Three Doctors Gave Him Five Years to Live — Two of Those Doctors Are Now Dead – Jack B.

That is the best introduction I have ever had, and before this evening is over you'll understand what I'm talking about. My name is Jack Boland, and I'm an alcoholic. I feel so good that I can hardly stand it. There's no substitute for feeling good, and And I'm sure you understand that because it was the pursuit of happiness that ultimately took the form of oblivion that got most of us here in the first place. Coming back to Portland, Oregon, it really is like coming home and I'm delighted to look out here and see so many members of the family waiting to greet me because there was a time in my life when there was no one there to be a part of my life and it is a real pleasure to be here. Incidentally, Vancouver marked a very momentous day in my life many years ago. I took my first morning drink in Vancouver and in the process I thought I really was discovering something something of the joy of living. More about that as we get a little deeper into an experience that I would not be without. When I say to you that my name is Jack Boland and I'm an alcoholic, I am speaking from strength. if a little genie had just perched on my shoulder a moment ago and whispered in my ear and said I have some news for you you're fixed I would stand here and tell you the darndest lie I would say I'm Jack Boland and I'm an alcoholic because in this process I have discovered I believe the key to the secret of the joy of life and the key to how to live a meaningful life. I believe that we are here not just for the purpose of maintaining our sobriety, but for the purposes of maintaining the peace of mind. For the purpose or establishing a form of sanity that we could never have experienced otherwise. I believe we are in this fellowship for the primary reason that we've been placed upon this planet it, to discover who we are and what we are. You see, one of my problems was that I never knew who I was or what I was, or why I was here. And I suspect that you can identify with that statement. There was an Al-Anon who had been in the program for a period of time, just long enough for the belief in some level of prosperity being returned to her life and she had set a goal of getting a red station wagon. And she saved and shopped and one day she bought that red station waggon. and buying that red station wagon just made her feel so good she could hardly stand it. So I drove it home and parked it in front of the house and went inside and stood looking out the front window at her red station wagons, called the kids in and said, look at that redstation wagon. They all ran out and got in the redstation wagons and then she drove it up and down the street until all the neighbors had seen her in her redstation wagen. Just loved that redstation wagon. you've had something like that in your life I know the first pair of shoes I got after I was sober in AA I used to walk down the street looking at myself and my reflection in the glass in the stores that I passed remember how that was, the first suit I got golly I loved that suit at any rate she decided to take the kids to the circus that had just come to town and found a parking space right outside the main tent, just beside the runway where the actors and the clowns and the elephants entered the ring. She got out of her red station wagon and walked away and hoped that everyone would see her leave her red station wagon. And she was looking back, just going in the circus tent and looking back. And here came the elephants passing her red station wagon into her dismay. The third elephant looked at that red station wagon and stopped and backed up and sat down on the hood of her red station wagon. The hood was crumpled, the headlights were broken out, the grill fell off. And can you imagine her dismay? And she looked for the owner of the circus and found him in a very short period of time and he said, ma'am, we don't know what's wrong with that animal, but every time that That elephant sees a red car. He has an irresistible urge to sit on the hood, and that's just what happened, and there's nothing that we can do about it. But if you will take your red station wagon to a nearby garage and get an estimate, we'll pay you for it. Well, she didn't trust him any more than she did the elephant. So she dashed off to get an testament so that she would be back in time with the circus. and about three blocks away, just in front of her. Now, you're not going to believe this. Two automobiles ran a red light and crashed into each other head on. She slammed on the brakes, slid to a halt inches, just that close to the accident. And moments later there were sirens and the fire truck arrived, the policeman arrived and she was standing there looking at the accident and the ambulance drove up and two attendants leaped out of the ambulance and saw her standing there and they came rushing over and she said to them, Oh, I was not in this accident. An elephant sat on my hood. Now who do you think ended up in the emergency ward of the nearby hospital. I know why you are here tonight. Because an elephant sat on your hood. You know, sometimes when you hear a speaker like me at one of these meetings, you might get the idea that one beautiful day in Astoria, Oregon, And one Saturday, we awakened and arose and looked out of the window at a cloudless sky and felt the warm Pacific breeze upon our face and said, Golly, Myrtle, I think I'm drinking a little bit too much. they tell me there's a group of people here in Astoria that has done something about their drinking problem perhaps I should call them this afternoon and maybe attend a meeting tonight because if I don't do something about this do you think that's how we got here? you did not arrive until an elephant sat on your hood until your world collapsed sometimes after we hear we look around as we when we get here to make sure that no one sees us arrive because they might think that we are one of them I've been sober since July the 10th 1953 very active in the program and in all of that period of time I have never known one anonymous drunk. There has never been an anonymous alcoholic except we are anonymous to ourselves. One of the symptoms of the disease of alcoholism is the denial of our alcoholism. We cannot see it. We will not submit to this concept. We are the ones who do not believe it. If If you are here for the first time, though, I would like to take just a moment to speak to this idea of anonymity. Anonymity was never intended to be used to protect we alcoholics from the world. The principle of anonymacy was used to to protect the program from us. And if you have not yet... It's true. If you have Not Yet picked up the pamphlet from General Service entitled Understanding Anonymity, let me urge you to do so. Among the many things it says is that there has never been a single word in the traditions against the use of full names either within the fellowship or on a person-to-person basis outside outside the fellowship. If you are here for the first few times, be sure that we will not go back and let anyone in your neighborhood know. That's the good news. The bad news is is they already know it. And the good news about that fact is that they're glad, they're delighted that you and I are here. In 31 years of sobriety, I have never known of one of our members to suffer as the result of being a practicing member of this program, ever. We have to be very careful to not take advantage of our relationship in this fellowship. If you are here for the first time, let me welcome you. You are in the right place, and this is especially true if you are an Al-Anon. You show me two new people walking through that door tonight, one the alcoholic and the other the family member, and I'll show you two goofy people. How many Al-Anons are here? Would you raise your hand so that I can see the Al-Anon? Wow, that's dynamite. That's absolutely great. You are... The... In all parts of the country, this closeness of AA and Al-Al-Anon does not exist. You know that there are some areas where the two do not meet as comfortably and as beautifully as you do here. And I want to commend you. It's part of the great strength of the Fellowship of AA that we have the Fellowsship of Al-Anon. And as the big book says, when you put the drinking problem aside, you cannot tell us apart anyhow. Anyhow, the disease of Al-Anonism is very similar to our own. And one of its basic symptoms is the love of suffering. Do you know that the last thing that we will surrender, A.A. and Al-Al-Anons, is our suffering? God, how we love to suffer. We, the big book talks about that we now in our sanity absolutely insist on enjoying life and that we're willing to eliminate the manufacturing of misery. But we were so good at manufacturing misery that it takes a while, it takes time to begin to get the hang of this idea that happiness, Happiness, permanent happiness, daily happiness, weekly happiness, consistent, constant, total happiness is a possibility. Do you know that we are afraid to believe that happiness might be normal? You hear it in our talks all the time. We're already talking about how unhappy we're going to be next week. We have planned our unhappiness, but how often are we willing to plan our happiness and to believe in it and to anticipate it? I love the Al-Anon family members because I see you do such remarkable things with our program. particularly when you stop being enablers to the practicing alcoholic. You show me a sober alcoholic and I will show you a person who has experienced the consequences of their unacceptable behavior. I've never known an alcoholic to get sober until he or she began to experience the consequences of our unacceptable behavior And one of the things that we strive the hardest to avoid is to experience those consequences. And you Al-Anons know that. You know that we have learned how to push your buttons, how to control, how to cause you to lie, to conceal, to cover up. But you were waiting for us to come along. To do exactly that. I think it was Mary Ann today that, what was the statement that she made about Phil and her? They fell in lust together. Most of us have fallen in sick with each other. it was our sicknesses that met we were two half people trying to become whole by finding the other half never realizing that our wholeness is in ourselves and cannot be experienced until we become willing to be healed healed or to be made whole. And again, that takes a little while to begin to understand once we're in the program, but I think it's important that each one of us begin to see and understand that once we are here, sobriety is not what we're looking for. Did you know that? Sobriety's not what they're looking for that's what we already have when we're after we're here if we don't have sobriety we're not here look around this room and you'll see a room full of sober people so once in our sobriete the thing that the program tells me that I must seek insanity or emotional sobrieté and I turn to step 12 in the 12 and 12 and And it says the joy of living is the theme of AA's 12th step, and action is its key word. And it's interesting that the word happiness, a harvest of happiness, is the theme of this conference. The joy of Living is the thema of the program, the joy of living, not the clinging to misery. The joy joy of living is why we're a part of this fellowship and never believe, as we sometimes hear, that our problem is our common denominator. It is not. If all we had was the problem, we'd still be out there drunk, and you Alilons would be sitting up tonight waiting for us to get home. We are here because we have the solution to the problem, and it is the solution of the problem and the living of it and the sharing of that solution that we come to meetings to report and to give to each other. It's It's the strength and the excitement that comes to us, that becomes the shared ingredient of this program of recovery. Before I really get into my program, there's one thing I'd like to again speak about for a moment. One of the great symptoms of alcoholism that we rarely hear very much spoken about is fear. I've been amazed in recent months when I've gone back and looked at my big book, the 12 and 12, the emphasis that is placed there on fear and the freedom from fear. We were so fearless, we drunks, weren't we? We were the most frightened people who have ever lived. gift. And yet we had a form of fear that required that we totally deny that we were a prey. I lived in fear. I have awakened in the middle of the night so frightened that I could not move a finger. I had awakened in a catatonic state of fear, fear. Not one night, but many, many nights. And as my disease progressed, I found that the reason I took that first drink in Vancouver many years ago in the morning, not my first drink, but my first drink of the morning was to overcome the fear of having to face the day. It was the overcoming of that fear. And the more I drank, the more frightened I was. The more frightened I was, the more I dragged. One of the basic symptoms. But this is one of the symptoms that does not disappear with the onset of physical sobriety for us. And I believe that we need to talk about this fear more than we talk about it after our recovery because so often we stand here and we do not let others know how frightened we have been after our sobriety because we think that none of the rest of you were. One of the great promises of this fellowship is the freedom from fear. I was born and bred in the briar patch match of alcoholism. My parents were, my mother was as pretty as you, John. We were talking about how lovely you are. My father was, oh, he was one of those people that had the charisma that alcoholics frequently have but do you know that some of my earliest memories were the sounds that the children of alcoholics here in the night and in the day the sound of the unrest that always exists where you find alcoholism when I was one year in the program and took my first searching and fearless written honest moral inventory I discovered that the first lie that I told was my first week in school first grade in school I lied to my school teacher to cover for my father for his alcoholism she asked me a simple question. I can't remember what it was. And I lied. I didn't want anyone to know what was happening to my father. You know, when my father died less than a year later, I heard it said then and years later that Jack Boland, that Jack Poland, never harmed anyone in his life. We alcoholics have hurt a lot of people more than we know, and I don't say that to put a guilt trip on you. We've had enough of that. But it's very important that we do do see the impact that our alcoholism has had on other persons. I knew that my father, when I was a small child, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew it was wrong to say that whatever it was that was happening to my father was disturbing and destroying my own life. And in the years that followed, after his death, I came to blame him greatly for the fact that I never had an opportunity to go to college. early on i was placing the responsibility on other persons persons other than myself and my father the alcoholic gave me a wonderful opportunity to do exactly that and my mother who was also a practicing alcoholic she died within two months of my mother when i was seven years of age and her death came as the result of alcoholism she was drinking with some friends and one weekend and and had appendicitis and peritonitis set in. She died, as people did in those days. If she had not been drinking, she would perhaps have had medical attention and lived. Alcoholism, the destroyer. People's lives, minds of their image. Do you know that when I was a practicing alcoholic, I was absolutely sure that that all the people that I loved, quote-unquote, were in good hands. Why, I thought they were in better hands than all states in my life. Let me tell you what's just happening with my three sons. This last year, one year ago, my eldest son, whose name is also Jack, went into treatment. I happen to have some friends who have a very fine alcohol and drug rehabilitation center in Montreal, Canada. And Jack went there at their invitation. And he did not go because drinking was a problem to him, but he went because in his present career, he is a vice president of a very large banking institute. to. He had discovered this sense of impending fear, fear that was impacting his life so greatly that he was having to take tranquilizers just to stand up and give a simple talk to a small group of people, and it was, this fear was overpowering him, and so he went for treatment and discovered in treatment his high-bottom level of alcoholism and is is now an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And his fear is gone as the result of acknowledging the agoraphobia. Agoraphobia, are you familiar with that term? Agoraphobia? Argoraphobia, which is the fear of the marketplace. It's the fearof any place. It'sthefearofbeing. The experience that Jack had in recovery of being able to go back to take a searching and fearless look at his life was so wonderful that he insisted that his wife go why would she have been married to him unless there was something wrong with her he decided and that month in recovery changed her absolutely dramatically and both of them felt such a great relief that they sent my granddaughter, Terry, who was 16 at the time. She's 17 now. And Terry is a great young musician. She's entering New England Conservatory of Music just this month in her first year in college. recovering from my parents alcoholism and for mine and for her and from her parents alcoholism the change the dramatic change in her personality just in that one month of treatment and not only a change in our personality but the releasing of of the inherent talent that is there, has been one of the most remarkable experiences in our family. It's amazing. It's Amazing how much more wellness there is for every one of us, for each one of Us who's in this room. Sobriety is not necessarily the equivalent of wellness. That's why a program talks about spiritual growth and these levels of unfoldment that are possible to us. My second son, my middle son, has been the real practicing alcoholic. And I have to tell you about Gary. When he was a small child, he was one of the most lovable and loving, thoughtful, kind children I've ever seen in my life. There was never anybody. To see Gary was to love him. And that lovableness disappeared with the onset of puberty with him. And when he was about 14, he discovered the magic of taking a drink. And by the time he was 17, I was spending more time in high school than he was. He spent four years of college getting about one year's credit. And time passed, and one day, a long time ago, I said to him, because I'd learned in this program that to not accept the unacceptable. You do not help an alcoholic by accepting the unacceptable To the best of my ability, I did everything I could to help him. And then one day I said, Gary, I really do love you. I just love you so much I can hardly stand it. But I can heartily stand you. you. And so let's, you and I stop playing this game of being a father and a son. I don't have a son and you don't have a father because neither of us are acting like it. And if in time, if someday you should decide that you want to do something about your life, let me know. I'll always be here. And I had to give him the right to die. Do you understand what I'm talking about? I had given him the same right that I chose for myself, which which was to go out there and have the experience. But there was never a time in those years, I had not seen him for ten years, except one brief moment at his younger brother's wedding. He showed up for about ten minutes. And then disappeared. Heard from him a few times early on when he really was testing me to see if I would cover some of his hot checks. And I didn't. But every time I thought about him, I prayed for him. I believed the same thing for him that I believe for you. But I never joined him in his misery. You want to help an alcoholic? Do not join them in their misery. They love for you to join them in their mystery. Then they know where your buttons are and they can push it. Three months ago, through a series of miracles. This is the program of miracles, friends. Did you know that? You don't know that That's what it's all about It's about not just the miracle of sobriety But the ongoing miracles That can be ours If we will practice these principles In all of our affairs I was able behind the scenes To cause some things to happen That led Gary to believe believe that an elephant had just sat on his hood. And he called me after 10 years, he called me and he said, dad, can you help me? And I was waiting for his call. And I said on whose terms? And he said yours. I said, I can help you. And he went to treatment. And while he was there, he had a, he He had a spiritual experience. An incredible thing happened to him, and the sweetness that he had as a child has returned. It's amazing, absolutely amazing. And his wife is in treatment now. Golly, we're an alcoholic family. My parents died. and I did not know until many years later when I took my first inventory that I was glad. Who can ever be glad that their mother has died and that their father has died? And my grandmother took me to raise, and that's a story in itself that time does not permit me to share with you, my little old sweet gorgeous grandmother had never had a drink in her life, had driven members of her family out of her house just for drinking homebrew everybody that homebred wouldn't hurt you but she said homebro got out her doctor gave her a drink a toddy they called it because tranquilizers were not available in those days to help her through the trauma the death of her daughter my mother all she had been through let me tell you she started started sucking on those toddies like you would hardly believe, and she forgot all about what was happening around her. She was an instant drunk. And in the short time of my, from the time of our birth until the death of my parents, we had already graduated from the country club set, and when my grandmother took me to Ray's, we made our way back to to the other side of the railroad tracks. By the time I was 10 years of age, as a matter of fact, on my 10th birthday, I sat on the bank overlooking the main line, the main track of the Northwestern Railway in Roanoke, Virginia, the city of my birth. In Cleve, the mainline was about as far from me as where you and Joan are sitting. In the house behind me, and incidentally, there was no grass. We had no lawn. There were cinders there. That house was on Shenandoah Avenue right under the 10th Street Bridge. And here were the railroad yards of the Norfolk and Western. The house was really not much of a house. It was kind of a shack. and all that I could hear on my 10th birthday late in that day sitting there in the dust and cinders was the raucous sounds of those alcoholics that were in the house with my grandmother. I had just been downtown to pick up our allotment of buttermilk and cabbage and the welfare check. You think a 10-year-old kid is not negatively imprinted with those experiences. I was. All the hopelessness and despair that I later came to re-experience was born in me. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were going to move. We just moved in here last week. And friends, when we moved, we didn't have to call Atlas Van Lines. We just put it in a poke. In Virginia, a poke is a big paper bag. and we moved. There was no electricity in that house. No one had bothered to turn it on. And when I went to school, I would take different routes on different days so that the other kids would not know where I lived. I was already into anonymity. Anonymity meaning protecting myself, protecting my ego, pretending that the experience was not real. And they knew. They knew. Sitting there on my 10th birthday and no one had baked a cake and there were no presents. I would have given anything on earth to have been out of that environment, the hopelessness of it. And as I sat there, I heard a train leaving the station, downtown Roanoke. And in a few minutes here it came passing on the main line. In those days, passenger trains were much larger than they are today. There were no airlines. There were two engines on that train, a long passenger train, and people were just taking their seats. It was almost dusk and the lights were on in the train and from where I sat on the bank I was looking right in the windows. And what I saw there represented an environment, a way of life that was so different from my own, so attractive, so wonderful. I wondered if anybody could ever love a little boy like me. It was my first impulse pulse for the geographical cure. I would have, if only, if by some unknown magic I could have been on that train. And on the end of it there were two dining cars, porters in their white jackets, white tablecloths, the cleanliness, an unknown world. And the train passed and the clickety-click of the wheels on the rails disappeared and I settled back back down into the cinders, into despair. And yet not so, because in me there was something, there was a spirit in me that said there is a way and I will find it. I will not be like my father, and I Will not be Like My Mother, and I WILL NOT BE LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THAT HOUSE. And you have that spirit. That's why you survived. That's Why You're Here. But I knew the things that I would not do. time passed. I was about 16. It's amazing how many of us take our first drink when we were 16, and three guys, George, two other guys, and myself, high school kids. George had his father's car. George lived on the farm in that county that was about as large as the county we thought. His was the family that had all the money. So he had his daddy's car. Earl had picked up a 50-cent bottle of wine somewhere, and the other guy had the cigarettes. And I was just along for the ride. I wouldn't smoke a cigarette. And they kept pushing me about a drink, and finally one of them said the magic word. He said, Come on, Jack. Take a drink. If you'll take one drink, we'll leave you alone, and besides, it won't hurt you. And he said the Magic Words. We'll leave You Alone, It Won't Hurt You. And I thought, That's right. And they passed that bottle of wine back to me, and I took a little old drink. And a few seconds, a few moments passed, and I felt sort of a tingling sensation in certain parts of my body, like my fingertips and my mouth. It made me feel so good I could hardly stand it. And I said, George, pass that bottle back here. and I took another drink. I thought if one drink makes you feel that good, I'll take two. You see, I was already hooked at that moment. It was like having a spiritual experience without God. It was the opening valves in my mind. I was experiencing what I intuitively knew to be the truth. and I defy any human being to feel that way and not return to the source I can tell you that if prune juice made you feel that way, I would have had a real problem now we've got some good news for you I believe that the way I felt that night is the way we're supposed to feel not by any chemical agent but I felt a certain something I felt a freedom how can I describe it to you you know how I felt and I believe that's what the program is all about this program of recovery is not just a program that's going to help us not take another drink but it is designed by its magic magic to create in us that thing called emotional sobriety and to awaken in us the fourth dimension, that kingdom of higher consciousness that has been promised and that many of its members have felt. This is what happened to Bill. You can read it in the big book. the awakening of a place of an experience that we have always sought have always believed in can you see that I had found a friend called taking a drink but what I did not know was that that was the best it would ever make me feel from that moment on it was I experienced the law of diminishing returns. And as it disappeared, as I experienced this feeling less, I sought it more. Are you following me? I sought him more and more. And in time, I did not drink to feel good anymore. I drank just to not feel quite so bad. And then in time I drank just to survive I'd forgotten how it was to feel good it was drinking because I had no choice and that was the progression of the disease of alcoholism one of the symptoms of the disease is the progression it is always we always get worse worse meaning that we are more completely removed from that which we sought in the beginning from that that which we experienced and believed in, in the beginning. At any rate, I'd found a friend, and it stood me in good stead in high school, I thought. And then I went off to a different part of the world to win the war, different from Cleve last night. Ended up out here on the West Coast, some time in Astoria, the naval air station there. there, came back into civilian life scared to death. In my whole life I never said those words. I'm frightened. I couldn't. But I had this obsession to succeed. There was something in me that would not settle for the status quo and like every alcoholic that I know I spent a period of time falling up you know how we fall up I came back and accepted the position and fell up in that position and graduated to another position and tell up and with the passage of time though and this happened happened rather quickly. Even I noticed a change in my personality. I caught myself in moments of anger with a waitress in a restaurant because the food that I had ordered did not please me. I heard myself saying some things that just absolutely amazed me, but I always comforted myself by knowing that they made me do that. It was really their fault. I made the mistake of purchasing a home next door to an accountant. If there are any practicing alcoholics here, and I assume there aren't, don't ever move next door to a CPA, especially a sober CPA, because they do things by the numbers. They live by the numbers, they mow their lawn and all of it on Saturday morning. They trim the edges around the sidewalk. They are very observant of those who do not live like they do. I was falling up. And as I fell up, I was experiencing in my career the pressures of life, and my friend alcohol helped me regularly and steadily. And I discovered that all of my friends were drinking and many of my clients and customers were drinking. And in time I became convinced that it was the drinking and the association that I had with drinking that was the cause of my success. us. It's amazing how we draw to ourselves those people who are like unto ourselves. I noticed, though, I could see even then that all the things that I was not going to do I was doing. I found myself doing some of the strangest things. Now, beginning to carry a shovel in my car. The back of my car was not very strange because I was preparing that for Garnet. Garnett was my brother-in-law. I was having trouble with more and more people, but the relationship between Garnette and me had really deteriorated. garnet was the person that had made my life the most miserable and i decided to fix him now when i say fix him i don't mean to get him well i mean to fix garnet and i began to spend a lot of time thinking about garnet i there are lots of days i didn't bother to turn the radio on in the car i just spent my time thinking about garnet and I planned for garnet a a very warm reception sometime by surprise and part of my plan for garnett was that well he really did not need to be on this earth and I convinced myself that I would be doing a great service for the other members of the family and for the community in trying to work out the perfect crime though it was very important number one, that I not be caught because the court might not understand that I'm not be the perpetrator of this crime And I had it worked out so that I could do it, that I could fix Garnet. Except it was also important that Garnett know. I didn't want the court to know. But he had to know that I was the one that was doing it. It would not come out right unless he knew. I was never quite sure that I had it arranged that way. But I carried a shovel in my car just in case it should happen. When I fixed him, I was going to bury him. And I had some spots allocated for that purpose. Now, in time, also, there are a number of lakes in southwest Virginia where I lived at the time. And there were bridges over those lakes. And so I carried a chain in the back of my car with a weight on the end of it. Are you beginning to get the idea that I was undergoing a personality change? I kept falling up. But I had this sense of impending doom. There's no one in this room that knows what I'm talking about. something was going to happen, and when it did, it would not be to my advantage. And I'm not talking about the little things that were happening. I'm talking about this... One Sunday, I awakened, and I had the solution. And the solution was to move. and if you're living in Virginia the solution is not to move to North Carolina the solution is to move too to California to move and start my life all over again I I would go to California and I would begin again and in California I would be the person that I always was I would I'd be away from the in-laws and from the CPA who lived next door. I'd been away from all of those persons that I saw when I envisioned my funeral. You've never attended your own funeral? I've been to my funeral many times. It was in a room much, much more beautiful than this. And it was a larger crowd. And my casket was right here, right where I'm standing right now. And you never saw as many flowers in your whole life. And I stood right back in the corner where those guys are right where you who are in the corner, you are standing where I was when I attended my funeral. And there was a long line of people who came down this side and slowly walked by my casket and gazed upon me there. I never came up and looked, but I knew that I was there. And as they walked by, each of them, one by one, tearfully, would say to me in the casket, and for everyone to hear what they should have said before I died, how sorry they were for what they did that put me there. And I could hear them back there in the corner and I would say, That's right, you son of a gun. That's not exactly what I said, but it's close enough. And each of them assumed his or her rightful responsibility for my demands. Gave me a great deal of satisfaction and yet it infuriated me that they had not said it while I lived. I went through this experience so many times that you would, well, you would believe it. You would believe that. And so I awakened this Sunday morning free of them. I knew what the solution was to get away from all those people that had caused my problem and to go out into the wonderful world of Southern California because I really was a palm tree person at heart anyhow. And I did just that. But if you're going to move to California, you don't need to do it today. Once the decision was made, I spent more and more time down at Silver Gables. I spent so much time at Silver Gaples and I told them the wonderful things I was going to do in California. It just happened that the same day I made the announcement, Fred, the bartender, cut his toe off with a lawnmower. And the guy said, well, since you are not going to be working for a while, Jack, I don't know how they figured that out. We'll put you in charge of the fund. We'll take up a fund for Fred. We love Fred, The Bartender. Remember how we love those bartenders? And they put me in charge Of the Fund. And so time passed, days passed, weeks passed. I had not moved to California yet. And Fred, as a matter of fact, I delayed long enough that Fred's toe had completely healed and he was back on the job looking for his fund. Now I've got some news for you. Alcoholics will lie. I think it was Mary Ann today who said that someone asked her if an alcoholic would lie and she said, is his lips moving? Well, we only collected $40 or $50 for Fred and I was waiting until larger promised amounts came in before I gave it to him. And Fred knocked on my door one Sunday morning. It's amazing how many things happened to me on Sunday morning I was always home on Sunday mornings. One day in a week I could be counted to be home And here he was looking for his fund, and I gave him the $40 or $50. And you wouldn't believe the stories that circulated at Silver Gables. You know one person, one drunk said that he himself had given $50? there were $3,000 or $4,000 in that fund according to the collected information gathered from that bunch of drunks so I knew it was time for me to move to California the closer I came to California though the stronger was the sense of impending doom But once there I sent out my resumes seeking a position, not a job. And in time the reports came back, the responses came back and I was interviewed a number of times and selected the company that I wished to accept a position with and one day my telephone rang and it was the company of my second choice. The vice president was calling me from New York and he said, He said, Jack, we have checked you out. You did a wonderful job back in Virginia. And I had. You know, we kept falling up. We'd like for you to take over our Southern California territory. He offered me a salary that was larger than any I'd ever had, almost unlimited expense account, a bonus arrangement that was quite satisfactory, and a company car. And I was about to say, I'm sorry, but I think I'll be offered a job that I prefer more than this one. And the keen cutting mind of the alcoholic came to my rescue, And I said, I would be delighted to take that position. A bird in the hand is worth who knows what. And the next day my telephone rang and it was the company of my first choice, the vice president calling me from Chicago. He said, Jack, we've checked you out. You have done so well in Virginia. You're just the person we want for Southern California. Offered me a salary that was larger than any I had ever earned. A very satisfactory bonus arrangement. Almost unlimited expense account in the company car. car. And I was about to say to him, I'm sorry, but I just accepted another job yesterday. But the keen cunning mind of the alcoholic came to my rescue. Two salaries. Overlapping territories. Now this was a position, there was no direct supervision. Vision. I don't know how I was going to work it out with those company cars, but I knew there was a way. I had it better than I had ever had it. California was just exactly what What I was looking for. Now the surprise. You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you. In less than six months, I had exactly reproduced my life as it existed in Virginia. The same people were in my life. They had different names, but they were the same people. They looked the same, they talked the same they acted the same and we did the same things together. It was astonishing. It was amazing. It was incredible. If you think I had trouble in Virginia I want you to know in California it really fell apart. It was hell. well. Fear, fear above fear, anxiety above anxiety. And I could not function coming back from a sales conference in San Francisco, back to LA. I can recall looking out the window, hoping that the plane would crash, hoping that it would never land. I would, do you think I was thinking about the other passengers? If I had believed in God, I would have prayed that we would have crashed. And we landed. One night at an auditorium, this many people. Tennessee Ernie Ford was a friend of mine. We lived in the same community. He was not a nationally known figure at that time television he was on local southern california tv and i was there as his guest and after the show that was televised live there was no taping um he came back out on the platform and was entertaining the people that were there and i were standing about right where you are sitting And there were two drunks right up front giving my friend a hard time. And I started giving them a hard time. And I looked up at Tennessee Ernie for approval. You know how we are looking for approval? And he was not concerned at all about the drunks, but he was looking at me and in his eyes, in his mind, I saw myself. It was one of those moments of truth. And you would not be here tonight without such a moment. I saw my unacceptable behavior behavior. And I went home and tried to take my life and almost did. And on Monday, I called the company of my first choice and then the company of our second choice and resigned from those positions. And both vice presidents said, Jack, we're glad there's something wrong with you. I did not know that anyone knew. I went back to Virginia to exist until I died. I knew that I I would die soon. I would take my life or I would die and I went back to the city of my birth over on the other side of the railroad tracks and I lived in a room that you rented by the day or the week. I was in the skid row section of the city of my birth waiting until I would die living off of unemployment compensation $22.50 a week in those years in Virginia continue. Skulking in and out, afraid, angry, attending my own funeral, sitting in a park wishing that I was a squirrel. I watched those squirrels play and I would have given anything to have been a squirrel, then I would not have to die. Those squirrels would come out and run up and down those tree trunks and there were acorns on the ground and they caught caught one. And it wasn't anything happening in my life. I'm just living, existing until I die. One Saturday night, I thought I was going to die and the next day, next day I was bumming down in the Skid Row section of town. Quarters, nickels, anything I could again. And nothing was happening in my life, and I decided to go up to the post office. It was a Sunday afternoon, well, Sunday evening. And I went to the post office because salesmen, people who were like I had been, came to that post office in the evening to mail their expense accounts, pick up their mail. Some of you salesmen know what I'm talking about. Get those expense accounts off so you can get those checks back. And friends. But I couldn't even get 50 cents at the post office, and finally I wandered off frightened and tried to cross the street, and I couldnít. The light changed many times, and I stood there, and I could not move forward, and I could not move. I tried to turn and go back in another direction, and I tried to go to my right and to my left, and I could not move, and it was not that I was drunk. I was not drunk at all. My string had just run out. There There was no hope for me. There was not help for me, and I did not know what the problem was or what the solution was, and no person was left that I could turn to. And finally, I stumbled across the street and turned to the left, and one half a block and turned on the right, and as I turned in the corner, I saw Joe. Joe. Joe is that guy that we all have, that if you ever get as bad as he is, you'll quit. Why, years ago at Silver Gables, I drank with Joe and I carried him home. Now in Virginia, carry it meant drive. But you drove Joe home and then you carried him the rest of the way in the house. And I carried Joe home, and I'd take him in and unloosen his belt and and take off his shoes and stand in the living room and commiserate with Gene, his enabler. I'd go back to Silver Gables and say, if I ever get as bad as Joe is, I'll quit. And I walked around the corner, and as I saw Joe walk out of a doorway with four or five other people on that doorway, I knew that was my hometown. That's where the AA group met. Joe was an alcoholic. I'd always known that poor Joe. Joe. He came across, he saw me, came across the street. I was too scared to cross where he was. We went around a corner and he bought me something to drink and I lied. I told him about how great things were in California. Can you believe it? Poor Joe, he's an alcoholic and he had quit. If I ever get as bad as Joe is, I'll quit. A couple of days later, I called Joe. And I said, Joe, are you still sober? And he was and he came. He brought Bud with him. And that was my introduction to the program. I did not know until later that Joe had only been sober two weeks when I walked around the corner. That's incredible. That's absolutely incredible to me. I just almost broke out in tears when I I said that to you. And it's an amazing thing, though, how when we have surrendered that the circumstances that we need always present themselves in the most magical of ways. And if you will look at your life, you will see the magic, the miracle of it, that you are not here by chance but by choice. And long before you made the choice, it was made for you by a power greater than you. And missed opportunity after missed opportunity had made no difference when you were ready. The way was clear. And that's why we're here. I have to let you know, though, that in time... You see, Joe never stayed with the program. He never got with the steps. He stayed dry for a period of time and then success came and then he started feeling so good he could hardly stand it. He went back out and got back into the world of business and took a few tranquilizers and today he is a vegetable in the Veterans Administration Hospital. I'm so grateful for Joe that I can hardly stand it. I didn't get sober right away. That was May in 1953, and it took a little while for me, and I was back out there drinking. The only time I ever drank, knowing that I was an alcoholic. And within six weeks, the six weeks that I drank, three police departments were looking for me. The city, the county, and the state. and I thought I might be one of those people that could not make it, and finally I stumbled back into an AA meeting on July the 10th, 1953, and I was willing to go to any lengths, to any links, to be sober, just to be sober, just plain old bread-and-butter sobriety suited me. And I took that last drink and did not take another drink, and every time the door was open and I was there and I stole a key. They wouldn't let you have a key to the clubhouse until you were sober six months and that was the worst AA group that ever was. Let me tell you something, that group was seven years old and the longest length of sobriety in that group was 15 months and that belonged to a guy who had just moved down from Brooklyn. There was no program of recovery, it was just we all stay sober a day at a time. You know the big book does not say that we stay sober a day or a time, it says what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition as the result of these steps. And there were no steps and there was no recovery. I'm staying dry and dry, scared to death. And I got the worst job I ever got in my life selling secondhand cars for a crooked secondhand automobile dealer. And each time a customer walked on the lot. If you're selling cars for a living and you're afraid of people, you've got a problem. A customer would appear and I would run around behind the little shed and hide and I'm not putting you on. And one day a customer cornered me and they wanted to look at that little old Ford parked right there. And there were two sets of keys in a plastic cup. One belonged to that Ford. And I never could figure out which set of keys belonged to the Ford. Do you believe my life was unmanageable? A few weeks, one day I lied and told the manager that I knew where I could sell a car, and I didn't. I drove it off and parked beside the Roanoke River on Ferdinand Avenue. I did something No self-respecting atheist will ever get caught doing. And I decided to pray, except I didn't call it praying or I wouldn't have done it. And I'll never forget how that hot August day my pulse was pounding, my heart was racing, and I looked up and down to make sure that no one would catch me doing this thing that I was about to do. It was the hardest thing I had ever done to that moment. And I said, God, help me. And I started off just right. I said I really don't believe you exist. But if you don't exist, there's no hope for me. Please help me and the moment that I said help me a remarkable thing happened. You see help for me had always meant something external. You do something for me that I need to do for myself. And instantly I was afraid that God would give me a better job if God did exist. And I said, don't give me another job. Don't give Me a better Job. I can't do the handle of what I've got now. And then I said fix Me. Now that's a miracle. It had never occurred to me. You're not going to believe this. It had ever occurred to Me that I needed fixing. I knew who needed fixing, all those people in this line that passed by my funeral. And I was sober and did not know that I needed fixing. They had lied when they came to me. They said, all you need to do is to get sober. For 31 years, I've been telling that lie to new alcoholics. I'll lie to one right tonight. All you have to do es get sober, then I'll tell them about getting fixed. but friends if all you are is sober then you're not fixed it's the fixing it's in the fixing that we begin to experience the fun of this program and it's the growth and the change and the excitement and the miracles because I discovered that there cannot be a change in my life unless there is first an equivalent change in me I went to California and proved that my life became a perfect reflection of the state of my mind I removed myself from I came from Virginia to have a new life and I recreated it perfectly in California because nothing changed. And I came back to Virginia and everything was the same and I was sober and there was not one difference in my life at all except that I was physically sober but as miserable, as frightened and as angry as I had ever been but even more powerless, more incapable of functioning. And in that moment of praying, I suddenly discovered. It occurred to me that I was the one that was responsible. I had not known that before. I thought they were. And do you believe that I forgave them all as I prayed? I did not know that my prayer was being answered as I prayed it. I forgav them all but Gernot. nothing happened there was no bolt of lightning went up on saturday night to play poker and i went over the next county got in the big game lost everything i had which wasn't a whole lot wrote some hot checks and coming home the next morning scared to death i was normally scared to death anyhow but even more frightened because i knew what was going to happen on monday or tuesday when those checks hit the bank those guys were going to come they are the ones who come and knock on your door and say, where is it? That's the game I was in. And as I drove along in that old secondhand car, I heard a preacher talking on the radio. And I didn't want to hear any preachers, even if it was Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. And just as I turned it off, I heard another voice that said, perfect love casts out fear. And instantly I felt the presence was in me and it was all around me. Perfect love casts out fear and I did not know how frightened I had been until instantly. I was not afraid. I felt so much love I couldn't stand it. It was a love above love and that presence that loved me loved everybody on this earth except we just don't know it. It had always loved me except I had not known it and I saw that what had happened on Thursday, Thursday, I had conformed to the steps of AA. I had actually in that prayer taken the steps. That's why I take them every day this morning before I was out of bed. I took the first step and the second and the third. In that moment, I understood the nature of the program of this fellowship and my life came alive. lie. There were possibilities that existed. This program became so exciting for me because I saw beyond sobriety. I saw and I believed that I could maintain my physical sobriete, but more than that, I believe that all the dreams that I had ever dreamed were real and that yours were real. I believed in miracles instantly just like that. I believe them in them. And I set out to experience them in my life, and that's what these 31 years have been, a series of exciting events as the result of these steps, as the result of the participation in this program, in this fellowship. And it was incredible. Three days after I was sober, like three days after this experience, correction, one night, It was on the Monday night. I discovered The Sermon on the Mount by Emmett Fox, this book I have in my hand, in a drawer of our clubhouse. No one had ever read it. It was just stuck in the drawer. And I picked it up and it amazed me because it was the story of what was happening to me inside myself. And then a short time later, I met Marty Mann. You know, Marty Mann? And we became dear friends over the years. And Marty told me the first night we talked. She said, well, The Serman on the Mountain is the original big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Before we had the big book, we would give this to the new members, particularly we in New York. And we would say, here, read this. It will fix you. If you haven't read the Sermon on the Mount, pick it up. It might fix you one day. I was reading page 52. And when you read page 52, you're not going to read what I read as I was reading it. I felt this presence and this voice that spoke to me. And it said, but you've got to forgive Garnet. And I dropped the damn book, I'll tell you. My life was so exciting. Miracles were happening to me. Friends, my whole life was turning around. It was exciting. For the first time in years it was exciting, for the first times since I was a child. And I said, I won't forgive Garnet. And the voice said, well, you will. And I says, I don't want to forgive her. And I say, I said I won' t. And the boy said, will you will? And I can't. And I knew I had God licked at that moment. You couldn't forgive garnet. it. Anybody that knew Garnet knew you couldn't forgive Garnett. And the voice said, it's not for Garnit that you will forgive Gernet. It's for you. You will not grow another inch. you will lose your joy the miracles that you're experiencing will die unless you forgive Garnet and I knew it was the truth and I did not want to know it I'll guarantee you I didn't want to and some of you understand exactly what I'm talking about because you have a Garnett But if your prayers aren't being answered and if you've lost your joy, hear those words. And I said, it's impossible, I can't do it. And as clearly as your face in my mind, I was shown how. The voice said, Alan was my youngest son, two years old, long, his hair had not been cut, long red hair and a smile that has never left his face. Incidentally, I talked to Alan last week, my youngest. He's going into treatment. So the smile won't have to leave his face. And the boy said, pick up Alan in your arms and love him. And I did, and it was so easy to love Alan. And I loved him so much I could hardly stand it. And then the boy says, now switch all that love to Garnet. i did and it quit i said see you can't love garnet i spent day after day loving alan and switching it to garnet and loving alan and switching at the garnet and one day when i switched that they didn't quite quit i didn't love him but i understood that garnet was like i was he had done the very best he could under the circumstances that existed Short time after that, I was driving along in that old automobile that I couldn't sell. On a four-lane road, and here passing me was a new 19-whatever-it-was, brand spanking new right off the showroom floor, Oldsmobile or Buick, two-tone brown. I can see it in my mind right now. And I was looking at that car. You know how we love new cars, especially if we don't have one? and that car got right out in front of me and I was admiring it and I looked over and you'll never guess who was driving it was Garnett and instantly like that I loved Garnet I loved him I was glad he had that car a month before I would have run him off the road if I'd seen him in that car and I loved his car and I went to him and made my amends to him as the big book said as the twelve and twelve told me to do I told him all the things not all of them he never knew how close he came to getting fixed When I told him that I would go to the people that I had spoken to and correct the things I had said, I'd do everything I could to correct what I had done to harm his life. And I did. Not only did I do that with Garnet, but I did that with every person. I took these steps literally and actually. And I still do. I still don't know. I still work. And they work. I have never done one of these things that there has not been an equivalent result in my life in the most amazing way. And you know that every Sunday morning, more than 2,000 people, I don't have many people in this room, but more people than this show up and they're always hearing about these steps. steps. They're not all alcoholics, but these steps will fix anybody. You want a miracle in your life? Then get out the 12 steps. You got a problem? You don't have a problem. You have the seed of a miracle in your light. Let's let go of this idea that we are trudging the road of tragedy and misery. It's not so. Look at your life. Examine your life find the problem areas that are there and become willing to be changed inside yourself become willing to let go of the old ideas that we still cling to that make us want to suffer a little bit more surrendering those ideas and watch what happens. About 30 days after After I made my amends to Garnet, he had a heart attack and he died. And I was so glad that I had followed the inner advice, made my Amends. My life has been good. I could tell you story after story of the miracle of it and the change of it and the excitement of it and the joy of it. Those early days I thought, will I lose this excitement? Will I lose this vision? And we don't have to. You don't need to. You don' t have to but if there is a tragedy in our program it is that we do not look Look beyond our sobriety. We do not look deep enough inside ourselves to give our dreams a chance to come alive again and to begin to set some new goals again and to practice these principles in all of our affairs again. It's the most exciting of all possibilities. I've been sober for ten years. I've done this for a long time. I've never been ten years old twice. I told you the first time. Let me share with you the miracle of the second time. I was afraid in the beginning that my alcoholism had destroyed the hope of a bright new future. Then I saw that it hadn't, and my life got better than it had ever been. And then it got better and better than that. And by the time that I was ten years old and in the program, my career had changed dramatically. And I wasn't falling up. I was moving up and enjoying my life. And at the time of my 10th birthday as it approached, I was in the process of taking a searching and fearless written inventory. I do that twice a year whether I need it or not. I always need it. And I received a call from the vice president of the Norfolk and Western Railway and he was inviting me and Bud. Remember Bud, the guy that came and made the 12-step call on me with Joe? Bud was the president of the company that I worked for. Together we had turned that company around, and it was and still is a very successful operation. And we were invited with a group of other businessmen in that community to take the weekend off, the guests of the railway, to go over to one of their properties in West Virginia. And we were to meet late in the day and be on two business cars that were attached to the train. And I said that I did not want to come because I was too busy. See, I knew that the reason I was being invited was that I had taken the Vice President's brother other to his first AA meeting. That was my contribution to the community that year. I'd done some other things, too, but I thought that's why he wanted me to go. And he said, Jack, I really want you to go, and so I went. Bud and I got on the train. We walked in, and the vice president turned to his porter and said, John, these gentlemen will have Coke or coffee, meaning they're members of AA. See, we don't have any anonymity. He introduced me to some people I did not know in that car. And then he said, Jack, come with me and moved into the second car. He said, you will dine here. In the center of each of those cars was a dining table. And just at that moment, I felt the jerk of the train as it left, began to move away from the station. And I was meeting some people that I had not yet met, businessmen from that community of my birth. And I'm standing in exactly the right place. Looking out the window, I suddenly saw Shenandoah Avenue and Fifth Street And remembered a time when I was ten years old Sitting on that very bank, watching a train Leaving the station, going west Wishing that I was on that train And wondering if there could be anybody that would love a little boy like me I stood there with tears streaming down my face I cry a lot in this program I knew that I would see the spot In just a moment where I sat And I knew That the prayer I prayed as a child Was being answered At the time of my tenth A.A. birthday Ten years old I sat there without shoes on my feet Without a present With alcoholics behind me Wanting to be on a train going west. And here I was. I ask you, is that a coincidence? No. It's the prayer. It's being answered. It's not just the prayer of your heart being answered and I can tell you tonight my friends that the earnest prayer of your mind will be responded to if you pray it. We passed that spot But I stood there crying, knowing that I was there as the result of these steps, the result to this program. Do you see why I love this fellowship? Do you say? My granddaughter, when she was in treatment, 16 years of age, wrote me a letter that I will treasure all my life. See, that day on the train, I discovered that it was not that my good had not come because I had found some people who loved me. My good had come because i had experienced a God who loved us all and that God's love in me loved everybody. I found that I could love and that love had set me free from the fear that had plagued my life. My granddaughter wrote me and she said, Granddaddy, I never understood you until now. And she said I see that it is your mission in life to tell people how great they are. You have always been telling me how great I am and I never believed it until now And it's true. Let me read to you in closing some words written by William Arthur Ward. You are great. It does not matter what has happened to you, you are great, it does not mater what your experience has been, do not judge yourself longer than this moment by what has happen to you because our book and our program promise you that in time you'll be glad that all those things occurred you are great within you are unlimited possibilities for good for growth and for achievement your mind is mightier than the tallest mountain stronger than the force of the winds and more powerful than the currents of the seas you're great your spirit which is the real you contains dormant seeds of vital energy energy of creativity, inspiration, infinite potentiality, and dynamic immortality. You are great. You have a beautiful, unique, and joyous influence that reaches far beyond your wildest dreams, blessing the lives of others beyond your fondest imagination, because the Spirit in you is great. You are a finely tuned instrument of love. If you will but believe it, share it, and the peace that already exists within you is yours for the asking. The world is waiting for you to put your greatness into action and to rise to new heights of enthusiasm, of service, of attainment, of prosperity and freedom. You're great. You are. But begin tonight to become even greater. God bless you. Thank you.