Tom O. at the 40th Anniversary – 1989

Shall you write forcefully and speak in the same manner? Hi everybody, my name is Tom and I'm an alcoholic. My name is It's Tom, an alcoholic and a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. It would be kind of stupid to be here if I wasn't a member of Alcoholic Anonymous, really. And I want to thank you for inviting me. I really and truly have enjoyed this weekend. And I will say one thing about this group. I went to the meeting last night, and I don't pretend to have extensively interviewed members of this group, but this is one of three groups that I've talked at their functions this year that has really been a delight to me because you people are practicing basic Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, not chicken shit. ooh-la-la stuff, and it's a real treat to get with people who are practicing real alcoholic principles. And this really doesn't have anything to do with anything at all except some kidding that's been going on over at my table. and I heard a female speaker not long ago and she summed her talk up with just about as good a summation as I ever heard in my life. I don't know how much time she had in the air, something like about seven years. And she was up in years. By that I mean she was past 40. and but what she said had happened to her in Alcoholics Anonymous was that she had lived through adolescence and menopause at the same time and I don't know that I had menopausal I may have, but I sure as hell lived through adolescence in our college anonymous because that's what I was. See, I skipped adolescence on the way coming up. I skipped it because it's too painful to fool around with if you can find a substitute for it. And I was one of the fortunate people who found a substitute for it. So I didn't go through all this pain that a lot of people go through. And I'm convinced that life has a purpose in this matter that if one will somehow or another gather together all his or her resources and live through this painful period where you got pimples on your face and stuff like that, that it'll grow you up into some kind of spiritually mature human being. but you see I found a substitute for that before the pimples got too bad and you won't understand what I'm saying unless I can make this clear I came to Alcoholics Anonymous because of what alcohol did to me that's why I came here and that's as good a reason as any that I know of to get anywhere and it really did do me I'll tell you but that was not my problem it wasn't my problem then and it's not my problem now and it never has been my problem my problem is what alcohol did for me and that's why I need Alcoholics Anonymous and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous as well as a principle because I have a time bomb taken away inside me that could go off and explode and destroy me totally at any moment and that time bomb is the memory of what alcohol did for me and you know as time goes by you forget the bad things you remember the good things and I'm standing right here right now and I can remember how it used to make me feel you know how it would go down and hit your stomach then work its way out through your arms to your fingertips and you might be shaking like this you know and then all of a sudden you're dead calm and who needs to suffer in a situation like that of course I had a hard time learning to drink really I don't know how to bring this up because some people don't like it and especially at banquet functions they don't want to drink they don' t like it when I'd drink I'd puke and people come up to me afterwards and they say you ought not to say that you ought to say you were sick at the stomach well it's not the same thing I mean it really isn't I mean mothers of infants know what I'm talking about there were times when I was sick at the stomach, I mean many, many, many times. But there were other times when I'd take a drink or two or three and feel as good as I feel right now and out of a clear blue sky I'd puke. And anything you do over and over and over you get good at it and I got good at puking. I did. I got so I could walk down the street and puke and never miss a step. and never get any of it on me either. And another thing I learned is once you really master a skill, you never really lose it. I have a son who graduated from West Point and transferred to the Air Force and he was a navigator in the Air force at that time. He's since retired. And one time he and his wife and infant son came to the house to visit at Christmas, I guess it was. And they brought this 24-hour flu bug with them. And you get sick in all directions with that stuff. And we don't have but one bathroom alone. And I told my son I was ashamed of him. You know, and I said, hell, if you ain't no better in the air than you are in the bathroom, the country's in a hell of a shape. But I was just as good as I was 30, 40 years ago. I could be sitting around that round table in our dining room and get up and go do what I had to do neatly and not miss my turn to talk. And I was determined to learn to drink successfully, and I finally learned how to drink without puking too much. The subject of okra came up over there at the table, and that's the reason I can't stand boiled okra. Now, I ain't even crazy about it fried, but I would eat it fried if it came down to the nitty-gritty, but I just can't eat it boiled. I mean, it's slick. And I don't really know whether it has any taste or not. I mean with me it goes down and comes right back up. and you know it occurred to me that I might become a social outcast if I didn't learn how to eat okra that people would look at me funny and so I practiced eating okra I mean I really give it a try but I just couldn't do it I mean every damn time it'd go down come right back up. And you know what I did? I just give it up. And I can't understand why a guy as intelligent as I am couldn't do that with alcohol if he could do it with Oakland. Of course, as far as the intelligent part is concerned, that's It's a great thing we've got saying in AA, you know, you hear it all the time. Did you know—somebody was talking to Norman Conrad, did you know that alcoholics are above average intelligence? You never hear that anyplace except at an AA meeting. I belong to numerous professional societies, several of which are psychiatric and psychological in nature. And I go to their seminars and conventions and sit on the edge of my chair in eager anticipation, waiting for some learned gentleman to raise his hand and say, Say, did you know that alcoholics are more intelligent than ordinary people? And I never have heard anybody say it any place except at an AA meeting yet. You see, for me a minimum definition of intelligence would be the ability to learn from experience. and I got a dog that can do that. Somebody asked me to tell this, I might as well tell it. This is as good a place to tell it as any other. About three drunk rabbits and their names were Foot and Foot Foot and Foot, Foot, foot. Now they weren't drunk rabbits, they were alcoholic rabbits because they were always fighting over their booze, you know, and stuff like that. Foot-foot-foot will go to foot and he'd say, foot-foot, steal my booze. And foot-toot-foot would say, look, foot, you and foot-foot will have to straighten that out between yourselves and leave me out of it. And then one day foot died and they give him a good funeral, but you know how it is, you got to get juiced up to go to the funeral. And after it's all over with, they're sitting alongside a fence with the ears, you know how a drunk rabbit looked. And foot-foot-foot turned to foot-to-foot and he said, well I guess we'll have to go to Alcoholics Anonymous now that we've got one foot in the grave. And that's not the only way to get here, but it's a way. Then the guy asked me to tell about this too. I mean, this is a true story. I mean I got two college degrees. I'm an educated drunk. and from the day I met my sponsor until the day he died I don't think he ever missed an opportunity to point out to me that rectal thermometers have degrees and everybody knows what you do with them and really I can't think of anything that is a greater drawback to meaningful sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous than two college degrees. For Christ's sake, high school is bad enough. But anyway, I did all that puking and stuff, but I didn't keep on doing that. I mean, I wanted to leave the town I was born in and the name of the town I wasborn in and live in and am in now right now is Lake Providence, not New Providence. That's just a minor thing. I mean, it doesn't make any difference to me what you call it, but I'd hate for any of you to be traveling around Louisiana looking for New Providences. I wanted to leave there and be a success and a hero and get out of that hick town. and I'd made real good grades in high school always made real Good grades every place I went and so I did I went off to college and I you know I thought that everything was going to be just fine but it wasn't at all like I expected I got off and there were new people and they were different kinds of people and they knew a lot of things that I didn't know. I'm talking about things like music and art and architecture, literature. And I felt worse off than I ever felt. And I remember one night four couples of us went out for a steak dinner and we were seated right around the table and the waitress came around and asked everybody what kind of dressing they wanted on their salad. And when she got to me, I said, craft. But see, y'all are just like they were. I mean, they laughed at me, and right then and there I began to develop a lifestyle which lasted until long after I had been in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it was this, that any time I said anything, I had to observe you closely to see how you understood it so I could decide how I meant it. And if you looked puzzled, I was a philosopher, and if you laughed, I wasn't. I was an economist. But to say all this drinking business that I did in these early days, I call that kid punk drinking. I don't think it had anything to do with me becoming an alcoholic at all, except one thing, and that's the only reason I bring it up. It emphasizes a point that I think I should say. In fact, I feel duty-bound to stand up here and say it, and dat is that if you're going to be an alcoholic, you've got to drink. Now, I tell you what, it's getting to be the end thing to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous nowadays. I mean, it really is. I mean there's a world of people out there that love all this stuff we've got in here, the kissing and the hugging and the caring and the friendship and all these good things that we've Got Going for us. And they'd like to get in, but they won't drink. Oh, I mean they won'T give it a fair trial is what I'm talking about. I know people that'll drink and puke and quit. And you can't get anyplace that way. I mean, you have to put some effort into it eventually. Maybe not right at first, but sooner or later you've got to put something up in there. You see, just everybody can't be an alcoholic. In order to be an alcoholic, you've had to have certain outstanding characteristics. You have to have courage and fortitude and the capacity to envision a goal and let nothing keep you from achieving that goal, and everybody just can't pull it off. And it's not good manners to pity disadvantaged groups in this day and age, and I don't want to commit a social error up here before you socially correct Missourians. But there is one group that I truly pity, and that's those people that would like to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and ain't got the guts to drink. So I think I'll say, I think, I have an obligation to say that in order to be an alcoholic, you've got to drink. Some people think that a neurotic will do it, but no, it may help. But I mean, you got to drink. And while we're on the subject there's another thing that there's a lot of misunderstanding about and I might as well bring that up too. And that is that in honor to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, you gotta quit. now there's a lot of people there again that like all the things we got the loving and the hugging and the kissing and all these good things they got but they miss out on the part about not drinking I really don't think it's all their fault I don't know I don' t think that we tell them the whole truth when they get here in the beginning there's a requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't make it up it was here when I got here the requirement for membership in AA is a desire to stop drinking now I think that the trouble is that a lot of people don't know what a desire is a lot of people think that the desire is something that if you got it it's all right and if you don't have it's alright don't make any difference one way or another actually I didn't know where the desire was when I came to Alcoholics us, but my wife taught me what a desire was. Now I realize that there's been a cultural shift between the days when I was 40 and today, but in my time we did what they call courted women. That means we ran from them until we got caught. And what women did in those days, I don't know really what they do today. They used to get next to us and they'd put a whole lot of ideas in our head and get us all ready for action. And then all of a sudden they draw a line and say, uh-uh. And what they really said now, if you ever stop to think about it was, if you decided you want what I got and are willing to go to any lengths to get it. Then you're ready to take certain steps. Of course, some of these we bought. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. You see, that's a desire. A desire is a screaming, meany itch to get the thing you desire. And you do anything in God's green earth to do it. And I'll tell you another thing about a desire, if you're going to have a desire you've got to have some kind of general idea of what it is you're going to desire in the first place. I mean, you can't just go out and sit in a field and desire. But anyway, I got off to college and met all these new people and something had changed in me. I don't know if it was my body, mind, spirit or the whole works or what but I didn't throw it up like I used to. Now, you know that's a horrible word I prefer puke any day to throwing up. And God, I hate vomit. You know, when I was a young kid in my teens, I used to take girls out and they had these damn open gas heaters that we used to use in the wintertime. I'd slip a few shots of booze before we'd go into a house. I was already hot for other reasons. and and get in there and that heater would start circulating the heat you know and I'd throw up on the carpet and mothers didn't like that at all and as many carpets as I've thrown up on you'd think I would throw up on an old one sometimes, but every carpet I ever threw up on was a brand new one. They just got it, you know? But I discovered when I got off to college and was a little bit older that I wasn't like that anymore. I could take a drink or two or three, and strange things happened to me. For one time and thing, any time I looked at a group of people like say you I only had one or two thoughts and those thoughts were do you threaten me or could I use you but with a drink or two or three in me all that changed and I changed and you change and I could tell by looking at you I could tell by the expression in your eyes after I'd had a drink of two or three that you were saying Tom come out and join us we want you we love you we need you, come be part of it. And the change on my part was that I became charming, utterly charming. And so I lost my fear of people. And with a drink or two or three in me, I could go out amongst you and genuinely participate in the things that you were doing. And that was something that I couldn't do sober. Sober, I was a nerd. But with a drink or two or three in me, I really part of the scene and I liked it. I really liked it and so I liked to drink when I was with people but it wasn't just when I'm with people that I like to drink. I like the drink when I am by myself sometimes. I used to like to take a drink of two or three and look in the mirror and talk to myself. I used to call myself Sully baby and I'd take a drink or two or three and smooth my hair back and say Sully baby you're gonna make it. I had no idea what I was gonna make but I just felt comfortable with myself and I like to look at myself. When I excuse myself to go down to the room where Monique made me go a different direction, I came back and was drinking coffee in the room next door and all by myself and there's a full view mirror up there you know and I thought man what a godsend I could stand and look at myself all afternoon. But I used to like to take a drink or two or three and talk to myself in the mirror, and I'll be real truthful with you, some of this mirror talking was done in the nude. I assume we got some nude mirror talkers in the room. Don't react. And then again I liked to drink when I was by myself when I was going to dental school in New Orleans I lived on the second floor of an apartment building and outside was what during the day was a kind of a dreary looking scene. A couple of street car tracks and some old scraggly trees but at night with a drink or two and three in me, God it was beautiful and I used to like to sit by the window with a couple of drinks in me and just look out at the sheer beauty of the night. And sometimes I'd sit by that window and I'd get sweet music on the radio after I'd had a couple of drinks. And I'd cry. And I loved to cry. I don't mean bawl. I mean just fill right on up to here with real wet, hot tears and have them flow over my lids and course down my cheek. And I always did think that there was something beautiful about having a drink or two or three and feeling good and being sad. And I liked this as a way of life, and so I pursued it. And it's no mystery to me at all how I became an alcoholic. I had had a problem and not a problem was solved, and that's all there was to it. And I've often said this, that for me it was just as though I had been walking down the street and turned a corner and got lost. Because all of a sudden this beautiful life that I had built up began to fall apart. i was married i had three beautiful children i had these two college degrees i graduated from dental school taking an internship taking a six months course in advanced basic sciences i was in the regular army i was overseas on a simple on a diplomatic mission On the general staff, an automobile assigned to me with chauffeur. I had all those things that they say alcoholics want. Money, power, prestige, all right there in the palm of my hand. And hell, I was only in my early 30s, for crying out loud. And all of a sudden it started falling apart. people started talking ugly about me they said i smell bad well i'll admit that at one time in my drinking career i quit bathing now i didn't taper off i just quit i mean Well, I had a traumatic experience. That's what happened. I'm married to a woman that I don't care what your problem is. Her first solution is to take a good hot bath. Now, I think when you've been an Alcoholics Anonymous as long as I have, you have to develop a set of relative values that you're going to live by. and I want to make it clear that today I will take a bath. But I also want to make it clearer that I can think of about 13 things that I'd rather do than take a good hot bath. But this was a Saturday night and she conned me into getting into the bathtub to take this good hot bathe. I don't know why. I can't imagine her paying any attention to me saying I didn't feel well. and I got in there and it dawned on me that the Texas liquor stores which were a block and a half downhill down the street closed at 10 o'clock and didn't open again until 6 o' clock Monday morning and I didn't have enough booze to last me through the weekend so I jumped out of that tub and reached for my britches and she had hit them And I begged her and begged her And begged her to give me back those bitches And you know, I don't see anybody here Because this is a nice genteel crowd But a lot of times I go places Where they got these tough guys That are wearing leather jackets And all this macho fellas, you know I got a message for you too And the message is this I don't care how tough you think you are, you ain't nothing without your britches. And I didn't do any praying because I didn'y have anybody to pray to, but I found somebody to pray to real quick. I got on my knees and prayed to her to give me back my britches and she gave them back to me at the very last possible moment and I put them and them only on and dashed downhill a block and a half to the Texas liquor store and went in and bought my weekend supply trying to look cool. And, you know, I may have been sick but my mother didn't raise any damn fool and so I'd just give up the bath. I wasn't going to risk anything like that anymore. And I'll tell you another thing. I didn't come into Alcoholics Anonymous on Monday and start bathing on Tuesday either. That's not the way I worked this program. I had to take it gradually. And I hear people saying, you know, when I came to AA, they had their arms outstretched and they said, we've been waiting for you. Well, that's not what my group said to me. I mean, they tried to discourage me from coming to our college. They used to hold regional meetings, groups from other towns, to see if there was a legitimate way to keep me out of here. And I learned a very valuable lesson there right from the beginning. We're a cross-section of the society that we live in, And we've got a lot of wonderful people in AA. And we also got a bunch of bastards in here. And I learned right then and there that no bastard can run me out of AA. The only person who can put me out OFA is me. And I ain't got no intentions of leaving. So, you know, I can say that with utmost confidence. but I tell you one thing you never had any trouble getting a seat at a meeting that I was at when I first came in there and it was always one in front and back and on either side vacant but see they didn't have all these spray deodorants like they got nowadays man I got some Jovan that would cover spray stuff that would cover up any kind of odor But they didn't have that back in those days. I mean, those were primitive days. They had what they call a mom's pad, you know? Some kind of sticky, stupid stuff that you'd put on your arm and just make you smell worse, that's all. So nobody... You know, there was always a seat open in front and back and on either side of me when I went to meetings. And one reason was when I came to AA first time, something was crawling on me and I used to spend a whole lot of time looking for it. And towards the end of my drinking I had developed some spasms. I could be talking to you and all of a sudden my arms would go out like that. Or I'd be walking down the street and all OF a sudden and my legs would go out like that. Now, it didn't bother me. Actually, I sort of missed it when it went away. But I'd be sitting there in the group looking for whatever it was that was crawling on me and have one of them spasms and everybody would think I had found it. Well, I was getting in trouble on this sensitive diplomatic mission that I was on overseas and I knew I was in trouble and didn't know how to get out of it. They were the ones that started that smelling bad stuff. And they also said my hands shook. Well, now I knew my hands were shaking. But I had a way figured out to where I was real good shape up to 10 o'clock. And if you would come to me by 10 o clock, you'd have got the best professional care that you could have desired. Now, I never did like to get up early in the morning, but my wife again is one of these women that thinks if you're going to be well, you have to eat well. And she wanted me to go to work with a hearty breakfast under my belt. Well, in those days, I couldn't just sit down and eat. I had to get ready to eat. So as much as I hated to getup early inthe morning, Then I had to get up early enough to get drunked up enough to eat breakfast. And breakfast would sober me up, and then I had to get it drunked-up enough to go to work but not so drunk that I couldn't go to work. And that's work. I ain't talking about no 40 hour week. I'm talking about 365 days out of the year every night when I went to bed I knew exactly how I was going to feel when I woke up in the morning, sick as a dog. And before I'd go to work, I used to put a drop of Charlemagne perfume on my tongue. Later on they had some proceedings against me in the Army and they asked a major that had an office next door to me how I smelled when I came to work in the mornin'. And he said, well, you smell like a drunken French whore. And I can remember a lot of times I'd have someone cut on the inside from here to here and it'd come time to sew them up and the clock would strike ten. And so I'd have to stuff a lot of cotton in their mouth and go out in the corner and take a drink and they were narrow-minded Well, the reason I say they were narrow-minded is this You see, if I had been a jack-legged dentist I'd let them go with their damn gums flapping in the breeze But I've never been that kind of a person I have always been a professional man With the highest ethical and moral standards And the only way I could get my hands steady enough to sew them up was to take a drink And I was the only dentist within 1,500 miles And then somebody told me, he said Well, if you're having trouble with your hands shaking He said, why don't you take a goofball or two I assume everybody in the room knows what a goof ball is It's a grain and a half second old capsule so I took a couple of three of them one morning to see how that worked out and I went to sleep in the ladies' lap and boy if you don't think that caused some talk around the institution people put evil connotations on the simplest things all I did was just keel over and take a nap When I came back to the United States, I knew it was in some sort of trouble and I went to an Army doctor that was well thought of and I told him I thought I might be an alcoholic. I have no idea where I got that word from. Don't remember ever hearing it before. I was a captain in the dental corps at the time and he said to me, he said, I'm glad you came to me. Just last week I cured a major general. Well, that was good news. So they put me in a hospital and stuck a lot of needles in me and out me and up me. And the cure didn't take. And for a long time I thought it was because I was just a captain. And I'm not trying to be funny, really. I can remember walking down the street and saying to myself, If I was just somebody else, all this wouldn't be happening. And I got the same help that you got. They used to say to me, why don't you drink like Bill? Bill's a bald-headed brother-in-law of mine. I've been sober today for 28 and a half years, and tonight or this afternoon, I feel about Bill exactly as I did 39 years ago. I don't want to do anything like Bill. And besides, how do you drink like Bill? And then they used to tell me, get right with God. And I got the same problem this afternoon that I had back then too. How do you do it? how do you do it? You know, I'm going to stand up here and say something that's going to shock you but it's something that I believe and it's this I don't think that Alcoholics Anonymous has got the answer to your problem and the reason I say that is there's no chapter in the book titled There's an Answer The title of the chapter is, There's a Solution. And that's what we've got. We've got a time-tested, experience-proved solution, and you have to put you in the solution and come up with your own answer. And I think it may perhaps be the ultimate glory of this fellowship that we basically don't pretend to have an answer. But we do have a time tested, experience, prove, solution that you have to put yourself in the solution and come up with your own end. And then they tried to scare me into not drinking. And I don't think you can scare an alcoholic into not drinkin'. That reminds me of a story that I got absolutely no business in the world tellin', but I'm gonna do it anyway. It's about a little boy and his mama caught him playing with himself. And she gave him a doomsday lecture. She said, that'll make you go blind. And he said, well, could I keep on doing it just till I have to wear glasses? And that's almost a textbook definition of being an alcoholic. You see, if it ever gets real bad I'll quit well I got another thing I'd like to say and I've been trying to say this in a nice way and I just can't figure it out I mean I stay at home sometimes and I just go over in my head trying to make it come out nice and it won't come out nice it comes out ugly every time but I'll give it another shot I went to AA my wife told on me and a guy came the old classic now like they used to do and sat down by the bed and told me his story and all this kind of stuff and I said I would go I really didn't have any bad vibrations about going I mean I was willing to go and I don't remember that I had any ulterior motions one way or the other about going or not going, and I went. And I say that I went for more than six months and less than two years. I really could narrow it down to a better period than that if I thought it was important, but I just don't think it's that important. So I let it go. I went from more than 6 months and lesson 2 years and one night I walked out of a meeting and didn't come back and I didn't walk out the meeting for any reason other than to go home I wasn't mad at anybody I didn'y have any resentments against anybody I didn''t dislike anybody in the group I didn ''t think it wouldn''t work or was a waste of time anything like that I just walked out the door and didn'''t come back and that is the simplest thing in the world do is to walk out the door and not come back I came back five years later when I walked out the doorway that night I still had all the things that I held precious to me in life I had my wife the family of the home the car the job the money, the whole word. When I came back five years later, I had $1.35 in my pocket and that was it. Everything else was gone. The reason I say this is because almost every place I go, I haven't heard it here, but almost every place I Go, I hear somebody say, but I don't like AA. And the answer that I can't get to come out pretty is who the hell cares whether you like it or not? We're not running a damn charm school here. We're not even running something that is the difference between life and death. What we're running here is a possibility of entrance into life from death. And it might be a good idea to stick around if for only one reason, and that is that in the final analysis it may be the only game in town so I came back with my dollar and 35 cents and my mother died and I was left in this big house all by myself I had run out of friends and enemies at the same time a lot of people think if you don't have any enemies, you're all right. I mean, but those same people think that love and hate are opposites but they're not really. Love and hate have a lot in common. One thing they have in common is that they bind you to the object of your feeling one just as much as the other. You're just as bound to somebody you hate as you are to somebody you love. that's how I sponsor people I can't get them to love me but it's no job at all to get them to hate me and so you know I got people all over Northeast Louisiana that can't stand my guts and I really feel sorry for their wives because at night their wives think that they're going to bed with their husbands but they're not There's 15 wives that I know of That take me to bed with them every night Because this guy ain't got no time for his wife He's too busy hating me Which is exactly what I want I want it to be kept on his mind, see And then so I got the satisfaction Of knowing that he's going to have to make amends To me before he'll ever be able to leave So a guy came by one day and asked me if I'd go to an AA meeting And as I said, I didn't have any friends nor enemies So I'd have gone anywhere and I went to AA And this time it was entirely different I had already stopped drinking before I came to AA And I want to tell you why or how I stopped drinking I stopped drinking because I fell out of bed one night and that was no big deal because I was always falling out of bed and it didn't make any difference whether I came to on the floor or in bed I don't ever remember coming to in between but I doubt if that would have made any difference but this night I fell out of the bed and I lay there on the floor and something happened now I'm going to tell it to you like I think that it happened but don't pay too much attention to it because I realize that a lot of it's in my head it was like a light was turned on and I was able to look just far enough ahead to see what was going to become of me. I was goingto become a homeless drunk that's what was going to happen to me and I don't think I minded being a drunk so much because I didn't know anything else in the first place but I didn'y want to be homeless and a drunk at the same time and as I lay there on that floor I earnestly wished that the direction of my life would change and I didn't pray because I didn' t have anybody to pray to but I don' t think that prayer is necessarily a matter of words spoken or unspoken but that in many instances it is a matter of total inner attitudes and feelings and that night I had gone as far along the path that I was going as I ever wanted to go And as I said, I earnestly wished that this be changed. Well, I got up off the floor and I remember walking around the house. Not one single thing in the house had changed. The dirty dishes were still in the refrigerator, the dust was on the floor, the house looked like somebody unloaded a truckload of shit in it and everything was just like it was when I fell out of bed but the greatest single thing that ever happened in my life had already taken place and I didn't even know it I had taken my last drink now here's some of the things I think about that experience if somebody say an angel had appeared to me as I lay on the floor that night and said you know I'll give you three wishes I'd rather be Barbara Eden than a angel but I guess I'd have had to take what I could get. I would have said, say that I wanted my self-respect back. I'd like to have my family back. I'd want to be productive. Those aren't bad things, are they? But I wasn't given any of those things. I was given the gift of sobriety. I never asked for sobriety for the simple reason that I didn't never dream that that's what I needed. If I had thought for a moment that that is what I needed, I probably might have asked for it. So I went to AA with this guy and I really got right into it. The hell with the first eleven steps, I got that kind the message stuff. And I set out to sober up all of northeast Louisiana. Whether you had a drinking problem or not didn't make any difference. You were going to get a call from me and my spiel. But, you know, that kept me sober for a long time. I know some people that I worked with you know they really were alcoholics and I used to tell them stuff and monopolize their time and take them to meetings and all that stuff and I just think to myself what a great work I was doing and today I look back on it and I realize those guys and gals were keeping me sober so So if you're having trouble staying sober and you're new, go out and grab somebody and carry the message to them whether they want to listen to it or not. I mean, whether they even need it, what difference does it make? Action is the name of the program. And people, I hear people say, well, should a newcomer carry the messages? Listen, if you are an alcoholic and you've been sober for one day, you got one powerful message to carry to another alcoholic because I know one time I called on a guy and I told him I said you know you could stay sober for one day and he said one day for Christ's sake man what do you think I am and there are a lot of people out there in that condition and I went out hunting for them and they kept me sober. And I began to learn more and more things about Alcoholics Anonymous by listening to what was going on in the meeting. I got caught up in the steps very shortly after I came into AlcoholicsAnonymous, and I'm a nut on the steps. I always have been. Of course, this same guy that asked me to come to AA in the first place, he should have been a preacher, I mean really, because he sounded like one, he acted like one. And he used to point to the steps up on the wall and he'd say, the minute I looked at those beautiful steps on the walls, I knew I had found what I had been looking for all my life. And that's when I began to suspect that he wasn't playing with a full deck, because as far as I'm concerned the steps of paying the buck. They produce beautiful results. Don't get me wrong, but doing them is something else. And it's not all that easy to do things in AA. For example, when I was about eight years old, I was an altar boy in the Catholic Church and one Sunday I stole a buck off the collection plate. And I got caught and punished, but I was one of these people that couldn't receive the punishment, I guess. And there were only three people that knew about it, me and the priest and my mother. And many a night, I was in the regular army and I lived all around the world, and many a night in places like Paris and Rome and Cairo and Tokyo and wherever, just as I'd be ready to doze off to sleep up at Pop That Buck. And I'm not saying it made me drink but I am saying it kept me from having any kind meaningful serenity. And I never will forget how delighted I was when I got a letter from my mother saying that the priest had died. That was the best news I had had in months because now nobody knew but my mother and me, and I knew my mother wouldn't pimp on me. And I happened to watch my mother die, I wasn't sober yet, and she lay there dying a whole tumble of thoughts crossed through my mind. This wasn't the only one by a long shot but I did have this thought. Now nobody knows, Nobody knows about stealing a buck except, of course, me. And I could carry that to the grave with me. Then I came here to Alcoholics Anonymous and I ran into some of you loose-mouthed people. Well, that's the truth. Some of you people sit around in casual conversation and tell each other things that no sane human being would tell a confessor or attorney. I often wonder what people outside Alcoholics Anonymous would think if they knew what really goes on in here. They'd see four people sitting at a table and everybody talking and they'd think there's a lot of communication going on, but no, no,no,no. There's four monologues taking place. And everybody's just sitting around in neutral waiting for another person to take a deep breath so they can submarine in and take over. Now, it's almost impossible to tell somebody in AA what a rat you are. You go out and you start to tell someone, I want to tell you what a rat I am. You say, wait a minute, let me tell you where the rat I am. And I'd go to meetings at night and I'd want to tell somebody about stealing that buck and just about the time I'd get the words out of my mouth, somebody would say, let me tell you what I did. I remember one night at home before I went to the meeting, I really was burned up, boy, and I can remember slamming the table like that. And I said to myself, by God, I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous until I'm gray-headed, but I'm gonna tell somebody about stealing their dollar. so I was glad when I got to the fifth step and found somebody who would shut up and let me tell him all these things I had been wanting to tell somebody about me all my life You see, if you try to do that with ordinary people, you know what they do? They'll pat you on the back and say, I don't worry about it. You're a fine fellow and we've got the greatest conference in the world. You know what that means? That means get the hell away from here and don't bother me with your problem. But this guy sat there at his desk across... I was sitting across the desk and he's sitting over by the desk in palm trees there. And he let me lay the whole pile of crap right there on his desk, the entire pile. And look, when I went in there, I knew I was taking a risk. I was well aware of the fact that I was in probably one of the biggest risks in my life because I was perfectly aware that I may just get started and he could easily say, Well, wait a minute, hold it. It's true to the Alcoholics Anonymous us is for the dregs of humanity, but we really didn't have people like you in mind." But I took that risk. And as I say, he let me put the whole pile of crap right there on his desk. He listened. He didn't talk. Just grunted every once in a while to let me know he was paying attention. And when I was through, he said, well, you know we loved you. That was the first time I had experienced unconditional acceptance. I didn't have to make A's in school, I didn' t have to be an all-state fullback. All I was was another human being in trouble and here was another human being who was accepting me as I was at the moment that I confronted him and he confronted me and he didn't ask any questions, he simply made the statement, you know that we love you. So I went on with the rest of the steps and they've proven a godsend in my life. They've given me a way to live, for one thing. I don't wonder what I have to do in order to not be miserable. Now, a lot of times I'm getting miserable and I know exactly why I'm miserable. And I stay miserable just as long as I feel like it. And then I go ahead and do what I know I should have done two days beforehand. That happens especially between husband and wife. I heard a wife say that her husband would admit he was wrong to anybody his secretary, the janitor didn't make any difference who the hell it was except her wouldn't admit he wasn't right he was right or wrong to her I have that same trouble but I'm getting better at it I think but I don't have to be miserable because I've got a way of life to go and I've got something to do that's meaningful in my life and I don't have to drink anymore. You see, the problem wasn't that I drank. The problem was that I had to drink. And when I first came in, that's the way people used to introduce themselves. They would say, My name is Joe and I haven't been sober for a hundred years and I have not found it necessary to take a drink today. Haven't found it necessary to take a drink today. That's the big deal with me see I haven't found that necessary to drink today as I say I went out and I spread the message right and left it brought in great dividend if the word gets out that you're willing to help you don't have to go hunting for people they'll come to you. I was in my office one day and a lady came in, she looked like she had 15 children with her. I know they weren't that many because they all looked like they were about five years old. And she had been over to the local physician's office and had asked over there if they could do anything about a husband who was drinking too much. Well the physician didn't know anything about it, no physician knows anything about it unless he's a member of our college or none. They don't know from up. But I had worked with his office nurse's brother for a long, long time. And she knew that I'd worked with him and that he was sober and living a pretty decent life. So she called the lady off to the side and she said, you go over to Dr. O'Sullivan's office and talk to him because he fixes drunks. so that's how she came over there and she told me her story and I said well I'll tell you what I'll go out there after work but it'll be kind of late there you know not too late about 730 and I'll talk to him I said do you think he'll talk to me. She said, oh yeah, he said he'd talk to you. So I did. They lived way back up in the country on some old dirty roads and I drove back up there and I had just bought a new canary yellow Plymouth. When I'm talking about new, I'm telling about 18 miles. And I got partway out there and i got to thinking what if I ask this guy to go to a meeting and he agrees and throws up in my car. And I started to go back and get a friend of mine that had a pickup truck, but I really couldn't find a place to turn around, and so I had to keep on going. And when I got there, the whole bunch of them was all at the front door to meet me. And And this is why I say about outsiders, if they knew what we were doing and could look and see what we're doing, they'd really think we were nuts. She said he's in that room back there but she said he was drunk. And so I went back in the room and they all ran outside the house and got underneath the window where they could peek through and see and listen to everything that was going on. sure enough I did get there too late. He was, he'd had too much. This guy couldn't have been five feet tall. Ain't no way he could have made five feet. He's bald-headed. I doubt if he had hair under his arms for Christ sake, much less on his head. And he He was laying in his bed in his drinking uniform, dirty shorts and dirty socks. Same thing for women, dirty pants and dirty bras, I mean it's all the same. But I got in there too late, I had no question about that, and he had an end table by the side of the bed had a brown felt hat on it. But I'd driven all that distance and I decided I was going to talk to him whether he could hear it or not. I mean, I ain't driving all that distant and not getting to say anything. So I pulled up a chair and sat down and started talking to him while he was out practically. And then something happened to me that I want to warn you against. I want to warn everybody against, and this is a dead serious warning. I mean I ain't joking a bit about this. And if it ever happens to you, run, don't walk, run and get away and as far away as quickly as you can. While I was talking to him, a light went on in his eyes. And if that ever happens to you, you've had it forever for the rest of your life. And he sat up in bed and he looked at me and he smiled and he reached over and he grabbed that brown felt hat and smashed it down on top of his head. And I guess I was bewitched by that light that had gone on in his eyes or something because usually I'm fairly observant of what's going on in my environment but I just was spellbound he stood up in bed and the first thing you know he was going up and down on the spring like this then I surely should have suspected something when I saw that and all of a sudden he went down bent those knees and he leaped out of that bed and put his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist and And with his nose right here, he said, do you love me? And I said, yeah, I love you. As I was disentangling myself. And as I was leaving, his mother said to me, I mean, his wife said tome, she said, I don't see how you could say you love him. And I said, you know, I'm not so sure that a mother loves a newborn baby so much for what he or she is as she does for what she knows the child can become. But she accepts the ugly, wrinkled, red-faced, squalling brat as he is or she is at the moment that the confrontation takes place. She doesn't say go away kid and come back when you're three and cute. but she accepts him and offers herself as a channel through which the child can grow and blossom and flower and someday perhaps mature into that which God from all eternity meant him or her to be. And isn't that what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous? I don't think we should ever ask an alcoholic to come up to where we are because I think the glory of this fellowship is a God-given capacity that each one of us has to get down in the gutter if need be with the alcoholic who's still suffering put our arms around him and then both stand up and that's what alcoholic is all about and keep that arm around him or her until such times they can walk alone I tell all the people that I sponsor that my primary objective is to get rid of them and that is the fact I mean I want to hold them up until such time as they can walk by themselves then let them go out and do the same thing for somebody else and so my life has changed from that of a bum a moocher I never will forget another thought I had when my mother was dying and the thought was this what's going to become of me now because I haven't got anybody to take care of me 43 years old ain't that a profound thought for a 43 year old man to have But really it's summed up back on some page in the big book. Spiritual Appendix 2, Appendice 2, Spiritual Experience, down at the bottom of the page this is what it says last couple sentences it says with few exceptions our members discovered that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently come to identify with their own concept of a power greater than themselves many of us believe that the awareness of this power is the essence of a spiritual experience Our more religious members call it God consciousness. Now, I'm practically finished, but those words mean so much to me that I'm going to say them one more time. With few exceptions, our members discovered that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently come to identify with their own concept of a power greater than themselves. Many of us believe that the awareness of this power is the essence of a spiritual experience or awakening. Our more religious members call it God consciousness. You see, that's the thing that I'm grateful to you for. And as was said last night, gratitude is thankfulness in action. And I'm saying that I am grateful to You for taking an arrogant, hostile, evil-smelling, ignorant idiot like me and being tolerant enough and compassionate enough in your understanding love to go down in the gutter where I was and pick me up and hold me up and walk along beside me until such time as this thing could become a living reality in my life. Thank you. Thank you.