Audio
Transcript
Source: DICOBE-00335 – Clancy I – 24TH KENTUCKY STATE CONF – 1975-01-26.mp3 File: dicobe-00335-clancy-i-24th-kentucky-state-conf-1975-01-26.mp3 Duration: 01:17:52
============================================================
And I've met him personally only this last couple of days, and I've heard his voice and his message on tape, and it's a fine message. I'm sure it will mean a lot to all of us, and without further ado, here's Clancy I. of Venice, California. My name is Clancy Imuslin, and I'm an alcoholic. There seems to be one more announcement left here on the podium. Welcome to the open meeting of the 24th Kentucky State Convention. My name is Alan, and I'm an alcoholic.
We hope by the time you get to leading big meetings like this, you try to just write your name on the back of your hand. I don't know why people don't like me. I try to be nice to everybody. I am glad to be here today, safe and sane and sober, because as I like to say when I talk, I didn't used to be safe and sane and sober, and with the nature of the illness I have, it's conceivable I may not be safe and sane and sober sometime in the future, because there are an awful lot of people who used to be distinguished leaders of Alcoholics Anonymous who are now drunk.
There are a lot of people who used to be circuit speakers in Alcoholics Anonymous who are now drunk. There are a lot of people who just used to be group members who are now drunk. And I suppose I like to remember that because I think that that is one of the great hedges to keep me remembering why I'm here. It sounds like a terribly negative way to start off a talk, but I like to remember it because some of the finest men that I have known who helped me get sober and stay sober are guys who after a while, after a few years, drifted away.
And after they drift away a while, one day they're gone. Here in Louisville, a man I know went down last year after 30 years. Cleveland a few years ago, a man went down with 33 years, and they go down with 25 years and 20 years, and there isn't a city in the country, I don't think, where there isn't an example of it. And sometimes it seems like we ought to hush it up so we won't discourage the newcomer or so we won't make people feel bad.
And to say, my God, don't let people know that he slipped. But I think for my type of thinking, I like to know about it. And it used to bother me a lot. If the real AAs, those guys with 30 years and 33 years and 28 years, if they get drunk, what chance is there for a mope like me to stay sober? Because they're the real guys. And I did a little, over the years, I've tried to do a spot survey of old-timers who slip.
Just for my own benefit. And the one thing I've come up with, the only thing I've found in all cases, is that in every case, the particular old-timer has stopped being a participating member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He still knows all he ever knew. And he has his bank account of the good things he's done, but he's no longer a participating member of the groups, the front-line groups. Conventions are nice, but they're not AA.
AA is a bunch of mopes sitting around in a room somewhere, whining and complaining and bragging and talking to people who know them. It's easy to be a conference speaker, you've got to say, I'm just wonderful, folks. And how are you going to check? You got it. Unless you talk to me personally. But it's a funny thing how this thing happens. It seems to happen in different ways. Sometimes people, as I say, maybe they get tired.
They get a little set in their ways, and if things aren't done that way, they don't go anymore. And the other paradox, one of the great paradoxes of Alcoholics Anonymous, in my opinion, is, has been said many times, that it's a spiritual program. And truly it is a spirit, I don't think anyone could, who's been sober a length of time, can deny it's a spiritual program. But the paradox here is that you've kind of got to be a little careful, because sometimes when you get too spiritual, you grow right out the other side.
And now AA is no longer up to your spiritual standards.
[00:04:59]
And you can't go there.
[00:05:01]
People who used to say, stop the world, I want to get off, now say, stop the world, and all of you sinners get off. I can't go to that meeting, they said H-E-L-L from the podium. And it really, the phrase that always, I've heard a few times, I was talking last night to someone at the table, that sends a shudder down my spine is the one where people say, I no longer need Alcoholics Anonymous, I walk alone with God.
Now that's kind of hard for a guy to argue against, you know. Hey, I think God is wrong, Slim, you can't say that. And it's pretty hard to debate that, except the one thing that sometimes happens, and you may notice it if you see people like that, is apparently, after a while, God leans over and says, Why don't you have a beer, kid? I want to continue to grow spiritually as fast as I can, but I don't want to get, I don't want, I don't want to, and I don't want to be around people who feel they have an exclusive franchise to speak for God in the world.
Because I don't, every time I hear someone tell me what God wants me to do, I say, could I see a copy of your agreement? Signed at both ends. Because it's hard enough trying to do the best you can with what you got, and what your sponsor tells you, without having well-meaning folks come in and tell you what God thinks. And I'm not against that, because I, as I say, you must grow in spirituality. And I would say that anyone who attended this convention this weekend, this 24th annual Kentucky State Convention, see, you don't need a sheet of paper to remember that.
They even took down our sign. What does this mean? And we've run out of coffee. This is what's known as the blow-off meeting. Anyway. Don't bother going for coffee, folks. There isn't any left. I don't know if you know what a blow-off is. It isn't what you think it is over here, I'll tell you that. In carnivals, in carnivals, there are three, the crowd is called the tip. You try to collect a tip. And the first guy goes out on what is known as the bally, or the platform, and he collects the tip, like Tom did Friday night.
He comes out and collects the tip and makes it interesting, so they all gather around. And then they send people out there to turn the tip, and that is to make the sale, to get them to buy the tickets or the potato peeler or whatever it is they're peddling. That's called turning the tip. And that started off yesterday morning with a charming lady from New York and wound up this morning with a gentleman from Garretsville.
Then after that, now after you've made all the sales there are to be made in such a crowd, you've got to get rid of the mooches so you can start turning a new tip. And then a guy comes out and he does what is known in carnival talk as the blow-off. Get them mooches out of there. Discourage them. And that's why I'm here, folks. This is known as the blow-off meeting. This has been an excellent convention.
I would like to extend my personal thanks to Alex, the general chairman, who has been very gracious to me and who met me at the airport with Liz, who I met in California when she was visiting there a couple weeks ago. I've had splendid accommodations here. And I've seen a lot of friends of mine, not only from Kentucky, from when I was here a few years ago, I guess 1965 or 66 when I spoke at this convention, when it was at the Brown Hotel.
But some folks, my friend Pat W. has driven over from Illinois and some of the folks from Florissant, Missouri and Atlanta, Georgia and all sorts of weird places around the compass. I'm always glad to see them. But it's been well worth the trip, I think, because it's been a good meeting, starting Friday night when Tom talked. And it was kind of exciting near the end to see whether his bladder would withstand the touch of the master's hand.
It was nip and tuck there for a moment. I knew probably he had a bladder problem because when he got up here, you notice,
[00:10:00]
even his face was flushed. But it was a fine talk and everyone enjoyed it. And Saturday morning, Debbie M., a singer from New York, gave a fine talk on her experiences. I sponsor a couple of musicians, a couple who she worked with in her days, and that was pretty tough going, I guess. But she's done an excellent job, apparently. And in the afternoon, the young Alatine speaker, who spoke with a great deal of poise, and I felt had a fine concept of what the Alatine movement is about, as far as I understand it, than our charming Al-Anon speaker, Blanche, from Odessa, Texas.
She and I met last weekend in Texas, and we chatted about this meeting and how much we look forward to coming here. But I think that she probably is not as sincere in some ways as some of us, and I wouldn't be surprised that halfway through my talk, somewhere this afternoon, she's going to get up and walk out. You can just spot her. Now, we'll see if it happens. It's true, she has a plane at 3.30, but that's no excuse.
There's no forgiveness. If you'll release me, I'll release you. And I enjoyed very much, last evening, Cecil, as we all did, who, with many, many stories, makes many, many points. I really enjoy Cecil. I've known him a long time. I've been up to his meetings in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. As I like to say, I was reading, thinking this morning, when Alan was reading a portion of our book, Chapter 5, the one difference in Prince Albert, it's a long way north, you see.
It really is. You go to the Montana border, and then you're just halfway there, and you go up there. It's the only meetings I've ever been to where they open the meetings by reading a portion of Chapter 5 from Field and Stream magazine. But they have excellent AA. Those people go six and seven and eight hundred and a thousand miles without thinking about it. They drive, and they have conventions. Little Prince Albert has 30,000 people, but they have 3,000 or 4,000 people show up for their AA convention.
They come out of the Arctic Circle and all sorts of places. And it really is a fine AA experience. And this morning I was most pleased to hear a fine talk, a fine Sunday morning talk from Bob, the old starting guard from Knut Rockley's Last Eleven, and who later found the street to be a more difficult gridiron than that of the Colosseum. And all in all, I've really enjoyed this convention. I really have enjoyed each speaker.
It's been a pleasure to be here. And one of the toppers of this convention is, the last time I was here, I don't know if some of you remember this, I was the Friday night speaker. And at that time they had a member of the Louisville city government who gave an official speech of welcome just before I talked. And that was some kind of talk. He and I were sitting together at the podium, and I was talking to this guy before the meeting started, and suddenly he struck me and said, Jesus, this guy is drunk.
And he really was. I want to welcome you people to Crescent City. And just fumes going up and lights popping out all around us. Two guys in the front row had to call their sponsor. They thought they'd had a slip. And he finally wound up by saying, Last year we had to discharge 254 city employees of Louisville because you people aren't doing your job and they stay drunk. You people better shape up. Then he said, And then in closing I want to say welcome again.
He said, I'd like to stay and hear your meeting, but I got business right over there. And he whisked out and back to the bar. I don't mind saying there was a hushed silence over the hall and nobody knew what to do. And the leader got up and he said, Well, I'd like to introduce our speaker. And I got up. I didn't know what the hell to say. I'd never run across that before or since. And I thought I might as well make my bid for what I believe right now.
And I thought I'm either going to be drummed out of Louisville or I'm going to get through this talk one or the other. And I remember later I was thinking about Through this talk, one or the other, and I remember later I was thinking about what I'd said.
[00:15:00]
Someone called me long distance and played that part of the tape for me. I said, I'm very glad to be here this morning, or this evening in that case, and I'm glad to be instructed to do more for the drunken members of the Los Angeles, or the Louisville City Government. And I was in a uniquely opportune position. I was sitting next to the only drunken son of a bitch in the hall. But he got away before I could work on him.
Then after that, I never heard any more from Louisville, and I didn't think I'd ever be invited back, actually. I've checked up on him, as I like to check up on all people. He is, I'm happy to say, is no longer a member of the Louisville City Government. He has progressed upwards. Isn't that rotten? One thing also I want to mention before I leave today, because I think I should drop it into this talk somewhere.
I used to drink. I drank alcohol for many years, not for the same reason that most people drank. Most people drank alcohol around here because they have an alcohol problem. I did not have an alcohol problem. I had other problems which were deep, but not an alcohol problem. I had my first drink of… Let me say this. I come from a little town up in northern Wisconsin. That's where I grew up. A little town called Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
And it really is just an ideal little town. It's the kind of town that you see in movies about Andy Hardy. Big, flowing, grassy lawns, and two little rivers come together there to form the Chippewa River, which goes on to the Mississippi. In the springtime, the roses or the lilacs, you can smell the lilacs, the first thing that come out in the summertime. The grass and the trees flower in the autumn.
Everything turns crimson and gold, and it's just beautiful. In the wintertime, the even level of snow over everything all the time. The church spires look like Christmas cards. The church spires coming out, and it's just… Everything is easy paced, and everything is… All you need is old Judge Hardy walking down the street saying, Come here, Andy, I want to talk to you about the clap, you know, or something.
But I… I grew up… I grew up in this little town, which is the ideal American spot, as far as I know. And there's only one thing wrong. I couldn't wait to get out of that damn town. I just… I just couldn't stand it. I was there earlier this week, visiting with my father. And I walked down the streets recreating, why did I hate this so bad? I wish I could afford to come back here and live, you know.
But I just… Out there in the world, that's where it is. The lights are going boom, boom, and… One of the feelings I remember… Maybe you've had this feeling. You have to be a little bit older, maybe. I remember on cold winter days with my paper route going up the Northside Hill to hit my territory. And once in a while, the 400, which was a big train running between Minneapolis and Chicago, would be in at the station.
And I'd stand there, and I'd look at those cars, and… You know, I think… Nothing more beautiful to a dummy kid than seeing people in a dining car, all dressed up, and eating, and having… Having fun, and laughing, and ha-ha-ha-ha. And the club car people going, ha-ha-ha, yes, and pretty girls, and everything. And all I got is the Eau Claire telegram, and I got to face that Northside Hill. And I know that's… That's living!
And one other emotion I remember so well… You have to be older to remember this, too. Is lying in bed at night, on a cold night, and hearing the faraway sound of a steam engine whistling. It goes, ah, ah, ah, ah. And you just know it's going somewhere where it's fun! And they don't have to go to catechism. And they don't have to go to that chicken Eau Claire high school. And they're going to have fun!
And I just couldn't wait to get out of there! In the spring of 1943, I was 15 years old, and I was having some difficulty in the junior year at Eau Claire Senior High School. Not because of anything, except I felt it was chicken, and I was… I was an early rebel, before it became in. And I… At Easter vacation, I told my mother that I wanted to go visit my aunt in Superior. So she said, okay. So, at the beginning of Easter vacation, instead of going to Superior, I wanted to go where the action was.
I'd been seeing things in the paper about the war, and Guadalcanal, and Europe, and all sorts of… Out there, there's something happening! So instead of going to Superior, which was 100 miles away, or 150,
[00:20:02]
I hitchhiked to San Francisco. And I got a guy there to fix me up some identification. And the next day, I joined the National Maritime Union. And the day after that, I was on a load of torpedo warheads going to the South Pacific. And, uh… That's pretty fast change for a kid that hasn't even been to Milwaukee yet! And one day out of port, one day out of San Francisco, I suddenly thought, no, this is not what I was looking for either, really.
And I told the captain that I wanted to go home. He told me to dummy up. And that first day out of San Francisco, I had my first drink of whiskey. I remember that very well. I'd had beer. Everybody in Wisconsin has sips of beer from time to time. That's just a natural beverage of moderation, to most. But I'd never had any whiskey. The only time I'd ever seen whiskey drunk was in Warner Brothers films, Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney, and…
Go over to the Badger Theater when you can raise a dime and see the… The culture as it is, in the real world. I remember I was in a… Folk's Hill. Folk's Hill's a little room on a ship where guys sleep. Four of them sleep. And these guys were… Very… Frightening to me, because they were men! And I was a 15-year-old. No matter what I thought I was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, when I got there, I suddenly realized I'm a puny, skinny, pimply-faced, 15-year-old kid who don't know nothing.
And I was on this… And these guys were men! And they had black hair! Something you don't see much in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. They looked like they probably weren't even Norwegian. Or even worse than that, perhaps… Catholics. Well, I'll tell you. And I remember, as it seems to me now, I'm sure… I don't know if it was this way, but it seems to me this guy reached in his sea bag and took out a fifth of whiskey, and he said to another one of these men, Hey, do you want a little snort?
The guy said, Yeah! He said to the next guy, Do you want a little snort? The guy said, Yeah! And he said to me, How about you, junior? You think you can handle a little snort? And I never… I knew whiskey was bad news. Bad people drink whiskey. Lutherans don't. And as I was out of my class, and it smelled funny, but I'll tell you this, when that guy said to me, Do you want a little snort? You know what my answer was?
I said, God damn right! And I took my first drink of whiskey. And it didn't taste like it looked, baby, I'll tell you that. It went down, and it just barely touched. And it came out my ears, and my eyes, and my nose. And I spit, and I was sick, and I felt very bad. I felt sick. But what I remember even worse was the ridicule they gave me. What's the matter, junior? Don't let them poke in the bottle.
And I was so puny, I couldn't do anything about it. The only thing I thought about later, I might have got one of them to lean over and say, Take that! But that is not really what you call a knockout blow. It's just a… But all the way across the Central Pacific in the upcoming days, I snuck into that guy's sea bag, and I took a drink of that whiskey to try to hold it down. And I threw it up. And I'd sneak in again another day, and drink it, and hold it.
And I didn't want it because I wanted it. I was trying to, in the only way I knew how to prove to these people that I was more grown up than I was. And I felt if I could learn to drink whiskey, they'd like me. Or they'd at least, not like me, but at least accept me. I never cared much about liking, but accepting something else. And I remember a day out of Pearl Harbor in early 1943. I took a drink of that.
I didn't have a glass, took it out of the bottle, took a swig of that. And it stayed down. And I remember the feeling. Now, I'll get them to offer me a drink again. And I'll drink it, and it'll taste terrible like this does. And I won't drink much. But they'll say, hey, I guess that kid's a man after all. And they'll like me, or accept me. And just as I was thinking of that, right behind that came another emotion which I'd never had before.
I guess something in my body did it. But when that alcohol stayed down, all of a sudden I began to get a feeling,
[00:25:00]
hey, I am a man. Who cares what those pukes think? And my pimples fell off. And I tried some words that Norwegians aren't allowed to say. Hell, damn, ha, ha, ha, ha. And I really, I had the first time in my life that I ever had the feeling, hey, I'm grown up. I am grown up. And it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. I'm grown up. And then I got sick and threw it up. And it all went away again.
But I drank from then on in varying degrees of speed. Later in the war, I went in the Navy. And while I was in the Navy, I took some examinations through the Armed Forces Institute so I didn't have to go back to be a junior in Eau Claire Senior High School after the war. And I went to college after the war on the GI Bill. I started at the University of California, then I moved to Wisconsin. Back to Wisconsin, I got married in college, had two little kids.
I found something I could do reasonably well and with very good coaching. I became a national intercollegiate champion. And I went out in the world. I became a sports writer. And then I got into an advertising department of a company. And I got into advertising agency work and public relations work. And I got to progressively jobs in different cities and different parts of the country. One time, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas, part-time while I was working in an advertising agency.
And onward, I did this all along. And I drank all this time. And some years later, I took my last drink. Now, you can't really call that an alcohol problem when you're moving right up and through it. And I thought about this about two years ago for the first time. I was working with a new guy in my living room. And I was trying to explain to him. He was trying to tell me why he had to drink. And I was trying to remember why I drank.
And I heard myself say something that I had never said in all the years I was sober. But it suddenly struck me. I took my last drink for exactly the same reason I took my first drink. To feel grown up. Now, there's nothing wrong with a 15-year-old kid with pimples and a ship in the middle of the ocean taking a drink to feel like a grown-up, because he should. But when you're grown up, and you're getting bald, and you've got wrinkles in your face, and you've got four children growing up, and you're supposed to be something, and you're sitting indoors with your name and letters of gold behind it, you shouldn't have to drink to feel grown up then.
But I never thought of it as that way. I never thought of it. I never thought of describing it that way until a couple years ago. But that's exactly what I did. I drank for the same reason I drank on that ship. To give me the edge to feel a part of the grown-ups around me. To fit in. Not only to fit in, but to give me a little edge right beyond that. You know, in the old Warner Brothers movies, they'd always say, here, here's the old equalizer.
You know. And booze did that for me. It was my equalizer. Alcohol was the best friend I ever found in the world. And it enabled me to be successful. And enabled me to go onward and upward. And I'll tell you, there's nothing wrong with that. My problem, unfortunately, was every so often through bad breaks, some bad things would happen from here. And I didn't know what the hell to make of it. For instance, a good example that I sometimes use, is that in the summer of 1954, I had two little girls and a pregnant wife, and I was working in the Midwest in a big advertising agency, and I was starting to get a reputation as a talent, and I was a goer, and I was really going good.
Now, that isn't bad. That was in July of 1954. Through a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings, unfortunately, by December of the same year, I was playing piano in a whorehouse in San Francisco. Now, I don't choose to make any moral judgments on whether that's good or bad, but I'll tell you one thing, it's hard to slip into your resume. Yeah. Well, tell me, sir, what kind of songs did you play?
I'd had some kind of emotional explosion. And I stayed there, I ran to a guy I'd been to the Navy with, and he and I hitchhiked to El Paso. I hadn't been to El Paso. And I got in there, and I got a job at the El Paso Times as a beginning newspaper man, again, starting over. And I got a job at an advertising agency, Midhoff, the largest in that city. and by the spring of 1956 I brought my wife in, we had three little kids, my wife was pregnant again,
[00:30:04]
and in the daytime I was a writer for Midhoff Advertising, at nighttime I was on the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso, and I wrote a weekly thing for the El Paso Times. Now that's pretty good for hitchhiking in a year and a half earlier without a shirt. That's a pretty good move. And I was on my way, I had a lot going for me. Unfortunately, however, through a series of bad breaks, which I never was able to quite piece together, shortly after that I found myself in the Texas Insanus Island, at Big Spring, Texas.
Not, thank heaven, for alcohol. Because if I had to give up alcohol I would have been in trouble. I was there because in some sort of fit of moodiness I committed suicide. And I had a hell of a time in that nut house. In fact, I remember it well, I spoke there last Friday. It's one of the few places I go back as a distinguished alumnus. Hi, I'm back, and I'm well, I'm well. I don't really do that, but I'm tempted to.
But I just say, there's another Yankee son of a bitch again. And I escaped, and they brought me back. And they gave me, over a period of the next six months, 48 electric shock treatments. And they knocked me crazy. And then I came out of that, didn't know my name for a long time, but I was certainly a better patient after that. I guess, I don't remember that at all. Just from what I heard. They gave me little jobs.
Eighteen years ago last month, I was the director of the Christmas pageant at the Big Spring Nut House. It was at about a second grade level, so the whole student body could get each nuance of the performance. But my big job as the director primarily was to try to, before the curtain was open, try to hold the three wise men off the Virgin Mary. We get that baby going. No, no, get back, Lamar. You're supposed to worship her.
And I started the hospital paper. And after a while, I got into their little AA group there. They had just started an alcoholic group. And I became, I found this out years later, I was the test case in the state of Texas whether psychiatric commitments should be allowed to attend AA meetings. They couldn't have found a better case, because I'd been monkeying around AA for six years, seven years by this time.
Every time I thought I might be an alcoholic, I went to AA and discovered I wasn't. But I knew what they wanted. And I always liked AA, because AA was one of the few places I ever found in my life where you can go and look as though you're reforming, and you don't have to reform. You come home and I say, well, I went back to the A&A tonight. Oh, wonderful, wonderful. Wonderful. Now you stay away from them sick Al-Anons.
Well, I finally got out of the Texas nut house. I got to be secretary of the groups. Everybody else there was there for 30-day commitments. I was there until I got well. So I outlasted a lot of guys. They came and went and came and went, and I sat there and stayed sincere. They used to take, finally I got to be secretary of the group, they used to take me out to little towns like Blanches, Odessa, and Midland and the city of Big Spring to give wonderful little talks to show the wonderful work AA was doing in the hospital.
And I had beautiful little talks I gave. Friends, on behalf of my fellow patients at the hospital, I've been sent here tonight to thank you very much for taking time from your busy schedule to bring a message of hope and love to each of us in our hospital, to return us to the belief in God that we have lost in the desert of alcohol. And through the 12 golden steps, you've enabled us to climb the steep green hills of sobriety.
And may God bless you in your wonderful work. Now you can laugh, but that got me out of the Texas Nuthouse. And back to social drinking where I belong, that I really needed. And I went back to El Paso, and I had some people thinking I really was going to make my move this time. I always went to AA meeting once a week, whether I needed it or not, always sobered up for that. And I got somebody to put in the cloud for me, and I went to Dallas, and I went to work for Tracy Lock, the largest advertising agency in the southern United States.
And I became their boy wonder, their token nut.
[00:35:00]
And after a while, I was working on the Borden account, I'm sure you remember that, the Elsie and Elmer the Cow ads, and working writing on that. And I had a lovely home on Drexel Drive, which was just a block from Mockingbird Lane, which is a boundary line for Southern Methodist University. Lovely home, had four little kids now, and just on my way, and I've learned my lesson, and I was ready to go.
Unfortunately, however, through a series of bad breaks, one morning I woke up, and I seemed to be in the Phoenix drunk tank. And a guy had just kicked my teeth down my throat with his boot. And that's personal, that's a personal rejection. Very funny, very funny. Except I didn't say anything, I thought he might come back and give me another one. And I lay there on the floor, and I happened to think, why did he kick me in his mouth?
He kicked me because I puked on his bunk. I didn't know it was his bunk. It just looked like an ordinary bunk to me. What am I doing here? Because I've lost my job in Dallas. My wife and four little kids have left me. I've left them nine times, now they've left me. That's really how they turn on you when you have a little bad luck. And I lost my clothes somewhere in Juarez going west. And I'm wanted by the Texas State Nuthouse to go back there for a refresher course of shock treatments.
And I can't think of any place to go. And I'm dying. I felt terrible. And I finally got out of there, because they just had me in the common drunk and they kicked me out. And I went on, I went over to the AA club, because that's the only place you can go when you look that bad, whether you're an alcoholic or not. And I hustled some old lady in there for $2.50. Whenever I was hustling around AA clubs in those days, I always tried to find kindly old ladies who were looking for a surrogate son to help.
And I let them help me. She was so easy, I almost sent her home for more, but that's all she had with her. And I got to Los Angeles. My new plan is I'm going to go to Seattle and make a new life and get a job in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and become a good writer again and get it all together and someday I'm going to send a lot of money to my kids wherever they are and I'm going to go back to Eau Claire, Wisconsin to my dad who hasn't talked to me for eight years and say, here dad, I'm home, I'm a success and it's going to be wonderful if I can just get to Seattle.
And I couldn't get to Seattle. I got to Los Angeles and very nearly died there, because I couldn't. That was the first town I was ever in. You can't walk out of that town. You've got to get a score to get to the city limits. So I went to the AA club in Los Angeles and I got banned out of the AA club sober for stealing money off the coffee bar. Well, they say we care, but they didn't seem to care much.
I went down and lived on the beach and for once in a while it was still kind of a novelty. It was like doing research for a book and one day I was downtown and I was living in an all-night theater and I suddenly realized that I was selling blood from time to time on East Fourth Street in the Skid Row Blood Bank and I went to places like the Midnight Mission and would hustle a meal here and there. And remember one morning, it was six o'clock in the morning, light rain falling and I just felt terrible.
And I got to the head of the line of the blood bank and they took that drop out of my ear and they said, your blood is no longer good enough for the Skid Row Blood Bank to accept. And I took that as a personal rejection I don't mind saying. And I suddenly thought, my God, I'm dying. When your blood isn't good enough for the Skid Row Blood Bank, you're dying. And I had a T-shirt left and a pair of pants.
There she goes now. We release you with love. I don't find it necessary to embarrass people anymore. I do it by choice now. And I was dying on the street and I went to the Midnight Mission and they wouldn't let me in because I'd broken up some stuff in their dormitory a couple days before. And I thought, I'm going to die and I still don't know what the hell's wrong with me. And I went out to that stinking AA club one more time.
I walked, it was called the 6300 block club because it's 6300 west from downtown and I walked 63 blocks. And I went out there and I lied to that old fool and he let me in and I went in the back room and puked on their sofa and thought, if I can only find somebody to hustle for some money, I'll get to Seattle and I'll get started again and this time I'll do it. And I had no knowledge or intention or intuition or intention
[00:40:00]
or dedication to know that that morning would be my sobriety day. But it was. And I didn't even want to be sober. And it's now been something over 16 years since that morning. And I haven't had any drinks or pills or marijuana. I haven't even been able to connect for any niacin. Since that time, I've had nothing in my body stronger than aspirin and I've come here this afternoon at tremendous expense and no little inconvenience to talk to you people having problems with the program and say, why can't you be sincere the way we were in the old days?
We wanted this program but not much. And I could give you a very nice success story. I've had a very successful life. My God, for my first 11 months sober, I lived in the A.A. Club parking lot in an old abandoned car. I wanted to stay close. Not true at all. I didn't have any place else to go but I stayed close. And I can give you a nice success story but I think that, you know, I could talk for two hours on the nice things that have happened to me but I want to talk to you a little bit about what changed my life.
Because in October of 1958, I could have gone out again and might have. The most important thing that ever happened to me in my life. I've had two important things that have ever happened to me in my life. One was when I discovered drinking gave me the edge I needed to be successful. And secondly, was when I began to discover what was wrong with me some years later. And I, I'll tell you, when I came to A.A. in 1958, I'd been in and out of A.A.
for nine years by this time. I'd had an article published in the Grapevine in 1953 talking about the spiritual side of the program. Unfortunately, I was drunk when it came out but they told me it helped a lot of people. That's all I care about is helping others. It was called A Portable Sanctuary. They reprinted it in 1967. I read it and I almost puked but it was beautiful. I knew all about A.A. This is going to help me.
I've been to a lot of meetings when the heat was on. This is going to help me to have some old lady shuffle over to me in a meeting and say, First things first, honey. Keep coming back. Have you found God? No, I haven't. I just can't bear to watch you fight God. You can't? You never will have to again, lady. I knew all about A.A. and I could recite the 12 steps and I knew the concepts and I knew all about it.
But my problem, I knew, was not really alcohol. And every time I was in doubt, it seemed I could go to an A.A. meeting and be reinforced. It couldn't be but it seemed for a couple of years there when I was drinking that every time I was in a new town and went to an A.A. meeting they had the same speaker that they had the last town. It was always some well-dressed old fool with gray hair and rosy cheeks and just looked healthy and about a $300 suit on.
Hi. I stayed drunk for 48 years, night and day, around the clock, 24-hour drinking. Twice I almost lost my job. Ha ha ha. And then one day I walked through that door and the desire to drink struck me instantly. And I haven't had a bad thought now since 1938. I now have $3 million with me tonight. I have a fleet of automobiles. Ha ha ha. Several different families have returned to me. Jesus. And I owe it all to one thing.
I put the plug in the jug. And every time I hear that I say, Oh Christ. Ha ha ha. That ain't my problem, baby. I couldn't even tell people my I couldn't even tell my psychiatrist my problem. Because he would not have thought me a very nice guy if I told him what I was really like. At one time I was going to spend several thousand dollars in psychiatry when I was in the early 1950s. And it didn't help much.
It helped me learn to describe my problem to others. It Helped Much, It Helped Me To Learn To Describe My Problem To Others, I Found New Phrases, But It Really Didn't Do Much About The Problem, But I, You Know, How Do You Tell People That Your Problem Isn't Alcohol, At An AA Meeting,
[00:45:05]
You Tell Them, They Look At You, Oh Yes It Is, It Is Too, You Stop Drinking Son, Everything Else Take Care Of Itself, One Of The Reasons I Committed Suicide In El Paso Is I Was On The Wagon For Two Weeks And It Just Got Overpowering, That's What Happens When I Stop Drinking, I Don't Know What, Old Employers Don't Call Me Up And Offer Me Jobs, No Checks Come In The Mail, I Tried Turning My Rent Over To The, I Went To An Old Timer One Time And I Said, I Get Terribly Afraid, And I Can't Even Think Of Anything Enough To Make Me Feel That Afraid, I Don't Feel, I've Never Felt At Length That I've Ever Fit In Really Anywhere, Really For Any Length Of Time, I Can't Breathe, Most Of My Life I, When I'm Faced With A Strange Situation I Automatically Feel Inferior, And The Defense Mechanism That I Worked Out Over The Years Was To Find Things Wrong With What I Felt Inferior Until I Could Make Myself Feel Superior, And All Of My Life I Felt Inferior And Superior, The One Thing I've Never Felt Is Equal, And You Can't, These Are Things You Can't Talk About, You Know, What If Somebody Come Up To You And Said, How's It Going Son, Oh I Have A Secret Sense Of Inadequacy, They Look At You Funny, How Have You Been, Oh Afraid, What Are You Afraid Of, Beats The Shit Out Of Me, I Don't Know, What's The Matter Kid, Oh They're All Looking At Me Funny Today, How Do You Like The Dance, Oh I'm Lonely, How Can You Be Lonely With All These People, I Don't Know, Those Are Not The Correct Answers To Give You Discover As You Get On The Highway Of Life, Some People Say How Are You, You Say Fine, Fine, How Are You, You Dummy, And Try To Do As Best You Can, Certainly Don't Point Out That You're Emotionally Upset, But Spend Every Day Attempting To Conceal It To The Best Of Your Ability, So People Won't Know That You're Weird Inside, Now I Discovered When I Was Fifteen That Drinking Helped Resolve Those Emotions, That's Why I Drink, Drinking Is Not My Problem, Drinking Is The Closest Thing I Got As An Answer To That Snake Pit In My Emotions, And Sometimes Drinking Has Enabled Me To Overcome It And Become Successful Beyond My Dreams, But Unfortunately Sometimes I Drink Too Much, As The Years Went By It Got More Often, And I Sometimes Drink With The Wrong Crowd And I Stay There Till I Get Drunk, And Sometimes I Drink Because I Got Too Much Pressures For A Sensitive Guy To Have And I Get Drunk, And Sometimes I Drink Because I Feel Sad About The Old Days And I Get Drunk, And Then I Get Sober And Well-Meaning People Who Want To Help Me Come Up And Say, Son, You're Having A Problem With Alcohol, And There's No Way To Tell Them, No I'm Not, That's The Top, But If I Don't Drink At All I'm Dead, Now I Can Play Your Little Game And Tell You That I Think My Problem Is Alcohol And Go To Your Little Meetings And Talk About Faking Amends And All That Baloney, But Deep In My Gut I Know That My Problem Is Not Truly Alcohol And I Cannot Overcome That, Whatever Shred Of Integrity I Have Left Hangs On To That, Now In 1958 I Guess I Was Desperate Enough, I Would Have Been Willing To Have Almost Anything I Believed In Changed In AA, Or Anywhere That Would Change Them, I Didn't Like AA But That's What Was Open To Me, And There's Only One Thing I Knew I Could Not Change, I Didn't Feel I Could Change My Belief That Alcohol Was Not Really My Problem, And Now It's 16 And Some Years Later, And I Would Say That I Have Changed, Or It Has Been Changed For Me About Every Perspective That Is Possible For Me To Have To One Degree Or Another, Every Belief I Have Had Has Been Changed To One Degree Or Another, The Only Thing That Has Never Changed In My Life In The Past 16 Years, And In Fact Not Only Hasn't Changed But Has Been Reinforced, Is To This Day I Believe My Problem Is Not Alcohol, And As Long As I Believed My Problem Was Alcohol I Might Die From Alcohol, But When I Began To Realize My Problem Was Not Alcohol I Don't Have To Die From Alcohol, Which Is A Funny Thing, But Let Me Say This, If Your Problem Is Alcohol I Don't Think You Need AA,
[00:50:04]
People That Have An Alcohol Problem Don't Need Alcoholics Anonymous, For An Alcohol Problem, Because I Will Tell You, Do You Know How You Get Over An Alcohol Problem? You Don't Drink It, That's All, If Your Life Is Stable Except Once In A While Every Time You Drink You Went Cuckoo, I Got An Answer For You, Don't Drink It, And You Won't Go Cuckoo, Just Don't Drink It, If A Guy Is Allergic To Oranges But Eat Them Every Day And One Day He Gets Allergic To Them And His Nose Falls Off, And He Goes To The Doctor, Hey Doctor What Is Happening, Well You Are Allergic To Oranges, Can't Be I Have Eaten Them For 20 Years, Can't Help It You Are Now, He Stops Eating Oranges, That Is All There Is To It, That Is The End Of The Cure, He Doesn't Have To Get A Sponsor, Could I Just Lick A Skin, I Will Tell You How You Get Over An Alcohol Problem, You Get Sober, A Detox Center Cures An Alcohol Problem, A Sanitarium Clears An Alcohol Problem, Any Number If You Can't Afford That, Your Body Takes Care Of It Automatically, Sometimes We Think We Have To Have Some Special Help To Get Sober, Not True, Your Body Makes You Get Sober, Whether You Want It Or Not, That Is The Rottenest Part About Being A Drinker, You Always Get Sober Again, Again And Again And Again, If You Didn't Get Sober We Would Have A Small Crowd Here Today Folks, I Will Tell You That, You Would Have A Different Speaker, I Would Be In Juarez, Showing Them My Move, Just That Getting Sober In The Juarez Jail, Hoping You Are Upstream This Time, Where The Water Isn't Yellow Yet, Because You Are Thirsty, I Will Tell You, A Few Years Ago I Was Working As Director Of Advertising In A Medical Corporation, I Ran Across Exactly How The Body Does It, Maybe Some Of You Less Learned Folks Don't Know That, But I Have Come Here To Help You, When The Body Is Sufficiently Toxified Through The Induction Of Alcohol, Or Any Other Such Substance, It Will Set Up A Series Of Involuntary Physiological Reflexes, To Reduce That Toxicity By The Induction Of A Procedure Called Reverse Peristalsis, And That Will Happen To You Every Time You Do It, We Know It And Our Circle Is Puking A Lot, I Bet There Aren't Very Many People Here, Who Haven't Knelt In Front Of The Old Porcelain Altar In The Morning, Gazed Into Those Shimmering Waters, Said Your Morning Prayer, Oh God, You Hardly Ever Think Your Body Is Helping You, Stop Helping Me, Some Mornings When You Are Sick Enough Your Body Will Really Do It For You, It Will Reduce Toxicity From Both Ends At Once, Now Medically Speaking That Is A Great Help To The Body, But It Is Very Hard On Your Nerves I Will Tell You That, Because Not Only Are You Terribly Sick, But You Are Called Upon To Make A Series Of Split Second Decisions, And Every One Of Them Has Got To Be Right, Every Answer, Because If You Guess Wrong Once, Now You Have Another Problem, But I Will Tell You This, You Will Always Sober Up, Again And Again And Again And Again, And Sometimes In AA For The Best Of Motives, We Tell People That That Is What Our Treatment Is, To Help You Get Sober, And That Is Not True, And One Of The Reasons I Know About It, In This Book Alcoholics Anonymous, Which Was Read Out Of Very Well By Alan Today, There Isn't One Paragraph That Talks On How To Get Sober, If That Is The Point Of AA, Whoever Wrote This Book Missed It, I Will Tell You What The Point Of AA Is, It Is To Deal With Something That Sounds Like Alcohol, And A Lot Of People Confused With Alcohol, But Is Not Alcohol, It Is Something Called Alcoholism, And The Difference Between Alcohol And Alcoholism Is This, If You Have An Alcohol Problem, You Solve It By Getting Sober, But In Alcoholism, When You Get Sober, You Have Not Solved The Problem, You Have Merely Moved Into Another More Subliminal Area, Full Of Conflicts And Emotions, That Will Make Certain That Sooner Or Later, You Must Go Back To The Relief Of Alcohol, To Handle The Problems Of Sobriety, The Curse Of Alcoholism Is Not That You Can't Get A Person Sober, And Lecture To Them, And Show Them The Error Of His Ways, The Curse Of Alcoholism, It Turns Out Is My Sponsor, My Betters Finally Showed Me, The Curse Of Alcoholism, Is That Sobriety Becomes More Untenable Than The Memory Of Drinking,
[00:55:02]
And Sooner Or Later, If I Be Alcoholic, And I Cannot Make Sobriety Tenable, I Must Drink, Or I Play Little Games, I Must Take My Librium, Or I Must Take My Secondol, Or My Phenobarbital, Or My Uppers, Or All The Downers, Or All The Idols, Or I Might Smoke Pot, And Say Baby This Ain't Drinking, Or I Might Do Any Other Number Of Things, But The Fact Remains, I've Got To Sedate Sobriety Or Go Crazy, Now, If AA's Purpose Is To Get Me Sober, I Can't Make It, AA's Purpose, As It Turns Out, Is A Strange And Peculiar Thing, That People Die All The Time Around Here, Without Ever Finding It Out, Or After Finding It Out, Being Sober Long Enough To Let Themselves Forget It, It Is To Make Sobriety, First Of All, Tenable, And Then Bearable, And Then Eventually, Comfortable, Mostly, And Preferable To Drink, When You Get To That Comfortable Spot, I Think That's When The Desire To Drink Leaves, I Don't Think There's Anything Wrong With, As Somebody Said At This Convention, I Forget Who It Was, But Every Time They Go By A Liquor Store, They Want To Drink, I Think That's Fine, But I Would Prefer To Walk By A Liquor Store, Without Wanting To Drink, If I Had My Druthers, And, But I'd Stay Sober Either Way, I Would Hope, But The Point Of AA, There May Be Strong People Here, Who Just Come Here To Get Sober, There Seems To Be About One In Every Group, Who Says, I Came Here, And I Put The Blood In The Jug, And I Didn't Take An Inventory, And I Stayed Sober Twenty Years, And It's Kind Of Hard To Debate Against That, Except I Found An Answer, Finally I Thought Of One Of My Babies, That Guy Never Took Any Steps, And I Finally Thought Of The Answer, Is That The Way You Want To Feel After Twenty Years, I Want To Be Happy, And Be Comfortable, And I Know How To Get Unhappy Without Even Coming To AA, All I Have To Do Is Stay Home And Live With Myself, Meditate A Lot, For One Thing, Think How I'm Being Screwed This Time, But It's A Funny Thing You Know, AA Is A Remarkable Place, The Steps Are Not Things You Take Out Of Some Abstract Desire To Be Good, The Meetings Are Not Places Where You Go To Inspire The Newcomers, The Traditions Are Not Things You Use When It's In Somebody Else's Group, But Not In Mine Because I'm Running Mine, All Of These Activities In AA Are Designed For One Thing, Not To Help Make You More Sober, But To Help Make Sobriety More Bearable, And Tenable, And Comfortable, So You Don't Have To Drink To Stand It, That's What It's All About, It's Not Morality, Although Sometimes Morality Figures Into It, Because We All Seem To Have An Underlying Conscience That Is Kind Of Strong, It Is Not Abstract Wonderfulness, Sometimes It Gets Them To Be A Contest Of Who Can Preach The Prettiest Words From The Rostrum, But It Isn't That, Because This Is Not AA Here Either, AA Is Outside That Door Somewhere, These Are Pit Stops, This Is Where We Stop To Get The Gas And Oil To Go Out And Get Back In That Race Of Life, Because Out There They Don't Know That We Are Wonderful People, Whoever Wrote That Alcoholics Are Wonderful People, Has Delayed The Recovery Of A Lot Of Alcoholics, Well I'm So Wonderful If They Don't Treat Me Wonderful They Are Wrong, They Don't Know That, When My Boss Used To Come To Me In The Advertising Games And Say, Hey I Need A Copy For This Ad At Nine O'Clock, And You Didn't Get In Till Ten O'Clock, And I Might Say, But I Was On A Twelve Step Call Till Four This Morning, Helping A Sick Alcoholic In St. John's Hospital, Now You Can't Expect The Same Schedule Of Me That You Do Of These Other People, They Don't Care, I Don't Care What You Do At Night, I Have The Material Here At Nine In The Morning That's All I Care, That's A Big Realization To Realize, They Don't Care How Spiritual I Am, They Just Want What They Want, Selfish Things, Probably Got Self Obsessions And Things Like That, And The World Is You Know, When I Drive Down The Road And I'm Tired I Can't Say, Hey I'm Tired And I'm On My Way To Speak Could You Open That Traffic Jam, They Don't Care, Because The Whole Point Of AA Is For, The whole point of AA is for me to live out there on their terms and me being comfortable.
And that's what it's all about. And all of the other things are secondary to it.
[01:00:02]
Because if I cannot live in the world, I must certainly drink. Now, in closing, the best way I know to describe this feeling is this, is, you know, I've been quite active in working with alcoholics, whether for good or for bad. Like Cecil, they've all been successful to me, too, because I stayed sober whether they did or not. But maybe in the last 14 years I've heard 150 Fifth Steps, because we live in a big area and it's a very lively area and they're always looking for somebody with a bad memory to tell a Fifth Step to.
But just a couple of months ago, in one week, I heard a Fifth Step from the child of one of the most famous, four famous people in the world in the 20th century, whose father is a name known to every household in the world. And the child was taking the Fifth Step in the 40s, I mean, the child in the 40s, saying, if only my father hadn't been so famous, I might have had a normal childhood, not become an alcoholic.
And a week later, taking the Fifth Step from a guy who grew up underneath a bridge in El Paso, a Chicano, saying, if only my father had been something, I wouldn't be an alcoholic. People from all extremes are here, in all things, but the one thing I have seen in my experience that everybody brings to AA from wherever they come from, they all get to one unified point, and that is, people come here with guilt and unworthiness.
Guilt, they might not even describe it, you know, they might not even be aware of it. But it seems to me that the way I put it in an analogy is this, we start off hopefully in life with an even scale, and we hope to keep it even. But somehow, for people like us, or people that are alcoholic, little by little, on the negative side of the scale, a black stainless steel ball forms, and little by little, as the years go by, I go out of balance.
And I try all sorts of therapies to rid myself of that, and finally, the one way I always got, is when I drink, it wipes out the scales for a while. Then I come back and it's a little bit more. But for a while, I had some freedom. And little by little by little, I'm out of balance. No matter how I look on the outside, if I've got a $500 suit and a million dollar home and a big car inside of me, I'm out of balance, and there's no way I know to reconcile it except drink a little bit to get it back in action.
And I've gone to psychiatrists to try to chip away that ball, and I can't, and I've gone into metaphysics to try to chip away that ball. It paints it white, but it's still heavy. I've read philosophy and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Kant, and no matter how it winds up, sooner or later, that imbalance is too much. And what the hell are these amateurs in AA going to do to make it better? And AA is just so terrible when you first come.
You're out of balance and you know it, and drinking is the only thing that's going to help you. And they say, now just forget that side of the scale. Forget it! You're crazy! They say, ignore it! We're not going to work on that at all. Well, if you ain't going to work on that, baby, you ain't got no chance of me, because I ain't got a chance to give you anything else. They say, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to give you some actions and a program and steps and association and a spoon and a bucket of sand. What we're going to do is start putting you over on this side, and one day you're back in balance without ever finding how to get rid of it. It's still there, but it's as though it isn't there. All of AA says, work on the positive, and you get back in balance. And I think when you get in balance is when that desire to drink every day leaves you.
And it feels great, and I'm sober, and I'm young, but there's only one thing wrong. To some celestial prank, there seems to be a tiny hole in the bottom of this one over here. And every time I get that baby where I want it, some of it runs out again. Oh, Christ! Oh, Jesus, is there no end to this? Must I go to these meetings all of my life? But that's what it's like. And the day that I stop putting in sand long enough on this side, whether I've been sober six months or 30 years, then this comes back, and when that comes back, I will drink to eliminate the scale.
I know of no other way to put it, and I guess that's why we're all here today. We are here to, part of our efforts, to put the sand in the scale. That's what these actions are for. You don't make amends to be a good guy. You make amends to rid yourself of resentment towards the person you're making amends to, in a sense. You don't help people because you love them. You help them to learn to love yourself.
Every step of this program is designed to enable me to live with me, even though it
[01:05:01]
may be apparently aimed at you, because this is a personal, selfish program of recovery. And I have one thing. In 1959, I said to my sponsor, how long do I have to keep saying yes to AA requests? He said, till I tell you. He ain't told me. To this day, I have not said no to an AA request, and it really gets to be kind of a drag, sometimes, because I've become a philosopher. I walked down the hall of the meeting I founded, full of people who owe their strength to my foresight, and I sit wisely, hoping that the speaker will be up to my standards for a change tonight.
And some goof from the VA's psycho ward across the street who's let out to go to meetings staggers up to me and says, hey, will you give me a ride over to the psycho ward after the meeting? The nice thing about AA is you can think whatever you want to. I can look him right in the eye and think, give you a ride to the psycho ward? Do you know who I am? I'm Clancy Eye from up in the sky. I've been to Louisville, Kentucky, and Akron, and Big Spring Nuthouse, and places, and I'm a big shot.
My baby is the new delegate to New York from Southern California. My other baby is the chairman of the largest AA convention in the world, and my people are wonderful, and this room is full of people who need action, and you come to me and want a ride to the psycho ward? You can think all that, as long as you say, okay, yeah, that's pretty good way to end it. Nothing in my book says my motivation's got to be right, because the time that my motives are wrong is the time I need the action of the worst.
When I'm full of gratitude, I hardly need to help anybody, but when I think I'm not getting my rights, that's the time I better remember to do those things. But that's all Alcoholics Anonymous is about, in my opinion, and I know there are people with all sorts of opinions, and they're entitled to it, because I'm not concerned with debating these opinions, because I've got to find something that I'm betting my life on.
My life is bet on it, on the way I feel, and it's working. Now I've had a nice success story, as I say, very quickly, in a couple of sentences. When I was a year sober, I finally got enough stability to hold a job as a busboy. I'd been fired off seven jobs, but I finally held a job as a busboy, and I moved into a little one-room apartment, and a few months later I got a job wrapping packages at an advertising agency, the same kind of job I'd had on summer vacation when I was going to school.
And after that I got another little job, and then I got a job in a medical corporation where I worked my way up. Then I got into a big toy factory where I was really doing good, because after I gave orders to everybody I could go in and shut my door and take one of our planes and go … I wouldn't want that spread around, folks. When I was five years sober, the same old wife and four little kids, now four big kids, moved to California, and we've lived together ever since, in a house by the ocean, and it was, you know, just great.
And I got into radio and television work, and I got into some big promotional jobs. Last winter I was, a year ago this last winter, a marketing director for one of the largest publishing firms in the West. And I celebrated my 15th birthday, a year ago, October, and I thought, gee, it's just wonderful. I've got a home that I own. I never even wanted to own a home, because with my experiences, when a town gets hot, I ain't got time to go to escrow, that's all.
I want to be in St. Louis by Friday. Now I own a home that I'll be living in until 1998. I live right across the street from a big park, and every once in a while through that park the wind blows and says, you ain't going to make it. It's not like the wind outside of the Gold House in Louisville, Kentucky, actually. And my children are doing fine. One is studying to be a veterinarian, one's at the University of Hawaii, one's been in a convent studying to be a nun.
Can you imagine a Lutheran boy having a daughter going to become a missionary nun in a Catholic church?
[01:10:00]
But I had fallen on such evil times I married a Catholic girl. No offense, Father Charles. I said this once before at Akron, I should say it again, because it's so rotten, he was there then, too, that I was trained to dislike priests, and now some of my best friends are priests. Of course, I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one. Oh, that's so rotten, I just love myself, I don't know what it is about it.
I guess I need some more meetings, actually, I'm not going to quit yet. But let me say this, last winter in some sort of hideous fit, some people came to me and made a proposition to me that was so ridiculous I could have vomited on their feet. And I got talking to them about it and it suddenly struck me, what's it about, except what do you know. So as of last February 1st, I was no longer the marketing director for Security World Publishing and I wasn't a big shot anymore in my job.
I got a job as a, I now run the Midnight Mission on Skid Row, where they used to throw me out of. I wasn't going to take the job, but they guaranteed me such a significant decrease in salary I couldn't pass it up. As I often say, the reason I went down there, I'm trying to find out, where's that son-of-a-bitch that threw me out, if I can get him out. But I want to say this, I am not an alcoholic counselor, because I am not qualified to be an alcoholic counselor.
I'm not there to treat alcoholics. Some of those guys are alcoholics and some aren't. Some don't drink at all, some are broken on other wheels, some are broken on personal tragedy, and our job is to try to help them and get them started. It's exciting now, you know, the slasher strikes every week, right around within two or three blocks of me. Struck again last night, another guy found slashed in the Skid Row.
But I'll tell you, it's a funny thing, it's the most rewarding job I've had. There's no money in it, there's no nothing in it, but most of my kids have grown up and gone away now. And so it's a, I guess it makes me feel better to pay back the world, because I took so stinking much out of this world, it's ridiculous. I'm not a good guy, I don't imply that at all, it's just something I like to do. And it gives me a sense of purpose.
It gets tiresome after 25 years, taking out the typewriter and saying, what kind of crap am I supposed to write about today? Whose deodorant is the world's best, what's the name of that company? This way at least there's some feeling when I get home at night I haven't sold out. And I wouldn't suggest it to anybody else at all, unless you have the feeling to do it. I've been able to establish AA meetings, and I have some AAs come in there at night.
I don't go to the AA meetings, because I don't want to, it's hard for me to remember what hat I got on in that kind of a situation. I go to my own AA meetings, and I come down in the morning and try to be a good citizen, not an AA as such, but being an AA enables me to be a good citizen. And I've got a lot of great gifts, I've got a home and a family and a car and a job and good reputation most of the time, and all sorts of things.
There's only one thing that I've got to remember. I had all of these things the day I committed suicide in El Paso. I had all of these things the day I hitchhiked out of Chicago in the middle of the night, because I just caused my best friend to commit suicide over something I accidentally did to him. I had all of these things the time I've left several towns. I've had these things a number of times, and by themselves they do nothing to resolve the hole in the gut where the wind blows through, whether you've got a t-shirt on or a $350 suit, that wind blows through the same speed.
I'll tell you the greatest gift I have received from AA, and I say this again and again, but it's really true, and that is this. In just a very few minutes I'm going to be out on the streets of Louisville, and out here there's Main Street running up and down. You know something funny? When I hit that street outside of the Galt House, I don't even have to look at the street sign. I don't care if it's Main Street in Louisville, Kentucky, or O'Farrell Street in San Francisco, or Burrard Street in Vancouver, or 52nd Street in New York, or Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, or Peachtree Street in Atlanta, or Hervey Street in Dallas, or Bridge Street in El Paso, or Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, or Barstow Street in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
I don't care what that street is. I'll walk out there, because of the help from this program, with a reasonable chance that I will fit in and feel good. and feel good at their game. That I will not have to instinctively be a loser. I will not have to instinctively feel inferior and find ways to tear them down so I will look better.
[01:15:02]
That I will not have to decide what disguise will go in this town. Cheerful guy, meditative guy, spiritual guy, what disguise shall I wear here when I meet this person. The gift of Alcoholics Anonymous is this. That you and I can little by little live in the world that we cannot live in. Now this is a close of a wonderful experience, a weekend of this. There is one thing, I sometimes think about this and since I am the last speaker today I guess I can say it.
This particular crowd of people in this room will never ever be reassembled in this world. The next time there is a Kentucky State Convention there will be faces here who are still hopelessly drunk. There will be faces here who will be dead from drinking next year. There will be people here who have died from natural causes. There will be people here who are resenting this convention who will not be here.
We will never again in this world all be together. It's a poignant thing. For whatever it's worth this is the last moment in your life that you will ever be in the middle of this particular group of people. And yet if we, wherever we are, work together to do these things as best we can. We will always be together. And as this book says and it's one of it's closing paragraphs. You will surely see some of us as we trudge this road of happy destiny.
Because whether I am apart from you or with you if we are working together we are together. But we will never be together again in the body. So we must be together in the fellowship of the spirit. And then it closes that thing by saying and it's such a nice way to close a convention. May God bless you until then. And I want to thank you for having me here. I hope that I have talked to you with only what I believe and not what I think you like.
But most important. I hate these kind of statements because they are so corny and goofy and I hardly ever use it. But it's just a nice little phrase from a poem to end up this holiday. I love you not for what you are but for what I am when I am with you. Thank you.