Two Zombies and a Ride Around Town 😂 – Betty P.

Betty! Betty! Betty! Betty! Betty! Betty! Betty! Betty! Betty! Good evening, everyone. My name is Betty Pyatt, and I am an alcoholic. And it is only through the grace of God, a God that I found in this program, and people just like you who loved me enough and encouraged me to get involved in my own recovery. That's the only reason I'm here tonight, filled with a love, with a peace, and with joy. And for that I say thank you, Alcoholics Anonymous. My sobriety date is April 23, 1985. Before I get started, I would like to say thank you so much to each and every member of the committee that put this wonderful conference together. I'm not real good with names, and I've met so many new and wonderful people, and so I just say to each и every one of you, I know how hard it is to put together something like this, and to do it from out of town, to me, would seem what an order. I couldn't go through it but it's been a wonderful experience for me and I thank each and every one of you the phone calls the love concern the hosting to all of you on the committee thank you so much you know every time I try oh I owe this program and I've tried the best of my ability to pay back and you know it's so hard because I just keep getting and getting and getting and so again I say thank you I want to thank all the wonderful people that hosted us and took us to dinners and to lunches with all of their friends and to each and every one of you who has hugged me through this whole weekend and is here tonight just sharing your love with me thank you you know when I go home and I'm going to want to come back to a really special place I'm gonna close my eyes and I've got to be able to see that mountain covered with chocolate chip cookies and melt in your mouth. I have never seen so many chocolate chip cookies in my life. Boy, thank you. I spoke with my sponsor yesterday and she reminded me that when I'm asked to share, I have nothing to share with you but my experience, strength, and hope. And anything else I try to say is going to be a lie. So with all the earnestness at my command, I will try to share with you as honestly as I can what it was like, what happened, and what it's like today. And for that, I'm going to take you all the way back. I was born December the 13th, 1930, and I'll let you do the math, to an unwed mother who was a student nurse. And back in 1930, I was given away immediately for adoption. I stayed in the little girl's orphanage for a couple of years and was blessed to be taken up and adopted by a family who lived in Las Vegas and had a daughter who was four years older than I was. And so, I stayed at Las Vegas until I was around four years old. Now that was in the early 30s and times were hard. And so my dad moved us all back to Santa Fe where he could get a job with the state. and I was immediately enrolled in Loretto Academy School for Girls. Now, I want you to know that right from the get-go, I did not fit the plan of a good little Catholic girl that sits with her skirt pulled down and her hands folded because I want to know why. And because when you tell me why, I've got a better reason. And don't tell me thou shalt not, because I can figure out a way that it'll be okay for both of us. So that was my experience in Catholic school. I have to tell you that my mom and dad never told me that I was adopted. But you know how kids are, and they have big ears, and people would visit with my mom, and They'd say, Oh, is that her? And oh, isn't she cute? And I knew there was something different going on. When I was 11 years old, my mom had a little boy. And of course he was the apple of my dad's eye. So now I'm the middle kid. I've got an older sister and then there's me and then there's my little brother. And people would say to my mom, you're so lucky. You have a daughter that looks just like you and a son that looks like you. He looks just as good as his dad. And I'd say, well, Mom, who do I look like? And she'd say, oh, Betty Marie, you just look like Betty Marie. Well, you know, there was unrest within me. And I know one time we were out on the playground playing a silly little game called Colors where there was a stepmother and the big bad wolf in Colors. And there was no running. The stepmother couldn't do any running. And so nobody wanted to be the stepmother. And one of the little girls said, let Betty Marie be the steppmother. She has a stepmother. She'll know how to act. Well, my heart sunk. My secret was out. They knew. And I immediately went in not just anger but a tremendous rage. And that was pretty frightening because we were all pretty young kids. But I knew then that my secret was OUT, that everybody knew, and I was different. Well, we continued on. I went to school. When I was in junior high school, the war was on, World War II, and there was a tremendous shortage of nurses and so I got a job as a nurse's aide at the local hospital and at that time they had the cadet nurse Corps and right away I idolized those women and what it was you would graduate from high school in and sign up for the cadets Corps they would put you through nursing school and then you would serve a certain number of years with the military and so i plant that was my life it was planned that's what I was going to do but in 1948 when I graduated from high school the war was over and the cadet nurse corps was abolished and so so much for that plan well I decided I'll show them I'll just get a job save some money and put my own self through school now in Santa Fe New Mexico at that time there wasn't a big demand for young ladies just out of high school with really not no skills and so I had an opportunity either to go to work for state government or the telephone company and I didn't have any political mentor to get me into state government so I went to work the telephone company and that was in the days when there was lights on the board and cords and the operator said number please and it was it was a good experience for me it taught me responsibility I had my own spending money I didn t learn much about how to handle that but that's another another program in another story we all had to join the Union now you know I'm 17 18 years old I'm gonna do what everybody else says so we joined the Union and once a month we had a meeting and we would go to different people's houses and we would deal with our business and then we would all pitch in money in the kitty and they would order either a keg of case of beer or a bottle of booze in those days they would deliver it to your house. And I don't remember getting drunk at those meetings, but I do remember that I stayed until I drank my share. And if anybody had to leave early, I was available to help finish it up. We used to get paid once a week and we would, one time we all, all us gals got together and decided we would go to a little town, Española, New Mexico, which was about 26 miles north of Santa Fe and go dancing because they wouldn't car this there and so we all drive up there and and so we sit around this table everybody orders drinks and one gal said I think I'll have a zombie well I didn't know what that was sounded like a plan to me so I didn t have one zombie I had two and what happened was I got drunk I I blacked out, and I got very, very sick. And I can remember those gals driving round and round in town until I got sober enough to be able to crawl up the stairs home. And when I got up the next morning feeling really bad, you know what my first thought was? Gosh, that was fun. I wonder when we're going to do it again. Well, you know, I continued working. my sister was dating a young man they were getting kind of serious and he came over to visit my mom one time and he brought her this bottle of sherry herring and so my dad opened the bottle and everybody got a little glass and they all drank it and sipped it and everything and mom put the bottle away and she said you know, it wasn't very good well, nobody asked me but the same group of gals we would get together and once a week we'd go roller skating so I lived on the north end of town and the only girl that had a car would come by and pick me up first and I would invite her into the kitchen and we'd pour out a little glass of this sherry herring and then we'd go skating away well you know one Saturday morning we're cleaning house and mom looks at the bottle and it's empty and she said well what do you suppose happened to this and I said oh mom it was all sugar it evaporated so you know I was already beginning my journey My sister got married And my brother-in-law Had his younger brother be the best man So we were invited to a lot of parties He and I got along pretty good And after my sister was married He and i were dating And my sister Was married in june And the following february I was pregnant and married We do that a lot in my family and so um the one thing my husband said to me was no wife of mine is going to work so i was a stay at home mom and god blessed us with five children um one of the traditions we had in my house i didn't drink when i was pregnant not because i didn't try but but i just physically couldn't And when I had my first child, the doctor said to me, are you planning to nurse the baby? And I said yes. And he said, well, I suggest that you drink a little beer. That helps the process. And so it was a tradition every time there was a new baby in the family, daddy would go pick up mom from the hospital and the new baby stopped at the liquor store for a case of beer. I mean, you know, I was raising my family. i can also tell you that um my husband wasn't catholic but i still was and so uh we were raising our kids in the church and that means you know there's godparents because you've got baptism confirmation and then first communion and you know graduations and on and on and so the one thing that i can tell you as i look back over now that i'm sober is if you didn't drink you really weren't invited to be part of this godfather hood you know and we would have these big parties and we lived I'm sure some of you have heard in Santa Fe they have the burning of old man gloom at the annual Fiesta and we lived only a couple of blocks away from the big park where that all took place people would come to our house and park their car and we would have a party so for about a week before the party our friends would start bringing in the supplies you know there was always cases of beer and booze and we'd order a keg and you know after I got sober one of my kids said to me you mom you know mom do you remember those fiesta parties it was a bigger celebration than Christmas was and so and so it went you know my husband was self-employed and every Friday he had to put out a report and in those days he He had a mimeograph machine, a hand-cranked mimegraph machine. And then he'd fold up these papers and we'd lick the envelopes and put the snaps on it. So Friday at noon, he would quit work, come home and run off his report. And we'd buy a case of beer because we had to lick the envelope. And so the weekend would start Friday afternoon and Saturday and Sunday, you know. And as the years progressed, sometimes the weekend Would start on Thursday to get ready for Friday. and sometimes by Sunday it was better to have a little bit more on Monday. My husband and I were drinking buddies. So the kids grew up, and we found ourselves with three children in college. And although they were all working and had scholarships, finances were a little tight. And so my husband said, yes, you can go back to work. So I went back to the telephone company to work, and I was working late hours. And after a couple of years, I bridged my previous service. And so I had some pretty choice hours. I could go to work at, say, 5 in the evening and work till 11 or 6 till midnight. And that worked really nice because I could be home during the day and then work in the evening. The only thing is, like on the weekends, it was hard to drink all day and then shower and sober up and go to word. And one Saturday night, I guess I went to work a little boisterous. And the chief operator called me off the board, and she said, Betty, I'm only going to ask you this once. And I knew what was coming. But you see, I had been to parties, and I had had drinks with this lady, and I knew she was worse than me. I mean, I saw her some mornings shaking, you know. She said, did you come to work drunk? And I said, no. And she said all right. Well, you know what that meant? It meant I had to eat more mints and not be so noisy. So life continued on, and technology improved. The cord boards went away. The dial tone came in. You know, there was a lot of progress in technology, and pretty soon different offices began to shut down, and offices beganto consolidate. And by then I had worked myself up through as supervisor, and then I was an evening chief operator and the only choice I have left at that point they were going to close the office was either to commute to Albuquerque or try to get into the business sales department and so you know how we are you give me a challenge and you give me a test and I'm gonna be ready and I do it and I did and I tested out and I was accepted as part of the sales team now they were very kind they sent me to Phoenix for a month to be trained on the type of equipment I was going to be selling and the training center was they had a motel that was within walking distance of the training Center and every day we would go and we would get two three tickets one ticket was for breakfast and two tickets were for cocktails well you know it didn't take me long to figure out who didn't drink and I had a lot of tickets. And so I would go to class all day and then in the evening I would study in the bar and eat popcorn. I mean, that worked really well. You know, it was a job I really enjoyed. Jokingly they used to say to me, you are the EEOC. I was Hispanic, I was over 55 and I was female. And so, you know, I was out selling telephone equipment and really enjoying it. As a matter of fact, I was doing a little bit better than most of the men in the office, and I think it kind of bothered them. And so we would have these meetings, and they would set this benchmark. And then, you know, I'm competitive. You tell me I've got to do this, I're going to do that. And so I continued on and worked and worked. And while all that was going on, my husband was still self-employed. He developed heart trouble and at one point had to have bypass surgery And so we took him to Albuquerque, and he had that done and had a quadruple bypass. And after about nine days in the hospital, I brought him home. Some of the things that I've done in my drinking days I'm not really proud of, but I want to share this with you because I want you to know where my life was headed. I went to Aluquerque and picked him up, and most of you that are familiar with open-heart surgery know that you have to crack your ribs and make an incision, and it's pretty ugly, and it was just healing. And he was sitting in the back seat of the car with his shirt open, still healing from this wound. And I had a nice chest of beer, and I popped one open, and I said, you haven't had a drink for a whole week. You're a good boy. And so we started drinking on the way home. Now when we got home, he really tried to develop a better, healthier lifestyle. He was walking every day. and he said our drinking was just going to be Saturdays and Sunday afternoon after the football game was over we wouldn't drink anymore and I thought, who made that rule? Well, that was when I learned that I could pour bourbon on cake and Kahlua in coffee and I had my ways. We only had one child left at home all the rest are away at college or working and I can remember coming home from work and my husband saying to my youngest son, if you want dinner, you better get it before your mother gets drunk. Well, I knew why it was because I would come home and we had this little cabinet and it made a noise when you pulled it open and I'd pour out some scotch and then I'd go to the refrigerator and get some ice. That makes noise. So I solved that problem. Every morning before I went to work, I opened up the liquor cabinet, and I learned to drink drinks without ice. You know, there is a solution. Well, so we're continuing on. Technology is getting better, you know, and then comes the big split in the bell system and, you knows, all of that. And they started offering early retirement to people, and all of my friends and my family got wind of this. well Betty you'll get to retire early and you can go and stay home and take care of your husband well I had a job that I really liked and I had an account a business account I had these power lunches one of the accounts was the college and I tell you the brothers make the best wine but I didn't want to One of the things was they told me I could retire early, and then when I was 65, I would get a little pension. And in my heart, I knew, I'm not going to live to be 65. I want to just stay here and do this and keep on doing this. But there was a lot of pressure. My family and my friends were all expecting me to do it. And so reluctantly, I took the early retirement package. And I'll tell you right now, that was God working in my life. I never went to work drunk, but I did drive the company car with bad hangovers. And, you know, I was working toward a situation where I could have made a bad mistake with one of these poor customers or hurt somebody in a company vehicle, and it would have been tragic. And so God took care of the Bell Company, and I retired. uh so my husband and i my i had a son that was teaching in topeka kansas and we decided we'd take a little vacation and we'd take a couple of the grandkids and fly there and we did do that and um we flew to topeca and that night we all uh oh we had done a little sightseeing we were sitting down having a drink what else and trying to plan what we were going to do the next day and my husband suffered a heart attack. And we left on vacation that weekend and we came home eight days later and I buried him. And, you know, I said to my children, I'm fine. And I said, God, I know you were going to get even with me sometime, but did you have to do this? Now never mind that my children had lost their father, that his brothers and sisters had lost a brother they really cared for, that my mom had lost a son-in-law that she really loved. I had lost my drinking partner and I was fine. And every night I would close the curtains and sail away with Cuddy. By then scotch was my drink of choice. Somebody told me that if you drink scotch, you don't get a hangover. Don't believe them? Also, I was developing some sort of gastric problems and the only way I could drink was to mix it in milk. Now when I sit in meetings and we read that story about the man and the milk punch and everybody says, they don't know what they were missing. So like I said, there I found myself now I'm home alone. I had quit my job And I decided, I think I'll go back to college. I'm going to go to college and I'm going to get a new career. And computers were the big thing then, you know? So I'm gonna become a computer programmer. My sponsor tells me it was a little grandiose, but, you now, so I'm enrolled in computer programming and computer science and algebra. Now, if any of you know me very well, you know that to balance my checkbook, I break out in hives. and I'm you know I'm taking all these classes and then I'm taking swimming because I'm going to be a well-rounded person I was going to get it cars beat this beat that did this did that and this little guy comes running across the room I'm a big girl I want to hear your shit look at this look at his can you see this oh no I'll do it and I believe there's somewhere right in here that if not that's not there are people in the Bible about 6.15 in the morning he says the birds are singing believe that God will and can restore you to sanity look at the problem from a tiny different angle you look at it for yourself you're egotistical you're selfish You're self-centered, you want everything your way, but you don't have any. And I was walking into a fourth dimension of existence. Now, what happened for me was, is that I had to fix myself. You see, you can't cure an alcoholic mind with an alcoholic monk. And that's where I was trying to ask Joe, it isn't about going back to people and telling them how sorry you are, they know that already. He says, you earned $83.58 on nine different jobs. I calculated how much I spent on drinking and food, Joe. He heard me... They don't exclude anybody. They don'y exclude the fun guys to pick. It's the one person for age. I was a water drinker. I don't know why, but I used to drink water for one time every day. I wasn't a boy. I also make a wife. You know what I'm saying? What do you want me to do after dancing again? So they didn't work together and they all know me. Looked like I'd never get picked up. And I thought, phew, I can drink. Give them a second. I'm okay. Well, I drink every time. See ya. I feel comfortable in all these cars. Intuitively, yes and no. situation that would baffle me, you know? It's in the mountains. It really is. It's right up in the mountain. Some days back, people who live at high altitudes for a long period of time, uh, wasn't on 600, and, uh... When you're in the house, like, I couldn't have it otherwise. You know, they take them out 3DWIs earlier, you don't know, but in that point, it's $18,000! I couldnít wait to also push those for the money. We had the best way tonight. Now, if I push me to get you coming down there, I'm going to consume most of the non-dollar they give you, okay? I'm watching it go in and out of it all the time! See what they want from us! These two guys messed my top so long time ago, didnít they? I didn't hear a damn thing they said, and I watched the way he saw it. I acted the way that he acted. I was totally scared to death, and now what do I do? I know I'm gonna fall off! So your aftercare is you go to A.A. That'll be your after care program. You go to a.a. So I go back there now, uh, so we can meet. So I'm not going. I said, well, there's gonna be no calling. And I said no. Well, then I'm coming. She says, bloody hell. She's not even anonymous anymore. I don't care. I can let him off my phone, but you know what? Son of a bitch, you're jealous. You know what I'm trying to feel better, right? I wanna do it. If I'm walking around, I ain't no feeling better going up. I'm glad Don didn't read that nonsense. I'm Glad Don understood. You know, hey! After one more night, you know? Call him out! Because he just drives into the meet-and-greet. So I started struggling all the time. I said, when do you want to read this now? When you go to be women at your first meeting. Well, you don't love those. You know what I mean? Women are going to watch every Friday night they do this one and you're going to love it. And then when you get there, tell me how Don works. Because God works through people. God works though people. Right? And those are after drinking and dying. We both had that moment. I think what happens in our lives now is pretty simple. I always find it nice to do this when I'm in the order, and then when you get there just tell me how God works. Because God works through people. God works with people, right? And those are after drinking and dying, we both had that moment. I think what happens after like a moment is pretty simple. My moment. Yeah! Screw that, I didn't work. We keep on lying, and NOPE! Here's what I need to cover with you. Now listen to the damage. I was so screwed up and messed up about six weeks ago, I went to my sponsor and I said, Hey. You've been so kind to lighten me up and treated so well to you, I don't want you to leave and not know all that stuff. And the main purpose of the book is to enable you to find the power, as the first step says. There's a lot of people in the world, you know? I don't know, let's get real. I need to do something myself. I need take control of my birthday party. Big, big party. Two or three people work. After the birthday party, we're ready to go. And Joanne's working from desk, and I'm working for an AA group. We've got about 150 groups in the metro station. People in Dallas Northside High and Joanne takes me to give a 12-step call to and I know where Dom's free at. So you'll be able to 100% know. That'll work, that'll work all the time. So she's like, well, see you guys when I get ready for my next California ride to California and she's embarrassed. She's grown up and she needs a party. You know what? I said, anyway, you know, anytime I wasn't running to do something, and, uh, I'm sitting in the front of the airport, I start again and I'm like, what's in your eyes? And it's an incredible thing that we got here. And it'll happen when we're working out the hall. Oh, these pocket rockets! Oh, any more changing one of them will go. Yes, you want it. And neither am I, Jeff. I've heard all of them. But what it's like, that's all right. I'm a special assistant to the United States Attorney General in the Civil Division of the Department of Justice under the FOA. I thought of him the rest of the time. I hate all the difference between being dry and being sober in my book. That's just my opinion, sometimes. Thomas Spencer once said that there was a certain principle which was about a wall of information and proof against any argument. So make as far as I can turn that. And I don't want you to start reading what Voltaire once said. I may not agree with a word that you say, but I'll just... After I was in a while, and I started to be a sponge, and I get all hepped up, you know, now everybody isn't ready for this deal. Let's not kid ourselves. You betcha. As long as you keep coming back, you got a chance. Reminds me of a guy down here in Dallas being a salesman. Just not being ready. And he had his record going and he read that Dallas Morning Place, and uh, he started his pitch and she said I'm not ready. And he kept talking, and that poor woman liked to hit the connection stick. And with that, he sighed because I wanted to go home. A jail word? But we didn't go that way, we got on an elevator and I asked him, I said where are we going Johnny, where are you going after this? I didn't want to stay sober either! I told him I'd never drink so much coffee before, I'll be honest with you, But the length of time that it takes to change the direction of a man or woman's life is the same length of times that it take to open. And I go for it. The way in which I do it is easy. It's easy. Somebody say, oh yes, I work this whole stuff. Yeah, you get like hell working this whole thing. I have one of the boys on me. They call him Circuit Rider. But I do travel a lot. I was in Swatch Your Hands in action. Watch your Canadian brothers and sisters. These are the words of Bill Wilson. He said, I don't know. This is the worst part. We were divorced in 1951. Oh, yes. He said, I don't know. This is what I... We were divorced in 1951. Oh yes, I promised Charlie window. And I had to set up the tables and get everything ready. I told Tom, I said, Tom, I promise if I saw those things all over again, I might get home. You know, I've been 15 years. He came home. And of course when she said this, I couldn't get it out quick enough. Well, you bet, honey. My partner said, if you wouldn't tell him this afternoon, this thing might come in, boy. And we tried to do something out there at Window Rock and A.A. Didn't know where his friends were at the time. And I'm in Hawaii three years ago I tried teachers, I tried librarians, I taught classical, and he said, Now here's my contact, if you have any time to contact me, stone. Let me always walk with beauty. And my eyes are... And Bill, and that little fella who went to Bill on that November afternoon service in my opinion would be here today, if it hadn't been for Eddie Thatcher. Thank you. I was shy of 14 years, and enough time to today, I think. It convinced me that I was born worthless. I came here with two fights against me. The only way that I could survive was to admit that I did not work anything, and move towards some sort of righty-worthy. Well, I said that very seriously. I really felt as though I was not very worthwhile. I'm sure if Sidney Floyd were around and I wasn't house long enough, I wouldn't be able to tell you that it was because my father laughed at me, yadda yaddy yadder, my mother was too protective, yada yaddi yaddar, it doesn't matter why. You know, that's one thing I never learned. It doesn't at all matter why, because the solution is the same regardless of the conditions. Uh, I first got loaded when I was, um, seriously little when I 18 years old. I was in a rock n' roll band, and we were in a place called Milwaukee, Mississippi, and it was in the height of the Vietnam War, and picked up some sailors who were getting shipped off in arms yesterday, and so we had a bunch of booze, I think we actually robbed a liquor store to get it. I really rocked it, that's not too dramatic. It was kind of like a Lee Harrelson, and that's what it was like. There was the whole label, and she couldn't see anything anyway, so... And when she turned her back to grab another bottle, I could. I didn't know anything about booze, although it was always around my house, and being from New Orleans would be the end of it. You know, in terms of where we were doing science, we weren't happy about any waking moments. We grabbed what we could, and went to the back of this club where my dad was playing. And we had a very, very epithetic collection, eclectic collection of alcohol, everything from schnapps to sudden comforts. I hadn't sent it to those sicker ones for some reason, they were more likely searching me. So everybody sort of sampled, there were only eight of us in this band, and you could feel it. And everybody sort of sampled from the bottles and found something they liked that had a few more slits in it. And I continued to drink. I continued savor the different aromas and textures and talents of the different groups. Until about half an hour later, I just did this huge, hectic thing going on all over the scene. I don't know if you guys know what a pouche cachet is, but it's a drink that has different colored layers of liqueur. What does my car seat look like? And I told them, from the moment I started drinking, I drank alcoholically. There would never be enough. Somewhere in my personality, I have the psychology that if something is good, then more of it must be better. It seems very logical and very simple. very simple equation. I could never understand why someone would go out and have a drink or two drinks like my wife can. My wife had to do the alcoholic beverage. I don't understand that philosophy. To me, it's medicine. And the more medicine you take, the better, right? Whether it's booze or later in the 80s when I've been forced back to high school. Long before I started drinking, not only in retrospect, I was born an alcoholic. I had the personality defects that every good alcoholic should have, extreme lack of self-esteem, and coupled with this grandiose self-image. The two did not cohabitate well. And they produced a phenomenally erratic behavior. I was very afraid of you, because it was logical that if I didn't know who I was I wouldn't like you very much as much as you possibly. And so in the 60s luckily the Beatles came along and I was able to adopt personalities that were more informed at the time. I mean, I was nuts. Before I ever died. There are people in this world to this day that have relationships with me from month to month. They're probably different places. They're from Maine. They live in the same country. I don't doubt that there's some 50 year old woman out there sitting at home looking at television thinking, Jesus Christ, he looks like that English guy in that TV show. But it was so wonderful to be able to contact a wife that I think it was successful. It was so easy to pretend I was somebody else, so that I could put in place the personality traits and the emotions that I thought made up a whole healthy human being. And I was very good at it. And then in the early 70's I was actually placed where you could go and they paid you to do that. There was nothing else I could do better than that, though. You know, I lied too well not to be. I don't lie as much anymore by the way, except when I get paid these days. The Catholicism and the fear and all of that stuff drove me most of my life. I mean, I was such a coward. I had such fear that at any moment either God or an authoritarian figure or whoever happened in front of me was going to eradicate my existence under this constant low-grade fear. And you just know that the day is probably not going to wind up being very nice. That something's going to happen to you, to verify the opinion you have of yourself. I can only say that I am very glad that I found alcohol when I did. Because I do believe that alcohol prevented me from going completely psychotic. I do belive that when you're unconscious it's hard to be nuts. I'm sure I would have talked to my dog and he would have been telling me to go chill if I had not had something that would turn it off, you know, that would have turned me off. Unfortunately I was a child in the 60s so I come quickly I had the opportunity to blaze trails into tentacles I felt like Captain Kirk. I was blowing a romantic army for it. And I was blazing, and I was absolutely off the edge of tomorrow. Now, I didn't get arrested very much. I didn' t draw other people except if you had better clothes than I did. But I certainly stole people's lives, no way. You know, I was once described as a psychic vampire. And I would sort of just shuck out of you, everything worthwhile, and then leave you hollow and starving on the ground. And I found another host. It's terrible, but it's true. Um, yeah, I'll tell you how insane I was. I'm not going to keep on talking about it anyway. When I was in fourth grade, I was ten years old, and I lost a book, a catechism book. And the nun who came to take me back in my mind she said, I'm such an early rhino for some reason. I knew that I could not go back to her class if I took this book, otherwise my ass would be bad. So I thought, what can I do? Well, logically, I thought I'd run away. And so I went to some friends, I was going to play around with them, and I went over to Compton for a music lesson, and I walked off the schoolyard. And I walked past Compton, and I kept walking. And I was 10 years old. In the heart of New Orleans, So I got on top of the levee, and I started walking downriver towards No Man's Land. Sheldon had to take me along with him, so he said, you know, we should do some fireworks or something. And I was going away. And when I walked back in the afternoon, I hadn't eaten, so I was scared. And I thought, well, I guess I have to learn how to do now. Well, I can't go back until it's fruit. Which never even occurred to me as an option, and it wasn't even what I had in mind. It wasn't a truth or, it was which lie. And after being able to take any responsibility left over from my actions, I devised a plan. So I took my clothes and my little chocolate uniform, and I scraped my knuckles on the sidewalk, and went straight right back to school. I assume it's sort of quasi-motor code. So, we went back to school. And the nuns come, you know, floating out of their building toward me. It's not that my head is floating in the back of the church, I guess, but she'll probably do it again. Anyway, they swooped me up and brought me over to the school and said what happened. And being faced with this dilemma, I thought that I had been kidnapped. My man had to follow me outside of college just before I got in, swimming in the backyard of his truck and took me away and checked me all day and I didn't know anything about sex at the time but he was coaching me so, you don't need to touch me in a special place or anything. I wasn't even... I didn' t know what I saw. So my mother was called, and my grandfather was there, so when my old man left, I moved in with my grandmother's grandfather, and I was definitely raised by my grandmother. So anyway, she comes home, and she gives me ice cream, and puts me in bed, and, um, I think, uh... Well, I picked up the knock on the door, and there was two men standing at the door with the police. And I thought to myself, you know, they may have been down with the security, or something terrible happened to you today. Would you tell us about it? Well, I was a little too early to drop the story this evening, so, um... I proceeded to widen and enlarge my predicament that day. Uh, before I did it somewhat, um, I gave a description of what I really felt like it wasn't well, because I think the, uh, the third man had come out about that time, so that's the image I had in my mind was, um was Harry Lyme. Um, and, um they, they nodded me, and they gave a lot of sympathy, but then they went away, and I thought, well, that's all right. Two days later, they came back and said they caught him. And sure enough, without the holidays, I really brought some appointments. Did I get you guys? So now, as I said, I'm going to move over here. So I stepped up to losing a 75-point book, and I sent this back to the jail for 30 years. The scales were almost even, OK? But I didn't. I finally, in a heap of tears and national tears, I confessed what had happened and said what I knew. You know, that's the type of thing that's great about it. You think you have this phenomenal high-five, and you're streaming through the universe and nobody can touch us. And everybody knew from the get-go what was happening. At least I'd gone to college. I went to school. There were very a lot of things going on. Still very much pretty far with the story itself. The last little incident is how I lived my life. Faced with the possibility of admitting to you that I was a liar and a thief and a thief, and a hollow individual, I would far rather concoct the most absurd reality to try and get any responsibility deflected away from me for my own actions. And it went on and on like that. And I mean, I did that to school. I did it to the United States Navy. You know? I mean I did this to the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT for that sake. We won't get into that in a couple of minutes. I'm not sure if essential limitations are inspired by that. But in the 60s, I drank a lot, and I do a lot of drugs. In Colorado, for a spiritual reason, a guy that used to make my house beat up there. I found myself on the same computer as Scott Johnson. It had to be healthy 25 or nothing. For me, I could just have one. So I gave him my 13. I went to California in 1973 pursuing an acting career, and was successful rather quickly as far as that goes since there's any amount of employment in my business. I received a role for the television Sarah, I married a woman in 1974, and things started going along well. That's why my first son was born in 1977. That time I had a regular job on my first series called Baba Black Sheep The Lure. We were supposed to be riders and buggy balls and wickets. and the way we lived apart off screen, as well as on screen. And things started going downhill then. Things started changing. Things changed because the first time that I really can recall, getting loaded became more important than anything else. So my life had to be defined around the possibility of where we were going to get screwed up tonight and with what. When my son was a 10-month-old, I sent my wife and he and my adopted daughter to England. I sent them to England because I thought it would be better if we lived alone separately. Financially, it would have been easier. I just wanted to deal with those without guilt. So I moved out to a friend's sailboat, and basically, I laid down for three months. I was too good to stay in the boat. So I decided to start a caravan. I just thought it was like being dead but still able to dance. And, um, I wasn't working, I was living off of residuals and unemployment, etc., and I had to go right down to the blood bank for first time in downtown Los Angeles. Some very large black-collar grab me and rub me in because if you give an extra two bucks if you're on the buddy system, you've got a friend in there. Gave you an extra 2 bucks! And I'm lying on this table having the freshest bodily fluids, my freshest body fluids, drained out of me for $12. And I look over at the television, there's a little black and white television next to the bed and I see myself on the television. And I thought, you know, this is really wacky. And I remember saying at the time to myself, But if you don't die, this is going to be a great story on the Johnny Carpenter show one day. It would, actually. So I got a job and I got enough money to bring my family back from England and stuck them into a small little apartment in North Hollywood somewhere. It was horrible. And it just got worse and worse and worst. I wasn't abusive. I didn't leave my children or any of that stuff. I disappeared. You know, I was kind of drunk. I just wanted to be left alone. And so I would go away. I'd get on a plane and leave. I would get into a bus and leave, but any place that was away from anybody I knew where I could would send me into an infinity box. I'd be noticed as sort of a slob. I'd become 20 to 40 pounds of time and look at my face and see what stuff was going on. In 1988 I got a job at a film club, Stripes, and we both were happy to do this film. John Candy and I shared a motorhome, and during the time we were there, John Lennon was killed. And we had an Irish way for about a month. I can watch that film today and literally not remember doing something the same. And this is toward the end. It just got so bad. And I really kind of, you know, in some ways appreciate the fact that Mr. Lennons shot because it put me so far over the edge. But I went to a place I had never gone before. I went through a place of being alone in a room. I'm not going to be graphic, but it was pretty big. Pretty big. What I was doing to myself in order to try and feel something other than this cold, vomit-smelling life I created for myself. In May of 19, when I checked myself to the hospital just at the state, it's high. I didn't know anything about alcoholism. And I was never mentioning why I was a kid growing up. Bill Thomas was one of my best friends in the world. He wanted me to grow up and he said I wanted to be the toughest man in the world. That was my goal. I thought all of my defects were pluses for my artistry. I thought that I alone in the world had the pioneer spirit of being out there on the edge to show you dull bastards what life could really be like. If you're afraid to walk through the fire, well damn it, I'm not. Come on, let's go. When I walked into the hospital, on the bed stand next to me was this blue book thing that you guys I guess are familiar with. I stayed up that night reading that book. And I put the book down, and I thought, oh my God, that's a problem. I'm in a house. So I left the hospital. And the last time I knew what the problem was, I could drink a tea. I woke up that night and said, why are you doing this? She went, oh, thank you. And I've been out for about seven months now, and February of 1982, I got sober. For the first time in my life, I didn't go in and out a lot. You know, I just couldn't manage to go back out there. I wasn't happy about it. Here, I thought I'd go back there again. You know those days, it was mandatory to smoke in a meeting. I found it. That's why I was sitting in these rooms, and shooting bases at churches in Glendale, And, you know, of course I'd only read about them in John Fontaine novels or in the Chandler novels. But I didn't really know what existed in all these old men with these long coats where you could tell the difference between their ankles and their feet. They were so swollen. And I thought, gee, what has happened to me? What? This is it! Luckily, I was in one of those church basements. And a man stood up, an actor who's worked out his mind all my life. And he told this story. It was something several, like, six years ago. And I'm sure as many of us have had this experience in our lives, how odd is this man's moment. My spine sharpened. It was the most amazing experience I've ever had. And I realized, you now what? I know this is a name I can use. It's exactly the same as every single person in this room. I don't know who I am. I got so active so fast that it's amazing I can get loaded. As I said, being Catholic, I have very heavy atheistic tendencies. And the only thing I thought that would stop me from staying here was this word on every wall I walked into, in every room I walked in to, this three-letter word. And I thought, you know, I don' t know how I can stay here if I have to accept the fact that only this God thing can keep me sober. And I though, you now, that doesn't seem fair. And luckily the second step really saved my life because it doesn't say that. You know, it just says a higher power greater than myself. And I at that point even as the enormously bulleted ego I had, I could accept the fact that in this universe, somewhere, there must be a power greater than myself. And I don't mean that facetiously. You know, I've got a lot of and-or-and going on. I can walk up to the beach, though, and I can stand on the beach and I just have a place to stop all day long and, well, I'll just keep doing my thing. The planet is a stronger power and you're a higher power than myself and I found a sponsor very quickly and I chose an atheist, a Jewish atheist, which he's done. As far as I know, it's my property if I possibly can. Again, I didn't need to do it until I was 19 years old. I didn' t know what it was. Being very Catholic And so I showed this to this Jewish atheist, and I said, you know, I don't know if I can say this, but I have to believe in God. And he said, fine. So they jumped. And so he said to me, look, these words. So I find this man, not him. And he put in a list of signs, three dots. And he says, go home and finish the sentence. And so on was the last time I looked like him. And I would watch him all the way. I would read Papa Ram Dass, and Trishman Murdy, and all of those guys. But I did crave that the only thing I could find the answer to myself, find that part of me that was connected somehow from divinity somewhere, I knew I had to be connected. So I finally finished the sentence one day. And I brought it back to him. And I was folding my hands, and I said, yeah, I can't stand it. He took me short off. He said, fine, I'm pretty sure. He didn't care what it was. He said the math wasn't good. The logic wasn't as good as new. You know, that's the only thing I know. You know? I got really, like I said very active. I was a talent. I mean, I was an obnoxious bastard if I was going on. I mean I was walking to bars with a big book and you know. Find some, some likely candidate, you know, sitting at the bar like I would. I put the book down and I say, how are you doing, thank you. By the way, by the way a lot of us take our way in this. me as I became willing to realize that unless you ask for it, I'm not going to give you the message. There's no time to do that. And also that I only had to carry the message and not to drop them. I literally took guys from the parking lot and brought them to my house, and my wife was like, what are you doing? You're never going to be scabby all day in our house. And I was a child, and myself at that point was five or six years old. And I would take them with me to Barnstall Park, where I found most of my life in Canada. So when Martin Hollywood was there, it was a huge white house on the top of the hill. And all these bums in this whole city that lived on the perimeter of the field side overlooking the mouth. And I'd go down there and find a lot of candidates, and I'd take them to a meeting. Most of them died. But it didn't matter. Some of them stayed still for a little while. My head died the last few years. I couldn't find any food. And I thought, yeah, I want to talk about it. I used to have a lot of stuff in me when I was young. The idea of humility is a strong notion with me to say. And that's what a grandiose pompous asshole looks like. But at least now I recognize that to myself. Before I thought it was an advantage and now it was just me. But I realized that in order to achieve some sort of real, permanent spiritual awareness, I had to be willing to admit that someone else could teach me something about my own life. And growing up Catholic there would always be people who said, you know, I'm going to do this, you're going to do that, you've got to do this. I had to be willing to admit that someone else could teach me something about my own life. You know, growing up Catholic there was always people telling you about your life, you know? And actually there are some priests, to this day, who actually open me up to a lot of the world, literature and art and music. But if you were in these rooms and looked at some guy who has money... That's my definition of being worthy. You know? That I'm willing to look at your life and take from it some heartful sanity that I might be able to apply to mine. It's a remarkable experience. It's proven to me that we're all very much alike. And I don't say that with any sort of, um, you know, I try to be positive. At some point, when I really try to think about the importance of society in my life, and I, I, um... I would be dead if anyone was afraid of what I was going to tell them because that's the only way I'd die. That'd be funny if I was John Belushi right now. I've had a lot of people die on me in 14 years while I've been sober. I recognize that most people in those meetings will all die drunk. You can go down with that. You know, it's just a show, but this year, that's sure. And as many of us will die from it regardless of how long we stay sober and have no letter from us after 20 years. After 25 years, we never got back. You know? One day, boom. That's a deal. You know, you have to be in front of them. And when I was doing that, I mentioned to a writer for them, looking right behind me, I said one question. What did you stop doing? What the hell did you do? Where did you get this from your mind? You know? And almost invariably, it occurred that they stopped following me. That they started isolating against me. That they thought I was dying in the back of the room going, Hey, hey, hey! Hey, bounce it up there and run out of my bed! Dad! Hey, I'm not giving you the drink, buddy! Just separation again, you know? I lived most of my life separate from the rest of you. And once I was connected, and I got connected in these rooms, and I was connecting in hospitals and lock-ups around this country, in the world, I go to meetings in many countries of the world. I'm fortunate to have a job that actually allows me to travel. Newcastle upon Tyne, England or Paris, France or Ahtung, New Zealand and know that somewhere in that town there are leopards. I can walk with a bunch of other people who don't have noses and parts of their faces are falling off and I'll be right at home. It's a spectacular thing and it's a simple thing. I used to think that the answer had to be incredibly complicated to be worthwhile. Anything that is simple has to possibly worth my investment in it. There's a bookstore in Los Angeles called The Buggy Tree I was standing in the bookstore at 10.30 at night, and before I got sober, and prayed to one of these folks who just sort of fly off the shelf and kick me in the head. And it was all open, and there would be the answer. How can I be comfortable being without the necessity of lying to you or to myself? And I can tell you this book. This book is the answer to me. And I think it's the answer for any alcoholic I was with friends across the world. For people who are not alcoholics. Because they're a tiny little word writer. Once was an alcoholic around his medium of age 40. Didn't know what it was when he dropped himself. One of his friends. An athlete who wrote an essay. The essay was called The Alcoholic Man. And it is described as alcoholic around the stage he went through. And it would be worth it by the fact that as we have done tonight, we can laugh at the most horrendous disasters in one's life. Where we can actually get some sort of fulfillment out of the fact that we lived hollow, desperate, sickening lives. Left people, you know, horrid, bleeding and needed behind us. And so he wrote in this essay that if the world ran like an alcohol phenomenon meaning you could disband every police force and every army on the planet and here was a group of people who supposedly had nothing in common other than the fact they suffered from the penalty called alcoholism and in the time that they are in this room together what they care about most is staying sober and helping the person next to them stay sober for that evening. I mean that cuts through all the bullshit. You know? That cuts through any political sexual and racial lines. You know, we've got souls together. It's a phenomenal thing, and I thought that there were a lot of newcomers here tonight. I know that a lot it sounds like when I was new and I was listening to people talk. But at any time in time, I would just go, what the hell are you talking about? Just shut up! But it really is, um... I don't think that's enough. Because I think the most important step in this whole bloody thing is number four. Because I believe without that, we're able to continue to culture ourselves much longer than we absolutely should. And I culture myself all my life. to be honest with me, because I knew there was no other way for me to live. And when guys would tell me it doesn't matter what you do as long as you stay sober, I thought, well that's a pretty good answer. But I do believe this more than I do believe that the poor can have a new beyond, and I do that at the launching pad for my life. Even once I sobered, I had no choices whatsoever. But once I stayed sober, we talked about the poor stuff, and it says that temperamentally we are on the depressed side where apathy swamps with guilt and self-loathing. We wallow in this messy bar of often getting in the shape and then painful pleasure out of it. As we morbidly pursue this melancholy activity when we think that such a point is clear that nothing but oblivion was possible in its solution. Here, of course, we have lost our perspective No doubt we shall close this tie to the good lives that we thought we led before the bottle cut us down. We shall claim that our serious character defects, if we think we have any at all, have been caused chiefly by excessive drinking. This being so, we think it logically follows that sobriety first, last and all the time is the only thing we need to work for. We believe that our one-time good characters will be revived the moment we quit alcohol. If we're pretty nice people all along, such as I do, what need be there for a moral inventory now that we are sober? Those are real, real important, you know, because I can lie to you easier than I can to you. And I can lying to you pretty damn easily. You know? And if I'm unwilling to really open myself up to myself, you know? me to deal with that part because I wanted a session on my life. I loved it, actually. You're the person in the room listening only to me. And you had to forgive me. But if you do nothing else, I think the idea of sitting down and honestly and forthrightly looking at those things... You know, if we all take 30 seconds here and just scan across our lives, I know with me there are these peaks of desolation and despair and embarrassments and anger that's just always there, you know? The good ones, the really large evidence of what insane lies we live with, you know? And all of us have good ones. Several of mine include quite connoisseur, and we'll get into that later. So I was willing to sit down and really examine myself and take responsibility, not guilt, but responsibility for everything I had done in my life. Then I was able to look at myself, in present time, and figure out, do you want to continue doing that or not? Because you can! You know you absolutely can. And we've all heard this, I'm sure, the definition of sanity that an old man once told me when I was newly sober is a repetition of the same action expecting different results. You know? That's how my crazy mind was. You know, today it'll only be two beers and we'll start crying. That's it, I promise. Then it's three o'clock and go, you know what, maybe just point the deal. That's all, just so you know, I don't like to play those games. It was nearly 4 o'clock in the morning and I was in some fast-fast chillin' at Hollywood Hills. Paying $140 for a tiny baby bicycle, you know what I mean? And I would call home at 7 o' clock in the mornin' and be so ashamed to go into the house that I'd go to the garage and crawl up in an oil stain somewhere in the corner. That's when my family woke up and they left the house. My son would be driven to school by his mother. My daughter was at school and I'd crawl into the houses and get back into bed. And sleep till 1 o' 5 in the afternoon. And it was two years ago since I took off with her. And I went on for two years. It was wonderful to remember. It would be horrible to see. I and I didn't say one thing. We've been married for over 20 years. We, uh, have more children together, and I have a little son. She's sick of the shit that she's got all done. Oooooh. Stuff like this, she doesn't know how to play. She has to go to grad school to play with kids without somebody else's life worth laughing for her eyes. And you know what? Only next to me, she saved my life more than I did. She's sane. You know, she looks at me one day, and she says, I ain't saying much about you. You just need to not do this in front of your children. She's English. She doesn't believe in divorce. Homicide, yes, but not abortion. Um, which group is part of her? I'd say we have a spectacular relationship. Uh, I am successful in my business. Uh, I've beaten the odds as many times in my life, but I know that enough about me to know that if I think more of anything is the solution to my problem, that's when I get into trouble. More is not the answer. I think what truly is for me blessed is the answer In 1985, I was... I tell this story a lot, but it is so poignant for the alcoholic personality, at least mine I won an Emmy Award for acting, for the show I used to do And one of the award shows that night was nominated and I didn't know I'd win, and I was feeling great about it And today I don't get to say this anymore because it's crap, so I'm just going to stop. All right, let me call my name. I'm on the stage, and for the first time in my life, I've talked to an imposter who left. Now, this is me now. Here I look where I belong. Fifteen million people watching me on television. I've got this great gold statue in my hand. I'm back! I'm off the stage. And I walk down to the auditorium with my beautiful wife on my arm. I've had a beautiful limousine. I drove to my beautiful house by the Pacific Ocean. I walked in. I took this statue. I placed it on my ankle piece and stepped back. My very next thought was, you know, you're going to have a little bit of power. Get out! When I stop thinking like that, I'm unable to really understand the gifts that I have in my life. You know? I mean, I have three more, but that's another story. Sorry, my self-reflection, okay? If you're new to this journey, please don't take anything I say seriously. Find out for yourself. The only thing I know is the experience that I've had in the time that I live in suffering. The only story I know as mine, how it applies to my life and how it applied to my daily living in this world of insanity and debauchery and evil and anger and violence. I don't have to participate in any of that. All I have to do is make sure that I understand that I have a daily reprieve from a situation that was lost. I did not volunteer for this. You know, I didn't wake up when I was seven years old and say, I want to be an alcoholic when I grow up. I am an alcoholic. I was born an alcoholic, and I have the opportunity on a daily basis not to act like one. And I love that opportunity. But some days it fails. You know? I'm in a business where people are paid to satisfy my ego. You know their jobs depend upon satisfying me. And that's a real dangerous place for an alcoholic to be. You know because I can get very righteous about it. And I can be very justified in it. And I'll tell you something. That in the time that I've been sober, the number of times, considering my position, and I've walked up to a grip, which is a guy who's like, or a top man, the cooking was wrong, and I blew up in the moment. To walk up to one of these guys and look at them and say, you know what, honey, I'm just really a hassle. I'm really sorry. If there's something I can do, you know, if you need any time off, I just want to let you know how badly I felt about that. I had a horrible experience. So I don't have to stand behind that righteousness anymore. You know, I can just look at you and admit that I am absolutely and totally wrong. But I would like to look at your as a fellow human being, regardless of whether you're a drunk or not, you now? But I believe this is a school room and there's lights out there. And I've got to treat those people like I'm willing to treat you! Otherwise, I'm only half alive. I mean, I really do believe that. So if you're new, please go to meetings. Become aware of your opportunity here. You know? Each day is an opportunity to feel better about yourself. And there are a lot of people around here who have been feeling good about themselves for a long time. The book is a miraculous thing. I don't be any of you if I have the book. What's great about having you is that I get to reflect on its truth through your experience. Which gives me a whole new dimension, you know? It's like watching five different guys do Hamlet. I see five different interpretations of the great things. By listening to your lies, I get an opportunity Thank you very much for inviting me to be here tonight, I want to thank the committee or whoever put on this thing for inviting me to come and have dinner tonight at the beautiful hotel right in downtown trying to help me looking up over those tiny floors up over the ground. It's just wonderful being personal. I don't know whether you feel like it's wonderful being personal, but you've got to not be being personal for a long time to think that it's wonderful being professional, and I haven't been a person for a really long time. So, it's WONDERFUL being personal! I'm a real alcoholic, and it's great to be an A&E. It's an honor to be in an A & E, and it's a great honor to speak anywhere, anytime about our fellowship. It's always cold. Let's just bring some ice to the stove. Am I the only person knowing it's cold? I'm cold. I think the air-freeze is all gone now. I think I'll start at the beginning. I was born thirsty. I was born in the same year that Alcoholics Anonymous got started. In fact, I was born a few months before the program got started, I was born on February 1935, and in June, on June 10th, Bob and Bill got together in Sacramento, Ohio, and had the very first meeting between anybody in the whole world. So I was running over to Arizona, some 10-year-old human waiting for those guys to get some sex programs started, because I really do believe that I'm one of those kinds of people who came onto the globe in alcohol. They told me that in the hospital when I went for a while, I've seen speaking at crowds and all that. My experience was like starved wine. I never remember having a social drink. All my four older brothers, all of them are Polish. Two of them have died, some of the guys we talked about are gay. One of my brothers has been able to stay sober for many years due to religion, and I had to talk to him. He'll look and tell what's right or not. Anyway, let's start with Mr. Thirdway. Anyway, as I grew up and started going to school, just like all of us, I found out when I was just a very young guy about 11 years old, my family went back to the family farm back in Wisconsin, back in Marion, Wisconsin. And there was a great meal, great number of bird waiters and stuff around there. I'm just an 11-year-old kid. But I had a cousin I told him that about the farm, and he felt kind of sorry for me because I was just a little kid who never got anything to drink. And he told me one day to sit down and show you something. He took me out into this farm, this beautiful farm back in Wisconsin. Back in Wisconsin they cut hay and stuff in a few summer months before the winter and put it out in the barn for the stocking dogs all winter long. And he showed me a hole that he made in the hay, and way back as far as you can reach, a whole length away from my arm, he had bought me a fourth bottle of Virginia Bear wine. And he says, now tell you what, John, this guy is about 22 years old, but he said, I don't have time today and I bought this bottle of wine, and it's right here in this hole, and you're the only one who knows about it, and any time you'd like to have a break, a woman could really just come out, sneak up to the bar and get some help. Great! And she'd let out a whole cart, move it in a big old cupboard, she'd come short of that, the whole cupboard for you. You don't have to let them have a mitt, you can just be kind of a gentleman with that. That's how I used to put the bottle of wine. I drank the whole thing every one day, 11-year-old kid, got completely blotter, ate my pants, split down some food before they were having a movie, went into the ladies' room, stocked up the toilet, was over-closed, managed those manners, and then made some squished food out of myself on my very first shot. The next day here I am, this 11- year-old chick, growing up, And that's just the way it was. Now I'm one of those young adults who was able to be what they call a working adult. And after a wonderful life of work, I was able to continue on through school and I was shortly afterwards about to win my freshman conference at the end of that particular year. That was in 1946. I did get really excited about polio and that's why I didn't really show up today because I got polio attacks just about three years before I even had the polio vaccine. And the reason I had the pain attack is because I've had polio my whole life. Incidental paralysis. Whatever you want to call it. But anyway, I left college. Started college. Worked out fine. Got out of the hospital. Lasted 50 years. Went to high school and was very, very interested in all the things that happened in school I was a good bodybuilder, just had a wonderful time. But about every second or third week in, I would get drunk. Never to have a social break. I could never kind of ease into it. I always drank too much and got drunk and had something unpleasant happen. Usually some kind of a lack of control over my kidneys or a little bit of a rat or something or broke something or matched something over. I was constantly involved. But I couldn't put the two together. When I didn't drink, I'd look at one of those suits and I'd die and I worked the... Everything seemed to go along just fine but these things kept creeping up on me and having so much to drink and having these problems. But you can teach it all through the teenage years. When I got out of high school I went to sell a lot with the broadcasting business which is another story I went to a radio engineering school, learned how to become an engineer, a broadcast engineer, ran into broadcasting and television. All of it was just wonderful. It was just perfect. It was the place to be. I was in a wheelchair, didn't have to walk because I could talk on the radio and broadcast, go to events and so on, and it was making good money. But even then I was nervous. Every once in a while, I'd overheat my car. I skipped watching. I loved my work. I loved being in broadcasting. I just wanted to be a nice guy, but I hit the wall with the guys and had a few grades, so I was always the one that seemed to end up learning to go blackout and trotting over and going too far and having hangovers. My son and I used to have some of the squirrels. Oh, debilitating, throwing up, bad stomach, heat for a couple of days, swear I'll never drink again. And of course, I'll always drink again." And I was able to work pretty well too, continued to work, and then I fell in love one time and doing the whole thing till I gave it to my sober, because I was talking about my sober life and my drunk life. But I went into this world of broadcasting, and in 1968, I will never forget, I fell in love accidentally with politics. Now those of you who grew up in this great state of California, which is a fabulous political state, back in 1958 there was an enormous upwelling of interest in our state about unionism. The Republicans wanted to do away with unions, they had a thing called right to work. And the Democrats were all very popular, all the youngs, laborers, and everybody came up and killed this bill called right-to-work. And I got people here in this state who began to work a little bit in politics, met everybody half round and all the people were running for office. And I was very interested in public life, and decided to run for office one day. And I did that. I got elected. Still can't believe it. Actually went out and talked to people in BS for a little while. Ended up in 1959. And I'm so... It was just wonderful. I just couldn't believe what a wonderful honor that was. And I can remember there was a guy who was the city mayor. I mean, one of the eight presidents I worked with at the time. And he called me after the holidays a couple days before we were sworn into office. He gave me a book. And he said, tell me, when I get to appoint members of the city council with certain boards and commissions. If you and I are going in together, I don't know if those guys have known each other for a while, but I feel kind of interested for you, since I want you to look through this book. And you can pick four appointments that you want, and I'll give them to you, and then I'll get the rest of them to the other guy. Me? Uh, me? Well, we can sort it out. And there's all sorts of things that you might want to do, like some parts, and finance committee, and all that stuff. And I look down at the front page, police commissioners. Police commissioners? Yeah, damn, they had a way to do it, you know? I can run right back to my chair. I'm going to do that. So the next Monday, before I go off, I go over to the San Bernardino City Police Department, right where they booked the prisoners. They booked me, except for what they were doing, to take my picture for a ran-a-mated car, laid out to eat it. I still have it at home, beautiful car like this, John P. Quigley, police commissioner, city of San Bernardino. Now if that wasn't wonderful, I put that mugger in my pocket, and away we go! That's just to tell you something, if you know how to find out, get arrested for drunk driving, in the city of san bernardino, when you're the police commissioner. Now what do you want? I don't know how it works, but just know that you're arrested. Really, I didn't stop drinking, because I sure had that. I still had an annoying habit. I was going through one or two weeks of free, maybe nine at that time, where I would go on over that line, make a fool out of myself, throw up, fall down, down, getting into some kind of trouble, but now I have someone to drive me home. I served for four years in that position, enjoyed it, loved it very much, when I found out that the man who was the state assemblyman had decided to run up for a higher office quietly enough and offered if I could run for my office. This is in 1952 by the way, so why not? Let's go. And I'll be honest with you all, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to be asking you to believe it, but I'm here to make a statement that in the June 5th of last year, 1973, I don't know, 63, whatever, 1952, I had a license to come up on this day, wasn't I? I'm only 26, 27 years old by the looks of it. So, yeah, I married at that time, and then I got married and we actually met my second my second time, of course I was stuck out on the street for life, but the second one I'm married to this very impressive lady, lost two or three little kids. I'm working at the radio station, got a nice name, I'm the city police commissioner and these criminals, huh? It's the people in that house, you know, like me, who's the state assembly. And I came back to office in January 1st, 1963, that was back in the days before what they call full-time underprivileged workers. So you can take your wife and kids, you just put them in a little session over 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 months, and I came up the second round, and I swore in, and never sat down, never played with the governor and all these people, and you know as an alcoholic, I'm an alcoholic personality, and all of these, this incredibly emotional sort of care which is a superior feeling interiority complex because i don't know how i thought i was surprised that i was there i couldn't believe that i'm there but on the other hand it's kind of ego self-centered healthy and one-sided it's just a very mind-blowing thing but what the hell i took the local water she got some water to offer and here i am in this California legislature they're giving me a beautiful car i'll never forget i've always wanted a thunderbird and if my guy comes to see me he says oh we have what we call a space tunnel together i'll send you all my real programs if you have any car you want i mean any car if you want and i said can i have a black thunderbird without it's a 1963 black ebook didn't you remember that was our home john had a machine and had a license plate on it that said member of california legislature Now, this was in the days. It doesn't change now. But in those days, Adida, the legislature set the salaries of a highway patrol. It was entirely up to the legislature. California Highway Patrolmen didn't go out to defend them when there was no race. And do today now because they do today because they don't test. Not just because of that. That's why they race. Well, I could drive. When I said I had an infertile girl one time, I used to come to this highway patrol and look. There are cars to stay, so it's a big case right now in this city. I had come through this town, you know, 9500 miles an hour. Another one time between here and Texas, you don't want to forget what time it is. I was driving towards Southern California. And it began to rain. And I turned the windshield wiper And I looked down, and I was going a hundred miles an hour. And what the trouble was is that the wind would hit the windshield and move the blade up off of its back. So I had to slow down here about seven minutes before the rubber would come down in touch before I actually went back into work. That's it. Dude, let me say one thing. I want to interject one more thing here because I kept talking about alcoholism and alcoholics and how bad it was. The truth is, during all this time, you know what? I was a great member of the legislature. I really loved serving. I worked as a member. I did contribute a great deal to the state of California. And I'm very, very proud of the fact that I've been both on the State Council and a member of legislature. As I talk and kiss and joke about those times and kind of start dictating rundown stories I do want you to know that I did go to work every day, I work hard as hell and I'm not a good member of the legislature. But I left off with this boomy, buggy, oncoming alcohol. And these times when I was one over the line, used to get a two or three week smile, I was getting to be 120 members of the Legislature and about 800 or 900 registered lawyers and those lawyers' job, don't just say it's them, must be give anything that they could to get the attention and the good feeling of a legislator. That's what they were paid to do. And it was just my drinking continued and I kind of went up the scale on the things I drank. Good whiskey and good cigars and a good time with that at all in the evening hours. And I drank, and I could drink so much that I finally, in the election of 1974, actually didn't even campaign, I was supposed to do that. My wife had left me at this time, got mad and took off, and my alcoholism got to the point where I couldn't function. And luckily, when I thanked God tonight, there's some times where I'm safe, they've been capable of not voting for me in the June primary election of1974, simply because I didn't campaign. I was too drunk, I had too much food, I didn'y know that I'd go out and put on any kind of a campaign, and I was thrown out of office. Well, that was in June of 1974. I didn''t leave office till the end of that year. And my attitude at that time was, no sturdy walking, no good in my own time. People were doing both those wonderful things, almost to death from that day until the 15th day of September 1976, which is my sobriety date of 25 years this year. I mean, hey, it's not so bad. It's not the way it is. I used to have a hospital that actually treated me to these alcohols, and it wasn't just, you didn't have to sneak in there with a bad liver or something, it was called a pyramid, and you went right to the front door and gave your name, and that's what happened to me. My mom checked me out, and she called the hospital, and signed me up, and I went out there, and by last week, well, I guess the 14th of September, I'd finished off the rest of the bottle of Jack Daniels and the parking lot of that hospital, I went in there, and submitted myself to Reverend Hesley, who I was talking about. I hadn't had a bath for about a month, and I had a broken arm. This arm was broken, I didn't even know it. You know you've got two bones here between your wrist and your elbow? Both of them were busted. I didn' t know it! And I just was a real man. I was coaching the wheelchair, and we had a power chair in those days, so I got one busted arm sitting in a wheelchair. And when you have a broken arm, and you're in your hand-controlled wheelchair, you can only use one arm. All you do is go on circles. So that's my enjoyment. I just go on circles. So they got me in there to take me out of my bed and clean me up and give me a shower and all this stuff, and that's the most radical stuff known that they had to do. And one of the things that they suggested at this tournament, well, what they were doing during the day to quote a lot of lectures about what the World Health Organization has to say about the disease of alcoholism, and how alcohol affects the liver, and all of this stuff, which is all very, very interesting and wonderful, and I remember it distinctly. But one of the things that they strongly suggested that we do was go to an AA meeting every Sunday night. I had never in my life heard of AA. I think I'd read about it in a magazine one time, and I've just heard people joking about it, but can you believe to hear a member of the legislature, a former American city councilman, a guy in broadcasting, have never heard of AAA? But I really haven't, in 1976. I'd heard of it, but I hadn't actually heard about the Rosicrucians and the Rotarians and the, you know, the Otto Clauses. I'd had some vague idea that there was a group called AA, but I didn't know what it was. I'd never been to a meeting like this before. And the reason I dwell on that is because if I had known anything about it, I probably would have sworn for bad opinion. But I was lucky enough that I'd remember. I didn' t know what I was like. What the hell? I was one of those ladies who listened funny lies in the cafeteria at the Mercy Chamber Hospital in Carmichael. Went down there. It was a meeting. It was smaller than this. No time difference from me. Tonight, half day with some us. Big, much-looking folks. Stood around and had a meeting, and went to the meeting. I sat and listened to everything. You looked upstairs and all the patients would come down and go to the room. There was nothing particularly interesting that was said about the number. I kind of guess I heard him read the set. I didn't really identify with anything, but I kept waiting for something to be said or done or some note or maybe some hidden handshake or secret word or something. Nothing really. I think it was on the second step, and there was probably 35 or 40 people. They kind of shared, you know, a couple last years now, some real bad copies. Everybody smoked in those days, so the whole room was full of smoke. Now I have me, and without such a large prayer, which is a little bit difficult for me, a little uncomfortable, that's a whole damn thing. But I thought I was going to do that. Went back up to the unit and did anything about it. It was just, you don't know what bad news about it, I said. First of all, the whole next week of lectures and the next hundred nights went down the same face. By now, half of it was a four-week summer for four meetings. Nothing really profound that I could figure out. Still hadn't figured it out. I'd heard about that, but I never did. In about ten months of suddenly going on these for some reason, when I'm still unable to tell you, I had lost the compulsion to sleep. I didn't even think about it. I hadn't even gone on it. It just simply happened. There was a magic, for me, struck by a streaming A.A. meeting where I was miraculously relieved of this obsession with money because prior to that, I was a daily blackout, peace-pissing, drunken, mess. Up until today, And about two or three months, I used to go to people. I'd sit in that meeting, and there usually was a little lady. I remember she would knit. See, I thought she was knitting a top for the evening sale with Dodger Stadium or something. I don't know what she was doing, but she was always knitting. And they would call on her, and she would say something like, Uh, when I think of those words, God miraculously took from me the compulsion to pray. And I would teach it myself. I can confess to you now. I'd say to myself, I wonder why they left us with mental disasters in the beginning. She'd sit around here and quit those goddamn knitting needles all the time. And then they'd call her, she'd always do the same thing. God miraciously took from her the compulsions to pray! I mean, deeply hurt. Why didn't she tell us something? She was really a negative, rotten self-centered pervert. But hang on man, about that third or third and a half month, he told me one day, she was telling my story! I just paid the AA, and God miraculously removed from me my desire to drink. I had to have a drink for three months, and I hadn't needed to have the drink. I didn't want to have it. I hadn' actually even thought about it. It just kind of went away. Isn't that a miraculous thing? Because, you know what? That's kind of a very, very common story to hear about. We get here many times in very different ways. My way out of here, I've just told you. Of course, it was just the beginning. I did continue to go to meetings. I don't have so many meetings. I go to three meetings a week now. And I want to tell you that during about the third or fourth month of my sobriety, and going back to the hospital, at Mercy Chamber Hospital in Sacramento, that's where we met a long, long time ago, 23, 24, over 25 years ago. And boy, she was a very, very, VERY important part of my early survival, in those very early days. Although, an enormous debt of gratitude. Can I ask you to just give Rita another round of applause? Eva Mendoza, you have an emergency call. You have a emergency at home. Eva Mandoza? That's what I think. Are you here, Eva? Well? Huh? I don't have the right to tell her story, but I do want you to know that she's a very important part of my story, and that we were together, very, very open-minded, and she taught me a lot about the program in those early days. Before this was I green, and unknowing, unknown. I didn't even know what the hell was happening. But I just didn't blink. The only thing that I did right was that I didn' blink, and I went through a lot of heat. And that was the foundation at the beginning of my survival, which has been continued for almost 25 years. You should know, one of the things that has occurred to me in recent years is how warm I was at that time about some things, and thats what I really want to share with you tonight. I was one of the people that really believed, I don't know, I know it's not, I didn't go there, but I don' t know. I really believed that I was criticized, basically, as 13 to 12. My problem was that I drank. That I drank alcohol. And if my problem was drinking alcohol, that would screw me up in my life. And I would make some bad mistakes and do bad things behind my drinking. So I showed my fascinating mind that if I didn' t drink alcohol, I would be, if that was completely removed from me, then everything would be great. Everything would be fine. I would have been that nice guy. That's a well-adjusted sweetheart I knew. Everything would have be great! And I lived under that illusion for about 15 years in a day. Because what happened is, my story tells the truth. It's your story, it's my story, and that's the only story I have left on the show. What happened to me was, I didn't write anymore. I spent half a day in front of it. I did continue to go to meetings. I did sponsor meetings with people. I got a sponsor. I did all the things that I heard I was supposed to do. But, a fundamental thing didn't change, and I feel that I didnít. Change is in the areas of life that constantly get in the way of our self. My problem was, when I found myself in the fifth step of the 12 by 12, I wasnít capable of fashioning a relationship with another human being. What I did was, everybody that I used to meet, I would marry. I had been married six times, and before, five times. I was married and divorced so many times, and I had a lot of fuck marks right on the side of my back. And I thought, when I got in AA and got sober, I'd really sincerely thought to myself, God damn, honey, this is over. This is over, I've been married and divorced three times, drunk, and now that's what the problem was. So I got married again, and yet, after about five years, it ended. It ended in divorce. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it! Come on, man, fuck off! But three drunk marriages and divorces, I kind of figured that out. But a sober marriage and divorce? I did have a hard time swallowing that. But you know how painful it was expecting all this stuff? And I took so long to put it through, I met this lovely, calm young lady who will die, This is it. This is IT! I mean, you know, I'll tell you if I find it. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it! I really fucking couldn't believe it, it almost killed me. I'm 50 years, 20 years sober in AA, I've got a three-year injury, I've put $2 in the collection plate at a time like this one. Not $1, not $2! I'm sponsoring three guys, I've written a book, I haven't read it yet, it has two seasons. I mean you know... What else can I do? I thought I was gonna die! I really thought I wasn't gonna die. My findings began to read some of the literature. I want to commend the ones here tonight that I read. Anybody ever read a thing called wrote that 12 and 12, when he was about 15 years old. It's a big book, you know, a beautiful big book of alphabetical honor. The 6th step and the 7th step have about one paragraph each. So it's kind of meant to be really fast. So this is written in about 38, 38 or 39. Well, they only had three or four years to write. They had the steps, but they didn't count. I mean, nobody really supported them, I guess. But you know what? I love the big book over there. I think it's the most fabulous piece of literature on this planet essentially. But when he got around to writing the 12 and the 12, there he had about 12, 15, 16 years to provide, and the man had really done well. And in the 7st step, that's the saddest 7th set In the 12 o'clock, I'm reading this letter, and it says in there, sometimes we have to go through a painful process of ego puncturing. Painful process. It's at the end of a long road that we finally get to this part where we are ready to reach for humility because we want it, rather than having to be buggered and geeky into it. Now I used to read that when I thought time. To be bugged and geeking into it! Now I just read that and I thought, time! Eight of them seem a little romantic, but not me. That was what I just thought, you know, the man I'm seeing kind of seemed a little... Let me tell you something. When I read that, at the year of my 15th year of sobriety, the year my fifth divorce, my second full divorce, talking and speaking in a room where I didn't know anybody but just a lot of people, I started using another term in there called gladiating this affair. I couldn't understand what gladiated that letter I wrote. You know what? This probably isn't your story. I don't think that it happened to a whole too many people, but I'm just going to tell you tonight it did happen to me. I was finally talking on TV. I didn' t know what to do. I went down. I could tell how bad off I was. I couldn' t go out. I was in a sad, obstetrical state behind this emotional waterway that I'd reached. Where have I ever been? Behind this. I had a girl who worked for me. My sex toy was driving me. I called up, and they were waiting for us to go into a hospital in Southern California. But I called in the bathroom, and she's trippin' with those calls that never happened to me in one of the ways. And I had to have my sister drive me down there because I didn't want anybody to drive her to Southern California I knew what they couldn't do it. I hadn't seen either of them yet. All of a sudden, I found out I was in this hospital in southern California. Now ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, they had me doing things down there that I thought they'd guarantee you I would never have done if you'd have had someone. So, we're twisted. So, can't leave talking to my brother-in-law. Can you believe that? I mean, I tell you what, when I sit up first in an ACA meeting, real low regard. I want myself to tell you this. I live at that hospital down there, and this guy says to me, you have to get in touch with your inner child. Now, I know that that's not how it should be. If I didn't get in contact with my inner child, he wouldn't let me out of there. So my motivation was to do whatever the hell I wanted to say. You know what? I started, you can work a day, go on, I want you to go somewhere on this campus in San Francisco all alone, and talk to your inner self. And then you can twit for yourself. It's like, no chance. And I would go eat away at a restaurant, and I would leave that to my inner self, immediately. Did you know, I began to feel the presence of that inner self? And another thing he said to me was, I'd like you to write to your He said, I want you to take this pen in your right hand, whatever your dominant hand is, and write a letter here on the side. A very simple, lovely letter. And then put the pen in my left hand, and he'll write back. I'll take it this way, and you can write. I'll do it the other way. What? Nobody will look at it. I wrote a letter? Here's how. I want to let you know that I love you. I want for you to know that you can come out of this letter. You will say, I don't have all the letters. Let me show you something. I love You. I want it. So buy it. Pay for it. Whatever. Whatever. It was real scrawly, hard to read, but I actually got a few words. I wasn't thinking about it. It's almost like a Ouija board. You ever hear of a play with a Ouijiboy or something? My hands started moving. I'm getting the letter back from the book. It was almost scary. Then these little reading things I had began to take on a kind of a spiritual effect. I was getting serious about it, and I would go away from all the other patients and hide in an unused room and read to my other child, and just just feel it. Another thing that they had me do was I had to write a letter to my dead father. My dad died in 1951. And then I had a white letter to all my relatives, but the top part of it is I had no need for those letters to be a symbol for all the patients in the hospital. I, I just thought the terrible thing is my dad was in bed since 1951 on a wedding order. So, I had to do it, but what's the order? You know tonight, they're accommodating me to read that letter. And I got that letter out and I had the lead to the clock. And about halfway through the reading back of this letter, I began to have these feelings of emotion and grief and sobbing like I hadn't done, I don't remember when. It was a real, I'm not advocating any of this by the way ladies and gentlemen, I'm just telling you what happened to me. Well, on the third or fourth day, I told my mom I got a nice swimming pool in the backyard and I used to say to myself about my swimming suit I hate it when those little bastards come over here They got my cat with a tail, and they diced me. I just didn't like kids. I still wanted those guys first around. I didn't want to be in the restaurant downtown, but I really wanted to come. This was before I went away. Now I'm back and I'm sitting in my backyard, and I've been thinking to myself, If I can think about this backyard, quick! The lawns mowed, hedges trimmed, there's a guy that comes and plays with the bullies, and we get 25-60 feet of bait all the way through the water. There was nothing out of place. It was just sterile, and neat, and terrible. I'd have given anything if one of those boys would come over and swim in the pool. Then I wouldn't come over to swim in Grandpa's house because I could tell where they were. So what I did was, I started calling them up one by one to take out the pizza, And the funny thing is, I found out that I love children. I love babies! I follow what's hidden in them. I watched WP Fields and said that he hated kids. And I have a picture of WP Field in my garage. And none of that, I love that picture of him holding his kid on the golf course and all kinds of strangers. All of a sudden, I didn't see honey coming anymore. All of the sudden, I had this wonderful, warm, compassionate, loving feeling for children. And I've now faced the test because I have made, I've come to terms with this mentality. Yeah, I don't know. I think you don't understand. All I do know is that I fell in love with this wonderful collection of people called my own grandchildren. I've got 11 grandchildren. They are fabulous. A bunch of them are mine, they're my kids, a bunch of my, uh, from my wife and her kids, anyway, that's just all over the place. And you know what? They're, they're clean, they're neat, they are intelligent, they're smart, they're lovely! God damn, there's four of them here! I had to take two as well, and we'd get in the car and take three, because I was only one size as well as eight, so we'd come out to the boulder dam, and then I'd come straight, I took an old man with us down, and it seemed like everybody, that lady was almost, uh... lies up inside on a little toilet, 12 flies or something. I, I, personally can't stand about their lies, but they did love it! We got a hotel and a couple rooms, and we just, they just had a ball, reach out with humility and love and embrace my own family. The pride and ego and the anger and self-centeredness that AA opened the door for me to be teachable enough to do that one thing has meant so very, very, VERY much in my life today. I was able to finally believe it or not a year later, wondering. I had known this lady for a very long time, but I'd never had any emotional or romantic feelings about her. We stayed on AA. She was the general secretary of the Love Bill Group. And we had gotten to know each other for a while, and we kept falling in love and married. I'll be married four years this August to a lovely lady named Linda. We haven't had any fights. There's no doubt going on. The war is over. You know, the fights are done. Yet she has really, I believe, been a miraculously cleansing thing for me as well. And I want to tell you, I know that there are places in AA where they get mad and you talk about things like inner child work and all that kind of stuff. But it's my story, and it happened to me, and I know because I was never even able to think about it or open the door to it in my mental attitude. It wasn't for the fact that I had this basic training in the love and the miracle of AA. I remember reading in summer season 2 that our father, A.W., suffered himself from great anger and great depression. And right one time, a young person was going to bed, and he was heading to bed for a week, which paralyzed him with a depression. He couldn't get out of it. And I believe it was Father Darwin who came to see him from Detroit one time. And he said he wanted to eat a baby in the bathroom, and the kitchen in the back room, and they were laying in bed, but still looking. And he began to talk to Father Darwin, and Father Darwin said, Bill, your problem is that you wrote the steps, but you haven't done the steps. And he says, what you need to do is to do a fourth step in before I do all these things. Now, that has to have been humiliating for Bill. I mean, yes, it was a great moment for Mr. Bill, but he did do it, as Father Darwin suggested. And because of that, I was able to have the kind of love and spirit in me that helped me to write those passages that I referred to opened up some pain to be able to read that part about the end of a long, long road of painful ego puncturing. But it worked. That suggests one thing to me, that my mind has got to be open for all the rest of the wonderful gifts that came to mind Well, I didn't watch them. I'm going to tell you what I'm doing now, and it's okay to talk to y'all too much in all of my life. At about the time that I got out of that hospital setting there, and I was telling you about it clearly, so I've been told on a couple of offers. People wanted to get the hell rid of me, but I was told about it, and once over, I went down to town to see a woman. I was born and raised at a job as a logger. Now, I'm one of those loggers when I catch up on orders about some goods. I mean, I can say something about goods, but it isn't really part of the job so much anymore. So, I have been working for the last 20-some odd years, in Sacramento, as a lobber. I don't know what it means, but it just causes my stomach to twitter almost with joy when I think about it. The name of the big dog has come. Top number one guy. Gray hair, very distinguished looking kind of a dude. He'll walk in the room and I'll just grab your wallet. And he really looks good. 17 years in age age. The guy's a real rocker and fabulous member of the fellowship. The guy's a real rocker and fabulous member of the fellowship at Alphonse Anonymous, and it has nothing to do with just happening. That's the guy I couldn't believe it. What a sweet guy he is. He's a con. This man who is the number one chief of all law enforcement down there has got about two years training himself in AA. And these guys are me. They go to 630 AM attitude adjustment meetings. Can you believe that? I didn't even know anybody without a 630 anymore. I used to go on my way home at 630. I can't go to early morning meetings. I take it off every, uh, twice a week and go to an early AA meeting here down in Riverside County. Then they go down and run the county government. They are wonderful guys. It is wonderful to be with them, to work down their wisdom, and to have the joy and thrill of meeting guys at work when you find out one little word or something on an attitude that a puppy says, I don't remember how it happened, and then you find that they're also members of A.A. It's wonderful to get surrounded. I'm working out at the Capitol every day. The man who is the head of the Senate now is a wonderful fellow. May he rest in peace. Senator John Burton. Johnny is an old, old friend of mine from many, many years ago. He's a very distinct defender of the program. He's been a member of E.A., has been for many, million years. His sponsor is Wilmer Mills, former chairman of the Housewaite Youth Committee. And the guy, I didn't even know him, went down the street and sat in on a one-night service by a screen out of a car. And I couldn't, I thought I was hearing an echo or something. And I heard this voice and he's going, Where are you? We're here to work some clothes! And I looked at his book and hanging off the back door of the car, and it was him who I was saying, Hi, how are you, welcome to fellowship. And this guy won the conference. There are several members now of the legislature, who are members of our fellowship today, actual public meetings. I mean, you can't just go to one-to-one meetings, but there are ongoing members' active participants. When I was there 30 years ago, it seemed to me like everybody drank, everybody drank food, and everybody smoked. Not everybody, but almost everybody. an exception are the whole idea of recovery, and the fact that I was a back-up wife, and it can happen down time later on at work every year. Four brothers of mine aren't alcoholics, still don't die from it. My dad lives in L.C., all of his brothers are alcoholics. I just, everybody in the whole family, it's a seed of harmony in every part of our family. But there's something that I've found out that I'm delighted about. That is that recovery also travels through the family. It is absolutely uncanny. One person comes into the fellowship, stays in the fellowship doesn't have to tell you 12 steps, you don't have to tell me to leave 5 for you and all that kind of stuff and it begins, once he's in private, everything begins to spread. It's incredible! It was so phenomenal, from a perspective of 25 years from the past The number of people in my family, I have a cousin up in Brooklyn, Oregon, who is clean and sober. Both of my kids, my son-in-law, going on eight years in AA. My daughter has been sober for about six years. It's just unbelievable. My wife, her son-on-law is now about six months. And there's no pressure. We don't need to get both around or drive him to meetings. It seems like the most effective 12-step work we do on families is just to stay sober ourselves and be honest and sincere about our own recovery. And when we think and enjoy and practice our recovery, it has this contagious effect. I'm going to announce tonight that recovery is contagious and it spreads through families just as much as it does in careers. Isn't that an incredible thing to know? You know, the power of recovery, the Power of AA, the POWER OF SPIRITUALITY of our program is an ENORMOUS thing. It is really an Enormous thing. Hero, I've never met her, but Betty Ford, someone who I think is a hero because she has been and actually members of the program, but has never broken her anonymity at the public level. She once in a while will have a big book on the table or a big statue behind her in a photograph or in a TV review, but she has never broke an anonymity clause. Yet, she's a high standard, a very active member of our fellowship. And a very thrilling thing for me was what I got a case the other day from a friend of mine, and I'm sure you know about this, and I mean whether we can break anonymity, so I'm not hurting anybody, and it was Tony H., who gave this great talk down in Santa Monica about his life and money. and still they're working a great program within our fellowship. And, of course, I'm all too excited if I can see the guy at the door, or the guy in the meat shop, or the fellow who rides the tram, or the guys... Oh, I was at the airport the other night to pick somebody up, and the car! It's a black car, I've got to be sure! You know how when you go to the airport, they seem to be determined to keep their hell out of air, right? Because they want you to stop running things, because no one's really going off overhead, don't leave your car open on changes. Well, this police officer comes up, and he's running in on a yellow slip, talking about how he comes up to me, and I said, well look, I just need somebody, He says, okay, that's about all of it. He's walking over to the other one behind him. I can't see you because there's a bucket list on my rear window. And he comes back around to the side of me. My hand is going past my wrist and gives me a smile and says, you've got a great time in your car. And I just remember the fellowship. And he keeps moving on. I almost left my hand. I really did. I was so thrilled. It's just warm to acknowledge memberships in AA. It's a sweet time. I've never seen them again. I've not seen them before. But for that minute, I was as close to that guy as I've ever been to anyone in my life. The power of the fellowship, always know the feeling of riding down the road some morning trip and seeing somebody go by It is a powerful fellowship that we're involved in. My personal hero is Tracy I. Tracy is in the LA group. Tracy says, and I totally agree with him, that the work of Dale Nadir writing the big book has had the most profoundly positive effect on the lives of more human beings on this globe than any other book written in the 20th century. That, of course, includes the Bible, but of all the books and all the medical theories and all of the health books and all wonderful things that man has done for the entire 100 years, in his opinion, the Big Book of AA has positively affected, in a positive way, more people than any single other book. That is a powerful thing to say, and a powerful thing to believe. I've always known this, and I learned it in Fresno. I go back to the beginning just for a short start, and then I'll quit. I've been in politics all my life trying to get people to come to meetings in school, trying to buy a pay-em, buy a free beer, get them a cookie, anything, just to get a few people to turn out. The very first time I ever went to was in Fresno, back in 1970. Yeah, I can remember that. It was my first year. So we came down and checked into the hotel, which was used to be a hotel, which is now just another place. Got a room there. The day before the AAV, and they said, well, it's time to see Fresno Convention Center, It's just on the street. Well, I had been at that Fresno Convention Center many times, going to political events. And they'd always have searchlights out front, and the police would have their place closed off during the political convention. And you know, you're hurting the people and moving them around. And you go inside in the main room, or maybe two or three other people at the political conventions. And it was kind of a hard thing. So I went over there for this time. This time I go to an Asian convention over there. And I noticed, the things I noticed locally, there's nothing. There's no searchlight here. Nobody's paying anything. There isn't even a parking attendant. Parking lot was just there. You could use it if you wanted to. There was only one door open. There were about five doors in the convention center. And you could open one and go inside. There's a couple ladies from the car trade, I'll tell you what it was. Down on the main side, I'm still running on health interventions. There's not American much, no? Go down the hall, open the door, go into the room, there's 2,000 people in this bar! And the ladies are like, I couldn't believe it! And the guy who was speaking at number 150 was an Indian. An American Indian from way up in Canada. I'm so glad to meet him, he's the funniest guy ever in my life! The one there on the left, next to him, was crying with a paper. And honestly, it was boiling out of his cap. It was all in these beautiful mandala-type clothes. I didn't even ask if she was American or not American. She was Canadian. That was just fabulous. It was just unbelievable. I couldn' t believe it. I just couldn't believe that there would be that many people who'd show up at the first and then many, many people came. At the priming moment, how many of you were able to go down to St. James or the World Church Convention? I don't know. This is from San Diego about five, six years ago. I was able to down there when we went out to the baseball stadium or the San Diego Conference playing baseball. What's the name of that state? Jack, what's the names of those states? Huh? Can I say it? Josh, what do you say? Look at that! Why don't I know the state? There are 65,000 people in that state. 65, 000 people. You know how many people are there? That's a hell of a lot of people. I mean, that's like the city of Oxnard, you know? And then they stood, 65,000 people stood and said the same thing. I mean, it's just chill. I mean here I am an old hustler, all the time get groups to come to meetings with my whole life, driving them, doing anything, and here is this, and I notice through the mirror of a cloud, and in fact it's a policeman there working the parking lot outside. Nobody was pissed. Nobody was haunted. Nobody tried to drive over one another. It was just unbelievable. The love, the language of the heart, the common work of 65, 000 people in one town. They had to put together a whole new bus system just for the convention. And people in San Diego couldn't not say a word. Nobody said they were coming. Nobody said anything while they were there. And everybody felt wonderful when they went. The bartender suffered. The booth didn't go up much. But you know, we did all kinds of people do. We ate fish and chips, we bought buttons, we laughed, we listened to music, we smoked a lot. They had to forget about no smoking in the motels because most of the year they still smoke like this. But anyway, I'm going to close with that just to say to you, let's just experiment. I'll be as one with my fellows in this fellowship, this place where we deal with the isn't, where we remember this alcoholism model and alcoholism comes from people. And if you don't want it at all, you know what I'm saying? I know people are turning somebody's nerves on. I saw a guy come down off a gambling trip and I, as yet, have not experienced my gambling son. The reason is, I get so mad that I can't gamble enough. I just know I've got time to shoot myself, so I just won't do it anymore. Well, I saw a guy come down off a gambling trip. You ever seen anybody suffering from a wronged family? It's incredible. So people say to me, you know, well, you've got a decent piece of narcotic stuff. What if I said you've only got one of them? You've got them all. Now, I believe absolutely that there's no such thing as an old junkie. There's only old ones. Because when you get too old to carry a CD set, you got to start raising one. Right? And it just, it just went on and on. And anything that we can get, those of us who have, anything that me can get for the ultimate amount of money, gambling, chasing, drug money, booze, uh, and then, of course, there's this phenomenon of the ACA, about the same generation. There's a new book called The Children of Adult Children of Alcoholics. It's called Calm Down. No, I don't know that one. I don' t know the one. But the thing about it is, there is a quality of recovery of our self-death and our self that works. It is true that I might go dizzy and I didn't have to decide to drink anymore. Something has been reminding me since I'm coming here all my early life. I do believe in magic. There is magic in the day. There's one other thing, and I have time for one more quick. I did find something here in that crazy work of an inner child. In that all the stuff in that area is gone. And I'm sorry. You don't have mention of that. But I have found there is a tremendous power, a tremendous ability of the power to come into my life when I am threatened and upset and not doing too well. It comes and comes to me like magic. In my case it's just to say, it's so wonderful. Like I said last night, I'm going to go out for coffee tonight. And I'm saying so wonderful because God has to let me work. And that is what I call my God. I can be upset and churning and screwing and banging my head around. And remember to say that so wonderful is a prayer. Remember there are many outputs from humility. And it will come to me. So I can honestly say in concluding my talk tonight that I really do thank God for alcohol at the moment. If you want to know what I'm doing, I'm playing right now. Talk about wild Indians. I want to thank you for those nice words. Now I wish my wife would hear. I left staffing the other day, about twenty-four years ago. Something to be said about being compulsive, I suppose. But I like it. My oldest daughter, she's in the program. And Thanksgiving is coming up. It's a big day. It's going to be a lot of fun. I want to thank you for those nice words. Now I wish my wife would hear. I met Taffy in May Day, about 24 years ago. Something to be said about being compulsive, I suppose. But I like it. My oldest daughter, she's in the program. And Thanksgiving dinner, she came over. And telling my wife that she has tickets to see Ken Rogers and Tommy Clarkson. So I have a choice. I told my wife she has a choice, either me or Ken Rogers. That's why I'm a woman. Well, I'm the one that calls on the union. And I like that. I've heard a lot this weekend. I think that among other things that I learned to enjoy in the program is to be able to see myself in other people, to identify and to understand. I enjoyed my friend Jack Friday night last night. I don't know if you identified the story told about... I think you understood rather than identifying the story told about that 85-year-old man. I don' t think you're old enough to identify with that, but not only you understood it, but I think you liked it. I know I did too. I have a friend at home. He's the type of fellow who shares everything, and the other night he was talking about his first sex experience. He said he liked it. He was at home, and he was alone. I don't know if you identify with that. I think it's wonderful to be able to look back on your own life and to realize just how grateful you are. Somebody mentioned about time that some of us don't like in any way. Time is reality, and there's always a way of telling yourself not everything happens all at once. beautiful thing because you do learn from your friends. You get some insight about yourself. You get an understanding about the illness of alcoholism. You learn something about prayers. And I have been fortunate enough that I have had different kinds to learn all these things and when I was last, I realized that I'm a lucky person. I have a lot to be grateful for. There have been some special people in my life I know that it took time to help me those days when I really needed help and I didn't know how to receive it. One of them was a warrior. I met him back in 1957. I was on a mission that night because I lived in Seattle for almost eight years. I looked over, and a bum came to see me in the mission, and he asked me if I wanted to go to an AA meeting. And I didn't know what an AA meet was, and I didn' t want to go anyplace because I wasn' t dressed, and I needed a haircut. And I have always suffered from my story, and that usually took me about six weeks before my face would clear up. And when I'm in this condition, I don' t watch anyone. You they have coffee and donuts and they're free. So I said, we'll go. I walked into that central group. Central group is meeting like this one. Mixed people from different walks of life. The man who stood at the door that night was a lawyer. And that's what he did every Friday night. He stood at your door and he would shake hands with everyone who came to that meeting. And he would do the same thing after the meeting. He would shake hands with anyone who was leaving. And as I was walking through the doors of that meeting, he grabbed my hand and he said to me that he was glad to see me. And I wasn't But the only thing I could see was the way I looked. The way I felt. And I said, my first teacher was a lady judge. And I never even knew that string. The ones that I, it's a business that I never met one of them before. I met one 43 times. And he never once asked me to try to identify. And she got my mind all screwed up. And all I want to do is get my donuts and get the hell out of there. But there was this lawyer. And that's what I'm grateful for. I'm grateful that, uh, you understood. So it's only your fault. You have long hair and long scars. You know, you don't look too well.