When You Know Every Day Will Be Exactly Like Today — That’s When You Become a Hopeless Drunk – Jack S.

Her old touch told me to take all the time I needed. I kept getting that damn program out. I thought they'd said I was the speaker. I wasn't. So I always like to see what time I start so they can't give me hell. My name is Jack Sullivan, and I'm an alcoholic. And I don't tell a lot of people that, especially when they have a convention around the airport. You get a lot of people rolling out hijacked, you get in a hell of a lot of trouble with it. I was walking through Stanford Field the other day, and a fellow saw me across the airport, and he hollered at me. Hi, Jack! Got everybody in that damn airport turned around. I thought, I think I'll change my name or something or stay out of airports. I do come from Louisville, Kentucky, and I'm glad to be in Albany, Georgia. Isn't that how you all say that? Albany. Yeah, I know some people in Atlanta that talk with that Georgia style. A lot of you all probably know that. Crazy nut up there, I know that Joe Hubbard. He talks like that real weird. I knew a girl from Georgia one time who talked to you slow. Suppose she could tell some fellow she wasn't that kind of girl. She was. But I do appreciate being invited to the Sawiga Roundup, and I had to ask her what that meant. We were debating that coming down here today. I have two friends here in the front row with me. One of them used to live in Louisville, Kentucky, and one from Jacksonville, Florida, and one from Melbourne, Florida. First of all, I thought Sawiga was a county, and I found out it wasn't. And I knew it was a brand of a hog or something with that sow in there. And finally Earl told me it was Southwest Georgia. But up where I'm from is the city where they are noted for fast women and... No, take that back. Fast horses, good-looking women, and smooth whiskey. And it's the home of the Kentucky Derby. So if you've ever seen the Kentucky Derby on television, you've seen the corner that I drank at for a great many years and lived there most of my life and died there about three times, literally. I was drugged into Alcoholics Anonymous. I never came here of my own free will. I never remember getting all I wanted to drink, but I got about all I could stand. And they used to tell a story about an old tomcat one night went out on the prowl, and inadvertently in the darkness of the night he grabbed a hold of a skunk. And when he went to climb that skunk, she sprayed him. And he walked away going, whew. Another old tomcat up on the fence looked at him, kind of snickered, said, Did you get all you wanted? He said, No, I never got all I wanted, but I got about all I could stand. So I was the same way with alcohol. And I was 33 years old when I came into AA. And I've been a sober. I've been a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous since the 21st day of August of 1962. That may not mean a thing to you, but it impresses the hell out of me. And the age factor has absolutely nothing to do with it. As I look around AA today and see all of these young people coming into the program, I think it's super fantastic that you realize that alcoholism has a beginning and it can end anywhere you want it to when you've had enough. I have an old fellow. Well, we were talking today, Jack and I, my friend Jack at 3-9 Clarkson, that many years ago when people came into AA, 35, 40 years ago, they thought a bottomed alcoholism had something to do with your physical condition. And a friend of mine from St. Louis with 40-some-odd years of sobriety told me that when he came into AA, they had a measuring stick, that if you had nine teeth, owned a wristwatch, and could count up to ten, they wouldn't let you in. They thought you had more drinking to do. And nowadays you see them come in real young. Some of the old-timers don't like that. I don't know how you get to be an old-timer in AA. I don't consider myself one. I always thought an old-timer was somebody that was afraid a new man would puke on him. And I haven't gotten there yet. I heard one of them tell a young fellow up home one night, he said, How old are you, boy? The kid said, 19. The old man laughed and said, Well, I've spilled more whiskey than you've ever drank. And that young boy looked at him and said, You drank some more of it instead of dispelling it. You got here sooner, you old bastard. I'm not going to make any comments on you. I have a philosophy about speaking at an AA meeting, that I came in here at night and knew I was going to talk. I'm sure when you came in, you knew you was going to listen. If you get through before I do, you're going home. It'll be all right with me. It won't bother me in the least. I don't really recall any age drinking with alcohol. I don't know that it didn't occur. I know when I was about 15 years old, that I went out to that corner at 4th and Central where Churchill Downs Racetrack is. And I found a lot of things out there that they hadn't told me about at home. I have an older brother who's 14 months older than I am, and he's an executive with General Motors Corporation today. Studied when he was young, got an engineering degree, and had a super fantastic job most of his life. I have two sisters younger than I am, and they both married when they were about 20, and they still have the same husband, and they both had four children. So, out of that flock of four, I was the only black sheep of the family. And why, when I got out to that corner, I found that lifestyle attractive and what went on, I have no idea. I made it, obviously made a decision. I don't recall stopping and thinking, I'll believe I'll make a decision. But what I found out there was something that I liked. You know, and that was the peer group I chose. There were other peer groups, but I chose that one. I looked around and I saw a lot of people out there that, that had a lot of money, and they drove big automobiles, and they had two or three good-looking women on each arm, and they never worked. And that's what I wanted to do. And I thought it was a super fantastic thing, and I always wanted to go where it was at. Never did find it. Not sure I know what in the hell it was. It seemed like whenever I got there, it was gone. But I fell in love with that corner, and with that environment, and with that atmosphere. And everything about it. And I soon began to drink a little bit. And I got involved with that racetrack crowd. And back then, of course, they were all older people. They had to be. Kids didn't have any money or cars or things. I began to drink. I began to gamble. And I met a young lady out there, and she took me from Soprano to baritone. I thought that was interesting. So I got involved with that group very early in life. And a fascinating thing about it was that I thoroughly enjoyed it. And my father strongly objected to my behavior, as any parent would. And my father was about to become the only person that I was to have in life that ever tried to intercede or interfere, but yet at the same time, he was not an enabler. My father was the type of a parent who believed if you dance to the music, you pay the fiddler. And my father was a firm believer in the idea that if you play the guitar, you pay the fiddler. was a firm believer, if you're looking for a helping hand, it's on the end of your own arm, provided you know where to put it. And the only regrets I think my father ever had after I got into AA was the fact that for a great number of years, neither one of us knew where to put it. But he would not support my habits. I never married before I came to AA. I have my wife here with me tonight, Gay, sitting there in the second row, and we got married about 14 months after I got sober. I never wanted to get married when I drank. You know, it never crossed my mind. Most of the women I knew I drank, and God, I didn't want to be married to a drinking woman. I think about that tonight and get chills. Get a hold of a half a pint of whiskey and you got to go and give somebody half of it. I sure the hell didn't want a drinking woman. Most of the women I knew were ugly as hell anyway. They weren't going to get a jewel in me, but they were basically pretty ugly and weird. I used to go with a girl. He was ugly. She went home one night and went in the bedroom and forgot to pull the blinds down and began to undress. And a peeping Tom came up to her window. And when she got about half undressed, he reached in and pulled the blind down. But I was constantly at war with my father about the lifestyle that I had. My mother died when I was 17 or 18 years old, and my father strongly objected to the people I ran with and the things that I did. So we were constantly at war, as any parent would be. With the son. And the drinking wasn't really that much of a problem. It's the things that I was doing and the people I was doing it with and the corner I was hanging in. And it was literally a bunch of people that were looking for an easy way out in life. And my father didn't like it that I was in it. And he was constantly on my case about it. My schoolwork began to deteriorate. And I fell in love with that environment. I'm still a Roman alcoholic today. I'm one of those people that when I'm in Rome, I'm doing what the Lord is doing. Even today, I don't go in beer joints or nightclubs or things. I'm very uncomfortable in them. I don't know why. It seems like that once I get in there, I become a part of it or something. And I'm going to be doing what they're doing wherever the hell I'm at. And that's why I stay with AA, because I like what they do, and I'm going to do what they do. And the only phase of my life that's probably never changed is the fact that I constantly have associated with people just like me. From the very first day that I can remember, I was always with people just like me. I was always with people just like me. And still am tonight. And my father didn't like that type of behavior. But I was one of those kids that knew it all. Don't we all, when we're that young? And the great thing about AA, it says that's okay to be that way, because it's what you learn after you know it all that counts. So it's what I've learned after I knew it all that counted. So I could always give my father this bad mouth and this rhetoric about what I was doing and blah, blah, blah, and on and on and on. And the only thing that ever... The only thing that ever brought down my ego or my machoism and led to any degree of humility was the backseat of a squad car. I believe the breeding ground of humility is in the backseat of a squad car. A squad car will humble up many a drunk. Did you ever listen to a drunk in a bar talk about maybe his wife or something, and he would refer to her as that old bitch he lives with? I was talking about that dumb old man that knew nothing I had to put up with. Lock him up. And just sit back and listen, and that guy'll drop a quarter in the telephone, and that old bitch he talked about, she'll answer the other end of it, and he'll say, honey. And her character's improved immensely since they arrested him. And when I was 20 years old, I got arrested, and I dropped a dime in the phone then, and I called home, and my dad answered the telephone. And I said, Daddy? And I'll never forget, he said what? I said, I'm in jail. He said, why did you call me? I said, well, I thought you might come down here and get me out. Oh, he said, I wouldn't worry about that if I was you. Hell, I was worried about it. He said, why, as smart as you are. Oh, he said, I'm sure if you figured a way to get in there, you'll figure a way to get out. And he hung up. And when I got out, he informed me, don't ever call me again. I understand they allow you to get in there, but don't give you one call. Don't waste it here. If you dance to the music, you pay. And that damn near killed me over the years. I finally got a job with the old Louisville and Nashville Railroad up in Louisville when I was 20 years old, and I think they hired an alcoholic because now I was having a lot of trouble from drinking. I was getting into the kind of problems that drunkenness breeds. And when the railroad hired me when I was 20, I know I was an alcoholic because I firmly believed that a damn fool or an idiot would stop drinking and drink and drink alcohol when it begins to cause all the trouble it was causing me. I know at night that damn fools and idiots might stop drinking alcohol. Alcoholics can't stop drinking alcohol. So when I went to work for that railroad, I was an alcoholic and they put up with me for 12 years. I went to work for them when I was 20, and they finally fired me when I was 32. And for 12 long years they put up with my crazy, insane behavior and one of the reasons was my father was the assistant director of personnel for that railroad. So And not only was I a burden to him in society and at home, but I was a tremendous embarrassment to him on the job. And one of the reasons they put up with me was that I was Johnny Sullivan's boy, and they didn't want to get rid of, they didn't want to be the guy that fired Johnny Sullivan's boy. And it was just a simple matter of them damn near killing me. And when I finally went back to work for those people in 1963, and this guy talked about how many chances they'd given me, you know. And I told him, yeah, if you'd given me three more, I'd have been dead. But after the process begins in the lives of all people, it just progressively gets worse. And I'm satisfied I don't have to tell anybody in this room how that goes. The same story that I would have would be the same story you'd have. And the same story you'll basically hear the rest of this week. And, you know, we're just different people that sometimes come from different places and different backgrounds and different surroundings and the physical things and the financial things. And the things that happen to us are just because of who we are and where we come from. But, you know, I don't think that has anything to do with alcoholism. I think basically at gut level we're all pretty damn much the same. So when I'd get in these kind of problems from drinking alcohol, I vowed and declared that I'd never do it again and learn to stop it and learn to control it and stay away from it and all the things that alcoholics do. And for a while I could. And then I was able to convince myself that if I went back over there into that environment and got involved, then all those things again, I wouldn't drink. And then after I got in there for a while and wouldn't drink, I'd convince myself that I'd be able to have one or two and leave it alone and go home. And I'd do that for two or three days until I'd be so damn proud of myself that I had proved it to myself and I'd have three or four and the next thing you know a twelve-pack or a half a pint would have me. And the same story of alcoholism. But the significant thing that I recognize tonight in my life that I didn't see then was the time when I was a kid. The type of person that I was when I was away from it. You see, the reason that I went back was because primarily I had to. Even when I was not in it and not drinking and not playing, I was not a very comfortable human being in life. And everything that I was standing away from was exactly what I wanted to be in. And you can't live that way where you're uncomfortable and unhappy when you're away from wherever it is that you want to be. And I'd stay over there for a while and I'd go to the barbershop. And I'd go to the barbershop. And I'd stay there long enough, miserable enough, and get people off of my back enough and get a few dollars in my pocket once again and have everything going my way. And people would say, that's the way he'll stay. But all they could see was the outside of me. And I wanted to be back in it and doing the things and having the fun until I could convince myself that this time it'll be different. And over and over and over I could do that. You know, somewhere in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous it says the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. That some people pursue it to the gates of insanity and death. And many people have. But the illusion that someday, somewhere, somehow, I'll learn to control it. I'll learn to live a normal life like most people do. To stay in there and hang in there and do the things that they're doing and just go on with it. And you know I couldn't do it. And I know I couldn't do it. So it naturally began to get worse. I never blamed anybody. I never blamed anybody for it except somebody else. It was never my fault. I always had a justifiable reason for what I did and an alibi to sustain it. Most alcoholics do. Did you ever see a drunk out there on the street punching himself in the nose? I never have. How come you're that way? He'll tell you. If he's beating up on somebody, it's somebody else. Never beaten up on himself. Everything is somebody else's fault. Put a fellow up home one time and had both of his ears burned. And a guy looked at him and asked him, he said, how in the name of God could a man burn both ears? Oh, he said, I went home last night drunk, got in an argument with my wife and she was ironing. Said, the damn phone rang. Said, I reached over to get that phone and got that ironed and stuck it up to my ear. And he said, well, that explains your right ear being burned. How in the hell did you burn your left one? He said, that son of a bitch called back. Had nothing to do with drinking. Never does. If you're in this program, and you've got another drunk coming, remember that. You know, it's an easy way out sometimes to explain something to somebody. They won't understand it. You will. If you're sitting on a bar stool, wherever you are, and somebody said, I thought you was going to A. How come you're back drinking that stuff again? Just tell them that. Say, all right, son of a bitch called back. You know, they won't know what you mean, but you will. And so they all took off after me then. You know, the priest, the friend of our family, he was going to scare me into not drinking by telling me I was going to hell. My boss was going to scare me into not getting worse by telling me I was going to lose my job. My father tried to scare me by telling me I was thrown out of the house. The police tried to scare you by telling you you're going to jail. The judge tried to scare you by telling you you're going to prison. And how in the hell do you scare somebody scared to death? You know, it's an impossibility to interject fear into the life of an alcoholic because he's the way that he is because he's scared to death anyway. And generally, as a rule, the light of the mouth is the scare of the man. The bigger, tougher, macho image type of person you're talking to the scarier he really is. And he can't live out there with the way he feels inside so he presents that image to others. And damned it's important what they think. It's awful damned important what they think. I don't care what my wife thinks or my dad thinks or my friends think or my brother thinks. As long as those people I hang with think I'm okay. Think I'm a big wheeler and dealer or whatever in the hell it is I wanted to be. But you sure to hell are not going to scare me into stop drinking. Now that never worked for anybody and never will. We had an Al-Anon lady up home tried that one time. She went down to the Caulfields up home a costume shop and bought a devil's suit. And she went home that night and put it on and he come home drunker in hell about one o'clock in the morning she was hiding behind a hedge. And she leaped out from behind that hedge at that old drunk and she said, I've come to get you. And he stopped and looked at her and said, who are you? She said, I'm a drunkard. I am the devil. He said, by God, put her there. He said, I've been wanting to meet you ever since I married your sister. Didn't help a bit. I had absolutely no common sense and had absolutely no ability to be realistic about what the hell was going on in my life. I could not see the obvious and everybody else saw the obvious and I didn't. They say up home in the thoroughbred country that a racehorse has got more sense than an alcoholic and I believe that's true. At least they're in touch with reality. They used to tell a story about a guy that got tired of feeding one of those racehorses and he told him the last time he ran him he said, I'm tired of feeding you and I'm tired of fooling with you. And if you don't win this race today you'll be on a milk wagon in the morning. And they put him in the starting gate and it opened and that jockey reached around and started beating on that horse. Said that horse stopped and looked around at that jockey and said, man, quit hitting on me like that. Said, I've got to get up six o'clock in the morning. I never had that much sense. I never had that much sense. But later on down the road I was to realize what, you know, if you've got to have something you're a hell of a lot better off with this because you have an opportunity unless your brain did or brain burned and a lot of people that happens to to get in touch with reality someday as to the way you are. But through the deterioration of alcoholism and back then nobody knew anything about alcoholism. You know, you couldn't find anybody to treat it. You couldn't find an alcoholic. A doctor wouldn't let you in his office. If you drank and got in trouble you went in jail. Now I'm talking about the late 50s and early 60s. There was no such thing as these treatment centers. I better not say it but maybe that was good. I don't know. I feel sorry for a lot of people that go through treatment centers. They go in as alcoholics and come out as a hell of a lot of other things. Some of them are chemically dependent. Some of them are substance abuse. Some of them are drug users. All that's treatment centered jargon. If there's treatment centered people here I know you argue with that. That's okay. You probably won't like me and that'll hurt. But I think sometimes the people that will eventually be victimized are the people with the problem. I'm a firm believer there's alcoholics and drug addicts and the rest of that crap all started because they could get more clients. And I work in a professional field today for the Seaboard System Railroad. And I remember when there was no such thing as treatment centers. And I remember when they began to treat alcoholics. I remember when the people in Alcoholics Anonymous fought like hell to get insurance to coverage for alcohol treatment. Then they weren't getting all they wanted so then they began to search for the drug addict because it hit our society. And that was okay but except that all of a sudden the disappearance became in alcoholics and drug addicts. And they became chemically dependent and cross addicted. I can't imagine anybody being addicted to a cross. But, you know, substance abusers, poly addiction, I think that last one means you like to have sex with parrots. I'm not real sure. But you couldn't find anybody that would take an alcoholic or treat an alcoholic. So you went to jail. So it's no great thing in your life. If you're young or new or whatever, you don't have to be in jail. You don't have to lose a wife. You don't have to lose a home. You don't have to lose all those things to get help. But back then people didn't know any better or know anything about it. So the deterioration process was a very, very low physical and mental and financial and spiritual bottom. Because nobody really knew the difference. And a lot of the old timers in AA at that time really hung on to that sort of a belief that, you know, because most of them had come through that kind of a phase of their life and they really felt everybody had to. But you never heard of AA and you just never heard of a lot of things and people didn't, you know, they didn't know where to go or where to turn or what to do. And thank God that's changed in our society today. So you saw, I guess, was condemned to have that kind of deterioration back then. Especially in the state of Kentucky. I don't know anything about Georgia. There just wasn't anything there. And so I deteriorated to the fact that I did become a Skid Row wino. And in 1960, the latter part of 1960 through the year of 61 and the early part of 62, I basically lived and hung around on Skid Row. I went from a nice home with my father and one sister to a nice apartment to a one-room house to a flop house to Skid Row. Skid Row was not an interesting place for alcoholics to talk about because I really don't think alcoholics know anything about Skid Row. You know, you can say you live there but I don't think you ever become a Skid Row person because, you know, I don't know how you adjust to that type of a thing. I think there's something inborn in an alcoholic. It's called hope or whatever it's called. It's just constantly, no matter, you're beating yourself to death, you don't belong here. It just seems like you cannot ever emotionally adjust to your physical surroundings. You know, when you see street people that are on Skid Row, you know, you couldn't go in there and get them with a derrick and drag them out of there and get them here. They don't want to be that type of responsible human being with a wife and a kid and a job and a car and all that kind of stuff. They've sort of been able to adjust themselves to where they are and who they are and they accept that and it's okay with them. You know, but an alcoholic on Skid Row is very desperate and trying time in the life of any alcoholic because all of the physical surroundings you're involved in, there's just something inside keeps telling you that I don't belong here. My life's not meant to end here. God, there was something different for me. You know, and I didn't know how to pray and all I knew how to do was cuss and scream and blame. And finally, you can drink enough alcohol until all of that leaves you. I've never regretted the fact that that's the story of my life. If I had to do it over again, I hope it'd be the same way. You know, I feel like it's easier on people like me to leave a home and go live in a gutter than it is to go get a gutter and take it home with you. I've seen many and many an alcoholic go out and find the filthiest gutter they could find and drag it home and run it right down through the living rooms to some of the finest homes in the country. And I've seen them reach out to women that loved them and to little children that loved them and in the insane and sick mind of an alcoholic honestly to God believing that those people in some way are responsible for the way they've become and try to pull the people that love you the most down into that gutter of degradation and despair with you. And I thank God every day that I never had a house to take one home to. That my life was easier because I left the house and went into a gutter. And my father knew a lot about alcoholism. My father was never a member of A.A. or Al-Anon but he knew a lot about alcoholism. If your wife or husband or whoever is a member of Al-Anon they know a lot about alcoholism. The lady that I married and my sponsor made her go to Al-Anon and she knows a lot about alcoholism. She was married to an alcoholic before she found me. Ted will tell you all about it tomorrow night how sick them women get. But you know I sometimes sit in utter amazement when I hear somebody say that a lot of times the only people that know anything about alcoholism are alcoholics. Sometimes sit in bewilderment when alcoholics say I don't want her in that Al-Anon meeting all she does is talk about me. That's the height of egotism. Most of the Al-Anon women I know are too busy to talk about a bunch of crazy bastards like us anyway. What is it that they don't know about alcoholism? You know? Fascinating thing to me about AIDS always got an opposite side. You know? It's either or. So if you got an either you have to have another side. What is it that they don't know? What is it that my father didn't know about alcoholism? My father didn't know what it was to be a drunk. My father didn't know what it was to puke constantly. My father didn't know what it was to be sick and to shake. But all of the emotional traumas that come with an alcoholic in a family my father knew all about them. I've known many of them a woman or a husband or children that they know what it is to be lonely. They know what it is to be afraid. They know what it is to feel insecure. They know what it is to feel blamed. They know all of the traumatic things that I think that any other alcoholic knows if they live with them. And my father sure as hell knew it. And it literally killed my father to have to sit back and watch what I had become and feel so helpless to do anything about it. And yet at the same time he did not want me around him because he didn't want to see it. He didn't want to see it. But yet he knew. And Skid Row is not a very interesting place. We run into a lot of idiots around there sometimes. Highly educated people that aren't drunks and they're dumber than hell. That's always baffled me. Both people I think some people call them. Like policemen. They're a classic example. They'll pull them and they send them to these big police academies and educate them and learn them and graduate them and give them a big white car and five, a self-flashlight and a gun and a nightstick you know and they send them out into the city to prevent crime. People are getting raped and robbed and burglars and they were riding down alleys hunting winos. And you pull up to where you lived and I lived in behind the hardware store up there and the hardware store used to throw out these cardboard cartons and that was the days before the Dempsey dumpsters and that's a wino haven to have cardboard because it's something that'll keep you out of the elements out of the rain and the cold so you could grab them boxes when that hardware store threw them out and sleep in them and use them for homes and if you got there early and were able to get one of these big freezer boxes you could even lay down in them and it's possible to be a snob wino if you, you know, well it's true you could look down on some fellow trying to cram himself into one of them little TV cartons you know and you think God we ought to get him out or he's going to ruin the neighborhood you know. These cops that ride down this alley and they see this little nest of winos in there you know and they jump out of their car and throw that five cell flashlight on you and you could tell they'd been trained at the academy by the questions they would ask like what are you doing and you'd look up and say nothing and they'd lock you up and I thought God wouldn't it have been great to have known something about alcoholism when that clown threw that light in your eyes and what are you doing you could have jumped out of that box and said officer I'm from I'm from Dresden might have startled the hell out of him but I was bought some money from a finance company one time and they couldn't find me they irritate the hell out of a finance company when they can't find you I got $475 from them about 11 or 12 months before they found me and I think I owed them $18,000 by the time they found me they were hunting me and couldn't find me the bartender finally squealed that I lived back there saw a guy rooting around through there one day it was raining and he was dressed up no business back there I was sitting in one of these freezer boxes the flap was closed it was raining I had a pint of wine a four day oration for him very comfortable and I could see him I wonder who the hell that is he saw me and looking in that flap and he finally walked over there and he he knocked on my box and I opened the flap to let him in he said something I've never understood didn't understand then don't tonight I don't want to tell you man but again a sober earthling a sober he said are you Jack Sullivan I said yes sir he said you know you owe us some money and have for about eleven or twelve months and haven't paid a damn dime on it and I said yes sir he said I've got some news for you boy he said if you don't start making some payments on this loan you're going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble and I don't know yet what in the hell he meant I'm thirty three years old I'm sitting on skid roll I have no earthly or spiritual possessions I'm an emotional wreck I'm sicker than a dog I'm swollen from dehydration and malnutrition suffering from hepatitis yellow as a pumpkin and wondering what in the hell is going to happen that day you know every day of your life will be the same and I think that's when you become a hopeless drunk I believe the definition of hope is somebody that really and truly believes you'll succeed tomorrow where you failed today and you know that there will be no success tomorrow that every day will be like today I don't think you kill yourself and alcoholics that are on skid roll like that again because you never are able to make the emotional adjustment to the physical surrounding and I looked up this day the 21st day of August of 1962 and in the back door of a saloon walked my father with a man I'd never seen before in my life and I hadn't seen my father in a long time and my father pointed me out to this man and this man came over and sat down at a table where I was sitting again with a bottle of wine he said are you Jack Sullivan and I said yes he said my name is Jack my name is Jack Dawes he said I've heard about you through your father and the director of labor relations on the LNN railroad and I've come out here to try to help you I will be more than willing to help you if you will let me and I said why why stranger why would you take time out from a busy schedule whatever you have to do to help a bum like me and how many times have all of us heard it go away and leave away leave me alone I'm no damn good and I think that's the final proof of an alcoholic that no matter what somebody else's opinion is of you it's never as bad as the one you have of yourself go away and leave me alone I'm just no damn good why would you want to help me and he said something I didn't believe I used to be like you are and somebody helped me and you know that's the message of Alcoholics Anonymous I guess basically and simply that and nothing more I used to be like you are and somebody helped me I didn't know people like that you know if I wanted something from you or you did something for me we got paid for it one way or the other and he said come on come go with your father and I and maybe we can help you and I was just as sick I agreed to go with him so they took me to a psychiatric hospital up in Louisville Kentucky and my father had paid the medical insurance premium the railroad where I worked I did have health insurance and on the 21st day of August of 1962 they dumped me into that psychiatric unit off of Skid Row and that very night the 21st day of August of 1962 Alcoholics Anonymous went into that psychiatric hospital to hold their first AA meeting ever in that hospital I don't think they started that group for me but we got there at the same time I asked them they didn't I was too sick to go to that one of course they thought I was going to die but I got well about a week later they moved me off of one of those locked up units and put me out on another wing of the hospital and I was sitting there again I had returned to the way I'd always been I was not sick and not drunk and that was it and you know that's alcoholism I hadn't changed a bit so I was bound to be like I had always been so I was sitting in a semi-private room talking to another drunk about all the worldly things that probably we had a solution to and a nurse stuck her head in the door and she said don't you go anywhere tonight now we're going to the AME and I said what in the hell is an AME I never heard of AME she said Alcoholics Anonymous Alcoholics Anonymous are you insinuating that you think I'm an alcoholic she said I'm not insinuating a damn thing I said I'll have you know that I'm no damn alcoholic I'm no damn alcoholic and she said I'll have you know that if you ain't one there ain't any and that didn't go over too well and I said I'm not going to any damn day AME I'm no alcoholic alcoholics are people that have problems they can't solve I got a problem I'll take care of it story of my life an alcoholic wrote you a letter and had a hundred words in it and ninety of them die and I'll do it I'll take care of it I'll handle it I don't need you I don't need God I don't need anybody when I need you I'll send for you we eye ourselves into a cemetery that's why Alcoholics Anonymous is tough for a lot of us they come in and throw that first step at you and the very first word floors any alcoholic I ever and it says we alcoholics are not we people alcoholics don't know anything about weeds all they know about size I'm no damn alcoholic drinking was my problem I can quit anytime I want to I'm on the verge of a breakdown God I've had a lot of traumatic experiences in my day and even the psychiatrist said I was depressed Jesus some of the things we get into depress a water buffalo and I'll have you know that I am not responsible for all these things that's been going on you hear sometimes I my opinion about stigma alcoholism I don't know stigma alcoholism in that damn drunk client is what the word itself means you got a problem you can't handle he ain't about to take that one on baby he can do anything if you don't believe it ask him and what's been going on in your life to some degree even though you've been doing it out of ignorance to some degree you're responsible for that you said you'll be back there tonight at 730 or I'll put you over there where those doorknobs are on the outside I said I believe I'll go kind of makes you feel like you're volunteering and I didn't want to go I didn't want to go they had a square dance that night in the auditorium I the search city cloggers I think was up there and besides that I had fallen in love I met some sick chick in that drunk tank and we were madly in love with each other and I think that's the neatest thing I see today in these treatment centers two drunks walking down the hallway holding hands you said both of them on the side of a bed and put one sock on both of them crazy as hell and they're madly in love you see them holding hands going down the corridor blinking eyes at each other they can't wait until they get out of there and sometimes they don't and they're madly in love you know and then you find somebody in those treatment hospitals that are crazier than they are you ever see a counselor try to separate them get them away from each other god he's dumber than they are you ever think you can't encourage them to stay together chances are if you separate them they'll screw up four people that nurse had me by my ear over 33 year old man with a nurse hanging on these ear took me down to that doorway to go into an AA meeting and an old woman stood in that doorway god she must have been 60 looked at me and she had absolutely no understanding at all that I was a worldly person that I had come back and I was interested in girls and booze and music and that old woman put her arm around my shoulder and she said hi honey she said honey would you like a cup of coffee and a cookie and I thought god and I thought been around a little bit she wasn't fooling me I'd heard them stories about old women and young boys I went on in that meeting some guy got up to talk and I talked we both were the hell meeting that night him and I the rest of them were going shh I just kept talking hell he was going to tell me what he knew I thought he ought to at least listen to what you see I'm different I understand why you must go but I'm different and I started out that door and that old woman was standing in that damn doorway and she looked at me and smiled I'd made an ass out of myself in that room you wouldn't believe she put her arm around my shoulder again and said honey you come back next week we need you I thought they ought to put her in a home get her off of the damn street who in the hell would want to join a club that would have me for a member I sure the hell didn't and I went back down to that room and had to go back there for four more weeks and listen to those damn people especially one old man who irritated the hell out of me by some of his accusations I tell that old man that you know he thinks he's the damn smart you know and I said I found out today why I drank and he said really I said I never had an identity that crazy old fool he'd been sober about 17 years with damn insurance sales but he wasn't as smart as my psychiatrist he said you what I said I never had an identity I'm Johnny Sullivan's boy he said who told you that I said my psychiatrist he looked at me and he said boy if you'd have been a great picker in the garden eating you'd have been a drunk and I thought man I really don't like him and he opened up an alcohol unit in St. Solomon they sent me down there my father signed a court order sent me 40 days to a nut house Western State Hospital Hopkinsville Kentucky and I went down there because if I didn't go to an insane asylum on ward 19 Hopkinsville Kentucky and what really hurt the nuts didn't want you they didn't like drunks and I'm serious they'd sit around on benches in that hospital and they'd say where do you where do you think of them drunks Martha I don't know why they brought them here bunch of damn troublemakers always were wish they'd take them somewhere else that's crazy people talking about you it kind of hurt guy used to sit on a bridge down there with his ear to rocks the wall was made out of rocks he sat there for days on that bridge with that ear up to a rock I said what do you want he said listen I said I'm inside of this net putting my ear up to one of them rocks I said I don't hear anything he said it's been like that all day I said I gotta get the hell out of here I come back to Louisville and my sister gave me a home with her with the understanding of wooden drink she said that's all if you drink leave we got along real good till you drink you welcome to stay here you get on your feet or whatever if you drink leave don't make me ask you to go please if you take the cap off the beer bottle will you leave I said I'll leave so I got back home and I was able to get some clothes and my father got me a charge account which I thought he was going to pay for them but he didn't my dad we went out to the Richmond brothers and I bought a bunch of clothes and he co-signed for him because he had an account there and I couldn't get any credit anywhere I got some decent clothes and he said you call that old man I said I don't like that old man he's a nasty old man he gets on my nerves he curses me and on numerous occasions he's questioned whether you and my mother were married when I was born and I said I'm not calling he said you call that old man I said I don't have his phone number and he said I'll take you back to that hospital so my father rode me up there and I had to tell Hillary then that I didn't see when they're going see if they'll take you I said you tell him he said you tell him so I got up and told him and damn if they didn't offer to take me and I didn't you know I went to AA because it's fascinating thing you know when you look back sometimes the simplistic things of this program alarm me they scare the hell out of me thank God maybe when you're doing them you don't go so my life was still encompassed with fear I didn't drink because I was afraid to and I went to AA because I was afraid not to but I was sort of I don't know whether I was bullheaded I don't know whether I just didn't have the ability to comprehend I don't know if I was afraid to try I don't know if I was afraid to fail I don't know what I was I only know that I didn't drink because I was afraid to and I went to AA because I was afraid not to and I finally just sat there and did all the things you do for about a year and a half and I just couldn't relate and couldn't get close and sort of had that wall still up to and at least especially to that old man you know and he got sick and tired of me as any sponsor gets sick and tired of anybody always bitching and griping and complaining you know and they talk about gratitude and they're easy to be grateful when you get 17 years sober and a new suit on and you drove up in a new Buick with a hundred bucks in your pocket you know hell yes it's easy for you to talk about gratitude and he'd look at me and say you ungrateful so and so you know if you're looking for something to be grateful for how about what's not going on in your life how about what's not going on in your life tonight compared to the way it was the first time I ever saw you maybe you haven't got a lot of things but you sure as hell there are a lot of things that are not going on that you ought to be eternally grateful for you haven't got enough damn sense to accept alcoholics and that's all you have to do with the first two steps of age you simply accept it you don't even have to do a damn thing if you want to pursue it from there on you must implement into actions the things that will make you better but not the first two and I said I don't understand them I don't understand them well I guess I'm powerless over alcohol yes I am probably got an unmanageable life you know I'm 33 years old with 12 cents probably have you know came to believe that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity I said what the hell is this power greater than me he said by God you're talking to him well I understood that he said you know all alcoholics have an extra bone in their body and I said no I didn't know that never heard of that they do a bone in their system and no other earthling has only alcoholic and he said it's connected from the back of their brain to the base of their spine I said I didn't know that he said absolutely and he said the purpose of it is if you kick an alcoholic in his ass hard enough that bone will vibrate and open up his mind and he said I'm going to get your mind open I'm going to make you where you can see and I'm going to make you where you can hear and you'll soon be able to be in touch with reality and I was that the reality was there for me to see and I was capable of seeing it provided I was willing to look at it and that's what it took the willingness to see and this comes after a year you come to AA for a long time you finally come to AA after a while eventually you come to believe in it to where you know it is truly the language of the heart that it is true that the heart is a palace that stores all truth in human beings and the truth about me was beginning to be easier for me to accept that I could see the truth about what I really was and that was the reality of my life the truth of what I really was and then I finally got to the point where I it was pretty easy to get him to sponsor you he only had one rule you did what he told you and if you didn't like that go your own way he give you a dime and tell you never to call him drunk and don't use my dime for drinking if you think more of a bottle of whiskey then you do me throw my dime away I'll do anything in God's world I can for you but if you think more of a drink then you do me throw my dime away and what we're asking you to do is going to take a while and what you used to do you got relief in what 10 seconds working for it this way is a lot better to where you'll begin to learn and understand it I think there was a missing element in my life at that time and I had known gay for about 5 or 6 months and after I sobered about 13 months gay and I got married and I can honestly say the past 22 years of our life that we've been together have been good lives we've had our ups and downs like anybody else that's married that long but together we've become something you know I always thought if I drank that I drank to be somebody and isn't it fascinating how we quit drinking and find out we are somebody and when she came along I think it was just a crowning point in the fulfillment of my life that together we both became somebody through A.A. and Al and I and my A.A. sponsors and that made her go you know made her go and I told that old man that I have absolutely no concept of a God you know I hung to the people for a long time and that's okay God don't get mad you don't even have to believe in God it's okay with him he don't get mad at you you know and he understand that even little kids sometimes understand that there was a little boy up home and his mother was telling me that he came screaming out of his bedroom one night and jumped in the bed and crying and she said what's the matter son he said I'm scared she said well you've had a nightmare everything's all right go on back in your room and he said I'm not going back in there she said you don't have to worry God's in there he said that may be true but right now I need somebody with skin on him you know in all of our lives sometimes we need you know we need somebody with skin on them you know we need somebody with skin on them God, people with skin on them, you know. So you have to reach out and do to attain. You have to learn to feel and believe the truth. And Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of feeling. You feel good about yourself and feel good about people. But I think the bottom line, if you're new to AA, and I certainly don't intend to interpret the 12 steps of AA for anybody in this room, you do it. But I would like to say something to you if you're new. If you're new to AA and you ever have any difficulty with that phase of Alcoholics Anonymous, just don't really worry about it until you get a true concept of what your will is. And you see, it's only the opposite of what God's will is. Only the opposite. So you write down what your will is. And always remember, if you never remember anything else, that your will brought you here. And I've never met anybody in Alcoholics Anonymous that came here for any other reason. You know the reason? The reason you're here? Because as hard as you tried, you couldn't keep from coming. As hard as you tried, you couldn't keep from coming. So all you have to do is just take a look at your own. What is an alcoholic's will compared to God's will? And you don't even have to believe in God. Remember that. But if it's going to better your life, accept that for your benefit, whether you believe or not. My will all my life was to cry. I think God's will for us is to laugh. My will all of my life? It's to quit. I think God's will for all of us is to persevere. My will all my life was to gossip. God's will is to praise. Mine was to take and his is to give. Mine is to procrastinate. And his says, put it into action. Mine says, rot. God's will says, grow. My will says, curse. God's will says, pray. My will says, die. God's will says, live. You can take his or yours, but remember, yours brought you here. And someday when you're sitting in AA, you suddenly begin to realize that that power, that whether it emanates from people or spirit or wherever, it's there. It's a resource that we all draw strength from. And tonight, maybe we're weak and need your strength. Tomorrow night, we'll be strong and you need ours. But the best part of it is, we all need each other. And we love each other because of what we are when we're together. I don't love you for what you are. I love you for what I am when I'm with you. And that power emanates in a fellowship like Alcoholics Anonymous. It comes from the spirit and the skin people. And if you don't believe it, you're not going to believe it. If you don't believe it, you take a room like this right now. As quiet as it is. You just feel it. And that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about. If you can tear down that wall if you've got one and let it in, it will find you. And you'll find someday that in your heart where it counts, you believe in yourself once again. You believe and you trust people once again. And you believe in yourself once again. Once again. Once again. Once again. Once again. Once again. Once again. Once again. Once again. find a God that you understand that's yours, and it don't have to be part of anybody else's. And after a certain period of time in your life, like me, you will have a spiritual awakening to where you believe that there's somebody else on this damn planet besides yourself. And for me in my life, that's all a spiritual awakening has been for me, a stark realization someday, that there's somebody else on this planet besides me, and that I can get some kind of enjoyment out of my life just doing something for others. If I can see a child run and play again, if I can see a wife smile again, if I can see a family brought back together with at least a little bit of hope, you know, that radiates my life, that makes my life good. And I have that spiritual awakening when I begin to realize and know, you know, that there's somebody else on here besides me. I only needed a very simple little thing to do that. You have to be a spiritual person in AA whether you want to be one or not. You hang around a spiritual program long enough, you have to become a spiritual individual. What do you need to do that, huh? Well, I think the first thing you have to have, you have to have the ability to choose. You have to get out of bed every morning for the rest of your life with the ability to make a choice of how you live. And you have a choice. You can choose to drink and be what you were. You can choose not to and to stay here. But you have to make that choice. You soon begin to understand that you're not interested in forming any kind of a power structure in this program. You're not interested in creating something. It's something that makes you look big or good, you know. And I think you'll see that here this weekend because most of the speakers I know and they're personal friends of mine, I've never seen any damned ego problems in them, you know. This type of thing doesn't elevate anybody's ego. It's certainly an enjoyable thing for all of us to be able to come here and meet you and share with you. But it's not a power structure or formation of something to impress you about me or to make you feel better about me. You know, it's a guy that got up this morning with a choice, not interested in promoting myself, and my main concern in life is the welfare and the helpfulness that I might be able to give to other people. And God, when that works and they radiate, I radiate. And that, my friend, whether you like it or not, is the spiritual part of Alcoholics Anonymous to me. Thank God. But I realize there's somebody else on this damn planet besides me. I'd like to tell you a story and then I'll shut up. I tell every, close every talk with a story. It's about a fellow that was walking down a cold and lonely road one night, and I hope you remember. In the middle of the road lay a snake, and the snake was dying because of the cold weather. And when the man passed him, the snake looked up at him and said, Mr., would you please, please pick me up and put me under your coat? Get me warm? I am dying in this cold weather. And the man said, I can't do that. You're a poisonous reptile. Surely to God, if I picked you up and put you under my coat and got you warm, you would bite me. And the snake said, I wouldn't bite you if you saved my life. And he thought for a while, and he picked him up from the road and put him under his coat. And when the snake got warm and returned to vitality, he bit him. And the man jerked him out from under his coat and threw him back to the road. And he looked at him and he said, I... I thought you promised not to bite. With a snickering grin on his face, the snake looked at him and said, You knew what I was when you picked me up. My friends, someday, somewhere, if you're sitting in the isolation of your own mind, whether you're in a bar room or a bar stool or a home or wherever in the hell you are, rationalize all you care to. Justify it to those who are willing to listen. If you've been here, if you know me, if you've met us, you know what it is when you pick it up. Thank you for having me in Georgia. Please remain standing and we'll go in hand and be dismissed with the Lord's Prayer. Let it 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, the power and the glory forever and ever.