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Source: DICOBE-00454 – Pete W – GOPHER STATE RNDP III – 1976-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00454-pete-w-gopher-state-rndp-iii-1976-06-15.mp3 Duration: 01:30:24
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My name's Tom and I'm an alcoholic. It's at moments like this that it's very easy for me to get in touch with fear and feelings of inadequacy and things like that. But while I'm doing that, I would like to also welcome you on behalf of the Gopher State Roundup Committee and tell you how excited we are that you're all here and how excited we are about the program which is beginning tonight and which will be going through until Sunday around noon.
When I first came to you, which was almost six years ago, I finally knew that I had a drinking problem. But I had a bunch of problems that I didn't know anything about. And one of those problems was that I had somehow or other stumbled through life for almost 40 years without ever really knowing anything about how to love people or how to let people love me. And the thing that I'm most grateful to all of you for was the opportunity to find within myself a capacity to love you and to let you love me.
And I'm very appreciative of that. The lonely feelings, the feelings that nobody really gave a damn about me, that nobody cared, that nobody in the world really understood me, were killing me, literally killing me. And I thought, as I was preparing what I would say tonight, that maybe there's some people out there that are in the same kind of shape that I was in not very long ago. And for that reason, I'd like to take maybe 90 seconds right now and ask each of you, if you would please, to look around you and find somebody that you don't already know, maybe in front of you or back of you or next to you, and say hello and maybe let each other know how much we care about each other.
Okay! Okay! I thought it was time to quit when I saw a pretty young girl in the aisle over here starting to take her clothes off, getting acquainted with someone. Lights, please! I'd like to begin by reading the preamble. 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 the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA 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 to help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
I would now like to introduce the chairman, who in turn will introduce our speaker for tonight. The chairman's name is Jack Turton. As many of you, particularly the old timers, know a familiar name from the West Coast is Chuck Chamberlain. Well, Jack and Chuck were friends for 44 years. Since neither one of them claimed that much sobriety, that means that they did a little drinking together. I was told by someone who alleges that he's a friend of Jack's, that in the old days he was known as the drunken car painter.
And I don't really know whether he did that for a business or whether he did that after he'd been drinking for a while. Maybe he'd like to explain that. Jack comes to us from Beverly Hills in Palm Springs, California, and with 31 years of sobriety, offers a model to me and maybe to some of you. Thank you. I'm Jack Turton, an alcoholic. I did this backwards. I'm supposed to read Tradition 11. There will be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level.
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Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films. We respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker, or indeed any A.A. member, be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us.
Our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before personality. Like I said, I'm Jack Turton, and I'm an alcoholic. A lady came up to me recently and she said, You've been on A.A. so long you can take it two days at a time. Just one thing to remind them. Oh, and I want to thank the Gopher State Roundup, the presidents, all the important people. When I came in A.A., there were presidents. I suppose they still are.
And I'm very delighted to be here. I've never been in Minnesota before. And I want to thank everybody that's responsible, and I certainly appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to some nice few days. One night I'm making a talk about 25 years ago at the old 6300 Club, and a drunk was sitting down in the front row, and I said something to make him laugh. And he laughed, and a pint slid out and it bounced on the floor up to the podium.
So after the meeting he came up and he said, Slim, you made a good talk, but you didn't say anything. So that's how much prominence you gain on this program. Tonight our speaker is Bill W. Pete, I wrote this out myself. Pete W. from Oakville, Ontario, Canada. I've never heard Pete, and I'm, like the rest of you, looking forward to what Pete has to say. Pete. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 31 years, eh?
That's remarkable. And I'm very grateful to all of the people who are responsible, the committee, Warren, and all of the others who have given me the opportunity of being here tonight. I have had a very hectic week as a matter of fact, and a very, very hectic day because I took a flight out of Toronto around noon hour today, and it was one of those milk runs that seems to go everywhere. And I arrived in at the airport about five o'clock, and I have really not had a chance or an opportunity to sort of get too nervous until I got up to the platform and I began to wonder what kind of trading stamps you were handing out to get all these people here.
And then I began to get very frightened and very, very nervous. And as the program unfolded, this nervousness grew to the point where now I'm just suffering terribly from this nervousness. The sweat is running down my back and under my armpits and all the rest of it, and I'm reminded of my situation that occurred that I often tell about, but I think always bears repeating. When I was in the program about a year, I had been invited to speak at one of our major institutions in Canada, one of the penal institutions, namely the Kingston Penitentiary.
Now, I had never been there. I should have been, but I had never made it. But I accepted the appointment, and I went down. It was an anniversary of the group in the prison, and I had lunch with the warden and some of the administration staff. And following lunch, we proceeded over to the assembly hall. It was a very large hall, and as I walked in, I became terrified because there were 300 to 400 or even more prisoners sitting there in this big hall,
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all in their grays and numbers on them, and I was absolutely terrified. I thought, Mother of God, how did I ever get into a mess like this? Well, there I was, and very little I could do about it, and I had to go through with it. Now, I had prepared myself rather well with what I wanted to say because I knew I would have to be very careful not to be offensive to them in any way and certainly not to be offensive to the administration because we were there by privilege and not by right.
And after a lot of falderal, like they did here tonight, they finally got around to introducing me as the speaker. And I stepped to the front of the platform, and I had a terrible experience, an awful experience, one that a speaker hopes he shall never have in his entire lifetime because as I stepped to the front of the platform, my mind went blank. I couldn't think of a single thing to say, and I nearly panicked.
And after what seemed like an eternity, in which was only a matter of a few seconds, I'm sure, I said, Oh, my God, I've got to get this thing underway. And my opening remarks to them was that I was glad to see so many of them there, you see. That was the first of many prison riots that were to go on for a long time. I have been in Minneapolis before, not at the Gopher State Roundup, but I have been in your good city before, and it's nice to be back again.
It's nice to be back in your beautiful city and in the state, and to see so many old friends and many Canadians. I'm truly grateful to see our emblem over here tonight, and I appreciate that very much on behalf of the Canadian people who are here. It's nice to have an opportunity to come back and have a second chance sort of thing. And that reminds me of another story I'd like to share with you about the second chance.
You know, so often in Alcoholics Anonymous we hear speakers and people who have had to have a second chance. I'm sure that many of us here tonight had to have a second chance. But it's kind of like the story I'd like to tell, the second chance. This young lady came home one night rather late, and her father was sitting up waiting for her. And when she arrived home, she told her father that she was in some difficulty.
And the old man got right mad, you know. And he said, who's responsible for this? And she mentioned the name of a very prominent young man in the community. His name was Cease Corrigo. He said, I know that young whippersnapper. He said, he can't do this to my daughter and get away with it. He said, I'm going to sue him. So the next day he called his lawyer and he said, this young beggar's got my daughter in trouble.
And he said, I want you to take him to the cleaners. So the lawyer said, fine, I'll take the necessary action. So he called Cease and he said, look, this old man's right mad about what you've done. And he said, he's instructed me to lay all the charges and sue you for everything you're worth. And Cease said, well, now, just a minute, just a minute. He said, let's get the record straight. He said, I'm not denying that I'm responsible for the condition that she's in.
He said, absolutely not. But he said, I want to make it perfectly clear I can't marry the girl. Because after all, he said, she's below my station in life and I couldn't possibly marry her. But he said, I want to do the honorable thing. And I want you to tell the old man that I'm prepared to give the family $100,000 if she has a boy and $75,000 if she has a girl. And the lawyer said, my God, that's tremendous.
He said, just sit tight. He said, I'll call the old man and I'm sure he'll accept that. I'll encourage him to. So he called the old fellow and he said, this young fellow's not as bad as you thought he was. He said, he admits to the problem, but he's instructed me to offer you, to tell you that he's prepared to give you $100,000 if your daughter has a boy and $75,000 if she has a girl. And he said, I suggest that you take it.
And the old man thought about it for a while and he said, I will on one condition. And that is that if she has a miscarriage, I'd like her to have a second chance. Now we know in Alcoholics Anonymous that the purpose of the exercise is to put some action into our lives, to become sober and to live purposeful and meaningful lives. And I'm sure that there isn't any one of us in this room here tonight who have come through the doors of AA that haven't heard a great deal about action.
Action is the magic word. I had a sponsor when I came into this program that if he was going to say it once more, I threatened I'd kill him. Because I just didn't want to ever hear that word again. Get active, be active, put some action into your program. And that reminds me of another story. I was coming in by air tonight and looking over the pastoral part of your country here. It's a very beautiful country, part of the world.
And I couldn't help but be reminded of the story about action. And it's a story about a farmer who was a dairy farmer and a lot of them around this part of the world, I guess. And he was doing fairly well. He was doing not too bad at all. But he decided one day that he could improve his situation considerably. He could improve his situation considerably if he had a registered bull, and he could raise his own cattle and have thoroughbred cattle, and that made a lot of sense, so he decided he had a few funds, he would go shopping for a bull, and he found exactly the animal he wanted.
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It had everything that a bull's supposed to have, you see, but they wanted an awful price for this animal, oh dear God, they wanted an awful price, they wanted $20,000! Now that's an awful lot of bull, but he mortgaged everything he had, and he bought the animal, and he brought it home, and he put it in the pasture with the cows, and the damn thing never even looked at the cows, it kept its head down, nibbled at the grass, and there was no action at all.
And he thought, God, I'm ruined, all my money sunk into that stupid animal and nothing happened. Now he heard about a vet who had a preparation that would get the bull active, so he took the bull down to the vet, and the vet gave it a shot in the rump, and he brought the bull back, and God, it jumped the fence, the sparks were flying, the day was saved, and there was lots of action. And there was an old neighbor farmer watching this performance, and he went over to the farmer, and he said, whatever did you give the bull? He said, to make it act like that. The farmer says, I don't know what it is, but it tastes like peppermint.
McGinley's been chewing peppermint for 20 years, you know. Well, you've gathered by now that there's something the matter with me, and I'll get on for the reason for being here. I'm an alcoholic, and my name is Pete Waters. And that's the order of importance as far as I'm concerned, because for many years it was very important who I was, and not what I was. It is only by the grace of God and the example that I've found in this fellowship that I've been able to find a way of life that enables me to live one day at a time without the use of alcohol, and to be fit to human being as God intended that I should live. My story as an alcoholic is not greatly different than most stories you will have heard. It has a certain amount of fear and remorse and degradation as we've all experienced it. It differs perhaps in a couple of respects.
One is that I was a religious alcoholic. The other is I was a political alcoholic. And I've always maintained that when you put those two together, you end up with a hell of an alcoholic, and that's very true. I want to preface any remarks I have to make this evening by referring you to a slogan that we have in the fellowship, and that slogan is, keep an open mind. That's a very important slogan, and it's going to be very important to you before I'm finished tonight.
I'm going to say some very disturbing things, and I hope that I do, because I've come to realize in my time in the program that the things that have been said at meetings such as this that have stirred me to think have been the most worthwhile things I have acquired, because I sincerely believe that when we come to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and we get rid of the booze, we end up with a thinking problem, not a drinking problem. And if in my efforts here tonight I can stir someone to do some thinking, then any efforts I have made in getting here will have been very worthwhile.
I exhort you to keep an open mind. I've also learned in my time in the program that there's a great deal of difference between an open mind and a vacant mind, you know, so please keep an open mind. I'll start this story at the beginning by saying that I was born some 47 years ago into an Irish Catholic family, and one might say, well, what's that got to do with being an alcoholic? Well, perhaps it's not a qualification, but let me assure you it's not an impediment either, because anyone who's familiar with the heritage of an Irishman would know that he's got some very severe traditions to live by before he gets very far in the world.
And I wasn't any exception to these, and since coming to the program I've been able to categorize them, and I've put them into four categories, and I'd like to mention them rather briefly. One is that I was raised in a fear of God. Now, this is not the kind of a God that I've come to know through this fellowship. A loving God, a kind God, and most important of all to us people who are alcoholics, a forgiving God.
Oh, I refer frequently in my remarks to God as my higher power. I don't do that to frighten anyone away, to embarrass anyone, or to create any controversy, no, because I'm very much aware of the fact that we may have people here tonight who are having difficulty finding God. I'm very much aware of that. And I'm going to be so bold as to suggest that if there's someone here having difficulty finding God, they can share the same one as I'm using until they find their own. I further suggest to you, if you have one, hang on to him because you're going to need him before I'm through with you tonight.
The second tradition of my heritage was that I was trained to go to Mass on Sundays. I don't speak disrespectfully of my faith because today I try to practice it to the best of my ability, and I get a great deal of help and comfort out of doing so, but not in the fashion in which I came to practice it during my drinking days and became an absolute hypocrite, as my remarks will reveal. Now, the other two traditions of my heritage may sound somewhat flippant to you when I mention them to you, but I remind you that we deal with alcohol, and in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous there's a very apt description given to it. There it's described as being cunning, baffling, and powerful. In the name of God, never underestimate those words because they're very, very true.
Anyone who's familiar with the heritage of an Irishman would know that he's got a couple of other problems to live with. One is he doesn't like Protestants and he can't stand Englishmen. Now you know why you have to keep an open mind.
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My ambition as a young man was to go into the religious life. I might say the Church is very pleased I never made it. I came from a very large family and my father, God rest him, a very hard-working man, and it was most difficult in those days to provide the kind of money that was necessary to provide a formal education for a large family. And the custom in our family was that if you wished to enjoy that sort of thing, you went out into the world to work and you earned the money and you returned to school later. Consequently, I left school at a very early age. I went out into the working world with the idea that I would make some money and return to school. Well, this was not to be because, you see, the first job that I took in the working world was in the retail hardware business in downtown Oakville, a small city of about 75,000 people.
I wasn't around that business very long before I observed certain people who were calling on us who were well-groomed and they looked to be very prosperous and they all drove big cars and they carried those sort of briefcases, and of course these people were salesmen. Well, I wish to God I'd known then what I know now about that profession and I'd never followed it. But I decided to become a salesman. Oh, I wasn't going to become just an ordinary salesman. I was going to become Canada's youngest, the wealthiest, the greatest, the most, the best, the biggest that the country had ever seen. In order to accomplish this goal that I established for myself, I looked back over that period of my life and I realized that I had to allow certain things to come into my life that were to lead me down a path of destruction.
And they were namely booze, position, prestige, and money. I wouldn't insult your intelligence by telling you we don't need money to live by. Most of us have to work very hard to earn it, but not in the fashion in which I used it combined with alcohol. Well, that may be important, but of far greater importance are the things that I had to allow to go out of my life. The spiritual principles by which I'd been raised in a very good Christian home. I didn't need these things anymore and I threw them to the four winds and I set about to become this marvelous salesman that you're going to hear a little bit about.
Well, as I look back over my teen years, I would have to disqualify myself from calling myself much of a social drinker, whatever that is, because every time I drank, I got drunk. But I traveled with a very fine group of people. Oh, they were a very fine group of people. They have a very fancy name for them nowadays. They call them the Affluent Society. My mother had a lot of names. They're not mentionable here, but she called them a lot of things. Now, those people afforded me a lot of protection. They kept me overnight at their homes. They brought me home by the back street and nothing too serious resulted. I don't think even my parents were aware of the fact that I was indulging to the extent that I was.
However, by the time I was nineteen and a half years of age, I had acquired a very wonderful job for a young man of this age. I had acquired a job as a sales representative for a local paint manufacturing company in the town of Oakville. And with this job went some very wonderful things. I was given a very attractive salary, a company car, an expense account, and the boss was blessed to go out into the world and make a fortune.
I made many decisions in my life, but I made a very important decision at that time. I decided that if I was going to be successful in the selling profession, like these people that I had admired so much who were calling on us in the retail trade, that perhaps it would be logical if I went and I talked to them and found out how they had become so successful. And the strange part of it is, my friends, that I only looked one place for these people, and that was in the nearest bars of the hotels I would check into across the province. And along about half past two or three o'clock in the afternoon, when I should have still been on the road making calls on my customers, I'd be saddling up to the well-dressed man at the bar to find out how he'd become so successful.
Or I found out a few things, indeed I did. I found out a few things that today I prefer to regard as deeply rooted defects of character that were within me that manifested themselves very nicely once I added alcohol. Because, you see, the first thing I found out was how to fix an expense account. Now, that doesn't take any mathematical genius. You put down a lot of figures that add up to a sizable amount of money that you haven't spent, but that you're going to spend on booze, and you pray to God that the boss will approve of it. And when they talk about it being cunning, baffling, and powerful, you should believe it, because he always approved my accounts.
The second thing I found out was partly of necessity. When you're traveling away from your office, as I was in those days in what they call in the selling trade a country territory, there's a thing in a salesman's life called a daily report form. It's the curse of the selling business. There isn't a salesman alive who likes the damn things, eh? But they're very necessary, and they simplify them for you, at least they did for me. They gave me a whole stack of sheets of paper like this, and they said, now what we want you to do at the end of the day, Peter, we want you to record the customer's name, and in this column you ticked off whether you got an order, and over here you ticked off whether you didn't get an order, and here are some stamped address envelopes, and would you mail them in to us at night in order that we might know what you've been doing?
A perfectly reasonable request. But when you've been out all night until the wee small hours of the morning, and some nights you don't get in at all, and you can't be up in the morning and be on the road, be on the job when you should be, and comes the end of the day and you haven't done anything, what are you going to tell your company?
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Well, not only had I become an alcoholic, I had also become a professional liar. I had about as much regard for the truth as a tomcat has for a marriage license, you know. I make reports out of telephone books and hotel directories and trade directories and tombstones. Now there's a good source of names, you know. They won't bother you, you know. I got away with this kind of reporting for a period of nearly four and a half years, during which time my salary was paid into the bank in Oakville and I lived off my expense account. I used to come home on the weekends to rest up so that I could go back to drinking during the week.
Oh, I had many encounters with the law during that period of time, but you must remember that the regard for drinking and driving in those days wasn't as severe as it is today. You could usually talk your way out of it or bribe your way out of it. A gallon of paint will go a long way with some of those fellas, you know. If you can imagine, in your wildest moments, some nut of a salesman out there selling a product and every time he'd meet an Englishman, he'd put the price of the goods up so the poor fella couldn't buy it.
Well, I used to come into my office on Friday, as it was my custom, to pick up my memos and mail and whatnot. And my job was I'd be gone from Monday morning out on the country church until Friday afternoon. And it was my custom to come in and pick up my mail and memos and samples and so on in the office. And I came in on the regular Friday and there was a note in my mailbox asking me to report to the sales manager's office, who of course was my superior.
Now, anyone who's been a practicing alcoholic will know that when you get a note from the boss, you should have some stories ready because the jig is up. And you're going to be asked some rather embarrassing questions. And I always had lots of answers ready because I knew it would be one of two things. That some hotel would have written in and complained to my company about my conduct in their premises, which they would have been very justified in doing, because I'd raised hell in many of them and I'd set fire to two of them, as a matter of fact.
But more likely it would be some customer that would have written in or phoned in and said, where is this salesman you've got? We haven't seen him for two years. And this could have been quite possible. Some of those accounts I never did find, you know. After going into the boss's office and exchanging pleasantries with him, he said, Peter, he said, I have something I want to tell you. And I thought, uh-oh, here comes the ax. He said, our company has been sold.
Now, this was startling and shocking news, and I was very stunned by it. And when I recovered my composure, I asked my boss, I said, can you tell me who has bought it? And he looked at me and he said, yes, Pete. He said, it's a firm called British Paints. Now, that's a hell of a thing to tell an Irishman, I want you to know. I envisioned a whole boatload of them coming over from England to run the outfit.
I asked them if they were, and he said, yes, they're on their way over now. Oh, mother of God, I'd been raised in an atmosphere where you wouldn't even talk to them, never mind deal with them, you know. And I handled the whole thing in a typically alcoholic fashion. It's not an unusual thing for a person to quit their job, that they might go on to better things in life. But I handled that whole situation typically alcoholically, because I got very indignant with my boss, and I told him, I said, I'm resigning effectively immediately.
I have no intentions of working for those kind of people. And I said, here's my resignation right now. And furthermore, I said, I'm going to go into business and put you people out of business. Now, this was a worldwide organization, you know. They had 35 manufacturing plants throughout the world. Millions of dollars of sales. I had a few lousy thousand dollars I'd practically stolen off them to begin with, and I'm going to go into business and put them out of business, you see.
Well, because my family was held in respect in the community where we lived, my father had been a very hardworking, well-respected man. Many people, many of his friends and he himself, loaned me their money to establish myself in a small retail business that would have been very sufficient to maintain me very comfortably had I looked after. But then came a period in my life that I'm very grateful to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous for giving a name to.
I never knew what to call this period of my life that was to follow. It was a very difficult and turbulent period, and it wasn't until I came to AA and I found out that you have such a beautiful name for it. Because, you see, at that time I came back to Oakville, and in fairly short order I established this little business. I wanted to be successful, of course, but I knew full well that there wasn't a chance that I could continue to drink in a small city like that in the same fashion as I'd been drinking on the road, which was every night of the week.
Because if I did that in a small community, I would create such scandalous situations it would adversely affect my business. So I began to practice what we here refer to in the program as controlled drinking. Let me assure anyone here tonight that you're wasting a hell of a lot of good drinking time because it doesn't work. I have tried every known method to man. Psychiatry, religion, medicine, social workers, you name them and I've tried them.
I don't blame any of these good people. You Name Them and I've Tried Them, I Don't Blame Any of These Good People, They All Tried to Help Me, How in the Name of God are they going to help anybody who doesn't tell them the truth?
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And the truth wasn't in me. I remember one time I went to see a psychiatrist, oh, he was a very eminent psychiatrist, I shopped around till I got the most expensive one, and after a great deal of his time and my money, he made a very profound statement, oh my, it was very profound, he said, you drink too much. I knew that before I went to see him. Now the most prominent method I employed was the pledge system.
Now there may be some of you here tonight who are not familiar with the pledge system. The pledge system is an old Irish custom for those who had the failing, you know. When you're Irish, you're never drunk, you just got the failing, you know. I had the failing for years. I heard a little story that bears repeating about the worth of the pledge. I'd go down and see Father and take the pledge. I took so many pledges that Father ran out of them, you know.
The story is told about the little Irish priest who came from Ireland and was visiting Toronto, and he arrived at the international airport, and God, there was planes and people and cars and all the confusion going on, and they whisked him right down to the Royal York Hotel, and he no sooner got his name on the register, not to the 17th floor. And all of this was terribly confusing to the poor man.
And the little bellboy running around the room, turning things on and off and dusting and so on, and then he finally came over and put his hand out. And with this, the old priest, you know, was bewildered completely. And the young bellboy, being a sharp young critter, he said, Father, it's obvious to me that you're not familiar with our ways of doing things here. He said, Let me explain. He said, I'm a bellboy.
We render these services to our patrons. And he said, they usually recompense us with a little bit of money. And that's the way I make my living. With this, the poor old priest turned scarlet altogether. He said, Oh, dear God, son. He said, This is terribly embarrassing. He said, I haven't got any money. He said, I belong to an order that has the vow of poverty, and I don't have any money. He said, There's not a thing in the world that I have that I could give you.
He said, Just a minute, son. He said, Do you drink? And the young fella's face lit up like a light bulb. He thought, Yeah, here comes the Irish whiskey. He said, Yes, Father, I do. Well, he said, Kneel down, and I'll give you the pledge. That's just about what it's worth, you know. I took so many pledges that Father ran out of them. I remember, as soon as I'd take the pledge, I'd go to the nearest hotel and contemplate this tremendous move I had made, you see.
I remember one time I took the pledge on the post office steps. It was closer to the hotel, you see. And there I go to have the last drink I was going to have before I quit for the rest of my life. And it wasn't until I came to this program and you people told me, It's not the second drink, it's not the twelfth, it's not the twenty-second, it's not the thirty-second drink. No, no. It's the first drink that does the damage.
And I made a tremendous discovery that I would like to share with you. And the discovery I made is that it is humanly, absolutely, totally, humanly impossible to take the second one without having taken the first one first. God, you get awful drunk trying that, you know. This will be the first of another series that will go on for God knows how long. The luck of the Irish has always been with me. I've had many blessings which I've done nothing to deserve.
It's a well-known fact in the Irish way of life. If there's a problem in the home or the parish or wherever it may be, you take it to the pastor. And he's experienced and he guides and directs you. And I still do that today in many of my affairs. But I can remember my good mother, God rest her, a very gracious Irish lady. And she said to me after a particularly bad time, she said, Peter, if you want to live in this home and share this family, she said, you're going to have to mend your ways.
And I knew perfectly well that all I had to say to that wonderful lady was, fine, I'll go down and see Father, because Father fixed everything. And I hope I'll never forget going down to see Father on that occasion, because about three months before that, we'd gotten a new pastor. He was much older than the previous one, and I rationalized he'd be much wiser in the ways of the world. And I went down and I saw him, and I sat in a study with him, and I talked to him for about two hours.
And my final remarks to him were, I said, Father, I don't think I'm an alcoholic. He looked at me in shock. He said, good God, Pete. He said, I don't think you are either. He said, I'll tell you what we'll do. He said, we'll sit down, we'll have a drink, and we'll talk about it. My poor mother could never figure out why every time I went to the rectory, I came home loaded, you see. And she'd say to me, where have you been? I'd sit down to see Father.
She said, you couldn't have been. Look at the shape you're in. I said, you should see him. He didn't have to walk, I did. It says in the second step of our program that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. It would logically follow, then, that if we have to be restored to sanity, we must be insane when we arrive at the doors of this fellowship, and I have no quarrel with that at all.
I want to recall for you some of the insane things that occurred during this period of my life. I came back to Oakville in fairly short order. I established this little business, and I wanted to be successful. But I observed, I'd been away from the community for some time, traveling, and of course, coming back again, I'd get the local paper, and I observed that the druggist was in the Lions Club, the hardware merchant was in the Rotary Club, and somebody else was in another outfit.
Every time you pick up the local paper, their name or their picture was in the paper, they were involved in community affairs. And I thought, that's great. Now, I'll get mixed up in some of those outfits,
[00:35:02]
and there's no question about it, they'll recognize my great talents, and in no time, they'll be dealing with me, and I'll be running them, and we'll be doing all right. And I began to join organizations. Now, there's nothing the matter with joining organizations, I suppose, but you should be rather careful if you have an addictive personality, and I forgot that I had an addictive personality, or chose to ignore it, because I didn't join, you know, in any conventional way.
I joined 37 organizations, you see. I joined everything but the Masonic Lodge and the Orange Order, it was the only two I couldn't qualify for. If there was a dogfight on the county, a pink tea, a sewing circle, a ladies' aid, a quilting party, didn't matter damn what it was, I'd be there. The last year of my drinking, they quit inviting me for fear I'd show up, you see. You sort of become like a wheeler and dealer, like an accident looking for a place to happen.
I like to recall the kind of a car I drove in those days. Today, I refer to it as my alcoholic company car. It wasn't an ordinary automobile, no, no, it was the largest Oldsmobile you could buy. It had air conditioning, carpeting, tinted glass, push buttons, all the gadgets you could possibly put on it. I call it a company car because the finance company finally got it, it belonged to them anyway. We talk about the harms we do, and God knows all I need to do today is to observe the still-practicing alcoholic, to see how we hurt those we love the most.
It seems to be a common trait among practicing alcoholics to go out of their way to hurt those they love the most. I don't know about Minneapolis, but I do know about the Toronto and Oakville area there, where I would get all dolled up on a Saturday night, you know, and gloat on the town. And I would always end up in jail. Now, I never met a social drinker in jail. And there I'd be in the local lockup on Sunday morning.
And you know, when it comes Sunday morning and you get a little bit sober, the police would come along and say, do you want to make a phone call? Of course I wanted to make a phone call. And I'd only ever call one person, and that was my good mother, God rest her. And she was, as I've told you, she was an Irish lady, and she had the temperament to go with it. And the phone call would be very brief and one-sided.
It would go something like this. Mother, I'm in a little bit of trouble being in court tomorrow. I'm going to court at ten, bring some money, and hang up real fast, you know, don't let her get at you. You see? And the following morning, at a quarter to ten, my mother would arrive at the local court. And you know, in a small community, people don't read the local papers to find out who's in trouble.
They go to court to see who's up this morning, you know. And there are a couple old ladies there in the back, one lean over to the other and say, that water's boy's in trouble again this morning, there's his mother. And they keep the front row of the court, I don't know about down here, but up there they keep the front row of the court open, you know, the front row is vacant for the special guests.
They bring up the special guests at five to ten from downstairs. And then precisely at ten o'clock, the old man would come in, that's the judge, you know. And my God, when he's around, are you ever polite, eh? You stand up, you sit down, you cross yourself, it's worse than the Catholic Church, I tell you. And, you know, and you do what you're told. And you're hoping that the clerk will make a mistake with your name so that nobody will recognize it, you see.
And it comes your turn, he calls out your name and he says, Waters! You can hear it for four blocks, you see. Well, you lost that one. And now you're standing in front of the old man. My mother's in the court, of course, you see, and all the people that I've been raised with are all back there. And they're watching this performance, eh? And my mother's sitting there waiting to pay the fine. And you're standing in front of the old man now and you're going to lay a trip on him.
You're really going to let him know that you're not a bad fellow. That all these things they've been saying about you are not true. That you've just been having a bit of a bad time, eh? And you're really going to let him know. And then suddenly you realize that you have a tie on and no shirt, you know. And he says, I've seen you before. Yeah, he's seen me so often he thought we were going steady for a while, you see.
I am one of the most fortunate individuals in the world today to enjoy the respect of my two sisters, who are both younger than I am. They're the most beautiful girls in the whole world and I love them very dearly. And yet these young ladies had to live in the same community where their lovable brother was making the headlines every other day, appearing in a police car report every week. It's not a very comfortable position to put people in.
By the same token, I'd like to recall something I had going for me then and how I wish I had it going for me now. And if there's one here, he can come and see me right after the meeting. It's called an alcoholic banker. God, you get one of those, you could last forever, you know. A fellow called me up at half past ten in the morning and said, Peter, we have to have some money on your account. It's a way overdrawn.
I would assure him, of course, I would come right down. Well, of course, I'd never go right down. I'd wait until half past two or a quarter to three and I'd get in my big Oldsmobile and I'd drive over to the liquor store. And there I would purchase a bottle of scotch. Now, if you're going to be the man of distinction, in the name of God, drink scotch.
[00:40:02]
Costs you a lot more money, makes you just as sick. And I'd go down the street and I'd buy a quart of milk because somebody had said that scotch and milk were good for ulcers and I had ulcers, of course, and I would proceed to the banker's office. Now, by half past three or a quarter to four, I had no financial problems at all. They were completely resolved. I had all the money that I needed. He was loaded and so was I.
Only problem is that poor fellow's not with the bank anymore. He got fired. Long about this time, I decided that one so talented as myself was not making the progress that I should make and I decided to become a politician. Now, it's not difficult to become a politician. You people in this country are very aware of that, you see. I couldn't even get into politics honestly. And in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that word honesty is prefaced by another word.
It's called rigorous honesty. This is an unbendable type of honesty that has no shades of grey. It's right or it's wrong, it's black or it's white. And if I hope to stay sober in this program, it'll be the only way I'll be able to do it. I hear people say, Oh, you practice the program your way and I'll practice it my way. And if I do that, I'll be drunk tomorrow. I have to practice it the way it's written.
And they had some idea way back there that there'd be a kook like me coming down the pike. They said, put numbers on it, he'll screw it up. They call it the 12 steps. And then we hear people, you know, Oh God, it hurts me when I hear somebody saying to a new man or a new gal, Oh, this is just a suggested program. It makes about as much sense to tell an alcoholic this thing is suggested as it does to tell a paratrooper he doesn't have to pull the ripcord.
I couldn't even get into politics honestly. And in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that word honesty is prefaced by another word. I couldn't even get into politics honestly. In a small city in those days, I don't know what the format is here, but in those days there was a lot of speculation as to who was going to run for what. And I took the speculation out of my first campaign by announcing very early a couple of months ahead that I was going to seek a city council seat.
And nomination day arrived. And the format for nomination was that you would be nominated one day and you had 24 hours in which to qualify and make the decision as to whether you would allow your name to stand. Nomination day arrived and I grew very uptight and I thought, oh, I should prepare myself psychologically, emotionally, and physically for this great adventure. And I went down to the local hotel and I got drunk.
Now I don't remember being at the nomination meeting, but apparently I was there. There were six vacancies on the council that year, and there were seven of us nominated for those six vacancies. And when I discovered that the following morning through a friend of mine who told me, I thought, good God, I'll have to run. I guess I should have run someplace, all right. But I got a hold of one of these men who had been nominated the night before who wasn't very bright.
None of us were very bright. He was less than the rest of us. And by nightfall I had him convinced not to run. With the result he declined his nomination and the result of that was none of us had to run at all. We all got in by acclamation on the first trip around. Now I have recalled on numerous occasions there are more people than me who need help because they re-elected me on four occasions after that.
And by God, if you think that, you know, I was in real trouble then, if you think that joining organizations is good for the ego, you should become a politician. If there's anybody here contemplating it, I'll give you some advice. The first thing you do is you have a press conference and you have to read the paper the next morning to find out what you said the night before, you know. And you go on the radio and you make a whole lot of stupid and irresponsible statements.
Now I had a press conference that day and I got my picture in the paper, a great big picture, a three-quarter page write-up in the paper, in the local paper. And the only thing I recognized was the picture, the rest was all lies I told the reporter in any event. I bought all the copies of the paper I could get my hands on and I rushed home with this bundle of papers under my arm and I laid them out on the dining room table and I got the scissors and I cut this big write-up out of the paper and I sent it to all my friends because after all I wanted them to know how important I was and it wasn't likely anyone else was going to tell them.
But before I sent it to them I penned a little note on the corner and it said, Watch this young man, he's on his way up and you're going to hear a great deal more about him. And they did, it wasn't exactly what I wanted them to hear but they heard quite a bit. If you think I was busy before, I was certainly very busy now because every time that the mayor would call for a delegate to some particular committee, I was the volunteer.
I was the volunteer because I wanted the prestige and the position and the money. But most of all I wanted the free booze that I knew would be available. I sat on the parks board, cemetery board, school board, library board and created a few boards. Board, Seminary Board, School Board, Library Board, I created a few boards and I sat on those too, and I held all my committee meetings in a local hotel.
Now I would recall a couple of committees that I served on to further illustrate the insanity that we suffer from.
[00:45:04]
One was a particularly dangerous assignment. Not for me, but for the citizens of my community. They made me chairman of the police commission, you know. And there's only one thing wilder than that, and that's a national emergency. Because as the commissioner, the first thing I did was to make myself immune to all civic bylaws. And I'd park my car in the middle of the street or on the sidewalk or wherever I fell out of it, and I would run over people's garbage cans, dogs, fences, perambulators, and old ladies, and the police would get close enough to me and they'd say, For God's sakes, go home!
Go home! And I'd say, do you know who I am? They knew who I was. They were hoping I'd drop dead. Now the second committee that I worked on was the public works, as chairman of public works. And a chairman of public works in a small city shouldn't do no more than maybe cut two ribbons and make very short speeches. But I ran that department differently. I had the road in front of St. Andrew's Catholic Church paved.
I had the trees pruned. I had the lights fixed. I had the snow removed. I had men down there all the time. The poor little Episcopalian minister over there never got a damn thing done. I hated him. And I hated anybody else who got in my road, and God helped them if they did. Now it seems to be a fairly common trait among practicing alcoholics, as well as among some who are not practicing that I'd met in the program, that we're not very good listeners.
And I fell into that category because there were many, many people trying to tell me where I was headed for, and there was equally as many wishing I would go there. But I decided to take my life a step further, and I became involved in party politics. Now very fortunately for you people, you'll be spared any account of that, because I don't remember very much about it myself. I was drunk during the entire campaign.
I made a jackass of myself on every platform in the county. I would recall an incident that occurred to illustrate the talk we hear in the program about the morning drink. Always get a great charge out of this emphasis that's placed on the morning drink. Who the hell ever heard tell of an alcoholic looking at his watch to find out what time it was he was drinking? He might be interested in what year it is or something like that.
I had been at the north end of the county at a political rally on a Friday night at which I'd spoken, and there had been a big party afterwards, and naturally I got drunk. A friend of mine brought me home during the course of the night, and when I arose on Saturday morning I was in terrible, dreadful shape, and I had on my desk an invitation to attend the dedication service of our Dominion Public Building as a platform guest.
It was under construction at that time, the laying of the cornerstone. My good mother very tactfully suggested that perhaps I shouldn't go to that effort, because after all she recognized the shape I was in, and I got very indignant with her and told her I said they couldn't open that place without me. I presented myself there in the presence of many of our citizens and a lot of brass from the Public Works Department in Ottawa.
I presented my credentials to the aide at the platform, and he said, Yes, Mr. Waters, we have a seat for you. And he brought me onto the platform, and he seated me on the end of the platform next to my political opponent. The ceremonies got underway, and the mayor was speaking to this vast audience, and everything was going along fine for about five minutes, and I fell off the platform, you see. And they all run over and they said, What happened?
I said, He shoved me off, I said. The truth of the matter was, of course, that I drank the best part of a bottle of scotch before I went there that morning, and by that time I saw two platforms and gotten the wrong one, I guess. Now, this would qualify one for saying that he had some trouble with alcohol, and I've heard it said in the program that you can get off the garbage wagon before it goes to the dump.
But I chose to stay on. I walked into my office a few days later, and there was a gentleman waiting to see me. He handed me a sheaf of papers about this size. I took a look at them, and I nearly flipped, and I took another look, and sure, it was right. I was in bankruptcy. What a terrible thing to do to a young man who had given so much of himself to the community, you know. There was a very good reason for being in bankruptcy.
I hadn't paid any bills. The fastest way to go bankrupt I know. My immediate reaction to that was to get drunk. I stayed drunk on that occasion for at least two weeks. When I came out of that drunken stupor, I was laying in a bedroom in my mother's home, and on the night table beside the bed was a little radio tuned into the local station. And the first thing that I was conscious of was an announcement on that station to the effect that that afternoon at half past two o'clock, there would be a disposal sale of the assets of my business.
And I thought, my God, I have lost everything. I am bankrupt. I got together. I pulled myself together as best I could, and I called a friend of mine whom I had started out with in the paint trade,
[00:50:02]
and he had now risen to become the vice president of one of our major companies in Canada. I asked him for a job. I gave him a real song and dance, and he said, Pete, you're familiar with the north part of our country, and we have a territory open there, and the job is yours. And I would ask you to report to the branch office on such and such a day. Fantastic. Five minutes before this, I had nothing.
Five minutes later, I had a new job, good salary, big car, expenses, etc., etc. But I forgot one thing. The day he sent me there was a bad day. Oh, my God, it was a bad day to send an Irishman anywhere. It was the 17th of March, you know. That's the Feast of St. Patrick, as you know. And the way you celebrate St. Patrick's Day is you start drinking around about the 14th of March, right through to the 26th of December.
Well, this branch office that they sent me to was about 200 miles away from Toronto, and it took me four and a half days to get there, you see. I stopped at every waterhole between Toronto and North Bay. I swear to God, they could smell me 20 miles south of the bay coming in. And I was in that office exactly a minute and a half when they asked me to leave. They actually opened the door and said, get out.
I came away from that office in North Bay feeling very sorry for these stupid people because they hadn't recognized these great talents with which they'd been presented. And filled with the alcoholic confidence that we got from the bottle, you know, I reassured myself that anyone so well qualified as I would certainly have no difficulty picking up an executive position. What in the name of God I thought I was qualified for, I don't know.
The only thing I could have truthfully answered to that was drinking. And they don't hire you for drinking, you know. I came back to Oakville and I now look upon this as a distinct turning point in my life. I came back among these people whom I knew very well and who indeed knew me very well. And I found out a few things. I found out that nobody requires anybody with these kind of abilities. Nobody requires anybody with these kind of talents.
And one by one the doors began to close. Oh, the resentments grew. I hated people I didn't even know, you know. And the consumption increased and things got worse. And I was coming home from some drunken effort a few nights later and I was stopped by a young rookie police officer that I'd been instrumental in placing on the force. And he examined me and he charged me with impaired driving. I said, you're wasting your time.
I said, I know the judge, I'll have the charge dropped in the morning and then I'll have your job. I found out the following morning it's not the judge's job to fix the charge. It's to find out whether you're guilty or not. The first offense calls for a $150 fine and 90-day suspension of your driving privileges. And when you've never done anything else but sell, you don't cover very much territory walking, you know.
And there I was, deprived of my livelihood, filled with resentment against every principle and every person and everything. I made that great decision I've since been told that all alcoholics in our part of the world have to make. I went to Toronto. And I'm beginning to believe that after some of the sights I've seen down there. I have no quarrel with the physical aspect of this disease. None at all.
Ask yourself this question. What kind of an employer is going to hire a man who presents himself in a suit that he's slept in for four nights, that looks like the wrath of God and smells like a brewery? And that's exactly the way I appear. Now what I'm going to say here, I don't want to be misunderstood. But I think it bears saying because, you see, years previous to my bankruptcy in business, my income from all sources had been very substantial.
And I'm not saying that to impress you, but rather to point out to you what alcohol will do to you. In those years, my income had well exceeded $20,000. And that was an awful lot of money in our part of the world and in that time. And after searching desperately for several weeks in the city of Toronto, trying to get a job, and finally having to lie to get one because I was unbondable, I finally got a job.
Oh yeah, I got a job sweeping floors for a wholesale hardware company in downtown Toronto at $35 a week. But don't ever kid yourself that you can't be an alcoholic on $35 a week. I managed very well. All you have to do to supplement that is to steal. I had learned by now that you could get just as drunk on beer and wine as you could in good Scotch whiskey. But I wasn't an alcoholic. Oh no, no way. An alcoholic was one of those terrible people you'd meet in the blighted areas of our city.
Very obnoxious, smelled of high heaven, took up the whole sidewalks, always putting the arm on you, you know. I qualified on every one of those counts. But I preferred to regard myself as one of those poor, unfortunate individuals whose friends had turned against him, you know. And I could drink like a gentleman. And I would head for the Royal York or the King Edward or one of those fancier joints that got down there.
[00:55:00]
And after paying $0.75 or $0.85 a bottle for the first couple of rounds, I'd look at my dwindling resources and I'd rationalize and I'd say, Now Waters, if you'd only be willing to go somewhere where they sell it by the glass, you'd get more mileage out of this. My friends, without fail, without exception, I would end up in one of two places in the city of Toronto. Places that when I came to this program, I prayed to God every morning and every night.
He would never permit me to darken the doorstep of again. And God answers our prayers. Of course He answers our prayers. He answered mine. They tore the both of them down. One was called the Union House and the other the Municipal on Queen Street. The blackest bloody holes were ever built. All were regular Dr. Jekyll's and Mr. Hyde's. When I didn't have the money for booze and I couldn't steal anything, I'd wander around till the twilight hour and then I'd end up in another place.
And this place would be open all night and the police would check it. But they wouldn't bother you if it looked as though you were praying. It's called St. Michael's Cathedral, you know. And I was the praying-est alcoholic you ever saw in your life. Praying morning, noon and night. Today I recall humorously and certainly not sacrilegiously, it's a wonder I didn't get charged with arson. I had candles going all over the place, you know.
We'll light another dozen. Maybe this time it'll catch on. I had a particular devotion to St. Jude. I found out after I came here he was the patron saint of hopeless cases and he hadn't heard of this one until that time. My prayers would go like this, God get me out of this jackpot and I'll never do it again. Or if I had a nickel for every time I said that, I'd be a wealthy man. And I'd look back and God never let me down once.
Never once. Now those nights that I wandered around till the twilight hour and I couldn't steal anything and I had no money left and I had nothing to eat, I'd eventually get through a collect call to my mother in Oakville and I'd prevail upon this lady to allow me to be home in the midst of a family that I had humiliated and disgraced. And it's only the love that a mother can have for a son that would permit me to be there.
And one of the most beautiful things in my life has been the fact that my mother was spared to live with me for nine years after I came to this program. Nine beautiful years. I'm eternally grateful for that. Many, many mornings as I sat across the kitchen table from my mother and I looked at the gray hairs in her head and I realized how greatly responsible I was for putting them there. The nights that she sat up to answer the phone at three o'clock in the morning to be told that her son was in jail again.
The nights that she sat up at, and always at three o'clock in the morning, never any reasonable hour, to be phoned by one of Toronto's doctors to be told that her son had been admitted to another hospital because of some scrape in some bar. And the worst hell of all that we put people through who are near and dear to us and who want to help us but we won't let them are the nights that that beautiful lady sat there through that never-ending hour of three o'clock until the dawn and the phone never rang.
And the only consolation she had was she knew she had a drunken son in some drunken hole in the city of Toronto and she didn't know whether they'd carry him out of there dead or alive. And that's what alcohol made me do to the person I love more than anyone else in the whole world. Oh, when I came to this program, I owe an enormous debt to some very, very beautiful people. I owe a debt that I shall never live long enough to be able to pay because those beautiful people from Al-Anon came to see my mother and they brought insights and understanding and they brought love and they brought love into our home.
And I shall be eternally grateful, and I hope it is God's wish, that Al-Anon shall walk side by side with the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous because I love them very dearly. APPLAUSE When I didn't have any money left and I'd just get out of the hospital, you know, where would I be five minutes later? I'd be in the nearest hotel telling all the boys around the table what a smart cookie I was. I gave God credit for absolutely nothing.
I have to tell you today that God works in very mysterious ways His wonders to perform because I want to recall for you how I came to this program. I hope it doesn't nauseate you. It almost does me, but it does me good to recall it. Because, you see, the first time I came here it didn't work. I used to wonder why it didn't work. I don't need to wonder why it didn't work. It didn't work for one simple reason, and that reason was I couldn't be honest.
Things had gotten very bad and I'd prevailed upon my mother to allow me to be home. She said to me on this occasion, she said, Pete, why don't you try and get a ride back and forth from Oakville to Toronto, it's a distance of about 20 miles, with one of our many commuters. Hang on to that little job that you got. Many commuters, hang on to that little job that you got and things will get better. Little did I know that this woman had been praying for many years.
I took her advice because I had really no alternatives. I made some local inquiries and I came across a chap whose family name I knew but I did not know him personally.
[01:00:05]
But there was a story about him to the effect that he had been a pretty bad actor and he had cleaned up his act and he had joined some mysterious outfit called Alcoholics Anonymous. Now I could have cared less if he had joined the Ku Klux Klan, you know. All I wanted was a ride back and forth with this man and he agreed that I could be a passenger. He's a man that I'm deeply and greatly indebted to, a man that I admire and respect, a man that took me to my first meeting.
He not only took me to my first meeting, he later became my sponsor. He's a very active member of the fellowship. His name is Don Carlton of the White Oaks Group in Oakville. The ironical part of it is he's a Protestant Englishman and how the hell he got in the act, I don't know. After having spent a very bad night in the city of Toronto, having been picked up sitting outside of a prominent eating place with all their silverware in my pockets and having spent the night in jail, I got out the following morning through the benevolence of the Salvation Army and I knew that the time had come when I must do something.
Oh, not because of the physical illness, no, no. When you're young, you bounce back very quickly and three or four days later you've forgotten how thick your tongue was, the butterflies were running around bumping into each other in your stomach and the hangover you could take out and have a look at, you know. Not because of the spiritual principles, no, no. Because, you see, you had prayed to God the night before, you were now over to jail and you didn't need God today.
But in case you got in trouble again tonight, you put him on the back of the shelf with a big label on that said, for emergency purposes only. But, you see, this is a threefold disease and the third element was there that morning and that's the mental distortion, that's when we know that the men in the white jackets aren't very far away. And that was also the day that I was to learn that we suffer from a double-barreled disease.
The second half of this disease is a terrible, terrible thing. It's a thing called pride. It's one of the most destructive forces in the universe and I had a lion's share of it. Because coming out of Toronto that night, I never had been so sick in my life. I had not been home the night before, of course, and Don picked me up downtown, the usual spot that night, and I got in the car and, oh God, I could hardly live.
I was just in terrible shape and I waited until we got about five miles out of the city and I had to do something and I turned to Don and I said, I understand you belong to a thing called Alcoholics Anonymous and he said, yes, I do. And what do you think I said to him? I said, you know, I'm very social service minded, I'd like to go to one of those things sometime, maybe I could help somebody, you know.
He looked at me and he said, yeah, there's a meeting tonight. I said, I don't want it that fast, you know. I hope I shall never forget to be grateful for the fact that he took me to my first meeting that night in the North Toronto group. I came through the doors of this fellowship with one of the most closed minds that ever came into it. I was resolved that the first fellow that said anything about the Pope, I'll poke him one and get the hell out of there.
As a result, I have no idea what went on at that meeting, who spoke, what was said or anything, except for two things. One is I was introduced to a very wonderful man, a man that I love, admire and respect, an old timer, Reg Brown of the North Toronto group. The second thing was I was given that famous piece of literature called the 20 questions. Coming out of Toronto that night, we brought another chap back to Oakville with us, Dunk, who has been around the program a long time.
Coming out of Toronto that night, he sat in the front seat with Don and I sat in the back seat of the car. We had 20 miles to drive. Of course, I was sitting back there and of course it was dark. I had an opportunity to reflect on this business of being called an alcoholic. Now, I've heard many people in the program who don't like to be called alcoholics. Some of them get annoyed. Some of them get mad.
Some of them get outraged if you refer to them as an alcoholic. I want to tell you, I loved it right from the start. I thought, my God, that name has got a certain ring of prestige to it. It's going to be nice to be called that after some of the things I had been called. Now, for the benefit of anybody who's running around looking for a fancy handle and you don't want to call yourself an alcoholic, you go around calling yourself an habitual intemperate, if you like.
It's the same bloody thing. It wasn't until I got home and got into the solitude of my own room that I found out what a tricky bunch of characters you fellas were. Because I closed the door very firmly and I got the pen out and the 20 questions. And I thought, now isn't this nice? Little exercises for us new fellas, you see. And I started out and I said, oh yeah, sure, you betcha, right on, right on.
I got to the bottom and I damn near fainted, you know. Instead of I answered yes to three or more, I was definitely an alcoholic. I got 18. You know what I did with that piece of paper? I burned it. I left that laying around. My mother saw that. She'd know I was an alcoholic, you know.
[01:05:08]
God has always been very good to me. He's given me many blessings which I've done nothing to deserve. Because I have been everything that is despicable in a man. I've lied and cheated and stolen. And yet God in his mercy and his kindness has given me many blessings. And this was to be no exception. Because after being around AA, and I emphasize the word around it and not in it, and there's a great deal of difference, I was offered another job by a promotional company in Toronto.
And it was to offer me a great deal more money and opportunities and so on. And many people over the years have said to me, what was this job you got, Waters? Well, I'll tell you briefly what it was. I was to become a professional fundraiser for the Catholic Church. I damn near put them out of business, you know. And that's nearly impossible with the Catholic Church, let me assure you. After, you know, I remember I was out in Western Canada doing some research work in some parishes.
And the word came down from the bishop's office that I was wanted. And I thought, oh God, the Vatican has recognized me at last, you know. I got a taxi and I went right down to the bishop's office. And the secretary took me right in and the bishop said, is your name Waters? I said, yes, your excellency, it is. He said, I want you to leave. I thought, my God, they have sent for me, you know. I said, I don't quite understand you guys.
He said, have you not heard what they're saying about you out here in the West? I said, no, your excellency, I haven't. Well, he said, they're referring to you as the wise man from the East, he said. Now, he said, there's only room for one of us and you have to go. After a training period in Toronto, I was sent out on my first assignment to Edmonton. I flew out to Edmonton and I got off the plane in Edmonton and my nerves were bad.
All alcoholics have bad nerves. Most of the ones I've ever met have a hell of a nerve. I certainly didn't believe all that nonsense they told me back in Oakville about that first drink. Why, that was scare tactics. They think I was stupid? Why, I could drink. Besides, my nerves were bad. I needed a drink. I found out where all the bars were the first night. In case I missed any, I went back the second night, third night, fourth night, fifth night.
How in the name of God I got any work done, I don't know. But I can recall very vividly laying in a third-rate hotel room in downtown Edmonton, coming out of a drunken stupor and saying to myself, Waters, why can't you stay sober? I couldn't stay sober because I couldn't be honest. Honesty is a basic requirement to our recovery. Well, my pattern would be I'd be gone on one of these assignments for four weeks and I'd come home for four or five days before going out on another.
And when I'd be home, I'd get together with my sponsor and he'd say, how are you doing? I'd say, just great. Are you getting lots of meetings? Lots of meetings, I'd say. He'd say, and I hadn't been to one, of course, since I'd left. And he'd say, do you remember Charlie was around the program the last time you were here? I said, oh yeah, I remember Charlie. And he said, God, he's having an awful time making it.
And I'd have the gall to stand in front of this wonderful man and say to him, isn't it too bad he can't latch onto this thing the way I am? Oh, God, you know. Well, God works in very mysterious ways. His wonders to perform. Because I came back from such a trip, and I was met in Oakville by two very prominent Toronto businessmen who offered me a very remarkable position. It was a very fine position.
It had many fine aspects to it, but I could only see one. I was to become the general manager of a very large retail operation in the town of Oakville. The local boy makes good. I went out and I bought a new suit. All the buttons popped off the one I had on. I called a press conference. I got my picture in the paper again. And I became a sconce in the big paneled office, the leather chair, the oak desk.
I had about 180 employees running around doing what I was telling them. And I became a wheeler and dealer, you know. And after about seven days, I looked across my desk, and there sat my sponsor. Now, I don't know whether he'd been there all along or not, but there he was. They looked at me and he said, you're going to get drunk. I looked at him as if he had seven heads. What are you talking about?
I said, I'll be back to AA when I have time. God, that's a dangerous statement. I pray to God I'd never be permitted to make it again. I don't know whether there's anyone in this room here tonight who's ever tried to convince six people over here that you're in AA and you're drinking with six over here and you're running back and forth and in between you meet yourself halfway coming back. Well, that's insanity if you're doing that.
You're nuts if you're doing it, eh? And I have no quarrel with that term insanity. None at all. Because in the days of my business life and public life, I belonged to three yacht clubs. Three yacht clubs. I can't swim, I don't own a boat, and I hate the water. So how nuts can you get? I began to go to hotels and take the coke and ginger ale treatment. And anyone who does that, they're going to be in trouble.
I began to go to hotels and take the coke and ginger ale treatment. And anyone who does that and has no reason for being there, they're in a pile of trouble. And it was well answered for me when I came back to this program by a little man one night at a meeting. He said, I can only tell you what my sponsor told me eight or nine years ago,
[01:10:01]
that he didn't go to hotels and take coke and ginger ale for the same reason he didn't go around visiting funeral parlors. He didn't figure he was ready for it yet, you see. And that satisfies me 100%. I need never be ready for it. Because you people have shown me a way one day at a time through the use of these principles that I need never reach for that first drink. Well, needless to say, the third thing I did on that occasion was to get into the booze.
Now these boys in AA, these old-timers, and there are many of them beautiful ones here tonight, they have a nasty habit of keeping an eye on a new man. And out in Oakville at that time, they weren't very busy, and they had both eyes on me. After being watched by this gang over here for about two weeks and not being able to get with my buddies over there, I'm getting pretty thirsty. And when they tell you that it's cunning, baffling, and powerful, in the name of God, believe it.
Because I got up one morning and I tripped over a straw or something as significant as that. And on my way to the office, I said to hell with them. I'll go into Toronto tonight, I'll take a room at one of the hotels, I'll stay over, I'll tie one on, and I'll be back tomorrow and they won't know a thing about it. Four o'clock in the afternoon, I went down to the liquor store and I bought the bottle.
I proceeded in Toronto. I stopped at a pay station on the west end of the city and I called a young lady whom I'd taken out on a few previous occasions that I knew liked to have a little drink, and I suggested that we have dinner. She thought that was a great idea. I said, how about a couple of cocktails before dinner? She said, a smashing idea. I went over and I picked her up, and we went right over to Yonge Street where they sell lots up.
Now by midnight, she didn't know her name and I didn't know mine. And we hadn't eaten either. And along about one o'clock in the morning, I'd taken her home to the east end of Toronto and I took my eyes off the road for a moment and the next thing I knew, I was all tangled up in one of those friggin' street cars that got run around down there. Blood and guts all over the place. It was a terrible accident.
The only recollection I have of the accident is the arresting officer who has since become a good friend of mine and a good friend of this fellowship. He had one of the broadest English accents I've ever listened to in my life. And I became very belligerent and I woke up the following morning in the city jail. Now it may sound strange to you for me to say that I'm grateful to God that he saw fit to send me there, but indeed I am.
Because I had the first of two significant spiritual experiences in the bottom end of Don Jail. Here was the wheeler and dealer, the man of great influence in the bottom end of Don Jail. Now let me assure you, if you haven't been there, if you keep on drinking, you'll get there. And when you do, you won't influence anybody at all. You'll be able to rattle the door all day long. Some of you have been there, I can tell by the smiles on your faces.
And as I sat there that morning filled with fear and sick and remorse and shaking like I'd never known before, I was privileged to be given a few moments of clarity and I got a mental picture and it went like this. It said, look where you've been, look where you're going, and is this the way you want to live? And instinctively I did the only thing that good parents and good teachers had trained me to do.
I knelt down in that cell and I asked God, and the only way I knew how, if he would relieve me of the obsession to drink in order that I might be of some use to humanity and some use to myself. Tonight in all sincerity and all gratitude, but most wonderful of all in all honesty, I can stand here and tell you that that was 16 years ago and I have not had the slightest desire to have a drink since that day.
So I had better believe in God. I finally got out of jail and I went back to Oakville and I got together with this wonderful sponsor of mine and I told him this terrible thing that had happened and what do you think he said to me? He said, I'm damn glad there's stupid people like you go out and do things like that and I don't have to go out and prove it to myself. Real compassion, you know. It doesn't take very long to get feeling sorry for yourself.
I was feeling very sorry for me and I was inspired to call Reg, this man I mentioned earlier, and I hope I'll never forget the things that Reg said to me on that occasion. After telling him what had happened to me, he said, Pete, he said, some of us have to hit ourselves pretty hard on the head before we get this thing and this may have been the case with yourself. He said, there are two things you can never afford to have no matter how wealthy you ever become materially or spiritually.
And he was hitting me very hard when he made that statement because I've already told you I wanted to be a millionaire in one hand, I felt I should have been made an advisor to the Holy Father on the other as a real barroom lawyer, you know. He said, there are two things you can never afford to have. One is called a reservation. If you are an alcoholic and you think you can toy around and take one drink safely, it's a form of insanity, get rid of it.
And the second, he said, is resentment. And I pray to God I never forget the way that Reg described me. I pray to God I never forget the way that Reg described resentments. He said, they're cancerous, they'll destroy you, and they'll drive you back to the bottle. And I believe that very, very much. He said, you get back to your meeting as quickly as possible. And I did that first year in the city of Toronto.
[01:15:02]
I got back to 345 meetings. I don't say that braggingly, I say it gratefully that God gave me the physical ability and the opportunity to live in an area where we were blessed with so many wonderful meetings. It wasn't easy coming through the door of AA again because I knew many people in this fellowship. But Reg said one thing more. He said, just remember, Peter, you have no right to ask that this be easy.
The only right to have is the right to ask that it be possible. And it has been possible for me to get sober and to stay sober. He said, read some AA literature. And I read everything in sight. And I took that very beautiful book, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. And I read one step a night for 90 nights religiously. And I'm very grateful I did that because I then knew that this thing could work for me if I wanted it to.
And the third thing that Reg told me was to bring about the second significant spiritual experience of my AA life. When he said to me, he said, Pete, talk to the man or the gal who's got some sobriety. The person who's practicing the principles of this program. And this hall is filled with those kind of people tonight. Whether you're two blocks from home or 2,200 miles from home, they stand head and shoulders above everyone else.
And I went back to my meeting in Oakville at that time on a Wednesday night. And there's a little man who comes there very faithfully. He has a very odd name in AA circles, and I have his permission to relate it. His name is called Pete the Greek from Stoney Creek. And he's a very wonderful little man. And it was a discussion group. And as Pete would come in and take his place in the discussion group, we'd go around the table.
And we'd kind of always lead Pete to sum up the meeting. And the most amazing thing would take place. Everything that man said complimented what I'd heard, what I'd read. And I would sit there in utter amazement and say to myself, that's got to be what Reg meant when he said, talk to the man who's got some sobriety. And this man had 20 years of it. So I'd get there early on Wednesday night, and I'd stand inside the door.
And I'd watch the door for Pete to come through. And the minute he'd come through, I'd fall right in behind him, and I'd sit right beside him. And I'd grab the seat right next to him. And I sat beside him. And I listened to him. And I talked to him. And I questioned him. And I traveled with him. And I remind you that God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. Because this went on for six months.
And one night after meeting, we're standing around having a cup of coffee, when it was brought to my attention that Pete was the past master of the Orange Lodge at Stoney Creek. One of the blackest Protestant organizations you could get. God works in very mysterious ways his wonders to perform. He said, I'll give you sobriety. He said, and I'll get an Orangeman to do it. Yes, since coming back to Alcoholics Anonymous, I like to think that I've learned a few things.
I like to think that I've learned more in the last few years of my life than I ever learned before. I look at the 12 steps of our program, and I realize how poorly I've done any of these things, and yet how many wonderful blessings I enjoy. Oh, I have many wonderful blessings. Indeed, I do. And I'm most grateful for those that I'll never understand why I have been blessed so abundantly in this world.
I have a home and a car and clothes and a business. And I'm most grateful for those. But they no longer represent what they once did in my life. Oh, we all remember the days, don't we? When it was the end all of everything to have the big house on the hill. The two-car garage. The two cars. The two wives. And everything that went with it, eh? We don't have to live that way anymore. I have some blessings that no price tag in the world can be placed upon but you people.
Many, many of you here tonight have enabled me to obtain. As I travel among my fellow man and I realize that once again I am privileged to enjoy the respect of my fellow man. Not only in this program but also out of it. In this program it is my great privilege to be your servant. It is a privilege that I shall cherish for the rest of my life to be a servant of this fellowship. Outside of this program there rests on the books of the Chamber of Commerce in the town of Oakville a resolution that is 18 years old.
That resolution was sent to me by a registered mail asking me to leave my community because I had brought disgrace to public office. The same people who endorsed that resolution were the same people who three years ago went out and worked long and hard under very adverse weather conditions and returned me to City Hall. I don't say that in any bragging manner but rather with a very grateful heart. At the end of this great roundup I will be returning to my home again in Oakville.
And I will be in the midst of my family. A family that I humiliated. A family that I disgraced. A family whose love and respect I am privileged to enjoy today. And I want to close my remarks tonight by telling you a little bit about my family.
[01:20:01]
Because you see when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I am able to look back now and see that what I had done was I had built a wall around myself and I wanted no part of any man. And I had tried so desperately to become an island unto myself. And we know that no man is an island. And God in his mercy working through you allowed you to reach through and find a chink in the armor somewhere and you dragged me through.
And you brought me to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I hadn't been here very long when I made a very shattering discovery. And the discovery that I made my friends was that you not only cared about me but that you loved me. And this frightened me because I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about love. My concept of love was sordid and distorted and one that wouldn't be talked about. And I ran to Reg in great fear and said now what do I do?
I find myself in a position whereby I cannot respond because I know nothing about it. And I don't want to leave. What do I have to do? And he told me to pray. And I respected Reg enough that if he said you prayed, you prayed. But I had no earthly idea how God in his mercy, his kindness, and his omnipotence could bring love into the life of a lonely old bachelor alcoholic that didn't want any part of it.
And he chose the most beautiful way to do it. He chose my family. My oldest sister had been married for a number of years and they had no children. And about twelve years ago they adopted a little boy. Now I have a lot of nieces and nephews, but David is more important than all the rest. Because not only was I privileged to become his uncle, I was also privileged to become his godfather. And he's a very beautiful little guy.
And that young couple are a very wonderful young couple because they shared little David a great deal with my mother and myself. And it was a great joy to my mother in her declining years to have the love of David. And I guess it was all right for an old bachelor uncle to spoil him. Because on Sunday morning after Mass, they would come into the house for breakfast. And as David began to walk and talk and grow, he and I shared many, many things.
And we grew closer together and we played all the childish games. And one particular game we played was hide and seek. And I would see him coming down the road with his parents and I would hide in a little den that I have in my home. And I could hear him storm through the front door and say to his grandma, Where's Uncle Peter? And she said, Well, I don't know. You better look for him. And he'd look under the table and the desk and he'd look in the closet.
And I could hear him going back to her and saying, I can't find him. And I'm sure she winked at him because within a minute or two, the den door would be pushed open. And the most beautiful smile I've ever seen in my life would light up his little face. And he'd say, Ha, I find you. And he'd run across the room, scramble up on my lap, put his arms very, very tightly around my neck and give me a big, big sloppy kiss on the cheek.
And he'd say, Uncle Pete, I love you. I love you. And the wall went away and it has never come back. I know today I'm not surprised when you tell me that you love me because I know that that's the way you live. I know that you couldn't live five minutes, two minutes, one minute of your program without that beautiful love that you give so generously and that just oozes out of every one of you. That is so evident here tonight.
The miracle of my life, my friends, is not that, not anymore. The miracle of my life tonight is that I can love you. And God, I love you very much. I love each and every one of you. I love you for many, many reasons, but most of all I love you because you've let me be me. Oh, there's that little saying in the world that says you do your thing and I do mine. I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations. You're not in this world to live up to mine.
But if for chances we travel through this world that you and I can meet, that can be beautiful. Nowhere else in my life have I ever experienced meeting with all that that word implies as I have in the fellowship of Alcoholics in Honor. Bill uses that beautiful description to describe it. He calls it the language of the heart. Transcends the appearance and the personality of the individual and goes directly to the soul.
Oh, I'm sure that as I stand before my maker he is going to ask me but one question, and that question will be, did you become the best you that you could become? And I will be able to respond with a loud hallelujah, yes. And I had a million people helping me to do it. There is a lot of difference between being present with you here tonight and present to you. It will not be possible for you and I to be present with one another in the days ahead.
Geography and occupations and many things make that impossible.
[01:25:02]
But I want to assure you that you shall always be present to me. You shall be my strength, you shall be my joy, you shall be all that I require to carry out whatever responsibilities are mine, whatever God's will is for me. I know that I shall not lack the strength or the courage or the love to be able to do what is asked of me because you are the people that shall always be present to me. I wish it were possible that we could be present with one another but we know that that is not possible.
But he has made it possible for us to be present to one another. And tonight in closing I want to close with a prayer, a prayer that was written by a man who lived in this world 700 years ago, a man who went through the emotional wringer that we have gone through, who knew the fears and the remorse and the degradation that we have experienced. I would ask you to take this prayer in your hearts, not to keep it there but to give it away because it was a prayer that was written by St. Francis of Assisi.
And he said, Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
May God bless you. Thank you. Pete W. from Oakville, Ontario. That was wonderful. You know, this is an ironic program. I'm a painter. I've been a painter for 45 years. Pete sells paint. Our book says that alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful. And I was born in Liverpool, England. I had just a touch of humility, and I had a little bit of touch of going back to serenity. But that was wonderful, Pete.
Let's give him another hand. Not to add anything to Pete's talk, but you do people that are here, from tonight on you never have to take another drink, if you don't want to. When you come into AA, don't look back. Because you know what you see when you look back? You see nothing. Closing announcements. Willard, have I got any closing announcements? Oh, the next meeting. Yeah, I've got that down. Now, the next meeting is at 930, and we've brought in all the pros.
All the next of them will have taken their lessons from Chamberlain. At his first meeting I was taking the collection. He says, you cut me in on half of it and I'll join. So be sure our next meeting, I want to emphasize that, is at 930. We usually close these meetings with a moment of meditation, and we'd like for you to all hold hands, and we're going to say the Lord's Prayer, if you wish. And I'd like to ask Vera to lead us in the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
[01:30:00]
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.