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Source: DICOBE-00253 – Dave C – INTERGROUP MTG – 1979-05-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00253-dave-c-intergroup-mtg-1979-05-15.mp3 Duration: 01:26:55
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Thank you, Sandy. I wanted to know that there was at least one alcoholic here. My name is Wilbur Mills and I'm a very, very grateful alcoholic. I'm pleased, I'm very pleased to be here. I want you to know I've got on a tie that I tied and a suit that I clipped on. Now, wait a minute, I suppose you're supposed to laugh at that, I thought. I do want to welcome you to the 37th annual WAIA banquet, and it is a banquet. Dance to follow. We're going to get through in time for you to begin dancing about ten o'clock, we hope. We are starting a little bit late.
I wanted to open our meeting by reading the preamble. I know it by heart, but it took Buck ten years to learn it, so I still read it. I didn't want to show him up. Alcoholics 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 A.A. membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics organization, or institution, 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. Just briefly, I want you to know that I may be different from the rest of you. I became an alcoholic because I drank and drank too much. I don't know whether anybody else had that experience or not. I've heard people say they got a disease and they got it on a bar stool. Well, I used to be on some bar stools, too, if I could sit there long enough to get a drink and didn't fall off.
But anyway, I'm glad to see all of you tonight. I can't see you now, but I did see you earlier. We're going to have a great dinner here. Also, if there's any press, I haven't seen any, but if there are, I know you will preserve the anonymity of everybody here by not using any names of people who are in attendance. The press has always been very, very remindful of that. Only on a few occasions have I known it to be broken, and that's when I was involved. But I lived through it. I decided that the little prayer we say sometimes helps me, because there are some things you can't change, you can't do anything about.
The press is one of them I can't do anything about. But I hope you will preserve the anonymity of everybody else who's here. I wanted to take time, too, to introduce all of our people here at the head table. And I'll start over to my left and to your right. Ed B., and I would like for you to withhold your applause until we get through, if you will. I don't like people to try to figure out by the applause which of us is more popular than the rest of us. So just withhold it until we get through, if you will.
Ed B., down at the end on my left. Pete N., will you stand up when I introduce you? Pete N. Lynn N., K.W. Now, I must say something about this next person, because she's my sweetheart. My wife sitting here, too, puts up with it. There was a time when she had twelve times as much sobriety as I've got, but she can't say that now. I've got four years and she hasn't got forty-eight years, but she's got thirty-eight years. Marge F.
And we will ask Father Hugh P. to pronounce the invocation, if you will, Father Hugh. My name is Father Hugh. I'm an alcoholic. I have a short little prayer for you here.
[00:05:05]
Now you better pray I find out where I stand. When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a higher power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances. Dear God of all mankind, we find these words in the big book, A.A., and they are the reflections of the experience of our founders in A.A.
These thoughts are especially appropriate tonight as we celebrate the 37th anniversary of the Washington Area Intergroup Association. We thank you, dear Lord, for having selected us to share in this tremendous event in the heritage of A.A. Help us to develop those key virtues of A.A., humility and responsibility, which are also the hallmarks of A.A. progress. Thus may we know and do your will in our private lives and become the responsible support to extend this helping hand to those who still suffer from the disease of alcoholism.
We ask all this through Christ our Lord. Thank you very much, Father Hugh. Now I just wanted to suggest to you, if anybody wants to take a drink, there is water at the table, and there will be some coffee later on. Now it's come time to eat. I guess the lights go back on, don't they, at that time? All right. One of our guests here was not at the table at the time, and it's a great pleasure for me to introduce my good friend who's had 34 years of sobriety.
Henry C., stand up, please. Before introducing our speaker, I do have a few other introductions. I'd like to introduce some of our very trusted servants, a list of the W.A.I.A. and delegates. Tom S., where are you? All right. I came because they told me you were going to lead us in a laugh. Olivia Ann. Jack A. There's Jack. Jim C., our delegate. Some of our past delegates. Buck D. Gary T. Hal M. Joe S.
Is John W. present? John W. was a former delegate and trustee. Then, too, I want to introduce the members of the banquet committee and the chairman. Johnny A., will you stand up, please, and the members of your committee? I heard the speaker on one occasion. He was asking me tonight whether we wanted the $25 or the $35 speech, and I said, Well, now, these people are entitled to the very, very best, and let's not tell him any different, but I told him that we'd paid $100 to get in here to hear him and take a $100 speech out of him.
I was down at the session for the sea, and I had the privilege in 1977 of hearing our speaker.
[00:10:04]
I was very much impressed with the brand of sobriety that he has, and I've heard so many, many others who know him so much better than I refer to his calmness and his great happiness that he enjoys, his serenity, and all of that that we all aspire to. I must tell you, before I do introduce him, of my quest for information as to when I would become serene. I asked a man out at Manassas one night, who at that time had 33 or 34 years of sobriety, he said, You feel good inside not drinking?
I said, I sure do. He said, Well, you get serene when you are good inside. I think that our speaker is serene because he is good inside. I want to give you a fellow Southerner, of course he had to be from the South if I was going to be toastmaster almost. So you wouldn't notice my accent. From North Carolina, from Raleigh, I'm very privileged to present to you Dave Seed. Thank you, Wilbur. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the intergroup committee for extending me the invitation to be here this weekend.
It's a great privilege. A $25 talk, a $35 talk, I don't know about those things. But I've got some friends that are here tonight that I saw a few weeks ago and they began to talk about this a little. I understand also there were a few hostile people as they came in this afternoon about the tables and so forth. I didn't have a damn thing to do with any of it now before I began. I want you to understand that.
Truthfully, I want to tell you something. I'm very reluctant to accept the invitation to speak at banquets. So consider yourself lucky, I guess. First of all, you get me up here and then you put all this food and I can't eat it. It's not that I don't want it, I know what's going to happen after I stand up and the burping starts. It just brings on a lot of embarrassment. Invariably and it's unusual, I've been on Mars for years, but most of the time you'll get seated next to the minister's wife, and this is usually our first occasion like this.
She looks at you kind of funny. And the minister, most of the time it's his first occasion. You get through and he uses your talk for his sermon the following Sunday. I found that out. And so, hell, you talk about hostility, I've got a lot of anxiety tonight. But it is good to be here and I'd like to thank the committee. This has been appropriate everywhere I go. So many of these things, they usually have two or three speakers.
I'm glad I'm the only one. I won't keep you long, I promise you that. Every time I think about these long-winded speakers, I think about a convention that I've been told that they had back in North Carolina many years ago. They had one of these long-winded speakers. He began to talk and he talked on the twelve steps. And after about an hour he got into the twelve traditions. And then in the third hour he got into the three legacies.
And gradually people began to leave. They will leave, I found it out one night. And lo and behold, everybody left except one man. He just kept sitting on the front row. And the speaker began to get concerned, so he wound up his talk, ran down from the podium, grabbed the man by the hand and said, I want to ask you one question. Everybody left but you. Why did you stay? And he said, Hell, I'm the next speaker.
Well, I know what he's talking about. I'm an alcoholic. My name is Dave Cook. Hi, everybody. I'm a member of the Big Book group in Raleigh, North Carolina, which I think is the finest group in the whole wide world. And if you don't think the same about your home group, then I suggest that maybe you need to find another group. By God's grace and because this program works for me, through the help of my understanding sponsors who led me with a kind but firm hand, and through the love of the organization, I have not found it necessary to take a drink or any tablets since the day I came to Alcoholics
[00:15:09]
Anonymous. And that day was September 12, 1957. I don't give my sobriety date to impress anybody. I give it for two reasons, and two reasons only. I came into AA in the old Central Group in Roanoke, Virginia. The second meeting I ever went to in Alcoholics Anonymous was a discussion meeting, and I was scared to death. They had 13 or 14 wicker chairs sitting in a circle, and people had problems. And I began to wonder what I was going to say when it got to me.
When it finally got to me, the man who was to become my first sponsor spoke up and told me what to say. He said, Give your name and your sobriety date, that's all you are qualified to do. As a matter of fact, after the meeting he explained to me that that's all I was going to be qualified to do for about the next year, was to give my name and sobriety date. And the second reason is, in that group, the old Central Group in Roanoke, at that time they had a saying that if you were a member of that group and you got behind the podium, if you didn't give your sobriety date, you usually didn't have one.
And so I've been giving mine ever since, and that's the only reason. On a Sunday morning, September 11, 1957, I was in a back alley on the market in downtown Roanoke, Virginia, trying to get a drink of liquor down. And I cried out for help, for somebody to please help me. And later that afternoon, alcoholics and almost found me. And this was the beginning of that great experience from the freedom of bondage of hatred being replaced with sobriety and love.
And that's where it all started. That's the reason I'm here tonight. I knew what drinking could do to a grown man because I saw what happened to my father when I was a kid. My daddy was a good man as long as he didn't drink, you've heard that expression before. But because of his drinking, it led to a divorce in my home when I was twelve years of age and my mother was able to clothe me and feed me and give me an education.
And I had a mother, and I still do, that loved me to death. I damn near died for my mother's love for me. I was the only boy. And I knew what drinking could do to a man that would use it. And I can remember as a kid promising my mother that I'd never be like my daddy, that I'd never drink. And time went on and I finally went off to college, and this is where I came in contact with it. After World War II, when a lot of those fellows came back a lot older than I and knew how to drink, and I was in this environment, and I adjusted to that environment, and I started drinking when I was sixteen years of age in college.
Had a good time with it, didn't have any problems. Did it in the beginning when I couldn't get it down, those gagging exercises. I used to hear them talk about the pleasure that comes from drinking, and I didn't understand it because I was going through those gagging exercises. And one night I asked one of the older fellows, I said, When does the pleasure come that you speak of? And I've never forgotten what he said, and it's the truth.
He said, Dave, if you remember, there's a little pause in between from the time you take the drink and when you throw up, that's when the pleasure comes. And I know what he's talking about today. But I went on through school and I had a good time, I didn't know what hangovers were. And maybe I started some strange behavior when I was a senior, because I studied engineering, but because of my basketball ability, being down on a basketball scholarship partially, I was offered a job coaching high school basketball when I finished college down in eastern North Carolina.
And that's what I did when I finished school. I coached high school basketball and taught in the public school system in North Carolina
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for six-and-a-half years. And here's a young man in the community, and I fell upstairs in the coaching profession, and that time drinking what drinking I did, you know, you set a good example for the young people of what drinking I did, I did it at my mother's home on weekends. But I look back now and I see the pattern, I see what happened to me. And I look back now and I can see the pattern very vividly, because it began to grow and began to be around people that drank more and more the older I got and the more I stayed in the teaching profession.
And as I said before, I fell upstairs in the coaching profession, and then I went to a much larger high school and I produced. But looking back, I find myself now being associated with people in the community that drank quite a bit, and I was able to be in their homes on about every night drinking. And after four years of coaching and teaching, I was beginning to have problems with booze, a lot of problems.
And everybody began to try to help me, and everybody knew about this except me. A lot of problems. And then I began to do strange things. I began to try to get people off my back by getting married the first time. And that was a hell of a mistake. The first time, you know how it is, the alcoholic is cunning and is baffling, as it says in the book. And I began to get in a lot of trouble, writing checks, not taking care of my responsibilities.
My mother was usually covering up for me. And I can remember when the sheriff of the county used to come to the schoolhouse to see me about these bad checks. I thought this was a way of life, I really did. I mean, I thought everybody did this. And I can remember when I used to have to go outside the schoolhouse and be driving that old black Plymouth with the buggy whip waving in the air. I don't know why, but those radio earls always gave me, seemed to me to be a sign of authority.
And I can remember that thing, just kept on waving, waving. And as I began to go outside, the kids would look through the windows, and some of the teachers, too. And the alcoholic begins to think, they don't know it, but I'm undercover agent for the sheriff's department, things like that. You know, dreaming and thinking strange things. You know, I've looked back many times at my drinking, and it seems to me that I always wanted to be somewhere else most of the time.
I always wanted to be with someone else most of the time when I was drinking, and never satisfied. A lot of problems. And so they began to talk to me, the school authorities, about my drinking. I resented it and denied it. And finally I get the people off my back, and I met a girl in a period of about two weeks and we were married. And I can remember promising this girl that when September came, I'd stop drinking.
And I was riddled into the throes of alcoholism by now, although I didn't know it. Prior to this, my mother had tried to help me by sending me some of the best drying-out places on the East Coast. I went to a lot of places, a lot of hospitals. There were nervous breakdowns. Nobody ever talked to me about alcoholism. I had a bad case of nerves, come back in worse shape than I was when I went. And so I married this girl, and we had a group honeymoon.
I don't know if you've ever heard of one, but we carried three other couples with us, and this was the beginning of my first marriage, which was doomed from the very beginning. And it lasted about a year until she caught on. And then I was fired from this job on account of my drinking, on account of my drinking. Later being employed by another school a little bit further east. And I've always said, if you keep listening to me and my story, I'll just keep going east.
And if you just keep going east in my native state, you'll wound up down in the big body of water, and that's where I finally wound up and just kept going east. And I went to the rock bottom of schools, is what it was. They were desperate. And I was there to see that it was accredited. You know how they would think. And this girl had left by now. And I'd gotten to the point that the only way I can describe my drinking is this.
I had to get up, and I was about 26 years of age. I had to get up at four or five o'clock in the morning, and at that time I had to drink a pint of booze to stop shaking.
[00:25:01]
So I could shave and shower and get clothes on to go to school to perform. Invariably the shakes would start again about noon, and I'd have something to eat in the gymnasium or the automobile where I could take a few shots to stop the drinking. Stop those shakes and then just pray for three o'clock when I could get back to the automobile and start back, about 12 miles. And then go to the beer joints and drink enough to get home and buy enough booze to get stoned to the ears again.
And this went on for a period of about six and a half months, until one day they just asked me. I mean, there wasn't no conference, they didn't call me in the office, just stopped me in the hall and said, You're through. Give us the keys, we don't need you anymore. And I've looked back many a time, and I think for me, looking back, and all this is hindsight, I think by now I'd crossed this invisible line that we speak of, because I'd gotten to the point in my life that I'd do anything to get liquor, to drink, anything.
And that was the beginning of the experience that I've never understood fully that day, because I'd experienced blackouts before. I don't know where I went when I left school that day, don't know what I did. But I do remember waking up for the first time in a city jail in the community where I taught school, a period of about two to three weeks that was blank. And I don't know what happened. I later found out.
As I came to, a man began to speak to me through a cell door, and he was a county health doctor. This man says, Dave, your mother has come down here and straightened out all this mess, and we're going to send you to a place where they can cure you. And I didn't know what he meant. I knew I was physically run down, never associating drinking with it. We're going to send you to a place where they can cure you.
And of course I began to think about some soft, easy, long chairs, or tapering off again to some of those places that I'd been before for my nervous breakdowns. But this wasn't what he meant. I went to, in my home state of North Carolina, the state insane asylum that's called Dix Hill. And I've always said I, too, found my thrill on Dix Hill, because that's where I went for the cure at 27 years of age.
And so help me God, as long as I stay sober and draw a sober breath, I hope I never forget my first trip to Dix Hill. I never want to forget it as long as I live. I can remember some of it, and some of it I don't. But I can remember getting this hospital, this state hospital, and the first few days they put me in a place they called the inebriate ward. I didn't know what inebriate meant. Sounded good to me in the beginning.
And I adjusted to this environment also. Most of the people that I came in contact with were chasing squirrels most of the time. And so I became a squirrel chaser. A few days later they put me in a place they called the old Edgerton building. This was a building for the men alcoholics. And I never want to forget it. I never want to forget it. And I want to make this point clear right now. If you're just around AA for the first time, if you're thinking about this thing, if you're looking at yourself, you do not have to do the things that I did to get the Alcoholics Anonymous and find sobriety.
I know a lot of people that recognize that they have a problem with booze, that come on in and put the cork in the jug and come on in and make mighty good AA members. And I love them. I wasn't that way. I had to be beat down to my knees before I could ever see myself. And this is the thing I don't understand about alcoholism even to today, in spite of what time I've been in the program of AA. And that's the inability of the alcoholic to see himself as he really is in his worst moments.
And I was never able to do this for a long period of time. I could not get honest with myself. But they carried me down into the basement of this building, a place they called Skid Row, and put me in a cell, a padded cell, and took my clothes away from me and let me have my running fits. And days later when I got through having my running fits, they put me back up in the building, the main part of the building.
And then I was allowed to do the only thing that I could do for the next 30-some-odd days. I would walk up and down the corridor day in and day out, wondering what in the world I was doing there. Because I began to look around, and I didn't see anybody my age, nobody.
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The men were a lot older, a lot older. And then one night I listened to a group of older men talk. They were playing poker with matchsticks for chips. And I was listening to them and watching them, and I heard one man say, I'm here because my wife put me here. And I kind of identified with that, you know, I thought maybe I was there because my mother put me there, which she did. And then I heard this face, and I speak of him as the face.
I don't know where he is today, whether he's dead or living. I know he's not in Dixieland, I don't know whether he's an Alcoholics Anonymous or not. But I heard this face, and this face said, I'm here because I'm an alcoholic. I'm here because I'm an alcoholic. My God, when I heard the word, I resisted the word for the very word itself. And I was beginning that day to play a game that was to plague me until I, even after I came into Alcoholics Anonymous.
And that was comparing my father's drinking with my drinking. And if the truth was known today, if we had to go over the books today and compare my father with me, my father was a much better man than I ever hoped to be when I was drinking. Oh, he lost a family. He lost a family. He never got kicked out of his profession on account of his drinking. He never had to go to the insane asylum on account of his drinking, and never had to be put behind bars for a long period of time on account of his drinking.
But I did. And that was the extent that I was exposed to this disease in the beginning, the knowledge of it, and I didn't know nothing about it. The only time I ever learned anything about alcoholism, the word as such, is when I got to AA. I look back now and I see that I was a protected alcoholic for many years. They hid it under the rug. You know, they wanted to push a button and fix me. And they thought they were doing the right thing.
Anything for instant relief. Sent him to a drying-out place. But nobody would ever talk about it when I was sober, nobody. And you look around your city block where you live today and ask yourself this question. I wonder how many alcoholics are being protected. And because of my mother's love for me, she thought she was doing the right thing. Strange, isn't it? The day came that I had to leave Dixie Hill and I didn't know where to go.
Everything that I accumulated from the time I graduated from college up until that time, I'd lost everything, everything. And what I do, I go back to my mother. She was a man with a college education, made a good living, made some success in life. And unbeknownst to him and unbeknownst to a lot of his family members, he was a bondage to this thing called alcoholism. When I got home, my mother welcomed me with open arms and tried to do the best she could.
She's a good woman and still is. And then the family doctor decided he would try to help me. He was ignorant of my situation. I don't know a great deal about drugs or pills, but I do know a great deal about tablets. And the good doctor gave me some tablets to take. And as long as I took these tablets, I did not have to drink. I was loose as a goose most of the time. And I've often thought back. I can remember when I was on these things and everything was free, you know, go with the flow, as they say.
I can remember the stoplights, the colors didn't even bother me. I mean, it was a free road, it didn't make any difference. And I didn't have to drink. They gave me the relief I was looking for. And of course, I was around people for a period of time that were drinking when I was on these tablets. But one night the bottle was passed and I partook of the whiskey and this compulsion manifested itself again.
And it was just a matter of days before I was back to the place that said I'd never
[00:35:01]
go again as long as I lived, which was Dick's Hill. Because I'd gotten to the point then that I was an alcoholic, although I didn't know it. Because I could take one drink and no longer could guarantee you my behavior. And to make a long story short, I went back to Dick's Hill five times in six months on account of one fact. I'd become an alcoholic. I'd take one drink and could no longer guarantee you my behavior.
And the last time I went back to Dick's Hill, I was put in the nut part of the bulkhouse instead of the whiskey part, or the drying out part. And there is a distinct difference, in case you're interested. And this was the time I found out about straitjackets and being tied down to a bed and how you live better electrically. I found out about that, too. And I remember some of it, but I can remember I myself began to accept my fate that I would die there with these people and be a vegetable.
I really did. I thought I'd be there for the rest of my life, because I began to think maybe I was nutty. But unbeknownst to me, and probably unbeknownst to you before you got to AA, some power began to work in my life then, although I didn't know it. The strange word we hear in Alcoholics Anonymous is coincidence. A coincidence happened. I'd been in this nut ward about a month or three or four weeks, and they put me back in that old building again with the rest of the rummies, and for some strange reason I never found out why.
And then I'd been there so much that it more or less made me an honorary attendant, and I was allowed to work in the kitchen and go get mail and things like that. Then one day several other fellows, well, three other fellows and myself decided we'd leave. I don't want to sound dramatic, but we escaped. That's what we did. Back then you ran, you ran like hell, because just like cops and robbers, really, sirens would blow and, oh, it was just like a big jail breakout.
And we were hit in a downtown hotel by nightfall, and we were all four drunk that night, being kicked out of the hotel. And then a few days later I was able to take advantage of some of my mother's friends in this city, and they sent me back to my hometown. When I got home, my mother was up in Richmond, Virginia, with a nervous breakdown. And I broke into her home there and stayed for a period of about two weeks until I brought her home and found me, and that's when they got together.
When they get together, you'd better watch out, because things begin to happen. All of you know who they are, and if you don't, they are those people that get in the other room and you in the other room, and they crack the door and they begin to plan your fate. And if you've got a brother-in-law, he gets into it also. And he's usually the one that knows the most about nothing. I don't want to get tangled up on him now, listen, and that's where I'm going, I'll tell you.
Anyway, they began to talk about it, and the end result of the conversation, they called me in and they had made a decision. And the decision was that they gave me a lot of money, and my mother was financially able to do that, and told me to leave that part of the country and not come back. And they were my two sisters, and my close friend in the family has been like a father to me, and my brother-in-law was in the room also.
And it was enough money to go to the West Coast and live comfortably. And when I saw that green, man, I was ready to leave! And you do begin to get ready to leave when you see the green, because all your problems begin to get solved automatically right then, because it's a little security. For many years, even when I first got sober in the program of A, I thought for a long period of time that if my mother had been a little bit more free with the finances at the end, that I could have probably straightened out this problem by drinking a long time ago.
[00:40:06]
You know how that is. Maybe you are like me. I can remember when I used to straighten out all my problems between about eleven o'clock and two o'clock in the morning. And I'd be drinking, and by eleven o'clock I could begin to solve these things. And hell, by two o'clock when I got ready to pass out, I had them solved! But when I would wake up the next morning and the sun came up, by God, the problem was there again, except it was much larger.
Yes, we can solve all our problems. Well, I didn't go to the West Coast. I went four miles to a neighboring town, pulled into an old hotel and began to do what I knew best, drink in my paradise. And I stayed there until the money ran out, and when the money ran out, I reverted back to the same thing I'd always done, I'd write checks. And I'd go over to my hometown and, well, I went over there one day and I bought an outboard motor.
I didn't have no boat, but I bought a motor. You know, buy an article, get the change, pick up the motor later, and that's what happened. I went on back to my paradise, and the next day they had called my mother to tell her that my motor was ready. She began to put things together, and invariably John Law was there that afternoon to escort me back to the city jail in my hometown, three blocks from my mother's home.
And I can remember those two weeks in that city jail, I'd been there many times before. And each day the sun came up, I wondered when she'd come down there and let me out, and she never came. The first few days I began to raise a lot of hell down there. You know, I needed an attorney, and what was I charged with, and nobody would tell me. And finally one night I was raising so much hell, the jailer asked me, he says, Who is your attorney?
And I told him, and he says, Talk to him all you want to, he's in the next cell block. And he was! He really was! This program does work in mysterious ways, and I'll say this right now. This man is also married an alcoholic, anonymous, has been for several years, and is a member of our state legislature. So it worked for him, too. Well they never came, and then one day they carried me upstairs in the court of law that I had to stand trial for something I didn't know I'd done on a previous drunk.
And you have to understand this scene, my sister was city clerk, my mother's next door neighbor was city solicitor, and they called my name, and neither one of them seemed to know who I was. And they just kept writing, and they said, Take him away, and hell, here I go. And they carried me down the road a little bit further the next day to another courthouse. And I had to stand trial again for something I didn't know I'd done on a previous drunk.
And then a few days later, I kept going east. And I wouldn't talk about this when I first came in A, because I'm still ashamed of it. I'd take one drink and I could no longer guarantee you my behavior. I'd become an alcoholic and everybody knew it but me. And I stayed there the period I was supposed to, and then the time came that I had to leave and I didn't want to leave, because of the shame. And they carried me back to my hometown down in eastern North Carolina, down in Ronald Rapids where I was raised, and I went back to my mother again.
And by now my mother was very afraid of me, because unbeknownst to me I'd tried to take a life on my last drunk and I didn't know nothing about it. And that Sunday, it was a Sunday, they let me on the back porch and allowed me to eat. And they got together again. And they began to argue. And then I heard the message that all drunks hear, if you've got a mother. That's my son, and I love him and he's going to stay here tonight whether you like it or not.
And she let me stay there, and she began to love me and do things for me. And I made a vow that next day that, I didn't know what sobriety was, but I made a vow that I, you know, I didn't know what sobriety was. I didn't know what sobriety was, but I made a vow that I, you know, I didn't know what I'd do this for her, and I don't recommend this before AA or after AA.
[00:45:03]
And so things got better, and I wasn't drinking, and I was staying dry, and then one day it was suggested maybe I should go to work. Been quite a while, and I didn't think I could get a job teaching in the state of North Carolina, and so through an agency up in Richmond, I was interviewed in several different states north of North Carolina, up in Maryland, Virginia, around about. And my mother carried me to these places in a period of about one week, and then one afternoon we wound up, on a particular Thursday afternoon, we wound up in Roanoke, Virginia.
And the superintendent of city schools in Roanoke began to talk to me and became interested in me. He got on the telephone and found out about me, and all of a period of about five minutes and says, I understand you had a problem with drinking one time, that you're cured now. And I said, yes, sir, I am. And I hadn't had anything to drink six or seven months. Things were going good. And he hired me.
He wanted me to go to work for him. And we made arrangements for me to have a place to stay when I came back the following Saturday. So I went back to my hometown and got a new start, closed. My mother financed the whole thing, and here I am with a new start in life, in spite of where I'd been. And I look forward to it. And on the way back to Roanoke, I had to change some brushes up here in Emporia, Virginia.
I've never forgotten it. And I just decided what I'd do is I'd have one drink. And you know, we've always added and subtracted and multiplied, kind of funny. And I had one drink, but I buy two pints. And this was the beginning of my last drunk, the only drunk that I'd really like to talk about. And I'm not going to talk about it at length, because I feel like that if I ever forget my last drunk, I might have another one coming, and I don't want to forget it.
I don't want to ever forget the horror and the hurt and the loneliness that I experienced on my last drunk. Well, I got back to Roanoke, and the fifth day I got back to the morning drink. And I eventually lost a job in a period of two weeks. And they tried to help me in all ways, financially, every way. And then one afternoon, I was standing instead of going to this place where I had a nice room, I had to go to the big hotel, writing checks, doing everything.
And my mother was able to get in touch with me in the middle of the way of this drunk and gave me the greatest gift she's ever given me since the day I was born. That's when she kicked me out of her life, and I knew she meant it. And a few days later, I wound up on the skids, didn't know a soul. And that day that that great experience that I spoke of earlier began was that day, September 11. I was in a back alley, as I said before, trying to get that drink down.
And the thought occurred to me that maybe I was going to die there. And I didn't want to die in that back alley. And I prayed to a God I knew nothing about that morning for some help. Coincidence may be, a few hours later, the only man that knew me found me in that back alley, the city superintendent of schools in that city. And he was the man that carried me to Alcoholics Anonymous that afternoon.
He didn't know anything about AA, but he had a teacher that knew a man in AA, and he got in touch with him. And he carried me to Alcoholics Anonymous that afternoon. I didn't know anything about AA. And I'll never forget, they carried me to a place that they had a 12-step clubhouse in Roanoke at that time called the Easy Does It Club. And he carried me up those steps. Physically carried me up. It wasn't the fact I was drunk.
I had gotten to the point that I couldn't drink any more and feel it. Couldn't find that oblivion any more, like putting it in a sponge. And I hurt. I hurt all over. My hair hurt. My toenails hurt. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Tired of the high cost of low living, and that's what it is. And he carried me up those steps, and everything that I had, I had on, in a paper bag with an ear syringe and a razor in it and a toothbrush.
And we say we don't look them over when they come in, but by God, you looked me over. And as a matter of fact, you kind of got off to the side. And you know, you started whispering to one another. And as you begin to do that, there was an old gentleman standing in the right-hand corner,
[00:50:02]
and I've never stood behind a podium, I don't want to mention that man's name. His name was John Tullock, old man John Tullock. This old man called me over, and he began to talk to me, and I've never forgotten his words. He said, Son, I want to tell you something. He put his arm around me, around my shoulder. He said, I want to tell you something. He said, All you've got to do is listen to these people and do what they tell you to do, and you never have to be alone again.
You never have to be alone again. And I knew what loneliness was, because I experienced it on that last journey. And I thank God for the fact I never had to walk out that door of A.A. since I've been here. I thank God for that. The old man John Tullock was a unique man. We hear a lot about the classifications of alcoholics this day and time, the old ones, the young ones, the in-betweens, and all that.
Old man John come to A.A. when he was 76 years of age, he died at 82 with six continuous years of sobriety. And he was the man that rang my bell. And I was 29 years of age when I found Alcoholics Anonymous. And I identified with this man, because he told me what I needed to hear. He told me about the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that's what he was talking about. Because what he told me was simply this, rarely have we seen a person fail who has seldom followed our path.
That's what old man John was telling me. I helped bring him. After he got through talking, you all began to talk to me a little. And I began to shake a little. The shakes started, and I asked, would it be possible to get a drink? And I got a lot of attention when I said that. They said, no, we don't do it that way. I said, if you get too bad, we're going to get a doctor for you and try it our way. Then I said, well, what about a tablet?
And God, I thought I'd started a revolution when I asked him about some tablets. He said, no tablets, no, no, no tablets. They said, drink some of that coffee, drink some of that coffee. And I've always contended, and I still contend, there are a hell of a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous making coffee that don't have any business doing it. And this was one of those days. That stuff was ropey.
It just hung. They said, drink that coffee. Now, hell, I thought it was a requirement, so I started drinking. And I drank that stuff until I turned green. And they got me in a car and carried me into my first day meeting that night. I don't know what went on or what happened, but I remember most of all what went on after the meeting. Because strangers, complete strangers, walked up to me, and I was scared to death, and I was shaking and I was hurting.
They said, we love you, and we understand you're going to be all right. If nobody told you that when you got there, you got shortchanged. We love you and we understand you. After all, what have we got to offer but that? And they began to talk to me. And that night it was true to me that I didn't have to be alone anymore, because three men got me a room in the YMCA and stayed with me all night long, talking to me and telling me about the program of A.A.
Just talking to me, just talking to me. And eventually the sun came up, and I can remember Claude speaking to me and said, Dave, you've been so many hours without a drink. Maybe you can make it this day. And that's what we do in A.A. We just do it one day at a time, the first time I ever heard it. We just do it one day at a time. And the thought occurred to me, you know, a little hope, not no faith, but some hope that maybe, just maybe, I can make one day with their help.
And this was the beginning of this great experience in sobriety. Later on that morning they carried me back to the Easy Does It Club, and I was introduced to the man who would become my first sponsor. He sat down and began to talk to me, asked me a lot of questions. All the answers I gave him were negative, you know, where did you come from, how much money you got, how many checks you got out. I didn't know how he knew that.
He asked me a lot of strange things, and everything was negative. Hell, I was a nothing. And then he summed it up. He said, Well, it seems to me that you're not doing so hot. And you know, I thought about it a little, and I wasn't doing so hot. And then he began to tell me about the program of A.A. and the big book and the promises that are in the book, and I thought he was crazy.
[00:55:03]
I really did. And yet today as I stand here tonight, all he knew was the knowledge of the program of A.A. And that's all we have to talk about when we talk to a new person, is what the program is about. And that's what that man did that day. And he gave me a lot of help, and he led me with a kind but firm hand. And so things got better, and finally I was put in a boarding house with six other men in A.A.
All of us, well, one man, two men there had a lot more sobriety. Things got better. And I won't forget those six men, because out of those six men today, two of them went back to drinking. One of them had a lot of sobriety and stopped going to meetings. Two of them are drinking today, and two of us are sober. And I learned much from them, much. The first person I ever told I loved was a man in A.A., and that was Charlie, some of you know him, Charlie P.
And I thank God for the fact that when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, people had the time to sit down and tell me about the program of A.A. and took the time. We didn't have anywhere to go. And we had meetings after meetings, and things got better. It was along about after I'd been sober a few months that I met my present wife, Sue. Some people in here know her. A coincidence, maybe. This was a gift from the higher powers, I understand them, a complete gift.
And she's never seen me drink, never seen me drunk, but she's been through more hell than my first wife did, because what I've been trying to do is grow up in the program of A.A. And, you know, it was eventually a time to go to work again. And you know, I've always said that I've learned a lot more from people in A.A. that have less education than I. And one night, the group, you know, in my group then, hell, they'd discuss anything.
They'd solve your problems in a group meeting. And about four or five of them sat down one night and decided to solve my employment problem. And old Red, Red had a third-grade education. He was a sign painter. And he said, Dave, it seems to me that if you studied engineering in college, that's what you ought to be doing in life. And, you know, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The only problem was, nobody ever explained it to me that way before.
And so with Red's help and advice, I went to see the Virginia Highway Department and told them the truth. My God, there is no resistance against the truth. Told them the truth. They sat there in complete amazement. And I've never forgotten his words. The first words I ever experienced in my first few weeks of sobriety when I had to do something, or later on when I had to do something towards advancement in life, outside of A.A., that was, well, if you're willing to help yourself, if they understood what you were doing, if you told them the truth, they'd say, if you're willing to help yourself, we're willing to give you a chance, too.
We're willing to help you. And every way I went, it was that way. And of course I was scared to death. This was back in November when this finally happened, and he said, when can you go to work? And I said, well, I've got a lot of business to tend to, about the first of the year. And Red told me, that won't be the way to do it. He says, in the morning is when you're going to work. And I started to work the next morning, scared to death, and things got good.
And so I got sober, and after a period of a few months, I began to get a little green on my hip and got some clothes, and people began to look at me a little, and I got kind of important. And then it was shot down in a few months, because people were just patting me on the back. Because another fellow came in the group, younger than I, and they began to give him all the attention. And this was the first time I ever experienced resentment in my sobriety, is when that young fellow came in.
But he was the greatest thing that ever happened to me when he came in. And so I got better, and it was a long little And so I got better, and it was long, well it wasn't long before I started doing the things that we do in sobriety, doing the things that we're supposed to do, usually wrong, but about
[01:00:01]
this time, and things really did get better, and I got very active in AA and enjoyed it. But I began to get growing pains after about a year. I don't know, I've always said that you have to adjust to an environment in sobriety, and I had to do this also, because after I'd been sober about a year, I began to hang around a bunch of people. And no man has ever had a better introduction to this program than I did when I came in, through the Twelve Steps, through my first sponsor.
But I began to hang around a bunch of people that were not going to meetings, and I began to think like they did. It wasn't long before I had a one-step program, really, and it finally got to the point that I got so sick in my sobriety that I could drive one or two hundred miles to make a talk, but I couldn't go downtown to my home group to listen to somebody else. And when you get like this, you're bad off.
And I was bad off. Prior to this, they had let me talk one night, the first talk I ever made, and by the way, in case anybody is interested, if you're about to give out or if you're having a sinking spell, just raise your hand. Hell, I'm used to it, because when I first got the first talk I ever made, they made me sit down before it got through. I'd been sober about six months. The steering committee met on that.
They had to approve it, and they finally let me talk one night. One of the fellows in that boarding house got drunk, and my talk was directed towards him. They had him propped up in a chair, and my talk was on how not to slip. I know it's unheard of, but I started one, and I'd been going about twenty minutes, and I heard somebody say, sit down. And you know you don't hear them. And I kept on going, and the first thing I know, he was up at the podium, grabbed me by the hand, and I said, sit down.
And he took me back to the back row. The back row was a humility row in that group, where all the old timers sat, and I always sat with them, naturally. And truthfully, looking back, I've often thought about that experience. My thoughts were that night, this is the truth, as we walked down the aisle, and the thought occurred to me that, well, I've got a little bit too much power for him tonight, and he don't want me to overdo it.
That's all it is. A little bit sick is the way I was after I got sober, a little bit sick. And thank God for the fact that there were some old timers around me that saw what was happening to me. Not only did they have the responsibility, they had the guts to sit down and talk to me and tell me what I needed to do. And I hated every minute of it from the very beginning. You know, back then when they talked to you, in the beginning it sounds like a compliment, but if you really think about it, it's not that at all.
But they called me in one day, my sponsor and six of the old timers, and began to talk to me about what was going to happen to me in my sobriety unless I started doing certain things. And the sum total of the get-together was that I was going to get drunk after about a year and a half sobriety. Now this is a hell of a thing to tell the backbone of the group that he's going to get drunk. And you know how I felt about it.
And I got mad, and I got resentful. And I got up from the meeting and started, they told me what I had to do was get honest with myself and get a hold of these twelve steps and find that book and get into it. And God, I got mad. And as I started out of the door, my sponsor stopped me and said, I want to ask you one question before you leave. When was the last time you thanked God for a day of sobriety?
When was the last time you thanked God for a day of sobriety? I went on back to that boarding house and locked myself up in my room. And I didn't want to take a drink or get drunk, but I wanted to get back at them. So I decided what I'd do, I would send them a written resignation. I'd just resign from alcoholism. That's the truth. As I began to sit there, what he had asked me, it became an echo. It kept ringing and ringing and ringing, and it got louder and louder.
When was the last time you thanked God for a day of sobriety? And it got louder and louder until I was finally forced on my knees for the first time in my adult life to pray to a God I knew nothing about. God to me was a question mark in the sky. Maybe yes, maybe no. But as the end result of this juvenile prayer, I was able to walk into a bathroom and look at myself for the first time in my life in a mirror and know what I really was, that
[01:05:02]
I was just a speck on this universe. And someday I'll die and soon be forgotten. And if I wanted to stay sober, the only way I had to go was through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And so the next night I went back, hadn't taken a drink, but I rejoined Alcoholics Anonymous. And I've rejoined twenty-one times since then, because it works for me. And I became a member of the clique. Now if you want to know what the clique is, I'll tell you what you do.
You go to the meeting sometime early and see who makes the coffee and who sets up the meeting. And the day afterwards you see who does the cleaning up. And these are the things I started doing that are still today necessary for me for my survival and sobriety. And so I began to do what they told me to do and got a hold of these twelve steps. And things were turning around and life had become a lot better.
It was long about this time, after I was a little over a year and a half sobriety, that in order for me to marry Sue, I had to move back to North Carolina. And so my sponsor had made arrangements for a man to sponsor me when I got there. I had met him a couple of times when he was traveling. There might be some people in this room tonight that knew him. He was one of the first one hundred in A.A. He was a native New Yorker.
He married a girl in Raleigh and he was living in Raleigh. He traveled out of Raleigh. He's dead and gone now. His name was Tom Burrell. And Tom was the man that got hold of me and was the man that was responsible for ramming the big book down my throat. Because even after I moved to Raleigh, I began to ask people questions to let them know how smart I was. And I'd ask Tom questions and he'd say, Read the book and then we'll talk about it.
And he gave me much. He was the man that got me interested in service work. And lo and behold, he gave me a great lesson about standing behind one of these podiums also. A great lesson. After I'd been sober about, oh, in my early sobriety, I started going to some of these conventions and these weekend get-togethers and I'd see these jokers up here talking. I began to sit down there and say, Well, and they always applauded, hugged and kissed them afterwards and all that stuff.
And it looked apparently appealing to me. And I began to think, Well, I believe I could do that. And my mind started churning. And so one night, I was five years sober, I told Tom I wanted to talk to him after the meeting if he didn't mind, and that's the way we usually did it. And he said, Fine. So we went into the little ante room and he always made you sit down and he stood up and looked down at you.
And he said, What's the problem? And I said, Tom, I think I'm a convention speaker. Now, I can't repeat what he said. But the end result of the whole conversation was, from that time on, any time I spoke in that group, he'd tell me when. And that's the way it was. I was eight years sober. One day he calls me to his house and says, Bring Sue with you, Carter with me. Sit down. He stood up and talked down at me.
And he said, You're going down to Columbia, South Carolina to talk at a state convention. You do this, you do that, and you do this, and you do that. Before you go, there's something I want to tell you. They asked me to go first. You're going as a damn substitute, and don't you ever forget it, as long as you live. And truthfully, as I stand here tonight, hell, it's still ingrained in me that all I am is just a substitute.
And it's because of this man that's all I want to be, really. Because of the majority of the things that I say, I've learned from other people anyway. So things begin to turn around. Sue and I were married, and I got real active in AA, and I've been in Raleigh ever since. There might be somebody here tonight that might be quarreling with yourself or fighting with yourself about this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous.
Maybe you've got to do what I had to do after about a year and a half sobriety, is get honest with yourself. Or more basically, find out about the truth. The truth. I think the core and guts of the whole program of Alcoholics Anonymous is the word truth. I really do. There are different kinds of honesty. There's cash register honesty, there's real honesty, and there's the naked truth. The truth. I heard it said by a man many years ago that when Jesus Christ walked the face of the earth in the body of a man, he didn't say, I'm the truth, a man, he said, I am the truth.
But I believe it's from this source that we inherited this program called Alcoholics Anonymous, because I've seen enough in my time in AA not only to believe, but to know
[01:10:00]
that there is a power behind this universe that stands ready to help you and I if we're willing to help ourselves. When I first came in AA, a lot of my friends called it the man upstairs. Tonight I call him the God of my understanding, the God that I found in Alcoholics Anonymous, the God that I found because of your love for me. It took about three years before my mother would ever see me after I got sober.
Things didn't work out good for us, and she could never understand why I couldn't do it for her. Tom kept telling me, he said, you just keep sober and things will get better. I went along through a number of years and we had no relationship whatsoever. We just couldn't be in the same room. She didn't like Alcoholics Anonymous. I was nine-and-a-half years sober. Maybe it was a coincidence, I don't know.
One particular weekend I was invited down to my hometown to speak at one of these deals, an anniversary meeting, and I asked my mother to come to the meeting, but she wouldn't come. I got through with the deal and I went on back to Raleigh. Unbeknownst to me, some old ladies that knew me when I was a little boy had gone to this meeting to hear me talk and tell about my life in Alcoholics Anonymous.
God does work in mysterious ways. Through these women, as an instrument, after I got through talking that afternoon, they went to see my mother. They were friends of my mother, to tell her about me and the program of A-8. That night about nine-thirty the phone rang, and it was my mother. My mother asking me to forgive her for what she had done to me and my sobriety. The only place that things like this happen are in this program that I found.
And today she is the greatest friend that Alcoholics Anonymous has got. I've been very fortunate. In spite of this sobriety, I've come to know this about this alcoholic, there are certain things I still have to do. You remember when I came here, I told you I was willing to go to any length to get this program. And sometimes I have to say it today, that I'm still ready to go to any length to get this program.
I have to continue to have a monumental desire to stay sober. I really do. And I have to go to a lot of A-8 meetings, because meetings is where it's at. And the meetings, it's like I said in the beginning, I don't know about you, and I don't say it to impress people, I say it because I feel that way. My home group. I think it is the best, and I hope you do too. And whether you know it or not, the most priceless possession that you and I have is the love of our home group.
We can go there when we can't go anywhere else. And my home group, they know what makes me tick. We sit down eyeball to eyeball and share with one another. It's the little people, not the big people. It's the little people. There's a couple in my group that I've been sponsoring for years, they're married. And you've got to stay sober if you work with these two, Vernon and Gertrude. My God, I know it's unheard of, but I've been sponsoring where Gertrude's going on nine years to Brighton now, Vernon's going on his fourth, Vernon should have 30 years.
But he had a little trouble along the line, and just being around these two will keep you sober. I remember several years ago, about four or five years ago, it was a Christmas Eve night and we were having a step-meeting night, and there weren't many people there, and we were talking about the eighth step. And after the meeting, Vernon and Gertrude, they didn't have any driver's licenses, the were riding with me, and they said, Let's go get a sandwich.
And I said, Fine. So we got in the car and started down the highway, and Gertrude said to Vernon, Vernon, when are you going to make some amends to me? And they'd been married about ten years. When are you going to make some amends to me? And old Vernon turned around and said, Hell, Gertrude, you're not even on my list. It's people like this. And the third thing I have to do is I have to try to work these twelve steps to the best of my ability.
I happen to know for me that, for me. There is a line in the Big Book that explains it all to me, where it says, We are granted a daily reprieve, continued abundant maintenance of our spiritual condition. And I happen to know, for this sober alcoholic, that my spiritual condition has been much improved since I got in these steps and tried to work them one at a time.
[01:15:03]
Much improved. And that's what it's all about. Oh, there's a person I'd like for you to see in me, and then there's a person you probably see in me. But there's a person I see in myself, and that's the whole ball game, what I see in myself. And it's through these steps that I've come to know me, and found out about this great experience about love and understanding, and be able to share it with another drunk.
The fourth thing I have to do, and I know you can identify with this, is some days I just have to hang on and do the best I can. There are days like that. Tom told me many years ago, he said, Nothing is so bad that it won't get better if you just hang on. You just keep using this program, and it will get better. And it's from this that I kind of feel like that yesterday is my experience, and tomorrow is my hope, and today is going from one to the other and doing the best I can.
And as long as I can walk hand-in-hand with you down this happy road of destiny that we speak of in Alcoholics Anonymous, I think I, too, will be allowed another day of sobriety, one day at a time. Coincidence? Is it a coincidence that I'm here tonight and see a lot of my friends? Is it a coincidence? If it is a coincidence, I simply define a coincidence as an act of God in the midst of time, the same God that has been doing for you and I that which we could not do for ourselves.
In closing, I'd simply like to take a line from the Big Book that is mighty powerful to me. I've talked about this great experience tonight. And this great experience that will release me from the bondage of hatred and replace it with love is really just another affirmation of the truth I know. I get everything I need in Alcoholics Anonymous, everything I need I get. And when I get what I need, I invariably find that it was just what I wanted all the time.
And the greatest experience that ever has come in my lifetime is Alcoholics Anonymous. And the longer I stay sober, the greater it becomes. Thank you, Dave. Everybody feel better? Great. You have to, don't you? Like you, Dave, I started off thinking that maybe Bill Dudby and Dr. Bob knew I was coming down the road, so they set up AA for my benefit. But I've learned that there was a little bit higher power maybe that led them, so I, too, thank God every day for AA.
Let me just say this. There's not much that could be added, but, Dave, I met a fellow one time who did actually resign from AA. He wrote his letter, turned it in. He thanked them for curing him, and he got drunk in the next two or three weeks. He came back, though, he's still alive and doing great, and he's got about 14 years now. But much of what you said, Dave, I could relate to. I found this, it's not so much what experiences a person went through as the feeling you get from his discussion of those experiences that I relate to.
It's what's inside of us, I think, that's so important. This great program, to me, works on what's wrong with me and what was wrong with me when I was drinking was all inside. As I feel better inside, everything outside looks better. There's a lot to learn, and I'm still in the process of doing it. But it's great that I can belong to a group like this or be a part of a group like this. In fact, the better, you're about the only group that hasn't thrown me out.
Some of them have reconsidered and taken me back, but I'm still on probation, I think. But this has been a great night for me, and I hope it has for you. Now, you heard that $100 speech tonight that Dave delivers on occasion when he's going full blast, and it was great. Thanks so much, Dave, for coming all the way up here from Raleigh, North Carolina. But I want you to know that there are some awful good meetings around here in Washington and down in Virginia and Maryland, here in the District.
[01:20:03]
We're all very proud of the groups that we belong to, I'm sure, aren't we? Yeah, great. And we in the greater Washington area think that we're very fortunate not in the numbers we have, but the quality of our meetings. We don't talk about things that are not pleasant. We talk about the good side of things. Nobody ever mentions the word material, you know, at a meeting, because we know it's not in the big book.
We always talk about those things that help us inside. But it's great to be in a, for me, and I want to thank you, whoever it was, I think it was Sandy B., if you want to lay the finger on somebody for me being up here. I know Sandy B. is responsible for it, and I do thank him. Thank you, Sandy, for allowing me this privilege. Let me say this. I think alcohol does more to equalize people than anything that I've ever known.
A person can have a Ph.D. degree and become an alcoholic. A person can have a third-grade education, as you mentioned, red hat, and be a sign painter and become an alcoholic. And we're all alike. We're all the same. We're all alcoholics, and anybody that tries to treat anybody any differently from just anybody else is making a mistake, I think. The greatest thing in the world is the fact that we're all the same, the common bond of addiction to alcohol.
It gives us the feeling of fellowship. I know it does me. There's so much to the program, as Dave has pointed out, I can't help but be very grateful for so many, many things that I've received in AA. But the greatest thing I have received is an understanding of my own God and the relationship that I now have with that God of mine. Not one of a servant, and there's a person present who told me out in Phoenix one day when I was with him a little simple statement that made quite an impression on me.
I find that when I put God in the driver's seat and don't use him as a spare, that the day has gone more successfully. When I treat him as a spare and call on him only when I need him, or when I'm in trouble, I'm in more trouble. So let's leave here tonight with the thought in mind, if we will, that we're going to put God in the driver's seat and leave him there. We're not going to try to substitute for him, and I think we'll be sober another day if we do that, because I think he's the one that keeps us sober, because he gave us AA.
And he gave AA, I think, the outline of a plan and a scheme, the tools that are necessary for us if we want to remain sober and maintain our sobriety. I've quit preaching now, and I'm going to enter into the raffle. We're going to give away tonight a library, a library of books that are, I think, essential to our sobriety. The AA library is what we're going to give away. We've got all of your tickets up here in a sack.
Yeah, I found the sack. I tried to put mine on top. I don't know whether Marge will get it now, but I wanted to get my sweetheart over here. Marge, come up here. Get up out of that seat. Show how young you are. Now, reach way down in there. You've got to keep your blindfolded. One? One's all I want. I don't give away but one set. Well, incidentally now, I want you to know that there are 496 of you at this dinner tonight.
I think that's a huge success. And out of that 496 names, she didn't draw mine. Darn it. George L. Treanor. Is there a George L. Treanor present? All right, if you'll see Jim C. I think Jim's going to be off over here to my left. He'll give you that. Oh, here he is, right in front of me. I couldn't see for the light. Did you locate him, Jim? Put the spotlight on him, will you? Let's see just how a fellow looks that's lucky.
Now, let's all let him stand up when he gets there. Jim, are you having to go all the way back? There he is. Now, give him a good hand. George, they always told me at these kind of meetings, you get what you need.
[01:25:04]
I hope you'll read all of that now. It's been a great day for me. I got up in the fog this morning in Philadelphia, and I was two hours late at a meeting I was supposed to have been to at 10 o'clock, I finally got there at 12. But there wasn't a thing in the world I could do about it. And I realized it. I was in a plane about an hour before we could take off. I didn't like that, because they had the no-smoking sign on.
The lady wasn't bringing us any coffee, but somebody suggested to us that a cup of coffee might relieve some of our anxiety. She finally brought that, and we took off. We got to Washington finally. But there wasn't a thing I could do about it, and it kept coming to my mind that I wished the thing was different, and I could do something about it. Let me ask the Father, you again, to come to the microphone and lead us in the Lord's Prayer, if you will.
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, for ever and ever. Amen. Good to see you, Father. Thanks for coming, and the dancing will start immediately.