Why the Big Book Is Absolute Truth – Don C.

Hi I'm Don Cassini, alcoholic. The Sister Ignatia group is my home group in Cleveland and I've been there 30 we started that group 35 years ago and my sobriety date pay attention now for you people without a drink in between or a pill or any mind altering drugs or any counseling my sobriete date is August March 31st, 1961. Now you can take that one to the bank. I don't know which one of these is working, but I don' t say that to impress you. It impresses the hell out of me. And for you people who have a little bit of time, I want to tell you my sponsor who's got 51 years will be 52 next week. He's got – and we just finally got our first pension check out of New York. Anybody with over 40 years gets a check for the rest of their life. If they haven't drank, you can't come and drink in between meetings. It don't work. It says rarely have we seen a person fail who drank in between meetings gets sober. That's the bottom line. But, you know, I want to open this meeting with a serenity prayer before I – let me say this while we've got statistics here. I'll be 78 years old in February. I'm a young man in an old container, and I just about heard last week I was watching television with this guy at the race car in Viagra, and I thought that that was the name of the race card. They told me different. You know, I like to laugh, and before there's a part in the book that says there's principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot be failed to keep man everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. I first want to say I want to thank those people who come here from Cleveland, so if I get a little radical, that I got 30 people in here just from Cleveland area can back me up. And I got people from Louisville and I got people from Kentucky, I got People from Dayton. So listen to the old man. I just want to say, let's open a meeting with the Serenity Prayer. I didn't do that yet, did I? No. I have senior moments, so just hang in there. God grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference now this is the part that we should put on behind that living one day at a time enjoying one moment at atime accepting hardships in the pathway to peace take it as he did in this sinful world it is not and not as i will have it trusting that he will make all things right if i surrender to his will that i may be reasonably happy in this life and serenely happy with him forever amen And part of that, I'll talk about later on, played a very important part in my life. I'm going to just say this. I've been married a few times. And after I heard Pauline remind me that today I wanted to go to Hawaii, you see? And I didn't want to fly because of all this 9-11, you know? So I was laying on the beach in Cleveland, in a health club in Cleveland thinking, and all of a sudden a genie come by. And the genie said, you got one wish. What would you like to have? I said, well, you don't know. I want to go Hawaii so bad. I've been there three times, but now I can't fly because these planes will make me crazy. And she said, okay, give me what your wish is. I said, well, I'd like to get over to Hawaii, but I'd Like to have a bridge built so that I can drive over there. And the genie said, Well, he said, You know, that's a pretty big job. We've got to drive pylons down underneath the ocean. We've Got a long way to put this bridge, and that's expensive, and I don't think we can do it. So I said Well, let me do this. She said, you've got one more wish. What would you like? I said I've Been married four times. I don't understand women. Don't understand what the hell they think about, how they behave. Don't know nothing about it. And the genie said, do you want a two-lane or four-lane highway? Go nowhere. Yeah, that's... You know, while we were coming up here, I go over here, we're laughing a little bit because we get serious after a while. But I got time because she had an hour and a half and I ran upstairs, I couldn't shave didn't do nothing, couldn't find my belt that Ron brought down for me so if my pants fall just hang in there I found the belt Ron, thank you anyhow we're pulling into a rest area and a cop has got this car pulled over with the flashers going so we happen to park next to it he said to the guy what are you doing? He said you've been weaving all over that interstate and the guy said well he says I'm a minister and I've been practicing my speech And the guy said, well, he said, you know, your weaving is very dangerous, and God is not driving your car. He said, Well, I'm sorry. He said I forgot. I was just not thinking. So he said All right, keep on going now. He said Drive carefully and don't weave and don' t practice your speech for a sermon. So he's got to start to pull away. He puts the car in gear, and the sheriff says, Hey, just a minute, young man, minister. She said What's in that brown paper bag? He said Water because I get thirsty when I'm talking to myself. And he said Well, let me see the bag. So the sheriff picks up the car bag and puts it to his mouth, and he said, my God, this is wine. The minister says, oh, my god, he done it again. Okay, is that in here? I'm old. I lose my voice. But you know, I'm very grateful to be here. I thank Pat and them for asking me. Thank everybody who came down. And it's just great to be hier. It really is. I love Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know if you know it, but I'm excited. When I come up to a leader meeting, I'm exited because I say things that may not be you here. I say thing that happens. See, when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1961, maybe 75 to 80 people of the original first 150 out of Cleveland were still alive. And I'm going to tell you something. We had AlcoholicsAnonymous as it would be, should be, and could be if we behave. And I say that without any reservation. I don't know where we got these We got a lot of things in AA that don't belong here today Somebody talked about them Who was it? Mickey or Bev You know, I don' t understand What's happening in these meetings I don''t understand why people can't be on time Promptness is a virtue Take that one to the bank with you They're rushing here, rushing there Some people can' t wait 20 minutes to eat They're going to starve to death Some people Can' t stand a 20 minute lead Sit down, hang on, get your seatbelts on. I got a guy here 19 years sober last month. Where you at, little Richie? Right there. Little Richie and I stayed at a meeting one night when a guy talked for two and a half hours. His name was Ed Andy, came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1933 with the Oxford Group and went over to South America with Mark Hanna to see if they could carry this Oxford Group there. and we stood outside on a stairwell like this on the outside of the second floor building he was talking and we were there two and a half hours he stood there, his father stood there and a couple other guys stood there and nobody got drunk I've never seen people get drunk from going to too many meetings and I don't know where I'm at and where I am going to go with this thing because I've got a problem I had a rush so bad that I was going to take a nap for about 20 minutes but I happen to come here and I'm going to tell you I was a young man when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know if I told you I'm a young men in an old container but I was young when I got here I was not that young but I never drank I don' t know about these people who take a drink it's 6 months or a month a year and they're 15 or 13 years old and they chase that drink for the rest of their life they became an instant alcoholic there are no instant alcoholics if you read the doctor's opinion that tells you it's a process. We cross through that place where we become and we cross that invisible line when your body can't tolerate alcohol any longer and the more you put into it, the worse it gets. Alcohol was never my problem. Alcohol was my solution. It allowed me to do things I didn't want to do and justify it. It made me feel comfortable. I'll tell you, I got to start someplace to start at the beginning. I was 17 years old when they declared war in December 7, 1942. I know a lot of you people weren't around then. But they declared War and I thought I'd never see that army. I thought Japan was made of grass huts and we were going to burn them out in a couple of weeks and I had problems with authority all my life. I had troubles in school. I had trouble with the cop on the corner. And one thing about Italians, we don't like to take orders. We don't really like it. really. And you know, I decided in February on my birthday, I joined the United States Army. And when I got to Camp Perry, I realized I made a grave mistake. Man, they were nasty, shouting at you and everything. So I made the decision then that I wasn't going to take this crap. And on the third day, I went over the hill for the first time. Now I'm going to take it through this brilliant Army career because I'll sum it up this way. This is a nice kid that didn't drink yet. Now get that through your head. But a lot of character defects, and that's what we inventory when we take our inventory, character defects. I've never inventoried vodka. Here's the first guy in 30-some years I've been speaking around the country. Mike here is the first man I've ever heard drinking slow gin fizz, creamy top slow gin fiz. First guy, honest to God. You'll hear about that in my story later on. You had to be sick, buddy. Didn't do for you what it did for me. But anyhow, I came home for the first time and my dad didn't like the idea. I was only in the Army three days and I had a furlough already. But he didn't understand it. When they came to get me, then he understood them and the MPs came to my house. And it was not a thing, but I had 15 summaries, two generals who were sent to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas to do two years and get a dishonorable discharge. This kid only drank one time in the Army. That happened in 1943. What am I doing? Ninety-three. Anyhow, the night I drank, I went to town and I wanted to dance. And I knew alcohol was a social lubricant. I heard that. So I found a girl up there by Gonorrhea Gulch who was right outside the post. And I took her to Joppa, Missouri with me and we had a package store town. Somebody talked about package store towns. You brought alcohol in a room on the side and then you came into a big room like this and you danced. And I didn't know, there was no alcohol. The war had started. See, they took the whiskey off the market. So I said to this guy, what do you got to make a girl sexy? And he said, I got old Mr. Boston creamy top slow gin. And it looked like wine. I thought it tasted like Dr. Pepper or something. I forget what we had at that time. So, and I said, well, give me two bottles because I knew my dad could drink a bottle of wine. And when we start dancing, I want to tell you, you watch the dance tonight here. Some of these guys will not touch a girl if they're on that dance floor all night long. They're just out there doing this shit, you know? And I mean, that's doing some shit, man. And, you Know, if you want to know what life was like in my era, you watched AMC, you You know, and I still watch Gary Grant. And the other day, when he took that romance, he was on that cruise ship with that girl, and they were going to meet at the top of the terminal. I forget the name of the movie. Now, I saw it too many times. A fair to remember. Thank you, Lynn. I just saw it the other día. And, you know, when we danced, we knew what we had. You had a girl in your arms. You could feel it. You know what I mean? Nothing of this shit. The lights are flashing. You don't know what you got. You've missed the whole boat. And we had a girl in our arms, and you could hold them and feel what was there, and you can sort of dip them a little bit, bend them down to the floor in between, and then sip on some gin. So we were sipping and dipping, just sipping and dipping. And we kept on sipping and dipping until 1130, and she hasn't got the program yet. I got it. Man, I'm in full force going. And all of a sudden, I remember what they told me on the corner. We've got one more bottle of gin to go through, and I remember a guy, every corner Italian neighborhood we were all Italians I mean a lot of all Italians when I went to the army we went 224 out of one area they wanted to clean us out but anyhow I'm there now I got to think you know we got a great computer up here in our head there's things you're going to remember 10 years from now you may remember one thing I say today even if it's when I say crap it may turn your life around but it may turn into crap too but you know it's just and I remember one guy he taught you how to roll cigarettes we didn't have cigarettes like your kids have today he taughtyou how to go to dances,he taughtyouhowtosmoke he taughtyourwhereplacestogooverpute but I never went there because I was a nice guy but youknowhetaughtuseverything he taughtyouhowtoshootpool and then he would say now when you go to a dance with the girl and you want to get her sexy, just blow in her ear. So I was sip, dipping, and blowing, sip, dip, and blow. And I wound up in Springfield, Missouri and don't have any idea how I got there. That's bad. And I thought I was drugged. I had no money the first time out of the barrel. I lost my money, lost my date, lost everything, didn't have nothing. And all I had was a dog tag and I had a uniform. And you called the MPs and at that time if you called the MPs and you had no more money left and you were in the wrong place, you had to pay for them to pick you up. Anyhow, to make a long story short, I told them all my story. I don't remember nothing about this girl. And I went and I got paid. We got paid $21 a month. Nobody today would go to the Army for $21 a month, no way in the world. When I went there, I only had $11 to pay an envelope, like these brown envelopes the bank gives you. And I wanted to know what happened. And the guy said, well, he said, the paymaster said, well, you better see the company commander. I said, I didn't take an allotment out. I don't know why this is here. He said, see the Company Commander. This is the Company Command that helped me get to the penitentiary. But he was a decent guy, really, he was. And anyhow, I went to see him and I said you know, I don' t know why you got an allantment out of there. He said someone filed for an allatment. He said you know the weekend we brought you back last month? Well, you got married that weekend. I said, no way. No way. He said, yeah. See, at that time in 1942, all you had to do was have a dog tag number, 3505-4594. You can't use it no more, so don't worry about it. But anyhow, I went around telling everybody at the camp what a rotten trick that was. I don't know nothing about it, the government is all screwed up. And finally I met a priest about four months later, his name was Father Garcia, I'll never forget him. I said to him, what happened? He said, well, he had to look into it. I hate to tell you, but sometimes when I hear talk to a priest, they're going to look Into It reminds me of some of our delegates. You tell them to do something in New York, they're gonna look into It, they come back six years later and they're out of office. They didn't find nothing out yet. But you know, I try to stop this big book from being printed, but then no one paid any mind to me. I got some old ones. If you want to buy a classic one, last edition, I got a box they're higher now, they're only $20 a book but you can't get them well anyhow what happened was I finally had that annulled and she was a very patriotic American and they found out she married five or six guys that night and you know I never bothered to find out if I was first in line or last because my luck would have been the last guy in line and things weren't like they are today sanitary but you know it was just a terrible experience So anyhow, I got in some trouble with this company commander. I had hurt my knee on an obstacle course, and I was swelled up. And we were marching full field pack with rifles and bayonets and all. And I felled off to the side of the road because I couldn't go no more. They get swelled right into the size of the pants. And I jumped on the back of a truck there, these trucks, the troop-carrying trucks that the tailgate was down. You get on theback, and you ride it back until the end of the march, you know. I jumped on that thing and he saw me jump up there And he came by and pulled me off And when he pulled me of I had that rifle And I just bust him right in the head with it And that's not too nice I didn't even think I needed the trial Because I barely didn't get one When I walked in I was guilty going in And I got two years in the federal penitentiary A nice kid that drank one time You know what I brought with me I brought those character defects I had on the corner And I get so sick and tired of people telling me they're going to inventory this and that. Well, I'll talk about that a little later. We got more time. We ain't going nowhere. We're going nowhere at 8 o'clock. And everybody I know went out to eat. They just got back just in time, my friends, you know? They got to eat, you Know, they got to get to eat You know, they gotta eat. God forbid you should miss a meal 20 minutes apart. Oh, God. I'll tell you one thing. There's a hell of a restaurant up here, Alexander's. 22 bucks you get ribs, they're great. Go there. I can go because the group pays for all my food. I'm a sport. Anyhow, no, I'll get on the side. But you know, and I went there, and when I was there, you go, we didn't have like cells, and we had barracks-like, and it was all separated with four guys in chicken wire, you know. And one day after about eight months they came in and they said, you know... We got an opportunity for some of you guys to get an honorable discharge. And if you want to join Armed Special Forces, which we got them today, one of the guys got killed in it. So you go there and you get special training. You get maybe five months of special training, night fighting, using machetes and your bayonets. And we had to go into the island undercover late at night, and we had them find out and search out where they were sitting. And if you come back alive, and he said out of 12, your squad of 12 men, if eight come back out alive, that's a miracle. Now every alcoholic, I wasn't an alcoholic then. I didn't even know I was an alcoholic until I got here. I was surprised. But what happened, no one thinks that they're going to become an alcoholic. You sit in a bar and a guy says, man, you're drinking too much. Look at that guy down there. He's worse than I'll ever be. And, you know, then one day you find a guy worse than that guy. and no one believes that's a myth of illusion that we're never going to get killed and we're not going to die and our hearts are never going to explode with that crack that they used today and we are never going to commit suicide that's an illusion somebody alluded to that I think it was Mike how many friends just passed away he should put a bullet in their mouth and you know I want to just say this while I'm on that thought no one commits suicide when they're drunk they commit suicide when they're sober because they stop drinking here and back here is reality and nothing is put in between here and reality and someday you just can't face this real world again and they drink again and they drank again that's what happens anyhow I went there and I made two major invasions and I was in the South Pacific And then on the third one, we went in, and I was next to my cousin Mikey. And we were going in with flamethrowers and grenades. And, you know, it doesn't look any different today when I see what we got over there in, what's the name of that country where Bin Laden's at? Afghanistan or something. They're buried in those caves like that, and when you get them out, if they come out, they stink. They've been in there. They've got lice on them. And, You know, you just go in,and you know you've got to go in. I was telling somebody today at lunch, you get to the point where you don't give a damn if you're dead. If you die, you just don't have to fight no more. It's all over with. And that's what happens to a lot of us. And, you know, my cousin Mikey stepped on a landmine. He was about from here to there away from me. He got killed instantly, and I was blown up badly. And the first word out of my mouth, because I haven't talked to God in a long time, from when I was 13 years old maybe, I said, did I get hurt bad enough to go home to Carmen? He said, you're going home, kid. You ain't going to be back no more. And I said thank you, God. The first time I ever thought about thanking God. I was born a Catholic. I'm still a Catholic, once a Catholic always a Catholic because I don't know why people change. God is God, you know. God is god. And I was sent to Hawaii for surgery. I had two operations in Hawaii and then sent back to America to Pasadena General where the parade goes by and now I was commanded by the Army Hospital and I stayed there and I had three more operations there I had to learn to walk all over again and when I went to California I fell in love with California it was beautiful, you could smell the orange groves in Pasadeno some of you from California know that's what it was like years ago and you could see everything, the girls the buildings were different colors and everything was beautiful, the streets were clean the war was still on and soldiers were all over the city everything was going in the afternoon there was everything happening and I fell in love with it and the girls were gorgeous I gotta say that, they were gorgeous and you'll find out through my lead I had trouble with neons and nylons big problem and I still can have some trouble today not that I saw that race car But anyhow, I stayed there and I fell in love. And when I was discharged, I didn't come home. And you know, I got jobs. I want to say one thing because today I know a lot of people don't like to work, you see. If anyone here, don't take me offense because I don't know who you are and I'm not speaking to you directly. But they like to get an SSI because they're an alcoholic. And a lot OF them like to go to college because they get money for going to college when they're drunks. Most of them want to be brain surgeons, you know. They got to still get a GE debt test to get in college. So you know we got a problem. But I worked all my life, all my Life. I worked in a perfume factory in California and I worked pressing records for RCA Victor. We had those old rubber records. We'd press them there and burn your hands. And I worked. And one day these people come in. They're all Italian. They come in from Cleveland, Buffalo, Chicago, New York, St. Louis, all over, Youngstown. I don't want to leave you out, Bill Peek. And they come in and they're all Italian. And my cousin Bad Eye was one of them. And he said to me, listen, go down here now and talk to this guy and tell him you want to be an organizer. I didn't know what an organizer was. So I said, what do I do, Bad Eye? He said, you stand by a gate with a baseball bat and don't let no one get through. Well, that was not hard. You see, when you get to the point where I was at, nothing could kill me. I didn't believe anything could kill be. I had gone through that war, blown up, and I did everything, and nothing could tell me. And I said, okay. So I went, and got a gate, the 20th Century Fox. It was the farthest gate in the lot. Even the fire department didn't know that gate was there because my cousin Bad Eye put me there so no one would give me a pass. But that went on for three months, the strike. and one day they kidnapped Cecil B. DeMille and when they did that the strike was all over and you know when we went to get a job we went through the Ambassador Hotel and the guy said to me what would you like to do for work at the studio and who wanted to be a carpenter who wanted to be a bricklayer who wanted to be a grip hand who wanted to be an electrician and I thought labor was a Mexican border or something so I said I want to be a hairdresser and this Italian guy little short guy never forget about as wide as his table said to my kid them people are funny. Don't worry about it. I know all about it, and I got to tell you why, so you don't think I'm funny. Anyhow, I went to beauty school in 1940 for 30 days. A buddy of mine was a hairdresser. I mean, he was going to Elizabeth Carlos Dress to Make Desk Designing School, and I met him. I didn't see him for a couple months because we loved dancing. And I said, Mike, where have you been? And he said, oh, I'm going to dress design school. He said, it's great there. I said, what's so great about it? He said man, there's about 80 girls and two guys. Now you add that up, you've got pretty good odds. And I said well how about if I go join the dress design school? He said no. He said just why don't you go to beauty school because there's 102 girls to three guys. And I figured even a blind chick would get a Colonel LaCroix once in a while. So I went to beauty class. I went back to beauty for 30 days and I went back to beauty school in 1941 for 30 days, and I went back to beauty schools in 1942 for 30 years until I went to the Army. But you know, I didn't learn nothing. All I did was just fool around. And when I got the chance to go work for 20th Century Fox, I was very fortunate. I was blessed. Most alcoholics fall into a lot of crap. They're just lucky they get that. And I went there, and I had to start learning what I needed to learn. and Helen Hunt was very gracious she took time to show me and I said you know my dad tells me that too once you start doing something if you do it continuously if you're a tradesman, you're an electrician carpenter or plumber you serve an apprenticeship and one day you become a journeyman and then everything falls right into place no different than Alcoholics Anonymous when I come here you had served that five year apprenticeship and then the work began and the sixth year. Today they're here and after 30 days they're so god damn smart they don't know what day. And I'll tell you the worst part, they come out of a treatment center, they're all in love. Oh God, they fall in love with the woman of their life. I'm getting ahead of myself, but let's get on that track now. And they got a husband at home and she's got a wife, he's got her wife at home, but this woman understands me. I know about this, I went through it. No, I didn't go to that treatment center. But I went though this stuff, you know and all of a sudden there's So much in love. Now, if you've got treatment centers here, I think they hurt. You've got some here. We don't have no more in Cleveland. And don't break them up because there's only two screwed up. If you break them off, this guy goes and finds another broad. She goes and find another guy. That's four screwed up! You can do that in four days. You've just got the whole treatment center screwed up, everybody's in love, and the only one that suffers is the girl in six months that finds out she's pregnant and she doesn't know where to go. Welfare, that's where you go. You know, but it's sad. And anyhow, I went to work and I started working on Starless Hair for nothing. And just because I wanted to practice. And one day, sure as she promised me, one day a constant repetition, practice, practice, process. One day everything fell into place. When you set a curl with an S, you form the S, and you brush it out and make that wave, you know. And we had to do this because if you shot a scene today and then she had to have the same hairdo down the road three weeks later coming out of a different part of this scene they put these pictures together they just don't run it all at once so it was assembled that way and it had to be perfect and it started to work and one day I was doing bits and pieces on some of the movie stars that are not doing much and one days she said Cassini I'm going to tell you something I'm putting your name on the screen you can start working on movie stars The first picture I worked in was Summer Centennial with Linda Darnell and Jeannie Crane. And you know, when your name is on that screen and you're a little dago like me that's cocky and got an attitude and an ego, I've got to say that too, you haven't got a prayer because you're flying high. You took off from ground level like one of these planes that go straight up. Maybe when you take dope, you do that. Boom, straight up! And you now, I was there. I arrived. the war is still on man I'm having I buy some nice clothes but I'm making more money now a week than my father makes in a month because we had still OPA seating you couldn't make any more money but I was in the studios we got paid and now I buy a car befitting to a nice Italian boy I bought myself a 39 Buick Roadmaster with the wheels on the side fender wells you know and white wall tires long before they even knew about gangster white walls we had them and then you could drive down the street with the windows rolled up and you could see some girls on Hollywood and Vine, they would get in the car and you'd tell them the damn fan belt just broke on that air conditioning unit. And I'd say, roll the windows down. We can stand it. But I didn't have no air conditioning. I was lying, you know? But it was the ego taking over. And then one day I'm standing there and I'm going to meet some guy at the corner of Hollywood andvine, Hank Martino. And he was in my hospital with me. And we're going to be there. And he doesn't show up. And doesn't shows up. So I see two girls walk into the Bullyburg Swing Club on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. The doors were open, there was no air conditioning, and you could hear the music coming out. I don't know if you had them here, but you have a merry-go-round, and we had a merry go-round car wash. Right in the middle of the car wash were all the people that worked. Now on this merry-Go-Round, the bar went around ever so low like that same table turns up at the top of Niagara Falls, and one in Toronto too. And the bartender stayed right in the metal, and they went around and you always had a new bartender but they put it on a check and the King Cole Trio was playing it was that King Cole's family trio at that time and them two girls walked in that bar and I heard that music and I saw that back bar and I hadn't drank nothing but Coca-Cola since that time I got married and all of a sudden I saw those girls go in they smelled good, they looked good and there I went back to Neons and Nylons and you know when i think about let me just say this to you when those men that got me into the studios were members of an organization better known as probably the mafia maybe some of you heard about that often and i want to just tell you today if you leave alcoholics anonymous that's like leaving the mafia you're dead you haven't got a prayer i guarantee you no one comes back here after 15 years of drinking and says i had a wonderful time i just want to tell you what bars I went to so you don't get too drunk, you know. Anyhow, I started the drink and I didn't get instantly drunk. I didn' t get drunk at all. I just felt comfortable. So for you guys that took that first drink and it did something for you, God bless you. Especially if you took it at four years old and remembered it, you now. If I knew I was going to be up here, I'd have wrote notes, you kno. I'd a journaled it, y'know. But anyhow, I just started drinking. And then one day these same guys came back about in 1947 and asked me to head up a sting operation, I had to get the movie stars to be stung. If you saw a movie, Paul Newman, that was what would happen. And I got three movie stars and they went down for a couple hundred thousand dollars and there was no wire service out there. It was just chalkboard. Somebody was talking about it to maybe you were talking about you wanted to be like Stoney or some guy. But they were all those gangsters in there, you know, and they had that phony wire service and the race may have been off 20, 10 minutes ago, but it just came up and they marked it on the board. You could hear it coming over the loudspeakers. They're calling it off in the back room, you know. And when these guys find out they lost all that money on that one race, they got crazy. And I said, don't bother with me. See these guys here? I didn't do nothing here. I just brought you here. And one guy starts arguing, and next thing you know, they're shooting phony bullets at things you see from movies of blood spurting out. And I said, you guys better get to Lake Tahoe and stay up there for six months until this thing clears off. And then my cousin Bad Eye said to me, you better get back to Cleveland or you're going to be in trouble. You're at fault. Well, I came back to Cleveland in the middle of the night on a train loaded with soldiers. And, man, I put that tearing look on. My father died. I got to come home. And they gave me whatever I wanted. I got back to cleveland. I had the same thing. I didn't want authority. Now I'm drinking more. And I get into cleveland and I'm here for two weeks and my father and mother don't like my behavior and I go to New York. Who cares? and I went to New York and I had an uncle up there that owned a theater bar and grill and Piccadilly Circus Bar in Times Square and he owned the Tavern on the Green and he couldn't hardly speak English so you know where he made his money and you know, I said give me a job I can't get a union card here so he sent me to see a woman, Helena Rubenstein she said do you like to travel and I said yes, I'm from California because I have a disease and pollen affects me, I can breathe well that pollen would have been 10 years if I'd have got caught So she said, oh, don't worry about that. Get a passport. I got a passport, and now my life went to hell completely. When I got aboard those ocean-going liners, I had a beautiful uniform. Watch, I don't know if it sounds, love boat, you know? Ten times magnified that, and it was just great. And then I got on, and the war was still just ending. And the people were traveling. They traveled, the wives alone. And the husband would say, take a cruise and relax and just enjoy yourself. When you come home, we can balance back out together again. And they didn't know those little sneaky hairdressers standing behind that chair just to wait. Now I want to tell you, she was a hairdresser, but I was a hair dresser and I became a psychologist. And I would listen to these women talk. And I'm going to tell You, I put in until 1980-something as a hairdressor. And, you know, I know everything that happens to women. That's why I like them so well, you Know? I'm not a fool. but you know I just couldn't I got in trouble I started drinking differently I would drink every two and a half to three hours four to six ounces of vodka and I would stay level see that's the difference an alcoholic gets level when they take that other marching powder they go straight to heaven boom they bounce down and they gotta find another rock or something what the hell they call it but they don't stay level alcoholics get level They mellow out. And one day they get so mellow, they fall asleep. You know, they get tired. They puke and they're ready to go again. But now this is getting me in trouble because my conscience is bothering me. Now we're going to start talking about things, our colleagues in the office, we don't hear any longer. We don't care about conscience. We don' t hear about self-respect. We don''t care about dignity. We don ''t care abou shame. We don'T care about none of that stuff today because it's now a new technical term. We give you a little Prozac and you become comfortable. You don't want to go through this crap. Anyhow, it's getting so bad that I can't stand myself. And then I rationalized, well, I'm not married. They're married. It's not adultery. That's good. And I went on my merry way, man, rationalizing, drinking. Every time I wake up in the morning, I felt a little twinge in my conscience. Drink a little more of that. And that guy said, do you want to war in England? Do you wantto go see the Big Ben? Who the hell wants to see a rusty clock bong, you know? let's go drink and then all of a sudden we're in a bar the ship's in port and they throw me out of the bar because I'm complaining they never paid their war debt see I got that mouth again and then I started again I hate you Englishmen and they said we're not too fond of you Bobbies took you back to the ship I know today they saved my life many times then I went to France and the answer was just bad I don't like Frenchmen I'm sorry if there's any Frenchmen here when I go to Montreal I spoke at the Montreal's 50th anniversary. And those Frenchmen don't like Americans at all. They talk French, and neither of them speak better English than me. But over there, who would want to see that Eiffel Tower? These guys had cameras and everything. I don't want to See No Rusty Piece of Iron. Let's drink. Let's get on with it, baby. No one wants that crap. I got in trouble there, and I got into trouble in Italy. Now, when you get in trouble in India, you're Italian, you've got a problem. anyhow in december 1949 about four days before christmas i ship docked in new york city on pier 48 and i come off that ship and i said i'm going home maybe my mother can slow down my drinking i didn't want to quit don't get me wrong i had no intentions of quitting and i had found the same thing same mother and father they were telling me what to do they forgot I was gone all those years I handled myself but anyhow I didn't know what to do and I'm back here in Cleveland and on January the 1st I met a guy and I went to work for a guy named Joe Patero who was at that time one of the first guys building beauty salons I was the first guy to work and in two years I'd become very successful we were doing TV shows and in 1952 I was living high on a hog but I was drinking like a hog and I was drinkin' the same way every two and a half to three hours of vodka and I started to develop a puking habit I don't know why I was pukin' it was probably some fish I ate or somethin' but you know it started and you know I was just havin' a great time I really loved bein' a hairdresser I did if one of my kids could've been a hairdressers I'd have been happy because they'd have had a hell of a life if they behaved. But, you know, and then I decided that I'm going to do something. So I said I'm gonna build a beauty salon of my own and in 1950, 51, I think 50, end of 50, I signed the lease to build a beautiful salon in some godforsaken part of Mayfield Heights which was wilderness at that time and I went to the bartender downtown and I said, Augie, I'm opening up in about six months he said doc i'm going to tell you something you know if you drink like you're doing now forget about that beauty salon because you're going to lose it i said he said you better do something so i said i'll figure what i'm gonna do i'm smart so i figured i'll get married so i found an italian girl she was a model of one of the million department stores, a millinery model. And she used to have those hat models, you know. And anyhow, I told him I'm going to get married, and he said, you're sick. I got a lot of guys, if they think their drinking would stop if they got married, I could line them up for you. Well, we got married. She married me because that was exciting. And all of a sudden, the excitement started to kill her. So 14 months later, after we were making all that money, she said, I want a divorce. I said, good. Now I can drink the way I want to drink, come home when I want to come home and I don't have to hear your mouth. And she said, I'm going to tell you something. You're a drunk and I didn't make you a drunk. You drank every drink yourself. And now I don' t know what to do so I'm starting now. My mother is picking on me. She's got these religious people she's going to cure me with. I went to Catherine Coleman in Pittsburgh. I don''t know if you ever heard of her here or here. She's dead now a few years. She had reddish hair and she was a healer. And no offense, I went there with her to please my mother. I got dipped and I got bopped And nothing happened And then we start on this merry-go-round Then they come Ernest Angel Rex Humbart is building This big cathedral in Akron And she said Well, we'll go here To hear Rex Hombart He's good I see him on television He just come out And I said Okay, we're going So we go to Rex Hambart And I got duped and boppped Over there And nothing happens So if you're here today Waiting for something To happen to you The only thing You've got to rub off On you is old age Or the dirt on the chair That they didn't wipe off before you got here. You don't get Alcoholics Anonymous by osmosis. It takes an action of some sort. Anyhow, then I went to see Billy Graham at the Cleveland Stadium and I'm up in the second tier and you had to walk down to get saved. Now I'm walking down and my mother's just beaming because she figures Billy Graham is going to do the job. Now I want to tell you something. I had no more intentions of getting sober then than I have winning the lottery today for that chance. So I got dipped and bopped. Guy come over there, and he's going to come to my house and talk to me. I said, no, I'm fine. I made the altar call. My mother's happy. I'm happy. I'm cured. And I was drinking a lot. 1950, let me get a date here now. Wait a minute. I got married in 1952. 1954, my uncle came into my house, and he said, Doc, you're drinking too much. and I said what do you mean he said I'm watching you're drinking too much he said if you ever want help I'll help you now I didn't know nothing about A&A or WAPA or what the hell it is and he never said nothing to me he just said I'll Help You and my uncle came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1941 now I want to tell you people who are here on a free ride there's a lot of free rides in these programs today you got them gift certificates that's a free ride take advantage of it don't drink even if your ass falls off for six months pick it up and put it back on but don't Drink and my uncle never mentioned the word Alcoholics Anonymous to me because when I came to AA you had to be invited or you had ask and pick up that 25 pound telephone and say I need help and people just don't want to surrender and everything you read in Alcoholics Anonymous from the 12 and 12, anything in the big book, you must surrender first to win. We had a guy by the name of John Parr, a professor in the Paradox out of Akron and I used to meet him when I went to Akron University and he said you have to surrender to win where else do you go to surrender to win? Nowhere nowhere, think about it Muhammad Ali never surrendered to win, he just fought to win these other guys get knocked out and they don't surrender, they just get knocked out. And that's what happens to the alcoholic. And you've got to give it away to keep it. Whoever heard of that thing? Well, it's got to be nuts, you know. What have you got to do to give away to Keep It? And you're going to suffer to get well. Well, everyone here who's here today suffered to get here. If you're here because you just drank a little too much tulip squeeze and orange pop and you had a stomach ache and the judge says you're an alcoholic, let me just tell you one thing. I went through this, so I may offend somebody here. The judge has no right to call you an alcoholic. And if you read your big book, it said the only person who can call you as an alcoholic is yourself. You know there's labeling girls out there for things they've never done, bad things, and they'll live the rest of their life and suffer with that because people are talking. See? If you're not an alcoholic, you can't become an alcoholic until you drink, and you drink enough to cross that line. Now, I know people introduce themselves as alcoholic and addicts. I want to tell you, when I got sober, I lived in an attic, so I know what they're talking about. Anyhow, it got so bad, and then I figured I'd get married again. Well, church didn't work, so I'd be married again, and I'd find an Irish girl. I've got three beauty salons open now. And she don't... I thought she would be the ideal match. she was Irish. You know, an Irish liked to drink. I figured, how the hell could I miss with this one? And she worked for me. So I'd take her out and at 10.30 I'd bring her home because she didn't want to drink, she just wanted to eat supper and go home. Well, that went on for a while. And then one day we ran away and got married. And I loved her. I really did. This is 1950. Wait a minute, 55 I ran away with her, yeah. Anyhow, we went to get married and when I went to meet my father-in-law he watched me drinking vodka out of the water glasses. And he said, kid, you're going to blow them three beauty salons you got. You're going lose your wife and you can kill yourself. He said, if you want any help with that drinking, let me know. And I said, go see my Uncle Tommy in Collinwood. He joined the Holy Roller. You can start your own Holy Rollers Church because they were just coming up that Holy Rollered stuff. And he walked away from me. My father-in-law got sober in 1939, the week after the big book came out. never once told me about Alcoholics Anonymous and let me say one more thing to you maybe John alluded to this you cannot educate anybody into sobriety it takes a total surrender to know that you're sick and you don't want to live and you think I'm lying to you and I'll show it to you where it's in the book that big book has never lied The big book is absolute truth. Stopping drinking is the easiest thing you're going to do. After a couple of weeks, you're sober. You're dried out. You may have diarrhea for a while. Who cares? What the hell? Anyhow, my drinking prescripts are bad. I was doing 176 weeks of TV on my own show, and I built eight beauty salons. I had three children born in that marriage, and I remember them being born. Never gave them a bottle, never changed a diaper, never did nothing. And my father-in-law never mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous to me because it was a jewel. People would come from Columbus to go to Akron to get sober. People would comes from Toledo to go Akron and get sober, the guy that brought AA to Toledo got sober in Dr. Bob's house. The people that came from Cleveland, Clarence Snyder and all those other gentlemen that I met in my lifetime, they went and they were driving those old broken down cars. They didn't have the cars like we've got today. You could fall into 100 meetings in Columbus over here without dirtying your clothes while rolling down the street. And what do we do? We don't like the speakers, they talk too long, this is too bad. We need no smoking room they ate because their meetings are outside the buildings now. Freezing their ass up, you know. And then when the meeting's over, they're out there again. Where's the fellowship? We've lost it. We've got 20 guys here. anyhow one day I was left in Las Vegas and I blew a lot of money that I shouldn't have blown and I had to pay it back and there was nobody from Cleveland there I could talk to that day and they said you got to get the money so what happened I finally wrote out a check it was federal withholding tax and I don't know if you're in business but if you use that there money you got a problem if it isn't there by the next time your payment is due and I used that check $15,000 now when I come back to Cleveland I'm in trouble The guy left me there, this Italian road builder. And I hated him. See, somebody mentioned hate today. I don't know who it was, one of the speakers. Italians do not resent because we didn't know what resentments were. We just go hate. And if hate isn't enough, we go to vendettas. Very simple. It's easy. It just passes right on through, you know? And I, I hated them. And one day in 1961, in July, he walked into my beauty salon in Eastgate, Maple Heights, and he said, come on, Doc, I want to buy you a drink. Now, I needed the drink. I needed to drink, and I want to tell you one thing. If you're not a real alcoholic, you will never understand the compulsion. You may have the mental obsession, but until you take that first drink, the compunction doesn't start. I don't know if my book is different, so excuse me, maybe it was an older book. But, you know, I come around and I woke up on August 31st. I went to three meetings. I heard about Sister Ignatia gives you all you want to drink. I heard if they want it, you're in there and they can't take you out, even if you committed a crime and she used to never let them come out. She'd have the police stand by the door, finish your six days and five nights there. And then I heard About Liver Trouble. So on August31st, I wokeup that morning, totally swelled up, couldn't put my clothes on, couldn't pull my pants on, nothing fit. how to tie ropes through my loophole and you know what happened I called the doctor and she said he'll be here at 1 30. Called my wife and said I couldn't come to work I didn't feel good cut my tennis shoes so I could get my swelled up feet in them and I called it went to this doctor and he said Don he said you got to go to here in road hospital because you got liver trouble and I said I can't go to a hospital because this is Labor Day weekend and I I've just got to payroll. We made payroll by hand then. So I had over 100 people working for me at that time, eight beauty salons, a school downtown, and he said well I'm going to fill a prescription for a lady in the other room and when I come back I want an answer from you or I'm gonna call your wife. So when he came back he said what is your gonna do? And I opened and I said I got a sponsor. Now I don't know where I got that sponsor word from. I'll tell you where I got it. In those three meetings while counting seating tiles and floor tiles I heard that word and it stuck up here I told you you've got the greatest computer in the world And I said, I've got a sponsor He said, call your sponsor and have him take you to his hospital We had small hospitals In the neighborhood of 10, 12 bed small hospitals And he said I said I'll call him I called my sponsor I said where's Ted I said he wants to talk to your husband She said I will have him call you right back And I Waited And pretty soon the call came back And it was him on the phone talked to the doctor and the doctor said he's got to get in the hospital now because he may not make it and he told him how bad i was and he said i'll call you right back the sponsor told him and the sponsor called sister ignatian she said bring them in and i tell you one thing if i ever think i'm going too far for alcoholics anonymous my sponsor drove from dunkirk new york to cleveland ohio on old route 20 because there's no interstates at that time and if i leave where i live now it It takes me two and a half hours to get there on interstates, 90. He drove all that way home. And they were told at that time, because I was told it too, when you sponsor somebody, you're charged with their life. Let's not give them a deluded message. I was with a girl last night. She said she did her fourth step in about four months, six months, you know, but it took her two years to get rid of it. And that's like going home to a refrigerator full of rotten food, and you know it's in there and you know if you open the door you can see it but you're not going to clean it out not until you're ready anyhow I was brought into Rosary Hall the minute I hit Rosary Hall I was laying in a gurney there and Sister Ignatia come in and she said call the minister preached in Father Winchester his name was in the good old time Dr. Bob and Father Winchester gave me last rights and I went into a coma and had an out of body experience I was immediately taken to this third floor which at took out 7 liters of water or 7 gallons whatever it was and they tapped me and I went down I became like a guy from the baton march big stomach, I went from 176 pounds down to about 114 and I was fed in a venus leaf for 3 weeks and they were praying every day in Rosary Hall in the chapel that I would make it and the giants of alcoholics would come in and talk to me and i thought they were all full of crap one guy said what's an alcoholic oh he's an alcoholic he can't go back to social drinking I thought he was smart because he came out of Kingsbury Run He's one of the guys that walk out alive But you know, he learned that in a big book I found out later And people would tell you things They finally told me I can go down and say the rosary And when I went down They would wheel me down And they would talk to me And these were the giants of Alcoholics Anonymous Some of the first hundred men My uncle, my father-in-law, Harry Ryan All these guys and these guys were giants and you know sister would say this is big business for them and it's not talking about money we're talking about saving lives they were dedicated to saving lives we had no counselors they were our counselors and finally one day a guy's wheeling me down Sister Ignatia comes up to my room it's in October now end of October and she said you can go out of here now and finish off your drunk because your attitude stinks. Or she said, you can go downstairs and go to Rosary Hall and never come back again because we only allowed him one time. And, you know, we had 75% recovery when I went through Rosary All. I want you to think what you've got today. Something is missing someplace. Anyhow, I set out. She said, well, tell me in the morning. As she turned around, I said, I'll show you, you little penguin. And she said, what did you say? I said, I talked to you in the morning, sister. I went down to never take another drink again. And when I came out of that hospital, I had no clothes to fit me. My sponsor bought me a wash and wear shirt. And at that time, everybody wore sport jackets and ties to meetings. If you went to Rosary Hall, she'd give you a tie to wear, Sister Ignatia. And I hated everything because I signed the power of attorney and gave my wife eight beauty salons, a home, three children, and everything. and it was all gone and I didn't know where she went when I got out of the hospital she was gone everything was gone so you know I had no my book says you don't have to have your wife you don'y have to have children you don''t have to have a job all you gotta do is want to quit drinking those are the things that want the desire to quit drinking and you know I went to meetings I went to meetings I went to meetings I always I didn''t like women speakers because they were planting orange trees and bird houses and all that crap. I had one guy, I fell in love with him. He came out of Louisville, Kentucky. He was with the Associated Sports Writers' paper. And he got his wife back after 10 years of sobriety. And I said, well, maybe she'll come back. I'm going to tell you, it's 40 years and I don't want to hear from nothing about her. Anyhow, I come out of that place and I had the IRS after me. Everybody wanted me. And one day I walked in there and I said to Sister Ignatia, I'm coming to the federal court today I said, and I'm going to go to jail with this money. And she said, don't worry about it. And she gave me a card, and the card said, pray daily. God's easier to talk to than most people. And she says, Don, where you're going, that may be your only salvation. And now I knew I was going to jail. So when I got there, I was standing in front of that bench, and she told me before I left, don'T you dare tell them that you're a member of AA because I don't want to hear about that. What do you think I tell that judge? He said, well, you've got to say, Your Honor, I've been sober over a year or so. He said I don't care. I've only been sober for 25 years. It was Judge Cassidy. And he said see me in the back of the chambers. And he gave me the opportunity to pay back all that money. And I paid back the federal internal revenue. I paid them off the last check in 1980. Paid back a lot of money. They'd like to double up. Their interest is better than the mafia's. anyhow I started to go and my co-sponsor committed suicide in a she owned Valley Ford truck sales in Cleveland my sponsor went back to drinking I had to find a new sponsor and some of you people know my sponsor and he was a big guy then 340 pounds he said get in the car my name is Don not get in a car so we start to drive and and my nickname was Doc and everybody knew that So we're driving. We're going to Kentucky. Oh, what the hell? We drive all night to get to Gethsemane. I don't want to hear nothing about God because everything was gone. They're talking. The smart cigars are filled up to smoke you. You got to get the cart out and scrape the nicotine off the windows by the time you got to Kentucky, and it was just living, you know, and all of us lived to be over 77 years old. Isn't that funny? None of us died of lung cancer. What do you think about it? Maybe they didn't have Prozac then. Anyhow, it got so bad that I went up there and there was a priest there. And this little priest was skinny, small, and one day I walk in there at 9 o'clock in the morning. That's my clock, but I've got time on this one. I said it yesterday. So anyhow, we're going to wind this down pretty soon because I want to take these kids out to eat. Okay. Anyhow, so this little priest is sitting there and he said, hey, I understand you're not happy in AA. And I walked up. He said, sit down here. So I looked, sat down. He said. I understand. You're not very happy in the AA. I said, you're very unhappy. I said. You wouldn't be happy either. God took everything away from me. He said what did he take away? I said children, homes, cars, eight beauty salons and a school. He said let me tell you something buddy. And he knocked his hand on that side. He said you didn't. They didn't take nothing away from you. So if you're here today and you feel like you're a victim, no one took anything away from you. You gave it away. To drive an automobile is not a right. It's a privilege. You are not a victim when the cop arrests you. You are a violator. Your wife doesn't leave you with one drunk. Your wife don't leave because you're drunk once. She leaves you because it's a continuous thing. I went to a meeting the other night. A guy from Texas is behorning his wife. he went to see his father, 92 years old someone put a bottle of vodka and his wife accused him of drinking she left and she went back to Texas I said how long you sober? He said two and a half months I said How many times you been in A? Seven times Since nine years you've been married I said what makes you think she believes you? And then she said to me Were you powerless? Did you have a power? And I said I think I heard about a lamp post or light bulb and he said no if you were God would you want a dog to urinate on you and then he said was your life unmanageable I said kind of then he went through the litany all I lost he said that's step one you can't step two he said came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity for you people who have been here and have gone out and drinking again has it got any better to think about it. And he said, if you go back to drinking now after you've been sober almost a year, you're nuts. So the second step means you're a nut. And I said, wait a minute, I got papers from Cleveland saying I'm not crazy. He said, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about if you come back and drink today, you are nuts. And then he said third step, you make a decision to turn your life and your will over to the care of God as you understood them. Not understand, you sit up here and listen to people read that and they say, understand. It's understood and it's written in squiggly writing in the book. It said, understood with the faith of a mustard seed or the faith of the child. Did you ever have a child who stands at the table by you and they see you coming, they jump right in, they expect you to catch them? That's the faith. That's what a sponsor does. He's there to help you. He is there to help you and then he said now he said after that he said and listen closely now because i'm going to tell you something that you may not know take this one to the bank and you can cash it in it says being convinced after a b and c at once maybe maybe the words are not in the right order we proceed into a fourth step inventory which is the cause of our reason for drinking we do do not inventory alcohol. We inventory fears, sex, and resentments. And there's three things everybody strives for in their life. They strive for security, social, and sex. That's what the whole life of America, the world is based on. Think about it. And he said, now I'm going to tell you something. You got that inventory, write it down, see me in the morning. So I went upstairs, I wrote down what I thought. And he said, now take that to one of the priests there or a monk and talk to him about it. So I didn't know. I talked to that monk. I told him everything I wanted to tell him, everything I did. I told them how he said forget about it, forget about molly, polly, and dolly. Just tell me you're a slut or you're an luster, you know. I told my cheater out of this, that cheater. He said, forget About it. You're a thief, that's all. I don't want to know how many times you did this, how many time you did that. But I had it all there. and I told this monk and this monk just looked at me and nothing happened and I said well let me tell him some more shit that didn't really happen I'll make it interesting and you know I did that and I went and did what they told you to do waited an hour and a half and I'm sitting out there they had big bulls out there and I was watching them run through there and during the course of that time I lost a ring up there in their room and I set a prayer because everybody has a little belief And I said a prayer. I said, St. Anthony, St., please come around. There's a ring lost. It's got to be found. And I found that ring when I went back to the room. So with a little bit of belief started me on the road of faith. Started me on The Road of Faith. Faith doesn't come to you overnight, nor does sobriety come to you overnight. I know a lot of people knew within a year they got it all put together, man. They got this thing locked. They don't even need to come around, they float right out of the top and sometimes old people fall out of the top too happens but you know i started to believe and things started to work and i started going to meetings and i did a lot of things in alcoholics now it's too late some of you people who know me know how much i've done in a and i'm not going to tell you about it and the only thing i want to say one thing before i close with something else I've done one of the things that I've left a mark in this world and Walter here can tell you that we bought I bought Dr. Bob's house with five other people and it is now a foundation it's the only place in the world if you've never been there that you can go and sit in anywhere that Bill and Bob formulated the 12 step set it will be the only place inthe world because everything else is torn down and I'm damn proud that we put a sign to our houses on to raise some funds for that house have I given enough to Alcoholics Anonymous I could never repay it I've had ups and downs like that the end of that serenity prayer says I've been through good days and bad days and two years ago I had taken my son we were going to go to Italy and this is a kid that got in trouble he was in jail smoking he had pipe full of marijuana in the car and he was in jail in Valdosta, Georgia now if any of you people are from there they just hate Yankees and they're not too friendly and he called up he said dad I'm in jail he said they found that crack pipe the cigarette pipe marijuana what the hell they smoked in that pipe and I said you know you were smart enough to get your little ass in there now let's see how smart you are to get out he said dad these people I said just get yourself out and I let him stay there 22 days and I wasn't going to get them out no way you got to learn some days you got to close a lot of doors before they open up on the other side and then I want to tell you my one son I got my children back in 1973 I haven't seen him all those years one boy was sick paranoid schizophrenic and for every year until 1980 something 87 that boy did 6 to 7 months in a mental hospital so if you think you're hurting and you're moaning screw you pal you got a chance to cure your own self you're the only physician that can clear you my son can't get a physician he gotta take medicine for the rest of his life and I wouldn't sign the papers because I didn't trust God I believed in everybody in this room right here today believes in God but how many of you really trust him think about it How many of you really trust them? Not too many. Until the chips are down. In 2000, I called my son. We were going to go to Italy, and I was going to show him part of Italy. I'd been there, and he had been there once, so we were going back to where my father came from. And I think it was in March or something like that. He called up, and He's screaming, screw God, screw this, screw that. What's the matter, Donald? He said, I woke up the other morning. I thought I had a stroke. I went to the doctor and they found not a stroke, he said. So I had an MRI and he said I was getting paralyzed on my left side. And he said they found a tumor on the brain. And he says the doctor has said I have three months to live. This kid was screaming. He hated God. And I want to tell you something. I've been thinking about it all this week because it's the holidays, you know, and I didn't know what to do and I got on a plane and went to Atlanta and he's screaming and I'm holding him he's sobbing think about it if you knew you were 39 years old and you were going to die in three months how are you going to take it but you're gambling with your life every next time you go out and get drunk you could be the next fatality on that road or even kill someone and send you to the penitentiary I'm not trying to scare you but I really don't give a damn for you to get scared people gotta die so somebody has to live That's what they told us. And Sister Ignatia would say, if this guy got drunk, better him than you. Take it for a power of example. In 40 years I've had a lot of powers of example that went out and did it. So I stayed with him for two weeks at that time, and I came back a week and a half later, and he's still angry. Now he's just angry. The time is running out. And he lives for nine months. And one day he said to me, Dad, how do you find faith? And I said, Donald, it's a process, but you've got to surrender to it. You've gotto surrender to this power greater than yourself. And he said, I'm dying. I said I understand it, Donald. So I left some papers there, and it was a serenity form and a long form, serenety prayer. And when he read that serenty prayer, he called me back two weeks later and he said dad, he said I think I'm accepting death. And then I went back there to pick him up and take him home to say goodbye to my family and he was so sick and painful we had to get an airliner to stop him and take him back and you know it is not easy I've been here long enough that I sponsored people and when the son died the mother would say I'm glad they're dead now I know where they're at how do you like that that's a mother talking that's tough That's tough. And if you've done that to your parents, I say make amends now while they're living. Don't give me this crap. I'm going to write a note and put it on their grave and tear it up. Tell them now. But if you're going to get drunk again, don't tell them because you'll only hurt them again. It's like getting scabs on your arm and then pull the scab off and you watch the pus run again. That's what you're doing. This program works. And I took my son back and he passed away in a hospice in Naples. on November 19th, 10 days before his 40th birthday. And you know something? You let him go home to God. You people who have harmed your family and they die while you don't see them, you're the ones that cry the hardest because you harmed them the most. And I don't mean to tell you something that's not true. Your conscience will tell you that. I watch these Italian people that cry at these funerals it's because they screwed up their parents so bad tell them now if you're sober and you're going to stay sober make your amends now and start making them with your mother and your father and make amends to yourself first because you don't want to treat yourself so rotten and you know this program works it works and my son passed away and he's buried in Naples Florida and his body is in the ocean and there's a bench there if you ever been to Naples and he has his name on it A bench you can sit on and watch the waves come in. And it isn't easy. It isn't easily. But you know something? You just get back in the trenches and get back into AA and do what you're supposed to be doing. And I'm very blessed because I travel sometimes 25 times a year speaking at conferences. As I left Rosary Hall, this is what I've got to say before I close. Sister Ignatia grabbed my hand and she said, Don, I'm giving you something now. You take this with you. And if you ever decide to drink, I want you to bring it back to me because that's where it belongs. It was a sacred heart. Everybody got a sacred heart that left there and everybody got this confidence in God and she called me Mr. Cassini when I left that hospital at the end of October gave me some dignity already let's not tear ourselves down, let's start to listen if you're new, keep your mouth shut because you don't know a damn thing you know what you have, I had one time and I don't want it no more and this is Sister Ignatia when at the funeral I was there with Bill I was an honorary pallbearer and Lois signed this I'll put it up for sale one day but you know I've been very blessed in Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life everything I own today I owe to Alcoholics Anonymous and I will tell you this I have enough money to last me the rest of my life if I die before February 3rd. So that's the cure. And I got a raise this month. But you know, in closing, there's a pamphlet. Some pamphlets, somebody mentioned about pamphets. Maybe it was Mike or somebody. We got some great literature in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I don't see it displayed, you know what I mean? This is my big book from my trunk. Something happened. There was no big book here, and you don't start a meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous without a big book on the podium. I thought this was a Rotary Club. anyhow Pat I'm sorry but if I'd have seen it the first time that's it but I want to close with this from a pamphlet called The Member's Eye View it's from the Bible John the Baptist's language it inherits prison and he said go find my cousin Jesus and see if he's the Messiah because I want him I want you to get out of prison so the men start walking through Jerusalem and there's Jesus walking along talking to people in parables by the river and he says are you the Messiah and he said, yes I am maybe but tell John only what you've seen and what you heard and tell him through the longest day and the darkest night the gospel was being carried through Jerusalem. So they're walking along there's a guy laying on a cot and Jesus said pick up your cot and walk into the river. The man dragged that cot in the river and when he came out he walked and you know why he walked? He took an action. Action is the magic word. he believed what he told him and if you've got a good sponsor you'll believe what he tells you because if he's a sponsor he should know what he's talking about and if your here over 6 months and your sponsor hasn't told you to take an inventory find another sponsor because they will kill you that's the God's honest truth people don't understand that we are carrying a mess rather than a message and then he said the blind man he told them to put mud on his eye and when you walk out of the river to wash the mud off and you'll see and you know what he saw and you now why he saw because he took an action action is the magic word in Alcoholics Anonymous and if you tell me I'm willing well I'm going to tell you willingness without action is a fantasy you can take that to the bank if you don't do nothing nothing happens I don't win the lottery you know why because I don'y buy lottery tickets proof of that I may try one day maybe I'll get it And the third one, the lepers had to go into the water. And if you ever saw lepers, their skin's falling off and that. Maybe some nurses here know what it's like. A bear burns when it burns the water And, you know, I was going to tell you, in Malachi they have a leper colony where the people are an Alcoholics Anonymous. And we went there. The guy's name was Walter O'Keefe, who was a movie star in AA for a good many years, come from the West Coast. And we Went there when we were in Hawaii at a conference. and these guys, their eyes light up you see, and somebody mentioned through the eyes of Alcoholics Anonymous you can tell them getting sober they get sober through their eyes they stop looking at their shoe tops and they sober up and these lepers all went into the water and they were cleansed and when they came out there's a direct correlation what happened to them then and they ate every 10 who came out of that water were grateful only one had gratitude and came back and helped Jesus. We have that today, tenfold. There are more leaving than are staying. You've got to have gratitude, and some of these old gentlemen have been on the air a long time. It takes guts, God, and gratitude to stay sober. And if you're asking me what I've seen over 40 1⁄2 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, I've seeing the lame walk, I've see the sick get well, and I've seem the blind see. And through the longest day and the darkest night, the good news of Alcoholics Anonymous is still being carried the only way it will ever be carried one drunk to another thank you very much