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Source: DICOBE-00514 – Eddie R – PALM DESERT RNDP – 1976-06-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00514-eddie-r-palm-desert-rndp-1976-06-15.mp3 Duration: 01:00:45
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I just take my coat off because I feel more comfortable. I wanted to show you that I own the suit. I'm always a little nervous standing up here, but this is a very, very wonderful place to be right now, because as I look around me, I generally don't cry this early, but my cue comes later. I see people that I know and love on this program, and I'm very, very happy to be privileged to share the platform with them.
I generally start off by telling you I was born sober. And in an Irish Catholic family, sometimes that is a big feat. But I don't want to go into Catholicism or guilt tonight, because Sandy, this morning, because Sandy Beach covered it in such beautiful detail last night that I think I have become a Methodist this morning. Oh, what's my name? From the civic group, you always get that, but thank you.
My name is Ed R., and I'm an alcoholic. Thank you very much. On my badge, it says Culver City, California. I really come from beautiful downtown Venice. But being there's no uptown Venice, Elsie Faye has tried to upgrade me. She insists on typing my badge Culver City. She sort of figures it'll build my image. I'll start at the beginning. I was five years old, and I had a cold, and my father gave me some rock and rye.
And up until that time, he was a fearsome man. And they gave rock and rye for colds in those days, and he gave me the second tablespoon full of that rock and rye, and I leaned over and kissed him. And I didn't drink for a long time, but to this very day, I have not forgotten the feeling that I got from those few tablespoons full of rock and rye. I remember a little later, we made home brew in our home, and everyone did during Prohibition, and my father allowed me to help him siphon.
And I got a mouthful here or there, and siphoning was a good thing, I thought. My father was sort of an over-ambitious man. He put extra sugar in the bottom of the bottles. He told my mother that it made them ferment faster or something like that. All I know is those bottles kept exploding in the middle of the night. Boom! Boom! And my father was just so just, didn't seem to bother him a bit. He leaned over to my mother one time, he said, Well, Alice, you said you had mice in the house.
She said, Yes, I thought we did. He said, You notice they've left? So, I don't know, I guess he figured if he kept them awake long enough, they'd find another place to go. Anyhow, I did a lot of drinking. I started drinking at 13 on the Brooklyn waterfront when I started to work on the 22nd of August, 1927. And the boys asked me out, and I went. And I had a few drinks, and I loved it. Oh, this terrible bar, never forget it.
It smelled foul and sour, and I loved it. It had a gold-colored mirror that made you look like you had a suntan, and I would just look up at myself at 13, and I knew I was going to grow up to be an outdoor man. And I loved that bar. We finished working at 5 o'clock in the morning. Every morning. I worked nights. You can't work in New York when you're that young, and in the basement, they have to hide you.
And I make candy in the basement, and at 5 o'clock in the morning, we would finish, and we would go to this bar, and we went every morning for a long, long time, and it was a wonderful, wonderful place. 5 o'clock in the morning to have those drinks they served. Now, many, many years later, when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, it was the fashion in those days for a man with cauliflower ears, stitches all over him, a man who had obviously been through a great deal of difficulty in life, a man would stand up, and he would say, he was leading a meeting, which I think I've got to qualify myself as an alcoholic.
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And then he'd go through about 35 years of a litany of terror. He would tell about deserting six families, burning down 23 homes, being wanted in 18 states, and the rest of them didn't care at all for him. And he would tell about being in straitjackets, in insane asylums, when people had to put a shoe in his mouth to prevent them from eating his tongue, and this litany of terror would go on for about an hour and a half just to qualify him.
And then he'd stop, and he would draw himself up to his full height, and there would be a kind of a moment of almost spiritual silence, and he would say, and then I started to drink in the morning. I used to think, what in God's name was he waiting for? You know, I really thought that that was a rallying cry in AA, like fight on for Notre Dame or something. Now, I drank. It removed all of my fears.
I went on a show one time, and there were 24 young girls on the show, and I was the only young guy, and I had rotten ideas, and I was unable to do the things I wanted to do. And I found out if you drank enough of whiskey. Well, I was alcoholic. There's no question about that. I was interested in the entire 24 girls. I like that slogan, half measures availed us nothing. You know, let's go. But when you're 17, you know, that's the way it is, you know.
But I couldn't do anything. I was terrified when a girl said hello to me, and I drank enough of that whiskey. I sort of felt like I was like William Powell, if you remember him in pictures, that I could be nonchalant and smoke and answer the questions in that nonchalant way, and the girls would follow me around, and I really had it, you know. And I want to tell you, when you're 17 or 18, whiskey does help what we were then calling getting to first base.
I never did understand how baseball got in there. I never did. But that's the expression they used to make, and I like to tell you that because if there's some younger folks in the house that whiskey is doing a great deal for you in that department, let me tell you this from my own experience. By the time you are 30, you will be known around the bars as a promiser. It's nothing worse than listening to one of those old lizards in the back say, you better get him early, Mort. He's not for after 8 o'clock.
Anyhow, I came to Hollywood, and I got a good job, and I was a functioning alcoholic because I knew that you needed money to drink. And I did all the things that alcoholics do, but I couldn't see them. You know the terribleness of the disease of alcoholism is its gradualness. Each thing happens, the alcoholic practicing looks upon it as a isolated incident, and he cannot see the true tapestry of alcoholism until long after he is sober as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It is so strange a disease. And I, well, I hit my car into a tree. And now that doesn't sound alcoholic. There was walnut trees all over the valley, and to hit one was not quite a feat. And the fellow said, how did you do it? I said, I'm working too hard, long hours. Two weeks later, I hit an avocado tree. Hard to find, hard to find. Now in rapid succession, I hit two Pacific Electric streetcars broadside twice.
I took a two-lane tunnel into Hollywood and tried to make a U-turn in the center. That's the way you hit the wall on the right head-on. You almost have to diagram that one, don't you? I couldn't figure it out, and it happened to me. Anyhow, I totaled 13 automobiles in less than three years. I went to Farmer's Insurance Company one time, and I asked for some more insurance. I'd never owned a car. I simply made a down payment with a new dealer.
Oh, I was the dealer's friend. Oh, God. I always told them I'd just arrived from the East and I needed a car.
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Well, anyhow, Farmer's Insurance looked up my record. They keep records. And the fellow says, he looked it up, and he says, Mr. R., he said, I see here by your record, he said, well, he put it a different way. He said, Farmer's Insurance Company only handles preferred risks. And he said, I see by your record that you do not fall in that category. So we would consider it a personal favor if you would do business with one of our competitors.
Now, that means get out. We can't afford you. I had paid them a small amount of money, and they had paid out thousands of dollars. Because one night I hit seven parked cars. And you can't do that very easy either. And anyhow, that's the way it was. I wound up in Cedars-Lebanon Hospital. No respiration on arrival. I'll never forget that. And when I came to, in this… There's something funny there that I missed.
Anyhow, I came to, in this hospital room, and there were three men from Paramount Studios and a woman who was quite a well-known actress. And after they saw that I was breathing and all that kind of stuff, again, that is important to some doctors, the man said to me that I had started to turn blue. And so they had rushed me over, and they got me in here. And the woman came over, and she was a very good actress.
And she said, Darling friend, you started to turn blue, and we rushed you here, and they got the inhalator on you and gave you some adrenaline because they had you marked no respiration on arrival. And I said, Oh, of course, darling, yes. And I didn't believe a word of it. I figured, God damn it, she's a good actress. She just won an Academy Award a few years ago. And I know what happened. I passed out, and these fellows said, Honey, when he comes to, lay a story on him.
And, you know, real violin stuff, and maybe we'll scare him out of drinking. And I didn't believe it. In fact, while she was telling it, and I was saying yes, I was wondering whether I could get out from the restraints that they had me under. And that night I did, and I went over to the closet, and I got my clothes, and I went down the fire escape and went to a bar on Fountain in Vermont to get my strength back.
And that was, I never believed it. And I went on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And we could stay here a long time and talk about alcoholism. I threw up in places that you just can't throw up. If there's anything or any transgression, sin, indiscretion, piece of damn foolishness, or anything else that any one of you sitting out there have done that I haven't done, it's because I was too busy doing something else.
I always have to apologize for that. I said so many active contritions that people knew what my lips meant when they were moving. I was doing the best I could. I was working for Universal Studios. And there's a sad thing in our background, in our culture. If you're making money and you're going up the ladder, you're a success. And I was making more money every year, going up the ladder, and obviously that did not spell alcoholism.
So I kept right on drinking. But my dilemma was terrible because I was now reduced to not being able to drink all the time because I consumed so much whiskey that sooner or later I had to stop. I couldn't drink anymore. I would smell whiskey and my throat would close. And I had to stop. And I knew how to get sober before AA. You get sober by stop drinking. Don't drink any whiskey. And you'll get sober.
And you'll crawl around the floor and you'll sweat and you'll shake and you'll be sure that you're going to die. And you'll keep your eyes on the lights because you're afraid that they'll turn into animals if you take your eyes off them. And you'll do that for six or seven days. And you'll get sober. Oh God, you'll get sober. Oh God, you'll get sober. My hands just sweat right now from thinking of that glorious sobriety that I was getting to.
And on the seventh day, always the same thing, you'll get a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup and you'll make it lukewarm and you'll take a few sips on a spoon praying to God that it will stay down because you haven't had any food. And after a while you'll get a little confidence and you'll try a noodle. and you'll try a noodle.
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Now, it's tough to look on a noodle as a milestone, but the truth of the matter is that's the way I looked at it. I thought if the noodle would stay down, I'd think three more days and I'll be up to poached eggs. Now I would get sober and I would get sober and I would start taking my exercises and getting sunbaths and eating vitamin pills and reading books on the lives of the saints. I would stop using profanity, associating with girls or doing any of those things which might in any way corrupt my sainthood.
Because I had a firm belief that if you wanted to stay sober, you had to be a saint and if you did stay sober, you obviously were a saint. So I had them tied up in a neat package and everything would go fine for a couple of days and after a week or two, my friends would say, Ed, you look great. That sun is doing you good, that's not drinking is a glorious thing for you. It improves you, you do your work better.
Don't drink anymore. God, you never looked so good in your life and what I couldn't explain to them in a thousand years, I can explain to you in a minute. Left over from my last drunk with all this glorious suntan and sobriety, there was a pain in my gut that I never knew how to get rid of other than alcohol. And each day of this glorious sobriety, each day of this wonder of wonders, I got sicker and it was tougher.
And I would remember getting up at seven o'clock in the morning and being unable to walk from sobriety. Can you imagine a 30 year old man practicing walking? I would go as long as I could until I couldn't stand it another second, until I knew that if I didn't have a drink, I was going to go mad. And at that point, and not one moment before, I would saunder into the coach and horses. It's a bar on Sunset Boulevard. Now, I want you to notice the word saunder.
Anyone else in our condition would run and say, for God's sake, bartender, pour me a drink, I'm dying. Not an alcoholic. We got a lot of class. I'd kind of saunder in and I'd sit down quietly at the bar making no noise and the bartender would always have his back to me because he was counting the money out of the change bag into the register. It was five minutes to six in the morning. You know, if you're going to saunder, do it early, I always say.
So he'd finally feel that there was another person present and he'd turn around and he'd say to you, well, hello, I haven't seen you in a couple of weeks. And you'd say, hello, Joe, how's the wife and kids? And I didn't know what season it was, so I'd always say, how about the ball game? Now, there's always a ball game going. I didn't know which one, basketball, football. But, you know, that's the thing to get it going.
And he'd tell you something about the scores and that'd help you to know the season. And a minute had passed and you sit there very nonchalantly trying to look up at yourself in the mirror and trying to practice breathing. I always used to practice breathing because I saw what happened if you stopped. And finally, he'd turn around to you and he'd say, care for a drink, Ed? Now, you know, a non-alcoholic would have, what they would have said, but you know, an alcoholic says, oh, I don't know.
And you know, a bartender really does. You got money on the bar. He reaches down, as he goes down to the well, he comes up with a bottle. You say, four ounces, Joe, no ice. That's the whole story. Four ounces, no ice means put it in an old-fashioned glass because I'm afraid I'll swallow the other damn thing. No ice means it'll hit my nose and spoil my rhythm and I ain't got much time to get this down.
You let it sit there two or three seconds to show you had a lot of class. And you say, well, here's to you, Joe, and it's all one movement. Now, if you miss the beat, throw it over your shoulder and order another one. And then he'd go down and this Catholic atheist would pray. Oh, God, make it work. Oh, God, make it work. Make it work.
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Now, I do not believe there is any more terror than an alcoholic can know than when that drink that is going to save your life just went down and you're not sure that it's going to work this time. That is the terror of all terrors. And I would have about 10 or 15 seconds of that terror and fervent prayers. Oh, I would have promised God that I would have made another world for him. And it would start to work and I would get a little relieved.
And I would sit there and the bartender would say, care for another one, Ed, and I'd say, oh, I don't know. And he did and he had it poured and I'd get the second one down and then I'd feel like a citizen. The thoughts that would cross my mind are in the front page of chapter three. The first thing that would cross my mind is, Ed, you didn't have a drink for 14 days. You must have been crazy. Don't let it ever happen again.
And the second thought that would cross my mind is the first three words of that chapter. This time it is going to be different. The only thing that was different was the starting date. Anyhow, I would start off and I would decide to join the PTA and vote again and not cross except in the crosswalks and, you know, do all those good things. If I saw any old ladies, I would help them and things like that.
And I would pay my check and front tip the bartender. All you fellas know about front tipping the bartender. You're saying, here's $2 for you. That makes him say, well, have one on the house. And I'd get my third one down and I'd walk out into the morning sunshine on Sunset Boulevard. It was 10 minutes after six in the morning and I was a new man. A new day is born. The glory of alcohol is here. The ease, the lack of pain.
I'm living again. It's no trouble to breathe. I'm doing it naturally now. And I would go about my business. Now, I don't know about you. I was pretty good for the first few days. I never tapered off, but I could taper on with the very best. Sometimes it took eight or nine days before gangrene would set in. And then we would get through the process again. So, you see, my life was a constant flight. I was constantly, I was fleeing sobriety on one hand and fleeing drunkenness on the other.
And each one was winding me up in great pain and I knew no other way. I was doing my level best. And into this terrible thing came a man who had decided to be my sponsor. Now, let me tell you about those days, if I have time, because in those days my sponsor was the worst drunk that I've ever known. He walked around in a wine-stained overcoat, wrapped around in the middle of summer. That ought to give you a clue.
And I knew that this bum got sober on some religious thing and I heard some very terrible things about it. I heard that they gave you jelly doughnuts if you listened to the sermon. And I had a feeling it must have had sawdust on the floor. And I heard that they held hands and said prayers to Jesus at the finish of the seance. And I thought, oh, no, no, no, no. It sounds like the Mission or the Salvation Army and I don't want to join those people.
And I was desperately worried about this thing. I didn't even know the name of it yet, but I was avoiding it. I didn't know what it did. And then I heard the thing that distressed me probably more than anything else did in my entire life. I heard that these people who had joined this religious cult somehow received indulgences or rewards for bringing in new people. And I thought this poor man may think I'm a blue chip stamp or something.
And I decided to avoid him. And I did my best, but one night I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard and there he was. And I know this program will get you sober because it took two seconds to get me sober. And I tried to pass him with that, hiya baby, hello, goodbye. And he grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall and he said, come to bring in a message. And he kept pulping me in the chest. And I said, I don't want the message, now you keep the messages.
And he kept saying, will you listen to me? And I said, you're going to give me cancer. And I was trying to throw him off the chair, you know. And every time he'd say something, he'd say, and this piece of literature explains that. And he'd push it into my pocket.
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And it's no wonder they didn't have any literature, I had it all in my pocket. And he kept me there for about an hour. I could feel the perspiration bleeding down into my socks. And he said, they told me all about AA. And oh, God, I was sick. Oh, God, I was sick. And I had all this literature and I thought it was communistic. And I ran home to this apartment around the corner. And I went through the house and I went to an incinerator and I got rid of it all and I burned it.
And I thought, well, I have to stay away from those people, maybe I'll move. And I finally, I had some whiskey home and I drank about three quarters of their whiskey to get to sleep. And I got up the next morning and sticking under my door was a piece of paper about this size. And I stupidly went over to pick it up. And I says, are you an alcoholic? And I knew I put it there, you know. And Christ, I got ready to go out and I was tacked to the door with the 20 questions.
Everywhere I went, underneath the windshield wipers of the car, there was a tract under each one. And one laying on a seat. Well, I made an appointment with them and they didn't show up. And I went on the wagon again to throw them off the trail. And then I went out on a drunk. And I got home eight days later and I was very weak and I was in my little apartment. Puss pocket apartment, broom closet that I was living in.
And there was a rap at the door and I knew who it was. And it took me a couple of minutes and I got over to the door and here it is, old dum-dum, my sponsor. And he walks in with the old AA book in the yellow and red. Did you ever see the jacket, some of you newer folks, on the old red book? It was about twice as thick as it is now. It didn't contain half as many words. The drunks printed it on thick paper and wanted to make you think you got more of your money.
And it was red buckrim, but it had a yellow and a red and a white and a black dust jacket on it that made it look like the menu from a Mexican restaurant. The first thing anybody got one of those was, turn the wrapper inside out. And he walks over, he's like, got it right here, baby. He sat down, opened the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism.
Bottom of the page, pay attention now, I'm going to ask questions. Works Publishing Company, Post Office Box 49, Grand Central Annex, New York, New York. Turned it over, Library of Congress card, 659402. Had seven printings, read me the dates. Read me the foreword, the table, the contents, the doctor's opinion, more about alcoholism, Bill's story. Chapter two, ah, we all forget that, there is a solution.
Chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, read me the whole book from cover to cover, including the thing that explains spiritual awakening that's after the asterisks at the back of the book. And he closed the book after three and a half hours, and by now you can, you can picture my condition. I'm pressing my, you know, breathe, breathe, breathe. He closes his book and he says something that I guarantee you has got to cheer you.
He said, now I give you my interpretation. Well, he talked for ten and a half hours, never took a breath. And then in those days they used to do something, he looked at his watch and he says, well, well, well, like it came as a surprise. He said, it's now ten minutes after three and all the bars and liquor stores are closed and you don't have any booze in the house because I've checked. And he said, and you have 23 and a half hours of glorious sobriety.
And he said, before they open again, you'll have your first day. And I said, ooh, good. He said, now if you don't drink, he said, from now until Sunday night, I'll take you to meeting motion picture Sunday night group. I said, Larry, I'm, I'm anxious to go. He said, okay, don't drink. He said, because you got to be sober to understand what's going on. I said, I won't drink. He said, all right. Now I got people watching you and if you drink, they have instructions to kill you.
Didn't bother me a damn bit. You know, you talk to an alcoholic with a hangover and tell him he's going to get killed and he says, when? Hurry up already. Well, I didn't drink. I didn't drink. I got up the next morning and sticking to my door was under my door was a little piece of paper and I was a damn fool and I went over and got it. And it says, are you an alcoholic? and I went over and got it and it says are you an alcoholic and I thought the son of a bitch put that there sorry about that any and attacked to my
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windshield wipers was a couple of 20 questions and there was a few John Hopkins reports on the seat of the car and AA didn't have much literature in those days I knew just a moment I couldn't walk up to this meeting they had to help me up and standing in the doorway to this an elderly man and woman now it this is a spiritual meeting here this morning we're supposed to be talking about spiritual things and let me see if I can encapsulate for you the essence of spirituality that is Alcoholics Anonymous standing in the doorway as these four people helped me up the stairs because I was too weak from fear to walk I'm a nervous guy anyhow there was an elderly man and woman and he looked like he drank for 2,000 years he had a lumpy nose and broken veins and he looked like well he made WC Fields look like a Boy Scout and standing next to the woman bags under her eyes oh god they come down under a chin and she looked like Santa Fe all the way must get tell I could tell and this was the late Mildred and Charlie Morrison glorious glorious people who have passed on sober and I must pay tribute to them here now because I was so scared I couldn't think or decide or do anything and he grabbed my hand he said you knew I said yeah he said you're afraid I said yeah he threw his arm around my shoulders I know you feel and he pulled me away from the door he said I'm an alcoholic my name is Charlie Morrison's good good good he's gonna be all right it's gonna be all right and he got up real close to me where I could smell his breath and he wasn't afraid you know and he's gonna be all right he's gonna be all right gonna be all right he said that woman standing in the doorway is my wife now I didn't think he'd claim that broad ah and then he with a love that I'll never know how to pass on in a group but only one-to-one with his arm around my shoulder holding my hand he said to me the following words which will go with me to my grave he said I drank for 45 years and my wife standing there drank for 43 years and we tried everything to stop drinking and we could not and we came here to this group 19 months ago and we haven't had a drink since and I believed him and I want to tell you something if you see a man or woman with every mark that alcohol can put on them and they tell you that they drank for all those years and they came here 19 months ago and they don't drink anymore and you believe them there is no power on earth that can prevent you from becoming a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was started and a man get up and he made me laugh oh god how I love those laughs he told about urinating in a potted palm and when that guy started that story he started off with he said I had a girl lived on the eighth floor of an apartment house that had a slow elevator and a live potted palm in the lobby in a stone pot and I thought god almighty don't tell that he hadn't said anything yet and he said he drank beer and he'd get there late and he'd press the elevator and it took a long time and he couldn't wait and he'd zonk a little in the potted palm and he said after a while he noticed that the palm was over a little bit and over a little bit and over a little bit and he took the palm longer to die than Sarah Bernhardt and by the and I was at the beginning I was trying to crawl under the rug because I was ready to admit a lot of things but I didn't want to tell anybody that I had a palm too and you know before that meeting was over I was laughing and I was crying and I was truly and fully aware of a thing that the young people god bless all the young people here god bless you all because you put into words what we could not at that time describe I didn't know what I was doing at that first Sunday in January 1948 I was crying and laughing and I no longer had to put a mask upon my face to conceal what I felt I no longer had to put a mask on my face because I was unafraid to let you know that I too had similar experiences with a speaker the kids say it's so beautiful today let it all hang out yes here's a place where your greatest recommendation is everything that you have been beating yourself for all of your life here is a place where you can let it all hang out and say I am and I did and I was all the
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things that are terrible and terrible and we love you for it here is the only place in the world that will let you win with credentials that guarantee you get turned down every other place in the whole world we love you because of what you are and where you've been your deep dark past your deep dark past is your greatest asset here in Alcoholics Anonymous and I get started on this program and I worked like a beaver and my sponsor was at my side taking me to hundreds of meetings and I was sober for a long time and very active in this program I don't get to tell this story too often and I like to tell it to you here I think we have the time but I don't like to encapsulate it after nine years lady here sitting on the platform with me Carolyn Boozer nine years and eleven months and two weeks she sent me a card asking whether I would pick up my tenth birthday cake in my group and it was sitting on my dresser and I went home one night from an AA meeting and took two drinks of whiskey while I was reading the Reader's Digest and went to bed never thinking nothing nothing and when I woke up the next morning that terror hit me when I realized it wasn't a dream and I dialed my sponsor I said sponsor get right over here I've been drinking and he said I'll be right over in two minutes later he was there and he must have expected to find the basket case and he said good good it's all right he doesn't have to go any further and I was scared because I knew alcoholism is an insanity I knew those two drinks didn't mean anything I knew those drink two drinks only proved that I was insane and I had opened the door again and I was so scared and I started to that night I went to a meeting and I told all of the people what had happened and I remember that room I remember that room all the old-timers in Hollywood in those days sucked in their breath a Jack Lomas's house and said not you why not why not a week later I was to talk in front of the motion picture Sunday night group in front of 650 people I says I ain't I had a slip and I can't talk and they say you'll talk that's the way they did it in those days as you'll tell your home group about your slip and I get up and I told him and oh god that was a wonderful thing and I called up everybody from here to New York and back and Texas and anywhere I knew and I told them all about it and finally after I told everybody and I wore it on my sleeve like a black crepe for so long a man a beautiful beautiful man named Alan McGuinness who was passed on it was my baby came to me and he said now as you've told that to all of the people that is your responsibility to tell it to he said your sobriety date is all new and you and I know that and don't worry about it but he said for God's sakes until you get this in first proper perspective stop telling that story because what you're leading you're telling it so fast that you're leading a lot of people to believe that they might be able to take two drinks after a long period of sobriety and not go any further and that's terribly dangerous he said you don't know why you took those drinks and he said I suggest that you keep quiet about that for at least 18 months until you do and I said all right I'll do that well about 14 months later I went into a divorce and it was 28 months a terrible haggling and terrible emotional thing and I was out of my mind for 28 days and I didn't eat for 34 and I was down to 140 pounds and there was only one thing I knew I wasn't going to drink I wasn't going to drink the miracle was still here I wasn't going to drink I might die I might blow my brains out but I wasn't going to drink I knew it and I then started my work you know in Alcoholics Anonymous of course it was so tremendous in those days because I had to work twice as hard I realized that I'd missed something I didn't know why and what caused that for God's sakes I was a good member of AA go to meetings go to meetings I've been to so many meetings I'm at six a day babies I had them all over the place I was telling him what to do and they were doing it and they were staying sober and a sponsor went home and he read the Reader's Digest and drank two drinks and he went to bed he didn't even think now let me tell you what caused it all because I want to tell it very slowly and I want you to listen very carefully because it could happen to you and the reason I've told this every time I've told it is to prevent it from happening to you it's yours for free I had been married about the time I got on this program and now that I was sober I was determined to
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make that marriage go and we had three daughters and the marriage was a disaster area from the very beginning she was negative and I I didn't get along with her I didn't even like her and and it was one it was a terrible thing but I was determined to be a good father quote good husband and to do all those things to build those picket fences in the valley which I did and those boxes that the ivy grows out of them with the with the old bricks and to be you know every Saturday morning I had a gardener but every Saturday morning they'd ring a bell and everybody got on the lawnmower mow their lawn you know I was in the in group there and I was trying to fit in and trying to be what I thought a good father and a good husband and and a good man was and there was one flaw in that that finally came to me a couple of years after this incident that happened all that I did and all that I was trying to be was a lie and it was such a simple simple lie I'll tell you about it and I hope you can see it I was trying to be a good father and a good husband because I was so full of pride I was not able to admit that I was a failure in this most important area of life isn't it so terrible isn't it so terrible that the sin that can kill us all that piece that can take us apart and leave us nothing can always disguise itself as decency and goodness and almost sainthood pride I'm going to be a good father and a good husband and a good man and it was pride I was unable to admit that I was a failure in this most important area of life so I held on to pride now let me tell you and let me finish it as quickly as I can please I beg of you whoever you are wherever you are how long or how short you have been sober if you have that much pride in any area of your life I beg of you on my knees I beseech you get rid of it dig it out throw it away kill the cancer because that little pride will kill you and you will be dead in every department it must go and it had little piece it stayed and it didn't go and I'm lucky stand up here look at me the miracle that is alcoholic synonymous happened to me twice the miracle that some people can't get at all happened to me twice oh god how grateful I am how grateful I am if someone sees me running up and down a hall doing some work and I seem to have a harried look on my face oh god oh god how little that is a price to pay just to be a member of this fellowship make the coffee sweep the floor god almighty when you ask me to fold up the chairs that was a better offer than I had for ten years before I came oh how glorious it is to be a member of alcoholic synonymous oh how glorious it is I wanted to tell you that this morning because a few months ago I was elected the the chairman of the Southern California Convention and we're up there on the podium and it's a close vote and someone says Ed R. who's been sober 28 years and I said whoa baby before we take the vote let's get it all out and Joe Kirk is selling tapes of it in the lobby anytime you want to hear it I just didn't want those people to elect a fellow with 28 years of sobriety who really only had 18 so I put it on tape in case some of those critics those people would say I have fake son of a bitch anyhow I've been so lucky two things I'll tell you about I was so sick when I got here they used to call me up and send me on 12-step calls to empty lots and I would come back to the old 6300 Club to those old-timers screaming like a banshee that had been wounded and saying god damn it you fellows must have brain damage you just can't get the damn messages right I went out to 4352 South Van Ness Avenue to make a 12-step call on a man and and and it's an empty lot you got the message wrong and those old-timers would smile and they would smile, and they would be happy, and I didn't know why they were smiling and happy, and I do now, and I'll tell it to you. They knew that I was not yet fit to go on a twelve-step
[00:45:03]
call, but they were so happy that I was willing to go, because they knew that you don't have to go on a twelve-step call. You can go on a twelve-step call to an empty lot, and just because you went, it'll help your sobriety. And after a short time, the phone rang, and it was my sponsor, and he said, Go to 550 North Rossmore Avenue, Apartment 310. There's a drunk laying there, and I said, I'm not ready. I can't go, and he said, Don't give me philosophy. He said, Go, and he slammed the receiver, and in terror, I went, and I got outside. I had been having trouble with God. I went out to get outside of that apartment, and my legs grew weak, because I knew there was a real live drunk inside, and something, I might say, might cause that man's life to go one way or the other, and I leaned against the wall, and I said the shortest prayer I've ever known, I guess. I don't know what it was, but I think it was, God, please help me, but it was my most fervent, and if you're in total terror, you charge, and I didn't know what to do, and I was so scared, and I knocked at the door, and a weak voice came out, and I marched into that room, and laying on a bed, holding on, so we wouldn't bounce off. It was a little 89-pound guy, and I walked up to him with all the authority that I had, you know, and I said, Are you an alcoholic?
Jesus, he stopped us. I said, Do you want to quit drinking on an all-time basis? I said, Are you willing to go to any length to get it? And I was out of gas. I handle opposition real well, but agreement, oh God. I said, Is there a telephone near? And he said, Yes. I called up the 6300 Club. I said, This is Ed R.. I'm over 550 North Rossmiller Avenue, Apartment 310. I'm with a drunk, and I'm afraid somebody's going to jump out the window, and this Irishman says, Oh, Ed, they all say that. I said, I'm afraid it's going to be me. They said, We'll get a man right over. Two minutes later, a guy with 18 months of sobriety named Mike Laffin came in, talked to the drunk for a couple of minutes, looked over to me, and he says, I think we got a winner. Well, I started to breathe again, and we sat with that guy for two nights and three days, and we got him to a meeting at the 6300 Club. I believe it was a Wednesday night, and after the meeting, he was an attorney, and you can't trust attorneys. He gave me his card, and he said, Here's my office number. My wife has decided to take me back. I'm from Pasadena, and I'm going to join your organization out there, and he said, Thank you for all you've done for me, and I said, Okay, and I called that man every morning for over a year, and he was always sober, and he thanked me, and he was always sober, and he thanked me, and after a while, with the work of other things, I called him less and less and less, but about two years later, I wondered about him quite often, and I wasn't too sure. Maybe he was just a weekend drunk, but I only had his phone five days a week, and I didn't know, but I hoped it was what he said, and about two years later, I was asked to go out to the most terrifying group, the second most terrifying group in Alcoholics Anonymous, that thing in Pasadena at the Women's Club where you walked into that brown battleship, Linoleum Hall, and all those guys clipping the coupons with their gold scissors sat in the back, and they hadn't smiled since the wax museum was changed, and for a young kid like me, you know, they're still patting me on the head and saying, hey kid, you know, I was the youngest member of AA, and I was terrified, and I got there early because I didn't know what to do, and as I walked into that hall, this man, this man that I made the call on, weighing twice as much now, came rushing up toward me with some papers in his hand, and he threw his arms around me, and he kissed me, and he said, God damn it, sponsor, I was looking forward, I knew you were coming here tonight, I'm the secretary of this group, well, I just can't tell you, I just can't tell you how I, how I felt, how much it meant to me, and you know, just a few months ago, just two months ago, I was asked to go out to the women's club, South Pasadena, and hand that man his cake for 28 years of continuous sobriety. What a glorious day, what a glorious day, and you know, he stood up, and he said some things about me,
[00:50:10]
he said my sponsor did this for me, and my sponsor did that for me, and my sponsor followed me around, and he said so many things, and how much it benefited him, and I don't know whether I did all those things for him, or it was his imagination, but let me tell all of you here, please God listen, please God listen, because your life may depend on it. I don't know what I did for that man, but I know that that God above, that I feel on my skin, has given me more than I ever expected to get if I lived a thousand years. Let me tell you what that man did for me. By making that 12-step call, I started to regain my self-respect. I started to become a recipient of the promises in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. They promised me if I worked the steps and did all these things to the very best of my ability, the following things would happen to me. They promised me, number one, that I would regain my self-respect, the respect of my family and friends and business associates, that I would find a God of my very own, not to fear, just do these things and not intellectualize it, and one day I did wake up, and I knew that I had found a God of my very own, and to this minute I cannot explain that God to you. It is a feeling that is deep within me that is always with me. I can only tell the presence of that God so simply, I am not afraid.
If you see me up here on a podium sometime here or in Timbuktu, and I'm crying my eyes out, the Irish are that way. When we're so happy, we cry. I used to think that men didn't cry, and now I know they have it all mixed up. Boys don't cry when they grow up and become men, they're unafraid to cry. Don't be afraid to cry here. All these things started to happen to me, I found a God of my very own. They said, you'll mean something in your community, to your friends and to your family.
You'll put this AA program to work in every aspect of your life, in your business life, to the people you meet on the street. You'll be more courteous to those people at the traffic light. You'll be less mad and less pushy and less arrogant. AA will be with you all the time. You will be able to meet situations that baffled you, and they will not baffle you anymore. You'll walk through life with your head up and unashamed. You'll be able to know love. Ah, think of it, you'll be able to know love. I didn't know what love was when I came here. I didn't know that love was a giving, not a getting.
And I found out here that it's in the getting that it is. I don't have to get anything back, I just have to have an opportunity to give. That's what love is, and it's with me all the time. But you know, the drunks that wrote the book Alcoholics Anonymous saved the most amazing promise, I think, in 20 centuries for the end. They said if you do all these things to the very best of your ability, one day at a time in your daily life, one day after finding a God of your very own, after regaining your self-respect, after standing on your feet and taking your responsibilities in society, you will come to know and feel and be a part of heaven on earth. And I thought, my God, they're gilding the lily. It's just too much. And they said it will come about in a peculiar way. It will come about as a result of your experience and your humiliation and your degradation, the places you have been, because someday, as a result of your recovery on this program, you will be called to the bed of a sick and dying alcoholic.
I remember walking into a sanitarium with a guy who had that purple-blue-gray that precedes death all over his face. And if he looked up at me in the eyes, they said, please, oh God, please, not another preacher, not another doctor, not another priest, not another minister, not another judge, not another probation officer, not another superior being. Please don't let anybody lecture me. Just let me die.
And I didn't lecture him. I didn't tell him what he should do. I told him who I was and where I had been. And I reached down into my very guts and found the things about me that I most feared to tell. And I told them to him because his life depended on them.
[00:55:19]
And as I told him, I could see the light come back into his eyes. And I left him some literature. And he was a very, very sick man. And I visited him many times, morning, noon, and night, for about three weeks. And each time, he looked a little better. And he read the literature. And after about two weeks, he said to me, would you be my sponsor? And I said, I would be very happy to be your sponsor. And I brought him the AA book. And he read it. And he smiled when he saw me. And he did for me so much. And one day, it came to pass, a friend of mine says it, it came to pass.
I got him his clothes and went over to that hospital and helped him get dressed and took his arm and got him up from the bed. This member of the living dead, this hopeless one, this leper of all mankind, that was my brother. I got him dressed. And I put out my arm and my hand. And we walked out of that house of death, that hospital of the hopeless, into God's sunshine, into life as members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And his difficulties became mine. And his triumphs made me feel better. His interests became paramount to all that I had. We were members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we were walking through life arm in arm as brothers, each one a part, each one an equal. Each one of great meaning to the other. And I saw that man go through every difficulty that a man can go through as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I held him in my arms a few minutes before he died at 80 pounds of cancer.
And he kissed me. And he said, Spence, it's all been worth it. He said, our friends are praying for a miracle for me. And he said, you and I know the miracle has happened. I said, yes. He said, let's think about the miracle just a little bit. And we did. And the miracle was so simple. His friends were all praying that there would be a remission of this cancer. And that the suffering that he had, he would get better. And he and I knew that he would not.
And the miracle was that the deal was not as he would have chosen. The miracle was that he took what was delivered to him. He took his cross and he put it on his shoulder. And he said, thank you, God, for all you have given me. Thank you, God, for all you have given me. And thank you for this cross. Thank you for this cross. Please send me the courage to bear it. And he died. And every time I wonder, or every time I'm afraid, or every time something shakes me, I just say simply this. May I in my greatest days, may I in my best moment, may I when I'm more than I think I ever can be, let me be half of what he was on the day he died. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you.
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