Willingness as the End of the Performance – Norm A.

And I'm certainly delighted to be here and be a participant in part of this meeting. I certainly want to thank John and Lavelle and the committee for the invitation to be here and to be a participent. I also want to welcome all of the new people that may be here today for your first, second or third meeting or maybe your first week at Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that you've made a giant step forward, that you now associate yourself with one of the most popular or unpopular fellowships in the world. Nobody starts his life out wanting to become a member of AlcoholicsAnonymous, I don't think. and I'm sure in my own particular case that I didn't go down to my high school counselor and he said, Norm, what would you like to be? And I said, man, I'd like to being an alcoholic. Yeah, but he says, that's marvelous. We've got a program here for guys like you and I went out and tore him up for 14 years and ended up an Alcoholics Anonymous. Now there was a lot of other things that I would have rather done and rather been than to be an alcoholic but I can say this without any reservations whatsoever that if you've got an drinking problem and you're new, you never have to take another drink again if you don't want to. What you're going to find here at AA is a group of people who are going to know most everything about you, they will still accept you. We're not necessarily interested in where you've been or where you're trying to go, but we're damned interested in what you're doing today. And that's got to be a break right off the top. You know, when I was out there drinking, nobody gave a damn about me one way or another unless they heard I was going to jail or leaving town. Then they were delighted over that. Other than that, boy, they didn't care one way or another. So if you're new and you've got a drinking problem, you all come in here and you go to a lot of meetings. Take today what you can take. If you can use it, take it with you. if you can't kick it out of the chair and leave it there. There's a lot of meetings, I'm sure, here in this Texas area, and you keep going to a lot OF meetings. That's important. To qualify the initial statement I made, I'M AN ALCOHOLIC, AND I'M NOT BY ANY STRETCHES OF IMAGINATION OR AN AUTHORITY, A CONSULTANT, OR A COUNSELOR ON THE PROGRAM ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS. I'M An EXAMPLE, GOOD OR BAD, THAT AA WORKS, THAT IT HASN'T BEEN NECESSARY FOR ME TO TAKE A DRINK, STEAL ANYTHING, OR GO TO JAIL NOW FOR ALMOST 19 YEARS. I'M SURE THAT THE PEOPLE OUT THERE TODAY aren't awfully impressed with that statement, but man I'm impressed with that statement you see. Not only that you never know we may get a pension program going here. If we ever do I want to get credit for all my time. You gotta keep throwing that out. Anyway to the new people I'm sure you find it pretty difficult to digest when you hear a guy say he hasn't had any booze now for almost 19 years. It'll be 19 years this coming Friday. My birthday is in february and i i feel the februari birthdays are the hardcore of the program we're the last of the christmas holdouts you know we're going to go through them holidays and we aren't going to get sober you don't know but to the new people that are here i'm sure you do find this damn difficult to digest if i told you i hadn't any booze for a couple of weeks you'd come up to me after this is over with and said the hell you have how'd you do it you know you can understand two weeks but it's damn difficult to understand 19 years unless you put it into the proportion i've been cutting it out there one day at a time one day of the time and they do run by those years and i can guarantee this that if you take care of the day the week will take care of itself and will the month and will a year and pretty soon it's 19 years and it seems like yesterday that i walked through the door and sat down at that first day meeting just like yesterday that I sat there that meeting wondering why it was that i was an alcoholic i thought god of all the things i could have been why am i an alcoholic i'm sitting there i'm 29 years old and the guy says if you're alcoholic and i was there was no questions about it that you can't drink any booze for the rest of your life once an alcoholic you die an alcoholic and I'm sitting here wondering why it is that I'm an alcoholic and if you knew I'm sure you're sitting there in those early minutes wondering god why am I an alcoholic you know I come from a family of heavy drinkers everybody in my family drinks And everybody in my family is still out there drinking, you see. We're Irish and Italian. That goes without saying, you know, something about that booze, you know. We know how to make booze and drink booze. And they're still making it and drinking it. And I turned out to be the only alcoholic. And I thought, what a crime. I'm the best in the family, you know. Why should I carry the cross with a rotten family? Today, I'm delighted. My biggest problem is alcoholism because there's some people in my family got some big problems. You know, I used to cut them as easy as I have. They haven't been able to meet a group of people who call themselves alcoholics anonymous so they're still out there spending money and trying to find the answer to living out there not necessarily in the court of whiskey but the answer to the living out there in some synthetic existence so i can say without reservation today i'm delighted that i am alcoholic but in those early meetings like you sit there wondering you know you try to blame your family and i couldn't blame my family because nobody was alcoholic i thought well you know i'm born and raised in la anybody born and raise in la has got to be hacked one way or another you see but i know a lot of guys came out of la that never had any drinking problem they've never been jail so apparently the environment and the nationality had nothing to do with it i weighed out all of these things i heard in the program and i was able to come up with one giant conclusion i am alcoholic because i drank too much whiskey that's very good i'm alcoholic that's about as basic and as earthy as you can get somewhere down that lottery of my life i crossed the invisible line into that compulsive area of drinking it happened maybe when i was 20 21 years old and i was looking for the answer living in a quarter whiskey out there the ones too many and a thousand aren't enough and I couldn't believe it and I kept going at it. I had a few things going for me though other than the fact that I drank a lot of whiskey or too much whiskey. I'm a rationalizer, a justifier, a compromiser and I got a rotten attitude and man you don't need much more than that. I've had a lousy outlook on living all my life. I traveled half the world in half my life making a complete ass of myself out there. I spent money I didn't have by the things I didn'T need trying to impress people I didn't like. That's the story of my life, you see, until I got to the program. I went all hell out there trying to be all things to all people. I felt it was very important that I impress you with a sense of well-being. Well, you'd find a guy like me out there driving around in the summertime in L.A. at 115 in the shape and I got all the windows rolled up because I want everybody to believe I got an air conditioner, you see? And you know what I see those guys out there today, you know who I think? I see down around town with a window showing up, and I think, does he or doesn't he? You know? That rotten alky out there trying to impress me, you see, with that sense of well-being. Well, I spent a lifetime out there feeling deep inside I was the general manager of the universe. I thought it was very important that I give you this sense of willpower. Well, because I always be the other fellow that I thought that was so very important. And one of the things that the program brought to me, when I walked through the door, The first thing they told me was, buddy, don't impress us here in AA. We have been impressed by experts and alcoholics and out of us. Don't impress US here. Of course, I committed the cardinal said what he did. I thought I'd put it on this guy. He said, you know something? I've been in jail over 25 times. He says, the hell you have. I did that in a year. You don't. If you're new, it don't make any difference where you've been. Come on in and relax. Grab the package that's available here at AA. that the package is here as sobriety or the way of life and take it out there on the city street and spend a day being you. And I don't get nothing else from AA other than the fact that I've spent a lot of days out there in that city street and all I've had to be is me, I could say. I'm overpaid. I haven't had to impress people. I spent days out there not justifying my existence or compromising my life. I spent years just being myself and this is what the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has brought to me and many, many other things. This evening and this afternoon I'd like to tell you a little bit about what I was like what happened and what I'm trying to be like today. Not that I'm here to try to impress you with the amount of booze I consumed or the jerks or jails I went to or all this other, but I know a better way to talk about the program. When a guy comes up to me and he says, Norm, how does AA work? I say, buddy, AA works because of the 12 steps. That's the way it works. And the book, that's number one. And number two, it's one drunk talking to another drunk and between the two of you, you get another day in. You talk about the hack and the hassle you had out there. You talk about coming to the program and getting surprised. You talk about some of the things that you found and used to stay sober over a period of time. And to me, this is Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a debatable thing, but to me this is alcoholics synonymous. My life goes back for as far back as I care to go. I've been in trouble. I was in trouble and going to jail since about 1938. I could never stay out of trouble until I came to the program. I went to jail in 38, 39 not for drinking, but for stealing. I happen to be a thief by trade. I'm an alcoholic by absorption. I opened up the midnight auto supply in the San Gabriel Valley. I was the vice president in charge of all the outside operations out there. And for you folks who don't understand the term, we were popping hubcaps in the beginning, you see, and sell them. And then we learned you can make a little scratch and we broadened out and we started getting all the accessories and then it got to be such a job to gather up that much crap we stole the whole car, you know. And man, that business went from there on out. We cut down on the overhead and we had a bigger melon to cut and they're teaching that in school today. You see, I feel, you know, I was way ahead of them. A marketing genius out there. The trouble was it was illegal. And if it's illegal, you see, it's only a matter of time until they go to get you. They being policemen. I stood in front of a judge and I was sentenced to seven years in the Whittier Reformatory because I couldn't get along with the people out there on the city street in Los Angeles. He said, you are a guy that's reacting to life and living, of which I'm sure he didn't. But if he did, he'd have been dead right. I reacted to life all of my life. I never accepted living on living terms. I always wanted my way, and I stood out there and fought to get it my way all of the way. As I stood there in front of that judge, I thought, I'm a victim of unusual circumstances. I shouldn't be here. Hell, I was taken from guys who could afford it. Steal from the rich and keep it. Robin Hood. You know, that's the way I felt about it. Always the big rationalization. I could always rationalize. Well, I would send out to the Whitty Reformatory through the average of some people, a little juice in the right place, some things worked out coming from L.A., had something to do with it. Irish and Italian, I sure had something to do it, and I'm back on the streets again, but nothing is learned. I don't recognize there's a thing called retribution which says that going out is coming back, buddy. If you go to play, you've got to pay out there. That's the way it is. Frankly, it's a sad setup, but I don'T know how you're going to beat it. I'M TRYING OUT THERE AND IT'S NOT AVAILABLE. I'LL BUY IT TODAY FOR WHAT IT IS. IF YOU ARE GOING TO COMPROMISE YOUR LIFE, NORM, THAT'S THE WAY IT'S GOING TO BE. COMPRIMIZE ANY PORTION OF IT, THE TWELVE STEPS, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THESE OTHER THINGS, SOMEWHERE DOWN THE ROAD IT'S GONNA EVEN OUT. I'm sure that I'm gonna get it all while I'm here, but I'm damn sure they're going to see me later on. You know, nothing seems to be for nothing. But I didn't learn or recognize it at that time. If I did, I discounted it. I'm looking for something that's synthetic, I suppose, and booze is the next step. Alcohol came into my life in 1940. It was Easter week in Los Angeles and Easter week In L.A., everybody runs down to the beach cities and they have a big time. Well, Easter week, Balboa Beach, the Rendezvous Ballroom, Stan Kenton and Padre Beer and it was a hell of a deal right from the start. I liked it. Yeah, I like drinking that booze and getting a little buzzy and going into that dance and you act four times drunker than what you are and you had a pretty good time at it. I'm not alcoholic in the beginning. I kind of worked at that deal. I moved out of that Padre beer down to Rainier Ale up to Tin High Whiskey. And when I got to that whiskey, man, I found the greatest thing was money and girls with whiskey because whiskey gets you there quicker and I've been in a hurry all my life. I want to be there now. I don't want to get there later on. I wantto get there now and there, there is the plateau the alcoholic drinks himself up till you know the more you drink the better you feel or the better the buzz and pretty soon you reach the ultimate the plateau where you're totally buzzy up there god you're all things to all people you're good looking well-built intellectual and wealthy and you get the deal done in two hours that's the best deal i had after that time is a sure as you get when you got that buzz on you think if i could hold that buzz forever and i'd order one more just to stay even down the chute you know there you go the man there for a while you got that buzz on and it's all right and drinking that Ted High you know I found out after I came to AA that it was cheap whiskey I didn't really recognize that fact until I got to the program you know AA is going to advance your education once you get here in the event you go back out again you'll know some shortcuts I also learned from a guy who'd been around a long time he says there's other great advantages about drinking cheap whiskey when you throw it up You don't lose much, you see. It takes an alcoholic to figure that out. Sure, I think so. I said, well, hell, if I'm out there drinking that $8 bourbon today and you're flashing it, oh, $8, there she is. That's enough to make you sick all over again to throw off $8. Don't get me wrong. I wasn't drinking that kid high because he was cheap. I drank it because the guys I was running with was drinking it. I drank good whiskey and bad whiskey, and after four or five drinks, hell I couldn't tell the difference. All I was interested in was manners and whiskey. That's what I'm interested in. I could go back, and it was very vivid. I can remember the night that I had the first drag out of that 10-high. It happened up in the state of Oregon. I was working up there at the time because I'd had a problem in L.A., and I had to get out. I violated my probation. And we were at a dance one night, and the guy drank this jug out of the glove compartment, and he says, you want a drink? And I said, hell yeah, because I never turned nothing down in my life. And I took a long drag out Of that 10 high, and that baby burned, gone and coming. It was like they had razor blades in it. It comes back up, and you know how to run out your nose and it makes your eyes water? And then one of your buddies sat there going, ain't that good? Yeah, he's good, Jesus, yeah. You can barely breathe. It's a damn good God, it's a good. Well, that was my initiation into whiskey, and from there on out, it was just more of the same. By January of 1942, I enlisted in the United States Navy. I spent four years in the U.S. Navy I went in, not because I was overly patriotic but the probation department had a deal worked out they said you could either go to jail or go into the service so I'd been to jail, there was no deal and I went to the service and it was another one of my bad decisions my life has been filled with bad decisions because when I got into the United States Navy all the enemies I had in L.A. joined the Navy the same day I did they were there and they started giving me a lot of trouble and they would cause me problems consequently I was a disgrace to the United State Navy To every ship's captain, I sure have done it. To myself and to my people and all my friends. And booze is playing a big part. There's three court-martials. There's a deck of summary of general. There's 11 1⁄2 months off a general court-marshal up there in a Navy prison on top of Goat Island run by a Marine gunnery sergeant by the name of Big John. He and God used to go to breakfast together every morning. You know, when that song came out a few years ago, Big John, every time I'd hear it, I just got to jump all over again. But in all truth and honesty, frankly, all the problems I had, it wasn't John, it wasn' t the Navy, it wasn'' t the civilian population out there. It was, I can attribute all my trouble to one guy today. And that''s Norm. Because everywhere Norm goes, Norm goes. You know what I mean? I'm the biggest enemy. When it's slowly out there on the street, I can bring it right back down to one man. One guy. It's all right here. But it's lousy, it's louzy here, and this is the beginning. That's where it starts. But in those years when you're drinking, no, it's always everybody else. You're victims of unusual circumstances. And so you go back out. I was discharged from the service, and I came home to L.A. I fulfilled the obligation to four years, and I came back to L!A. in 46. And in 1946, it was gonna be a windfall. I was gonna do a lot of things in 46, I was going back to school and finish my education, I kicked out, I'm gonna make amends and restitution to my people. I'll go home and see my mother and tell her, baby, you know, and this time I mean it, baby, you're never gonna have to cry for me anymore because I'm going to straighten out and be like the old man, I have my brothers, and I'm not gonna knock the booze, and you wait and see, it's gonna be all right. you wait and see it's going to be all right pretty soon or later on or tomorrow it's going to be all right you know it and I know it so don't cry no more and year after year I go back and go through these same things I only bring this up maybe there's some new people here if you're carrying a cross when you come in you know and they say make the mention you want to go home maybe to see your people and they're not available because you waited a day or two too long I carried that around for a while, and one evening I heard the serenity prayer read. I must have heard it 50 times, but that time I heard it. It said, accept the things you cannot change. And I thought, God, that's it. Accept it, Norm. It's wreckage of the past. There's nothing you can do about it. For all your prayers and your tears and your right arm thrown in, you can't change it. You've got to move it out if you can' t do anything about it. Don't you know it's tough enough to live today with today's merchandise, let alone try to do something about yesterday's out there that you can''t do a damn thing about? You've Got to move it out. It's not a justification or am I trying to rationalize it? No, it's fact. That's the way it is. Nobody goes forever, do they? Someday they're going to hang me out to dry. I'll make the shot and I'll check in. And I'll say, baby, I'm sorry for all the trouble that caught you when you were there. But I got a lot better after you left because I met a group of people and they call themselves Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's the long and that's short of it. The cross was heavier than I thought was necessary. You can move it out and push it aside. In 1946, I had A lot of things I wanted to do in 1946, but I couldn't get started. I made the can five times in 1946. I got picked up twice for two drunk driving, two 502s, and then two plain drunk, and then I got a 501 felony, drunk driving hit-and-run, bodily injury involved. God moves in strange and mysterious ways, doesn't he? But for the grace of God and this AA program and many other things in my life, many things would have been changed. This evening, I'm in a city that I got here suspended, hanging over my head on a drunk driving. and I'm in the city dead drunk and I go down one of the main drags and the car pulls in front of me and I was drunk, I can't see it and I hit it and ran from the scene. Had I been over some three and a half feet, you know, booze and alcoholism is a game of seconds and a game if inches. That's all you're talking about. Three and a halftoes and a quarter of a half feet that night, the fraction of a second and I've been over and I broadside, I hit a broadside disaster as it was I hit in the back end and it was not a total disaster. I wonder when a man checks into the lottery 11 how many chances they're going to give you out there knowing How many times are you going to get running down those streets? I feel when a man checks into this light, they give you those tickets. And as you mess up, they take away the tickets. If you mess it up enough, you tap out. And I feel I'm tapped out. There's no tickets left. For me to go back out there again, it would be that three and a half feet or that fraction of a second maybe and they move me over. When I get so slowly out there in the street, I don't think I can stand it. Let me remember how it was when I hit that car and I died a thousand deaths. When it gets so bad here on the program that I don' t think I could make another step, God give it the strength to remember what it's like that night when you come to in a felony tank and you're going through looking for the book and slip and you find it and you see what you've done and you die. And when you stand down there in front of that judge, you know what he says? We don't need people like you in the street. You're a disgrace. You're drinking yourself to death, son. Get the hell out of my courtroom. Take him away. Lock him up. The disgrace of it all. And when it gets so bad I can't stand it. Let me remember. Yes, sir. I don't stay sober from the fear of this but wouldn't a man be a damn fool not to realize how very lucky he's been. How very lucky I've had problems and trouble but never the big one. And God moves in strange and mysterious ways, as I mentioned. Out of all evil, a certain amount of good comes. The good that came from this accident was what I went to do the time of the city jail. I shared a cell with a guy that was going to AA. One jackass got out of the can once a week to go to AA meetings. This guy. He's a fanatic. You know, he goes to these AA meetings After one of the meetings was over, he'd come down. He'd sit down. He's dying to talk to somebody about it. Well, you don't have a big audience in a jail cell. I'll guarantee that. And I'd sit there once a weak, and he'd give me all his folder, all about this AA. and I had to tell him, you know, I don't have a drinking problem. Stop. Now, you and your rotten brothers are all a bunch of drunks who never did hand you booze, right? Well, my case is all going to differ. No, no, you go out there and take care of your boozy friends and I'll go on and take care of the activity. Anyway, I'm far too young to be an alcoholic. Your case is much different. What the hell? You're 36 years old, man. What do you got left at 36? Shut up. You're on the back side of that deal. You might as well cut it out now. Oh, that changes, doesn't it? Yes, sirree. 49 this year. Why, it's not so old anymore But then, of course, it's all through. It's over. It's gone. And you might as well quit the drinking. But the seed was planted. Now, Sully didn't know that. And I didn't knows. But the old shooter upstairs, he knows all about that deal. The seed is planted how many hundreds of times you hear it. Eight and a half years later, I picked up the telephone looking for an outfit called AA and a guy named Sully. And I found the program. But I didn' find him. Years in and years out, I used to hear about him periodically. And there was always from one thing to the next. So he made Camarillo Hospital with a wet head, a wet brain. and he drank himself up to the point where he no longer could function, and he never was back on the streets. Last December, I was in a meeting across town. It was a morning meeting, and I looked down in the front row, and who was sitting there was my friend Sullivan. I'd seen him for some 26, 27 years, and he's sitting there in the front row. And he had quite a road to hoe. He looked pretty rough. And I got so choked up, I couldn't remember what I was talking about. The meeting was over with. I went down and sat with him, and we talked. And he said, Norm, you're going to find this tough to believe, buddy, but I've got nine weeks in. Christ, I've Got Nine Weeks of Sobriety. And he brought it right back again, as has been mentioned here by my friend Lou. You never give up on them. If it's just a prayer that you send up from time to time, you never give out. So that guy that's still hacking it, still cutting himself up out there, if it's only the prayer that you send out from time and time again, you never come out of your busy life and say help him out there and bring him on in because you never know. God moves in strange and mysterious ways and no matter what you do or you don't do, this seems to be the way it's going to come. Well I didn't come to the program when I left the city jail I went back out and I drank for another eight, eight-and-a-half years. I went to work at one of the biggest construction firms in the world in the concrete pipeline business. I stayed there 11 years. In that 11-year period of time, I was blessed with being at the right place at the correct time and ended up with a good job, a good jab. And a good jab to me was a jab that paid good money. You've got to have the good money to buy that good whiskey. And I'm packing a high overhead by now, so you've got make a lot of scratch when you're out there drinking. I'm a bar drinker, and that's high overhead drinking, for one thing. I've met and married a redheaded Irish woman, and that is a big overhead. Not only that, you know, we had a lot of problems in that family. I married a woman, my bar associate, that told me, Norm, when you get married now, you don't go off half-cocked. Marry a chick who's got a job, and that way you've doubled the income, see? So this redhead had a good job, and things were going along lovely for two months. And she, I came home after work one day, and she says, Norm, I've been to the doctor, and I'm pregnant, and I've got to quit work. And it's like the whole house comes down around here, you knows. The alcoholics don't like to have these things disturb his life. Well, and then I asked her if she was sure, and she said, I'm home free. So, all right. Alcoholics then become unanimous or big-hearted or whatever and you accept this for what it is. You think, well, that caper takes about nine months. I'll give her two to get on her feet. We'll get the rotten job back and everything's going to be just like it was. See, the story of the alcoholic life is going to beat just like a rock. It was. Hell, that was 26 years ago. That woman ain't turned a tap since that day. She got herself in that cape every other year. Eight times. I couldn't believe it. Instead of the locusts coming in, she's going to say, look, there she goes, you know. God, I'd sit on that bar stool and discuss this problem with my friends, you know. You don't know what the hell she's doing to me. She's long forgot it takes two to tango, I guess. Yeah. But all these responsibilities and all this overhead, I had to make that money. There it is. And I didn't like drinking around the house. That's low overhead drinking. You can keep the overhead down. But I didn't like drinking around the house for several hundred reasons, and all of them were this red-headed Irish woman that created a problem. I know there's not a gentleman in the house that had my problems. I married a woman that never really understood me. She never recognized what a sensitive person I was. Alcoholics are very sensitive people. God, you're out there drunk for two or three days, and you come home, and you're tired. You've been busy out there, and your very tired. and you're coming in the house tired and a little drunky and a little sick too and you walk through the door and you'd like a little love and a little affection and a little understanding all of a time out there and I walk through the door and before she'd smell my breath she'd say you're drunk again and I'd always stand there dumb frowning who me like 37 guys are with you you know who it is we had a great dialogue in that family in the latter years she'd say you're drunk again and I'd say, who me? Yes. And she'd say yeah you and then I'd hit her with that big $64 and I would say woman do you know who you're talking to? Don't that get him right there? And then she'd come back with that oh I know I'm talking to mimic me is the only way an Irish can do it and I tell a woman you shut that Irish mouth and apologize to me and my friend maybe you brought your friend home he's your new business partner you met in the saloon last night you invited him home And there you stand, you know, two of you looking like death warped over. And I say, You apologize to me and my best friend. And I couldn't remember his name. And if you don't, I'm leaving. And I'm never coming back again, woman. How do you like that? And she's hysterical by now. She goes out of the bedroom and throws all my clothes out. Well, God, the only thing left to do, you've got to pick up all the clothes. You pick up the damn clothes and you carry them out to the car. The old clothes-packing alcoholic. He's a joy to the neighborhood, isn't he? When you get tired of watching the television, you can watch him. Here he comes. Sometimes you get a hell of a show. You forget these trousers and here he comes again. I shite for the house. The old turkey-kneed alcoholic standing out there yelling at everybody and if the neighborhood don't hear it, you honk the horn, you know. One o'clock in the morning, he's out there honking the horn. Then you stand out there and tell them all what you think of us. you see, and then you drive away and you think to yourself, I wonder if anybody saw me and I'd go on back down to that saloon where they understood me man, I like them joints I like the dark lights in there and I like that rotten music that hammered at ya and I liked the smell that kind of hangs in them places it brings you to attention right now you don't need the desert for sinus trouble you just sit around them joints and suck it in and it blows it out Better than anything else in the saloons, I like to be around intelligent, intellectual people and the big money. Where do you find the big Money? You find it one o'clock in the morning sitting on the barstool all over the world. We're the giants sitting there talking in millions, spending in thousands, wondering what the poor Slavs are doing tonight because there's big doughs all around you. Yeah! He's lying to me and I'm lying to him. And when I get tired of lying to each other, we can sit there on that barstoo and we look in the mirror and they put mirrors in bars so that alcoholics can sit there and stare at themselves with that perpetual Maybelline look. They call it wide-eyed, you know. You can always spot an alky. He's the guy sitting like that, you now. And you know what's going through his head. He's sitting there like that. Oh, God, you good-looking devil, you. And as you bring that drink up, you catch sight of your arm and you're a killer. You're so well built. A hundred and fifty pounds really wet in them days I couldn't lick my lips, you see But that whiskey makes a killer out of you You're a killer and a lover some nights You can't remember what you are Am I a killer or a lover? You're sitting there You wonder why all the dollies Aren't down at your end of the bar You got a thirty dollar smiling Frankie Gordon suit on You got fifty cents worth of whiskey Down the front of you Little chili and mustard on your neck You smell bad and you can't talk and you're one step away from disaster. If I've got to go to the men's room, it's all over. There he goes. Oh, yeah. They've got a big step down from the bar. There. There he lays, the lover of the San Diego Valley. Well, you make some cute remarks to the bartender. He 86s ya. But if you're the kind of personality I am, 86 is never enough. You go for 87. You get some more left, babe. Ha! 87's when you're opening the front door with your head crunch on the way through to land out in that gravel parking lot to end up with a famous disease that most alcoholics come up with called pavement rash, you see. It's the scab you get from the middle of your head all the way around from rooting through gravel parking lots or falling into pyracantha bushes. All these things hasten your entrance to AA, you say. Ending up the evening by sleeping in the front seat of your car. Car sleepers, we are surrounded in AA by car sleepers. You can always tell a new guy if he's done any recent car sleeping you generally sit like that. Instead of having your head screwed under the armrest all night and the door handle stuck in your ear, you know. And what an experience, isn't it lovely when the sun zooms through the windshield at six o'clock in the morning? That's called a spiritual awakening before I am. You come to attention there in the front seat of that car, man, and your head's throbbing and your stomach is just churning and your mouth tastes terrible and your teeth itch. You want to tear them out. You look down, you threw up on your dashboard and you left your lights on. Or you thought the window was down, it was up. Blah! All over that rack, you know. God! And yet I'm standing there and said to myself, drinking's fun. I'm having a good time. Yeah! I've got to get the hell out of L.A. They've got that rotten whiskey in L. A., huh? It'll be all right when I get back down to big spring texas god did they love me in big spring that's that bootleg whiskey and pearl beer yeah they really liked me down there or was it el paso or dallas or for worse if they loved me where was it seattle or was this tucson phoenix or albuquerque or was on and on and on when in reality you know in reality it was getting worse and never got better as they talk about in chapter three to the gates of insanity your death and if you are alcoholic you continue your drink, you'll take it to the gates of insanity or death. But somewhere, someday, you think it's going to change. Hell yeah, I'll get on back down to where I was and it'll be different, sure. The only difference was, well, you used to take me four or five months to get in a jam, then it was four or three or four days. The last go-around was up in Moses Lake, Washington. I'm in there three or three days. A town of 8,000 people and two policemen. I'd gone down the wrong side of the street and a company pick-up dead drunk and both policemen found me. Can you imagine that? But the grand illusion of every alcoholic is someday he's going control that booze. And as I ran through the lottery of my life and living. The whiskey took away every loving thing I had. The day came when all of it that I'd accumulated in my life was gone. The date came when I walked home to my house, and there stands a red-headed woman, and she wasn't even sore at me this day. She says, Norm, you're a drunken, rotten bum. You'll never live to be 35 years old. You're drinking yourself to death. You're going to have to get the hell out of her life. You drug us down that gutter as far as you're going to get us. The kids are neurotic because of you, and I'm scared to death of you. You know, I sit here night after night on that couch looking down the street waiting for the car to drive up the street and she never comes and i hear a siren running god the cops got you but this time they find you laying dead in the middle of the street knowing you're never coming home do it so you get the hell out of our life and you don't come to see us you'll save any money because you never get that far ahead just leave us alone i'll always love you but you tore out all the feeling i ever had for you one way or another and so you go and you walk out don't you and you get your car and you drive away and you say to yourself why me why not charlie and fred and bill and the rest of them guys what What the hell? You've got to do it to me. Why me? You and I know why, if you're an alcoholic and you continue. It's a matter of time, isn't it? The wheels of alcoholism grind very slow but very fine, and you give it enough time, it's going to get every loving thing you've got that means anything to you. It's got to be. There are isolated cases, sure, for the benefit of the new people. There are isolation cases. There are cases where people put up with this crap for 30 years, always hoping this jackass is going to straighten out. 30 years they watch him flop in and out of house. 30 years of picking up the pieces. 30 years lying for him. 30 years listening to promises he could ever keep. 30 years until it spreads, you know, don't come over no one's got the flu. Yeah, he flew under the bed when he flew, yeah 30 years, they go on hell wouldn't put up with us 30 days, let alone 30 years. God gives them a lot of strength, don'y kind of a left-handed thing, hands down there but it's a miracle it's America we see here in the program, thank God for it you see a man and his woman walking through the door for their first meeting, isn't it something? The guy's all, he looks terrible you know he's pretty well beat up and his eyes are bloodshot and his clothes are ratted. You look at a woman You know, she don't look too good either. And you look in her eyes and the story. The story's right there. She doesn't even need to say a word. She says, this jackass has tried everything there is out there and none of it ever worked for him. And I'm sure this isn't going to work either, but we'll try one more time. Now, you see the same couple a couple of months later and they're walking through the same door. And the guy's sharped out. You know he looks good. And he's smiling a little. His eyes are happy. You look at the eyes of the woman. And what is in the eyes? It says, you know something? We've been waiting 20 years for this to happen. And finally it's happened. And today we're happier than we've ever been in our life and it's made possible through a miracle you and i hear jews call alcoholics synonymous god love them all to the new people we can't guarantee that that's the way it's going to be we're going to guarantee you here sobriety in the way of life and if you're a dick digger buddy you're going to be a better dick diggers we don't guarantee you're gonna make a ton of scratch to drive a big iron out there or live in a big old house up on the hill or your woman's ever calling you back that may never come but if you come on in and buy the total packages here the day is going to come when they will respect you respect you and you say that's not much but it's a hell of a lot more than i had what i got here the day comes when they learn to respect you and maybe love you just a little bit and that's got to be more than i was looking for when i got there losing families and things doesn't necessarily bring people today what brings people away it's my opinion for what it's worth it it's a psychological second in the man's life when he's sick and tired of being sick and tired and he's trying to hurt himself and he don't want to go another step Maybe it's the first time, the 50th or the 500th time that he comes to the program, but it's that time that He's willing to go to any length of what's available. Well, I got up off the rotten floor on February 23, 1954, and I was truly sick and tired, and I'd lost all the things I ever wanted to lose. And I walked in and picked up the phone, and they called the central office in Los Angeles, and I talked to a guy, and his name was John Carroll, and God love the John Carrolls of AA. And I'm sure John won't mind me breaking his anonymity. John died here after I'd only been sober a year and a half. John, the reason he was such a magnificent person is that he had learned early in his A.A. career in order to keep what I got, I've got to give it away. And he gave it away by the bucket full. He worked in that central office in Los Angeles for beans seven days a week giving away what he'd found. And he talked in a quiet voice and he said, do you have a drinking problem, son? I said, I've Got a Hell of a Problem. He said, do you want to do something about it? I said I do. And he said here's some numbers. You keep calling these numbers and somebody will be there to see you. And I kept calling and pretty soon I got a hold of the guy and he says I'll be out in a couple of hours and he did and he come out there and he sat and he talked to me he sat there not with the pity and the hate that i'd seen all my life he sat here with compassion and understanding he was a guy from alcoholic synonymous he was our hard-hearted sponsor you know the type he went to school for hard-hard sponsors you know they ran schools in l.a for them hard hard you know any length together you gotta go any length together pound on pound on the table and all that you know now he says you know something sonny you probably ain't gonna make it here you still got a car wrist watching the ring and you may have to do some other things out there but let me tell you if you want it there's an evening tonight in the town temple city and you get in car and you drive down he says we don't believe my group of guys don't please in picking people up and taking them to meetings no that is a softer easier way now you went to any length to get the booze didn't you you lied for it cheated for it con for it you know so for any length yeah i did all right any length to get this struggle i don't necessarily mean that that's the way it ought to be but that's the way that he and his friends operated that this you went out to get it and the only thing I really liked about him was when he said if I can make it you can make it and I thought is that the truth if that jackass can make it anybody can man he is a dirty old man and I didn't like the way he was speaking to me well I got in my car that night and I drove down to the temple city group the temple city group in them days used to down in rosemead they meet in arcadia now i just throw that out in case you're looking for it they never did get to temple city if the element knows but and people from el monte ballam park and azusa monrovia used to attend it we never ever got anybody from temple city either let's just throw that out too we used to meet in the legion hall down there and on the corner was a liquor store and then a meeting hall and then the cemetery and the cliche of the group used to be if you If you get by here and stop here, you won't make it there. And they go, they show you the cemetery. And then they all laugh about it. Yeah. What the hell is so funny about that? They're trying to tell you if you keep drinking, you're going to die. These Alkies, you know, after they get sober, they get a warped sense of humor. Don't they? They laugh about the strangest things. Well, he was there in that parking lot to meet me that night. You know, he slapped me on the back and took my hand and took me out, and I began to love him right there. And he took me in and introduced me around to maybe 7, 8, 10, 15 people and they're all standing around they're sucking on that rotten coffee and they are eating donuts we had a wealthy group in them days we had so much money in the group that we had donuts before and after the meeting can you imagine that and they'd always buy 4 or 5 jelly donuts and we'd save them for new guys you know they see a new guy coming through the door like me and they come up and say God would you like to have a cup of coffee here's a jelly donut you want a donut no you're looking down at something you left in the street last night I don't want a doughnut and they all become hysterical over it. Do you see that guy? I thought he was going to choke there, yes. And the only satisfaction you've got is if you stayed sober any length of time they'd let you do it to the next new guy. This AA business is kind of a crazy bunch of people. As I mentioned, I'm introduced to seven guys and we're all standing around and everybody's talking at the same time and they're all talking about something different. Yes. And nobody ever gets to finish anything he's talking about. Every time a guy gets to a punchline another guy interrupts me right there yeah hell i spent 19 years in a you know suspended up here waiting for the end of the story in the beginning when you come in you always say keep coming back and you're thinking that's why yeah sure thank you very much you and i know what that is but god used to get confused oh you're sick you don't even get a chance to tell anybody how sick you are because everybody's talking at the same time and you're waiting to hear the end of something, you know, and before you know it, the meeting's called over and then a guy stands up in front of the meeting hall and he tells everybody what a jackass he is. He's telling things you've been hiding all your life and you sit there, don't tell him, don' tell him, you don't know, you all know it. And the more jails he goes to, the more he gets worked over, the bigger the bum, the more laughter, the greater the love and I guess they call it an A. What a crazy place. The speaker this night, he'd been in some 70, 80 jails I'm sitting there thinking hell I'll never make it in AA I've only been in 24, 25 and at one ton of century how am I going to cut it here but they prefaced the statement each and every speaker I ever heard in those early years by saying it don't make any difference where you've been or what you drank or the amount you consumed is what it's doing to you buddy and if it's tearing up any part of your life you don't have to go any farther and I could sit there and I could parallel that yes sir my god it was tearing the hell out of my life and that guy told me I don't have to go no farther. And I can buy, and I can understand that. Yes, sir. And the man went on to talk that night after the laughter and the tears. He talked about the program and coming here and buying the package, the sobriety and the way of life. And he talked about how his woman had divorced him and remarried and then got back together again. He was talking about how the kids who had learned to hate him after a period of time come down to see him. And they learned to like him. Then they learned respect him. They learned to love him. Had I had the foresight to look around that night. You know what I'd have seen? I'd have seen a half a dozen tough A guys, big tough guys sitting there in that meeting and they're all choked up and their tears are coming down and they are crying because they are happy. They are happy for this guy as he stands up there and the story of Alcoholics Anonymous was told to me that night and I've heard it hundreds of times then. Maybe it's oversimplification but it's my understanding that they laughed because they were miserable and they cried because they weren't happy and they called it AlcoholicsAnonymous. How the hell do you clear away the wreckage of your rotten lousy past, you learn to laugh. And when you start to laugh, all the garbage and the junk comes out and you clear it out. And then the day comes when you make the big jump, the big transformation. When you're sitting there in a meeting one night and you're feeling yourself, you feel something for another guy. And it's foreign. I never felt nothing for nobody in my life. Never. Hell, I'm a taker. I lay down in that seat and I took all my life. Takers are losers. But I thought I was winning. Yeah, I thought had the key to happiness out there. I never had the key chain. I didn't know what happiness was all about until I came here and I bought the package, and I started to give a little for the hell of it. You start to give, and you start to win a little. Maybe it's only a small thing in the beginning. Maybe he's only sitting there feeling good because another guy feels good. That's the beginning when we have so many ways to give. There's no compromise kind of giving. You and I understand here in AA. You can't buy the program, and yet you can't sell the program. But you can give the hell away. You can pick up the ACs. You can make the coffee. You can go to central service, general service, institution work. You become the secretary of the group. You go out on a 12-step call. There's dozens of ways. What better way is there to give a little than to go out there to sit with a drunk that's still hacking it out there? Ten o'clock at night and you get a call and you don't want to go and you think, God, I wish I could sprain my ankle so I don't have to go. You go anyway and you sit there with this guy for two or three hours and you look at the clock and it's one and you say, man, I've got to break out at four. But you're no longer tired are you as you walk back to your car you sit down and you think that guy talked different that night he said something was altogether different maybe he's got it this time and all of a sudden you know the weariness is gone and the feeling comes all over you a feeling that you look for all your life a sense of well-being hell that's why i drank the booze that's the reward not in a material sense but the reward and the program is the feeling the sense of well-being. Sure, many people would like to make lots of money, and it's available, and you can stay sober, and I would too. But in the bitter end when it's all over, it's not going to be what you've accumulated. It's going to make the sense. It is going to be what you give away. When you're standing there and they're hanging you out to dry, I'm sure that's it. And the reward is that sense of well- being, that feeling good all over. That's why I used to feel when I drank a whiskey. That's why I drank that whiskey was to feel good, to get up on that plateau, to feel that buzz and hope. It was gone. I woke up in the morning and a friend of mine came in to see me called Remorse and he reached in, he tore my guts out and the sense of well-being was gone again. And to reach cancer then I got to drink the whiskey. Whiskey will put it out of my life. And I drink some more whiskey and I got the sense well- being and I traded the sense-of-well-being in. So I found or had out there the whiskey for the sense the well-beinng I found in Alcoholics Anonymous. and all that's been necessary is to give a little for the hell of it and want nothing back, and no compromise time, as you and I understand here in Alcoholics Anonymous. These aren't things that I learned in that first AlcoholicsAnonymous meeting. The things that i learned in that first AA meeting was that if I wanted what they had, I'd come back here to find it. Now, I probably disagreed with everything that guy had to talk about that night, except when he talked about the way he felt and the way we looked. And as I looked at him, yes, he looked good, this guy, that speaker that night. He looked sharp. This guy had been some 60s, I say, 78 in jail. He says, but you can't tell it. He stays there and he looks good. His eyes are clear and he's laughing a lot. And he's just all effervescent. He's got a set of threads on him. I saw him a hundred and a half. And I'm thinking, man, if he didn't get nothing else for this AA outfit, didn't he get a set of drapes out of the shop? That's all right. You know, I'll hang in a little while and give you a tattoo. Now, by example, isn't it? That is what it is all about. It is by example. If I heard that cliche once, i heard a hundred times what he is speak so loud i cannot hear a word he says by example if i wanted what he had i would find it here and he told me so and he looked so good that i want to come back and get a little of it too i couldn't find it out there i look for it i couldnít find it in my woman and my kids and in the churches and the priests and the parishes and all of it no i would find it and i kept coming to meetings to find it here and i went through the traumas as all of us do and we got to sit down pretty soon because they said there's not a soul sage at the 4 o'clock. Just an accident passing, and I went through all of the traumas that all of you alcoholics went through. And still going to this war. Three years and two months over, and I've been passed by five times for promotion in the companies I worked for. Five times! God, I was working 10 hours a day, and I was hating them 10 hours per day, and it just got to the point that it was driving me nuts. And this ego that I had, I couldn't suppress it. And one day it got so bad that I couldn't stand it and I sat down and I wrote out a whole bunch of inventories. And the thing that kept coming up, kept saying and ringing in the back of my head, the serenity prayer, accept the things you can't change, Norm, buddy. That's the way it is out there. There's guys working for that company to never forget who you are and where you came from and all the crap and problems that caused them out there, they're never going to forget it. And so, Normy, you've got a choice. They're going to be around for a long time. Either you're going stay and stay in the little yard or you're gonna have to resign and you're not gonna have a job. You're gonna need to move on. So what are you going to do? And you take a good hard look at yourself because the program teaches you to take a great hard look at yourself for the first time in your life. Take a good heart and take a hard look at yourself and what do you see? You see a big ego and you know you can't go through one more time being passed by until you've got to resign and you leave and you go on out and on, don't you? And you go all out into a new vocation. You make a 180 degree turn and you start all over again and I wouldn't have thought of doing it five years before that but the three people of the program in the book they give you the strength to start again and you learn if you want it bad enough you can have it providing you're willing to make the sacrifices to get it and providing you've got time to sit down and talk to your friends and never forget where you came from most anything is possible and I went out and started all over and that was almost 16 years ago and I haven't missed a meal since through the grace of God and the program and the people in it it's a piece of hot and then six years eight years sober 1962 comes I walk out of St. Luke's Hospital in 1962 and I go Christ God why buddy Why you got to hammer at me some more? Why you gotta tear me up? The grief and the misery and the heartbreak. You've asked me to pack. That's too big. I can't make it. No, no. I forgot, didn't I? I forgot to remember who I am. I forgot the thanking for what I had. That's what I forgot to do. Norm, instead of standing there crying a poor mouth about what you didn't get or what he asked you to carry, why don't you thank him for what you have? Norm, you know deep inside the old shooter is a kind man. He never gives you more than what you can pack. He gives the big loads to the big horses and the small ones to guys like you. Instead of crying the poor mouth, take a minute out of your busy life and look down the street and what do you see? I see a man carrying a load ten times the size of mine. And the only difference between he and I is he carries his with great dignity. He doesn't find it necessary to cry the poor mouse about what he didn't get. He thanked the man for what he had and God give me the strength the next time around to thank him for what I have. And when the man came up to me one night and he says norm what do you got i said buddy i got it all i'll tell you a secret it's a hell of a long walk from the la county jail to where i stand now number one and number two i've got 19 years buddy walking down the sunny side of the street can you imagine that 19 years guys are going to die i never seen 19 days so i'm overpaid they're going to see 19 weeks out there they're gonna walk down the street of booze and fantasy and busted dreams a broken heart and cares about a bucket full they're gonna die out there hell i'm overpaid for almost 19 years now i've been able to get up and make the decision which way i want to live people don't make that for me i make it nobody's got the screws or the heat on me today i'm not coming from behind no way i get up this morning and i'll make the decisions i won't justify my existence out there or compromise my life i'll walk down that bloody street, and I'll be respected. And I'll hang my head high. And I'll talk to people, and look them right in the eye, and hang my head from none of them. I have my self-respect. I've regained it. It's been restored through the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Restored. My self- respect. I'm respected on the street. I walk down by myself and in turn by other people. I'll work out there a day, my friends, and I'll complete, and get in the car, and drive home to a house where I live. And I'll walk in a door and I'll be respected by a red-headed woman, because she's my woman and I'm her old man. I'll been respected not for where I've been or where I'm trying to go but for what I am this day. I'm a sober husband. I will be respected by a few of them bandits that are still left living on my joints, because I'm their father. Nobody cried at my house today because their old man was drunk and tore it up. I haven't heard a kid of mine scream at me for years for me not to hit their mother. I watched them go from small ones into big ones. I sent them to school to get smart. Nobody in my family ever educated, ever cut it that far. I've taken daughters downtown and bought them high-heeled shoes and prom dresses. I stood there so choked up that I couldn't talk as I looked at a chicken when we walked into the store and she puts on those shoes and she becomes a woman. And I look at her with respect for what she has become and she respects me because I'm her old man. And I've sent invitations out for people to come to a church, to see a girl get married. Three and a half years ago, I sent out 400 and 350 people come. But I can remember the day I sent off 400 invitations for people to comes and see me. Nobody comes. But not that day. 360 people and I stood in a room filled with people and I was part of it. I can stand in a group filled with people and I'm none of it. And a little girl, and that's all she was, was a chicken too the day before. She walks out of the room and she's got a white flowing dress on and she grabs my arm because I'm her old man. And I took her down the aisle and I give her to a big jackass she married. But I'll tell you something, before that old jackass ever got there, there was only me and that chicken as we walked down the aisles and I looked out of the sea of people. And when you're in a room, what do you see? You see your buddies from AA, 60s, 70s, sitting there and they're laughing and they'RE crying and they'Re looking sharp and they give you that high sign, that secret sign. You get in the crowd from another alky who says, and you can read his mind, Jesus, Norm, you look good, buddy, don't you? Walking down there with that fine suit on. And Norm, buddy too bad the rest of the people here don't know who you are and where you came from and what it took to bring you here, And in those days you want to yell, Charlie Christ, I wish we could. I wish that we could tell them who we are and where we came from. I wish they could introduce them to all our friends. But for those friends, Alcoholics Anonymous and a red-headed woman, I could have missed it all. Thanks a million. God love you. We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our Tape and CD of the Month Club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 you