William S. – The Quality Of Sobriety – 1985

Hello, everybody. My name is Bill, and I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. I think that about two months—well, I guess it was about six weeks ago, Bill Daniels wrote and called me and asked me if I would come down here and speak and say a few things that were new. And I don't know what he was talking about, but being the eager beaver who I am, I said, sure, and I began to think about it for a while, and it becomes more and more apparent to me that there isn't anything that is new. And so that has created somewhat of a problem for me, but I have come up with a few ideas that are new to the forefront of my mind, a few things that I haven't thought about before, And just because I haven't thought about them before doesn't mean in any way that I believe that they're new, but they are new to me and I will cover a few things that did come to mind. But before I do that, I'd like to say a few words about the appropriateness of my being here and kind of what it means to me. I started going to AA in 1967 and I started AA in Manhattan and the good things that have happened to me the most significant things that has happened to my life that have actually happened from this group of people that is gathered here today now as I did eventually get sober and went to live in Florida for a period of time and also in Pennsylvania for a period of time and now currently in Tennessee I've been to many many AA meetings and I've been the kind of bird that never settled on one and I have never really had a home group but I would like to tell you that in my heart there is no group of people that is closer to being a home group to me than this group right here. And I have a need, kind of like to tell you that, because in a sense, I'm not all right. And in not being all right, I like to be amongst those people that I feel love me the most. You see, about two weeks ago, I had to bury my daughter, my daughter Ann, and she was my firstborn child and was the one of my children that did not accept who I am and did not except the fact that she too was an addict. And though I don't have the final report as yet, I think it's quite clear that she probably died the sudden death that cocaine users do have, and I will get the final protocol probably in one week. But again, that is simply academic information as far as my heart goes. My wife Helen and my son Alan and I did go to the funeral, and we shared an exceeding amount of our grief, and it is a lot better. it is by no means over with and it is most meaningful me for me to be here with what I am kind of saying as my home group at least for today to be with people that do love me because you know I can see the faces out there I can still remember when I started AA, I was working at City Hospital in Elmhurst. It was the last stop on the road out, the road down. Not only was it the last job I had, it was the last job that I could get. And you know, typical of all of us, I screwed up there too and I I still remember the administrator of the hospital said, Well, we'll give you one more chance if you go to AA. And I said, Sure, I'll do that. And I went to my first AA meeting. It happened to be the Elmhurst Group down on Broadway in Queens, and it happened to been their anniversary meeting. and the speaker that night happened to be this wild kind of dentist that told stories about going to sleep in his patient's lap. Well, his name was Al and he brought out in his story also that he was a graduate of Temple University Dental School and that keyed into me because my daddy went to Temple University Dental School and I went to temple university medical school so I I went up after the meeting and said hello to him and he introduced me to doctors in a a that was meeting in Manhattan at that time and there I met LeClaire and Bill Mario Jack Tom Joe Ned, and a few other people, some of whom are not here anymore. But these people were a lot of fun, and they took a lot of interest in me. But at that time, I discovered that this AA thing really worked. I was going home from these meetings relaxed and sleeping and not drinking, and I thought that this is a wonderful solution. And I immediately called up Eastern Airlines and got a schedule of their flights because I had it all figured out. I was going to go to Orlando on the weekends and get drunk and be back in AA on Monday mornings. Of course, with an attitude like that, I didn't get out of Queens. Well, when it all collapsed, I still recall that Jack, sitting right there, he took me to some morning, noon meetings down on Madison Square, and it wasn't working. And by then I was fired from my job and I had to get out of town. And through the kindness and consideration and thoughtfulness of Bill and LeClaire, they recommended that I go to treatment. and they gave me a choice of going to a place called Alina Lodge or Chitchat Farms. Well, my higher power was really on the ball that day because I chose to go to ChitchAT Farms and escaped what I subsequently heard happens down at the other place. Well, be that as it may, I did have a good experience and I went on back to Florida to put my life back together but I did continue to go and come to these meetings here because these were my significant people and I remember that the first year after that my friend Mario took me out to his home for dinner but also gave me a copy of the 24 hour a day book which I still use and all of this simply means that a lot of me that's walking around today comes from a lot of you that's invested in me and for that I'm very appreciative and as I say it's kind of good to be with the people that love me during this time anyway back to what Bill asked me to do and that is speak of something new well there's something that's been kind of tickling the back of my mind for years and it has to do with what in the world am I addicted to? What is my addiction really all about? And early on in my recovery I went back to the practice of medicine in Apopka, Florida where I opened a family practice and I had the opportunity of visiting with my two children at that time every other weekend and there was one weekend that they were there that there was a small carnival in town and you know how kids are they ask me to take them and there was one of these rides there that goes around in a circle and they wanted to go on that but they insisted that I go with them. And I did. And I got kind of dizzy on that and something really strange happened to me because I found that dizziness to be exceedingly unpleasant and I thought that was kind of odd because most of my life I had enjoyed dizziness. In fact, back when I was a kid, one of the favorite things we did was get on the swing and twirl it around and get dizzy and giggle and go reeling around the yard, and we thought that was great fun. Some of us did. But here in the recovery situation, I found the very same feeling was unpleasant. And the idea crept into the back of my mind And maybe it's not chemicals that I'm addicted to so much as it is a change in how I feel. And this was reinforced that same year when I got a patient who was a mild diabetic, and he was addicted to insulin. His internist wanted him really to get on NPH insulin but he absolutely refused. He used nothing but regular insulin. He always overdosed himself, and many times I was called to his home because he had become unconscious, and as I would give him some glucagon or something like that to have him come out, he would come out of his low blood sugar situation like a man with a quart of gin. Sometimes he would be hostile. Sometimes he Would Be Acting Out Sexually. sometimes he would be silly, you name it. And his wife was right there like the co-alcoholic with his head in her lap, spooning the sugar into him, and it was a typical situation. And we tried over and over again to get him to use NPH insulin, but he refused. His insulin bill was about the same as my gin bill was back in my drinking days. Well, he went on and he fell down and broke his shoulder. His marriage broke up and he did go on and die. And I became aware that it doesn't have to be gin. It can be a low blood sugar that changes how your brain feels. and I began to see more and more of this and just this last year I took a trip out to Las Vegas it was my second trip out there and I had an interesting experience with the dice table ever since I've been sober I've occasionally participated in a little bit of gambling when I'm in Florida I go to a highlight game and enjoy it Ten years ago, I went to Las Vegas to pick up Dick Caron when he was sick out there. And I played a little roulette and enjoyed it. And it's never been a problem. But this time, I found the dice table. And I had a degree of success with that. And it became exceedingly exciting and thrilling. And I, of course, won enough money to pay for the trip. I came on home and thought that was all there was to it. But then I went into withdrawal. For six nights, I dreamed of the dice table. And it became apparent to me that this was entirely different than what it had been before. This was dangerous. And this was somewhat reinforced for me. This last month, I got a tape from John Brantner out there. Hazelden has just put out this new tape, and the name of the tape is Hooked, in which he goes into the history of intoxication and points out that this is a normal sort of drive that all humans seem to have and that we, from the very start, have a need for some type of intoxication which can come from twirling, as we have already mentioned, falling in love, the use of chemicals, running, dancing, participating in music, religious experiences, and a long, long list of things that humans do. and it becomes apparent to me that this has something to do with my addiction and thinking about this and thinking of my own personal recovery I have seen that perhaps there are some things that I can do and when I think of what John Brantner says about intoxication I begin to see that what he is talking about is a somewhat thrilling experience of getting out of yourself. And I seem to think that largely this is what you and I have for years called fun. And if you will look at what we call fun, it does fill this need. And I have a suggestion. And as I say, this is not anything new and it's not a conclusion. It's not something I'm sure of. It's simply an idea that I'm throwing out for you to think about and maybe to talk about and maybe we can come up with something about it. But I was thinking that maybe we ought to draw for ourselves a fun meter. down now obviously for all of us here over here with the hurtful we can put booze no question about that one and i think there's no question in my life that i'm going to have to put right down here dice table But over here on the helpful side, we can put the Fellowship of AA. You might put up in here your work. people might put gardening right here in the middle. It doesn't do much good, but it doesn't do much harm. You might play, put down bridge. You like to play cards. That isn't totally so. I have a first cousin that got so much involved in bridge that he almost lost his law practice. On his personal chart, he would have to put bridge down here with booze. But this is a unique thing that I think we can all do with our personal life. And what you can come up with is put one in here you call running. Put one in here you called playing the fiddle. Make this a unique and a personal thing, and what I'm trying to do is get you to see that there is actually something that you can do not to get sober, but perhaps to improve the quality of your sobriety. They got a little ad on TV now where they said something like put a little bud in your weekend or something like that. And I was thinking that for me, a new little motto might be put a Little Fun in Your Sobriety because many of us are like me. We take everything too daggum seriously. We take ourselves too seriously. And if you begin to look at this, I think that you can begin to see that what we've already talked about this afternoon, look here. Look here at what's going to happen. What did Jerry say? When you give up your work, what have you done? You created a big hole. But you might do something else. you might take up volunteer work or something like it but it gives you an idea that when you take something out like anything else you know as i as well as i do that when you take something into your life you need to put something back in and all i'm throwing out is a concept an idea that there is something we can do to make our sobriety more higher in quality, more fulfilling. And that is simply what's wrong with all of us having a little bit of fun. Again, I say that I don't believe that there's anything new on God's earth, but this is something that I haven't talked about and it's something that I think might be of some benefit to me and am I sharing it with you? Perhaps you can come up with something that might be a sum help to you. Thank you very much. Very much, Bill. This concludes our program for this afternoon. I'll ask my dear friend Conway, if he will, to lead us in the Lord's Prayer. Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and glory forever and ever. Amen.