DICOBE-00527 – Clarence S – WICHITA KANSAS SPRING RNDP – 1979-04-15

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Source: DICOBE-00527 – Clarence S – WICHITA KANSAS SPRING RNDP – 1979-04-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00527-clarence-s-wichita-kansas-spring-rndp-1979-04-15.mp3 Duration: 00:52:32

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So what happened? Along came this priest. This priest was a man of the world, and he'd seen people drunk and rolled before, and he had very little sympathy for them, so he looked at that bird and he says, good enough for that dirty, stinking, drunken bum. He got himself in that shape, let him get himself out of it. It is, will not become involved. So he crossed over on the other side and left that guy alive there in his misery. Along came this Levite. He was also a man of the world. Same thing that the priest said, that dirty, stinking, drunken bum. He got himself in that shape, let him get himself out of it. You know we hear that today yet, you know that? It was common in the days I first came in. Okay, he passes by on the other side. Along came this Samaritan fella. Now the Samaritans were not the outstanding citizens of that time, but this fella was a traveling salesman, I'll prove that to you. And he came along on his form of conveyance, which probably was not a Chevrolet, it was probably a mule. And he saw this bird lying there, and what did he do? Did he pass him by? No. He says he got down off of his form of conveyance and he ministered to him. What does it say he gave him in the Bible? He gave him a drink.

He gave him the medicine he needed. And did he leave him to lie there? Nope. He picked him up and put him on his form of conveyance and took him to the Holiday Inn. Or he took him to an inn anyway. And here's how I know they're all rummies, and he's a salesman. He says to this innkeeper, he says, Mr. Innkeeper, here is some money. You notice he gave the money to the innkeeper, not the drunk. He says, take care of this fellow, and if there be any more due, I will repay you on my next visit, which means he was a traveling salesman making that territory right of way. That's the first twelve-step call on record.

There are other good rummy stories in the Bible, but I just mentioned a couple of them to let you know this has been going on a long time. Why do people walk in here, or stumble in here, or fall in here, or roll in here, or what have you, or get chased in here? And they quit drinking. Why? All down through the centuries, there have been millions and millions and millions of alcoholics who have stumbled across the face of this earth, and they have existed and died in alcoholism and in misery, and in many instances carried some of their own family and friends down with them. There was never any chance for these people. When you look back over these many eons of time, thousands of years, the alcoholic had two options. He could go crazy, or die, or both. About 40 years ago, I think God looked down upon this bunch of rummies, and he said, you know, I've got to do something for those birds. And he directed this fellowship of ours coming to being. And he picked some of the most unlikely people to put it into being, too. Not the smart people, the wise ones, the educated, and all this sort of thing. He picked a bunch of run-of-mind rummies, and out of that came this program. And you'll know now, after all these thousands of years, for the last 40 years, the rummy has a third option. He can go crazy, he can die, or he can get well. You and I are privileged to have this third option. It's a good idea for you tonight, before you go to sleep during your prayer time, ask yourself, why me, and not all those other people? Something to think about, something to concern yourself with, something to be awful thankful for. You know what happened in this program? This is what they used to call in the Oxford movement, a life-changing program. And this is a life-changing program. We are not looking here for a religion. We all have our own, or we grew it out, whatever.

We are not looking for religion, we are looking for redemption, and that's what we get here. Now, here's the way it works. We have a 12-step program, which we took from the Oxford group's six-step program. Their program is the same as we have, only, as I say, we expanded into 12 steps. Our program is divided into four phases. And let me say this, it's a foolproof program, except for the damn fools. It'll work, if we accept it as the book orders us

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to do. There's something it says in our fifth chapter. It says, if you want what we have,

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and are willing to go to any lengths to get it, you are now ready to take certain steps. Did you get that? This means no reservation. Now, what are the certain steps? The steps are divided into four phases. The first phase is the first step. That's the phase of admission. I admitted I was powerless over alcohol, and, there's two things here, and that my life had become unmanageable. Well, obviously, if I can't manage my life, I have to hire a manager. So this comes next. The second step, and through the seven steps is the second phase of our program. That's the phase of submission. This is where we submit our will and our life to the care of our new manager, whom I choose to call God. There's only one God. I don't know anything about these other gods people talk about. They're all dead ones.

I got a live one. So I hear people come in here, what about the Buddhists? What about the Mohammedans? What about them? What about them? They want to worship dead gods. That's their business. But if they want this program, they better get between with mine. It says they're in the program. If they don't like it, well, that's their choice. It says, if you want what I have, if you want what we have, and are willing to go to any lengths, believe me, they're not going to take that step unless they hurt. So if they hurt badly enough, they'll forget all about their dead ones and take on a live one. I found that to be very true. The second step says, I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I came to believe it. That didn't mean I believed that when I got here. How did I come to believe that this power could help me? Through the example of these men who preceded me. They inspired me. They told me that this God had helped them, and it would help me if I asked him and did certain things. So I wanted to believe it. That's how I came to believe it. So it says there, I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I hear some of the brethren start to yell and holler about sanity and say, I'm not nuts. You're not? If you're not nuts, you don't belong here. This is the greatest collection of nuts in the world. Believe me.

So they give me some guff about being nuts or not nuts. I just refer to some of the things they did in their drinking career and ask them if those are the antics of a sane person. That gets them. Well anyway, step three. Here's the one that really gets them. This is a step to decide whether you're going to be in AA or around AA. Unfortunately, there's more people around AA than there are in AA. And here's why. In that third step, it says we made a decision. That in itself is something for Rummy to do. We're the most indecisive people in the world. I made a decision. What was this decision? To turn my will and my life over to the care of my new manager. Oh boy. Am I going to turn my will and my life over to this ethereal creature way out in the blue like yonder, whom I know very little about and been running away from and scared to death of? No, sir. Not unless I hurt a whole lot. But if I hurt enough that I'm willing to do anything, I'll do this. Now, this is the step that separates the men from the boys. You're either going to be in it or around it, depending on step three. So I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, my new manager. Okay, if I'm going into business with a new manager, I better find out if I have anything to go with. So we take an inventory. Anybody who is in business has to take an inventory. You've got to have stock to handle. So it says there in the fourth step, I made a fearless and searching moral inventory of myself. Now, what does that mean? Moral inventory. A lot of people screw this fourth step up something awful.

They had an idea that they have to sit down and write down every stinking lousy thing they ever did in their life. This is not what the fourth step calls for at all. Forget it. Actually, I can't remember every lousy stinking thing I ever did in my life in the first place. And it's pointless to write it down. It means what characteristics do I have that are killing me and harming me and making me a bum? What do I have to get rid of? Also, what do I have that's going my way that's good for me? I have some decent characteristics or I wouldn't be here in the first place. So we have to do what Bing Crosby said, you accentuate the positive. So you go work on the characteristics you have, get rid of that other garbage. Okay. The fifth step says we admit it to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. What did we admit? Not,

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not anything but the exact nature of our wrongs, not the wrongs themselves, the exact nature of our wrongs. Did I gossip? Did I lie? Did I steal? Did I on and on and on and on? There's a whole list of them. These are the things we've got to get rid of, those tendencies. So I admit it to God, myself, and another human being. Why another human being? Frankly, I don't think there's any rummy worthy of the name who has the capacity to take that fourth and fifth step by himself. He needs a, he needs a knowledgeable, loving sponsor to help him, to share with him in order he can bring out these things of himself. He don't want to admit what a bum he is. He don't want to admit some of these things, these, these shortcomings. But when I am sponsoring someone, I share with this bird, it makes it easy for him to do it. Another thing, why it takes three people, it's scripturally correct. It says in the good book, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will I be also. There's your basis for it, scripturally. All right, the sixth step says this, we were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Says we're entirely ready, not kind of ready or about to get ready or making, maybe ready, entirely ready. An alcoholic's entirely in everything he does. When he works, he works hard. He plays, he plays hard. And when he gets drunk, he makes a career out of it. So we have to be entirely ready for this. All right. It says we're entirely ready to have God remove. I can't remove them, I'm powerless over them. So it says in the good book, anything I ask believing, I'll receive it. So I have to believe that. So he'll take it away. That's up to him. That's my manager's job. I give him a lot of jobs to do because I'm unable to do them. Then it says we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. I'm very frank to admit there's several defects of character I'd like to keep. They're fun things. But coming into this program, we don't have that latitude. It has to be the whole caboodle if we want to get any place. Yes, you can kid yourself. You're going to miss an awful lot if you don't go the whole way. All right. Step seven says we humbly asked him to remove these shortcomings. The shortcomings. Humbly asked him. No deal. When I was drinking, I'd get in some kind of a jam. I'd say, oh dear God, get me out of this mess. I'll be a good boy. I'll never drink again. I'll never run out with Sadie Glutz again. I'll be a true husband. I'll be all the, you know, all that stuff. Never worked. Never worked. No humility about that. I'm trying to make a deal. You don't make a deal with God. Okay. We've gone through seven steps. We've had submission. We've had admission and submission. Now the third phase of our program is restitution.

For going into a new life, we got to clean up the wreckage of the past. It says in the good book, clear the wreckage of the past. We have to do, we've harmed some people in our past and we have to make, make amends. So it says in, listen to what it says in this step. It says that we made a list of all persons we had harmed. Now here's what's important in this step. And became willing to make amends to them all. That attitude of willingness to make amends to everybody is what's important. I remember a couple of people in particular, I didn't even want to see. Let alone go around and apologize to. But I had to do it. And I'm glad I did. That's behind me. And it was a frightful thing for me to do this. I didn't want to, but I had to do it. And I'm glad I did because those people are dead and gone now. And I had the opportunity to do that. Now there are some people we can't. It says in the next step, we may direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. There are people we cannot make direct amends to. They're not in our orbit anymore. They moved away. They're dead. There's what have you. We can't get to them. What do we do in that case? That's what I got a manager for. Let the manager take care of that. Ask him and he'll take care of that. That's his job. Boy, you know, God is big G. Let, let George do it.

He's a, he's the boss. Let him do it. He'll do anything we ask him. Okay. So we finished our restitution. And this is awfully, awfully important. People don't realize how important this restitution is. You know, let me give you an example. This is a rather extreme example, but we are extreme people. Some years ago, I used to live over in St. Petersburg, Florida. Years ago, I used to live over in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I spent a lot of time over in Tampa, which was just across the bay from there, and, uh, I met a young fellow over there, a nice personable guy, and he was doing a good job there, working every day and doing his AA jobs, and he married a little girl there, a young girl, and they seemed to be getting along all right, and that went on for a year or so,

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finally she went back to her home in Tennessee, and he, he disappeared, and I didn't see this fellow for a long time, several years later, I was walking down the street in Sarasota, Florida, and I ran right smack dab into this boy, and man, he looked like the wrath of God, he was run down at the heel, he was scared, he was emaciated, he was looking over his shoulder, he was in rags, and he says, Clarence, of all people, you're the guy I want to see, I have to talk to you. I says, okay, kid, let's go over and talk, so we went into a hotel lobby, and he started telling me a tale of woe.

Well, let me tell you, this is a little extreme, as I told you, this fellow, some of you folks might know, or may or may not, but you know now, you will know, a lot of those land developments in South Florida were financed by the Mafia, and he got a job working for one of those outfits, and he was an old man, and he started for the bank one day to get the payroll, and he never came back. Well, the Mafia takes a dim view of these acrobatics, and they were looking for him, and they were prepared to fit him with a concrete overcoat in the bottom of the Gulf, if they find him, when they find him.

Now, another thing, he'd been married five times. He had kids with four of his wives. He never had any wife die, and he never had any divorces. This is not all. He had knocked over a couple of drug stores, and he's walking around looking behind and waiting for somebody to nail him for that. The IRS had a little thing out about him, too, you know. He hadn't paid anything to them for a long time. There are a few more little ditties that he had. This guy had some restitution to take care of. Do you think he could have done that by himself? He'd be in the bottom of the Gulf now. He needed help, and I think everyone who goes out to do restitution work needs help.

At that stage of the game, no alcoholic should attempt it, because he can be so harmful to other people. This goes along the story of this. A lot of people say to me, when is the person supposed to take these steps? I have a very simple answer to that. You're sick, aren't you? Yeah. Well, when do you want to get well? St. Patrick's Day? Fourth of July? Christmas? New Year's? Oh, I want to get well now. Well, then we take the medicine now. You mean you take him on the 12 steps right now? Why not? You want him to die first? He's been sick long enough. Let's get him well.

If you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths, any length with me is start right now. You may not live till next week or next month or next year, whenever these people talk about it. I'm sure you'll take him now. It's imperative. All right. We have taken nine steps. Listen very carefully. I said we have taken them. We haven't just read them or talked about them. We've taken nine steps. Something has happened to us.

Forget those nine steps. You never have to be concerned about them again. Only in two instances in your life will you ever have to refer to the first nine steps once you have taken them. Remember that. The first instance is if you ever decide to resign and resume, obviously you have to start all over again. The other instance is when you have to know about them is when you're trying to explain them to somebody like I'm trying to do. You have to know what they're all about.

But as far as working them, you've worked them. You've done them. Every one of those steps demanded us do something. We did it. Our life has changed. We're different people. Entirely different. Now we get into the last phase of our program. We've had admission, submission, restitution. Now we're ready to live. Hallelujah. The tenth step is an inventory. We live on the last three steps. We never bother with these others anymore. The tenth step is another inventory step. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fourth step. The fourth step is an inventory step and it says we've made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Don't say that in the tenth step.

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It says we continue to take personal inventory. And another thing it says, and when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it. Can you imagine an alcoholic ever admitting when he's wrong? This is a great departure. I'll tell you how important this step is. I'm very simple the way I take my tenth step. I look over. This is a check on our daily living. You know, you ask most people about this day at a time squib you see written on walls and stuff around AA meetings. Ask them what that means. The majority will say to you, it means I stay sober a day at a time. Horse feathers.

That isn't what it means at all. It says I'm living a day at a time. It's a living program. It's not a sober program. Did you know that alcohol is only mentioned once in our twelve steps? That's in the first step. It says nothing about drinking or drinking or not drinking in the whole program. But it says an awful lot about changing our life. So, okay, we get out of this tenth step. I want to tell you how important it is. Taking this daily inventory and checking ourselves. It isn't the big things in life that throw the alcoholic. Believe me, Kish, I have met thousands of rummies, and I don't know of any rummy that I ever came in contact with who ever went off the deep end because of some big calamity happening in his life.

The alcoholic is always looking for something big. Everything's a big deal with a rummy. Everything. Everything is a big deal. Boy, oh boy, how many big deals do you ever have happen to you anyway? Count them sometimes on your fingers. Well, you're born. That's a big deal. You had nothing to do with it but arrive. Maybe you had a good education. This would be a big deal to me. Prepare yourself for a good living. Maybe you've got advancement in business or in your work. I'd say that's a big deal. Maybe you inherited a million dollars. How many people here inherited a million dollars? The woods is full of them, you see. No big deal.

Every time you get married, it's a big deal. Every time. It's the love of a lifetime. Have a family, that's a big deal. Okay. You die. That's the last one. Some people cry for a while, they'll miss you for a while, but life goes on. There's no person who can't be replaced. That's the end. Now then, it's the little deals that you and I are concerned with. Every day of our life, scores of little things and occurrences happen to us. How we handle our relationships with one another and with business and so forth is what's going to determine what's going to happen in our life. It's the little things, not the big things.

You know, this tenth step is so important. Let me give you an example. A lot of you folks probably know this. Several years ago, when the New York office issued the one millionth copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous book, they presented that book to President Nixon, and he accepted it very graciously, and it was a nice thing, good publicity for us, and it was fine. It was a nice way he did it. It's too bad that man didn't read that book.

You know, if President Nixon read this book and done this tenth step, I'll bet you all the tea in China he would still be in the White House today. I'm going to tell you why. Here's what happened. Nixon wasn't any worse than any of the rest of them down there. He was a politician, and a politician has enemies, and there are people who have been shooting at him for a long time. Okay. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and what did he try to do? He tried to lie out of it. So he tells one lie, and he gets screwed up and starts to tell another one. What does he know about lying? He's not an alcoholic. Strictly an amateur.

First thing you know, he met himself coming back the next day. He was down to shoot. Now, if he had taken this tenth step, and when he got caught on this thing that happened, which after all wasn't such a big deal anyway, but they made it out of it, and it ruined him, he'd have said,

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All right, fellas, I did it. I'm sorry. Forgive me. That man would still be in the White House. I'll tell you why. Nobody would put the boots to you, and it disarms people when you do that to them. I have had the thing happen to me. Not in such an extent that he had, but to me it was a big extent. They can't do anything to you. It disarms people. They don't kick you. They don't beat you. That's the end of it. That man would still be there. That's how important that tenth step is. That keeps our life straight every day, number ten.

Eleventh step's got a lot of words in it. It says, We're seeking something. Has thought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God. Praying only for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out. Let's break it down. Says, I'm seeking something through prayer and meditation. What is prayer and what is meditation? To me, prayer is talking to my new manager. Meditation is listening to him. The good Lord gave me two ears and one mouth, which ought to suggest something. Really.

No use me doing all the talking. I better do some listening. If I listen, I'll get the answers. There's no thing I ever ask my manager for that I don't get an answer for. I may not like all the answers, but I get an answer. See? He knows better than I do, and his timetable's different than mine. All prayer is answers. Sometimes it's no, sometimes it's later, sometimes it's maybe, sometimes fine, right now. That's up to him. He's the manager, I'm not.

Okay? So I'm seeking through talking to him and listening to him. What am I seeking? To improve my conscious contact with him. What does that mean? I must feel that he's right here. He's not way out in that blue yonder where he's inaccessible. He's right here. He's as close to me as grace. I can touch him, I can talk to him, I can get answers from him. I have to believe this. Otherwise he's no manager of mine. I'm going to run my show myself if I don't. I have to believe this. So I'm seeking through talking to him and listening to him to improve my conscious contact. Now it tells me what I'm praying for.

Ask the average rummy, Jameet, in AA, what he prays for every day. He says, Dear God, keep me sober today. Don't ever do that. That's a silly-ass thing to do. Don't ever say that if you've gone through these steps, because that's an affront to your manager. Because you've turned your will and your life over to him. If I've done that, he's going to give me things to do, and getting drunk is not one of them. So I don't have to pray for sobriety. I got sobriety. I'll thank him for it, but I want to know what he wants me to do.

I'm your boy. Send me. And give me the strength to do it. The good book tells me that he'll never put anything on me that he won't give me the power to execute. I have to believe that, too. And I do believe it. He's given me power that I never had. Things that I've done, I never had any power or capacity to do. I've done. It wasn't me. He did it. I have to believe this, and I do believe it. I've been around here long enough to know the truth of that. If any of you people think you're smarter than I am, you're crazy. You're no smarter and you're no dumber either than I am. We're all cut from the same cloth.

The only difference between us is every person sitting in this room is in a different stage of development. We start out in this fellowship. We start out in the kindergarten. We go into the first grade. We go through grammar school. We go into high school. We go into college, and we keep on taking PG courses the rest of our life. That's this program. It's a program of continuous growth and development.

I've had 41 years' opportunity to do this, and probably more opportunities than most people. I've had a lot of things that I'd rather do otherwise, but I have a good life. I have a great life. I wouldn't trade it with anyone. I told you how I came in here. I didn't even have a suit of clothes. I didn't have an overcoat. I had nothing. Heart shaft and marks, 175 bucks. You know, I have a nice home. I have a good family life. I have good friends. I have everything that any person could ask for.

A new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Behold, all things are become new. How about that? Any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Boy, if that isn't our situation, you tell me what is. That old life is gone. Everything's new. Everything.

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You know, I'm standing here seventy-six years old, and I'm younger today than I was when I got here when I was thirty-five. Really. And I have younger ideas and I have, I have fun. I always had no fun in those days. I've learned how to live, and I do live. Why? Because of that second Corinthians. There's chapter seventeen verse. Everything's new. And all that stuff's gone. I want no part of that other stuff. I had my fill of it before I got here. I had my fill of it and quit over forty-one years ago. And I can't look back with any nostalgia on anything that happened to me in my drinking career.

I'd rather think of some of the wonderful things that have happened to me in the last forty-one years. It hasn't been all beer and skittles these forty-one years. There's been a lot of, a lot of misery. I've had a lot of joy and I've seen a lot of sorrow. I've seen tragedy and I've seen all kinds of wonderful things happen to people. I've lived all through it. There's nothing that can, that's happened in this human race that I haven't experienced in these forty-one years with people, believe me.

And this has all been done as an amateur, where you get right with people. They're my friends, they're my people, my brothers, my sisters. Now, this program changed everything for me and it can change everything for anyone who comes in here if he comes in qualified. If you come here an alcoholic and you're willing to do anything, as the fifth chapter says, and you take these nine steps and live on the last three, you can't possibly ever drink again if you stay with that program. It's impossible.

It's only the people who come in and have reservations or get too smart for the rest of us dummies that get in trouble. I don't say that this hasn't happened. I know two boys that stayed sober over thirty years and got drunk. One of them's dead, the other one's fighting his way back. The other fella never made it back. Killed him. He was an immense success in life, too. Well, now, having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message, now listen to this, to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Did you notice that it says other alcoholics? One thing you and I have to be very, very alarmed about today is what's happening in some of the AA groups around this country and out of this country. Believe me, kids, I can tell you because we see them. Grace and I get around a good deal. You see what's happening some places. You and I have a ministry of working with alcoholics. There's been a lot of spinoffs, and I'm all for them. I think it's great. We have Gamblers Anonymous, we have Fatsos Anonymous, we have Narcotics Anonymous, we got Nosepickers Anonymous, we got all kinds of Anonymouses.

That's great, and I'm glad. They should stay over there in their own ballywick and not this one. They don't belong here. You and I have enough to do to work with alcoholics, and that's what we're specialized in, and we're all specialists in it. You and I are the people who, after all these centuries, have had this opportunity, and unless we use this talent, we're going to lose it. The old parable of talents, kid. If you have a talent, you're supposed to use it or you lose it.

And it should be a joy to us to use it. It's always been a joy to me. I have been doing this for a long, long time and started from behind scratch. Grace and I have a peculiar ministry in AA today. We don't get new people. We get people who have been around AA, and they look at her, and they will see something different there than what they're having or they see in other people. And they want what she has, and they come to her and ask her. So she brings them home, and I qualify them. And if they qualify according to what our fifth chapter calls for, willing to go to any lengths, I will take them through their first three steps.

They'll get their first three steps like I got mine on their knees, kid, and they'll never forget it. We have never lost one yet. You can ask her. She'll tell you. We've had a lot of them. I don't take any vows for that. It's just a matter of following this program the way it's laid out.

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There's no reason in the world why any alcoholic who means business and comes in here will accept this program and has taught this program properly and indoctrinated it properly. There's no reason why she'd ever drink again. That should be behind him forever. It's a new life, a new world, new people. We're all new. What do you think? You see this crowd of people sitting here, look at you all, all dressed up, got your faces shined up, got your go-to-meeting clothes on, everything wonderful, you're feeling good, looking good, enjoying life. What do you think would happen if all of these monkeys in here would revert all at one time now?

That disaster we had down at Bill's house where Bill got blown away down there, he's got his house blown away. This place would get blown away too. The rummies, geez, we'd move this thing over to St. Louis somewhere. No, but they're not going to do that. We have a great power here, and we have a great power for good. And you and I are privileged to exercise this power. We're privileged to help people, and no one in the world has a chance to help but you and I. Now, what are we going to do about it? You want to live and have a good life? I've just tried to tell you how to do it. It's so simple.

There's nothing tough about it. This is easy program. We have to have an easy program. There's nothing hard. When somebody tells you this is a hard program, tell them he's nuts. When I came to this fellowship, I wasn't capable of accepting a hard program. I had nothing to fight with. I was whipped, mentally, morally, spiritually, and what have you. There was nothing left in there. Only the will to live and the willingness to do whatever was told me to do. That's all. My manager and my associates managed to put me on the path. I had to do my part, and I have.

People come in here and they doubt. They doubt. Well, I don't blame people for doubting. Faith begins with doubting. And if we doubt, we're going to investigate. And if we investigate, the truth will come. And the truth will set us free. So doubting is all right when you arrive here. But when it's explained to you, doubts end. Why should anyone doubt when they have these examples in front of them, such as I'm looking at tonight?

Yeah, they'll investigate. But when they investigate, they'll get the faith. What is faith? We all have a measure of it a little bit, not too much. All we have to do is use what we have and help it to increase. And if we do as we're supposed to do, fine. If we don't, if we want to stay in the darkness, that's something else again. You know, we can forgive a child for being afraid of the dark, you know. We can forgive that. But the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light.

Don't ever forget that. We have the light here. We don't have to live in darkness anymore. We have the answer to a real quality of life, something that a good many people never will have a chance to have. And a lot of people think they're getting along all right, ordinary civilian people. They'll never enjoy the fruits of living like you and I can. I don't think we should look down on those people for that. Sometimes I pity them.

People, I hear people come to AA and they're so damn afraid to let anybody know they belong to this fellowship. They think this is some secret society, afraid to tell anybody they belong. This one here, every place she goes, she tells them she's an alcoholic, belongs to AA. Has it hurt her any? I laughed at her one time. You know, we'd only been married for seven years. And when we were going to get married, she got, she went shopping around to find a suitable dress to wear for the wedding. See, I got her out of North Carolina swamps and she never even had shoes before.

So she went over to Daytona Beach to one of those fancy gowny shoppies and immediately this lady who's taking care of her, the wait on her, Grace tells her right away that she's an AA. Oh, the lady says, you are? She says, yeah, so am I, she said.

[00:40:12]

She says, I'm going to get married. She says, who are you going to marry? I said, I'm going to marry Clarence S.. Oh, you're going to marry Clarence S.? Clarence is an old friend of mine. Yeah, I belonged to his group over in St. Petersburg years ago. In fact, he figured in our divorce. It's almost finished, isn't it? She says, and how is that? She says, well, you know, while we were going to group over in St. Petersburg, we adopted a little tomcat, a little kitten as a tomcat. And we named him after Clarence. His name is Clarence.

And when our divorce came up, there wasn't any big argument about who got the furniture and the money. Who got Clarence? So that's how I figured in the divorce. Saved again by the bell. Don't be afraid to tell people. This anonymity stuff that some people talk about is absolutely ridiculous. What does anonymity mean? To me, I'll tell you what it means. I don't care who in the world knows I'm an AA. I've done this way for 41 years. I tell everybody.

How in the world do you think you'd have an AA if somebody hadn't gone out and told everybody about it? See? As far as I'm concerned, you're privileged to tell anybody in the world that Clarence S.'s a member of AA. But I have no right to go out and tell anybody that you belong without your permission. That's all AA means. Nothing else. Have no fear. We should not fear anything. You know, I'm getting hoarse. I've enjoyed talking to you. I'd better shut it off now. They might want me to talk later. It's been a great pleasure being here. And it's a great pleasure to see some of my friends from Oklahoma here and other places. It's wonderful. Some people came all the way over here from Oklahoma to visit us here tonight.

And I appreciate that. And it's the old Bill over here. Remember, imagine that guy got his house blown away and he's here doing the taping of this thing. I think he needs a hand. He and Arbutus were the first people we saw when we got in here this morning when we walked into the restaurant. And he told me about it. They lost everything in his house but his tape library. I told him when the trouble is, all that wind out of those tapes, he couldn't hurt them any and all that. Had some resistance.

But there's a great guy over there. He spends his life going around doing this kind of work. And that's wonderful. He's found his niche. It's awful nice when we find our niche. Well, thank you all for listening and God bless you all. Good night. God bless you all. Good night. God bless you. That is good.

[00:52:21]

A.S.S. A.S.S. A.S.S.