Wally P. on the Big Book, Long-Term Sobriety, and the Danger of Diluted Messages

Thank you very much, Gina. My name is Wally and I'm an alcoholic. There's nothing like that sound when you're up here and you're in there making that sound. For a guy that came into Alcoholics Anonymous unacceptable to everyone including himself to get that kind of warmth and response from anybody is a thrill. It still feels the same way. I certainly think that this second annual Big Book Conference has been a big success. I think you're supposed to say, wasn't it? Was it a big success? What do you think? Yeah! I'll keep asking you to do these things and I'll run out of time, right? That's okay this is certainly one of these things that is needed I would never argue with that I think it's well beyond the point of it a need I think it's a real necessity in Alcoholics Anonymous today the I was talking to Dale I think before the the session and we were talking about this need for this continuing review of our text, our basic message, because over the years it's really gotten diluted. And I think everybody has to keep going back. Newer people that come into Alcoholics Anonymous don't get the powerful dose that some of us got that came earlier. And a lot of that has to do with the other literatures that are around that They're all very interesting, but not necessarily what we need to hear to gain and maintain sobriety, which is a little bit, I guess, like sometimes trying to do college math without having learned how to add and subtract. And adding and subtraction is in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The nuts and bolts, the keep it simple program, the how to do it, it's all here and you don't have to look a lot further so if you haven't read the book recently or this is the first exposure you've had to it I encourage you to go back after it I also think and this is another one having been on committees and put together conferences and being a part of that I think we ought to thank all the people from the conference if that wasn't done earlier. Was it? It was? Okay, well I'm going to thank you. You're great. I want to thank everybody but Lucille. Yeah, thank you, yeah. I wanna thank everybody about Lucille because Lucille pinned this, she assured me it was a boutonniere. Does that look like a boutonneer to you? Looks like a corsage to me and I'm gonna have to dance with somebody Lucille I'll take it off to be a little more comfortable and I'll hurry along with this I've always reminded of a couple of stories that helped me in getting into my talk and of course one of them is an old one I heard a long time ago but I've always liked it. And if you're as old as I am, you've probably heard it. And if not, you probably haven't. But it's about this drunk that goes to a wake. And it's a wake of one of his drinking buddies. So as he goes into the funeral parlor, he looks around, there's nobody there but the widow and the deceased. He doesn't know whether he wants to go in there and face the widow or not. but he goes in there and he stands next to the widow and he kind of smiles at her you know gazes down at his old drinking buddy who's laying out in the casket and he knows he should say something to the window now he's not on her A list as a drinking buddy of the deceased and he's got to say something and so he's scratching his head and wondering what that shall be and all of a sudden it occurs to him so he gets his big smile on his face and he turns to the widow and he says he certainly looks better since he quit drinking okay i can see some of you are shaking your head and i've heard that one uh but that is the truth of it that is the truth alcoholics anonymous you know we look better we sound better we smell better we're welcome a lot of places we weren't before and that's the message of Alcoholics Anonymous I asked Judy what I was supposed to do at this point and I don't know what I can say about the big book because it's been talked about all day long I can make some references to it about my own experience with it but mostly I'm going to tell you my story and kind of weave that in I don't have a strange story I didn't go to strange places I tried but I never got there but I started out with my first drink when I was 13 years old and I got into as much trouble as you can get into at 13 years old in the 1940s I think you get into a lot more today but I did the best I could with the times and what I had to work with. But a bunch of us drank wine, broke into somebody's liquor cabinet, drank wine to act real silly. And I don't know if I liked it or not, but I like being with the bunch and we had a lot of fun, a lot laughs. The class that I was in probably had maybe 30 guys in it and they split guys and girls in those days in the Catholic schools. There was a reason, I'm sure. But anyway, I guess when none of us figured out that nine or ten of us missing out of that 30 would be noticed. We were noticed and right away they figured out by elimination where we were and very soon after that in going back to school, we got into all kinds of trouble. I was accused as being the regal eater. Why? I don't know. Maybe I was a patsy or something but I got into trouble because of my attitude about it. I don't think I got in trouble because the drinking itself because there was not much of it. There wasn't any trouble. We took a day off school, and I don't suppose they like that. But I was very defiant in the face of this. I thought, who are they to tell me what I can do or I can't do? And I'm 13 years old, see? And is he saying this right? He said he'd clean it up as he went along here. I guess that's what we're going to hope for. Or maybe this is his story. I don' t know. But something happened there that was to repeat itself in my life on more than one occasion. And it was worse then because it was the first time, and I wasn't quite... I never was not get better or learn anything from his experiences. I just got smarter. I don't think I ever got better in the face of him. I didn't learn anything form him. Don't let this happen to you again. Manage your ways. I was determined not to get caught. That's pretty much the way I live my life. Don't get caught . You can do anything you want to. just don't get caught. And so I got very cunning in not getting caught, but I got caught that time. And because of my attitude, the nun that was talking to me about it, I was at Catholic school, and my attitude was they involved the parish priest, one of the parish priests that worked with the school kids, and he didn't like my attitude either. I don't know what it was, but it must not have been very good. I knew I was scared to death, but at the same time, I was very defiant, rebellious in the face of this situation that I was in. And he asked that I write some kind of a composition on your attitude towards the religious or the clergy or about what you did that was wrong or something. I can't remember the exact title of it. And I didn't want to do it, and I said I wouldn't do it. And he said, well, I expect you to do that, and I'm going to ask your parents to come here and encourage you to do it. So he pulled in the parents. And so there's my mom and my dad and the priest and the nun, and they kind of lowered the boom on me and insisted that I do it, and I did it. Madder than hell about it. Resentful as hell about It. I carried that into my first, or at least one of my four steps. I carried with me for years and years and years. I began my dislike of clergy, of nuns, of the Catholic Church, of authority, of anybody that was going to tell me what to do, ever. And I didn't see it quite that way then, but as I look back on it, that's exactly what it was. Short time after that, I think they didn't think my attitude was still real good about it, and of course I didn'T think it was either because I was an altar boy in the Catholic church. Any Catholics here? Any alder boys here? Yeah, what am I asking, right? There's got to be some alderboys here. That was a big deal, you know, when you're in seventh or sixth, seventh, eighth grade. Big deal. It was a great deal. And I'm going to tell you a story about that. A big deal to me. And somebody found me in the sacristy drinking sacristy wine. Okay, so I learned a lot from that first one, see. So they removed me as an alder boy. Oh, I was really hurt with that one. I don't know. I also, the fellow that removed me was a brother that ran the boys' choir. That was my greatest love was to sing in the boys', choir. Well, they kicked me off the boys'. choir. So they were taking away everything that was important to me and it hurt me a lot. I was also a crossing guard. They took away my crossing guard belt. It was a hall monitor or some damn thing. They tookaway my clipboard or whatever the hell they take away from you. Whatever they could take away from me, they did. And none of this that I put together with any drinking or anything about me, I thought, what's the matter with them? Which was an attitude I developed early and maintained for a long time. The nun, this was in the springtime of the year, sat down with me and said if it was up to her, she wouldn't graduate me. because I don't think in the face of all of this that I was properly chastised or that my attitude about it was very good. It was getting worse by the minute. So anyway, that was the beginning of my drinking. Now everything that happened after that was kind of a repeat of that. It caused me trouble. It was varying degrees of trouble, some a lot, some little. I did get smart as a result of it. I found a way to always know somebody that could get me out of trouble. As I went along in school, I went to a Christian Brothers high school. I glommed on to a couple of the teachers that took an interest in me and helped me out at scrapes when I got into them. And I did get into scrapes. Now, a lot of it wasn't real serious stuff, but it was stuff on the fringe. One of the reasons I got out of this, I was, again, if there's any of these Catholics in the audience, I was from what they then called a mixed marriage. My dad was Lutheran and my mother was Catholic. That was a mixed-marriage then. I think they felt sorry for me because I had this poor, deprived background with a Lutheran father and a Catholic mother. And they were always coming to school for me and always trying to get people to understand me. And maybe they did. They probably did. This went on until I'm 33 years old. Each year, bringing more drinking, a little more trouble, but a little more savvy to get out of trouble. Finding the right people, finding the right connections. And I did. By the time I was out of high school, of course, I was drinking most days and always getting drunk on weekends. And by the time i was 18 or 19, I was drunk most every day, just a matter of degree. What probably brought this to a halt is I went into the Navy in 1951. And while I was at sea, I was sober when I was in Porta's drunk. And that was pretty much the way I lived my life for what, three years, 10 months and five days. I played trumpet and I was aboard a cruiser and we had a, there was a flagship and I had the served mass for the Catholic chaplain and paid trumpet for the Protestant chaplain. You can't get into a lot of trouble in the service the chaplain can't gets you out of. And I depended on them heavily. You know, I got on the wrong ship one time. You know I would get so drunk and have so much trouble in the service but I always go find somebody that can get me out of it. I knew the mailman aboard ship and of course they could blackmail anybody. They could hold your mail. You had it, you know. You know the cook. He could black mail everybody because otherwise they could handle out special favors. Oh, I don't know All kinds of crazy things happen to me Like happen to anybody else that's a drunk And drinking whenever they can On every occasion as much as they can One of the things I remember Is getting a letter from one of the guy's wives That she thought I was a bad influence on him That when we went on liberty He never got back sober He got into more trouble than I did And I used to take him I remember one time on his wedding anniversary. We were going to celebrate his wedding anniversary and we bought some vodka. This was in Portugal I think. I don't know what it was but we each drank a bottle and neither one of us could talk for about a week afterwards. I didn't know what it is we drank you know so I determined I was never going to drink Portugal that you bought vodka you bought cognac I guess it was that we bought in Lisbon and that's how I kind of learned about my drinking. Don't drink this, drink that, try to find something to drink. I got married while I was in the service and I was convinced that once I got back into the Chicagoland area where my life really was, I would be much more responsible and all of this trouble-like stuff I was flirting with would kind of disappear. And it didn't. It just went along with me, which was the first time that I ever realized that in any way at all, that I might have been the problem, but I dismissed that quickly. Whenever that thought occurred, I drank a little more. Eventually we ended up with eight children. Each time we had a child, I thought I would become more responsible. I didn't. My wife did. In fact, I became the oldest child in the family and it was okay because she did take care of me and she liked doing that and And it worked, thank God. It worked that she was able to take care of me. I probably would have ended up on the street living because I lived like a street person eventually. It was really weird. It was a terrible life, but I always had a home to come back to. I made a pass at AA when I was 29, and at that time there were not a lot of young people, not a whole lot of people under 30 in AA. And in the group that I was in, I was the youngest. And I was kind of like the group pet. They took me around and they kept telling me how lucky I was to be sober and to be young. And I thought how terrible it is to be silver and young. You know, that it was probably all right for guys like Tom that are all old and burnt out to be an Alcoholics Anonymous. Thomas is sitting here in this front row to keep me honest. He and I were in the same hospital at different times, I think, during the same year. So he said he was going to be here for that purpose. I also have some people from Aurora that are sitting back there in mass. I think one of them is taking notes, and they're going to correct me if I go too far wrong. But eventually the day came. I drank enough, and I got into enough trouble to qualify for Alcoholics Anonymous, whatever that is. You have to do your own drinking and qualifying. I did mine. I don't ever want to do any more because I went through a terrible four years. Everything they told me when I first came into AlcoholicsAnonymous began to happen. All of it, no. They talk about the yets in AA. I haven't had all the yits. I had enough of them for me. i ended up in the hospital a couple of times oh i bothered probably at least 100 priests that i know of i always thought this was a catholic problem or a moral problem or something you know i did a better job as a catholic or as a christian or in the way i was raised that i this wouldn't be happening to me um i used to light candles probably lit banks of candles in churches for special intentions you know me even went to mass or even went to have a mass set for myself for a special intention it sounds real crazy at the time i was really desperately trying to find some way out of what i was in i didn't know what to do and this seemed to be the place to go on the way to do it um oh let's see I saw the family doctor I still have a prescription for antabuse I get mad at him, I thought he was going to try to kill me didn't even know what that stuff would do to me I had no intention of quitting of course that wasn't part of our conversation he assumed I wouldn't want to and I assumed he was crazy to give me this thing except that my family paid for me to see the doctor and go see him, he might help you I was always going to see somebody that was going to help me and I would go any place and see anybody as long as I could drink you know and I had some very crazy conversations with people that I didn't think could help me at all but they thought they could try to get into the Chicago Alcoholic Treatment Center anybody know where that place is other than Tom well it's down on in Chicago and it's run by the city of Chicago and they wouldn't accept me I showed up there sober one time with with my still my age sponsor a delightful guy. He never let me go for four years. He always stayed in contact, not constant, but he was always called. I don't know how it was, which was a stupid question. And would I want to go to a meeting? And I said no. In fact, one time I accused him of being the reason why I drank. If you'd stopped bugging me, I wouldn't be drinking this way. And he said he wouldn't call anymore, but he did. And he took me down to this Chicago Alcoholic Treatment Center and I sat for this long interview with this lady that very nice lady, I guess, but she wouldn't let me in there. And I thought, my God, I haven't had a drink probably for a day almost now and I'm dying. What do you mean I can't come in here? And she said, well, I want you to go see a psychiatrist, which I couldn't understand until much many years later, I figured out what I told that sent me to see the psychiatrist. I threw a party for my mom and dad's, one of their anniversaries, and invited a whole bunch of people and rented a hall and hired a band. I didn't have any money. And I was getting real desperate about this as the date got closer and closer, but I did a lot of stuff like that and hoped that it would all work out. And that day I made more enemies than I can ever imagine, and it took me forever to put that at rest. I put the bite on the guests. I did a lot of stuff like that, and it wasn't well-liked because of it. But I figured that's what you have to do. You know, you get in a tight corner, you've got to find some way out of the corner, right? And that's What I Would Do. So anyway, the day came when I had my last drink. I had come out of The Hospital for a second time, and I was loaded with Librium or whatever they gave you, I guess. yeah, I think it was Librium. And it was the day before Thanksgiving and I wanted to leave after a few days because I wanted to be home with my family for Thanksgiving. Not that they wanted me home. I wanted me home. You know, I wanted to make a nice appearance and be there for them. So anyway, I went shopping with my wife at the Jewel for the stuff you buy for Thanksgiving and I got lost over in the cosmetic department looking at lipsticks or some damn thing. I don't know what the hell I was doing. I'd probably still be there if she hadn't found me. And took me home, they put me up at the table like somehow I belonged there, like somehow I belonged in that family or was a part of it. I wasn't. It was their idea, it was my wife's idea made me more than anybody's. And the next day was the day after Thanksgiving and I was in a retail business. My dad had given me a job nobody else would give me. I had been working with a group washing walls, and I was the supervisor. It was a little bit like the fox watching the chickens. We all drank a lot. We drank a Lot before work, during work, after work. Sometimes we didn't work. A lot of times we didn' t work. I was a lousy supervisor again. But anyway, I had come out of the hospital the second day, the second time. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. It' s a retail business, and I didn't drink that day, and on the way home that night, just like without a thought to it, I got a six-pack and a half pint, had a couple of drinks in the joint that I usually drank in, went home. And my wife was sitting there with one of the neighbor ladies, about the only one that ever came in the house anymore, and they were having some kind of a conversation. I don't know what. My wife saw me come in with a brown paper bag, and you know, I can probably still remember that look on her face. She couldn't believe it, that after all I'd been through and what had happened, that I would continue to do this and be so cavalier about it. You know, I think I said something like, don't worry. Everything's going to be okay. I don't know what I meant. I didn't know what she thought I meant anyway. I drank up most of that. I guess that night before I passed out, I didn'T fall asleep anymore. I passed out and got up the next morning, got some more And it was kind of medicine for me to get a half pint and a six-pack. Why half pints? Because they fit in your pocket. You know, what the hell would you want besides a half-pint? In fact, I understand a few years back Seagram's package did a six pack of half-pants. They were thinking of us. And somebody took it off the market. I thought it was a great idea myself. You could put them every place, you know, in the glove compartment and under the seat in your coat pocket, a sweeping compound at work. In your wife's dresser, she never looked in it for there, where I used to hide money too. But anyway, I'd started drinking and I'm sitting at my kitchen table on a Saturday morning and just nutty out of my head, I guess. I don't know what I thought I was doing or why I was going. I had no more idea than the man in the moon why I wasn't doing it and not trying to stop or anything. and it occurred to me and I guess this is God's race in the beginning of my spiritual awakening in the begining of my road down the way of life I didn't know it I didn' t know it until much later but as I was sitting there in the kitchen it occurred to me this is the way my life is going to go it's never going to be any different I guess I always told myself that if I really wanted to quit drinking I could quit drinking I just had to really want to try apply yourself And I knew I'd done everything I knew how, including the doctors and the psychiatrists and being in the hospital and church and you name it. I tried everything I could think of, including many AA meetings, in and out of AA. Nothing worked. And so I thought maybe I'm part of that group that is constitutionally incapable. Maybe I'm hopeless. And then I'm going to go on living my life this way. and I got overwhelmed with this kind of a black cloud. I'd been depressed, I think, probably. I certainly lived in a black clouds for a couple of years before I quit. And it was just, like I said, overwhelming me. I didn't know what I was going to do. I do remember one thing my wife said that she was going leave. She got some money from a brother of hers to take the children and go back to Boston. That's where she was from. And I thought, I used to try to argue her out of things like this. And I said, I think it's a good idea because I'm not going to stop. There's no sense in you being here or the kids being here. And it was early, I was not trying to cop a plea or anything. I couldn't see any other way. I couldn'T see any end to this thing other than what I was doing. And in that hopelessness, I got hope. And I do believe that was the grace of God acting in my life. When I was that hopeless and that powerless and that without, God did his thing for me. I never called anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous. Either I didn't want to bother them or I didn' t think I needed the help. I' ll handle it myself. That day I knew I needed to reach out and ask for some help. People always call me because they felt sorry for me or they were trying to help me or improve their skills as sponsors or something. I don' t know. Because I trained a lot of 12-steppers in that group, no question about that. They don't lend money in that group anymore to anybody. I mean, not anybody ever, because they did that to me. But I called this guy who had visited me in the hospital. And you know how people are when they visit you in the Hospital and AA? They insist that you take their number, whether you want it or not. And they say, call me if you'd like. If you want to go to a meeting, you want a talk or something like that. So I had the guy's number in my wallet. His name was Al. He lived out in Barrington. I lived in Arlington Heights at the time, and I called him after calling Alexian Brothers Hospital. This is old Alexian brothers. None of you may know about that other than Tom and I. It used to be down at Belden or Racine in Chicago. It's no longer there. and one of these gurus that used to hang around the unit down there answered the phone when I called down there because I didn't know what to do before I first called this guy Al. And I said, What should I do? He said, Stop drinking, you son of a bitch, and call AA. And he hung up on me. I thought, What kind of help is that? Kind of shock therapy of some kind or another. So maybe that's why I called this Guy Al. He's the only guy I could think of to call. I couldn't stand the idea of calling anybody that I knew in AA again and tell them that I was drinking again. I just couldn't face it. I'd said it so many times, you know. And sometimes I would tell people I drank after I had been drinking. Sometimes I didn't. They always knew. And it didn't seem to make any difference whether I told them or didn't tell them. I still got drunk. So anyway, he called, or I called him, and he answered the phone. He said he remembered me. I don't know if he did or not. But he said he did, and he asked me what I wanted, and I told him that I had started drinking again and that I didn't know what to do. He said, Do you want to stop drinking? I said, I don't know. I said I just don't want to do it. I cannot go on like this. He said well if you stop drinking I'll come over and sit with you. And he said you got stuff to drink there now. I said yeah. He said Well if you want a drink I'm not coming over. And I said well I don' t know if I can do that or not. I don''t know if i can stay away from it. He said that's the deal. so who else wanted me who else would talk to me who else would try so Al comes over I didn't finish my six pack and my half pint I never did that in my life that was more another piece in the spiritual experience that brought about my spiritual awakening I do believe that in fact I did empty out the half pint I took the last hospital bracelet I had and hung it over the neck of the bottle I put it on my dresser and I think for a couple of years it sat there I never wanted to forget what I had been through my wife didn't like it very often she'd take it and put it in a drawer well I'd go in get it and put it back up there again we had some words about that we never had any words about my drinking I don't understand that but I was pretty desperate so anyway he came over he sat and you know do what you do he talked to me and told me about his life and about his drinking and I don't know we talked about all kinds of stuff he asked me if I want to go out and eat something I said no but I went out with him while he did and later in the day I did try to eat something maybe some soup or something I don' t know anyway he left about 11 o'clock at night he said now if you if you don't drink overnight he said uh so I'll call you in the morning and come get you and take you to a meeting if you want to going to go and um I said well I can do that I didn't know what I was talking about. Oh, God, was that a night. That was the longest night of my life. Longest, longest night of my live. I didn' t know how long, but seven hours would be when you were in the condition that I was in, and I was on the phone and I wasn't in a condition. I don' t now if I was so sick from drinking or so sick of myself I couldn' t stand myself because drinking didn' d really help that anymore. It used to, and then it didn' s. But anyway, he did come the next morning. I went to a meeting. In fact, I went to the meeting I'd originally gone to the first time I ever went to a meeting where I had all these old guys like Tom there. And somehow or another they had changed. I had gotten sweetly reasonable over the last four years. I heard somebody earlier say they had eyes and they could see and had ears and they could hear. I had never been able to see or hear at an AA meeting. Never identified with anybody. felt sorry for him glad I wasn't one of them but that day I was desperate to be one of nobody else wanted me family friends wife kids bosses wasn't anybody that want anything to do with me why the people in a aid did I don't know they got that what is that old business I wouldn't want to belong to anything that would want me as a member and that's about where I had arrived But everybody was friendly and cordial the way they always are in Alcoholics Anonymous, to everybody. Nobody feels as bad after you've had a slip as you do. They're just glad to see that you came back again. You made it back. Anyway, that was the last drink. That was my first meeting after my last drink, I should say as kind of a real diversion here, or kind of in theme of the conference here. Talk about the first time I ever saw the big book. First time I even came into Alcoholics Anonymous, a guy made a 12-step call. I mean, he came to me with his big book, and I think I asked Phil to help me out by passing my big book around, and you would do me a great favor and be really pleased if you would write your name on my big book, and I'll carry you all with me home, and that's kind of nice. And maybe sometime at 2 o'clock in the morning when you're least expecting it, I'll give you a call. No, I did that one other time, and it really helps. It decorates my book in a very nice way. Anyway, this guy shows up with this big book. It was this particular book. It's the second edition of the big book, published in 1955, and it had a reversible dust jacket on it. There was solid blue on one side and then the Alcoholics Anonymous on the other side. So if you wanted to reverse it, nobody had any idea what you were reading. And he explained this to me very patiently. You could carry this thing around with you, ride on a bus, go on a train, read it in the library, whatever you wanted to do with it. Nobody would ever know what you're reading. And he thought that was a big deal. Anonymity for him was a Big Deal, and he explained that to me. He said, no one's going to find out from me you're an Alcoholics Anonymous, and I expect the same from you. If they're in AA, it's okay, but nobody outside of AA. and so he did what a lot of people did in those days he said I'm gonna lend you this to read and he said if you decide that you want to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous you're gonna have to buy your own and he said that's only a loner and that's what he did he lent me the book and eventually he picked it up after I went back to drinking I think maybe I don't know somewhere along the line somewhere along the line I got a big book and that's the one I did buy one I think one of the things I was thinking of as far as this conference was concerned is about this whole approach to 12 step work and 12 step calls and the newcomer has so changed since I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I hardly recognize it the anxiety and that is the word I use has been brought to AlcoholicsAnonymous by people who would want to help us doesn't fit in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, the whole approach to a 12-step call and carrying the message to an alcoholic who still suffers is not based on anxiety. That's your problem. If you're anxious about your problem, the anxiety isn't in the right place. The fear isn't the right space. If I'm worried about you, I'm not so sure if the fear and the anxiety isn't at the right places. you know but it was much more of a casual approach you know read the book and then i'll call you back in a few days and call you there wasn't all of this i got to rush you off to a meeting to save you uh we are a program of attraction either like it or you don't and if you don t like it you won t come back you won't be interested we have a hook that is almost irresistible to an alcoholic i believe that i believed it for me it took a while for it to catch, I believe it for any other alcoholic. We have a way of life. We offer something nobody else offers that we really need. I think this spiritual life at the depth that we offer it in Alcoholics Anonymous and is available to us is not available any place else for an alcoholic and not in our recovery. So as I mentioned earlier about the big book, I recommend it. When I came back into Alcoholics Anonymous, I had to remember I didn't know anything. Otherwise, I'd have stayed sober. I thought I did. See, I knew a lot of words. And I really didn't Know anything about how not to drink, How to live your life without drinking. But they said things to me, And I wondered why they had never said that to me Before in AlcoholicsAnonymous the first time around. Somebody said, Don't take that first drink. And I wonder, Why didn't they tell me that the first Time? i didn't hear it i don't know you know everybody was saying the same thing they always said i just couldn't hear it you know they said think before you take a drink like why you know i know thinking never had anything to do with my drinking you know i used to say it i'm going to go have a couple of drinks and think about this which was really a joke uh but i believe that today and i believe for anybody and i don't know if there's anybody here that's been having any trouble but if you can think about what's going to happen to you before you take a drink you're probably not going to drink because if i knew what was going to happened i don t think i'd ever taken that taking a drink after i was in aa i never seemed to know yeah i had to learn from my own experience that seemed to be the only way i could learn how in fact today as i stand here if i was to tell you what would happen to me as i if i would drink it would be the same thing it always happened It probably happened sooner and faster because that's what happened over those four years. It happened sooner, and it happened faster. I didn't have any leisure, fun-time drinking. Whap! It was right there, and It was gone. And it was the misery and the guilt and the remorse and the resentments and all the bitterness of my life. So standing up here today, I know what's going to happen to me if I take a drink. That's why I'm not going to take one because I have been restored to sanity as far as my drinking is concerned. I know what's going to happen. I don't know if you know, because I know if there's any period of time when I don'T know, I may have to drink to find out. I can't do that. That's one of the reasons I go to meetings. I goto meetings to findout what happens when you drink. And I learned it from other people, which is another one of those things I was given, an ability to do some listening and learn from otherpeople in their experience, not just my own. There was a guy at our meeting this morning. It was heartbreaking. He's newly back in AA. He doesn't know what the hell he's going to do. He hasn't worked for eight years. He doesn' t know how he's gonna go back to work or do anything, you know. Of course, he doesn't now what the answer is, and there was no way to get at him with it until after the meeting. But I was thinking how horrible that is when your life is in shambles and they tell you, well don't drink and you'll be okay. Don't drink, and go to meetings. I would say, you don't understand. You don't understanding my problem. them. You know, you're trying to figure out how many Florida vacations you're going to take this year and they just shut off the telephone, the gas bill, they repossess the car. I mean everything is going to hell and you're telling me don't worry, don't drink and go to meetings. And when I get so distressed, particularly in this one group I belong to, they kind of laughed at me. I thought why are they laughing at me? Could they really know what I'm going through and laugh at me? Well they were laughing with me. I didn't know that. I kind of figured it out after a while. The laughter was because they had been through that same thing. A big part of that that I learned, they said, you've got to go to meetings. You can't do this by yourself. If you could sit in a closet and do it, you'd do it. And I believed that. If I could have done it another way, I probably would have never gone to the meetings because I never joined anything in my life. Thank God I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. I also learned that nothing is so bad that a drink won't make worse. And I didn't believe that. And I went through it year after year after year, making things worse and worse and worse. Have to remember for me, there's nothing more important than staying sober every day, not drinking today. I don't care whatever happens in my life and a lot has happened like it has in everybody else's life that stays sober. Nothing is so important as not taking a drink. I also remember but for the grace of God and I find that every place. Let's talk a little bit earlier about that with somebody. I play guitar and banjo, and I retired a few years ago, and I go into nursing homes and retirement communities. I was in a place, a state hospital here last week, and it was really a bad place, and there were a lot of real sick people there, developmentally disabled people, and people with Alzheimer's and everything. God, why them and not me? But for the grace of God, why did I get the gift that I get? Why do I have the life I have and not that one? I don't know how to explain it. See, I don' t know how to explain how people come into Alcoholics Anonymous and don't get sober. I don''t know how to explain that because I don ''t even know how to explaing how it happened to me except that it did and I'm standing up here telling you it did and it has happened for a long time. I had to learn to ask for help. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. It was they day that I called this guy and I have to continue to be open to that and be able to ask her help. I have live a day at a time have to learn how to let go one of the things that i strongly believe in don't say no to alcoholics anonymous uh i hear people too busy now i've gotten myself in that position once in a while i always regret it i always feel terrible about it i don't like to say no alcoholics anonymous it saved my life i'll never live long enough to pay off the debt that i owe alcoholics anonymous the people that came before me the people are here now you know as i look out in the room and see all the friends that i have and the friends i haven't met as they say and how how it warms my heart to see all out there and know that you don't want me to fail say something smart wally i'm trying um you know when going through the steps and my program is based on the steps of alcoholics anonymous i know there's a lot of talk about the big book this week uh i was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous through the book 12 Steps and 12 Traditions. Probably the first five years that I was in AlcoholicsAnonymous, I don't know that I ever, other than one time reading the book Alcoholics Анonymous, ever read it. I got sober in a group that used the 12 StepS and 12 Traditions as a study guide. They read it every week. Every week I went there they read it and you went back and heard the same damn thing again. But it was a terrible discipline for me. It was wonderful for me to hear those readings over and over again and realize that the answer was here And it was evidenced around the room for me. I realized that not only was I powerless over alcohol, I was powerless over so many things. So many things, and that was okay because by this time I had a higher power. I didn't have to do it alone. I got a sponsor who was my first higher power until he had a fight with his wife on the telephone with me on the other end. She had mixed up his black socks with his brown socks, and he was wearing the mismatched pair out to work. And I thought they were going to kill each other. And I was trying to get him on the phone, and he hung up the phone. I thought, oh my God, what kind of a higher power is that? And I used to ape this guy, walk around, looking for the right things to do and the right thing to say. And he did something for me then that just mystified me because I didn't understand it at the time. and he's done that since. But he called me back and did a step 10 with me. I thought, wait a minute, you're my sponsor. You know, you walk on water. You don't do any wrong. What do you mean you were wrong? I don't want to even hear that. If you're wrong, God, there must be a lot of things wrong and I don' t know about it because I really trusted this guy and depended on him. But then it occurred to me that he's only one guy, you know. So then I kind of looked at my group. In some ways, I still look to my home group as the uh as a higher power because there's a collective wisdom there's more in that group than there isn't any one individual more drinking time more sober time there's more inthat room in that collective wisdom than any one member so i consider that i think god speaks to me through that group he sent me into alcoholics anonymous for that reason i found a higherpower after this lifelong of being exposed to the religion of my birth where I had lost God really, you know, replaced it with early times, I guess. I found it down at the mustard seed. Somebody was telling me they went down to the mustard seed here recently. And I was sitting in a meeting and somebody was talking. I have no idea what they were talking about, but it occurred, I must've been in some kind of a trance or something, I don't know, or off on a different wavelength. And it occurred to me during the course of the meeting, I didn't want to drink. I thought, my goodness, That's a novel idea. I had never, never, never thought of not drinking. I had ever had this desire to not drink. I didn't want to hurt. I had stopped drinking in about six months now. I hadn't had a drink for six months. I wasn't drinking but I wanted to. Every day seemed like every other day where I wanted a drink but I wasn' t drinking. And that day it left. I do believe that God removed the obsession that desire to drink and it's never returned. Never returned. I believe that's true for everybody in Alcoholics Anonymous if they want it. If you want that gift, you have to ask for it. And I was immediately filled with another one of the gifts I got in Alcoholic Anonymous, which is a gift of gratitude, which I've had in good times and bad times, in some very bad times ever since then. Somehow or another, I'm able to see the donut instead of the hole, even though maybe initially I'll see the hole. I always see the donut. Some of you know my wife died this year, and it was a very hard time, and it still is at times. But in spite of what I figure is a terrible loss, and she was a great AA member, better than I'll ever be. She had a wonderful way of applying the program in her life and passing it on to people I'll never have. But she did. And I learned a lot from her, as much as she could teach me. And, you know, I'm not real teachable. But in the midst of that, and in my really great sorrow and a lot of pain and in the grief of it all, I could remember to be grateful she didn't have to continue to go through the suffering she was going through. That came to me. Not my loss, but what she was gone through, which is something else I got in AA, caring about somebody else sometimes more than me. And that's not my style, but it is something that I developed as a style that was given to me in Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know there's so many things I could say about what Alcoholics Anonymous has meant and God as I understand them I know that everything is okay in God's world it's just not always okay in Wally's world that's the best way I can explain it to you it's always okay in his world that's what I'm talking about that's kind of God I got there's a thing in 12 and 12 about God being a dealer in a card game and me being a player I am not the dealer i don't control the deal i got to play the cards i got and do the best i can with them i don t always like the hand i have i still have to stay in the game and do the best they can i have to clean house i have to take care of the past through the fourth fifth sixth and seventh steps and uh i've done the fourth and fifth step i think six times a couple times real good other times maybe just little pieces that i needed to look at but more than a tenth step, I guess. I think the fact that I still have character defects and shortcomings is the factthat I'm willing to grow along spiritual lines. I am not going to be perfect. I don't intend to be, but I'm going to do the best I can. It's a little bit like gardening. Any of you gardeners out there, if you've ever done any weeding, you're always weeding. doesn't make any difference what care what plot you take care of there's more over here you can't do it all at once you do the best you can and then starts to look pretty good and you turn around my god this is a mess i thought this was clean too i thought when i was cleaning this one this would probably be okay it doesn't work that way you know have to take care OF IT as it comes up uh the wreckage of my past i could like i'm not going to bore you with this i could give you a whole talk on amends. What has happened to me in the making of amends? Two biggies. One was my mother, biggest resentment in my life. She's an alcoholic and I blamed her for everything that ever happened in my wife. It was very convenient and I wanted to do that. And it took a long time for me to put my arms around my mother and tell her I love her. But that didn't happen with one sitting or two sittings or five sittings or fifty sittings. It is that way today. So if you're wondering how long does it take these relationships to get mended? I don't know. In God's time some went like that. Almost kind of like instant. We were okay. My son and I were estranged in a lot of ways because of my drinking. Because of my drink. Probably for the first 17 years I was sober. Every out the rest of my kids, and I were okay. He and I weren't. One day I was awake, his father-in-law died, who was an alcoholic who didn't make it in AA, and he turned to me and said, he was an alcohol like you did. Where'd that come from? You know, I prayed about it. I let go. I couldn't do any more than I knew how to do. I had to let go." The idea of continuing to pick personal inventory to improve my conscious contact. I do this daily. I think I do it through meetings. Meetings always remind me of that void that I have created off and on in this conscious contact with God as I understand him. And I do need that. I was thinking about this recently. It's one of my new thoughts, I guess. That I used to pray a long time in the morning. Never too much at night, but a long day. A long time. in the morning now i pray a short time in the morning but i pray all day long it's different uh it's a change in the way that i maintain my conscious contact with god it isn't done with a quiet time only in the morning i remember throughout the day and again i guess that's god's grace of my life to thank him for things as they come into my life To ask for help when I need them. To pray for somebody that, what? I still have a lot of character defects. And sometimes I can resent the hell out of you. So then I have to pray for you. You know, all these good things happen to Charlie that should happen to Charley. I can't do anything about it. I can do anything with my feelings about it, but God, you help me. when i am lustful and i still have that one uh i don't know if it'll ever go away and when i'm jealous of you because you have something i want or you have more of it and i think i need it i have to pray for you and that helps takes it away god takes away my problem um i have give it away to keep it i do believe that i say that more often today than I can imagine because I think it's one of those things that I see as a comment on Alcoholics Anonymous. It's going on, but there's less and less people doing it. We have so many people in AlcoholicsAnonymous. Is everybody passing it on? Is everybody looking for every opportunity to help the next guy? I guess maybe I'm out of touch with that. I think a lot of people do it, but there are so many of us and so few that do maybe. what's it like today and i'm going to run through this real quickly you know i'm still powerless i'm so powerless over alcohol and almost everything i can imagine and there seems to be a growing list of things i'm powerless over i used to think i could control something someplace sometime and i don't and that's okay i have been partially restored anybody that knows that will agree what the restoration to my sanity has been but i'm much saner than i ever was Anybody that knew me as I was growing up is astounded, you know, that I can tie my shoes. I was unbelievable when I was going up. It's almost impossible to describe when I think back about how nutty a kid I was. I'm not that way much anymore. So I am sober, I am sane, more or less, and more serene than I ever thought I would want to be. You know, I used to love neon and the smell of bars and urine in the corners. And I just love that stuff. And the excitement and the stimulation of drinking and having crazy times and living from crisis to crisis, I don't like it. I like this peace and serenity and calm, quietness that I get at times during the day. Sometimes it goes on for more than a day in a row. I think, God, this is what God wants for me. i think uh as far as my daily uh quiet time is concerned though somebody asked me this the other day what do you really do well i say the lord's prayer say the serenity prayer i love the francis prayer i learned this one uh i thought i'm going to see if my mind still works and i memorized it and if you want to ask me after the meeting i'll tell you what it is i don't want to take up the time of the meeting but i use that all the time and essentially what he's saying that is uh it's like you can talk the talk but you can't unless you can walk the walk you know you really can't be a saint francis and the same doggone thing is true in alcoholic synonyms you can say everything you want about alcoholics and i'm unless youcan do it you don't belong you know uh you there's so many of us that talk so well and there's a lot less of us that do real well and uh so that you got to do the two of them and you got to pass it on. There is no other way that you can keep this message unless you pass it on. You'll have something. You may not drink, but you're not going to have the joy that you're supposed to get out of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not a sad life. It's a happy life. I have a joke to tell on the Al-Anons. I know there's a few funny ones here. It probably has to do with Step 8 and 9. This couple go to Ireland, and they're on this tour, and the tour guide takes them onto this estate, and there's this wishing well. And as they approach the wishing well, and he's assuring him that that's an authentic wishing well. This guy falls, trips and falls, goes down into the well, goes all the way to the bottom, breaks his neck and dies. And his wife, who's an Al-Anon, turns to the guy and says, I didn't know those things worked. We are not always well thought of. We would like to think we're well thought up. And just because we stop drinking, we are lovable and loved by all. Some have long memories. I'd like to end on this one. You know, what has my life been like since I've been sober? There's more that's happened to me since I'd been sober than when I was drinking. There's a lot of things that I've done and there's more that's happen to me in life than I can possibly imagine. I'm sober longer than I drank. Really? Why would anybody want to do that? It must be time to go back and go around the track again. I went through a lot of stuff, good times and bad times. I have, what was I thinking here? I got, I was able to successfully, oh, I had like a small stroke and I went though that okay. I had bypass surgery, I went thru that okay, what the hell else is going on with me? Oh, I'm anemic now, that's a new one I got. I got all kinds of things that seems to be breaking down, I guess that's what happens to you as you get older, But through the grace of God and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, they don't seem to overwhelm me. I kind of take them as part of what the deal is as you grow older. I have eight children. I have 17 grandchildren. And my oldest grandchild is going to get married about a month from now. So that must make me old. And it's okay. I'm enjoying it. I think that you've got to continue to change as long as you're AlcoholicsAnonymous, that God's gift is always available to you. There's been a lot of wonderful times. I've got a lot of wonderful things, good jobs. I got a bank book. I got some savings. I have a house that's paid for and a car that's paid for. I mean, really? In America? Or to me? How could this alcoholic ever have that happen to him? But it did. My father died. My best friend, my real champion, the guy that went to bed for me time and time and time again. I guess they call him an abler's. That's what you call him. But he was a good friend to me. And I'll never forget what he did for me in my life as I got sicker and sicker. My grandchild, one of my grandchild died in a crib death. I went through a divorce. Had to put my mother in a nursing home. I lost a job. And as I mentioned earlier, I lost my wife. None of these things have brought about the thought of a drink or a drink. just has never occurred to me as an answer. And that's what we're promised in Alcoholics Anonymous. We're not going to want a drink. There's not going to be anything in that drink for us because Alcoholics Anonymous, and God as I understand them, has taken care of all of it. I have a good friend of mine that says how does he say if you're new here if you are looking for sobriety please God, you find it. And if you have sobriety, please God you keep it. Thank you.