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Source: DICOBE-00651 – Jim G – NORTH CAROLINA STATE CONF – 1977-07-25.mp3 File: dicobe-00651-jim-g-north-carolina-state-conf-1977-07-25.mp3 Duration: 00:57:23
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God, the time has come. Good morning, everyone. I'm Jim Griffin and my name is Jim Griffin and I am an alcoholic. I brought some notes with me. One of them says, you damn fool, don't talk too long because you've got to catch a plane at two. This has been a beautiful weekend. I don't know of any weekend that I've enjoyed more. I've been with wonderful people. The accommodations were beautiful. I made a fool of myself in the restaurant eating. I'm trying to lose weight but you wouldn't have guessed it to watch me. I've listened to a lot of wonderful speakers this weekend and now you have to put up with me.
Coming in the other day, I don't know whether it was into Atlanta or into here, I've forgotten, but I noticed a golf course and it reminded me of a couple of golf stories. You know golf addicts are as bad as alcoholics. If you'll bear with me I'd like to tell you a couple of stories about golfers. This one golfer found that he heard of this cruise that he could take and they'd stop at different islands and he could play golf on these islands. He booked a passage on this cruise and they'd hit a couple of islands and they'd played golf and back on the ship and cruise into another island and the storm came up and wrecked the ship and he woke up on a deserted island laying on the beach. He investigated the island and there was no other person on there. There was fruit. He could subsist and he thought well there'll be a boat by and pick me up but time went on weeks and months and finally a year and finally it was two years on by and he never seen a soul and he'd pretty well prepared himself that just that it was going to be a long time before anybody discovered him and he was walking down the beach one day one morning early one morning and oh my god all of a sudden here's this beautiful blonde in a real skinny bikini and he says my god I've been the only person on this island for over two years you're a sight for sore eyes this is wonderful oh I'm so glad to see you and she said you mean you've been here for two years all by yourself he said that's right a little over two years she's all for gonna say she's I'll bet you'd like a cigarette he said oh I said I sure would sure would she feasting this little skinny bikini and she pulled out a cigarette match and lit it for him and he was dragging on this cigarette and she says two years you've been here all by yourself he said that's right just a little few days over two years she's I bet you'd like to have a little drink oh he said I sure would she reached in a little skinny old bikini and she pulled out a little flask and she gave him a drink and he's sitting there sipping this drink and smoking a cigarette and she says two years and all by yourself he said a few days more than two years I've been all by myself she's I bet you'd like to play around he said you don't mean tell me you got a set of clubs that little old bikini some people sick and it seems one time that Jesus and Moses decided to come down and play a little golf you see Jesus was quite a fan of Arnold Palmer and had watched him from his very beginning of his playing golf and watched him go up and win all these tournaments and he's quite a fan and they were down playing golf and they come to this one water hazard and on the course and Jesus took out a seven iron and Moses said don't you think you should use a five iron to get over that water hazard Jesus said Arnold Palmer to use the seven iron and that's what I'm going to use so he hit the ball and plunk right in the center of the pond Moses walks out separates the water picks up the ball takes it back to Jesus he says now don't you think you ought to use a five iron he says no Arnold Palmer use the seven iron that's what I'm going to use so he hit the ball again plunk right in the water this time Jesus walks after the ball he walks out on the water reached down in picks up the ball and about this time a couple comes walking up had caught up with him on the fairway and they noticed this and he said to Moses said who does he think he is Jesus Christ Moses said no he thinks he's Arnold Palmer
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you know dot and Willie last night talking about small towns graduating class of seven and the graduating class of ten I believe they said well I was born near a small town didn't even have a high school in fact it was so small when they issued the zip code to put a decimal point in front of it I'd like to thank the host committee for inviting me and you and Dave my wife Irene sends her love she wished she could make it she'd would like to have came along but she was babysitting three grandchildren while my daughter and her husband took a four-day weekend in Denver and Colorado in the mountains I think my son-in-law has a little bit of a problem he's came to me several times and but he still likes his beer and he's been involved in a little trouble and not serious but accidents that were none called for while he was under the influence right now he's under doctor's care and minister and psychiatrist and I hope he found that finds our program it's been a while since he's had a beer now he's never come to a meeting but that's another story and that's for him I was a working drunk they say you had to have money to buy whiskey so I had to work to get the money and I had to watch it and I had to control my drinking so I could continue to work enough to have money enough to buy the booze now I don't want you to think I was one of them low bottom drunks I drank the best I was born in a farm in Kansas raised in Kansas and I drank the best Canyon run bottle in the barn and block and tackle to those of you haven't had the opportunity to drink any block and tackle tell you what's like you drink good good slug at block and tackle and walk a block and you'll tackle anything you see in Kansas they was dry I supposedly until 1948 so if you bought a pint I got you had to drink it right away or get caught with it like I did one time and got put in jail in Wichita for possession and I haven't even cracked the seal on the bottle and damn that made me mad didn't even have a drink out of it they took it away from me and cost me 96 bucks and I didn't have the 96 bucks and I asked him if I could use telephone and they said yes I tried to get a fellow at home and no answer so call me a lawyer and he showed up at the jail told him my predicament I said I think like if you get all this friend of mine he'll get the money whatever cause and he said okay said I'll take care of it and I said fine I said I'll wait right here he kind of grinned at that and I never thought about how it sounded till after I said it one fella said in time at the factory he had a guy that was he thought was drinking too much and the guy at home the factory was he liked his booze he said now it's all right for a man to have an eye-opener in the morning when he gets up that's understandable and the middle of morning he's entitled to one and of course he's entitled to a shot before he has his lunch and after working a while in the afternoon he's entitled to a shot and he's entitled a few highballs in the evening after he gets off work but this damn sipping sipping sipping has got to stop you know we've heard of a lot of stories about drinking and and things we see that weren't that aren't there and and saying things we see that are there and we've heard of the snake pit and snakes and I want to I
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want to tell you that really snakes are just as scared of us as we are of them and they're innocent just like we are at times now you take a baby has to learn to talk little snake has learned to hiss and it said you know they live in pits well was this story this little snake and he would just learn to hiss and he was hissing in the pit and he was just hissing up a storm and his mother said for God's sake you're driving me up the wall said if you want to do your hissing hiss outside quit hissing in the pit so a little snake went outside and it was raining and it was uncomfortable and pretty soon he was back hissing in the pit and his mother said I thought I told you to go outside he said mom it's raining it's uncomfortable out there get all wet she's okay he said go over to Claire's house over her pit and hiss in her pit all you want to little snake left crawled over there through the range as fast as he could into Claire's snakes pit and start hissing well he was hissing up a storm over there and Claire's snake didn't like that too well and she said what are you doing here she said go back and hiss in your own pit so she kicked him out and back home he went crawling his own pit and started hissing and his mother said hey said I thought you sent you with Claire he said she sent me home she said I couldn't hiss in her pit she said you go back and hiss in her pit all you want to I knew her before she had a pit to hiss in as I mentioned I was raised on a farm and a good friend of mine in a back home kind of likes to compare working on a farm and living on a farm and if you would share have a milk cow and share this milk have to share this milk with the government that would be socialism and if you bought a bull with this cow and he raised a calf that would be capitalism the government came along took the cow and shot you that's probably communism but when you sit on the cow and try to melt the stool that by God's alcohol is I had my first taste of alcohol I guess he's called alcohol homebrew when I was about 18 years old there was never any booze around the house my father didn't drink my mother didn't drink it wasn't I guess you wouldn't call it even a drinking community where I was raised I had a wonderful pair of parents set of parents it was good to me I was kind of a bashful kid but God I had fun when I was growing up and I didn't need booze and I went through high school and I didn't need booze I did get the cigarette habit in high school we had to be careful not getting caught smoking cigarette get kicked off football team kicked off track team so I was very cautious about my smoking but I tasted the homebrew when I was about 18 and I tasted that I know God I didn't like it and I a neighbor had made some there and offered me this homebrew and I and I seen how as he told me how his maid and I thought my god put all that stuff together and mix it all up and then let it spoil and then you're supposed to drink it I didn't want any part of it and at 19 I was going with my wife at the time and we was over to a couple's house and went over there on New Year's Eve or in the afternoon and they had invited us over to go we was going to a movie midnight movie celebrate New Year's Eve or New Year's we got over there and they had company in and we were invited in we visited with the company that was there and when they their company left fella said boy he said look what dad got me for Christmas and he brought out a fifth gin and I didn't know anything about Jim didn't care anything about Jim he said we all fix some drinks for us and I said well you don't need to fix anything for me and and he said I'll fix it so you can't taste it and I said well I really don't
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want it he said I'll fix it up he's you'll enjoy the drink so he fixed drinks up for us and and I tasted it it didn't taste bad I couldn't taste the gin and and I thought well pacify him I'll drink it and as I sipped along on that drink it I became to feel a little bit different I felt warm I felt a glow that I'd never experienced before and when my glass was empty and he asked would you like another and I said I don't mind if I do I don't really don't remember whether I drank two three four or five or how many I drank that evening but we drove to the theater which was about 15 miles from where he lived in McPherson Kansas and lined up at the box office waiting to get in and and I I guess I was chattering like a chipmunk in a way the wife tells me I talked through the first show and slept through the second but I know the next day that I was god-awful sick and I thought if that's what you do what what it does for you the way you feel the next day I don't want any part of it so I didn't drink then for quite a while wife and I were married she loved to dance so did I and I did notice one thing I took a few drinks later and dang it sure lubricated my feet and I could dance so much better so I got to buying a pint before we went to the dance and having a few drinks and and this worked real good in fact I invented a few dances I thought about selling calling Fred Astaire and asking if he'd like to me to teach him some few steps new steps but this went on and we enjoyed it didn't get me any trouble had a few hangovers like say I was on the farm and things was tight and back in the 30s and and I took a job in the oil field and those fellows were pretty good drinking hands and I thought I was just as good a drinking hand as they were and I thought I you know I better keep up with them and I tried I worked a while in the oil field and then I was offered a job with a pipeline company and so I took it and the chief engineer that I was under was a good drinker too he would consume from a pint to a quart a day and I helped him and God that was a good job you got paid for drinking and playing pitch he loved to play pitch and we sometimes I get over to there to the job and wouldn't even get started to work and he said I'll play you one game of pitch and we'd quit playing at noon and having a few drinks you know and I'd go over to the station with the other engineers on duty and and eat lunch with him come back to the shop and the chief would come out of the house he said you owe me two bits or I owe you two bits or whatever it was we never paid one another you know we owed it so we start playing pitch and drinking again and then we drink till I got time for me to go home and get off work I never did like to play pitch overtime you know but I got to going home drunk about every night or you know pretty well siloed up and wife didn't care for it and the war came on and things got a little worse and they've taken more guys and I had two children and friend of mine had three and he said Jim said we're gonna they're gonna get us one these days I said well I guess I'm ready he said you know we ought to beat him to it instead of drafting us let's get in what we want to get in them so we was having a few drinks and discussing this so we thought that was the thing to do and so we checked into the new outfit called the Seabees construction battalion of the Navy and guys they gave me a pretty good rating and and him too and so we signed up and took her physicals and got her classification changed from I think it was 3a to 1a and we went back to Virginia and we've taken the physicals additional physicals back there and all of a sudden Joe wasn't around I didn't see he was one talked me into all this in first place and come to find out
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they'd been rejected they'd found something wrong with him and sent him home and I was stuck so I spent a little time in the Navy and with the construction battalion had a lot of fun met a lot of wonderful people didn't get any trouble from drinking didn't do a really a great lot of drinking in there but some but it stayed out of trouble got back before we left over from the islands to come home I wrote my wife and I said we'll be home in a few weeks the war is over and when I walk in the door I'm gonna drop my ditty bag on the floor I'm gonna walk to the refrigerator and open it and there better be a fifth of whiskey in there so she picked me up in Wichita we drove home I walked in the house to drop my ditty bag on the floor walk to the refrigerator I opened the door and God bless her there was two fifths she was a wonderful gal hadn't had it already there so we had a few drinks with the neighbors to celebrate homecoming and nothing was wrong we drinking socially and I drank a little socially on about the middle of the week you know socially then I added the Tuesday and Thursday socially and one day it seemed like that I had to have a drink every day back to the old routine like us drinking with the chief engineer before I went to service I tried to not let it interfere with my job I would always show up for work I would always put in my time I wouldn't say that I worked I really earned my pay but I was there and this went on for a few years and a couple years and I was working a midnight to late shift one night for the pipeline company relieving an engineer that was on duty and and I got off at 8 o'clock in the morning and and I started home and run into a buddy of mine and stopped to visit with him and he had about that much in a pint he needed help so I helped him kill it and we went and got another one and there's few things we should discuss we thought especially some world problems so we spent the day discussing these problems and killing another pint or two and I got home about 7 that evening and I had to go back to work at midnight so I went to bed I had nothing to eat there during the day and the wife set the alarm clock about six inches from my ear and it woke me up about 11 15 and I got up dressed grabbed the lunch bucket she had prepared it was sitting on the table and went back to work relieve the man on duty checked all the machinery and God I felt awful and I didn't have a drink in the car with me that I could revive myself long about three o'clock in the morning I felt her hunger pang and and I thought wonder what she could put in that lunch pail it would you know be 50 I couldn't think of anything offhand but I thought maybe well I'll look I looked in there and right on top of the lunch is a is an envelope in the envelopes three-page letter we had communications that's what you call communications we communicated I read the three-page letter she told me exactly where I was heading if I continued to drink in the manner which I was drinking she had an uncle that had lost home barbershop and family from drinking she had seen this happen to him she could see that happening to us the letter didn't disturb me very much but there was a little clipping in there from the Hutchison Kansas paper and said Alcoholics Anonymous meet every Monday night at 4th and Main if you have a drinking problem you're welcome and that burnt me up she thought I was an alcoholic and I knew I could quit anytime I wanted to now this was in 1948 and I wished I could tell you that I didn't have to drink after that but it did I drank for a few more years a little later I was drinking in the staff I got bumped in this job I was on back to the maintenance crew that was in Stafford Kansas and that's where the district office office was and the district superintendent and the district superintendent was a pretty good drinking hand in his own right him and I happen to be drinking in the same establishment one night and I proceeded to inform him how he could run his damn
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pipeline company and this didn't set too good even though he was in his chips too and things didn't go too well for me then after that and they decided if I wanted to advance with this company I better move to another district another area and the opportunity arose that there was a job opening in North Platte Nebraska and I bid on it and I got it and I thought now my problem is solved I won't be around all those drunks I can control it be no problem move to North Platte and it worked for a whole week I got acquainted with a few fellows that like to drink in North Platte and they induced me to a few more and they introduced me to a few more and I always like to have company when I drank I didn't drink in a bar I didn't drink didn't like to drink in the bars too expensive God you buy a few shots and you could had a whole a pint all of your own you know so I wouldn't drink in a bar but I found several places where they guys came to hang out and have a few drinks and so it went from there and the wife got just a little disgusted with my drinking I don't know whether any you have fellows had wives like that or not but she'd scream at me and she'd holler at me and she even swore at me a few times she even come at me with an ice pick one time scared the hell out of me you know I didn't I told her numerous times that she could be replaced but it got so bad that it was no fun to come home so I wouldn't till the wee hours in the morning come home at 5 and go to work at 730 didn't have to put up with her very long that way you know it got so bad that I finally I got disgusted yeah I said well look girl I'll show you that I can quit all by myself so I did for 10 days she said it was 7 I still think it was 10 but I come home this particular evening and and about 8 o'clock that evening and I had went to a one of the fellows that worked for the company had been killed in Korea they'd sent the body back to be buried the National Cemetery and the chief told us we could go to the funeral and those of us that wanted to just long as one guy was on the job to watch the machinery so I'd went and I couldn't wait till that was over to go get a pint and go to some of the establishments where these guys hung out and we could have a few drinks like a repair shop and so I got home about 8 o'clock that evening pretty well pie-eyed and I walked in the house and I was ready for the blast prepared for it and she fooled me she didn't raise her voice she didn't come at me with an ice picks she was very gentle and she said it didn't last very long did it and what the hell could I say no it hadn't I guess she said do you realize now you have to have help to get off this stuff and I said yeah I guess I do she said what are you gonna do about it well I thought he's pretty sharp I remembered that little flipping from a few years before and I said I'll call Alcoholics Anonymous and she said great great now North Platte Nebraska at that time was about 14,000 this little clipping out of Hutchinson Kansas Hutchinson Kansas was a town about 35,000 and they had one little old stinking group so I knew North Platte didn't have any groups in North Platte I walked over to the telephone picked up the book open the page there and look for them and by God they was listed she's standing right there nothing I can do except call the operator give her the number she called and some darn fool answered the phone I told him who it was I'd like to come up he said you're welcome you bet I said where is it and he told me and I got in the car and I went up in that vicinity and I couldn't find it and I called from someplace the second time it was
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but I'm not too sure. And they advised me again how to find the club room, which was upstairs, second floor. This time I found the right door and I opened it. Any of you that was in our old club room were no longer there at that one. The building's been torn down. But you open the door and you lucked up those stairs and there's a great big pink elephant peeking around the corner at you. We still have that pink elephant. We have it in our new club room. And as you go down, you come in the door and you start down the stairs to the basement. The pink elephant is looking at you. Well, I knew I was home.
So I climbed those stairs and there's 21 steps, I think it was. And a man jumped up and he said, Are you Mr. Griffin? I said, Yes, sir. He says, Come on in here. We went in the south room and he sat down and he told me what it was like and what had happened and what it was like now. Thank God I liked that guy. He was so gentle. And he'd had a few problems, not near as many as I had, but he had a few problems, you know, and this was great. And he shared them with me, so I shared mine with him. And I just put a whole pile of them on his shoulder. I unloaded on him. And he nodded, you know, he understood. And about that time they said, Meeting's about ready to start. Well, at that time it was meeting on the third floor. So we walked up on the third floor and I start toward the back and he grabs my arm like yes and put me in the front pew. And I'm telling you, I was uncomfortable.
I could feel about 20 some odd eyes right on the back of my neck. I believe they said there was 28 at that meeting. I was uncomfortable and the meeting went on and on and it lasted about four or five hours. And God, I was wanting to drink. And I could see myself walking up to the bar at the 215 Club and say, Give me a double shot and one of those fists. And I could taste it and I needed it. And finally they said, We'll now close the meeting with the Lord's Prayer. And that got me. They all stood up and they said the Lord's Prayer and I couldn't remember it. And this made me ashamed, made me feel about that high. And I thought, I've got to learn that Lord's Prayer again. I've got to do it. After the meeting I run down the stairs to the second floor, got my hat and my coat and started out and said, Hey, just a minute, we've got sandwiches and coffee. Stick around and visit. And I said, No, I promised the wife I'd be right home. So out the door I went, around the corner I was heading for that 215 Club. I could taste that double hooker and how it was going to pick me in. And about the time I got even with my car, I thought, Oh my God, I don't dare go in that bar like this. That joker put AA literature in every pocket I had. So I walked over to my car and I started chucking out the AA literature, throwing it on the seat. And I guess my higher power took hold of me then. It's the only thing I know. I had nothing to do with it. But instead of going on to the bar, I got in my car and drove home and I haven't had to have a drink since. And that was November 26, 1951. Thank you. Our group in North Platte is the most wonderful group in the world. We had some old-timers that started that group in 1943. And they wasn't easy. They didn't suggest a damn thing. They told you what you had to do. And I'm glad they did, because that's what I needed to be told. And I didn't think I was an alcoholic. I would agree I was having a little problem with my drinking, but I didn't think I was an alcoholic yet until I listened for a few meetings. They were surprised to see me back at the second meeting. They had one meeting a week on a Monday night, and that wasn't enough. I had to have more contact than that. So I got a couple, three of the guys' names that I felt comfortable with. And after I'd get off work, I'd run past this guy's grocery store and visit with him. I'd go by this guy's law office and visit with him if he wasn't busy. I'd go to buy this guy's house, and if his car was there, he was home. He wasn't out doctoring a horse or a cow. He was a veterinarian, and I'd stop and
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see him. Then there was another guy running a used car lot. He was always around there, so I could stop and see him. So every night I'd get off work, I'd make the rounds and visit with these guys for just a few minutes. I didn't want to bother them too long, but I had to bother somebody to keep me from drinking. I got by by pestering these guys, and by these guys listening to these fellows tell their story, I could see my pattern in their story. Some of them had had shock. One close friend of mine, he became a close friend of mine, had had shock treatments three times before he made the program. And I listened to his story and how he drank and how it went, and I could see me following in his footsteps, only I hadn't made quite the distance that he had. I didn't go quite as far, and I was fortunate enough to find this wonderful fellowship before it happened to me, that I had to have shock treatments and I had to be hospitalized. I figure I'm one of the most, the luckiest guy in the fellowship. I didn't go through all the hell a lot of you went through. I had good teachers that kept me from going through that hell. I had a stern old-timer that said, look you SOB, you do this, and I did it. They're scared to, God, they stood like about as tall as Dave and twice as wide. One of them was, and I a little leery of him, I didn't know what he'd do if I didn't do what he said. So I kept hanging in there, and one day was at the meeting, they said that gotta elect somebody to go to Kearney, Nebraska. They're having a meeting down there.
And said, who will go? Nobody volunteered. They said they're gonna, they're gonna elect a delegate to send back to New York. And somebody said, what's that for? And said, they're gonna have a conference. Said, what's that for? Said, we're gonna run AA. Said, we need a GSR. And I said, what's a GSR? Said, that's a general service representative of the group. Would you go to, would you go to Kearney Sunday? Yeah, I don't have to work, I can go. Okay, fine, Griff will go, Griff's a GSR. That's what I do. They said, vote for Ray. Who's Ray? They said, the delegate that's gonna go to New York. That's my first of my service work. I went to Kearney and I voted for Ray, and Ray was elected the first delegate for the state of Nebraska. Went in 1952. Wonderful guy, he's gone now, he died a few months ago, but a great guy. I continued to be the GSR. I served two years and nobody else wanted it or would take it, so I continued to be the GSR. After I was the GSR, why, they asked me if I'd be the district committeeman. Nobody else would take it, so Jim got it. I was having fun. I was meeting people, other groups. I was learning things about AA that I never knew before, that had never been brought up and talked about before. I served two years as a committeeman. Nobody else would take it, so they elected me again. This was great, it was fine with me, I loved it. Get to go to those district meetings, meet all those guys from the other districts. Then I got to be district, state chairman of the district, of the committee, and that was great. And then the greatest thing that ever happened, could ever happen to me, I was elected delegate for the state of Nebraska. Panel 18, served during the year 1968 and 1969, and that's where I first met Dave. 1968 General Service Conference. Served the two years, I don't know whether I did the fellowship much good, but it sure helped me. I enjoyed every minute of it. Came back to my usual job of emptying ice trays and scrubbing the floors and seeing that the coffee was made, and was happy there was a lot of drunks yet to work on. All of a sudden, one day in 1972, something happened that I could never, would never have dreamed of. I was elected to the board of trustees of this wonderful fellowship. It scares the hell out of you, you know. There's about a million people, and you've been elected to the board, and you wonder what is a peon like me
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doing on the board like that. I got back to New York, and back to the office again, and with the wonderful gals back here that serves in our office, and the guys. Met the board, and a lot of you know Tom M. from Pulaski, Tennessee. He was on the board. A lot of you know Tom G. from Winnipeg. He was on the board, and I'd served with him as a delegate. They made me comfortable. They took me by the hand, and showed me what it's all about. And then a year later, I was real happy to see Dave come on with us, and it was a wonderful, wonderful four years. I enjoyed, I enjoyed that four years. I can't tell you what it means to me to have been fortunate enough to have served you folks. But this service structure of Alcoholics Anonymous, the way it was put together, had to have divine guidance. What I'm hoping that nobody ever disturbs that service structure. But I do have worries. In looking at the financial report, our budget for the year, and we say we're self-supporting through our own contribution, that's a bunch of bull. Our contributions amount to 40% of our total budget. 40%. Now, if you had 40% of the stock of a company, do you think you were running it? Or do you think the other 60% would run it? Now, you've been real fortunate. We have been real fortunate to have wonderful people serving us on the board. I hope we continue to be lucky to have enough to have these wonderful people serving on the board in the future. We have non-alcoholic members of that board that are beautiful, beautiful people. But I wonder someday if we might not get one that seeks power, or two that seeks power, and has a lot of influence. You know, right now, if we shut off our contributions, they could still continue to operate at that office. But that's the reason this structure was set up. We were set up to be self-supporting through our own contributions so we would have control, and that's what I want to see remain. The groups have control of our fellowship. Please don't ever let it get out of our hands. Please. Do you know that 57% of the groups contributed to this wonderful fellowship last year? 57%. Isn't that a little sickening? 57%. When we had a $20 bill in our pocket and walked up to the bar and slapped it on the bar and said, let's drink it up, fellas, there's more than that, where'd that come from? We didn't have the rent paid, we didn't have the grocery bill paid, but we drank it up and we didn't have another dime in our pocket. But we had 20 to drink with. But we don't have a penny a day to send to GSO. It's kind of a sad case.
Some of them used the birthday gift. This is great if everybody would do it. If everybody would get on that birthday cake. On his birthday, if he had a year of sobriety, send a buck. Had two years of sobriety, send two bucks. Had five years of sobriety, send five. Ten years of sobriety, send ten. Had 20 years of sobriety, send ten. Ten's the limit. But if they'd do that, everyone would do that. We would be getting our literature for just the cost of the freight or the mailing charges. We'd have a book like this. Thank God it's dropped in here lately, dropped in price again. But I'd like to see this book for two bucks. Maybe just the cost of the printing. I don't know what the printing is, but I'd like to see it costing no more than the cost of the printing or even See it costing no more than the cost of the printing or even less, then we would have complete control of our wonderful, wonderful fellowship.
[00:45:05]
Let's don't lose faith in our fellowship. We had an awful time, or I did, getting faith back in myself. I had lost faith in everyone, including myself, and I had an awful time getting that back. But I had faith in this fellowship, and I still do, of hanging together and keeping this for future generations. We don't have to worry about it, those of us here, but what about our grandchildren? Some of them are going to need us down through the years.
Talking about faith, we lose our faith a lot of times, and then we gradually gain our faith back. But do we really? When something really good happens, God, it's hard to believe that this happened to me. We're on cloud nine, and then it even continues to get better, and we can hardly believe it. You know, there was a little kid about four or five years old riding a tricycle, riding it down the sidewalk, and he came to the corner, and gee whiz, down to the left, steep hill.
He was going down, and he looked at that, and he thought, boy, that would be fun to ride this little old trike down that hill. So down he went. Well, the poor little fellow lost control of it. Them little old pedals was going so fast, it kicked his feet out of the way, and, boy, he was going down the hill, and he got down to the bottom, and he hit a fire plug, knocked him off, and skinned his elbow, and he got up, and he said, son of a bitch.
The minister standing there on the corner waiting for the bus to turn around heard that, and he said, son, that wasn't nice at all. You shouldn't have said that. He said, if you had said anything, you should have said, Jesus, help me. The little kid looked at him, got his trike, pulled it back up the hill, and he got back up the top of the hill, and he looked back down, and just like us drunks, we tried again.
So down he came again, same thing happened. The little old pedal just knocked his feet out of the way, lost control, he hit the fire plug, he bent the front wheel, knocked the hind wheel clear off, and he busted his lip, and he was bleeding. The preacher was still standing there waiting for the bus, and he looked like that, and the little kid got up. He said, Jesus, help me. The bleeding stopped in his lip, the front wheel straightened out, and the hind wheel jumped back on the axle, and the preacher said, son of a bitch.
You know, a number of years ago, there was a senator, and I believe he was from Missouri, and I'm sorry I can't give his name, I can't remember it, but I remember him saying, I'd rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than sit on the throne as a king. By the time he said it, I couldn't identify with that. But now I can. I've been a servant for this wonderful, wonderful fellowship, and I don't feel that I've served you very well, but oh my God, what you've taught me, it's been great.
I know the feeling that he had. Two weeks ago last Sunday, or today, I was sitting in church, and the hymn that they sang at the last was, I Love to Tell the Story. I've always loved that song, but Sunday, two weeks ago, today, they were singing that hymn. I put it with A.A., because I love to tell the story of A.A. and what it's done for me. And in the third verse, it says, I love to tell the story for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And I never get tired of hearing the A.A. story from any of you, or from anybody. It's a story worth listening to. Because you've heard it time and time again, from the same person, you'll always learn a little something by listening. You know, in the, oh here it is, lost my watch. In the big book, in chapter four, it says, Lack of power, that was our dilemma.
[00:50:03]
We had to find the power with which we could live. It had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously. But where and how were we to find that power? You gave me that. You showed me where that power was at, where I could find it myself. I had an awful struggle with the third step. I couldn't believe in the power that you folks or some of you were believing in. I thought you were believing in a God, the same one, and I had to use him and I didn't want to disturb him when maybe you were using him.
But I eventually found the power and a God of my own. It was a good many years ago that Chuck C. was talking in Omaha and helped me find a God of my own. So as I say, I love to tell the story and I love to listen to the story from this fellowship. Given the promises in here that I thought would take forever to come to me, and I got so tired listening to the fellows saying, be patient, Jim, just don't drink, don't drink, be patient and this will happen to you.
I was told to be patient so many times that I wanted to backhand them. I wanted a new car. He used to drive one. Of course, he'd been sober five years and I'd been sober three months. I wanted it a little quicker than right now. It don't work that way. It don't work that way. With patience, I've gotten more than I deserve now. When I got to the point that I didn't worry about material things, when I got to the point that I didn't care whether I ever became a millionaire or not, and of course that's what we all start out to be, I guess, when we're young, or I did.
When I forgot about the material things and just started enjoying the things I had, things started coming to me. And as I say, I have more today than I deserve, far more. And where did we get it? Where did I get it? From the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. You told me how to be patient. You told me what I'd find here. They said, we are painstaking about this phase of our development. We'll be amazed before we're halfway through.
Yeah, things started happening before I was halfway through. Before I was halfway through the first thirty days, funny things happened. My God, I went to bed and I slept all night. I hadn't done that for a long time. Not for a long time. We will not regret the past nor wish to close the door on it. Oops, missed one. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness, and oh, isn't that true? We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
I remember a fellow saying one time in a talk I heard, he said he'd been in the program about six months, and he went to a meeting, he'd been attending meetings regularly, and he was meeting this night, and the guy came around all excited, his chairman or his speaker wasn't going to show up, and he pointed to this guy and said, how long have you been sober? He said, six months. He said, get up and talk.
So the guy got up, he said, ever since I've been here, I haven't missed a meeting. For six months I haven't missed a meeting. Been coming every night. All I hear is serenity and peace of mind. I want you to tell me where the hell is it. And he sat down. Guy come over to him right after the meeting was over and he said, hey, dummy, come here. He said, if you couldn't find peace and serenity, why the hell didn't you say so?
He said he had me. I hadn't opened up, and I hadn't told him that I was uncomfortable. So you see, we've got to work at this. We can't absorb it through the rear end. No matter how far down the scale we've gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. Do you ever feel sorry for yourself? God, how I felt sorry for me. Poor me. Here I had to slave at this old job of mine.
I couldn't even have a new car because I had to pay off some bills.
[00:55:02]
Had to make payments on them. Couldn't afford a new car. Poor me. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellow. All the wonderful, wonderful people I've met this weekend, and all the wonderful, wonderful people you meet at any conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's just great. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change, is that right?
It certainly will. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. And it did, for me, it did. It was a long time leaving, but it did, if you have patience. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. You remember the little problems we'd have when we'd go get a fifth and then they were a big problem? We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
I asked God's help back in my room before I came up here. I really didn't know how I was going to put this together this morning. You've been a wonderful, wonderful, attentive audience, and I appreciate that. You know where we found what we have today, was in the fellowship, in this wonderful fellowship. They taught us how to love and what love really is. They taught us how to live like life was supposed to be lived.
We're receiving things that we never even dreamed of, or we will if we continue on this program. Now if that isn't worth a penny a day, I don't know what the hell is. Thank you.