Why Atheists and Professors Can Make It in AA – Bob Z.

Our speaker tonight comes from Lansing, Michigan. Could we give a big hand to Bob D., please? all right i want to thank you for uh inviting me i think the invitation is that i call spiritual sign um i had been thinking a while not too long ago that in the last few years my AA life has really taken on a very special quality and it had been a long time since I've really been able to share this quality of life that has come to me through AA and lo and behold I'm over in Delta College outside the library not too long ago and somebody came by who I knew but didn't know his name. He knew me, A.A. We talked a little and he asked me where I'd been. I thought I'd moved to Lansing. And he said, well, he asked if I wanted to speak. As a matter of fact, I may have said, hey, I haven't talked to you in a long time. So he said okay, I'll get in touch with you then. And he called up, called me at school and he made this appointment. I've spoken here a couple times now over the years and probably some of you who may have been there a while back don't recognize me I remember the very last time I spoke was still downstairs and they had this podium like this and I was standing in there in a blue suit and had a little afro then because I had a perm and some of the people who knew me from the first time I spoke One guy came up there and he said, Bob, I've got to shake your hand. He said, you finally are dressing like a human being. And then I stepped in behind the podium and I had my shot-through sneakers on with my three-piece suit. But he and the chairman of the department over there itself still remember my shot through sneakers and my three piece suit. They asked me for them because they're collecting memorabilia at Delta. AA has been a part of my life for over 20 years and I've really come to believe that the magic in AA is in how we share three important things about ourselves and it all comes out of the big book on what we were like, what happened to us and what we're like now. What I'd like to do is share some of that with you tonight. I've been kicking around so many places in those years of sobriety that if I really started giving you a detailed account, we'd never get out of here tonight. As a matter of fact, I sat down at my word processor and started on this today after one of our meetings. And by the third page, I was still only 19 years old. So I didn't see that I was going to wash tonight. Now I'm 59 now, so God almighty. So as usual in my compulsive way, I had to write something out, but I probably, in my typical way, wouldn't use it. Let me tell you a little bit about what I was like. I think I was liked most drunks in that booze snuck up on me and as it was sneaking up on me I used all the mechanisms of my own mental deceit that any of us and all of us have used sometimes in our lives when I started drinking it always seemed to me and this was in high school and I wasn't the first guy in my group to start drinking as a matter of fact I think I was the last guy in my group really to start drinking as you do in high school on weekends. In fact, I really didn't drink in high School. It was after I got into a prep school. My father sent me to a prep School when I got out of High School. I was kind of a nut. As I wrote a little note down here, I didn't have to drink to get in trouble in High School, let me put it that way. So they sent me into this School for Educational Troubleshooters. They call themselves educational troubleshooters. And then I met some World War II veterans, and they introduced me to beer. And I enjoyed it. But I didn't get in trouble. I just enjoyed drinking. And as I progressed through college, I dropped out for a while. I went to work in New York City for a year, and I realized then that working was not my bag, where I really belonged in college. So I did my freshman year at Syracuse, and my father got quite upset because I came home a beer drinker. That didn't bother him as much as the fact that I also came home as a Democrat. See, I had left the house as kind of a conservative of Wendell Wilkie, Republican, and I came home a Harry Truman Democrat. So he said he wasn't going to send me back there. So he sent me to this school in Wisconsin. And I don't think he knew about beer drinking in Wisconsin and I hit this little town of Appleton that had its own brewery that you could just kind of walk through and pick up beer. And I drank a lot in college, but one of the things I learned to do, I think, was to control my drinking by setting myself goals, setting myself I'm going to get so much reading done. I'm gonna get so studying done. I'm getting so much work done before I would allow myself to drink. Now, I went to college for 11 years and that's a long time, you know, to drink and study and drink and, and study. And, but finally they told me I had to go out and work. and then it was kind of interesting because then I found I didn't necessarily have to at work I didn' t need to have the kind of thinking and I wasn' t under the constant demand that studying and writing and having somebody looking over your shoulder as a graduate for so many years so I hit Cornell University I got a job there and that was neat because there I met people faculty who drank more than I did. I know Pete, does Pete still come to meetings here from Sangler? Pete knows this guy I know from Cornell. His name was Oli Smith. I can say his name because he never did make it in AA so he doesn't have to remain anonymous. He went through Brighton five times but what I liked about Oli is I could go over Oli's house in the morning and Oli would always be sitting there drinking gin out of a coffee cup. See, and I could get a beer out of the refrigerator. And I could say to myself, I don't drink as much as Oli. And Oli's not an alcoholic. How can I be one? See, how many times when I think by looking back on it, it just wasn't Oli, that I reflect back, how any time did I have problems with booze and I'd look over and say, but I'm not as bad as him. See, I'm Not as bad as these other guys. As a matter of fact, the year I went into AA, three other faculty members were in hot water with their booze. One guy drove his car into a tree. The other one got the campus cops out. You know, the other guy almost killed his wife. And again, I saw all these things happen. But nothing seemed to be happening to me socially, you know, out there. But I can tell you a lot was happening inside me. A lot was happened inside. And I was kind of, in a way, coming apart inside. I was coming apart physically too. Yeah, I was 35 years old and every time I took my shoes off, my feet would swell up and I couldn't get my shoes back on. You know, something was wrong. So, but I'm a good thinking alky. I knew a doctor that I drank with every Thursday afternoon. And he and I would get drunk. So who, what doctor do I go see? Go see the drunken doctor. so I go through all these tests and we're all finished and Doc Mann says to me Bob the trouble with you is you drink too much beer take in less fluids so what do you drink? wine and booze and so I'm kidding myself then the end all came in a way for an alky like me two things I met a graduate student who taught me how to make beer so I could make my own beer Then, I got a laboratory, a pretty big lab, and they made me responsible. And I was the only one who could sign for the ethyl alcohol. Wow! I discovered the never-ending vodka bottle. I could bring my vodka bottle from home, fill it half full of ethyol alcohol, half full of distilled water and I had unlimited booze and even at work I'd walk by the ethyl alcohol and just take my coffee cup and go you know like that but I never thought of myself you see as an alky but one of the things I did notice about me was that my ability to think my ability to remember my ability to read hey and my My whole life was reading and remembering. And I discovered I'd read a book, I'd meet a page in the book and I'd turn the page and I couldn't remember what I read. I knew something was wrong. And I was at Cornell University and Cornell University, a professor on our campus, there was a non-alcoholic member of the Board of Directors of AA, Harry Trice. and as a result Cornell University had a fantastic library on alcoholism so once in a while being a library freak that I am I'd hop up read a little bit about alcoholism look it over came across a big book in there by the way looked it over and figured there was too much God in that for the devout atheists out the south so I didn't go back finally in 1965 I went to see a physician actually I went to a psychiatrist in the summer 1965 and I told him I thought I had a drinking problem and I was very lucky because he said to me why come to me why don't you go to AA now how many psychiatrists would say that back in 1965 but how did I respond to it did I go to AAA I said no I said I'm a scientist and I want to do it the scientific way with you, a psychiatrist so he says to me fine I'll take you as a patient if you stop drinking I said I didn't come here to stop drinking I came here to learn to drink and he smiled at me and said you sound like a typical person who he didn't say alcoholic at the time so I agreed so I went home I can still remember the day I went off in the shrink got into the went into the kitchen went to the refrigerator took out a beer tore it open set it down and looked at my wife Peggy and said I hope you realize this is my last drink and I went to that shrink for several months and I paid 25 bucks a visit to lie to him about what was going on but then I did I did decide to go dry for a while. I really did. I went completely dry, and it was hell. I can still remember how hellish it was. And when I went back to drinking, I did the old mental trick that most of us do. I'll just try one. See, I read that stuff about athletes. If they take one, they can't stop. So I took one beer at this party. And guess what? That's all I had that night. so what did I say to myself the next morning see Bob you had one beer and you stopped you could control it so what do I do that morning I went and picked up a six pack on the way to work as I usually would do and then I drank with my friends at lunch and I drank before and very quickly I think in about three or four weeks I made up for every day of the month I had been dry and finally I knew I was coming apart kind of mentally from the booze, but in order to protect myself and not call myself an alcoholic, I blamed it on my wife. I blamed It on my family. I blamed I on my job. Also, by the way, I kept telling myself I was an alcoholic because I never missed a day's work. The clever alky I was at Cornell, I arranged things with such skill that the only class I had of me was Tuesday and Thursday morning from 11 to 12. It was the only place I had to show up and see students. The rest of the time, I was playing this big, big administrative game. So I never said, hey, I can't be an alky. But finally, this one Sunday night in 1965, I said to hell with this life. I'm going to go down where people appreciate me. And I looked at my wife Peggy and said to her, for you I would have been a great psychologist I'm going to live with the hippies and my friends many of my drinking friends from Wisconsin were down in Greenwich Village, New York so I headed down there when I got down there finally on Tuesday morning I stopped to see my sister and of course again your relatives came to reinforce I don't know how many of you get this your relatives enable you to keep drinking many times they blame your wife They blame the job. They blame everything but then look at you as an alky. I finally got down to Greenwich Village on Tuesday and it was about 5 o'clock and I don't know how many people remember November 9th, 1965 but it always helped me remember my last drunk because that's the night the lights went out on the whole East Coast. That was the big blackout. Talk about a blackout but I do remember it because what a place to be for an alky blacked out New York guess what stayed open the bar stayed open so I drank a few days there and I met my friends everybody was boozing it up and I had a system I developed a system to feel good again maybe each of you who went out and drank you get the big hangover everybody seems to develop a little method for feeling better, getting over that hangover. Mine was to take a long hot shower, a cup of coffee, and then a tall glass of V8 or tomato juice with booze in it, you know, gin or vodka or lab alcohol. And I always traveled with my... I learned from Olly Smith to travel with lab alcohol in a Clorox bottle because he traveled with martinis in his Clorax bottle of gin. so I put lab alcohol on mine but that Thursday morning of that week something was different and it's kind of interesting because that particular incident I think really made me say something to myself that changed the whole course of my life because after I stepped out of the shower and I had that booze and I went to get dressed and I didn't have any clean underwear did you ever really want to feel clean and not have any clean underwear yeah I really felt I felt creepy that's when I said to myself I said god damn I said there's got to be another way there's just gotta be another way so being in a New York area and when I was a kid my folks had sent me to the shrink to try and change me from the weirdo I was into something more stable so his name was no more fine so I got on the phone and I called him up he was over in Patterson, New Jersey and I was and he agreed to see me he agreed to see me Friday morning so I went over to see him and I sat down I can still remember that little bastard he was a little chubby guy with his beanies accent he used to call me Robert Robert Zimmerman he used to call me and so I told him I guess for the first time I really told somebody the truth about how much I drank the lab alcohol or the 22 cases of quarts of homemade beer, all that kind of crap I had around. So he listened for a while, and he finally said to me, he said, Robert Zimmerman, you're an insane alcoholic. He said, you don't belong on the streets with normal human beings. He said... Do you realize, he says, everything you touch, you spoil. He said don't you realize he says you're rotten and I went to this guy for help yeah and he said well what should I do he said well he said I'll get you in an institution hey I'm a psychologist I know what goes on in institutions so first thing I say hey now I'm the man with responsibilities I got a wife and two kids I got an job up in Ithaca, New York and he's listening to all this bullshit so he listens and he says Robert, he said you'll never make it on the streets you'll NEVER make it without putting yourself in I said tell me, what is one alternative? and he said AA he said promise me when you get back to Ithaka you'll call AA well, as most Alkies I walked out of his office got in the car opened the beer to think it over and then started back up to Ithaca New York 250 miles well next day Saturday or so I finally made it to Iθaca and the next thing besides the next I guess I would call an event significant thing that happened I did quote AA and this guy I called him up and he said well come over right now I said don't come right now because the kids are around and then I said could you come tonight he said well we have a meeting tonight but I guess we could come I said how about eight o'clock he said okay so what I did during the day I didn't want to get drunk but I couldn't say you know we got to drink so I was I was titrating you know what I call I was back into my controlled drinking again and sure enough at eight o´clock the bell rang as I suspected these bastards would be on time and these two guys named Frank came into the house and this one guy was kind of a yacky guy and the other was kindof quiet and so they sat down and they started talking and Frank spotted me as a wise-ass university professor right off the bat and told me a lot about other faculty that he had worked with And he told me he had 17 years without a drink. Well, I knew I had a liar sitting in front of me. And the guy next to him says, I have 12. I said, well, at least he doesn't lie as much as the guy, the guy next to them. Basically, they kept going around and around. And I kept kind of questioning them. And finally, Frank said to me, he said, Bob, are you afraid? And I think, again, a little thing happened. So again, just like I admitted to the psychiatrist lying about that I drank, I admitted it to another person that I was afraid. And I said to Frank Edelman, yeah, I'm afraid. I'm scared to keep drinking and I'm worried to stop drinking. I said, that's where I'm a fan. And then he said to me, he said, well, Bob, can you stay sober for a month? Can you stay away from a drink for one day? I said... Who can't? You know, kind of cocky where you are. And then he said... Okay, good. He said, I'll tell you what. He said... If you can stay away from a dream for one night for one week to tomorrow night at seven o'clock he said we'll pick you up. And he said You'll never have to be afraid again And he was right Sure enough, about quarter to seven the next night Frank and Frank showed up again And they took me down to the women's club In downtown Ithaca And I walked into this little room And it was Sunday night The night before hunting season Deer season And a bunch of deer hunters from Syracuse had come down to go hunting the next day. And they were happy and booming and people were laughing and I felt like shit. You know, I was hanging over, I was shaking. I couldn't pick up a cup of coffee without shaking it. And like probably most you learn to do when you're shaking, you pick up the cup and you pick it up real fast with both hands. You take a drink and you put it down and these people were so happy. And I started listening at the meeting and they read how it works. And some of the things in that, when I heard it tonight, a fact I hadn't heard in a long time and I was looking for a copy of it today to refresh my memory on it. There was something in there that, of all the things that were said that night, that stuck with me at that meeting. And that was, if you want what we have, then I'll tell you, I wanted what those people had. They were happy. They were laughing. Just listening to the talk and the way they talked to one another and the things they talked about, it reminded me so much of when I was younger, when I were a kid and I could laugh and feel good. However, what I didn't know is that to get what they wanted, I had to stop drinking. That I didn' t know at the time. In fact, as probably many of you experienced at your first AA meeting, a lot of that stuff is fuzzy they use a funny way of talking and they're talking about a program and they are talking about working steps and theyre talking about this and that and nothing really kind of sank in except I knew I knew I wanted what they had so at the end of the meeting everybody got up and they said the Lord's Prayer and I said to this person next to me I said this is nice they said how the hell do you stay sober So He handed me a little card A little blue card And I looked at it And it says First things first Easy does it Think, think, think Let go, let God I said That's going to keep you sober And I opened it up And inside is How it works The serenity prayer A whole bunch of what I called At that time AA Bullshit That was my Alright So I set the card In my pocket And I And I took off there is one thing that I should mention kind of forgot to mention was that the night before I went to that meeting after those two guys left my house I headed to the fridge to make myself another lemonade and for me a lemonade was a shot of real lemon lemon juice and a shot of lab alcohol and water and just as I was going to make another drink that night after they left I said no I made a promise I wouldn't drink and that was that was I never had a drink after that there's some things I can remember about that first meeting in those first few days it just are so vivid in my mind because the things I heard the things people said to me really made a difference and to Tuesday night I went to my second meeting and that that was probably one of the another very important turning point because it was in the basement of a Presbyterian church. And the guy who led it, led a kind of what I would have called at that time religious, I would call now a spiritual type of meeting, pretty heavy on the spiritual end. And people who know me may not believe this, but I didn't say a word at any of these meetings. But I did hear one guy talking and saying, Atheists never make it in this program Oh shit man, let me tell you That kept me away from a drink for at least 30 days Because every time I felt I needed a drink And wanted a drink I'd say to myself I'm not going to let that son of a bitch say That atheists don't make it And I've got to admit That my early days of not drinking Notice I didn't use the word sobriety My early days of not drinking Were not quality sobrieting I didn' t drink Because I was not drinking at people Did you ever used to drink at people? You know when you got mad at them I used to think I used not to drink Now I was Not drinking at People That was kind Of my way Of staying Sober Then I Got to My third Meeting somebody said university professors never make it God I was saying every time I turned around somebody was saying my type of person doesn't make it so I those kind of got me got me ticked off but I was very lucky I had good people Frank was a pretty sharp guy he suggested I go to an area conference and I went up to Syracuse to an área conference and I couldn't believe it 250 people there And the GSR representative from New York, Mid-State, was there. God, he was fantastic. He had a kind of voice that said some things that, especially about honesty. Kind of me in my years, from what I heard and how it works. Typically emphasizing what we need is personal honesty. You survive with personal honesty and being introduced to that kept me sober a little more time then Frank took me up to the mental hospital by the way back then if you wanted to get into a hospital for alcoholism and have hospitalization cover it you had to be declared an alcoholic psychotic you know you couldn't have blue cross, blue shield all that stuff didn't cover every friend of the mill I mean they had to put you in the funny farm you know the locked doors all the way back in and so he took me up to the back wards up there in the mental hospital just north of Ithaca. That was really an experience. So Frank and a couple other guys took me all around to various meetings. And somehow, I was very lucky. Every time something would come along that would I'd be really ready to chuck it all something happened I remember one time I was at one of these meetings in a church and for the first time I saw them passing baskets around just like they do at church they kind of set up on the buck on the table and I said god damn here it goes now they're passing baskets around so I was thinking about all these kind of stupid people in AA and how I can do it on my own And AA is this and that So this old guy, Clyde, walks up after the meeting By the way, we didn't have coffee during the meeting It was coffee after Clyde walks up and he says I don't know about Charlie I said, what do you mean you don't remember about Charlie? Charlie came in about a week after I did He says, I think he's heading for a slip I said Why should he be heading for stuff? He says He's bitching about AA I said Yeah, Charlie, better be careful He said There you are it was it was things like that then I remember another time I was always I was only asking how do you stay sober how do I stay sober so by the way this is taking advantage of how far back we went and how cheap we were in Ithaca no paper cups we used the church cups on a Tuesday night group you know get them all out so one night I was afterwards everybody there'd be a lot of people back in the kitchen doing stuff if I talk about how the hell you stay sober. So one guy says, you've got to get involved. You've got get involved this way. How the hell do I get involved? What can I say? You come back here and help and you wash cups. You know, help clean up, wash cups, so I got into the group and I was back there after the meetings helping wash cups and started out about four of us. Then there was three of us then there was two of us and then one Tuesday night I'm the only one doing cups. You know next Tuesday night you know I've got somebody who leans in and says don't forget to turn out the lights Bob you know and I'm starting to get a resentment now here I am doing this clapping but I'm still doing I tell you there are spiritual signs one night I'm working away and some guy walks in he says how do you stay sober I said you gotta get involved but I was a little nice I stayed with him a little longer than they stayed with me. That first year at Ithaca was really great. And it reminds me, too, you know, some of the things you hear at AA, everybody, you can laugh, you learn to laugh at yourself. As a matter of fact, when non-AAs come to meetings and they hear us laughing, they think we're kind of strange how can these people who have suffered such tragedy how can they laugh you've got to learn you've gotta learn to laugh at yourself you've kinda learned to find humor in the tragedies of life and I remember there's always a guy who in AA will say you'll come in it reminds me even when I first started meetings I was lamenting the fact that everything was going wrong in my life you know you're first sober up and all the crap that's behind you is still keeping up with you. And of course, that was happening to me and everything was going wrong and I was lamenting the fact that my grants had been cut off and the people I had hired couldn't work, I couldn't keep them employed and stuff like that. But then I'd go to a meeting and hear somebody's tragedy of no job. You know, or they had a tremendous lawsuit pending and things of this type. So my life really wasn't so bad. So, you know, people can always say when you lament and you have something wrong, you can always say, hey, it could have been worse. Could have been worst. You know, there's always somebody, everyone that did these guys in AA, you come up with something and they always say could have had worse. I heard this one time when it happened on a thing that even happened here in around this part of the country where on a Sunday night, a Sunday Night Meeting the guy came in and he said, oh my God. And God said, what happened? He said last night Charlie came home found Sam and Beverly's wife and killed them both this guy sitting at the end of the table says it could have been worse he says for Christ sakes what do you mean it could've been worse two people are dead he said hey could've come home Friday night could've had me yeah you hear a lot of drunk jokes but there really are some there really aren't some good sober jokes too quickly. My early years in AA were, I think some of the, if there were some mistakes I made, I'd think it was depending too much on AA for all the problems I had and over the years my marriage I think began to deteriorate and we really weren't aware of some of the factors that were contributing to it. One of the factors I think that contributed to do is I inadvertently went to a physician when I was out in Montana because I was having trouble sleeping and he suggested some tranquilizers for me. And I said, no, under the supervision of a physician it should be okay. As I took them, I went back to him and I said they're okay. I said but God, it's a loggy in the morning. So he says well we'll give you a you mood elevators in the morning. Hmm. That's when I discovered speed. And that's when I also discovered that I didn't have to go to a doctor to order them since I had a laboratory and I had prescription rights. I could order the drugs, these prescription, I might add, drugs myself. No, I guess it was about nine or ten months later, a guy named Roger Tipwilder showed up in my office, flashed a card and he was from the Seattle Narcs. And he was wondering who was using those 10,000 hits of Dexedrine. That was, well, to make a short story long, you know. I said, well, I think we were doing some experiments kind of stuff and he wasn't very happy but I kind of got my way out of it. Some other things went wrong too. I felt that was mine was mine and what the government had given me for my monkeys was mine and the government didn't share that point of view. And he's still in Montana and the chairman of my department and the president of the university called me in one day and they said, Bob, you've had some problems here with this grant. He said, you know, if you were to resign and leave the state, we wouldn't prosecute. Now I thought that was a spiritual sign to move on. So I came, I came to Michigan. By the way, they weren't honest. They did prosecute. I won one and I lost one, but it worked out. It worked pretty well. And then I had my experience with, with Michigan AA. I landed in Mount Pleasant and there was no meeting, meetings at first. They only had a couple of meetings. And so I went through the book they had, we got from the National, and there was a meeting in Midland. And it was a number to call. So I called this Midland number. And the guy says, yeah, there's a meeting tonight, Friday night meeting. Okay. He said, well, where is it? He said it's at the community center. I said, fine, where ist it? He says, it's really easy to find. Where are you? I said I'm on Mount Pleasant. He said see, do you come across the bridge, turn right, go down the road, turn left, everybody knows where it is. He said thanks. so this guy from AA in Montana had come east with me so we hopped in the car head for Midland still not knowing where we are just as we're coming across the bridge and Route 20 there a car whoops by us and cuts in front and has an easy does it sign on the bumper and I said to this guy I'm going to follow that car and guess where it got me to left of this building and we went down we found the meeting was in that glare the room with all the mirrors in downstairs and it was a hot summer night and I hadn't been to a meeting about a week I was really missing meetings so we see and we get into this meeting and it's open like this and this guy gets up and starts talking and he says I had about three years of sobriety now I've got three days and he went on and on and on and we weren't sure where he was at so this friend of mine leans over next to me and says if this is Michigan AA God help your sobriete kind of behavior a little disappointed but Tuesday I hit the meeting downstairs with all the group and that's when I became let me say identified with Midland AA one of the things I think a lot of people struggle with all through the program I think is what we might call the spiritual side of the program I consider myself a fairly spiritual person But let me also say that I still really am not religious. I think that if someone would say to atheists, make it an AA, I'd have to say, yes, they can. It's not easy. But for those of you who are wondering why I am this way, you have to remember that God made me an atheist. so you have to and she must have known what she was doing when she did that one of the other beautiful things that happened to me in AA is in 1978 at a meeting over in Mount Pleasant I met my current wife Marion and really this has truly changed my life I found that marrying and living with an AA we kind of really do live the program and when some people ask me how's your life on a scale from one to ten I say I run about five because that's not very good but you have to know where my scale is my scale runs somewhere between happiness is one joy is five and ecstasy is ten So my life kind of bounces back and forth between a combination of joy and ecstasy. Using AA and staying with AA, principles and ideas, particularly I think that one part of how it works where they talk about honesty. This is something that I couldn't quite remember how it went, but they talk About it when they say rarely have we seen a person fail. They emphasize those who don't seem to be able to be honest with themselves. This is what I have found. Every time I have run into problems, and that's not necessarily when I'm talking about drinking. I am very fortunate that way. Booze is really not a part of my life. But every time I've found that I have ran into some types of economic, social, or interpersonal problems problems at work. It's when I haven't been truly honest with myself. What I like about AA, the change it makes in your relationships with your children. A lot of guys, particularly when they get into it, man, they soak up and they're doing all kinds of things with their kids. And I remember out in Montana, this one guy was really really, really enjoyable playing with his kids. So one day they were, nice March day when it was windy, and they were out there trying to fly a kite. He'd get out in the wind, and he'd fling it up like that thing, and bang, crash. Run it around, get up again, crash. His wife stuck her head out the window and said, hey, you need more tail on that. He said, that's what I said this morning. He told me to go fly a kite. These are the things that happen in AA. The one thing I think I'd like to leave with you, if there's any one thing, is that over the years I've been very fortunate to meet a lot of people who have become sober. A lot in AA, and amazingly enough, a lot of them not in AA. And I've run into these people because somehow I've seemed to gravitate around and toward people and doing things where people don't drink. And I don't realize they're not drinking when we start. Booze and everything relating to booze has become kind of alien in my lifestyle. We don't serve alcohol or drinks at any of our social gatherings with faculty or friends or children. And when we go places, people don't offer us drinks. Now, we live in a new city. People don't know we're in AA or they don't Know My Wife is in AA. But no one, no one seems to even be concerned about the fact of the particular lifestyle that we lead. It's a very comfortable lifestyle. And as a result, I think we've kind of passed some of this on to our children. Now, I know I have two kids in college over in CMU, and I know they drink beer, but when they come to our house, they don't expect it. They don't bring it. They don' t drag a six-pack into the house. And it's not because we've said that alcohol is evil or we can't handle it or we don't want to see it. I think they do it out of respect for the lifestyle that Marion and I have chosen to live. And I think also that one of the important things, I think, that's come out of the lifestyle that we have adopted using the AA principle is that we, my children, and I think we've demonstrated this in our lifestyle, my children realize that they are responsible for their behavior whether or not they're drinking. One of the things that really bothers me about what I see and hear about in relationship to booze these days is that people feel they're not responsible for the way they behave when they're drinking. And one of the things I've emphasized with my kids is that we are always responsible for the ways we behave. We're always responsible for the manner in which we drink. For the way we act. And by taking this particular philosophy and attaching to it what I call this rigorous, and I really do mean rigorous, personal honesty. It has given us an enormous and that's an enormous amount of opportunity to enjoy life and enjoy people and just like that guy said that night I can still remember Frank saying it he said you'll never have to be afraid again and I haven't been. Thanks a lot. I like about AA, the change it makes in your relationships with your children. A lot of guys, particularly when they get into it, man, they soak up and they're doing all kinds of things with their kids. And I remember out in Montana, this one guy was really, really, really enjoyable playing with his kids. So one day they were, nice March day when it was windy, and they were out there trying to fly a kite. He'd get out in the wind and he'd flip it up like that thing, going, yeah, yeah. Bam! Crash. Run it around the scale up again. Round and round. Crash. His wife stuck her head out the window and said, hey, you need more tail on that. He said, that's what I said this morning until we go fly a kite. These are the things that happen in the air. The one thing I think I'd like to leave with you if there's any one thing is that over the years I've been very fortunate to meet a lot of people who have become sober. A lot in AA and amazingly enough a lot are not in AA. And I run into these people because somehow I seem to gravitate around and towards people and doing things where people don't drink. And I don't realize they're not drinking when we start. Booze and everything relating to booze has become kind of alien in my lifestyle. We don't serve alcohol or drinks at any of our social gatherings with faculty, friends, or children. And when we go places, people don't offer us drinks. Now, we live in a new test city. People don't know we're in AA. or, I don't know, my wife is in AA. But no one, no one seems to even be concerned about the fact of the particular lifestyle that we lead. It's a very comfortable lifestyle. And as a result, I think we've kind of passed some of this on to our children. Now, I know I have two kids in college over at CMU and I know they drink beer but when they come to our house they don't expect it they don' t bring it they don''t drag a six pack into the house and it's not because we've said that alcohol is evil or we can't handle it or we don't want to see it I think they do it out of respect for the lifestyle that Marion and I have chosen to live And I think also that one of the important things I think has come out of the lifestyle That we have adopted Using the AA principles Is that we, my children And I know we've demonstrated this in our lifestyle My children realize that they are responsible for their behavior Whether or not they're drinking one of the things that really bothers me about what I see and hear about in relationship to booze these days is that people feel they're not responsible for the way they behave when they're drinking and one of things I've emphasized with my kids is that we're always responsible for the ways we behave we're also always responsible for the how we act and by taking this particular philosophy And attaching to it what I call this rigorous, and I really do mean rigorous, personal honesty. It has given us an enormous, and that's an enormous amount of opportunity to enjoy life and enjoy people. And just like that guy said that night, I can still remember Frank saying it. He said, you'll never have to be afraid again. and I haven't been. Thanks a lot.