Full Transcript

Now I’m not going to take up any time in here. I want to introduce my next speaker, and my next speaker I have never, never heard or never met until just a short time ago, so I’m going to look forward to enjoying this talk along with you. And I’ll give you Ward Montgomery of Springfield, Illinois. Good morning, everybody. You know, I thought that I have led a pretty strenuous life until I came to Long Beach.

I got up at a quarter after six yesterday morning in order to be bright and shiny at the past delegates’ meeting at eight o’clock. And then I wanted to see and hear and meet that wonderful person, Sister Ignatia. And then I came over here and I heard a gal from Phoenix give the most beautiful explanation of the third step I’d ever heard. And then I heard Charlie Abercrombie, with whom I served on the first panel in New York in 1951, give the very funniest explanation of the eighth step that I had ever heard.

And then I went to the afternoon meetings, and I went to the stadium with all of you, and I came back to the hotel, and at a quarter of twelve I was about ready to go to bed, and I ran into that clown, Iggy Sheridan, and he said, Let’s go to the midnight meeting. And it’s a real good thing that I wasn’t born a girl, because I’d never have been able to say no. So at two-thirty, I got back to my hotel room.

I don’t think I should talk very much about my pre-AA days, because Long Beach is full of stories about like mine. I drank whiskey, and I drank gin, and I drank scotch, and I twisted them all around, and then when I was in a bad corner and had to be on my good behavior, I drank beer. Because I always maintained that drinking beer was like kissing your sister. No kick in it. So, my drinking pattern was about like thousands that are here at this conference.

Late in Bill’s talk last night, he mentioned the Jack Alexander article of 1941, March. Well, I am one of the products of the March 1941 article. At the end of that article, there was a little note giving the address of the New York office. And my family sent for the big book and found out where the closest group to Springfield, Illinois was. And it turned out to be St. Louis. Well, nothing happened for several months. The pattern wasn’t changed.

And then my family put the Jack Alexander Saturday Evening Post article in a lock-up ward in St. Louis. And incidentally, they put me in with the article. So, since that time, I have been active in AA. I don’t talk at many meetings anymore for two or three reasons. One of the reasons is, and I have mentioned this to other AAs of my vintage,

[00:05:08]

and that is that we are fearful that new people will think that we who have been in AA 15, 18, 19, 20 years should have all the answers. That we should be working on our second or third million dollars. That we should never be crossed with our wives. That we should never be impatient. That we never should feel sorry for ourselves. And that life should be just one great big ball. And I, for one, have found that I need AA.

And I need to work AA. Just as much now as I did 18 years ago. I don’t know what I needed more. I get in a bad humor sometimes. I get a little resentful sometimes. I get to thinking that it’s wrong for that great guy Montgomery to be kicked around and abused like he is and unappreciated. But these silly ideas fortunately only last moments now. Seconds sometimes. And I’ve learned to count my blessings.

And I’ve learned to be grateful. And I’ve learned to use the tools which were given to me in St. Louis years ago. And things haven’t changed very much. Very, very little since those days. They told me things that we tell people out in Illinois and have been for years. And unquestionably the California people tell their new prospects. About one day at a time. A very wonderful guy from Chicago who is not with us anymore said one time that if we were to try to pick up a 2 by 12 plank 30 feet long and carry it, it would break us down.

But if we would cut that plank up into one foot sections, we could carry it. And I’ve tried to remember that. And I’ve tried to live just one day at a time. And I don’t talk at meetings and try to throw my way around anymore because of something that Bill said a number of years ago. Bill was talking about bleeding deacons. And those of you who haven’t heard Bill tell this, a bleeding deacon is a founder of a group who made the coffee, directed the meetings, did all the 12-step work, did all the talking.

And then when somebody else grew up a little in our program and tried to do something, he got sore about it. And some of them got drunk. And I don’t want to get drunk. And I don’t want to be a bleeding deacon. But I have learned some things, and AA has come to mean some things to me that it didn’t at first. One of the first things I learned was that it’s much easier to be a character than to have one.

And I learned that there is no the way to work this program. The what-like work for me won’t necessarily work for the other fellow. And if it doesn’t work, we try another way.

[00:10:06]

And I remember that AA was built on failure. And when we fail, we try again, and sometimes again. And I’ve learned the importance of the non-AAs, those wonderful people who have served as non-alcoholic trustees through the years. And closer to us than that are wives and non-AA friends in our own hometowns. And I remember that if it weren’t for the non-AAs, there would be no AA. If it hadn’t been for Ann and Lois, there would have been no AA.

And I try to keep these things with me all the time. At first, AA meant people to me, and only people, I’m afraid. AA meant a group of strangers in St. Louis. There were about 15 members, or 18 perhaps, when I went in, in St. Louis. And these people tried to make me welcome and feel at home. And then a little later, I met Earl Treat, who founded the Chicago Group. Last night, the gentleman who started the meeting out there mentioned a meeting out here in the summer of 1943.

In the summer of 1943. Well, when Bill was out here in the summer of 1943, he stopped in St. Louis on his way home, and I went down and met Bill then. And through the next year, I met other people. And then AA meant to me, at that early time, an angel in New York, in the New York office, named Bobby Berger. And those wonderful letters that I got from that gal, somehow, miraculously, just at the right time, when I was about to throw this whole deal out the window, saved me.

I only met Bobby in person twice, but I’ll never forget her. And then AA started meaning some other things to me. AA has changed my, the meaning of it has changed, perhaps, as I’ve grown up a little. As I’ve grown up a little. And as my capacity to understand has changed. And from this handful of strangers that I knew at first, my circle of friends in AA grew, and some of the best friends that I have in the world, or ever hoped to have, are members.

And these things gave me a way to improve the quality of my sobriety. I have been physically dry, yes. But these people, some of them, showed me, without saying it in words, that they had something and they were getting something out of AA that I wasn’t getting. And I finally decided that it was the quality of their sobriety which I wanted very much. And it put me closer to this higher power that we talk about. And I was able to have

[00:15:07]

a feeling of reverence and at the same time a feeling of friendliness, which I had never had. I learned to become reconciled to my own limitations without losing a desire to do a little better. I gained a new sense of values which caused me to place sincerity in a man or a woman over cleverness. I learned something about honesty and integrity and tolerance. I’ve learned that we can have laughs without hysteria. And I’ve learned that we can have fun without remorse. And I’m trying to learn something of a very beautiful word called humility. And I have a definition of it which I like and I hope you will like.

Humility is a sincere feeling that comes quietly to live inside of us, peacefully and without pretension. Thank you very much.