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Source: Dick R – Youngstown AA – Wednesday Night Hubbard 1975 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: dick-r-youngstown-aa-wednesday-night-hubbard-1975-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:39:12
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Hey, you guys in the back that want to leave, put your money in the pot first. Come on, Danny. Thank you very much. My name is Dick R., and I'm powerless over alcohol. And at the moment, I'm kind of powerless over my nerves, so could we have a moment of silence? Perhaps you could give a thought that I might get myself a little bit together. Amen. Thank you very much. I'm grateful for, somebody said, I've come here leading, and I said, I volunteered.
Fred called up and I said, yeah, that's usually the way. But I said several, many times that if you don't want to lead, need to lead, don't ask me, because I'm kind of afraid to say no. This program and you people have given me so much. My life, my family's life, so many other things that it seems a small matter, actually, stand up here and tell your story. This isn't a speech or a sermon. All I'm going to try to tell you is about me.
And if it doesn't fit with you, that's perfectly okay, too. George said last night, go somewhere else tomorrow night, and perhaps somebody will fit it. But it really is a small matter. This is one of the few things that you're asked to do in AA. If you feel you can, I think it's a good idea that you do it. But I say it's worked, things have worked, and I don't want to change it. I don't want to change it.
I want to leave it as it is. The chairman suggested that I tell you how long I've been sober. I had my last drink January 18th, 1956, which is perhaps not important to any of you, but it's terribly important to me. As someone told me at that time, 19 days, I said, thanks a lot. I'll see you sometime, you know, when I'm passing. Don't bother me. That was just too much. One day was an awful lot. I just couldn't see my way.
I'm fortunate also, I do attend my regular Tuesday night meeting, and not as regularly as I used to, a Sunday night meeting. But I'm also fortunate, have been this summer, that I have a meeting every morning at 20 minutes to 6 as I go to work. Because at 20 minutes to 6, or about that time, I see about half a dozen guys in the weeds. Can't get up, sick. These are human beings. These are guys just like the rest of us, many of us.
And I can say to myself, they're but for the grace of God. I don't know whether those guys know or they're helping me, but they really help me. They start me out that day. They remind me where I came from and where I can go if I reach for another drink. So I'm grateful to them. I've helped a few of those guys, they say, with a buck here and a half a buck there. Some guy said to me the other day, geez, you must be blowing a lot of money.
You know, I haven't missed a meal yet. My kids haven't missed a pair of shoes, I don't think, either. But I say, this is a great example for me. I see human beings, a couple of guys that were around here for six months, eight months, nine months, dressed up, looked good, coloring in their cheeks. You see them laying in the weeds, sick, having trouble walking from here to the end of the room, a little further to get another jug.
At least it does me, it reminds me where I came from. So I'm grateful to them. I guess we get examples and help from everybody. Briefly, it's a hot night, I'm not going to dwell on it. I drank for 18, 19 years, something like that. I remember my first drink, I guess many of us can. I'm from up in northern New York State, up in Lake Champlain, a little town of Westport. It reminds me of tomorrow, I'm going back up in that country.
My oldest son is getting married. I'm taking the family up there, we're going back up there. And I'm grateful that I can go, that I can be there. Of course, I'm taking three of my three daughters. So, of course, you're going to be broke, but at least I have it to start out with. By the time we get back, well, that'll be a different matter. But I remember I was traveling, it was in the wintertime. We were going up to Lake Placid for a hockey game or some sort of an ice show.
And I remember I traveled with a bunch of guys that… I was in college, but these guys were older, I played ball with them in the summertime. And I remember that somewhere along the line, they pulled a couple of bottles of wine out of the glove compartment. They passed it around and it came to me. And I think my thinking was, hell, this guy has been away to school, certainly he's had a drink, as a matter of fact, I had.
So, I had a few drinks. I started, so I guess my first drink was wine.
[00:05:00]
I don't know that I did any particular for me. It was just one of those things that was part of the crowd and that's the way it began. I went back to school, finished, did very little drinking. At school, again, maybe it was discipline, I lost a roommate. Discipline was real tough at this particular school. I lost a roommate because he got drunk and got thrown out of school. My dad had died before I was born and my mother was putting me through school.
She was a schoolteacher, I was working myself also. Perhaps all these things slowed me down. I finished school and I was very fortunate, 1937, to get a job here in a vindicator in Youngstown. I guess the miracle of the ages is I'm still there. I'm 38 years later. But I know that very quickly I hooked up with some people that, particularly a couple of guys, we had an apartment out on the south side.
It became the headquarters for the gang and the guys particularly, the weekend poker games, the parties, that's where they were held. Now, nobody had any money. I think the top salary of those guys at that time, one guy was making $35 a week and he was really loaded. We all tapped him. But certainly, if there was any drinking to be done, that's where it was. But I did discover, and looking back at it very quickly, that I apparently had a considerable capacity.
And it became very important to me that you should know what a hell of a drinker I was. And they fed my ego because I was a guy, in many cases anyway, that would take the guys home that were sick, put them to bed, come back, finish up what was left or if there was anything left. And the next day, the people would say to me, boy, I don't know how you do it. And I just thought I was a hell of a fellow.
It became very important to me that you knew how much I drank. If you didn't ask me, I told you. Because it was a badge of some sort for me. Apparently, it made me a bigger man. And this was important to me. I ran the whole circuit because not too many years later, I didn't want you or anybody else to know how much I drank. But that's the way it all began. Certainly, I went on for some years anyway in some period of time.
And I think I can honestly say that I had fun drinking. At least certainly, the fun was way ahead of whatever troubles I had. So it was. It did something for me. I was at ease. I even thought I could dance. My wife never quite agreed with that, but I thought I could. I was at ease. The last thing I liked better would be a bunch of people drinking, having fun, talking, telling lies, joking. This was great.
This was the kind of a life I liked, and I thought it was great. I met my wife on the paper. We were married. And for a while, she drank. We certainly went out together, and she did some drinking with me. Very quickly, though, it seemed to me, looking back, that there seemed to be a change. And I can see it now that perhaps it was gradual. But of course, she got tied down as our family started coming along.
And I hooked up with some guys that, well, I think I can say today a couple of them certainly were alcoholics, and the others were not normal drinkers, put it that way. But they were the kind of, when they bellied up to the bar, they stayed. And that was the kind of people I wanted to be with. Actually, the big shot, I had no business being with them. Several of these men were in business. They had money.
I was working for a living, a family coming along, and I was trying to keep pace with what I thought I was. But the old ego, the big shot, I was going to be there. And I think looking back on it from there, it was pretty well started, it already started downhill somewhere along in there. Because certainly the troubles started coming up more often than the fun. It wasn't every day, although I was primarily a daily drinker, but certainly the signposts were there if I wanted to look at them.
And certainly more and more alcohol became more important to me. Drinking became more important to me. And I might say for those who might have some effect on them or some interest to them that I was primarily a beer drinker. Beer was my drink. I drank everything as the years went by and at various times where it was available. But the drink I liked and the drink I enjoyed was beer. And they used to say to me, every time you take a breath, you think there ought to be foam on it.
And that's exactly the way I felt. Give me a bottle in each hand and soak my feet in a bucket of each, and I was happy as a lark, boy. Itching and scratching and sweating, boy, that was great. I loved it. That was life, boy, that was good. That was just kind of weather. I was thinking last week in that hot weather, man, oh, man, I used to itch and scratch. Really something. Drink more beer and come out, oh, it was great.
Great life. Well, anyway, that's pretty much the way it went along. Some troubles started coming in, of course. I say my wife was, I hooked up with these fellows. There wasn't much home drinking. My wife suggested to me that, why didn't I come home? I remember she said, I'll buy it and, you know, we can drink it at home. That didn't work very much, maybe a day or so, because I had to be the big shot.
I had to be out where the lights were. You know, at home, they knew me for a 14-carat phony. Outside, I could bluff them a little bit, or at least they didn't find out right away. And all it ever did to me was get me started. I started drinking at home, then I found some excuse to get the hell out of there. Either I started an argument or ran out of something, or I would come right back or something.
And I say I was primarily, that was it.
[00:10:00]
I was primarily a saloon drinker. For years, I had three spots downtown. They were all within a staggering distance of the Vindicator. You could find me in any three of them. That was it. Wherever the gang was or this group of people I drank with, that's where I was. And the house could be burning down, or she could be in the hospital having a baby or whatever it was, and I'd be up as soon as I stopped.
And I got to check with the boys. I also was afraid maybe one of the bartenders would get mad at me if I didn't stop. And that could be fatal because someday I'd be short. Well, this is pretty much the way it went. As I say, there were signposts there, there were troubles. I remember picking a… Oh, I got involved in a drunken driving case one time, driving somebody else's car. No license, of course.
Couldn't take time to get a license. It's like getting a haircut. You know, it's going to take time and take money. But I was driving. I remember we had a very important engagement too. This fellow said he could beat me playing pool. Well, the hell he could, you know. When I was drunk, I could do anything. Knowing nothing about it, I felt qualified to speak about anything. I remember we went down to the old Todd house.
Sticks looked at us. He said, get the hell out of here. So I went out in front of the Todd house and he said, there must be a pool room in Girard. And I agreed with him and somehow I went up behind the wheel. There was a woman with us. She wasn't his wife and she wasn't mine either. And I remember we're going out West Federal and there's a guy stopped. It was icy and I put the brakes on and I hit this guy.
And I remember thinking, this is no place for me. So I wheeled around him, went up a side street and got cross-routed and wound up in somebody's front yard up there in the housing somewhere. And I remember as the car stopped, I went out the left door. And I could hear Bill say to me, where are you going, Dick? Well, Dick was getting the hell out of there. Dick wasn't gonna stick around there. It wasn't my car.
It wasn't my woman. So, you know, it wasn't me being there. So I was about six, seven, eight blocks from home. So I remember that next morning he called me up and he said, we're in trouble. It seemed that this fellow had… Well, he said he was hurt real bad and the cops picked Bill up for leaving the scene of an accident and all this business. And at that time, the judges in Youngstown had just started the 30 days and 100.
That was standard. Well, anyway, this thing dragged on for about 30 days. Bill had a…he was in business. He had a pretty good attorney. And I remember I got fixed up with a driver's license. It wasn't because I couldn't drive. I had a chauffeur's license when I was 18 in New York State. It wasn't a matter of being able to drive. It was just a matter of taking time. It takes time and money to get a driver's license.
But anyway, this thing dragged on for actually about three months. And during that three months, I became a candidate for sainthood. I became the holiest of the holy. I happened to be a Catholic and then I stormed St. Columba Cathedral in the morning and I stopped in the afternoon just in case, you know, the message hadn't got through. And then I made a late call in the evening to stay, you know, just so the Lord could go to sleep on it.
I'd have you all set. And I mean, what my prayer was, you know, Lord, I was kidding up to now, but I'm gonna blow the job. I'm gonna make 30 days in that slammer. The 100, I don't know about the 100, but the 30 days in the job and my reputation is gonna be gone and you get me out of this. And boy, I ain't kidding. I've had it. You know, this is it. Well, it worked out that I come out clean as a whistle.
I met the judges chambers and Bill and I were both gentlemen. We told our stories up to a certain point, but we animated very strongly that if we went any further, that it would involve a good woman's name. And the judge, I guess, was a gentleman too. So he said, okay. And Bill's insurance company took care of this, of the guy that had the seven bad backs and three or four bad legs and something like that.
And I remember I walked out that afternoon, it was about 3.30 in the afternoon. We walked out of the downstairs and, you know, it was clean. And man, I thought this is great. And by the way, during that three months, as I say, I wouldn't drink, you know. God, no. No liquor shall pass my lips. And I don't think that day, but it wasn't more than a day or two later, I had to go back and tell the guys at the bar what a smart guy I was.
Because I figured I was in ill repute because I ran out on a buddy, so I better go back and square it. Nobody paid too much attention to me, but I remember that I told them and they were, you know, back at it. And I'm sure that's not exactly how it happened, but somewhere along the line, I'm sure that somebody suggested that a smart guy like me have a drink. And I agreed with him. And in an hour or a half hour after that first drink, all those promises, all that prayer, all that thing was out the window.
I was back on the same rat race all over again. No trouble. As soon as I took that first drink, and at that time I didn't realize it, but looking back, as soon as I had the first drink, all that stuff was gone. I could rationalize it wasn't going to happen again. I was going to watch myself. I wasn't going to play Poole and Girard again, you know. I'll make sure that I won't play Poole and Girard again.
I won't drive another guy's car with a woman in it or something like this. I'll square this thing away. And this is the way it went. Oh, I got it. This was… This is the way it went. Oh, I got it. This was pretty much the way it went. I knew, I
[00:15:04]
knew that things weren't right. I mean, things were catching up with me. Guys were warning me at the office, good friends of mine. You know, some of them I listened to, others I told to go to hell, particularly the guy that drank. The guy that drank would come up to me and say, you know, you ought to watch yourself. Who the hell is he to tell me? You know, I've seen him drink. The guy was a boss, so I listened a little bit more. You know, I paid attention, I put on the good look and said, yeah, you're right, I'll watch myself. But I could not see, I could not see how I, perhaps other people too, how I could live in the society or in the people I lived with without drinking. I certainly didn't want the bad effects and I didn't want the troubles, but it seemed to me that it was a case. Anybody that I like to be with or with whom I traveled or like to be in their company were drinking people.
And I thought, you know, where am I going to go? What am I going to do? The only answer I could see was I'm going to watch myself. And I could rationalize, might go something like this. I was doing real good, doing real good last night. And then, and this is no reflection because we didn't drink in the same, but I ran into red. I haven't seen red in six years, you know, six months. And so we celebrated. But it'll be different today because I won't see red again and, you know, I'll watch myself today. And this was it.
So I could rationalize or make an excuse that today was going to be different. I was going to watch myself. I tried religion. I happened to be a Catholic. I think I made two Lents in my life. What the result was that in those days, Lent used to end at noon on Easter Saturday, and a quarter to 12, I was over to Punch Rand saying, line them up, you know, because I had some catching up to do. You know, it had been a supreme sacrifice.
I had a drink for all that time. But as the years went by, pretty soon I couldn't get over St. Paddy's Day. And I had, I could rationalize that pretty easy. And then, well, actually all the Lord asked you to do was watch it during Holy Week, you know. And pretty soon one night I found myself on Good Friday getting drunk. And I thought, well, you know, I'll do different next year. As I see more and more alcohol or drinking had become that much part of my life. Well, that's pretty much the way it went. I think maybe you get some idea that I was kind of hooked on this stuff. I wasn't about to admit it.
A day came that I didn't show up for work. I've been warned about it a few times, in fact, several times. This particular day, I came to about the middle of the day, and I was about six hours late for a job. And the thing about it was that I was in a box, actually. But an office party, that is, I could engraving down at the Vindicator, used to be on the third floor, I guess there still are, threw a party each year for its customers out at GF Picnic Ground. And they had anything you wanted to drink, free, you know, all you wanted. There was food too, I was told, I never got too much of the food. But I understand they had excellent food.
I remember again, again, a lesson you look back and you wonder about. I can remember that I knew in the back of my mind I shouldn't go there because I was bad enough when I had to buy my own, but this was free. I remember this one guy, I think he had the same thinking because we weren't going to go. And he said to me, well, before we go, he said, I'll give you a ride home. He said, we'll go across to Youngstown Hotel and have a drink. I said, yeah, that's a good idea. By the second drink, I had that rationalized. This is pretty silly.
Here I am sitting down here paying money, and out here two and a half, three miles is all I can drink, you know, anything I want. I wound up out there. And I knew I was there, and I couldn't use the old intestinal flu bit because, you know, they knew I was there. And I don't know, they had me cold. I got a letter from the office that I laid off for a week without pay, and if it ever happened again, or if I drank on a job, or came to anything at all, this was it.
So I knew I couldn't fight my way out of it. I had to play this one cool. I didn't know what the word cool meant in those days, but I knew that there wasn't an out. I just had to sit quiet, and I was getting a break. I knew that. And I stayed dry that week. It was during that week that I had my first contact with AA. A fellow called my house, a very wonderful man, later became my sponsor. He said he'd like to talk to me.
Now, my thinking, you can see that I'm dry, but how phony and how lousy my thinking was. I remember thinking this man had a large automobile agency in Youngstown, and I wasn't home, but at the time he called, my wife said he wants to talk to him. And I remember thinking, by God, he wants to offer me a job. He's heard what a hell of a fellow I am and all the friends I got, and I could see myself in a new car, big cigar in my mouth, driving around at Vindicator, and I'd make them sorry they ever let a hotshot like me go. I'd quit, and I'd show them, boy, that they had really lost a gem.
Well, anyway, I had lunch with this man, and he straightened me out real quick. He didn't offer me any job, believe me. But this was the first man that I ever met that taught drinking as I understood drinking and as I drank. Here was a man who told me some
[00:20:00]
very personal things about himself, some things that perhaps to a certain extent he probably never told his wife or even his closest friends, and he shared them with me. And he did gain my trust. I did trust him, and I did believe him, and I could identify with him. I wasn't ready to quit drinking, and I told him, I said, thanks a lot. And I think I'm sure I told him some things too. I'm sure he knew how far I had gone because I remember he explained a blackout to me, and this was a big relief to me. Remember, he told me what a blackout was because a friend of mine from Sharon had told me about some…but I'd been at a certain place one night, and I said, come on, get off. I wasn't even there. He said, the hell you weren't. He said, I drink about as much as you do, and he said, I can always remember. Well, I didn't remember, but I never pressed it because I could see he was figuring that Irishman was trying to beat a rat. But this man explained to me about a blackout, and I was relieved. And as I say, he told me a lot of things about himself. I've already quit drinking. I told him, thank you very much. I've quit, so I'm gonna quit. And I'll never be grateful the kind of tolerance this man, he said, great Dick, best of luck to you. But if at any time, night or day, you think you want help, give me a call.
And I thought, hey, that's a good angle too. This guy's a pretty prominent guy in Youngstown. He's my boss's friend too. And I thought, if I ever get in a jackpot, you know, I'm not gonna do it now, mind you, but if I ever get in a jackpot again, hey, I got a hotline. I'll get a hold of him. And I stayed off that sauce for a year. I'd be exceptional one day. I went to Pittsburgh to a union meeting, and I snuck away and had a few. I don't know how I shut it off. I'm grateful I gave that a try. That is not for me. It was a miserable year. Boy, I used to go home, man. I used to go by the joints, and the jukebox would be playing, and the people would be having fun. I'd think, jeez, boy, did I draw the short straw in this life. Look at them dirty potlickers can drink, and I can't. Look at that rotten so-and-so in there. He ain't feeding his family, and I'm going home every day, and look at that so-and-so. Oh, I was a happy boy, believe me. I was a happy boy.
Then I think I got an answer too. I remember I hadn't had a drink, you know, I was maybe a month, and I went back to see the boys, you know, to hell. I got my friends. And as I walked in, the same Bill, and I were friends, said, Dick, you're just in time. I'm buying a drink. I said, Bill, I'm sorry, I'm not drinking. He said, what the hell are you doing here then? I remember thinking, he's right, what the hell am I doing here? I had a couple more of that Cokes, and I'm up to here, no story. I used to laugh at, they were good.
I ain't with it. So I stopped going. I went to work, went home. That was my life. We didn't go anywhere, because certainly any of the people that we had any kind of relationship were drinking people, they should have a drink or two. And I say it was a measurable year. But I had it back in my mind, my vacation was coming up, just about a year from now. And they sure as hell weren't gonna tell me what to do. In fact, I had it figured out.
Now, this wasn't gonna be very good, because I knew I had to keep that job somehow, because we had four, I think, or five at that time. And I knew I had to keep that job, and I had it figured out, okay, that's the best I can do. I'll stay sober 50 weeks of the year. But the two weeks of my vacation, the hell with you people, I'm gonna do a little catching up, a little drinking. I wasn't very good, but if that's the best I could do, that's the best I was gonna do. I know my vacation wasn't official for 15 minutes, and I was back in one of my three places downtown, and I'm off again like a herd of turtles in no time flat. Really seemed to fly. I was off and running.
The two weeks went by zoom, no matter what happened. And even I knew that I was worse than I'd been before. Well, I could rationalize that too. Well, you know, my system isn't tuned to it yet. As soon as I get the proper, you know, potion put together here, I'll be okay and I'll wash myself. Then I'm faced with an awful decision, I gotta go back to work. And they said, I got that thing hanging over me. What are you gonna, you know, don't do it, buddy, because if you do, you're fired. And this was, what am I gonna do? And I think I sweated out for a day or two. Remember, I got drunk, came in the next morning and nobody said anything. I figured they're gonna fire me. And I remember thinking, they still think I'm on the wagon. Now, my eyes are bleeding. You can smell me to where Curly's sitting, but I thought I was kidding. Boy, am I fooling those people.
But actually, by that time, it really didn't make a difference. I was hooked. There's no question. There wasn't anything I could do about it. I used to lose the fight every morning. As I say, I go to work early, and I try to stick it out. My lunch hour is about 10 o'clock, and I try to stick it out. I think, man, I'm gonna stay all day. I'm gonna stay eight and a half hours. I'm gonna get out of here. 9.30, quarter to 10, I'd lose the fight.
Wasn't a thing I could do about it. I was ready to jump over the ceiling, swing from the chandelier, do anything. My nerves were gone. The only medicine I knew was to get out through that back door, the old Belvedere, and get a few. And that's what I would do. My boss said to me afterwards, you know, I used to see… I knew you were going. I know where you were going. He's a non-drinker. In fact, he's against alcohol in any form, I guess. And I said, well, but I'm sure you did. But I said, I don't think you knew this.
If you had said to me, Dick, if you go out that door, you're fired. You know what I might have very well have said to you? Might have very well said to you, Bud, don't bother me.
[00:25:04]
Because I said, you associate drinking, if you associate at all, with New Year's Eve and laughs. And I said, at 9.30 in the old Belvedere, there were no laughs. And there was no music. The only people were in there were people like me, trying to get well. I was going over there, trying to get well enough to come back and make some pass at finishing the day's work. Now, at 2 o'clock, hey, that was free time then. Then it was drinking. But at that time of the morning, there was no celebration. So this is the way it went on for another six months or so. Why on a particular day did something happen that I want to do something?
I really don't know. I know this, that it wasn't my doing. I didn't have the ability to add up and put two thoughts together and say, hey, look where you're going, boy, you're in bad shape. Something else had to come from outside me to help me. I wish I could, I don't know if I wish, but I've heard people say that they sat down and said, look, where am I going? I didn't have that ability. I didn't have that ability. Something happened to me that was outside of me. I know that, I remember this particular day that this man, I remember this man, this particular day, we had a, Tuesday night it was, we had a, in fact, it was on a Wednesday, my first day.
I remember on a Tuesday night, we had an office party. I remember I got drunk twice that day and sober because I remember in the morning somebody had asked me to be a pallbearer. I remember that poor soul got a rocky ride. I remember this Monsignor out there at, Monsignor out there at Boardman, he kept talking and I knew he never knew this woman and he's giving an, oh man, and I'm going crazy. And we come out of the church and out of the cemetery and this fellow said, come over to my house, have coffee, coffee, hell, you know, let me get out of here. I went downtown and we had this office party coming up that night. I was in charge. That's how crazy they were. We didn't have much food, we had a lot of whiskey. And I remember I'd written a skit.
I wrote the skit, I was about half stiff and it was real funny then, you know. Oh man, I was ripping them bosses. I had some wild copy girl who was way ahead, who was a hippie 20 years ago, and she was going to play the boss's part, you know, and she loved it. Oh man. Well, then I started reading this stuff and I'm kind of half sober and I thought, ain't so funny. You know, because I'm ripping them pretty good. Well, anyway, I stalled them and finally they put it on. And during that evening, a lot of people came up to me, good friends, these guys were serious, gals too, and said, you know, they didn't tell me to quit, but they said, you know, they're not going to stop making it. Why don't you just slow down a little bit? Finally, this guy came up to me and he's, we've been drinking from coast to coast, union conventions and whatnot.
And he said to me, Dick, you know, he knew I'd been approached by AA, by Jim, he said, you know, why don't you cool it, slow down or something? And I said, Bill, out of the blue, I said, Bill, I've decided to go see Jim tomorrow morning. And he said, geez, that's great, let's have a drink. You know, I was going to celebrate. I was, this was a palazzo on January, January 17th or the 18th early in the morning. Because I remember I left some of that bottle of beer, which was not like me, through the grace of God and a lot of, and no, no, really, no really great effort by me, really. A lot of help from a lot of people. I haven't had a drink since. What happened? Well, the next morning, I'm shaking, I'm sick, it's my time to duck out.
Somehow, I don't know what made me go down to see Jim. Didn't call him. I suppose, I mean, the ego was working. I figured he'd been waiting for me. I could see him sitting out in front of his office, you know, for a year and a half waiting for me, you know, with a light in his hand. I went down and he was in his office and I went in. And I remember he's a very, very educated man. He said, my God, you look awful. And that was an understatement.
Took me up to the old Todd house. I think the miracle began then, because after I've been around AA for six months or so, someone informed me that Jim at that time was semi-retired. He still went in his office. If he went in at all, he'd go in during the day and pick up his mail. His routine was pretty solid. On every day but one day, he went in from noon to one. This was a Wednesday. On Wednesdays, his routine changed. He went in at between 9.30 and a quarter to 10. Picked up his mail because at 10 o'clock, he was at the AA meeting in the basement of the old clinic. That's why he was there. I remember going by Johnny Moore's and thinking I could duck in the front door and get two fast ones and go out the side and I'd still make it. And I didn't for some reason. But he took me up to the old Todd house and he sat me down and I unloaded on him. I could talk to him, I knew that. We talked for some time and finally he stopped me.
He said, and this is not easy to do an Irishman, he said, let me talk a little bit, let me show you. And he gave me an idea, gave me a thought, gave me hope. This is where for me it really began. And this was again not my doing, this was his. This was somewhere outside me. Because he said to me, you know, in this, hey, he said, we try to stay sober one day at a time. Said, you were drunk yesterday, I've been drunk since September. He said, okay, let it go. You want to talk about it some more later, fine. What about tomorrow? Well, I had a lot of things to do.
Always had a lot of things to do. Never did them, but I had a lot of them. Up, I Said, Okay, Let's Come Back to the Day, He Said, That's Right, We Try to Stay Sober
[00:30:01]
in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, One Day at a Time, I Remember It Was a Big Relief, I Remember Thinking, Geez, I Don't Have to Worry about St. Swithin's Day, or, you know, Slovak Holiday, or Greek Christmas, or Anything, I Thought, This Is Great, He Said to Me, You Think You Can Do It, and I Said, I Don't Know, He Said, Are You Willing to Try, and I Think the Reason I Said I Was Willing to Try, Was Because He Was a Nice Guy, He'd Been Kind to Me, and I Was Willing at Least to Give That Much, He Said, We Have These Meetings, I'm Sure He Said Many Other Things, But He Said, We Have These Meetings, He Said, We Find They're Helpful, He Said, Will You Go, and I Said, Again, I Said I Would Go Only Because He Was a Nice Guy, He Said, You Think Your Wife Will Go, and I Said, I'm Sure She Will, I Say, I Heard, I'm Sure, He Said Many Other Things, Those Are the Two Things I Recall, and I Went Back to Work, and They Kind of Hustled Me Out, My Wife Met Me, We Went Up to See Neil Kennedy, the old clinic, and I Spent a Couple Hours with Neil, and I Thought Many Times What Did Neil Kennedy Tell Me, Did He Give Me Some Great Thought, Some Great Ideas, Some Great Bible Passage, No, Neil Kennedy Told Me About Neil Kennedy, His Life Story As I'm Trying to Tell You, He Said to Me, Do You Want to Go, Do You Want to Be Hospitalized, I Said, I Don't Care, What Do You Want Me to Do, I Didn't Know There Were Beds Up There, I Went By That Place for 15 Years, I Was Supposed to Be a Sharp, On-The-Ball Reporter, I Never Knew What Was There, I Used to Look at That, Never Got Through the Outside, Out Here, Oh, Never Questioned What It Was, Never Gave It a Thought, He Said, Well, If You Can't Make It, Go Home, If You Can't Make It, Come On Back, Two Other Guys Stepped In That, It Happened To Be Wednesday, It Was My Bowling Night, Two Other Guys, I Can Use These Guys' Names, They're All Dead Now, Dave Gilley and Bill Finn, They Bugged Me, and Them Guys Had Had The Temerity To Suggest That I Couldn't Handle My Booze, and They Used to Needle Me Pretty Good, and I Used to Tell Those WCTU Characters Not To Bother Me, While I Was Bowling, but Somehow, I Wanted To Go Tell These Guys, Remember, I Couldn't Eat, I Couldn't Sleep, I Couldn't Stand Up, What The Hell I Was Doing, I Had To Go, I Remember I Went Down, I Ran In The First, I Looked Over, and Dave Was Practicing, Some of You Remember Dave, You Know, Matt Doesn't, Dave Was Very Serious About His Bowling, He Didn't Fool, He Would Practice, and This Was One Of Dave's Accomplishments, I Remember, I Had To Go Over and Tell Him, You Know, and I Went Over, and I Tapped Him on the Shoulder, and I Said, Dave, I Went Down To See Jim Today, He Looked At Me Like This, and He Said, Do Tell, and I Thought, What The Hell's The Matter With Him, I Just Made, I Just Joined The Club, I Just Made, You Know, I Just Made A Sacrifice, and This, So, You Know, Pretty Soon, I See Finn, and Finn Was About That Big, Little Railroader, I Seen Them Put Their Heads Together, and Started Looking Over, and Pretty Soon, They Come Over Behind Me, and I'm Sweating, and I'm Walking Back, and Finally, I Said, Look At Me, Shake, and Finn Said, Shake, You Irish So-and-so, You're The One That Drank It, and I Thought, Jesus, Here's The Other Guy, Here's, You Know, One's A Charter Member, The Other Guy's Someone, I Expected They'd Embrace Me, and Say, Dick, Boy, We're Glad To Have You, Well, Anyway, They Kept At Me, and Finally, Finn Summed It Up, I'm Awfully Grateful, Bill Said, Look, If You're In Here, Because She's Going To Divorce You, Because Worldwide Has Been A Fire, or For Somebody, He Said, You Might Just Go Down And Have A Drink, He Said, You Know, I Like You, I Suppose, Because You're Irish, and He Said, You Know, I Got An Awful Temper, He Said, That Has Something, I Have To Fight All The Time, He Said, If You're Going To Kick This Around, He Said, I Might Blow My Stack, and He Said, That Would, You Know, That Might Upset My Sobriety, and He Said, You Ain't Worth It, Well, That's The Way It Was Laid Out For Me, I Thought Many Times, Some Six, or Seven, or Ten Years Later, On The Square, One Day, Bill, And I Had Been Talking, I Walked Away, About As Far As From Here, When I Read It, And He Yelled, He Said, Hey, I Said, What?
He Said, You Were Worth It, I've Never Had Anything Said To Me, That I Met More, That's The Way, That's The Way I Got It, With The Help Of Other People, Not Me, I Say, I Couldn't Put Them Together, I Couldn't Put The Class Together, We Had Our First Meeting, The Following Tuesday, Jim Took Me To Two Meetings, He Said, I'm Available, He Was An Older Man, He Said, I'm Available, Anytime That You Want To Talk To Me, Or You Can't Get There, We Didn't Have A Car, I Couldn't Have A Car, And Drink Too, So We Made It, And We Got There, And Then Somebody Took Us Home, We Made It, This Is The Way It All Began, And I Say, What Has Happened Since Then, That I Could Go On Till Tomorrow Morning, But That's How We Got Here, I Remember Martha, Mike Moore's First Wife, She Said To Me One Night, Dick, I Haven't Heard Your Story Yet, But She Said, I'm Pretty Sure It's Like My Husband's, She Said, I'll Tell You Something, You're Going To Have To Change Your Way Of Thinking, And You're Going To Have To Change Your Way Of Living, I Didn't Understand That Night Very Much What She Meant, I Think Today I Understand A Little Bit More, Basically My Program Is Pretty Simple, One Day At A Time, Ask God's Help In The Morning, Stay Sober And Keep My Thinking Straight, I Read The 24-Hour Book And Day By Day, I Read Both Of Them In The Morning When I Have A Cup Of Coffee, During The Day I'm In Contact Pretty Much With A-People, I Say These Guys In The Morning, They Kind Of Put Their Frosting On The Cake, They Remind Me, I Say Pretty Every Morning There's Somebody In, They're Shaken Apart, Sick Just Like Me, Some Days I Gotta Shut Them Off Because I Run Out, But Most Of The Time That's The Way It Happens, And It Reminds Me Where I Came From, During The Day, As I Say, My Friends Are Pretty Much A-People, I Get Certainly A Call Or Two
[00:35:02]
During The Day, I'm In Touch, At Night I Try To Thank God For The Day, Take A Look At It, Most Of The Time, Hey, You Know, I Guess I Made It Despite My God, But Really There Hasn't Been That Much Effort On My Part, Really Hasn't, I've Been Fortunate I Guess Some People Said I've Helped Them And That's Great, That's Great, I Know Walter Morgan Many Years Ago, He Was A Full-Blooded Cherokee Indian Chief Who Was In This Program, He Was Quite A Guy, He Was A Graduate Of University Of Chicago, Very Close To A Master's Degree, This Was No, This Was An Educated Man, He Said To Me One Time, You Know, Dick, He Said, If You Want To Take Credit For The Scouts Over On This Side, You Better Take Credit For The Misses Over Here, He Said, Don't Take Any Credit For Anybody You Sponsor, Anybody Who Gets Over, Because He Said, If You Make A Miss, Then You Better Take Credit For That, You Fail, He Said, You Don't Fail Or You Don't Win, The Lord Wins, I Think This Is Pretty Much The Same Thing And I Think It's In March 14th Of The Big Book, Or The 24 Hour Book, And I Know It Helped Me One Night Particularly, Because I Remember I, Jim Taylor And I Went To Call On This Guy, This Guy Sitting There On A Couch And He's Got A Half-Ass Grin, And His Wife Is Over Here In The Corner, One Of The Kids Got A Broken Arm, He Come In Backhanded The Kid, And The Kid Did A Double Loop And Broke His Arm, And His Job Is Hanging By A Thread, He's Got A Junker In The Driveway, And I'm Giving It To Him With Bold Barrels, This Guy Has Got To Get This, And I'm Giving Him My Best, And I Run Down And Taylor Starts, And I Look At Him And I Thought, I'll Get His Attention, I Walk Like I'm Going Out To Where His Wife Is, When I Get Close To Him, I'll Pop Him One, I Don't Want To Hurt Him, I Just Want To Get His Attention, You Know, And I Remember Thinking, Hey, What's The Matter With You? What's The Matter With You?
I'm Sure Other People Felt The Same Way About You, And I Say, I Think I Got My Answer Somewhere In That, I Think It's March 13th Or 14th, 24 Hour Book Said My Job Or Our Job Is To Carry The Message, Whether Or Not The Person Accepts It Is Out Of Our Hands, And I Think This Was A Relief To Me, And I Think Since That Time, I've Understood A Little Bit Better, Just One Thought That's Very Important To Me, And I'll Quit, Because Perhaps It Will Help Somebody Out, If You're Like Me, Maybe Some Of You Are, I'm Basically, I've Always Been Kind Of A Good Even Guy, This Has Been One, I Know It, And It's Something I Watched, But I Haven't Lost It, But I Know That I Had A Couple People In My Office, A Man And His Wife That Were Really Bugging Me, I Felt That They Had Used The Rest Of Us In An Attempt To Get The Husband A Particularly Good Job, The Turnout Didn't Work Out, And This Involved Some Union Affairs, I Was President Of The Union At The Time, But They Really Were Bugging Me, And We Had Been Fairly Good Friends, This Man And I, And His Wife Also, For That Concern, But They Were Eating That, Every Time I Saw Them, I Started To Churn Inside, And I Was At The Clinic One Day, Fortunately, I Opened Up About It, And Stu Was There, And Stu Said To Me, Dick, Why Don't You Try This, And I Said, I Know It Works, But He Said, Why Don't You Try, Next Time They Start To Eat At You, Say A Prayer For Them, And I Remember Thinking, I Hate Their Guts, You Know, He Wants Me To Pray, You Know, But I Didn't Say Anything, Because Stu Had Been Very Helpful To Me, And I Knew He Was Sincere, But I Thought, You Know, Okay, Thanks A Lot, You Know, That Helped, Oh, Two Or Three Days Went By, And This Man Walked By My Desk In The Morning, And All He Said Was, Good Morning, That's All He Said, And I'm Ready To Go Over The Desk After, I'm Ready To Go After The Day, And I Remember Thinking, And I Said, Oh, Okay, So, I Don't Know What Prayer I Said, Wasn't Very Good, Because I Remember My Conscience Saying, You Ought To Mean It, So, You Know, It Wasn't Exactly, Wasn't Exactly Inspired, You Know, Didn't Come From Heaven Very Much, Now, I'm Not Going To Tell You That Suddenly, You Know, Everything Was Clean As A Whistle, Everything Was Great, That's Not True, But I Can Tell You Honestly, That From That Time On, It Seemed To Me, And It Was The Case That Neither Of Them Bothered Me The Extent They Had, I've Used It A Couple Of Times, Because I'm The Kind Of A Guy That Get Myself Worked Up Over People, And It Does Work, Perhaps It'll Work For You, Best Of Luck, Give It A Try, Thank You Very Much.
APPLAUSE