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Source: Lloyd E – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: lloyd-e-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:12:29
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Tonight's open meeting. My name is Ida G. and I am an alcoholic. I will now read the preamble. Alcoholic Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership.
We are self-supporting for our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sex, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. It does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. I said this was the Friday night open meeting, but it also is a big occasion. It is Bert's 8th anniversary.
And I'd like to say Bert has been a good friend to me and he's been a good friend to the group. And not only that, he has been a good friend of the Freeport Hospital. He has done a lot of work there and he has helped immensely. And I want to thank Bert for that. And he is going to take Jim's place there, so we'll be working together, which is a pleasure for me. And it's a privilege for me now to introduce Bert. I always goof everything, don't I?
Thank you, Ida. I guess we're the same because I can probably goof up too before the night's over, but I don't worry about it anymore today. I want to thank everybody for coming, and I can start to goof right now. I'm nervous, of course, but this I don't worry about either. I don't worry about anything today because I know right from wrong, and I know that, well, I know, period. It's good to be able to know.
We started a little late. I was waiting for the second speaker and I really didn't want to start late, but this is the way the program works, and we have to bear with it, I guess. I have tonight a speaker from Syracuse, New York. There are a few people in the room that have heard Lloyd. They heard him in at the convention in New York. That's where I heard him. And I was so inspired, and I had such a feeling of belonging to the AA program after hearing Lloyd speak, and I've had a completely different feeling of the AA program since I heard Lloyd speak, and I hope that there are many in this room that will be able to receive the same benefit from Lloyd tonight as I did in New York at the convention that Sunday morning, and I'd like to give you Lloyd.
My name is Lloyd, Lloyd E., and I'm an alcoholic. I would like to first congratulate Bert and thank him for inviting me down to speak at his anniversary. Congratulations, Bert. Thank you, Lloyd. It is a pleasure. You know, I'm an awful long ways from home. I don't know anyone here, but I know there's a lot of people here who are like me, and I know that I am among friends, and I feel good. I guess the correct way for an AA member to speak every time is to begin with telling what happened, what he was like and what happened to him and what he's like now.
What has AA done for him? Well, I'm going to try not to dwell too long on my days of wine and roses, and it was wine and no roses. To begin with, I happen to be a full-blooded Iroquois Indian, so you see, you don't have to be Irish to be an alcoholic. Sometimes it might help, and I'll tell you, sometimes I thought I was Irish, too.
[00:05:03]
In spite of this, the way that I have come to be able to stay sober one day at a time, in my mind, is a miracle. I'm going to go back and recapture one or two instances in my life that will show you what alcohol did to me. I think, first of all, I can go back to the year 1955. At that time, 12 years ago, I was a student at a university, rather a college, in the Midwestern United States. I was there on a full athletic scholarship.
I had played football in high school and played basketball and I had ran track. As a result of this blessing that I had as a physical attribute to be an athlete, I was presented with a full four-year athletic scholarship. At this time, I was positive that all the aspirations that I had in my life were to come true. At one time in my life, I had thought about becoming a minister, and then I thought maybe I would like to become a schoolteacher.
And so I entered college, and I had the world by the tail. I was on top of the world. Nothing was wrong. I can recall one day specifically in the month of May in 1955, I was training for the National College track meet, and I was running across the field of Kansas, which in the month of May is dry. And I always used to run along this river, and the grass around the river was always dry and brown by this time of the year.
But I came upon this place in the river where it had made a turn and a lot of water had collected there. And as I ran down near the river, the grass, the grass around me was green, and there were birds and there was life there. And at this time, being a young man and have learned about a God, I was positive at that time that I was in the presence of this supreme being. And I had ran up to that time probably about eight miles.
And as I stopped and looked about this oasis that I had found, I can recall falling to my knees and crying with joy, not in sadness, because this time, for the first time in my life, this supreme being had become obvious to me, and I had not used alcohol yet. Of course, I didn't know at this time that lying dormant in my body was a disease, and this disease, of course, is a disease of alcoholism. All it was waiting for was the alcohol, the catalyst that would get it started and progress to something that I could never imagine would happen to Lloyd.
Now, this was in 1955. Let me come up to 1965, ten years later. I'll never forget this date as long as I live, and I hope I can never forget the condition that I was in on this day. On July 19, 1965, at some time in the morning, I'm not sure what time, I found myself sitting in an alley. I was ending one of the many one-week drunks that I had partaken in the past ten years. I was sitting in an alley, leaning against a fence.
I hadn't shaven for a week. My body was beginning to bloat. My clothes that I had on, I had on a pair of sneakers with no socks. I had on a t-shirt that was too small for me, and I had on a pair of jeans that came somewhere between my knees and my ankles. And I was sitting there, and I was shaking. I was sitting there, and I was afraid. On this morning, I found myself completely void of any spiritual aspirations.
I found myself completely defeated by alcohol. I found myself with the complete absence of any self-respect. I found myself with the complete lack of any desire to do anything but to drink. And I recall the fear and the anxiety and the hopelessness that was in my mind on that morning when I woke up.
[00:10:01]
And, of course, I had my colleagues who were near me, and I knew that unless I could get my body upright and walk and find something to drink, I would not last very long on that morning. So I did this, and I knew on this morning that I had to drink or I would die. So for the first time in my life, for the very first time, I bummed. I bummed for a quarter, for a nickel, for a dime, for anything, because I knew when 8 o'clock came, I was going to need a jug of wine if I was going to live until 8.30.
But I had friends with me, my colleagues. We wandered out of the alley, we stood in a corner, and we bummed. And I can remember at 5 minutes to 8, I was standing across the street from a liquor store waiting for it to open, and in my hand I held $1.05 in small change. And I was wondering if I could make it until 8 o'clock to walk across that street and to pick that jug of wine up that I needed so badly on that morning.
And this is the condition I was in 10 years after this glorious morning when I was positive that there was a Supreme Being who was taking care of me. So what happened? What happened during these 10 years? What happened to this young athlete who was, who had the world by the tail? What happened to this young athlete that was positive that there was a Supreme Being who was going to guide him through his life and present him with all the things that he ever desired?
What happened? It's very simple and plain to me now that I experienced a thorough and a complete progression of the disease of alcoholism. During these 10 years, I did many things that I never intended to do. And they tell me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. During these 10 years, I never intended to cheat and to become dishonest, but I did this. During these 10 years, I never intended to become a wino, but I did this.
During these 10 years, I never intended to land in jail, but I did this too. And above all, during these 10 years, I never intended to turn my back on this Supreme Being, but I did this. And so you can see the things that happened to me as a result of the progression of alcoholism in my body. But on July 19, 1965, something happened. At the time, I didn't even know it was happening, because in my conscious mind, I had nothing to do with this.
I had nothing to do with what happened to me on that day. But you know, I have this in my mind today, that I am not the man that I want to be. I am far from that. And I am not the man that I ought to be. But for the grace of God, I am not the man that I used to be. And in this, I find comfort. And I have learned this in this fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have learned a way of life that enables me to stay sober one day at a time.
One day at a time. When I, on this day of July 19, I have my idea of what happened. I cannot speak for AA, I can only speak for Lloyd. I can only speak what I experienced and tell you what happened to me. And this is what I think happened to me on this day. I was sitting in the joint, and it was a joint, I'll tell you that. It was really a joint. I was sitting there waiting for the next jug to come.
And the thought was still in my mind, unless I can get one more jug, I'm going to die. I can't live. But something happened. How long it took, I'm not sure. But the next conscious thought that I had was that if I continue to drink like this, I will surely die. And I stood up, and I staggered out of this joint. And I walked to my mother's home, which was on the Onondaga Reservation, just south of Syracuse.
The Onondaga Reservation, just south of Syracuse, how I did this, how I walked this far, I still don't know today, but I have an idea, that on this day, this supreme being that I was so positive of ten years before, looked down on West Street in Syracuse, and saw me surrender completely to alcohol, and saw me give up, and saw the hopelessness that was in my life, and saw the fear and the anxiety,
[00:15:27]
and the surrender completely to alcohol, and this supreme being might have said this, I didn't intend Lloyd to die on West Street, I didn't intend Lloyd to end up with a wet brain in a state hospital, I didn't intend for Lloyd to end up in jail because he robbed somebody so that he could buy booze, and he saw me surrender, and on this day, this God that I know today, and as I understand it, is a gracious God, and he looked down and he said, just for this one time, I'm going to help him, and I experienced the initial spiritual awakening, not even knowing what was happening, I am positive that this was a result of the prayers of my wife, my mother, and the people who still held a little bit of respect for this drunken bum, so that day, I walked off of West Street, not knowing what happened, not realizing what I was doing. The next day was a Friday, and I got a call from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he talked, he told me about his alcoholism, and he said, have you ever tried AA?
And I said, right, I went to one meeting four years ago and it didn't do a darn thing for me. So he says, well, it just happened, now I've got to tell you this part of my story too. The reason this man called me was that my wife reached a point in her life where she felt she had to do something for herself, and so she went to family court, of course. And when you go to family court, they ask you, why are you coming to family court when your husband is a school teacher? When your husband coaches basketball and track, why do you have to come to family court and tell us that your husband drinks too much?
Well, I didn't know, and she didn't know then either. But when she told him this, the people were there. This instrument of this supreme being was there to take up the job to be done. So the next day I was contacted by an AA person, and he told me, he says, you know that on August 10th the sheriff's department is going to serve you with a warrant, and on August 12th you're going to be in children's court or you're going to be in jail.
I said, August 10th's a long ways off, buddy, that gives me 20 days to drink. He said, but, then he told me about AA, and I said, no, I'm not an alcoholic, I just drink a lot. And he told me that he was an alcoholic, and I said, good, you keep going to those meetings. And then he says, would you go to a meeting if I could have somebody come and get you? And I said, no. He says, well, you know, he says, Lloyd, I think if you would attend these meetings for the next 20 days until August 10th, I could probably talk the judge into not having you appear in children's court. And I said, where's the meeting?
Where's the meeting? And so he said, you just hold on, I'll have somebody call you. Well, later that afternoon, another man called me, and this man, of course, today is my sponsor. His name is Lou, and he's an Irishman, and he's from head to toe, he's an Irishman. And he called me, he says, Lloyd, he says, my name is Lou, and I'm an alcoholic. And he says, would you like to go to a meeting with me tonight? And I says, right, I'll meet you there. And he says, no, I'll come and get you.
So that night, again, I was still drunk, my mind was still wind up when he come to get me, but I can never forget this. The stupid alcoholic mind that I had, and I still have, this man came to help me. He picked me up, he came in his car, and I can remember him coming over to, near the, and I was standing near the tree, I was leaning on a tree when he came there, and he, I walked over to the car, and he says, is your name Lloyd? And I said, yes.
And he put his hand out, and his hand was shaking, and I looked at his hand, and I said, this guy needs my help. I shook his hand, and I said, I've got to go with this guy, because I can help him, he's sick. I got in the car, and of course he took me to AA, and he continued this for a week, he came and picked me up, and then he turned me loose, not completely loose, but this was the initial, this is how I got into AA.
[00:20:08]
When I came to AA, I didn't want to be a member of AA, I didn't want to be an alcoholic, I didn't want to admit that I was powerless over wine, I didn't want to admit my life was manageable even though we were just being evicted from the place we were living in, and I had about 18 creditors chasing me around West Street, I didn't want to admit anything. I didn't want to come to believe, I wanted to maybe way back, but not consciously, I didn't want to believe that there was a power greater than myself that could restore me to anything, because he allowed me, in my mind I always thought, that he allowed me to degrade myself, to become a wino and a bum.
I didn't want to believe this, and I surely didn't want to turn my life and my will over the care of this God that let me go to West Street and become a wino, and to take an inventory, oh not now, not now, no inventory for me, not now. So I went to AA with one thing in mind, I'm going to get off the hook, my wife won't go back to Oklahoma, my four children will be here with me, and maybe if there's some outside danger I might get a job in the summertime.
So I went to meetings, but you know there was something about these people, there was something during my ten years of drinking, there were periods during that time that I knew that I was wrong, I knew that what I was doing was totally wrong, and I could do nothing about it. So I went during these ten years at various times to a medical doctor, one time my pastor took me to an AA meeting and while he went in to see where I was, I got out and went to a joint, I went to him several times, and we went to the church and we prayed, and the next day I got drunk.
I went to a medical doctor and he told me this, Lloyd you're an alcoholic, and I said, what is an alcoholic? And he used all these big words on me and I said, well I might be that, but I'm not going to do anything. What can you do to help me? He gave me vitamins and made me feel good and I got more drunk. And I tried to go to a psychiatrist. I approached the most learned men on the topic of alcoholism and asked them, what can I do? They all told me the same thing, you're an alcoholic, go to AA. Go to AA. The very first time that I went to AA, I walked into a room that was filled with smoke. There were ten people sitting there, and I'll bet you the youngest guy was 95.
And I was 24. And I sat down and I listened to these old buggers tell their story. I sat there and I said this, I'm not an alcoholic because I'm too young. I'm not an alcoholic because I'm too smart. I'm not an alcoholic because I'm too strong. That night, the only thing I heard in that meeting was something about a 24-hour period. So I went out and I thought I'm going to get drunk for 24 hours. Maybe that's good. So I did. And I walked away, but you know, sitting at that meeting, there was a man, he's a plumber, and he told me after I came back to AA that that night, after talking with me, he told the rest of the people that it's just a matter of time and he'll be back.
Because eventually he is so hard-headed, nobody will be able to help him except Alcoholics Anonymous. He will have no other place to go except to Marcy, the state mental hospital for the wet brain, or he'll end up in jail, or he'll die a drunken bum. Or else he'll come back to AA. He'll come back to us. And I went on my merry way for six more years. I went out. And it was during this time that I became a bum. It was during this time that alcohol took me completely. I took you back to 1955.
At this time I hadn't experienced the use or the consumption of alcohol to any degree, but in January of 1956, I was in college, I thought I had everything, and the thing to do for a young athlete who is trying to beat a big wheel is to become socially known. To become socially known at this school where I was at meant to attend some drinking parties. And I went to the drinking parties. And I tried alcohol. And I got drunk. The first night that I tried, I got so drunk, I fell down, I didn't black out, I remembered everything I was doing, but I paralyzed my body the very first time I tried to drink. I fell on the ground, my mind was consciously awake, but I couldn't move.
[00:25:20]
So the next day I had a very understanding roommate because I puked all over the room. Right in his shoes. And the next day we got up and I was a sick horse. I was a sick horse. And he says, that's all right, Lloyd. He says, you know damn well when you give Indians alcohol, they go whine, you know. Right, right. And it's amazing, this thought, this very feeble thought on this morning, when I was so sick, stuck with me for so very long. Every time that I went wild, every time I did some insane thing when I was drinking, I said the reason I do this is because I'm an Indian.
I said maybe someday if I drink enough of this junk, I'll be able to drink like those Irishmen. But you know, I found out that there's a few Irishmen that can't handle it either. Well, you know, as time progressed, even this in itself, the fact that I'm an Indian, this quit covering for me. Because the first time I got drunk it was bad, but six and seven years later when I was going on weeks and blacking out, I thought, can I blame this? I can be becoming more Indian, but I'm getting more drunk all the time. So I had to kind of throw this out as an excuse that the reason that I was so crazy is because I was an Indian.
And so this is when it started to bother me. This is when I knew that something was wrong with me. This is when I knew that, Jesus, maybe if I sit here and drink enough of this junky mess, I'll be able to, you know, social, a social drinker. Well, I guess it was about six years ago when my wife came up to Syracuse. Now this was the third time. I had started college in 1953. A guy in Syracuse who was on a program, he thought he held a record. It took him nine years to get his bachelor's degree. That is until I came to AA.
It took me eleven years and four different colleges before I got a degree. And of course many, many drunks. Many, many heartaches. Many days of suffering. Many days of not understanding. Many days of not knowing. But it took me that long. Well, I think it was 1960 and one of my high school friends came up, happened to be my wife. She was working in Washington, D.C. and she heard about the great Lloyd up in Syracuse, so she came up. No, she didn't. She came up to visit a friend up there and we got together.
Now here I was, I was back at Syracuse for the third, no, the second time I was back at Syracuse University trying to get a degree. I had a total of 147 hours and no degree. Anyway, I was there and she came up there and we started going together. Why she ever married me, I'll never know. I'll never know because the day before we got married, I had to borrow $10 from her so I could go out and buy a ring, an expensive one. But I was a student and she thought this is the reason why he needs to borrow $10.
But that was the beginning of six years of hell for her and six years of hell for me too. So this, on top of being an alcoholic, I had to get married. And on top of getting married, everything started piling up and things started going from worse to even worse than I ever thought they ever could be. Every weekend I would get drunk. And in those days when I was young, it seems like every time I went, I'd hang out in the best joints, that's why I guess. Every weekend I'd go to a joint and it seemed like some little jerk was always trying to say that he could put me on the floor or something.
And I was a badder and I was an S.O.B. because if the little guy didn't pick on me, I picked on him. I've got to relate this story to you. Up to this time, I hadn't spent any time in jail so I couldn't say that I couldn't be an alcoholic, I'd never been in jail. But one night I was in this Indian joint in Syracuse and if you've ever been in an Indian joint around Syracuse, you know that these places are not the place where you go with a suit on unless you want to wear it the next day or if you want to wear it the next day.
the next day, or if you want to wear it the next day. So I went into this joint, and it was buzzing.
[00:30:03]
There were about 50 Indians around there, and things got pretty lively, and I think I instigated a little fight there, and I got back and let them fight. And they called the police, of all things. They called the police, and three paddy wagons pulled up right in front of this place called the Hobnob, and listen, the Hobnob isn't a Hobnob. Three paddy wagons, couple cars, police come up and they run in, and I'm standing there with a suit on. They start putting everybody in, everybody was going in the paddy wagon, the bartender and all, too. And I come walking out, and I start, I turn and start walking on the street.
Now this was the luck of the Irish. I turn, I start walking on the street, and the policeman standing there says, hey chief, come on, get in the wagon. And I looked at him as arrogant as I could, drunk, and I says, chief, can't you tell that I'm Irish? And he laughed, and he told me to get out of there. Here was a night that, in spite of myself, I managed not to get in jail. I managed not to get locked up that night.
But I did, eventually. It caught up to me, and I got locked up. I spent some nights in a drunk tank. I remember the first night it happened. They were even trying to send me home in a cab, but I wouldn't go home in a cab. I ended up in a drunk tank that night, as a result of drinking alcohol, because I'm an alcoholic. Well, these things I can look back, and at some of them, at some of them I can laugh. This is the drinking part of my story.
There were times when part of it was humorous, but of course, as you, the alcoholic, and only the alcoholic can understand this, that there were many times when I would wake up in the morning and wonder what is going to become of me. What am I doing to myself? Why can't I control alcohol? Why can't I control my life? Why can't I take care of my children? Why can't I take care of my wife? Why can't I take care of myself?
These thoughts, so many times, were in my mind, until the day that I sat across from this Irishman, and I asked him, why did I do these things? And for the first time in my life, I found somebody who said, I know, because I did the very same thing. I know because this happened to me. Why did I have four children, and only be there when one of them was born, drunk three other times? He said, I know, because I have one child, and I wasn't even home. I was drunk when he was born.
There was something about this man that for the first time in my life, I started to tell him about how I really was when I was drinking. And now I think I have a little note here. This is my drinking part of my story. I have a note that says we might stop for a break and a coffee here. I think I neglected to say at the beginning of the meeting, but my name is Bert T., and I am definitely an alcoholic.
And with that, there are no dues or fees, but we do pass the basket. I think we'll just turn the meeting right back to Lloyd and let him continue. It's not very often I get to speak two times in a row. There was one thing I wanted to mention as I sat down. When I first came to AA, my conception of what the fellowship was, was so far incorrect. It was pitiful. I thought that the alcoholics in AA were all bums and derelicts. And I had made that grade, but I just wouldn't admit it.
I didn't realize that in AA there were men from every walks of life, every race, and every creed.
[00:35:05]
That the disease of alcoholism is not choosing who it takes. And for Lloyd, I had to become a bum. I had to become a wino before I could come to AA. But everybody does not have to do this. Everybody does not have to become a wino and a bum like I did. There are many people in the program in Syracuse, many good friends of mine, who came before they did this, but I had to do this myself. But if you are new or relatively new on the program, and if you're here for your first few meetings, and if you feel that you haven't done the things that Lloyd has, well, I'll tell you something, friends. You don't have to. But if you are an alcoholic, and if you continue to drink, it is inevitable that this will happen to you like it happened to me.
But it doesn't have to, because now you have a choice. As I was telling, I started coming to AA meetings, or rather I started going to AA meetings, and I think it was about a week, maybe, it might have been a little bit longer than that, before I sobered up. I mean, before I got dry enough to realize to let go of the chair so I wouldn't fall off, I was shaking. It took a week before I realized what was happening. And I remember it was on a Friday, the following Friday that I attended my first AA meeting, and at night I went to a meeting.
I had gone to seven meetings in a row, and I had heard nothing. I had heard nothing, but I had seen something. I had seen something in these people in AA. Being the selfish person that I was, I wanted that too. So from nothing at all, within one week, I think I got what is necessary, or the only requirement to become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I gained a desire to get sober. And it scared me, because that night I went home, and I told my wife, I said, well, I've been around for about a week, she still wasn't quite talking to me yet.
And I got home and I started thinking, I thought, what if this works? What if this works, and what if I do stop drinking? What the hell am I going to do? What am I going to do with my time? So I asked my sponsors, hey, I want to stay sober, what am I going to do with my friends asking me to go to a party? And he looked at me, and he said, who the hell is going to ask you to go to a party? So I had to pass that up. But I can recall that week, that night, I was thinking, what if it works? What if I don't drink anymore? What if I can't stay sober? What am I going to do?
So I stayed awake that night, thinking, what if it works? What if I don't ever pick up another drink in the rest of my life? That's going to be terrible. The next morning I got up bright and early, or rather, I got out of bed bright and early, and I got in the bathtub. And this day, my sponsor wasn't going to come after me. He told me to meet him at the open house in Syracuse. To meet him at the open house. That means I was going to drive my car about 15 miles to the open house and meet him there at noon. But he told me to go there in the morning. And I got out of the sack.
The disease of alcoholism is threefold. It consists of a physical compulsion to drink, coupled with a mental obsession to do the same thing, and coupled with a spiritual depletion with nothing to fall back on when you don't have the will to do it yourself. And on this morning, when I got out of bed, when I was shaving, this took me again. The compulsion, the obsession to drink. And I started to shave like I had never shook even when I was drinking.
And this was a day probably that was worse and harder on me than any day I had at least that I could remember when I was drinking. Because on this day I got in my car and I started toward the open house. And I thought, I'll stop here at this very first joint and have one on the way there. I wanted to drink. My alcoholic mind was twisting my thinking. I didn't have thinking in a week. I didn't know what I was doing. But I knew that I had this one thing, a desire to stay sober. I would say, I'm going to stop and have one. I said, no I can't, I'll go to the open house first. But as I came to this first joint, it was also a joint, I live in a good section of Syracuse. I came to this first place and I was lucky.
[00:40:11]
You know, because this is the place I was going to stop. And if they hadn't shut me off there two weeks before, I probably would have stopped there. But as I approached, I remember, no I can't go in this place because they told me never to come back. So I thought, well I'll go on down, I'll go to the next joint. And by the time I came to the next joint, there was too much traffic coming from the other way and I couldn't turn over into that left lane and I was afraid to stop because my hand was shaking so much that I'd probably run into somebody. So I kept going. And I went right down West Street and I went past the hobnob. And when I went past that hobnob, I was shaking. And this time I was going to stop. I was positive, I'm going to stop and I'm going to have a triple. Then I'll go up to the open house. But I didn't. Again, I didn't.
Why? I don't know. I don't know. But I know I went by there and I was shaking. But by the time I got to the open house, I couldn't grab the key to turn my car off. I was shaking so bad. I reached down, I pushed it with my hand, it turned off. And I sat there and I looked out the window. And right across the street was the door to the open house, wide open. And I could see the smoke and the guys in there drinking coffee. What a bunch of nuts.
I looked in and I was shaking. I couldn't get out of my car. I was shaking so much. I had no power, no will to do anything. And I stood there and I looked in the open house. Finally, one of them saw me in the car and they come out. Come on over, Lloyd. And I said, I can't. Come on. And I sat there and I was shaking. Well, he came across and he looked at me and he could see that I was in pretty rough shape. So he helped me, opened the door and I got out and I swayed into the open house. I drank five million cups of coffee by noon until my sponsor got there. And I had one hell of a day.
I've heard people in the AA say it was easy for them to get sober. It wasn't easy for me. I had days when I sweated. I had nights when I cried. I had mornings when I woke up with the fear that I was going to die unless I drank. And the same fear that I was going to die if I did drink. I was caught between two things. The hell of living without alcohol for the active alcoholic and the hell of living with alcohol. I was caught between the two hells. There was no in between for me. It was hell not drinking and it was hell drinking. So what should I do? I don't know. They told me to pick up the telephone and call my sponsor. So I did this.
I continued to go to meetings. First thing I had a month of dryness, not sobriety. I went to AA with reservations. I came to AA, I thought, I'm not an alcoholic. I'm a drunk and a wino, but I'm not an alcoholic. And I, instead of doing what they suggested to find, pick people's minds and stories and identify with something, I did the reverse of this. I de-identified. I heard a lot of things that I had done and said, yeah, I did that, but I didn't do it that bad. And then I heard some guy say that he lost a job. He lost many jobs because of his alcoholism.
And I thought, well, that never happened to me. Of course, I never continued this thought of mine. The only reason it never happened to me was because I quit before they fired me. I never had been fired from a job, but I quit many jobs where I left them before they told me to take a walk. And so I spent three months de-identifying. But you know, during these three months, I heard a lot of things. The identification side outweighed the de-identification side. And first thing one night, I heard this lady from Florida, her name is Helen, a very dear friend of mine, dignified, sophisticated. She walked into this meeting with all her jewelry on and she said, I'm an alcoholic. And I said, she's lying like hell.
And she stood up and she told her story. And she impressed me so much that for the first time since coming to AA, that same night, I stood up and I said, my name is Lloyd and I guess I'm an alcoholic. You know, I felt good when I said that. It seemed like there was a load lifted from me because for all the years that I had searched for why in the hell did I do this in a jug with one statement, my name is Lloyd and I guess I'm an alcoholic.
My name is Lloyd, and I guess I'm an alcoholic. This was lifted. I found the answer of why, why when I started to drink, I couldn't stop until I got drunk.
[00:45:04]
The answers that I had looked for were not answered, but the pressure of these questions was released from my mind, and I felt good. And I went home and I told my wife, I said, guess what I did tonight? She still wasn't too friendly with me yet. I said, guess what I did tonight? She said, what? I said, I got up and I said I'm an alcoholic. She said, so what? I've known that for a long while. And I was expecting a pat on the back, but I didn't get it, and I felt bad.
I continued to go to meetings. I looked at the first step. I looked at the second step. I said, which one should I start with? I think maybe I better start with that 12th one, because my sponsor told me, I asked him one. I said, why do you always come and get me? He said, because my sobriety depends on my carrying the message to you. He said, in order to keep what you have, you've got to give it to somebody else.
The next morning, again, I put my suit on, I hopped in my car, and I went to the hobnob. I had been driving for two months. I was not sober. I hadn't taken a first step. I had said I was an alcoholic, and I wanted to be sober. And I knew that the people in AA, rather, were sober. But I knew that I had to carry the message, but I had no message to carry. But I hit the hobnob this early Saturday morning, and I walked in there in all my glory.
They all, the same guys that were there, looked over at me. How you doing, Chief? I said, who wants to get sober? What a mistake. What's the matter with you? So I picked a best friend one night. The reason he was my best friend was because the last week I was drinking, he kept the other guys from rolling me while I was asleep. So I said, Andy, come here. You're my best friend. Come on outside. I want to talk to you.
And so he got up and he was looking at me, and I knew he was going to put the touch on me, but I said, I want to talk to AA first. So I said, Andy, you want to get sober? And he looked at me and said, not today. So it frustrated me, and I told him to go back in. And I went back in, and I approached several of these. I knew they were alcoholics, because they drank with me. They had to be. And by the time I left there, I was almost drinking myself.
I made a mad dash for the open house, and I learned that this isn't the way that you do 12-step work. I learned that if you don't have a message, you can't carry it. I learned that you'd better keep your mouth shut for a while and start getting some of this message so you can give it to them boys down there. So I kept quiet, and I stopped talking at meetings, which was very unusual. I only did this for a couple of meetings, but I stopped and I listened. And gradually and very slowly, I accepted the perspective that I was powerless over alcohol.
But I did this with a reservation. I didn't want to be an alcoholic way back in here yet. Not yet. So three months after July 19th and August 29th, rather on October 29th, I decided that I was an alcoholic. True. And I was powerless over alcohol. True. My life was unmanageable. True. But I'm a special kind of an alcoholic. I'm the kind of an alcoholic that can go out and have one or two and then go back the next day and nothing will happen. So I went out, and you know, up to this time, nobody could offer me a drink. I mean, they could offer it to me, but I wouldn't take it. No, I won't drink. They told me, stay out of joints, away from people, things. No drinks. People offered me drinks. My brother, one night I almost smacked him because he kept offering me too many times.
I said no, but I couldn't refuse myself. When it come to where Lloyd offered Lloyd a drink, when the alcoholic Lloyd offered the alcoholic Lloyd a drink, I couldn't say no. And I walked into a joint. This was a good joint. And I ordered, no, I was with friends. They ordered, I don't know, Manhattan or something, and it's right in front of me. So for 45 minutes there was a Gibson sitting in front of me, I think. And I drank seven up, and I looked at that drink, and I smelled it. I might as well just start drinking it, I thought. And I thought, no, I better not because I'm an alcoholic. But maybe I can handle this one, then I'll go home and I'll call my sponsor and they'll tell me if you drink, you can go back there.
But I picked it up and I tasted it, and it was all over. In 45 minutes I was back on West Street drinking beer and wine side by side. My body got drunk, but my mind didn't. Every time I picked the drink up, the word alcoholic, the word doom, the word powerlessness, the return to the alley, the return to fear, the turning of the back on this higher power, or God as I understand Him, again was in front of me.
[00:50:22]
And again I was lost. And again I was in complete hopelessness. Again I had returned to the very thing that one time destined me to certain death. I was back at it. But again, the God as I understand Him today is a gracious God, and His mercy is everlasting, because again on that night, when I left the joint, I took beer with me, planning on going for a good one. But I went home. I went home to my wife, and I was drunk.
She says, Lloyd, would you like me to call your sponsor? Yes, please call my sponsor. I want help. I want AA. I want to be sober. I don't want to drink. Three o'clock in the morning, she called my sponsor, who lived about 20 miles away. Now he lived 20 miles away, and how he made it there that quick, I'll never know, but he was knocking on the door by the time my wife put the phone down. And he come in. He didn't even talk to me. He talked to her, and I fell asleep.
When I woke up, there were two AA members in my living room. My wife says, there's two guys in there. They're from AA. One guy was as short a time as I was on AA. Another guy had more time. And I said, I don't want to talk to them. She says, all right. I said, no, wait. I'll talk to them. And I went out, and all afternoon, these two guys sat there with me, and we talked. We didn't talk about my getting drunk. We talked about football. Then we talked about my getting drunk.
Then we talked about AA. But I remember the very first thing this guy said to me. John M. is his name. He's over in Germany now in the Air Force. When I walked into that room, he says, Lloyd, do you want us to help you today? And I had a choice, and I said yes. And that night, I think I'd done the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I walked back into an AA meeting after drinking, after having what some people call a slip, but I call a plan drunk for Lloyd. I call it a plan drunk.
I walked back into an AA meeting, but I didn't do it by myself. I don't think I could have done it by myself. But I walked back in with my wife, and she walked back in smiling and still standing by my side. In the three months that I had gone to AA, she had gone to Al-Anon, and she had gotten something there. She had gotten more courage than I had gotten from Al-Anon. And so that night, she walked back into an AA meeting with me. From that day on, with the grace of God and the help of AA, I have not had to pick up alcohol and drink it again.
But what was the difference? What was the difference? I learned that there are three things that enable me to take part in AA. Number one, I had to become honest with myself. And when I stood up and said, my name is Lloyd, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm powerless over alcohol, I had to mean that from the top of my head down to the very end of my toes. And I had to believe it, and there had to be no reservations. I had to be totally honest with myself. Somehow this happened. Then, I had to have an open mind toward what other members in AA said at the meetings.
When they said they worked the program a certain way, I had to accept that as being good for them, because they are working it, and they are sober, and they have been sober much longer than I have been. So I had to acquire an open mind, and by the grace of God, I did this. Then, third of all, which was probably the hardest for me, I had to become willing to accept help from other human beings. I had to be willing to pick up that telephone, big Lloyd, pick up the telephone and call some little guy and say, I need your help because I want a drink. Will you come over to my house? I'm awful shaky. I need help.
And they came, and by the grace of God, I became willing to ask for help from another human being. And of course, I had to again re-evaluate myself as an alcoholic. I had to be able to identify totally with the alcoholic in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I still have to be able to identify with the alcoholic on the street.
[00:55:20]
Because even though I have a few 24 hours, I am still one drink from West Street. I am one drink from standing on a corner with a dollar and five cents waiting for that wine shop to open. I am one drink from total self-respect, loss of total self-respect. I am one drink from again being hopelessly lost in the void of alcoholism. I have to identify with this man on the street, the alcoholic. I have to remember the day when I sat in the alley on West Street. I have to remember these. In AA, I have gotten three things, mainly from AA. During my drinking, I committed many moral and ethical wrongs to myself and to my family and to the human race.
Because of AA, I have found forgiveness. Because I feel that if God forgave me enough to allow me to stay sober one day at a time, who am I not to forgive myself for these things that I did? So I found forgiveness. Then in AA, I found the strength that I need for one day not to drink. And I feel that if I use this strength properly and to the best of my ability, that tomorrow if I choose to ask for this help again, I have the hope and the faith that again it will happen tomorrow if I choose to do this.
I look at AA as a fellowship, a way of life, the only way of life for Lloyd. You know, I grew up, like I told you, on the Onondaga Reservation. And as I grew up, when I was a young child, my father used to have to go and get wood out of the woods to keep the house warm, to burn it. He'd cut poles. One morning I can recall as we walked toward the woods, the snow had drifted, it was kind of deep, and I was walking behind him. I was about ten years old, I think. And I was walking behind him and he was carrying the axe so that he could go and cut the wood.
And as we came to the deep snow, I had a hard time walking through that deep snow. And so I started to walk in my father's footsteps because he was strong. I walked and I stepped in his footsteps. And then as we walked, I said, Dad, look at me. I'm walking in your footsteps. And he says, well, why don't you take my hand and walk up here beside me? And I did. And we walked through the deep snow with ease, my using his strength. And today, this is what AA is to me, exactly this. I walk through life and at times I come upon snow drifts. The walking becomes hard.
All I have to do is ask for that hand and it's there. All I have to do is ask for that hand and take that hand and I can walk through any snow drift that can be created here on Earth. I am sure that the strength and the power in AA will allow me to overcome anything, anything at all, that I might meet in my daily life today. There were so many things that happened to me since I've come to AA. I heard the word serenity. And I wondered, when am I going to get serenity? I heard the word complacency. I was very familiar with that word.
But I misinterpreted many things. I go to a classroom at least five times a week. I sit and I talk with alcoholics. We share our strength and our hope with each other with one purpose, to stay sober one day at a time. How do I do this today? Very simple. In the morning, when I wake up, my very first conscious thought, I've conditioned myself to do this, is that I am an alcoholic. Just for this one day, just for this one day, I am an alcoholic.
I'm an alcoholic and I cannot drink successfully. If I do choose to drink, I have to become willing to pay the price that an alcoholic pays when he drinks. And then when I renew
[01:00:06]
this first step, then I call upon this higher power, or God as I understand it, and I pray and I say, God, allow me one more day to do thy will. And then give me the strength to do it, never questioning, never wondering why, but doing it and accepting it in blind faith. And then I go about my business. I've taken the first and the third step every day for a few 24 hours now. I go about my business. And at night when I come home, eat and I lay down to rest, I thank this higher power. I thank this higher power for one day because regardless of what happens during a day, regardless of what happens, my house might burn down, I might lose my job, but if I do not pick up a drink, I have had a successful day. And I thank this God that I understand today for this.
With a faith that if I work these principles to the best of my ability every day, that the next day if I ask, again it will be given to me. So I walk through life now with a new way of life that I never dreamed would exist for Lloyd. I have found something inside of myself that I looked all around for before. I searched for God. I searched for serenity. I searched for sobriety, only to find out that God was in here in my conscience. That all I have to do is try to follow these principles to the very best of my ability and things will work out. In my mind, the most important thing is my sobriety. I remember the first night I came home, told my wife this.
I said, well, now this was when things got a little better. And I told her, I said, I got to tell you something. I said, I love you very much, but you're not the most important thing in my life. She says, is that right? That's right. Because I know, and you know, that if I put my job, my wife first, my job, or even my God as I understand Him today, if I put them before my sobriety, then I am endangering my sobriety. Because if I pick up one drink, I will no longer have that God. I will no longer have that job. I will no longer have that wife. I will no longer have anything, anything at all. So number one, first things first, is my sobriety, 24 hours at a time. A very simple program for someone so stupid and so powerless. All I've got to do is not pick up the one drink, one day at a time. I had a man tell me one night, he said, Lloyd, if there was a glass of whiskey here and a glass of arsenic here, which one of them would you drink?
Which one would I drink? Well, geez, I'd drink the whiskey, of course. He said, that's wrong. Well, I said, I wouldn't drink the arsenic. I didn't realize that I didn't have to drink either one of them. You see, I limited myself completely. I said, of course I'd drink the whiskey. And this bothered me because I thought, I'll drink the whiskey, the hell with that arsenic. But I didn't have to drink either one of them. That was the right answer that time. I wouldn't drink either one of them. All the learned men that I had gone to, all the learned men that I had conversed with and tried to learn and become educated with, they could show me nothing about life, about myself.
One night, I sat down at a table with a plumber. He had a big red nose, big hands, and a gravel voice. Next to him was a man who worked on a railroad. He's not even a conductor, he's a fireman. And he had his overhauls on, and he was filthy. But that night, these two men taught me about life. That night, these two men told me how I could find a new way of life if I wanted it bad enough. That night, this plumber with the big hands talked to me, and he told me how to have a conscious contact with this higher power. He told me how to pray to God, to the God that I understand, not the one that he understands. He told me how to work principles that I thought were impossible
[01:05:03]
for me to work. And here was a great, educated man learning to live from a plumber and a signal man on the railroad. From this day on, my life today is all AA. We have four little children. We have a little kitten, brand new. The little kitten's name is First Step. That's AA. And we had a dog for about five minutes, and his name was Twelve Step. So my life, as you can see, has right now, everything that I do depends upon AA. The fellowship, the friendships, the sharing of strength is what I depend on. I'm gonna close after I tell you this one little story. I heard this story from a man who is, who lives a life, and he told me one day, Lloyd, you do not know the meaning of moderation.
And I still don't. But he is a man who I think knows the meaning of moderation. He said one time, a long time ago, among our people, the Iroquois, there was this chief, and he grew very old. He did not have the physical attributes that he had as he had when he was a younger man. He could not run like he could. He could not fight like he used to. He could not hunt like he did. And so some of the younger men decided it was time to get a new chief to can that guy and bring a new one in. But you can't just do that, you know. I mean, it's immoral. It's unethical. So the way they had to do it was that they would have to present this chief. They couldn't test his physical ability.
They had to test his wisdom. They had to present him with three questions, and if he could not answer them satisfactorily to the council, then he was no longer the chief, and these younger men could put somebody else in there. So they said, well, what are we going to ask him? So these men thought they were pretty smart. They said, well, take a little sparrow and you put it in your hands like this. You allow the feathers to stick out between your fingers, and you ask the chief these three questions. You say, chief, what do I have in my hand? He'll look and he'll say, you got a bird. Then you ask him, what kind of a bird do I have? And he'll look a little bit closer and he'll say, you've got a sparrow. Then you ask the chief, is this bird dead or is it alive? And if the chief says it's dead, you open your hand and allow the sparrow to fly away. But if the chief says the bird is alive, you just squeeze and drop it. They thought they were in. This old man, regardless of whether he said dead or alive at the end, he was gone. Well, the day came for the council, the council met them. This old chief stood up there with many years of AA experience, you might say. He stood up there with wisdom and understanding and compassion for these young men who were trying to do away with him. And they presented him with these questions. He answered the first one, you have a bird. He answered the second one, you have a sparrow. Then they presented him with a third question. Is this sparrow dead or is it alive? And the chief thought for a second. He didn't decide right away, but he thought. He stepped back. Then he smiled. And he said, that depends upon you, whether that bird lives or whether it dies. You know, he was right. He was the chief when he died. And right today, I have a very fragile, tender bird in my hand. And it depends on me, 24 hours at a time, whether that bird lives or whether it dies. And I pray tonight and I pray every night for every alcoholic who is in the street and in Alcoholics Anonymous, that God will grant them the grace and the strength to allow this bird to continue to live to full growth. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Lloyd. There's very little that I can possibly say other than to thank Lloyd, because I know that many of you people can feel the same way now that I felt that Sunday morning at the convention in the
[01:10:04]
convention hall. Lloyd has very well expressed what the slogan of our 19, I believe it was our 1966 convention slogan was, that I am responsible. I am responsible when anyone anywhere reaches out for help. I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that, I am responsible. And I think Lloyd has very well expressed that here. I want to thank the Keep It Simple group, the members of the group for making this night such a memorable one. I want to thank my family and my friends and the friends that are here that are not alcoholic, but know me because they drank with me and they knew me when I was an active alcoholic. And it's good today to be able to go to these houses with these friends and be able to be accepted, which at times, I could say honestly that there were probably times that they probably would say, I wish the hell he would go or get out of here. Maybe it's not true, but I feel this way. I want to thank everyone for being here tonight. And again, I say that I do hope that you have received some of the feeling that I received that Sunday morning in that convention hall. And with that, we'll close in the usual manner.
Our 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, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.