing with the things that God gave us which is a free will. And the greatest gift of love he ever gave us was a free will. And I think Taylor Caldwell said it best when she said when God gave us a free will, he raised us to the level of the angels. And Paul said we're going to take a thorough, thorough inventory. Don't tell us who you are and what you are and what your credentials are. You don't have any. What you are is what you've done. And he said make a list of your antecedents and make a lista of your domestic and your social and your business life and environment and mankind in general the whole dynamics and the things that are on your conscience, list them. The things you did you're ashamed of, not the Ten Commandments or the nine deadly sins or whatever it is, your morals and your ethics, no one else's. And as I went down through this list, I put down the things, situations that I had been involved in that I was ashamed of. And he said, put down the things that you didn't do that you should have done, omissions and commissions. And I came up with a hell of a list. People, places, and things. And I took a look at it. He said, now we'll assign the shortcomings and defects. It's real simple. The shortcomings are the things you didn't do, you should have done. The defects are the thing you did that you shouldn't have done And he said, here's the four absolutes. And if you use these four absoluits as your guide You won't have to fool around with the nitpicking What you're doing and dealing with is the flagrant things that have put you on your knees. What you've been and what you are is what you have to deal with. And if you are to be one with God, we're going to have to reduce these things. So I did this. And in each case where I had a conflict or where I'd done something I shouldn't have done, it was real simple. We put a shortcoming and defect down. So my whole recovery system was in the fourth step. People, places and things, the shortcomings, the defects, all was there. I didn't have to do a damn thing any further to move from there to my fifth step to sixth and seventh step and on down to my whole discovery process was in that fourth step It had been thorough. It had used the absolutes for the guides and there was nothing in there that I had to fool around with except those flagrant things that had brought me to my knees. And I went through the catharsis of the fifth step. I went to see a kid that I'd been raised with and I laid this on him. And as I got through with that, I went back to Paul and I said, now I've gone through this whole thing and I'm ten feet tall. I felt great. And I think there's a reason for this. Admitting our wrongs to another man and God It seems that wherever we meet in his name, he is there too. And I felt cleansed because some of the things I related, there are also some other things I hadn't thought about came out. It was a true catharsis. And I left there and I went back to see him and I said, Paul, this thing is working. I'm getting well. He said, look at the shortcoming defects. I said my God, how do I deal with that? He said, you don't. He said the people that get in trouble trying to deal with their shortcomings and defects are the people who want to know why. They want to buy a book. They wantto know how to cope. They wanto know what the shortcoming, the defect is and what they can do about it from their own viewpoint. And whenever you get going, all you're doing is cradling and feeding your own self-centeredness and the first thing you know, you're back in the morass and the downhill well. And he said, you deliver those to God. He said, did you surrender your wrongs and your fifth step to God? And I said, I sure did. And he says, take a look at yourself. You're now sober. The gift of sobriety was given to you as a spiritual energy through the group. God demonstrated his love for you. Why would you now walk away? And I say, well, you mean I turn that over to him too? And he say, you sure do. and I said how do I know that God's going to remove these shortcomings and defects and he said you are because you're going to be God's helper he said from now on you earn God's grace and he ain't going to hand anything to you you have to demonstrate again your humility and your sincerity and when I took a look at this and again I got to my knees in front of the group in the seven step prayer and he says now take your four step and make that list There will not be a spiritual regeneration until you make restitution and amends. And I said, you mean I've got to go out and see these people on a one-to-one basis and make restribution? He said, You sure in hell do. Now it took me two and a half years to go through this list. I'll tell you, if anybody here has an opportunity and willingness to do this, It is the greatest experience I've ever had. I went to people that I had hated. I went with people even from the IRS on down to the dog catcher. I went across and up and down the citizenship. I went through my business activities and so on. And every place I went, I took these four absolutes with me. I said, I will be honest with these people. I will be sincere in that I will be pure in my intentions. I'm not going to manipulate anybody. I'm going to give it to them on the basis that they are part of this decision. I'll never forget, I went to see this man. Every industry has an outstanding man. We had one. It wasn't me. And we would have a meeting and everybody would say, Dave, what do you think? They didn't say, Paul, what do YOU think? I hated this guy's gut he was a stuffy son of a bitch anyhow but I didn't like him and every opportunity I had I cut his legs off I broke the market I did everything in the world I could to demean or denigrate this dude and I cut him up pretty badly here he shows up in my amendment program I went down to see him he ran a big company and I went into his office and he took me to the director's room Instead of, I'm sitting at one end of the table, he's at the other. And I said, Dave, I've got a personal problem. And I says, you're part of it. And I say, you know, for years I've hated your guts. I don't like it and I probably never will and you probably won't like me. But I am indeed sorry for the things that I have said and my attitude and the way that I've handled it. And I have not done a very nice job in taking my relationships with you in the industry and I'm ashamed of it. And from this moment on, if I have an opportunity, I'm going to make restitution and amends. He said, my God, what's this all about? And I thought, well, I'll tell him. And he said, you know, I was always afraid of you. He said you got drunk over in Pittsburgh one night and were going to push me out of a nine-story window. I don't remember. I was already the gentleman when I drank. But when I got through talking to this guy, he said, you know, this is an amazing story. And he said I want my personnel people and everybody in the company to know about this and we're going to put in, and he put in the first EAP system in that area and hundreds of people got sober through that effort. So this act of love goes on and on and as a result of this activity and this restitution of the men's what was going on was real interesting. my self esteem was going up my self centeredness was going down I was now recovering physically I was recovering mentally I went back into my industry and it's amazing when you try to do the right thing how short people's memories are in the meantime I had met this lovely girl that I am now married to I had never had a platonic relationship with a woman we were two the youngest in the group at that time. And at that particular time, somebody said, Paul, you take K or K, you take Paul and so on. And I guess we got kind of used to each other. And then I found myself thinking we instead of I. And then when I was going back east to go into business, and I thought, my God, I don't want to go there without this lovely girl. And we talked it over and decided to get married. We got married and fell in love and had a family, and I guess we have an AA home. And when I say we have an AA Home, we've got some kids that have never seen us take a drink, and we've got 90 years of sobriety between the two of us, and I guess that ain't too bad, is it? Now, talking about my wife, she is a, I think, a remarkable girl in that she has made a contribution over these years. In these last five, ten years, she's an invalid, she can't travel, and kind of housebound and her health is touch and go. But I tell her a great deal about some of the things that go on and she insists that I attend these meetings, these conferences and take the tapes back when we have a conference. She'll hear Marina and she'll hear Charlie and she will hear all you people again and it's amazing the beautiful work that this woman does and never leaves a house practically we kind of run a half-assed treatment center of our own there's always somebody there and we do this because we like to share whatever the hell we had because it was done for us and this is kind of a remarkable story one of the youngsters one of those girls that we just think the world of It was over about ten years. She got into some kind of an automobile wreck and had a seizure. We don't know whether the first brought the other, but anyhow, she was aphasia. She couldn't, she doesn't even remember her name. And it was a terrible tragedy. And her husband came to see us, and he said, Anita, we don't knows what to do. The therapist at the hospital can't reach her, the psychiatrist can't read her, and so on. She just about knows her name, and that's all. Now, this wife of mine doesn't have any special credentials of any kind. But she started working with this kid, ABC. This is a dog. This is the cat. She began with that primitive memory bank. Two years later, I walked into the house. Anita was standing in the middle of our family room with an AA book and reading the fifth chapter word for word beautifully and the tears were running down her face and I looked at Kay and I couldn't believe it. I couldn' t believe it The healing power of love is beyond our comprehension at least mine Now here was a girl that had no chance at all but day after day the tolerance and the love A, B, C this is a dog this is the cat she's back now she's secretary of a group she sponsors she keeps coming over all of the time and it's just an amazing experience just an amazingly experience and so none of us at any time are so far removed that we can't do something for somebody else and it has been said this whole conference, that love is an act. And until we do these things for somebody else, I don't think that we stand to be counted. And I don' t think that I've ever seen a more dramatic effort than was done for Anita. Shortly, not too long ago, we had a little girl with a polio syndrome, an alcoholic who's It's been in four years. She's now back on the East Coast. The same thing happened there. And so I think that all of us have a part to play in this plan. Whatever our interpretation, I don't think it matters a damn how you interpret it if you can adjust it and implement it and go about your affairs and all of your affairs with this beautiful voice called love. I told Kay a great deal about you people down here And I think she knows you, at least vicariously through my tapes and my words. And she said, when you get down there, I want you to deliver a message. And I said, what's the message? She said, oh, I'm going to give it to you. She said I want to give her to Marina. She said. I don't want you two edited or make any comments whatsoever because I know Marina will read it without without you getting mixed up into it. And with your indulgence, I'd like to have Marina deliver the message from Kay Keebler to you people here. Marina? It's a real honor for me to read this from Kay because this lady literally saved my life physically along with paul when i went through a terrible withdrawal from years and years and years of alcohol and pills on a daily basis and then she and paul gave me an enjoyable life through sobriety and so i am deeply touched to be able to read this from her she is a lovely lady dear friends yes we are friends even though we have not met you and I may never meet face to face yet we know each other rather well we are dedicated to many of the same pursuits and we have a bond between us stronger than that between many who have shared a lifetime of each other's company we fight the same enemy we find joy in the same victories and hope in the same principles and this I think is the essence of friendship I have never met an AA I didn't know and I have met lots of AAs it is never hard for me to walk into a strange town because somewhere in that town there is an AA meeting and I will find welcome there. When I leave, I will not leave as a stranger but as one whose life has been enriched by the addition of new friends. I will have found joy in the knowledge that AA is alive and well and hope in the belief that as long as there is someone who understands and implements this AA program, AA will be around to aid my friends and me along the way we travel. The world is bigger now than it was when I became a part of this fellowship. There are more people, more meetings, and what frightens me a little, more interpretations of the program. And it is to this that I would address myself. Every day I pray that God will somehow keep AA pure, simple, that he will stand in the way of those who would change what is the single most successful program for people like us and that as long as there are alcoholics they will have this simple, satisfying answer to the problem. If, as your friend, I may ask one thing of you It is that you help me to keep AA what it is and has always been. Don't let anyone change it because it works. I know that it works, I know the completely unmanageable girl who had drunk herself near to death, who had DTs, convulsions, and most of the health problems of the chronic alcoholic was not the woman who now has a 27-year-old son who has never seen his mother take a drink. That girl was not the woman who has been married to the same man for 32 years without the need for a drink nor was she the girl who for 12 years before she married stayed sober and learned that life can be so much more exciting and beautiful when lived in the world rather than in the bottom of a bottle. A letter is a poor substitute at best for the things I would like to say, but I am not well and it is not possible for me to be there. However my thoughts are with you and with the miracle that is AA, which has brought you together for this meeting. Where else can you go and find a crowd of friends whom you never met, who are willing and anxious to help in any way they can, who hope as fervently for your recovery as for their own? People who will take time to listen and who understand your fears are not easy to find, but we find them in AA. People who comprehend the great victory of one hour, one day, or one decade of sobriety we find only in AA If you will take a word of advice, and this is not free, I pay dearly for this knowledge, it is this. After the treatment center, after the psychiatrist, after the Brooks and after all for the long haul stick with AA because for you and for me it's the only game in town. Oh I wish I were there with you but since I am not I will ask my dear friend Marina to read this to you so that I may in some way be a part of the group. With love, Kay Keebler. Thanks, Marina. I know that she will appreciate your indulgence and acceptance of her message. I would like to talk about the final phase of this recovery by merely saying that I think that I had an experience which is not unique, and it seems that it's happening to an awful lot of people. And I'm going to say that after five years, I had what I call my five-year menopause. i got so damn busy with my own affairs that i began to deal with life from my own viewpoint i've begun to make judgments for other people and that face values and while i was not moving away from a per se i don't think i was practicing these principles and I think I was getting to the point where I was moving away and again isolating myself. The theory was I had paid my dues and I had run around the country and talked, I'd been sponsoring people. I was now sober, I was back in the mainstream of living. What the hell? I could go to a few meetings a month or once a week, maintain my sobriety and go on. but that 10th, the 11th and the 12th step doesn't say that we can do this and get away with it what happens is that when I began to take my 10th step inventory the things that we talked about this will when I found that I was not using my will properly in what the shortcomings and the defects when I used my will properly the short comings and the defects were removed. Why? Because when I took a look at my daily inventory, it seemed to me that there were times during that day in all of my affairs when I could have been kinder, I could've been more tolerant, I couldve been more honest, a lot of things, and I could improve the situation and I didn't do it. And I talked to my wife and I said, Kay, what the hell do you think it is? She said those handmaidens of real, real problem was apathy and complacency apathy and complacency as alcoholics I don't have the luxury of dealing with life from my own viewpoint God had been good enough to make it possible for me to gain sobriety in the second life and in order for me to keep this and to get on that pathway to a higher understanding I have to take this to somebody else, as it was given to me freely out of love and I accepted it, I must give it to others And so when I looked at my inventory, it wasn't so much my shortcomings and defects that were getting me in trouble. It was the things I could have done and didn't do. The quality of sobriety wasn't there. The white-knuckle sobrietry was there, but I was not on that pathway. And all I had to do was to go back to those four absolutes again because they are the spiritual guides. I could also use those four absolutes as a set of moral and ethical standards. And when I began to structure my thoughts, deeds, and actions again back through the absolutes, then I was in harmony with God and His will. What a beautiful way to do it. I don't have to deal with problems anymore. I just take the solutions and run. and again I think that this beautiful fellowship offers us this pathway to a higher understanding in this regeneration we talk about and reborn and it's beyond my comprehension and so I think as I look around me as I'm intimately acquainted with those that I work with and they with me that all I can say is wherever there are one or more this act of love this unselfishness this purity of motives and dedicated will is all we have to do is to strive God knows I don't have any credentials as a tramp athlete standing up here what I am doing is sharing with you my experiences my experiences and they have not always been a straight line curve I've gone through impasses, periods of doubt, fear, and so on. We all do. But in the final analysis, God is there too. And he expresses himself among you people. Now, in closing, I want to tell you about the moment of truth as I saw it. Bob Smith was dying. We knew he was terminal ill. and he asked that we gather over at the public square building meeting in Cleveland and Bill and some of the supernumeraries came out but anyhow they wheeled Bob in in a wheelchair and he tried to get up to talk and he was so weak he had to sit down and he looked around and he said Jesus I never this is just as though it was happening tonight and he told us how grateful he was that he had this opportunity to see us and to feel as though he had had a small part that had been played in our recovery. This is the kind of humility this guy had. And he said, I have a message. And he says, it's just this. He said, don't louse this program up. Keep it simple. beware the Freudian complexes that are of interest only to the scientific mind beware that errant member of the tongue that has caused us so much trouble in the past and if you use it use it with tolerance and understanding remembering that those new people need a pat on the back even as we did and our steps and everything we have in our philosophy simmered down come up with two ideas love and service keep those two things in mind when we're dealing with our fellow members in God love and service each of us have talents we don't have to force our way we will be led to it and I think at that particular moment the pieces fell into place for me love and serve us let it happen get out of the way and let God and I can stand up here and tell you that I am still mystified. I still believe that it's an illusion. I just cannot believe that these things have happened to someone like me. Now let me close by saying this. I'm going to close with a serenity prayer in all five stanzas. I don't like two stanzAS. It leaves you hanging in the air. Serenity Prayer, I use it in my prayers and meditation. There is something of spiritual aura or grace about this prayer. The essence of the prayer, the profound thoughts that go with it seem to me to be the answer to our philosophy and to our plan for daily living, our whole existence. And let me offer it to you this way. God grant us a serenity to accept the things we cannot change courage to change the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference living one moment at a time enjoying one day at a time accepting hardship as a pathway to peace trusting he will take this world as it is not as I would have it and if I surrender to his will he will make all things right that I may be reasonably happy in this life as supremely happy with him perhaps in the next and thank you good night