What Old-Timers Carry That Newcomers Cannot Learn From a Book – Duke D.

Thank you, Hal. Usually when I get a nice introduction, I say, you said that just like we rehearsed it and just like I wrote it out. But Hal filled in, very graciously filled in some time for me because, as usual, I'm a disorganized, organized alcoholic, and I didn't think it was filler time. I thought it was very good material. I'm still getting mileage out of the joke that Hal told about the Methodist preacher and the Presbyterian preacher and the Baptist preacher yesterday. I traffic in other people's jokes. Let's open the meeting in the usual manner by saying the serenity prayer. Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serENITY to accept the things I cannot change, change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I'm Duke, and I'm an alcoholic. Better put, I'm a commode-huggin' drunk. And this is the old-timers meeting, but that doesn't mean you're just for old-timers, as has been announced. It's for everyone. We're going to start with a reading of the preamble by Ed, who has more years than I have. Come on, Ed. Thank you. I stand up here and I wonder why I'm here. year. I didn't want to come to AA. I was forced to AA, and I had a rough time in the early days. I was a skid row bum. I drank rub-e-dub and anything I could get my hands on. Many times I was found in the gutter and thrown in jail. And finally, I had no place else to go, so So I went home to my mother and father. My father was a drinker, but he hated drunks, and he drank all his life. My mother put me in the back bedroom so my father wouldn't see me drunk, otherwise he would beat the hell out of me. I'm trying to cure that. And she put me in the back bedroom so my father wouldn't know I was there, and I just shook like a dog. And my father left in the morning, and my mother called the bartender—I I used to own a saloon. My mother called a bartender that was in AA, and he said, well, you ought to go to AA. I said, what the hell is AA? He says, it's a group just for guys like you and me. You? And then he explained his story, and I'm not going to go into it. But on September 8th, I was living in a flop house. I was filthy, and I was trying to sweat it out. And I called my mother Sorry And she got hold of the man who had been a bartender in a saloon that I owned his name was John. You have to bear with me, I got... John called me and he got me, asked me to go home and get... you got me home okay let me read that's probably what's wrong Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any cause. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve keep sobriety. My name is Ed Norman, an alcoholic. Again. On September 8th, 1948, I was living in a flop house. I was filthy and I was trying to sweat out a drunk. I called my mother and and told her where I was. She got a hold of a man who was a bartender in a saloon that I had owned. His name was John. She called John and asked him to go and get me and bring me home. I was nervous, and I'm nervous today. My voice quivered. I was sweating. I begged John to get me a drink to stop shaking. He said, you had your last drink. I said, you mean, John, I've got to sweat this one out? He says, yes, sir. And there was no cure for it at that time. He told my mother to have me ready to go to an AA meeting. After she cleaned me up, she put me in the back bedroom that was never used. She got a pair of pants and a jacket from my father. and I'd like to tell you what, my father was five foot and I'm six foot. The sleeves of the jacket was up to here and the pants was up there and the belly was up open. Oh dear. And I remember that. He told me he was going to take me to a meeting. She put me in the back bedroom and that bedroom was never used. She got a pair of pants and a jacket. The The pants were too tight, and the shirt and jacket were too short. But he took me — he came by and took me to the Jamaica Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. After the meeting, he took to a diner for coffee where most of the AAs went. While we were having coffee, John asked the boss if he could use a dishwasher. And I'm the best one in the world. he paid me two dollars a day and gave me room and board I called my mother and told her about the job I told her to call my wife and that I would be in touch with her shortly she hadn't seen me in about three weeks after about two months I called her again and I had told her I had joined AA. She met me at the meeting place, and I told her I was going to AA meetings and that John had suggested it. I complained I had nothing to do in the daytime, and they told me to go talk with Bill W. Who the hell was Bill W? He gave me the address and I went up to see him and I met his his secretary, Nell Wing, and she pointed to the door. He said, you're right there. So I walked in. I said, are you Bill? He says, yep, I'm Bill. He says who are you? I said I'm Ed. So he says what do you want to talk about? Well I said you're going to do the talking. I said, they told me to come here and talk to you. I'm talking to you and you're supposed to talk to me. You can see how confused I really was. After a while, about three months, I found that Bill made talks in many groups on his way to Bedford Hills. He lived in Bedford Hills. But he would stop and talk. When I found out he was talking at a meeting, I would make sure I got there and back to wash my dishes by 12. And sometimes it was real close. After a while, about three months, I found that Bill made talks in many groups on his way to Bedford Hills. I would go to those meetings and listen to him, and he always had a message for me. I don't know what it was, but it was a message. An old-time couple, Francis and Tony Foley, two old-timers, told me they They were going to Bedford Hill's Women's Reformatory to talk to the inmates. Over. That's wrong. That's paid. Francis said it was too early to go to the Women's Reformatory. Let's stop at Bill and Lois' house. house. Bill invited us to have dinner with him, and then they would go with us to the reformatory. While we were eating, Frances noticed some man coming out of a room or at the balcony in Bill's house, and she whispered to me, that was Ebi. I don't know who the hell Ebi was. I hadn't even heard about him, so I didn't make any comment. I thought he was just another drunk as over and up, and he was. Bill Lois, Francis and Tony Foley, and me. Francis asked me to speak. I was over three months out. I can't even talk until he's asking me to to speak. But I tried. I was shaking my head no, but she would not listen. And if you knew Frances Foley, she's about this much bigger than me and she's that much wider. And all she had to do was push me and I'd have fell. She said, you do it, I'd fall down. Now where where was I? Okay. Tony Foley and me, and while we were there, Francis had whispered to me that that was Ebby coming out of the room. Many years later, I spoke at a meeting in Florida. After I spoke, a lady came up to me and asked me if I ever spoke in Bedford Hill Woman's Reformatory?" I said, yes. And she grabbed me and gave me a big hug. A big hug, and for me it was one of the greatest moments of my life. That was beautiful, and I thank you, Ed. Anyone who has never choked up at an AA meeting hasn't been in very long. And this is a place where we laugh and we cry and we hug and we smile, and it's all okay. And it's all okay and I really thank Ed for doing this. Now next by the way the format is sort of assuming its own form and that's okay too. That's okay it's not out of my hands anyway I asked for guidance from the higher power and the higher power says wing it. And so that's what I'm doing and it will turn out just fine I feel absolutely sure it will turn out outfit just fine because we're off to a good start. And so that I don't hog the mic, which is my usual custom, I'm going to ask Eve to come up and read the promises and tell us a little bit about how AA was in the early days for women. my name is Eve and I'm an alcoholic and a very grateful one grateful to be here grateful to me most of all grateful for this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and I love the promises. Where are they? Oh, I never saw them listed like this. No place to put my water. Here, here, I'll hand it to you. I'm the water boy. Oh, okay. Never knew I was going to get such service when I came to AA. And here are the 12 promises of AA. We will attain and maintain sobriety we're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace no matter how far down the scale we have gone we will see how our experience can benefit others that feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear we will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. I had no concept of the promises when I first got sober. I had known that I had a problem for some time unfortunately I had also known that my husband had a problem for some time and it was far easier to say that it was all his problem than to assume responsibility for my own I think that's one of the things we do is to point the finger at other situations people things that make us drink because we haven't accepted the fact that we think because we are alcoholic and of Of course, at that time there wasn't that much talk about alcoholism. We didn't know much about it in those days. There was still the idea that drunks should be able to use their willpower and AA was just a new kind of thing that was just beginning to take hold and I am so terribly grateful that I had the opportunity to come into AA when I did because it gave me the chance to get my first touch of AA in the old 24th Street Clubhouse which is kind of an historical part of our fellowship of AA partly because it was the clubhouse partly because Bill and Lois lived there for a while because they had no other place to live it was before they got in the house in Bedford Hills that Eddie was talking about and they had lived there Father Dowling first met Bill in that 24th Street clubhouse when Bill felt that Father Downing had become his spiritual advisor although Bill was not a Catholic Father Sheehan many years later tried to get Bill into Catholicism and Bill did take some of the teachings, lessons or whatever you call it but never he felt that by the time that time that he had to be of no faith particularly but of all faith because that's the way AA is open to everybody of any faith at all and so I was very happy that I was able to get to that 24th Street Clubhouse for my first touch of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had never known what was really wrong with me. I only knew that alcohol was doing things for me that I couldn't do for myself, and I think that one of the first things that I learned in AA was that I had found a place where AA could do something for me that I could not do for myself it was doing for me in those early days without really working the program or really being knowledgeable about what it was all about because i was so full of fear and to read those promises lose fear of people on a financial insecurity i would have thrown my hands up in the air and said impossible because i Was riddled with fear the result was that i made it very hard for myself when i first got sobered because i were so frightened of people i couldn't go up and speak to them I couldn't go up and say my name is Eve and I knew yes we all heard it I was trying to identify it I don't have to worry about that so I knew that AA had answers for me but I as I said was so riddled with fear that it was very difficult for me to receive what you were giving me what you wanted to give me now I was very fortunate in the fact that I came into AA in the city of New York, as I had mentioned, the old 24th Street Clubhouse. It was at 324 and a half West 24th Street. And I was fortunate because in New York there were women who were sober. And I realized how fortunate I was because back in 1944 when I first walked into my first meeting there were quite a few women members in the fellowship in the New York area. And so there were role models for me. There were people I could look up to And I would look at these people and think, my God, I could never be like that. There was one girl, Felicia, and she always had such serenity. I thought, God, if I could ever be like this. Because I was always rattled and rushing and trying to do more in the space of time that I had. Three kids and a drunken husband and no money, you know the picture. And taking the kids to the park and leaving the laundry and having to do the ironing at midnight and get dresses out for the kids towards school the next morning. and it was dishes dirty always just always a rush easy does it was the first thing I think I learned in AA because I can remember one night my husband came roaring drunk down the front hall saying where the hell's dinner and the kids were yelling and screaming around and I'm looking at the dishes and the dinner and casserole and all I could do was jump up and down say easy does so I was very fortunate there were women in AA at that time in the city of New York because while I hated women I thought they were all bitches of course my problem was one of total insecurity I was certain that these women were always going to go and get some man I wanted and I've learned in AA to love women I think women in AA are absolutely marvelous and while I and if all the men will just quietly put your fingers in your ears I will say that I do believe that women have the capacity for spiritual growth that is absolutely magnificent sometimes far reaching that of men I used to think men I used to think that men were absolutely terrific and marvelous and the women were all such horrors well I've learned to love them all not hard in AA is it but at that time it was very difficult for me to reach out and very difficult for me to receive what you were offering me because I had a wall around me I was so locked in. Several of the speakers have spoken at this meeting. Incidentally, I think the speakers at this conference would have been absolutely magnificent. No need to go to Seattle, they were all right here. It was absolutely marvelous. So I learned afterwards after I'd gotten sober and been in AA for a little while and gotten to work in a group and a little later on at General Service how lucky I was because we would be getting letters at General service in the early 50s from some gal out in the boondocks somewhere saying I'm sober and I'm in the group but I'm the only woman how can I get another gal to come to the meeting how can i help some other woman and we would have to write and say you know do the usual things try to find somebody that you can talk to tell your pastor or go to the police or somebody will know where there's an alcoholic woman that you can try and help and eventually they would and so there'd be two and then they'd be three and that would be the way it would grow but that was all there for me because there were lots of women in a in New York at that time there was only one meeting the meeting at the clubhouse and then it had gotten to the point of where the club house had gotten small there were enough members around so that people they had to start what they called an open meeting at the hotel capital on 8th Avenue and 50th Street long since torn down I don't even know it's there now as a matter of fact and I walked up to that first big meeting that I was going to go to and I was absolutely terrified and I worked up the steps and I looked into the meeting and there were probably a hundred or 150 people. And to show you what kind of an alcoholic I was, I walked into that room full of fear, terrified, looked all around and thought to myself, well, if these people can get this program, certainly I can. And that combination of fear and arrogance were the the way I lived. Always trying to cover up the terrible feeling of insecurity that was inside of me. I thought that Barney last night described the way I felt better than anybody I have ever heard. And I've never been able to put it into words the way he did last night. But that's the way I was, and I was terrified to let somebody know what I was really like. And you know something? I think that's something we have to work on today. Don't confuse what you see outside of me as what might be the inside of me and we do that with other people we confuse the outside and the inside because my inside does not always match my charming outside I was very grateful that I had the opportunity as Ed said to hear Bill speak speak. I heard it many, many times afterwards, but by the time later on, Bill only talked about the traditions and the concepts and service and the structure because he had the vision to know what AA needed in order to survive. And without him as the architect of our fellowship, I don't think we would survive today. Somebody else spoke about the Washingtonian society, and Bill learned much from hearing about that. So we have our traditions which guide us in our relationships with each other and with the world outside and the 12 concepts of service which help us to understand what we need to do in order to make sure that that responsibility theme that we adopted in Toronto that when anyone, anywhere reaches out for AA I want the hand of AA to always be there and Bill was the architect was the architect of that structure which has helped us to survive at that time I was just I was afraid Eddie went up to Bedford Hills and saw him my God what nerd only three months sober I would have genuflected and just prayed to him or something you know I wouldn't have dared go up and speak to him and say Bill I'm new I was such a nerd but I knew and I had the sense to know that I was going to find everything in here that I always looked for, and the promises say it all. And it was true. I realized even though I didn't know what my higher power was, I knew that AA was going to do for me what I had counted on alcohol as doing. I've learned since then that the power greater than myself which I first thought of as AA and then which I have gone on to develop my own sense of the divinity within we have all of us as Bill writes in the agnostic chapter of the agnostics there is that great inner reality in each one of us and we come to know that and we've come to touch it with each other at these meetings because everywhere we go in AA we know that there is love and I think we've come to accept the fact that that is the great thing that we have that sense of loving and caring and sharing loving one another and being able to communicate that finally to think that I can now communicate or try to when back then I couldn't say a word what a blessing what a blessings to know that I can go up to people and I can put my arms around them I can say I love you And know that they understand that And that they can love me if they will But it's not that important to me It's important that I love them And I couldn't have believed that When I first got sober Because I wanted so desperately For everybody to love me Because I was so unlovable But we pass that We go beyond the appearances And I've forgotten how big and homely I am And that's what I thought I was Whatever And I don't worry about that anymore more. It's more important how I feel that I know I'm okay, and in that way I can love you, and I do. And I am very grateful for the opportunity always to try and share. And AA just means a great deal to me. I don't think I'd be alive without it. Thank you. Thank you, Eve. That's one of the most inspiring talks I have ever heard, and even though it was a brief talk, it has a tremendous impact on me. I tell you, I enjoy being around these old-timers. And so, you know, we thought we might put them all up here on the platform and then it became quite apparent at registration desk that we were going to have so many people with over 30 years here that there wouldn't be room. So we decided to let everybody sit where they choose to sit. But I want them to be acknowledged. And I would call now for everyone with 40 or more years, and wait a minute. I think we have someone at this convention who has in excess of 45 years. Is he here today? If so, please rise. Here! 46 years my goodness thank you I was going to say hold your applause until we get everybody up but you can't do that with a bunch of alcoholics They're going to applaud if they want to. That's like saying, hold your laughter. It just wouldn't work. Yeah. Okay, over 40 years. Forty and over. I was clapping for myself on that one because I passed 40 a little while ago. though. Over 35 years, 35 and over. Over 30 years. And now all of you who have stood before before, please rise. All the old-timers here, rise again. Come on. Everybody that rose before, rise again to see all of you old- timers here. That's beautiful. Okay. Okay, well, now I'm going to talk a little bit. And I tell you, I'm enjoying this convention tremendously. I'm a huggaholic. I am an alcoholic. As I said, Duke, I am also a hughaholic and if I don't get hugs on a regular basis, I go into withdrawal. I get the dry heaves, you You know, and I suffer. But around AA, I never have to be without. Yesterday at Patsy's meeting, I thought I'd wander up to the front row and see her gang because I knew that the new Smyrna crowd were going to be right up in the very front row. And there they were. I call them Patsies pigeons. I knew her sponsees long before I knew her because they quote her. And you'll find them all over, all over the country as a matter of fact. And they'll say, my sponsor Patsie says, and that ends the matter right there. So I would advise you not to get in an argument with him. But as I looked down the front row, I saw two of my most favorite people in all the world and both of them jumped up to hug me because they know of that need that I have. And just to tell you how to the extremes I take it, I was out in this shopping mall not too long ago and I saw a lady that I knew and I knew her quite well. I thought I did anyway. And so I walked right over to her and I just hugged her front. One of the good kind, you know, the two-boob hug, you know. That's the kind that's the most rewarding. And she responded just fine. She hugged me back and she liked it, you know. And then, of course, when you're an old-timer, you get the privilege of putting just a trace of scold in your voice if you haven't seen someone at a meeting for a while. So I said, you know, we haven't seeing you around very much lately. And here I am putting on the Old-Timer Act, you know, by God, get back to a meeting. And she looked at me and she said, well, no No wonder you haven't been in the store for a long time. She's a clerk at Walgreens. Never been to AA in her life, you see. So things like this happen to me. And to tell the truth, I don't care. I relish it, you know. I know I embarrass my wife sometimes by being such a huggaholic and rather gregarious, but that's too bad. That's too good. That's bad. She'll just have to put up with it. I'm not going to tell you my drunk-a-log. The last time I spoke a couple of months ago over at a church right near here, I gave my drunk a log right up to the bitter end, you know, and it's a pretty sad sort of thing. But what I am going to talk about is like Eve talked about her early days in AA And Ed talked about the way he found AA and both of them were with new bill I didn't although I should have I just missed him a few times, but I'm not gonna qualify I trust that my condition will be accepted by you at any rate I am blessed with alcoholism and from my drinking past without telling the alcoholic story story and how i got there i'm going to just mention one incident i went to sea in my youth i was in freighters and uh this is this tells me something about my higher power how i've been kept here we were loading uh sugar in a little little cuban port in guantanamo bay called bocaron and uh there was a little place there called shorty's beach which is really a little island with no law and shorty had huts there and he had great quantities of rum he had a lot of girls that would come over from Caimanera, which was the main town in that area, and the ice boat would come by every once in a while to leave a bunch of ice. And you had little grass huts there where you could go for rest. And periodically we would all get in this boat, and you could stay there for days. And so one night in the middle of the night, five of us decided to go over to Caimanara and carry the drunk over there. There were several ships in port. And so we got in a little boat built for about 12 people, All of us pretty drunk, including the little Cuban boatman. Chug, chug, chuck, chugga-chugga. We got out in the very spang middle of Guantanamo Bay. I was sitting on the gunwale of this crowded boat, and I started to laugh about something, and I fell overboard in the water at night. Of course, everybody in the boat, just drunk as could be, and so they're looking for me. And I heard somebody say, there's his hat. I had a big cowboy hat. And they found my hat, but they didn't find me. And the more they looked, the farther the boat got away. And I was so far in the middle of this bay, I could not see the shore, the lights from the shore on either side. I was in the Middle of Guantanamo Bay, drunk, drunk, drunk, with water-laden clothes, soggy. So I decided, well, I'll have to swim. And it was miles away. And I don't think a drunk, even a young guy drunk can swim very far. But I swam, didn't have sense enough to throw my shoes off, and I swum, and i swam and the boat getting farther and farther away. And I swam until I was totally exhausted. And I became aware of the fact, well, Duke, you're going to die. You're goingto die here in the middle of this bay. It's all full of barracudas and sharks, and you're gonna be eaten by them, and you'RE going to DIE. And I couldn't pray. And I resigned myself to death because I was TOTALLY EXHAUSTED. So I let my feet settle down, preparatory to sinking, and I fetched up on a sandbar. and there I was belly button deep in the middle of Guantanamo Bay of course I was sticking up like that in the moonlight they could see me but hey there's Duke come on and they came back they got me they got мне in the boat soaking wet I didn't think a thing about it went over to Cayman Air and continued to drunk for a couple of days more that's the drunk I was on where I woke up in a cave you know we've got a guy in our group that used to live in a drainage pipe that was his address Yeah, that's where he lived. He lived in the drain, had candles in there, had a little can of heat. He was drunk in his drain. That was where he lived. But whenever we play one-upsmanship, I say, Well, I lived in a cave. And it's the literal truth. I did for two nights. That's all. Then they kicked me out of the cave. I've been kicked out of a lot of places. And speaking of being kicked out of a lots of places, I was told this morning at the registration desk, There are two gentlemen from Australia here and they were looking for me. Are you fellows here now? Well, you're not. Just if you get word to those two guys from Australia, tell them I will pay that bar bill in Sydney just as soon as I get back. I know my past. I haven't been able to make amends everywhere I'm supposed to. My past keeps following me, and anyway, my intentions are good. That's all we're asked to do is to try and want to as long as we don't hurt ourselves or others. And I will play it back next time I get to Sydney, me, which may be any day now. Who knows? Anyway, as I said, I was a seafaring person. I went to sea in merchant ships. And the last eight years of my seafiring experience and the first eight yearsof my time in AA, Iwas in AA International. Now this is a way you maintain sobriety without continuous frequent meetings. Many times we talk about the importance of meetings, and they are critical. And I can't get along without them, and I need meetings. But I will tell you this, that if you're in a situation where you cannot get to a meeting, where it's impossible to get to the meeting, but you're still working the program as best you can, the higher power is certainly not going to withdraw your day's sobriety. And so that was the way it was with me. And in those days, and And I came into the program in 1949 at a very young age in New Orleans. And I joined the Friday men's group, which was the first group I ever belonged to. But that was my 90 meetings in 90 days. I made about 120 in 90 Days. I just lived in an AA clubhouse. And that was a tough place. We had no treatment centers in those days, or if they did, you know, nobody could go to them. They had a few dry-and-out farms. There was a Keeley Institute in Dwight, Illinois and places like that. that. But all we had in the new Main Street Clubhouse in New Orleans was a little room upstairs called the Dry-N-Out Room. They had an iron, sort of a sofa-cot combination, a little table with a water glass on it and a chair. And if you came in too drunk and too sick to function, they would put you in that room. That's the Dry N-Out room, and you just stay up there and shake. And then if you started to die or if somebody around there in their wisdom thought you were going to die, or saw you going into DTs, they would give you a slug of booze. And that was the only medication. And I'm overjoyed that now we have treatment centers and people don't have to sober up that way. But that was the way I got on the bandwagon. That's the way I crawled up on the raft. I had never seen such love in my life, and I felt like, as was spoken at one of the earlier meetings, for the first time in my life i felt like i belonged somewhere i felt like it was comfortable well anyway to get back to aaa international i would be in the ship no meetings at all but wherever i came into port there would be a letter from anne in new york and i'm sure eve knows anne she did a wonderful thing she kept in touch with with guys on the dew line and isolated people in remote outposts of the world and seafaring people and there was a a loner up in Thule, Greenland that didn't have anybody up there but a couple of drunken Eskimos and people like that, and kept us all kind of glued together. And it was a wonderful time for me. And then, of course, if I were to get into a port that had a group, I would go there. And as a matter of fact, AA was partly spread about the world by the people in AA International, the loners. Captain Jack, who was master of an Exxon tanker, used to carry a big supply of big books with him. And some of the groups in South Africa, some of the groups were started just because Captain Jack would leave a big book. And I used to do the same thing. I used to do the same thing and help start groups in several places, including Havana. And I don't know what happened to it now. It probably defunct. But anyway, it was a wonderful time for me. So then I came ashore, the company I worked for, and incidentally, to show you the tremendous generosity of of the higher power in my life, I who was completely dysfunctional when they put me in the dry-and-out room after having had an attack of delirium in a hotel, in a Skid Row hotel, and they put Me up there before they moved Me to a rooming house. They dried Me out the old-fashioned way. I was unemployable and I was dysfunctional. But a few years after I went back to sea from that experience, I was captain of the sister ship of the one I had left in total disgrace, which shows you the generosity of this higher power. And here I am, a guy who hated structure and hated confinement and hated discipline so much that I never made it out of high school. I drank my way out of High School and I later went back and got the ticket. I wound up marrying a school teacher and a mathematics teacher at that, a science teacher atthat. So it just shows you, You know, we do turn 180 degrees. We do turn180 degrees, and it's wonderful, and it has been wonderful. Now, after I left the sea, I was sent to San Juan, and I lived there for 12 years, worked my program there, joined a wonderful group, and as a matter of fact, the only time in all of my experience in AA that I really seriously wanted a drink happened to me there. And I say this now as a warning to everyone. After 17 years of continuous sobriety, I graduated. Not completely, but almost. I almost graduated. And what do you know? I mean, I quit going to meetings. I quit calling up my friends. I quick having my little coffee clutches with them. You know, I quit reading my big book. And because I became a big shot, I had a pretty good job, and it was a prestigious job. And I thought, well, I don't need that anymore. And ha-ha! The higher power took me out to the woodshed and whacked me across the ass pretty good, you know. But by the grace of God, I remembered what I had been taught in those 90 days in New Orleans at Friday C, Friday Men's Club group. And they said, before you take the drink, call your sponsor. So I did. I called my sponsor on the overseas cable, talked all night, And I don't know how much that call cost me. It was the cheapest call I ever made because it saved everything I had, you know. And I was told that when I hung up to contact if I had any AA friends left in San Juan, contact them, and I did. And, you Know, I barely hung up, and there was a car out in front of my house, a good friend who I had 12-stepped, incidentally, and he was out there waiting for me. And it just proved to me once again the love and the help and just the wonderful things that can happen in this beautiful program of ours. And so I have never, ever, ever allowed myself to drift any distance from this program since then. There's so many things we have here that others don't have. Now, we know we're going to have problems, but like my friend Curtis over in New Orleans says, sure, it wouldn't be fair if we didn't have problems. You know, the higher power just hasn't endowed us with a constant state of AA euphoria. We've got to have the things that all human beings have. You know? You've got ot have a tack in your shoe. You've gotta have a flat tire. You're gonna lose loved ones. You're going to have crises in your life. But as Curtis says, sure you're going ot have problems, but if you drink, you've got trouble. And boy, there's sure a difference, huh? There's sure difference. I know. I've got problems. I've got a sort of a crisis in my life right now, but this is, I'm feeling the warmth of this room and the warmth with you wonderful people who have saved me, you know, and they're talking about the hugs. I feel the hug right now. These talks I give, you note, they never come out like I planned them. I kind of, I turn on the talk button and laid out a couple of jokes, and I haven't told any of them. i do i do uh want to just bring this down down the line a little bit more after 12 years in san juan and getting back on the program and joining a wonderful group i was transferred back to new orleans where i worked for this same steamship company and i practiced a religiously there as a matter of fact i used to one of the groups i attended regularly was a noonie meeting called the mustard seed group met in the jesuit rectory and uh every monday at noon and i would my tell my secretary whatever you do you hold monday noon open don't book me down for any lunches or any meetings or anybody because i have a very important commitment monday at noon and i Would start getting anxious and looking at the clock by about 11 you know and I would always leave a little bit early, you know, uptight. And then I would stay well beyond the usual lunch hour because I would say to socialize afterwards and talk. And then, I would come back to the office with my tie undone, you know, and my jacket open. And I'd go in and I'd send out for a sandwich. And this looked awfully suspicious, you know. And my assistant used to come to me and say, hey, Cap, what what you got going here, you know? And I would tell them. I'd say, listen, I swear, I swear it's innocent. I just go to be with some people. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. And to this day, those people in the New Orleans office are wondering about my noonie, every Monday, what was going on. I felt kind of good about it. I let them think as long as they wanted to. You know, we were talking about I love Ed's preacher joke and And I've got to tell you a Pope joke. Incidentally, I heard this from a Roman Catholic, and as a matter of fact, a Roman catholic priest who I swapped jokes with. And I'm not a Roman Catholic, but my wife is, so I mingle with those people. And that's fine. They're great. I love them. We've got a lot of them in this program, an awful lot of men in this program, so that's okay. That's fine." But anyway, it tells about the pope was sitting at his desk, you know, and the phone rang. And he's a good guy. He's a great pope. He answers his own phone. He answers the phone. The guy on the other end said, the voice on the another end said this is God. So the pope, there was no doubt, the voicethat was authoritative and melodious but at the same time loving. And he knew it was God. And he says oh I'm overwhelmed God. He says, no one has ever, you've never contacted anyone this directly by phone. You know, usually I wait for signs. I get signs, you know, and I try to interpret them. But this is wonderful that you have, what's the purpose of the call? And God says, well, listen, I have good news and bad news. news. So the Pope says, well, God, he said, what's the good news? And God says, well, listen, the good new is this, that I'm tired of all your efforts toward ecumenical results and nothing's happening. You people just can't get together. So I'm going to declare all of Christianity under one church by executive fiat. And from now on out there's just going to be one Christian Christian church. So the Pope says, well, this is my dream. This is what I've always wanted. How could there possibly be bad news after this? He says, what's the bad news? And God says, the bad new for you is that I'm calling from Salt Lake City. I don't know what, I have no idea what what that has to do with this talk, you know. But like the speaker yesterday said, I love laughter. And in AA we get laughter. And we can also cry when my sponsor of 38 years died and I shared and I still can't think about it without choking up. I have never been closer to another human being on this earth than that person. And we're not supposed to do that, but I did. and when that sponsor died and I took it to my group which is the way of life group here in Daytona and I shared and I just couldn't hold it it had to happen and thank God it did you know because I've been keeping it inside for about three days so we have the whole gamut of wonderful emotions here I'm not going to keep you much longer we got to go out and build one of those giant sandwiches I had a lot more to say but I'm never going to say it I even thought we might have a question and answer period but they answered most of the questions I had in my mind about the early days in AA. Sure glad those people were there to tell me about it. But I do want to tell you one thing about how our perspective changes and that we don't need to always, the God of my understanding is not a stuffed shirt. I don't have to go through life feeling guilty about everything. I don'T have to wear a hair shirt. You know, originally when I was a little kid, my grandfather was a Methodist preacher and my mother would teach me about God. And I pictured him like Gramps, you know, flowing white hair, beautiful deep voice. And when I Was a Little Kid, I Would Pray to that God. As a matter of fact, Ed reminds me of him. Every time I see Hal, I want to call him Gramps. But I'm older than he is, so that doesn't work either. But then I lost that God when I became a wise guy and an intellectual snob, and I found the real God of my understanding in this program. And it doesn't have a face. It's like Harry Golden, who wrote a book called Only in America. He was a fellow who lived in Carolina, one of the Carolinas, and he published irregularly a little paper called The Carolina Israelite. He was the son of a rabbi. He grew up in a rabbi's home and he said the people used to gather in this home and talk about the Talmud and split hairs about religion like the old monks used to argue about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin and so forth. And he would just listen, you know, and wrap attention to these old guys and their mullikas discussing these things in great depth. And they obviously enjoyed it. But his mother would come in and serve him tea and glasses and she merely looked at these discussions with loving tolerance because she knew, and she didn't have to intellectualize it. She accepted the benefits and the love of her loving God, you know. And Harry Golden said he realized then when he would see how his mother reacted to the intellectualization of a higher power that that really wasn't necessary, that all that's necessary is to feel the presence of a Higher Power. and when I'm in an AA gathering like this one and I've been to a number of them we were talking about the Chicago Open this morning how wonderful that is and I was at one of the AA international conventions where I was truly honored by being asked to emcee the flag presentation ceremony whenever I'm with a group like this with many people I don't even know I feel the presence of that God and I'm grateful Thank you very much. I've got two things to do. My good friend the Super Jew from Orlando found rings and a ring and ear bulbs, jobs, and I have them. And if any of you ladies or gentlemen lost them, come see me. I've choked a lot of times this morning because in this very room, this room right here, a smaller room, about 25 years ago, Leon Stewart, who ended up, he was an alcoholic lawyer, but he ended up as a circuit judge. And Leon Stewart—David Ashland and I started Stewart Treatment Center 20 years ago here in Daytona Beach. But here, we could not get a doctor to refer people to Alcoholics Anonymous. And we came up on the bright idea that we were going to have a lunch for doctors. So we raised money and we invited all the doctors we could get to come and we didn't tell them what we were gonna do. But I got Dr. Arthur Schwartz, who's a good friend of mine, he's about 85 years old and he still practices nuclear medicine at Halifax Hospital, agreed to come and tell the doctors, you don't know anything about alcoholism, AA does, and you've got to have the guts to tell your patients you are an alcoholic. alcoholic. And Dr. Estes was a psychiatrist, and he said, I will come and I will tell them that a psychiatrist doesn't know anything about alcoholics. If they're seeing visions and hearing voices, a psychiatrist can help them. If there are just drunks, AA is the place to send them. And we met right in this room, and we got about 25 doctors to come. and we had a question and answer period and they talked about well you can't tell a patient they are alcoholic they'll leave the doctors finally decided if all of us agree to this they'll give out a doctor there is an illness called alcoholism so right in this room and from that day on we had three doctors that we could call and get help for an alcoholic And so I've choked several times as I looked at this room this morning and as I thought about Leon Stewart. And about 15 years ago, Leon Stewart had cancer of the lungs. And he went for his, he was a circuit judge, and he went for his checkup, and the doctor called him and said, hey, we need you to come back. There's something on your lung. and we don't know what it is. So he called me, and he said, I've got to go back out there. So his wife and I, we went out and had an X-ray again, and they said, We see a spot, and we're going to have to do a biopsy. So the next day we went back, and they did a biopsies. And Dr. Herb Kerman, who is still living here, who was the chief radiologist out there, I heard it call me, and he said, Hal, you are so close to Leon Stewart, the judge. I'm going to tell you, I hope to hell I'm wrong, but I think he's got five months to live, whether you do anything or whether you don't. He said, The best thing you can do right now is to take him to Houston, to MD Anderson Clinic. the cancer clinic, you've got to go. So Mary and I and Martha and Leon went to Texas. And I sat with Leon in that we went through that week of tests, and I sat avec him, we get in line, you're just a number out there, we got in line and we went thru all of these blood tests, bone marrow tests, and when he came and said, Mr. Stewart, he pushed me up and said here he is to take the bone marrow test one of the greatest and dearest friends that I ever had and he when I first met him I said to him I'm a Baptist preacher he said well I sure ain't gonna be no damn Baptist and I said well I died off a church that I know of what have you he grew up in the Bible Belt of Alabama Alabama. I came from Birmingham, Alabama. And he was an agnostic. And when it first got him to come into AA, he would come to church. He would get a drink before he got to church and he'd get a drank after church. But he would still go to AA to keep his wife off of his back. Finally, he told me, he said, you know, I'm going to start praying if there there is a God. And so he started out, if there is a God, help me. And he came to know one day and he said, I have found a God of my understanding. And it wasn't too long after that, about five years when he got this cancer. So we went to Texas and after five days of tests, we met with the five doctors that had been testing him. And they said, He said, well, we've come to the conclusion we can put you into treatment. You will have to have all of this chemotherapy treatment. And then I stayed back and I said, what kind of chance does he have? And they said, about 5%. I said to get well? Oh no, to live a year. and so I told Leon I said Leon you got a 5% he said well that's better than Las Vegas I said yeah but this is just to live a year and he said what kind of quality of life can I expect so we came back to the Tonal Beach and went to see Dr. Smith and Dr.Smith said well chemotherapy is a powerful destructive medicine It'll kill the cancer cells, but a lot of times it kills the person. But your particular kind of cancer, not even Oral Roberts has ever claimed anybody healed. There's no record of anybody ever getting well from this particular kind. So he said, I don't want any treatment unless I can get well and go back and be a judge. judge. So Dr. Kerman was right. About every day he would call me, he'd say, call that damn preacher. And I'd go up there and we would talk and we would talk. We talked, we cussed, we hugged each other. He would call me when his lungs would fill up and I'd have to take him to the emergency room You may put that needle and get all that fluid off of his lungs. And on Sunday afternoon, we had him in the hospital. On Tuesday night before he died, that's the night that his home group and my home group at Episcopal Church in Ormond met. He told me that afternoon, he said, I'm going to the meeting tonight. I said, you can't go to the meet. he said how come I can't I said you can't walk he said but you can help me I said but you have to have oxygen he said but you're going to take oxygen I said no I'm not we're going I'm going up to the meeting and we're gonna come by and we gonna have the meeting here in your room he said mm-mm God meets us at the meeting house house. A.A. is the meeting house. And I'm sure as hell going, and you are going to take me. So the meeting starts at 8.30, and I started at 7.30 trying to get him in the car and get his oxygen. Just about carry him out to the car, put him in the car and take all of his paraphernalia and get up to the meeting house, put the microphone right in front of him. And he told us all goodbye. He told us what A.A. had meant to him. He told us that God would make us adequate for whatever came, including death. And you know, I was so ticked off about cancer, I knew God wasn't taking it. I knew that. But But he said, it doesn't make any difference what happens to you. God will make you adequate. And he picked up that old saying. He wrote it for all the people at the courthouse right across the street over here, right across a river. He said, nothing has happened today that my God and I can't handle. and I went out to the hospital after church that morning and it was about two o'clock and he was sitting up in the bed he looked up at me and he said call that damn doctor and see if he can do anything so I called Dr. Smith I said Leon wants to know if there's anything you can do permanently for him and he says no how there's nothing so I went back and told Stuart do it? I said, you know, Dr. Smith says there's nothing in the world we can do. He said, well we done got our tail in the crack, haven't we? I said, we sure have. He said, is it too late to commit suicide? I said, yep. He said, why? I said, because you can't and I ain't going to help you. And that afternoon, there were about five o'clock, he died. And I've never seen so many men crying in my life because there were about 30 of us out there. But we remembered what what he said. Nothing can ever happen to us if we turn our lives over to God, and he will make us adequate. I had this funeral in our church, and people filled the church, stood around the walls, sat on the steps going upstairs, stood outside with a loudspeaker because he'd had a profound influence on all of our lives. And I'll never forget there are people still quoting him because he said, God meets us at the meetings. And you know we can talk We can talk about AA all we want to, but there's something powerful and mysterious and supernatural about coming together at a meeting. And we always start with a serenity prayer, which is just asking God to come into us and minister to us. And the beautiful thing is, he does. And we don't argue about whether he is a God or not. You know, we just assume there he is. I don't know whether it's up or down or out here, but probably in you and in me. And since that day, I've had a profound belief that the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous is where we meet God God, because that's where we meet each other. Not long after I became a pastor of Central Baptist Church, they came to me and they said, We won't have a wet-and-dry election in the city of Daytona Beach. We're going to vote about it. I said, Uh-uh. I ain't going to get involved in a wet and dry election. I don't drink. We don't drink in AA, but I'm not going to get my life clouded. And I don't want to ever get off track that AA is a place where we meet God and meet each other. And he asked me to read page 164 from the big book. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. admit your faults to him and to your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny may God bless you and keep you until then let's stand and say the Lord's prayer our father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever Amen Keep coming back It works It works