Untreated Alcoholism Without Booze Is Still Misery – Jack S.
About This Speaker Tape
Jack S. grew up four blocks from Churchill Downs, got kicked out of high school at 15 for his attitude, and spent the next 13 years proving that you cannot scare an alcoholic into stopping. A priest tried holy water and threats of hell — Jack stayed sober 48 hours. A doctor told him he'd die — Jack took another drink. His father, who once told him "if you figured a way to get in, you'll figure a way to get out" and hung up the phone, eventually disowned him entirely.
The turn came not from a dramatic bottom but from a nurse jingling a set of keys outside a locked ward in a Louisville hospital. Jack went to his first AA meeting motivated entirely by the threat of losing his room key. He interrupted the speaker, argued with everyone, made a complete ass of himself, and walked out — only to have a 65-year-old woman put her arm around him and say, "Honey, you come back next week. We need you." He thought they should put her in a home. He went back anyway. A stubborn old sponsor who later became his lifeline told him alcoholics have an extra bone in their spine — kick them hard enough and it opens their mind.
Jack's message is built around one distinction: untreated alcoholism without alcohol is a miserable way to live, and no threat, no consequence, no coffin buried in a backyard will stop a man who is more afraid of getting well than of dying. The solution he found wasn't religious conviction — it was a spiritual community where self-interest stops being the primary concern, and where the concern for others feeds your own sobriety. He closes every talk with the same story: a man who warms a freezing snake under his coat, gets bitten, and hears the snake say, "You knew what I was when you picked me up."
If you've been told a hundred times what drinking will cost you and drank anyway, Jack is the tape. He's not going to scare you either — but he might make you laugh long enough to hear something true.
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Timestamps
Full Transcript
Thank you, bud. I think you're supposed to say that.
My name is Jack Sullivan, and I'm an alcoholic.
I come from Louisville, Kentucky.
If you've never been to Kentucky, it's noted for its beautiful women,
fast-race horses, and...
My name is Jack Sullivan, and I'm an alcoholic.
I come from Louisville, Kentucky.
If you've never been to Kentucky, it's noted for its beautiful women,
fast-race horses, and...
Thank you, bud. I think you're supposed to say that.
My name is Jack Sullivan, and I'm an alcoholic.
I come from Louisville, Kentucky.
If you've never been to Kentucky, it's noted for its beautiful women,
fast-race horses, and smooth whiskey.
And they have two out of three there.
I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me,
and I would especially like to thank those that they asked to host Gay and I.
We've spent a lovely weekend with Dan and Margie,
and they've been so gracious to us and showed us your fair city,
and we've just had a lovely time here.
And I know it's a lot of work to put one of these things on,
and I think the people deserve a tremendous,
a tremendous, a tremendous, a tremendous, a tremendous,
a tremendous, a tremendous, a tremendous,
a tremendous amount of thanks that worked so hard to do this.
Some people think, you know, there's really about three kinds of people in AA.
There's people in AA that make things happen,
and there's people that sit around and wondered what happened,
and didn't even know anything happened.
Whatever category you fit in.
Thank you.
Now, if I can stay sober until Tuesday, and I'm not so sure that that can happen, I will
have been sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for the past 22 years.
Now, that may not mean a damn thing to you, but it just impresses the hell out of me.
A number of years ago, I was in a small town at Seymour, Indiana, and I had a friend celebrating
10 years in AA.
And I went up to talk at the anniversary.
of her sobriety.
And when I arrived, there was a young fellow there, about 21 years old, who had three months
of sobriety, and he was going to chair that meeting.
And he said to me, I guess I'll screw it up.
I said, I doubt it very seriously.
It's very difficult to screw up an AA meeting.
He said, well, I'm nervous as hell.
I said, that's okay.
You'll get over it.
So the meeting went on.
It worked out real well.
And when it was over, he said that he was glad that he got over it.
I threw it.
But he said, I didn't make a few mistakes, but he said, maybe that has its advantages.
He said, I believe that the dumber the chairman is, the better the speaker looks.
I certainly want to thank the committee for their selection.
I should wind up giving one of the best damn talks I ever gave in my life.
I have a philosophy about speaking at an AA meeting.
I'll tell you what.
try to stop talking when I'm through. Very sensitive. I have microphones, but I like
these drunks, aren't I? Sensitive perfectionists. But I do, you know, I had a friend of mine one
time was standing out in the hallway from a meeting and some guy kept going on and on and on
and a guy came out and he said, isn't that guy through yet? And the fellow said, hell, he was
through a half hour ago, but he's still talking. And I'll try not to do that. And I also know that
when I came in here tonight, I was going to be the speaker. I knew that. So I'm sure that when
you came in here tonight, you knew you were going to listen. If you get through before I do,
you go on home. I mean, it won't bother me a bit. If you're through listening before I'm
through talking, you go right on. And as a speaker, you know, I'll share with you what I
know about me and perhaps maybe what I've seen over the years. And I've seen a few things over
the years. And the people that have crossed my path in the last 22 years have been a lot of
interesting people.
And they've taught me a whole lot, regardless of the outcome of their own personal situation. So
I'm satisfied that when I leave here tonight, you will know at least a little something about me.
And up till about a year ago, I had no way of knowing anything about the mentality of the
audience that I was talking to. A doctor friend of mine gave me a story to tell that sort of
evaluates your mentality. And I like to do that. And I'll share that with you.
There was a 91-year-old man who was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. And he was a bachelor. He'd never
been married, had no children. He was sitting around his room one day, and he got to thinking
that with his intelligence and dedication, that it was a shame that none of his genetic factors
would be left on this earth. So he thought about it and decided he would make a trip down to the
sperm bank.
So at the age of 91, he went into the sperm bank about 9.30 in the morning, told the clinician who
he was and what he wanted to do. She said, take this jar and go over in that little room and leave
a deposit. So about 11.30 that morning, they were going to lunch, and the old man was still in
there. So they went on to lunch, and they came back. And at 4 o'clock in the morning, they were
going to close the clinic, and he was still in there. So they knocked on the door and told him
he'd have to come out, that the clinic was closing. And the old man came out and handed the
nurse back the jar. And she looked at it, and she said, why, it's empty. He said, I know. He said,
I went in there and sat down. And he said, I tried my left hand on the damn thing for a while.
He said, I tried my right hand on the damn thing for a while. He said, I run cold water on it. He
said, I run hot water on it. And he said, I never could get the top off that jar.
Well, that tells me what the hell kind of an audience I'm talking to.
That lady down there was thinking nasty.
I can obviously see you're not much better than I am.
I never set out to become an alcoholic. It's nothing I've accomplished. From the time I was
born until I was 13, I did quite well in the world. I don't recall having any apparent problems. I
was a pretty good student, and I'm not real sure that I ever had any convictions about an organized
religion or a good religion. I don't recall having any convictions about an organized religion. I
think as somebody who works for the fulfilment of God or anything else, I don't recall having any
deep seated feelings about those sorts of things. But nevertheless up until that time in my life, I
functioning and operated as a quote unquote normal human being, whatever the hell that means.
happy
When I got to be 14 years old, I went enrolled in a high school in Louisville called St. Xavier
High School. And as a freshman, I did fairly well. And when I was a sophomore at the age of 15,
they asked me after I completed my sophomore year in that high school, I had to get back. You see, at 15 years to be correct.
me after I completed my sophomore year in that high school not to come back. And it
was primarily because of my attitude towards most everything. Now, I'm sure that if there's
some psychiatrists in this audience, you can fill psychiatric libraries as to why I began
to act and react that way. And maybe someday you can tell me, because I sure as hell don't
know. But I do know that what I was taught at home and what I saw in that outside world
were entirely two different worlds. And what I saw going on out there, I thoroughly enjoyed
and loved and fell in love with that environment and that atmosphere. And I began to move in
with an older crowd of people, and they were doing things that I hadn't been told about.
And when I got out to that corner, they drank, and the racetrack was there. If you've ever
seen the Kentucky Derby on television, it's the corner where I lived and died about nine
times. And if you watch the race on TV, you could even see some buildings in the distance
over a starting gate, and that's where 4th and Central was located. And I went out there
as a young man, and I really got wrapped up in that environment out there. There was girls
and money and exciting things going on, and I wanted to be a part of it. And I immediately
began to live my life doing what I wanted to do. I don't know why I made that decision.
I have two sisters and a brother who did not make the same decision.
My brother was a fool in a way. He studied. He's an industrial engineer with General Motors,
a vice president with a corporation today. But that dummy, he missed out on all the fun.
He was in there looking at books. So I went to the corner, and the corner was fun. And
I had admiration for people that had Continentals and $100 bills and good-looking girls. And
that's what the hell it was all about. And that's what I wanted. And I began to live
that life doing what I wanted to do. And I tell people all the time, I lived and died
with an eye syndrome. I made my own decisions. I decided what I wanted to do. I don't need
you. I don't need God. I don't need anybody. I'll do it. And when I came into AA, I was
very argumentative with AA, and I think it was because the very first word they said
to me was, we. The first word or the first step is, we. Alcoholics aren't we people.
I never met a damn alcoholic until I was in AA. I never met a damn alcoholic until I was
in AA. I never met a damn alcoholic until I was in AA. I never met a damn alcoholic until
I was in AA. I ever met a damn alcoholic until I was in AA. I have
a question.
Tell me whatieran did you do in AA?
На多keyital я.
racetrack environment where the gambling and the money was, and I just fell in love with
it.
And I met a young lady out there, and she took me from soprano to baritone, and I thought
this was about the most exciting game that I've ever gotten into, and I jumped right
in, and I loved it.
My mother died when I was about 17 years old, and the only one left to accept the burden
of this responsibility was my father.
My father was very critical of the way I was living, and naturally any parent would have
been.
My father, like any parent, tried to interject discipline into my life because he loved me.
Parents don't do that to deny children of anything.
They do it because they love them.
My father was trying to protect me from getting hurt.
My father wanted me to be able to see and enjoy what love meant, you see, but even though
many alcoholics like me are starved for love.
We settle for attention.
We'll swap attention for love any day, and I wanted in that fast lane with that attention
even though my father was very critical of it.
I loved things.
I was the type of person that used people and loved things.
I think that's where A turns my life around, to where today I can love people and use things.
But back then it was different.
And my father.
My father did in the only way he knew how as a parent, to try to correct me and stop
me and scream at me and threaten me and all the things that a good parent would do.
But at the same time, my father was a very strong man.
My father was a firm believer that if you dance to the music, you pay the fiddler.
I will not pay for you.
And I was even at the age of 18 or 19 then, even into that big macho attitude that alcoholics
have that, you know, I'm in there.
I don't need anything or anybody.
I'm really okay.
I'm really okay.
I don't need a wheel, a cool cat, an operator, whatever the hell you want to call it.
And the fascinating thing that I was about to enter a phase for the next 13 years to
where I would try to be scared into not progressing in alcoholism.
You can't scare alcoholics with threats of the consequences of drinking.
You know, it's a fascinating thing about alcoholics.
Alcoholics are not afraid of anything that will kill them.
But they're scared.
They're scared to death of anything that will help them.
As if they're not afraid of death, but yet afraid of life.
They don't resent somebody that beats the hell out of them, but they resent somebody
that tries to help them.
And that fear that was within me was not of anything that was going to happen to me.
It was the fear that perhaps maybe you might get to know me.
And my father had to go through that emotional transition.
That was the fear.
That's what my father and my husband and children do a great deal of time.
You know, to have to sit and look at somebody and to love them for who they are
and in some sense of the word hate them at the same time for what they are.
That's got to be the most traumatic thing in the life of a person that I have personally never experienced.
Is to love somebody for who they are and at the same time hate them for what they are.
And my father was beginning to look at this.
And yet he believed and he wasn't reluctant to say, my house, my rules, get out.
You know, if you're so determined to be your own thing, then go be your own thing.
If you dance, baby, you pay.
My father knew a lot about it.
He didn't know anything about it.
You know, and there's a lot of parents that know what to do.
They can't do it.
My father was one who could.
But with my smart tongue and arrogant manner and egotistical attitude that all alcoholics have,
I got right in the middle of it, you know.
And the only thing that ever toned me down was a squad car.
You know, really and truly, humility is in the back seat of a squad car.
Probably the breeding ground of humility is in the back seat of a squad car.
And if you don't believe that, check it out sometime.
Did you ever stand in a bar and listen to all those big macho people talk about whoever the hell it is we're talking about?
Did you ever see some guy talk about that old bitch he lives with and the people he works for?
In my case, that dumb old man, you know, big, tough, macho crap, all these things these people are doing to us and causing us and everything?
Locked him up.
Go down to a police station and listen.
They give you a quarter for one telephone call and drop it in the phone.
That old bitch he talked about at the bar?
She'll answer.
And that big, tough, macho alcoholic, he says,
Honey.
Honey.
And when I was through that diamond slot back there and my dad answered the phone, you know,
and all that garbage I'd been putting out about him,
and he came to the other end and I said,
Daddy.
And to show you what kind of man my father was, he said,
What?
I said, Well, I'm in jail.
He said, Why did you call me?
I said, Well, I thought you might come get me out.
Oh, he said, I wouldn't worry about that if I did.
Why, he said, As smart as you are.
Oh.
He said, Hell, if you figured a way to get in, you'll figure a way to get out.
And hung up.
When I got out, he said, Don't waste your dime on me anymore.
And that's just exactly the way that he felt.
You can read any book on alcoholism and you'll find me as a single, progressive alcoholic.
I never married until I came into A.
This love of alcoholism.
This lovely lady sitting here with me tonight is my wife.
And I married gay on September the 7th of 1963, 13 months after I was sober.
She's not too bright either.
She divorced an alcoholic that drove her crazy and married me.
So it was two unbright people, I guess.
So I didn't have a family or women.
I never wanted to get married when I was a drinker.
I don't want to help people get married.
I don't know what the hell they wanted with a wife.
It seemed to me like they slowed everybody down.
It might have added a little dimension of responsibility that might have slowed me down.
I don't know.
But I never entered my mind to get one.
I didn't know what in the hell you did with them.
I wasn't done.
And what in the hell you kept them for, I didn't know.
And as I told my sponsor, most of the women that I ran with weren't the marrying kind.
And he looked at me and said, What in the hell were they going to do?
What are they going to get?
Most of them were real ugly.
I used to run.
I ran with some ugly women.
I went with this one, and she went home one night and started undressed.
She went in the bedroom, and she was undressing, and a peep and Tom came up to the window.
And when she got about half undressed, he reached in and pulled the blind down.
Now, there were certain people that were about to enter my life, I'm sure, as they entered into your life,
who back then knew absolutely nothing about alcoholism.
I'm satisfied they were well-meaning people.
In their own uneducated way of being ignorant, I guess, in the field of alcoholism,
they thought that the solution to people like me was to threat.
And warn you of obvious things that you already know.
There was a Monsignor in a Catholic church up home that was a good friend of our family's.
And he decided to take me on.
I've often said when I came in there and they asked me to surrender, I thought,
I thought, Hell, it's about my turn.
I had a hell of a lot of people surrender to me.
They gave up in a hurry.
But, you know, this priest, he really thought the solution to alcoholism was a seat in the sanctuary,
a Bible in your hand, a pat on the head, and come back in the morning.
You know, or spray you with holy water and you'd be all right, you know.
And he really believed that.
And he tried that with me.
And telling me that if I didn't change my ways and if I didn't do this, I was going to hell.
Another threat.
Scared him into not progressing.
And he thought he had done a great job on me because I think I stayed sober about 48 hours.
And he considered that a success.
Until one day I come through the Holy Name Schoolyard and said,
I was drunk.
I was bouncing off a building.
And he surrendered.
He came to me and he looked at me and he said,
You're a hopeless drunk.
And at that time I was.
I know the definition of hope.
You know, somebody that possesses hope, you really believe you'll succeed tomorrow where you failed today.
You reach a point in your life in this sickness to where you understand and realize things will never be any better.
They will be like they are.
And I think you do become hopeless.
But he looked at me and he said I was hopeless.
Then he informed me that him and I would meet on the way to heaven.
Then he told me when you generally meet somebody, you're going one way and they're going the other.
And he just turned around and walked off.
And he underestimated us and our line of thinking and our egotism.
As he headed back to that rectory, I looked at him and I thought, I wonder what the hell he's done.
I don't know.
He was so well thought of around there.
And, you know, he was a good preacher, I guess.
I've heard him a few times in the pulpit.
I don't think he was used.
You ever hear that story about that dynamic preacher and that young preacher?
He couldn't talk very well and he finally asked the old one what he did.
And he said, well, don't let anybody in on it.
But underneath that podium, that's not water, that's gin.
He said, when you're preaching, take a few bellset gin.
It really makes you dynamic.
So the young preacher preached and the old one went to hear him and he said, how did I do?
And he said, well, you were better, but slow down on that gin.
He said, David slew Goliath.
He didn't stomp that son of a bitch to death.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
But anyway, I figured that he knew what he was talking about, I guess, and I was going to hell.
There was a doctor in Louisville who is now a member of the program.
In fact, I saw him the other day.
And I was in the hospital one time in the late 50s suffering from all the things that alcoholics suffer from.
And the doctor came in and he examined me and he saw that I probably had a little liver and hepatitis and malnutrition and all that kind of stuff.
And I'll never forget my dad was sitting there in the room and he had not yet disowned me.
He got around to that.
But.
But I recall Dr. Stanton coming in and looking at me and he gave me a simple clarification.
He said, if you don't stop drinking, you'll die.
That simple.
I don't think about alcoholism, man, but I wish I had a.
You know, I could have looked up at Dr. Baker and I could have said to him, well, doctor, that's fine.
If I quit drinking, I'll die.
What happens if I do and can't live?
You see, in my particular case and in the case of most alcoholics, there's a lot of alcoholism.
I've ever known that if they forced me into a life out there of not drinking, then they ordered me into an existence in a society that I wasn't comfortable in anyway.
It's irregardless of who I am and where I come from or what elements were involved in my life.
For some reason, when you place me out there and asked me to accept the responsibilities and be whatever it was I was supposed to be, I just didn't fit into that square.
I didn't belong where you society said they would place me.
So if I sit out there as an uncomfortable.
Human being and an unhappy and discontented individual trying to rely basically on myself and my own beliefs and ideas to survive in that jungle, I never was very successful at it.
So if you condemn me to go out there without alcohol, you are condemning me to a life of an existence.
I don't live in a society sober.
I have never lived in a society sober.
I can't start today.
Either way, I'm a dead man.
I'm dead without it and I'm dead with it.
The only thing with it brings is a lot of crazy, insane behavior.
You see, irregardless of whether I took alcohol back out there with me, I had to take alcoholism back out there with me.
And at that particular time in my life, my alcoholism was untreated.
And untreated alcoholism without alcohol is a miserable, damned way to live.
Given the choice tonight, I'd rather be drunk than have to live out there with untreated alcoholism.
But I went back and tried for a while and I couldn't succeed naturally.
So I took a drink vowing it would be different.
Not believing that doctor.
Not really caring anyway.
You know.
Scared of the things that would kill me.
I was just scared of the things that could help me.
I didn't mind fooling with hoodlums.
But I had absolutely no use for decent people.
I didn't mind you telling me what you knew about me.
But it was awful damned important to what I believed you didn't know about me.
That's the image I had to protect.
That's the wall I had to hide behind.
That's the reason I could be so offensive.
Because then I would never have to become defensive.
I drove you away from me.
Because I was afraid of you.
And you know, that's strange to me even tonight.
That I wasn't afraid of a damned thing that would kill me.
For God, I was scared to death of anything that could help me.
But the doctor didn't bother me.
You know, you heard it said.
You don't scare an alcoholic.
And you don't.
You don't.
I know a hell of a lot of people that have tried.
We had one of them Al-Anons up there in Louisville one time.
She went down to her costume shop and bought a devil's costume.
And put it on.
And her old man come home drunk that night.
And she jumped out behind her head, yawning.
And she said, I've come to get you.
And he said, who are you?
She said, I am the devil.
And he backed up by two foot.
And he said, well, put her there.
He said, I've been wanting to meet you ever since I married your sister.
You ain't going to scare her drunk.
We had Undertaker up home, his sister married an alcoholic.
If they tried anything in God's world, get him to quit drinking.
One night they buried him.
Brought a coffin home.
Put him in it.
Took him out in the backyard when he passed out.
And buried him.
Put a pipe down in there so he could breathe and get air.
About two hours later that old drunk come to in that coffin.
Moaned, you know.
Where am I?
Where am I?
And he hollered down that pipe and said, you're dead.
He said, oh my God.
I said, how long have I been dead?
And the guy said, about an hour and a half.
He said, who are you?
He said, oh, just a friend.
He said, are you dead, too?
And the old undertaker said, yeah, I'm dead, too.
The drunk said, how long have you been dead?
He said, oh, I've been dead about 12 years.
Well, he said, hell, if you've been dead that long, you'll know where I get a drink around here.
And that's about the attitude, you know.
It's about the attitude.
You sure to hell are not going to scare a drunk.
I just progressed into the field of alcoholism.
I went to work for the Old Elm End Railroad, now the Seaboard Railroad at that time in 1940 as a young boy at 20 years old.
I'm 55 now.
And at the age of 32, they got rid of me.
You know, talking about the railroad, I came to this convention feeling so good, now I've got a resentment.
I work in an alcohol and drug abuse program for the Seaboard Railroad, a lot like Jerry does for the N&W.
And I was listening to Tony this morning, talking about that business she worked for, sending her to Hawaii.
And my company sent me to Hazard, Kentucky to see a coal miner.
And I just resent that.
Hell out of that.
I want you to buy that tape and play it for my boss.
But they finally got tired of me after numerous threats and warnings of losing a job, job loss.
And I ran into the police department.
You know, you're going to jail, the judges, you're going to prison.
All of these things these people were going to do to me if I didn't quit drinking, trying to stop my progression.
And they had no information on alcoholism, and neither did I.
I didn't know anything about it.
Neither did they.
And they...
They tried in their way to help, and of course, you know, to no avail.
It was just a group of ignorant people dealing with something they had no idea what it was.
They really and truly felt like that I enjoyed being what I was.
My father had completely disowned me.
He wanted nothing more to do with me.
I had a sister that took me in one time and was trying to straighten me out.
And she finally ran me off.
And, you know, I just didn't have anybody.
And that's an easy way to be an alcoholic, believe me.
It's a hell of a lot easier to go out here and lay in a gutter than it is to get a gutter and take it home with you.
Really, I mean that.
I listened to Venetia and Tony this morning, you know, and they literally went and got their gutters and brought them home.
And I've seen dirty, filthy gutters running down the middle of living rooms of $100,000 homes.
And I've seen women...
I've seen women and little children standing around these gutters.
And the alcoholic in his sick mind, for some reason, has been able to muster a belief of his own
that these people in some way are responsible for what he is and what he's become.
And they sometimes make a very strenuous effort to grab the people that they should be loving the most into the gutter with them.
To bring them down to where they are because of the feeling that the responsibility for what they are
is somewhere connected.
And believe me, it's a hell of a lot easier just to leave and go into a gutter.
There's nothing real nice about living on city streets and in wino alleys in Haven.
But it has its advantages.
You know, the only disadvantages is a lot of times you get cold and you get hungry and things like that.
But you don't have to be a phony anymore.
I feel sorry as hell for these executives and housewives and things that are alcoholics.
And they have to go every day of their life pretending that everything's okay.
Just being phony as hell, but they have to pretend that everything's okay.
And then to watch that torture aspect that this sickness seems to transport to the people that love you and surround you.
And God, I don't think anything kills me anymore in my life than to hear some damn alcoholic say that alcoholics
are the only ones...
...that know anything about alcoholism.
Alcoholics are experts at vomiting.
Outside of that, there's a hell of a lot of people that know a whole lot about alcoholism.
And if you don't believe it, ask your wife.
Ask your children if they know the feelings of insecurity.
Ask them if they know what it means to be afraid.
Ask them if they know what it means to be unloved.
Ask them if they know what it means...
...to feel like in some way they're responsible.
Ask them if they have ever had these traumatic emotional experiences that you've had.
And you'll soon begin to learn that they've not only had them,
but they never even had the opportunity to bathe their brain in booze every once in a while so they could forget them.
My father knew a hell of a lot about alcoholism because, you see, my father knew me.
I'm not going to tell you my father understood me,
but I am going to tell you that he knew me.
And he knew a whole lot about alcoholism.
I just went from a halfway decent type of a job...
...to a hospital.
Dr. Lewis Fulce was a famous psychiatrist.
He was an advocate of AA.
He treated alcoholism for alcoholism.
And he loved AA.
And he brought AA along with that administrator and two guys,
brought that into that hospital.
And he brought AA along with that administrator and two guys,
brought that into that hospital.
On the same day that I went into that hospital.
So the following week, I was feeling pretty good after a week,
and a nurse came into the room that day,
and they had moved me from a locked ward to an open ward.
And she said,
Don't you go anywhere tonight. We're going to the AA meeting.
And I said,
What the hell is an AA meeting?
I didn't know.
Alcoholics Anonymous.
I said,
Are you insinuating...
...that you think I'm an alcoholic?
And she said,
I'm not insinuating a damn thing.
I said,
By God, I'm not an alcoholic.
And she looked at me and said,
If you ain't one, there ain't any.
And that didn't go over too well.
I said,
I'm not going to any damn AA meeting.
I came into AA motivated by a set of door keys.
She looked at me and she said,
You're going to that AA meeting, or...
And she jingled them keys.
We'll put you over there where the doorknobs are on the outside.
And I said,
Well, I'll go.
Kind of makes you feel like you're volunteering.
So that night she came down and got me by the ear,
Lord,
and took me down that hallway to where those AA people were.
And I didn't want to go.
I hated the idea of going back there.
I wasn't about to tell them I was an alcoholic
because I was not about to accept the responsibilities
of what was going on in my life.
And I don't like the word alcoholic
because it insinuates that I have a problem that I can't handle.
And I have already told you I'll take care of everything.
And for the strangest reasons unknown to God or man,
is the very fact that no matter how many pitfalls you get into in life,
as soon as you get well and out of trouble
and the noose off your neck,
you go right back to that line of thinking.
Many times that alcohol brings on that euphoria,
but that damn thinking brings on that belief in yourself,
no matter what you've been through,
and thoroughly convinced that the responsibility
is those people out there.
That doctor said you're paranoid.
I said, of course I'm paranoid.
You would be too if they were out to get you.
Who the hell wouldn't be paranoid when they're all out to get you?
And I didn't want to go back there.
I'll take care of this.
It doesn't matter than hell he's having a square dance in the auditorium
and I wanted a square dance.
It comes in handy when you're drinking.
And I went back there and I started in that door
and I was ready for music and girls and booze again.
And there stood some damned old woman in that door.
About 65 years old.
She put her arm around me and she said,
Hi, honey.
Would you like a cup of coffee and a cookie?
And I looked at that old broad and she had her arm around me
and I thought, hey, I'm a worldly person.
I've heard them stories about old women and young boys.
I'm not a fool.
I'm not a fool.
I'm a cup of coffee and a cookie.
I went on in that meeting and sat down and interrupted the speaker as much as I could
to explain to him the things that he didn't know
and I wasn't damned interested in why he drank and if he did, so what.
I agreed that if he wasn't lying, anybody drank like he did ought to quit.
But I knew that he didn't have the same justifiable reasons that I had.
And I made a complete ass out of myself in that AA meeting
and I walked out that door and there stood that old lady.
And she put her arm around my shoulder again and she said,
Honey, you come back next week now.
We need you.
I thought they ought to put her in a home somewhere.
Get her off of the damn street.
I never got invited back anywhere.
And I sure as hell didn't want to join any club except me for a member.
And I left.
Well, hell, they made me go back.
And I argued with them and argued with some old man back there,
a lot of blue in the face, who later became my sponsor.
He said, Alcoholics have an extra bone in their body.
All alcoholics have an extra bone, he said.
It's right down here in your spine.
He said, If you take any alcoholic you've ever known
and kick him in the ass hard enough,
that bone will vibrate and open up his mind.
And he said, If you can get an open mind, you might hear something.
But most of all, if you can get an open mind, you might see something.
You know, an open mind gives you the ability to see yourself for what you really are.
And that's what's painful as hell.
To see yourself for what you really are.
Because as a practicing alcoholic,
I was completely blinded.
Blind to what I was.
Call it rationalization.
Call it perception.
Call it whatever you choose to call it.
But I was blind as a bat to reality.
I sometimes, a little minister reminded me of this,
that I sometimes wonder when the Bible talks about Jesus making the blind man see,
I wonder if that blind man had eyesight.
Every alcoholic that's practicing out there is blind to the realities of life.
Blind to the realities of himself.
And what's going on in his life.
And that as an individual, he has no more the ability to control it or stop it or arrest it than a man in the moon.
And by himself, he is not now or ever will be capable of living and surviving in that jungle
based on what he knows and how he feels and his evaluation of life.
That's what I couldn't see and somebody had to make me see it.
And that old man was determined as hell.
That's what I couldn't see and somebody had to make me see it.
And that old man was determined as hell.
That's what I couldn't see and somebody had to make me see it.
That whether I wanted to see it or not, I was going to.
That's what a good sponsor is.
I don't give a damn whether you want to see it.
We don't care what you want.
All your life you've lived doing what you want to do.
And with all the power vested in me, I'm going to see to it that you start doing what you need to do.
And that will allow you to see just what in the hell you really are.
And God, that hurts.
That hurts.
After 30 days, I was to be hurt more.
They moved me to an insane asylum.
And put me on an alcoholic unit, the only one in the state of Kentucky, in a damn nut house.
And that will just shatter your ego.
And especially when you walk through the grounds and the nuts are complaining because you're there.
And sitting out on the benches saying,
What do you think of them drunks being down here now?
Well, I don't like them.
I don't like it.
I don't know why they brought them here.
A bunch of damn troublemakers is all they ever were.
Wish they'd go away and leave us alone.
You're in trouble when insane people are talking about you like this.
And we used to talk about them.
And there was a bridge that went over a little creek there made out of slave rock.
And a guy used to sit there day in and day out with his ear to that bridge.
It went over a little creek.
We used to talk about how crazy he was.
I went by there one day.
And he said,
I went over.
He said,
Listen.
I got down on my hands and knees.
I put my ear to the rock.
And I said,
I don't hear anything.
It's been like that all day.
I'm running around telling everybody he's nuts.
I left that hospital at the end of November of 1962 and went back to Louisville to live with my sister.
My sister took me back into her home.
And we had an understanding that if I started drinking, I'd leave.
There was nothing ever between us except drinking.
We had a good relationship then.
We have one today.
Me and her and her husband and children.
And drinking was the only thing that ever separated us.
She said, You stay here until you can get your life back together.
The only thing I'd ask you is if you take a drink, would you leave?
I get absolutely no pleasure of asking you to.
And I said, Yes, if I do, I'll leave.
And I believe that I would have.
And I start going to the AA meetings.
That old sponsor I had, he'd take you to one if you had a car and two if you didn't.
Really.
And then he would make you get up and tell people you didn't have a car and a way to get there.
And you told him, Joe was nice enough to bring me over here.
I live out here off of Dixie Highway and I don't have an automobile and I need a ride home.
And I'd like to go to some more meetings.
If any of you guys go there during the week, I'd like to go.
But I don't have any way to get there.
He'd make you do that.
And I'd do it and I got rides.
And I'd start going to the AA meetings.
I began.
I began to grow painfully.
I did not believe in me.
And I've already told you I believed in nothing else.
I would like to be able to stand here and impress you upon the fact that I prayed, but I didn't.
I didn't know how.
And I didn't believe in God and I didn't believe in you.
You know, believing sometimes is words initially, I guess.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of feelings.
You know, Alcoholics Anonymous is the language of the heart.
The heart is a palace that stores all truth.
If a famous clergyman was right, and I'll assume he was,
if God is the intangible spirit of truth,
and if man is the tangible spirit,
if man is the source of truth,
and if Alcoholics Anonymous is a language of the heart,
and if the heart is the palace that stores all truth,
then I knew the truth about me.
You see, I had no inner peace of soul when I knew the truth about me.
I had no inner peace of soul when I had to look at you
and you knew what and who I was.
I was. But most of all, in my own heart, I had no inner peace with me. I was not sure
that I could do it. And I was scared to death because I was going to attempt something that
made me get well. And I've told you I wasn't afraid of a damn thing that would kill me.
But God, I was terrified of something that could help me. And I sweated it out, simply
doing what that old man told me to do. I said, I don't know how to stay sober. He said, I
didn't expect you to. I said, what do I do? I'm looking for some great complicated answer.
He looked at me and winked. He said, you stick with me, kid, and you're going to be
all right. You stick with me, kid. You're going to be all right. I stuck. I stayed with
him. He was nasty and mean sometimes. You know, that psychiatrist up there told me,
told me that I was a junior, John Sullivan, Jr., really, my name, the Jackson nickname.
A psychiatrist told me I never had an identity. You were Johnny Sullivan's boy. That's why
you drank. You never had an identity. And I thought that was the best damn news I had
ever received. And I rushed back to the aid meeting to tell Hillary I had discovered why
I never had an identity.
I'm paying that doctor $100 an hour. Hillary looked at me and he said, God. He said, if
you'd have been a grape picker and a garden eater, you'd have been a drunk. And that kind
of blew my mind. And then sometime during that course of that year is when Gay and I
met, and we started going together. And then finally in September of 63, we got married.
And I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I was what she needed. And from that time on, her and everybody that's been involved
in our lives has been blessing to us.
And I finally, after a growth period that we all have where I believed in me and trusted
you, I found the beliefs that made my heart still, my mind, my soul. You know, if the
intangible spirit of truth is God, then I can accept that force that makes me a better person
because of you.
that I do you know and what I'm trying to say to you if you're new to AA and like so many people
if you're agnostic or whatever if you don't believe in God if you don't have a relationship
with a God just remember it's not important you see it doesn't matter whether you love God
it only matters that he loves you and when you find that as AA people find it with yourself
and with people you eventually find that you have to find that you see because you can't live
and operate in a spiritual community unless you're spiritually okay you see in any spiritual
community good and evil are polarized we all have that opportunity anything polarized has a sense
of direction to it you have an opportunity to go in either direction when you're here tonight
as new or old or whatever 20 years or 20 days you still have AA
free will given to you to make a decision tomorrow morning.
Which direction do you want to go in?
Do you want to go in what's good, or do you want to go in what's evil?
Do you want to do what's best for you, or are you interested in satisfying your pleasures or whatever?
You have to make that decision.
A spiritual community allows you to make that decision.
You are respected for your individuality, and collectively we put that together to help each other.
But you have the respect of your own individuality and the right and the ability to choose.
You soon find that in any spiritual community, there's no such thing as power.
There's no power structures in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Power couldn't stay in there very long.
This entire program is based on principle,
and principle connected with good has to bring about the type of feelings that we have in this program.
It has to be.
And then the greatest gift of all, which makes you automatically, whether you want to be or not,
whether you choose to be or care to be,
you automatically become one of God's children,
when self-interest is not your primary concern.
And in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, self-interest doesn't exist.
The concern for others is the thing that feeds our own sobriety
to make us the people of God.
To make us the people we are.
That is what a spiritual community is.
And when you live in that,
you have the feelings that Alcoholics Anonymous breeds from all aspects of it.
Did you ever sit in a room by yourself when you knew that nobody was there but you and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
And all of the aspects of a spiritual life have come to you
when you feel good about yourself, about people, and about God.
drunk and they've lost the feeling. They haven't lost the knowledge. They know all the words,
but they don't know the feeling. And they can't go out and bring it back sometime. It's
a force of good or spirituality or calling it whatever you want to, but it exists. And
if you don't believe it, just listen. There's not a sound in this room. You couldn't cut
the atmosphere of spiritual feelings with a knife. Whether you want it or not, it'll
get you if you have the smallest desire.
To be something other than what you used to be. And that was all that I had. A desire
not to be what I used to be. I had to be a smart aleck doing it. That's okay. I said
to Hillary one night, he read that portion of chapter five, and I said, just what in
the hell is it that you have that I'm supposed to want? He looked at me and he said, well,
how about a bed that's indoors?
I couldn't argue with him. After about a year, I went back to work for the same company that
I worked for. Nine years ago, I went in to start an alcohol and drug abuse program on
the old L&N Railroad, and now with a seaboard and basically do the same thing Jerry does.
I thoroughly enjoy working with people. And all I know about alcoholism is what you've
taught me, what you and I know about each other. You know, I can share you and me and
you know what I've said and what I've done. And I can share you and me and what I've said
and what I've seen, and that's all I believe anymore is what I've seen. And I thank God
for every human being that's ever crossed my path for the last 22 years. Some are dead.
Some are paralyzed. Some are in insane asylums. Some are sober. Some are even sober happy.
Some are contented. Some of them are everywhere. But thank God they taught me something. I've
never met a person who hasn't taught me something, and I love to share that with them.
I'll close by telling you a story that a fellow told me a long time ago, and I've never
forgotten it. And I close every A-talk I make with it. And I hope you remember it. It was
about a man who was walking down a cold and lonely road one night, and a snake was laying
in the middle of the road. And the snake was dying. He was freezing to death. And he spoke
to the man. And he asked him, he said, Mr., would you please pick me up and put me under
your coat and get me warm? I'm dying in this cold weather.
And the man said, I couldn't do that. You're a poisonous reptile. And surely if I would
warm you enough to restore you to vitality, you would bite me. And the snake said, I wouldn't
bite you if you saved my life. And the man thought for a minute and picked him up and
put him under his coat. And when he got him warm, the snake bit him. And he grabbed him
out from under his coat and threw him back to the road. And he looked at him and he said,
I thought you promised not to bite.
With a snickering,
grin on his face, the snake looked up. He said, you knew what I was when you picked me
up. And someday, my friend, under a given set of circumstances and conditions, you may
be sitting in a bar stool or a cocktail hour or somewhere. Justify it to yourself if you
choose. Explain it to those who don't know if you've been here.
If you know us, you know what it is when you pick it up. Thank you for having me in Virginia.
My name is Jack Sullivan, and I'm an alcoholic.
I come from Louisville, Kentucky.
If you've never been to Kentucky, it's noted for its beautiful women,
fast-race horses, and smooth whiskey.
And they have two out of three there.
I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me,
and I would especially like to thank those that they asked to host Gay and I.
We've spent a lovely weekend with Dan and Margie,
and they've been so gracious to us and showed us your fair city,
and we've just had a lovely time here.
And I know it's a lot of work to put one of these things on,
and I think the people deserve a tremendous,
a tremendous, a tremendous, a tremendous, a tremendous,
a tremendous, a tremendous, a tremendous,
a tremendous amount of thanks that worked so hard to do this.
Some people think, you know, there's really about three kinds of people in AA.
There's people in AA that make things happen,
and there's people that sit around and wondered what happened,
and didn't even know anything happened.
Whatever category you fit in.
Thank you.
Now, if I can stay sober until Tuesday, and I'm not so sure that that can happen, I will
have been sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for the past 22 years.
Now, that may not mean a damn thing to you, but it just impresses the hell out of me.
A number of years ago, I was in a small town at Seymour, Indiana, and I had a friend celebrating
10 years in AA.
And I went up to talk at the anniversary.
of her sobriety.
And when I arrived, there was a young fellow there, about 21 years old, who had three months
of sobriety, and he was going to chair that meeting.
And he said to me, I guess I'll screw it up.
I said, I doubt it very seriously.
It's very difficult to screw up an AA meeting.
He said, well, I'm nervous as hell.
I said, that's okay.
You'll get over it.
So the meeting went on.
It worked out real well.
And when it was over, he said that he was glad that he got over it.
I threw it.
But he said, I didn't make a few mistakes, but he said, maybe that has its advantages.
He said, I believe that the dumber the chairman is, the better the speaker looks.
I certainly want to thank the committee for their selection.
I should wind up giving one of the best damn talks I ever gave in my life.
I have a philosophy about speaking at an AA meeting.
I'll tell you what.
try to stop talking when I'm through. Very sensitive. I have microphones, but I like
these drunks, aren't I? Sensitive perfectionists. But I do, you know, I had a friend of mine one
time was standing out in the hallway from a meeting and some guy kept going on and on and on
and a guy came out and he said, isn't that guy through yet? And the fellow said, hell, he was
through a half hour ago, but he's still talking. And I'll try not to do that. And I also know that
when I came in here tonight, I was going to be the speaker. I knew that. So I'm sure that when
you came in here tonight, you knew you were going to listen. If you get through before I do,
you go on home. I mean, it won't bother me a bit. If you're through listening before I'm
through talking, you go right on. And as a speaker, you know, I'll share with you what I
know about me and perhaps maybe what I've seen over the years. And I've seen a few things over
the years. And the people that have crossed my path in the last 22 years have been a lot of
interesting people.
And they've taught me a whole lot, regardless of the outcome of their own personal situation. So
I'm satisfied that when I leave here tonight, you will know at least a little something about me.
And up till about a year ago, I had no way of knowing anything about the mentality of the
audience that I was talking to. A doctor friend of mine gave me a story to tell that sort of
evaluates your mentality. And I like to do that. And I'll share that with you.
There was a 91-year-old man who was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. And he was a bachelor. He'd never
been married, had no children. He was sitting around his room one day, and he got to thinking
that with his intelligence and dedication, that it was a shame that none of his genetic factors
would be left on this earth. So he thought about it and decided he would make a trip down to the
sperm bank.
So at the age of 91, he went into the sperm bank about 9.30 in the morning, told the clinician who
he was and what he wanted to do. She said, take this jar and go over in that little room and leave
a deposit. So about 11.30 that morning, they were going to lunch, and the old man was still in
there. So they went on to lunch, and they came back. And at 4 o'clock in the morning, they were
going to close the clinic, and he was still in there. So they knocked on the door and told him
he'd have to come out, that the clinic was closing. And the old man came out and handed the
nurse back the jar. And she looked at it, and she said, why, it's empty. He said, I know. He said,
I went in there and sat down. And he said, I tried my left hand on the damn thing for a while.
He said, I tried my right hand on the damn thing for a while. He said, I run cold water on it. He
said, I run hot water on it. And he said, I never could get the top off that jar.
Well, that tells me what the hell kind of an audience I'm talking to.
That lady down there was thinking nasty.
I can obviously see you're not much better than I am.
I never set out to become an alcoholic. It's nothing I've accomplished. From the time I was
born until I was 13, I did quite well in the world. I don't recall having any apparent problems. I
was a pretty good student, and I'm not real sure that I ever had any convictions about an organized
religion or a good religion. I don't recall having any convictions about an organized religion. I
think as somebody who works for the fulfilment of God or anything else, I don't recall having any
deep seated feelings about those sorts of things. But nevertheless up until that time in my life, I
functioning and operated as a quote unquote normal human being, whatever the hell that means.
happy
When I got to be 14 years old, I went enrolled in a high school in Louisville called St. Xavier
High School. And as a freshman, I did fairly well. And when I was a sophomore at the age of 15,
they asked me after I completed my sophomore year in that high school, I had to get back. You see, at 15 years to be correct.
me after I completed my sophomore year in that high school not to come back. And it
was primarily because of my attitude towards most everything. Now, I'm sure that if there's
some psychiatrists in this audience, you can fill psychiatric libraries as to why I began
to act and react that way. And maybe someday you can tell me, because I sure as hell don't
know. But I do know that what I was taught at home and what I saw in that outside world
were entirely two different worlds. And what I saw going on out there, I thoroughly enjoyed
and loved and fell in love with that environment and that atmosphere. And I began to move in
with an older crowd of people, and they were doing things that I hadn't been told about.
And when I got out to that corner, they drank, and the racetrack was there. If you've ever
seen the Kentucky Derby on television, it's the corner where I lived and died about nine
times. And if you watch the race on TV, you could even see some buildings in the distance
over a starting gate, and that's where 4th and Central was located. And I went out there
as a young man, and I really got wrapped up in that environment out there. There was girls
and money and exciting things going on, and I wanted to be a part of it. And I immediately
began to live my life doing what I wanted to do. I don't know why I made that decision.
I have two sisters and a brother who did not make the same decision.
My brother was a fool in a way. He studied. He's an industrial engineer with General Motors,
a vice president with a corporation today. But that dummy, he missed out on all the fun.
He was in there looking at books. So I went to the corner, and the corner was fun. And
I had admiration for people that had Continentals and $100 bills and good-looking girls. And
that's what the hell it was all about. And that's what I wanted. And I began to live
that life doing what I wanted to do. And I tell people all the time, I lived and died
with an eye syndrome. I made my own decisions. I decided what I wanted to do. I don't need
you. I don't need God. I don't need anybody. I'll do it. And when I came into AA, I was
very argumentative with AA, and I think it was because the very first word they said
to me was, we. The first word or the first step is, we. Alcoholics aren't we people.
I never met a damn alcoholic until I was in AA. I never met a damn alcoholic until I was
in AA. I never met a damn alcoholic until I was in AA. I never met a damn alcoholic until
I was in AA. I ever met a damn alcoholic until I was in AA. I have
a question.
Tell me whatieran did you do in AA?
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racetrack environment where the gambling and the money was, and I just fell in love with
it.
And I met a young lady out there, and she took me from soprano to baritone, and I thought
this was about the most exciting game that I've ever gotten into, and I jumped right
in, and I loved it.
My mother died when I was about 17 years old, and the only one left to accept the burden
of this responsibility was my father.
My father was very critical of the way I was living, and naturally any parent would have
been.
My father, like any parent, tried to interject discipline into my life because he loved me.
Parents don't do that to deny children of anything.
They do it because they love them.
My father was trying to protect me from getting hurt.
My father wanted me to be able to see and enjoy what love meant, you see, but even though
many alcoholics like me are starved for love.
We settle for attention.
We'll swap attention for love any day, and I wanted in that fast lane with that attention
even though my father was very critical of it.
I loved things.
I was the type of person that used people and loved things.
I think that's where A turns my life around, to where today I can love people and use things.
But back then it was different.
And my father.
My father did in the only way he knew how as a parent, to try to correct me and stop
me and scream at me and threaten me and all the things that a good parent would do.
But at the same time, my father was a very strong man.
My father was a firm believer that if you dance to the music, you pay the fiddler.
I will not pay for you.
And I was even at the age of 18 or 19 then, even into that big macho attitude that alcoholics
have that, you know, I'm in there.
I don't need anything or anybody.
I'm really okay.
I'm really okay.
I don't need a wheel, a cool cat, an operator, whatever the hell you want to call it.
And the fascinating thing that I was about to enter a phase for the next 13 years to
where I would try to be scared into not progressing in alcoholism.
You can't scare alcoholics with threats of the consequences of drinking.
You know, it's a fascinating thing about alcoholics.
Alcoholics are not afraid of anything that will kill them.
But they're scared.
They're scared to death of anything that will help them.
As if they're not afraid of death, but yet afraid of life.
They don't resent somebody that beats the hell out of them, but they resent somebody
that tries to help them.
And that fear that was within me was not of anything that was going to happen to me.
It was the fear that perhaps maybe you might get to know me.
And my father had to go through that emotional transition.
That was the fear.
That's what my father and my husband and children do a great deal of time.
You know, to have to sit and look at somebody and to love them for who they are
and in some sense of the word hate them at the same time for what they are.
That's got to be the most traumatic thing in the life of a person that I have personally never experienced.
Is to love somebody for who they are and at the same time hate them for what they are.
And my father was beginning to look at this.
And yet he believed and he wasn't reluctant to say, my house, my rules, get out.
You know, if you're so determined to be your own thing, then go be your own thing.
If you dance, baby, you pay.
My father knew a lot about it.
He didn't know anything about it.
You know, and there's a lot of parents that know what to do.
They can't do it.
My father was one who could.
But with my smart tongue and arrogant manner and egotistical attitude that all alcoholics have,
I got right in the middle of it, you know.
And the only thing that ever toned me down was a squad car.
You know, really and truly, humility is in the back seat of a squad car.
Probably the breeding ground of humility is in the back seat of a squad car.
And if you don't believe that, check it out sometime.
Did you ever stand in a bar and listen to all those big macho people talk about whoever the hell it is we're talking about?
Did you ever see some guy talk about that old bitch he lives with and the people he works for?
In my case, that dumb old man, you know, big, tough, macho crap, all these things these people are doing to us and causing us and everything?
Locked him up.
Go down to a police station and listen.
They give you a quarter for one telephone call and drop it in the phone.
That old bitch he talked about at the bar?
She'll answer.
And that big, tough, macho alcoholic, he says,
Honey.
Honey.
And when I was through that diamond slot back there and my dad answered the phone, you know,
and all that garbage I'd been putting out about him,
and he came to the other end and I said,
Daddy.
And to show you what kind of man my father was, he said,
What?
I said, Well, I'm in jail.
He said, Why did you call me?
I said, Well, I thought you might come get me out.
Oh, he said, I wouldn't worry about that if I did.
Why, he said, As smart as you are.
Oh.
He said, Hell, if you figured a way to get in, you'll figure a way to get out.
And hung up.
When I got out, he said, Don't waste your dime on me anymore.
And that's just exactly the way that he felt.
You can read any book on alcoholism and you'll find me as a single, progressive alcoholic.
I never married until I came into A.
This love of alcoholism.
This lovely lady sitting here with me tonight is my wife.
And I married gay on September the 7th of 1963, 13 months after I was sober.
She's not too bright either.
She divorced an alcoholic that drove her crazy and married me.
So it was two unbright people, I guess.
So I didn't have a family or women.
I never wanted to get married when I was a drinker.
I don't want to help people get married.
I don't know what the hell they wanted with a wife.
It seemed to me like they slowed everybody down.
It might have added a little dimension of responsibility that might have slowed me down.
I don't know.
But I never entered my mind to get one.
I didn't know what in the hell you did with them.
I wasn't done.
And what in the hell you kept them for, I didn't know.
And as I told my sponsor, most of the women that I ran with weren't the marrying kind.
And he looked at me and said, What in the hell were they going to do?
What are they going to get?
Most of them were real ugly.
I used to run.
I ran with some ugly women.
I went with this one, and she went home one night and started undressed.
She went in the bedroom, and she was undressing, and a peep and Tom came up to the window.
And when she got about half undressed, he reached in and pulled the blind down.
Now, there were certain people that were about to enter my life, I'm sure, as they entered into your life,
who back then knew absolutely nothing about alcoholism.
I'm satisfied they were well-meaning people.
In their own uneducated way of being ignorant, I guess, in the field of alcoholism,
they thought that the solution to people like me was to threat.
And warn you of obvious things that you already know.
There was a Monsignor in a Catholic church up home that was a good friend of our family's.
And he decided to take me on.
I've often said when I came in there and they asked me to surrender, I thought,
I thought, Hell, it's about my turn.
I had a hell of a lot of people surrender to me.
They gave up in a hurry.
But, you know, this priest, he really thought the solution to alcoholism was a seat in the sanctuary,
a Bible in your hand, a pat on the head, and come back in the morning.
You know, or spray you with holy water and you'd be all right, you know.
And he really believed that.
And he tried that with me.
And telling me that if I didn't change my ways and if I didn't do this, I was going to hell.
Another threat.
Scared him into not progressing.
And he thought he had done a great job on me because I think I stayed sober about 48 hours.
And he considered that a success.
Until one day I come through the Holy Name Schoolyard and said,
I was drunk.
I was bouncing off a building.
And he surrendered.
He came to me and he looked at me and he said,
You're a hopeless drunk.
And at that time I was.
I know the definition of hope.
You know, somebody that possesses hope, you really believe you'll succeed tomorrow where you failed today.
You reach a point in your life in this sickness to where you understand and realize things will never be any better.
They will be like they are.
And I think you do become hopeless.
But he looked at me and he said I was hopeless.
Then he informed me that him and I would meet on the way to heaven.
Then he told me when you generally meet somebody, you're going one way and they're going the other.
And he just turned around and walked off.
And he underestimated us and our line of thinking and our egotism.
As he headed back to that rectory, I looked at him and I thought, I wonder what the hell he's done.
I don't know.
He was so well thought of around there.
And, you know, he was a good preacher, I guess.
I've heard him a few times in the pulpit.
I don't think he was used.
You ever hear that story about that dynamic preacher and that young preacher?
He couldn't talk very well and he finally asked the old one what he did.
And he said, well, don't let anybody in on it.
But underneath that podium, that's not water, that's gin.
He said, when you're preaching, take a few bellset gin.
It really makes you dynamic.
So the young preacher preached and the old one went to hear him and he said, how did I do?
And he said, well, you were better, but slow down on that gin.
He said, David slew Goliath.
He didn't stomp that son of a bitch to death.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
Laughter.
But anyway, I figured that he knew what he was talking about, I guess, and I was going to hell.
There was a doctor in Louisville who is now a member of the program.
In fact, I saw him the other day.
And I was in the hospital one time in the late 50s suffering from all the things that alcoholics suffer from.
And the doctor came in and he examined me and he saw that I probably had a little liver and hepatitis and malnutrition and all that kind of stuff.
And I'll never forget my dad was sitting there in the room and he had not yet disowned me.
He got around to that.
But.
But I recall Dr. Stanton coming in and looking at me and he gave me a simple clarification.
He said, if you don't stop drinking, you'll die.
That simple.
I don't think about alcoholism, man, but I wish I had a.
You know, I could have looked up at Dr. Baker and I could have said to him, well, doctor, that's fine.
If I quit drinking, I'll die.
What happens if I do and can't live?
You see, in my particular case and in the case of most alcoholics, there's a lot of alcoholism.
I've ever known that if they forced me into a life out there of not drinking, then they ordered me into an existence in a society that I wasn't comfortable in anyway.
It's irregardless of who I am and where I come from or what elements were involved in my life.
For some reason, when you place me out there and asked me to accept the responsibilities and be whatever it was I was supposed to be, I just didn't fit into that square.
I didn't belong where you society said they would place me.
So if I sit out there as an uncomfortable.
Human being and an unhappy and discontented individual trying to rely basically on myself and my own beliefs and ideas to survive in that jungle, I never was very successful at it.
So if you condemn me to go out there without alcohol, you are condemning me to a life of an existence.
I don't live in a society sober.
I have never lived in a society sober.
I can't start today.
Either way, I'm a dead man.
I'm dead without it and I'm dead with it.
The only thing with it brings is a lot of crazy, insane behavior.
You see, irregardless of whether I took alcohol back out there with me, I had to take alcoholism back out there with me.
And at that particular time in my life, my alcoholism was untreated.
And untreated alcoholism without alcohol is a miserable, damned way to live.
Given the choice tonight, I'd rather be drunk than have to live out there with untreated alcoholism.
But I went back and tried for a while and I couldn't succeed naturally.
So I took a drink vowing it would be different.
Not believing that doctor.
Not really caring anyway.
You know.
Scared of the things that would kill me.
I was just scared of the things that could help me.
I didn't mind fooling with hoodlums.
But I had absolutely no use for decent people.
I didn't mind you telling me what you knew about me.
But it was awful damned important to what I believed you didn't know about me.
That's the image I had to protect.
That's the wall I had to hide behind.
That's the reason I could be so offensive.
Because then I would never have to become defensive.
I drove you away from me.
Because I was afraid of you.
And you know, that's strange to me even tonight.
That I wasn't afraid of a damned thing that would kill me.
For God, I was scared to death of anything that could help me.
But the doctor didn't bother me.
You know, you heard it said.
You don't scare an alcoholic.
And you don't.
You don't.
I know a hell of a lot of people that have tried.
We had one of them Al-Anons up there in Louisville one time.
She went down to her costume shop and bought a devil's costume.
And put it on.
And her old man come home drunk that night.
And she jumped out behind her head, yawning.
And she said, I've come to get you.
And he said, who are you?
She said, I am the devil.
And he backed up by two foot.
And he said, well, put her there.
He said, I've been wanting to meet you ever since I married your sister.
You ain't going to scare her drunk.
We had Undertaker up home, his sister married an alcoholic.
If they tried anything in God's world, get him to quit drinking.
One night they buried him.
Brought a coffin home.
Put him in it.
Took him out in the backyard when he passed out.
And buried him.
Put a pipe down in there so he could breathe and get air.
About two hours later that old drunk come to in that coffin.
Moaned, you know.
Where am I?
Where am I?
And he hollered down that pipe and said, you're dead.
He said, oh my God.
I said, how long have I been dead?
And the guy said, about an hour and a half.
He said, who are you?
He said, oh, just a friend.
He said, are you dead, too?
And the old undertaker said, yeah, I'm dead, too.
The drunk said, how long have you been dead?
He said, oh, I've been dead about 12 years.
Well, he said, hell, if you've been dead that long, you'll know where I get a drink around here.
And that's about the attitude, you know.
It's about the attitude.
You sure to hell are not going to scare a drunk.
I just progressed into the field of alcoholism.
I went to work for the Old Elm End Railroad, now the Seaboard Railroad at that time in 1940 as a young boy at 20 years old.
I'm 55 now.
And at the age of 32, they got rid of me.
You know, talking about the railroad, I came to this convention feeling so good, now I've got a resentment.
I work in an alcohol and drug abuse program for the Seaboard Railroad, a lot like Jerry does for the N&W.
And I was listening to Tony this morning, talking about that business she worked for, sending her to Hawaii.
And my company sent me to Hazard, Kentucky to see a coal miner.
And I just resent that.
Hell out of that.
I want you to buy that tape and play it for my boss.
But they finally got tired of me after numerous threats and warnings of losing a job, job loss.
And I ran into the police department.
You know, you're going to jail, the judges, you're going to prison.
All of these things these people were going to do to me if I didn't quit drinking, trying to stop my progression.
And they had no information on alcoholism, and neither did I.
I didn't know anything about it.
Neither did they.
And they...
They tried in their way to help, and of course, you know, to no avail.
It was just a group of ignorant people dealing with something they had no idea what it was.
They really and truly felt like that I enjoyed being what I was.
My father had completely disowned me.
He wanted nothing more to do with me.
I had a sister that took me in one time and was trying to straighten me out.
And she finally ran me off.
And, you know, I just didn't have anybody.
And that's an easy way to be an alcoholic, believe me.
It's a hell of a lot easier to go out here and lay in a gutter than it is to get a gutter and take it home with you.
Really, I mean that.
I listened to Venetia and Tony this morning, you know, and they literally went and got their gutters and brought them home.
And I've seen dirty, filthy gutters running down the middle of living rooms of $100,000 homes.
And I've seen women...
I've seen women and little children standing around these gutters.
And the alcoholic in his sick mind, for some reason, has been able to muster a belief of his own
that these people in some way are responsible for what he is and what he's become.
And they sometimes make a very strenuous effort to grab the people that they should be loving the most into the gutter with them.
To bring them down to where they are because of the feeling that the responsibility for what they are
is somewhere connected.
And believe me, it's a hell of a lot easier just to leave and go into a gutter.
There's nothing real nice about living on city streets and in wino alleys in Haven.
But it has its advantages.
You know, the only disadvantages is a lot of times you get cold and you get hungry and things like that.
But you don't have to be a phony anymore.
I feel sorry as hell for these executives and housewives and things that are alcoholics.
And they have to go every day of their life pretending that everything's okay.
Just being phony as hell, but they have to pretend that everything's okay.
And then to watch that torture aspect that this sickness seems to transport to the people that love you and surround you.
And God, I don't think anything kills me anymore in my life than to hear some damn alcoholic say that alcoholics
are the only ones...
...that know anything about alcoholism.
Alcoholics are experts at vomiting.
Outside of that, there's a hell of a lot of people that know a whole lot about alcoholism.
And if you don't believe it, ask your wife.
Ask your children if they know the feelings of insecurity.
Ask them if they know what it means to be afraid.
Ask them if they know what it means to be unloved.
Ask them if they know what it means...
...to feel like in some way they're responsible.
Ask them if they have ever had these traumatic emotional experiences that you've had.
And you'll soon begin to learn that they've not only had them,
but they never even had the opportunity to bathe their brain in booze every once in a while so they could forget them.
My father knew a hell of a lot about alcoholism because, you see, my father knew me.
I'm not going to tell you my father understood me,
but I am going to tell you that he knew me.
And he knew a whole lot about alcoholism.
I just went from a halfway decent type of a job...
...to a hospital.
Dr. Lewis Fulce was a famous psychiatrist.
He was an advocate of AA.
He treated alcoholism for alcoholism.
And he loved AA.
And he brought AA along with that administrator and two guys,
brought that into that hospital.
And he brought AA along with that administrator and two guys,
brought that into that hospital.
On the same day that I went into that hospital.
So the following week, I was feeling pretty good after a week,
and a nurse came into the room that day,
and they had moved me from a locked ward to an open ward.
And she said,
Don't you go anywhere tonight. We're going to the AA meeting.
And I said,
What the hell is an AA meeting?
I didn't know.
Alcoholics Anonymous.
I said,
Are you insinuating...
...that you think I'm an alcoholic?
And she said,
I'm not insinuating a damn thing.
I said,
By God, I'm not an alcoholic.
And she looked at me and said,
If you ain't one, there ain't any.
And that didn't go over too well.
I said,
I'm not going to any damn AA meeting.
I came into AA motivated by a set of door keys.
She looked at me and she said,
You're going to that AA meeting, or...
And she jingled them keys.
We'll put you over there where the doorknobs are on the outside.
And I said,
Well, I'll go.
Kind of makes you feel like you're volunteering.
So that night she came down and got me by the ear,
Lord,
and took me down that hallway to where those AA people were.
And I didn't want to go.
I hated the idea of going back there.
I wasn't about to tell them I was an alcoholic
because I was not about to accept the responsibilities
of what was going on in my life.
And I don't like the word alcoholic
because it insinuates that I have a problem that I can't handle.
And I have already told you I'll take care of everything.
And for the strangest reasons unknown to God or man,
is the very fact that no matter how many pitfalls you get into in life,
as soon as you get well and out of trouble
and the noose off your neck,
you go right back to that line of thinking.
Many times that alcohol brings on that euphoria,
but that damn thinking brings on that belief in yourself,
no matter what you've been through,
and thoroughly convinced that the responsibility
is those people out there.
That doctor said you're paranoid.
I said, of course I'm paranoid.
You would be too if they were out to get you.
Who the hell wouldn't be paranoid when they're all out to get you?
And I didn't want to go back there.
I'll take care of this.
It doesn't matter than hell he's having a square dance in the auditorium
and I wanted a square dance.
It comes in handy when you're drinking.
And I went back there and I started in that door
and I was ready for music and girls and booze again.
And there stood some damned old woman in that door.
About 65 years old.
She put her arm around me and she said,
Hi, honey.
Would you like a cup of coffee and a cookie?
And I looked at that old broad and she had her arm around me
and I thought, hey, I'm a worldly person.
I've heard them stories about old women and young boys.
I'm not a fool.
I'm not a fool.
I'm a cup of coffee and a cookie.
I went on in that meeting and sat down and interrupted the speaker as much as I could
to explain to him the things that he didn't know
and I wasn't damned interested in why he drank and if he did, so what.
I agreed that if he wasn't lying, anybody drank like he did ought to quit.
But I knew that he didn't have the same justifiable reasons that I had.
And I made a complete ass out of myself in that AA meeting
and I walked out that door and there stood that old lady.
And she put her arm around my shoulder again and she said,
Honey, you come back next week now.
We need you.
I thought they ought to put her in a home somewhere.
Get her off of the damn street.
I never got invited back anywhere.
And I sure as hell didn't want to join any club except me for a member.
And I left.
Well, hell, they made me go back.
And I argued with them and argued with some old man back there,
a lot of blue in the face, who later became my sponsor.
He said, Alcoholics have an extra bone in their body.
All alcoholics have an extra bone, he said.
It's right down here in your spine.
He said, If you take any alcoholic you've ever known
and kick him in the ass hard enough,
that bone will vibrate and open up his mind.
And he said, If you can get an open mind, you might hear something.
But most of all, if you can get an open mind, you might see something.
You know, an open mind gives you the ability to see yourself for what you really are.
And that's what's painful as hell.
To see yourself for what you really are.
Because as a practicing alcoholic,
I was completely blinded.
Blind to what I was.
Call it rationalization.
Call it perception.
Call it whatever you choose to call it.
But I was blind as a bat to reality.
I sometimes, a little minister reminded me of this,
that I sometimes wonder when the Bible talks about Jesus making the blind man see,
I wonder if that blind man had eyesight.
Every alcoholic that's practicing out there is blind to the realities of life.
Blind to the realities of himself.
And what's going on in his life.
And that as an individual, he has no more the ability to control it or stop it or arrest it than a man in the moon.
And by himself, he is not now or ever will be capable of living and surviving in that jungle
based on what he knows and how he feels and his evaluation of life.
That's what I couldn't see and somebody had to make me see it.
And that old man was determined as hell.
That's what I couldn't see and somebody had to make me see it.
And that old man was determined as hell.
That's what I couldn't see and somebody had to make me see it.
That whether I wanted to see it or not, I was going to.
That's what a good sponsor is.
I don't give a damn whether you want to see it.
We don't care what you want.
All your life you've lived doing what you want to do.
And with all the power vested in me, I'm going to see to it that you start doing what you need to do.
And that will allow you to see just what in the hell you really are.
And God, that hurts.
That hurts.
After 30 days, I was to be hurt more.
They moved me to an insane asylum.
And put me on an alcoholic unit, the only one in the state of Kentucky, in a damn nut house.
And that will just shatter your ego.
And especially when you walk through the grounds and the nuts are complaining because you're there.
And sitting out on the benches saying,
What do you think of them drunks being down here now?
Well, I don't like them.
I don't like it.
I don't know why they brought them here.
A bunch of damn troublemakers is all they ever were.
Wish they'd go away and leave us alone.
You're in trouble when insane people are talking about you like this.
And we used to talk about them.
And there was a bridge that went over a little creek there made out of slave rock.
And a guy used to sit there day in and day out with his ear to that bridge.
It went over a little creek.
We used to talk about how crazy he was.
I went by there one day.
And he said,
I went over.
He said,
Listen.
I got down on my hands and knees.
I put my ear to the rock.
And I said,
I don't hear anything.
It's been like that all day.
I'm running around telling everybody he's nuts.
I left that hospital at the end of November of 1962 and went back to Louisville to live with my sister.
My sister took me back into her home.
And we had an understanding that if I started drinking, I'd leave.
There was nothing ever between us except drinking.
We had a good relationship then.
We have one today.
Me and her and her husband and children.
And drinking was the only thing that ever separated us.
She said, You stay here until you can get your life back together.
The only thing I'd ask you is if you take a drink, would you leave?
I get absolutely no pleasure of asking you to.
And I said, Yes, if I do, I'll leave.
And I believe that I would have.
And I start going to the AA meetings.
That old sponsor I had, he'd take you to one if you had a car and two if you didn't.
Really.
And then he would make you get up and tell people you didn't have a car and a way to get there.
And you told him, Joe was nice enough to bring me over here.
I live out here off of Dixie Highway and I don't have an automobile and I need a ride home.
And I'd like to go to some more meetings.
If any of you guys go there during the week, I'd like to go.
But I don't have any way to get there.
He'd make you do that.
And I'd do it and I got rides.
And I'd start going to the AA meetings.
I began.
I began to grow painfully.
I did not believe in me.
And I've already told you I believed in nothing else.
I would like to be able to stand here and impress you upon the fact that I prayed, but I didn't.
I didn't know how.
And I didn't believe in God and I didn't believe in you.
You know, believing sometimes is words initially, I guess.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of feelings.
You know, Alcoholics Anonymous is the language of the heart.
The heart is a palace that stores all truth.
If a famous clergyman was right, and I'll assume he was,
if God is the intangible spirit of truth,
and if man is the tangible spirit,
if man is the source of truth,
and if Alcoholics Anonymous is a language of the heart,
and if the heart is the palace that stores all truth,
then I knew the truth about me.
You see, I had no inner peace of soul when I knew the truth about me.
I had no inner peace of soul when I had to look at you
and you knew what and who I was.
I was. But most of all, in my own heart, I had no inner peace with me. I was not sure
that I could do it. And I was scared to death because I was going to attempt something that
made me get well. And I've told you I wasn't afraid of a damn thing that would kill me.
But God, I was terrified of something that could help me. And I sweated it out, simply
doing what that old man told me to do. I said, I don't know how to stay sober. He said, I
didn't expect you to. I said, what do I do? I'm looking for some great complicated answer.
He looked at me and winked. He said, you stick with me, kid, and you're going to be
all right. You stick with me, kid. You're going to be all right. I stuck. I stayed with
him. He was nasty and mean sometimes. You know, that psychiatrist up there told me,
told me that I was a junior, John Sullivan, Jr., really, my name, the Jackson nickname.
A psychiatrist told me I never had an identity. You were Johnny Sullivan's boy. That's why
you drank. You never had an identity. And I thought that was the best damn news I had
ever received. And I rushed back to the aid meeting to tell Hillary I had discovered why
I never had an identity.
I'm paying that doctor $100 an hour. Hillary looked at me and he said, God. He said, if
you'd have been a grape picker and a garden eater, you'd have been a drunk. And that kind
of blew my mind. And then sometime during that course of that year is when Gay and I
met, and we started going together. And then finally in September of 63, we got married.
And I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I was what she needed. And from that time on, her and everybody that's been involved
in our lives has been blessing to us.
And I finally, after a growth period that we all have where I believed in me and trusted
you, I found the beliefs that made my heart still, my mind, my soul. You know, if the
intangible spirit of truth is God, then I can accept that force that makes me a better person
because of you.
that I do you know and what I'm trying to say to you if you're new to AA and like so many people
if you're agnostic or whatever if you don't believe in God if you don't have a relationship
with a God just remember it's not important you see it doesn't matter whether you love God
it only matters that he loves you and when you find that as AA people find it with yourself
and with people you eventually find that you have to find that you see because you can't live
and operate in a spiritual community unless you're spiritually okay you see in any spiritual
community good and evil are polarized we all have that opportunity anything polarized has a sense
of direction to it you have an opportunity to go in either direction when you're here tonight
as new or old or whatever 20 years or 20 days you still have AA
free will given to you to make a decision tomorrow morning.
Which direction do you want to go in?
Do you want to go in what's good, or do you want to go in what's evil?
Do you want to do what's best for you, or are you interested in satisfying your pleasures or whatever?
You have to make that decision.
A spiritual community allows you to make that decision.
You are respected for your individuality, and collectively we put that together to help each other.
But you have the respect of your own individuality and the right and the ability to choose.
You soon find that in any spiritual community, there's no such thing as power.
There's no power structures in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Power couldn't stay in there very long.
This entire program is based on principle,
and principle connected with good has to bring about the type of feelings that we have in this program.
It has to be.
And then the greatest gift of all, which makes you automatically, whether you want to be or not,
whether you choose to be or care to be,
you automatically become one of God's children,
when self-interest is not your primary concern.
And in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, self-interest doesn't exist.
The concern for others is the thing that feeds our own sobriety
to make us the people of God.
To make us the people we are.
That is what a spiritual community is.
And when you live in that,
you have the feelings that Alcoholics Anonymous breeds from all aspects of it.
Did you ever sit in a room by yourself when you knew that nobody was there but you and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
Did you ever sit in a room like this filled with people and feel good?
And all of the aspects of a spiritual life have come to you
when you feel good about yourself, about people, and about God.
drunk and they've lost the feeling. They haven't lost the knowledge. They know all the words,
but they don't know the feeling. And they can't go out and bring it back sometime. It's
a force of good or spirituality or calling it whatever you want to, but it exists. And
if you don't believe it, just listen. There's not a sound in this room. You couldn't cut
the atmosphere of spiritual feelings with a knife. Whether you want it or not, it'll
get you if you have the smallest desire.
To be something other than what you used to be. And that was all that I had. A desire
not to be what I used to be. I had to be a smart aleck doing it. That's okay. I said
to Hillary one night, he read that portion of chapter five, and I said, just what in
the hell is it that you have that I'm supposed to want? He looked at me and he said, well,
how about a bed that's indoors?
I couldn't argue with him. After about a year, I went back to work for the same company that
I worked for. Nine years ago, I went in to start an alcohol and drug abuse program on
the old L&N Railroad, and now with a seaboard and basically do the same thing Jerry does.
I thoroughly enjoy working with people. And all I know about alcoholism is what you've
taught me, what you and I know about each other. You know, I can share you and me and
you know what I've said and what I've done. And I can share you and me and what I've said
and what I've seen, and that's all I believe anymore is what I've seen. And I thank God
for every human being that's ever crossed my path for the last 22 years. Some are dead.
Some are paralyzed. Some are in insane asylums. Some are sober. Some are even sober happy.
Some are contented. Some of them are everywhere. But thank God they taught me something. I've
never met a person who hasn't taught me something, and I love to share that with them.
I'll close by telling you a story that a fellow told me a long time ago, and I've never
forgotten it. And I close every A-talk I make with it. And I hope you remember it. It was
about a man who was walking down a cold and lonely road one night, and a snake was laying
in the middle of the road. And the snake was dying. He was freezing to death. And he spoke
to the man. And he asked him, he said, Mr., would you please pick me up and put me under
your coat and get me warm? I'm dying in this cold weather.
And the man said, I couldn't do that. You're a poisonous reptile. And surely if I would
warm you enough to restore you to vitality, you would bite me. And the snake said, I wouldn't
bite you if you saved my life. And the man thought for a minute and picked him up and
put him under his coat. And when he got him warm, the snake bit him. And he grabbed him
out from under his coat and threw him back to the road. And he looked at him and he said,
I thought you promised not to bite.
With a snickering,
grin on his face, the snake looked up. He said, you knew what I was when you picked me
up. And someday, my friend, under a given set of circumstances and conditions, you may
be sitting in a bar stool or a cocktail hour or somewhere. Justify it to yourself if you
choose. Explain it to those who don't know if you've been here.
If you know us, you know what it is when you pick it up. Thank you for having me in Virginia.
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