Audio
Transcript
Source: DICOBE-00657 – Clint H – TOP O TEXAS – 1979-10-05.mp3 File: dicobe-00657-clint-h-top-o-texas-1979-10-05.mp3 Duration: 01:17:13
============================================================
Hi, everybody. I'm also your chairman of the Top of Texas Roundup. And if you'd all stand, we'll start this off with a serenity prayer, please. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to let it change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. This is our 32nd annual Top of Texas Roundup, and I do want to welcome each one of you, whether you be A.A., Al-Anon, Alateen, or guests.
Each year we try to bring you the top speakers of the nation, and I think this year our expectations have been met again. And we feel sure that you will enjoy the messages from each one of these speakers as you hear them for the rest of the weekend. Now, our A.A. and Al-Anon hospitality rooms out there in the patio area are open at all times except during speakers' meetings. And the Alateen suite is room 240, for you all that don't know it, up there in the western suite.
Remember, all of us on this group, we want each and every one of you to have a wonderful and a good weekend with us here. If you need any assistance whatsoever, if you'll see any of us in the group that has the red or the blue badge, the ribbon on their badge, we'd be happy to assist you in any way that we possibly can. And I want to thank all of you for sharing with us. I'm going to turn this program over to Joe Seay, who's going to introduce our next speaker in just a minute.
But before we do that, I think John Seay here wants to make an announcement, and then I have some other announcements here real briefly. Thank you. My name is John, and I'm an alcoholic. The purpose of my announcement is with respect to the delegates' breakfast, which was scheduled for 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Inasmuch as we are in the process and will be electing a new delegate, it has been suggested that we try to commence that breakfast at 7.30.
This is of particular interest if you are a group service representative or if you are a district committee member or if you are the delegate or if you are a past delegate. Please note that the meeting tomorrow morning will be at 7.30. All alcoholics are welcome to attend that breakfast, and I would encourage you to do so. Thank you very much, Hoop. Thank you, John. We have another announcement here.
The Al-Anon, they're going to have a night out session meeting themselves in the Al-Anon Hospitality Room. That's in room 144. Okay, John, take care of the other one. I've got another announcement here. Please buy your tickets as soon as possible for the Al-Anon luncheon tomorrow. We have to turn in a count sometime in the morning around 10 or 11 so that we'll know how many is going to eat. You know, the 32nd round up here means a lot to a lot of people.
I haven't been in Alcoholics Anonymous that long. But we've got some people here that have seen the program since its first appearance here in Amarillo and have continued to follow the roundup each year. This man and his wife, in fact, there's two of them, have missed approximately three or four meetings during the entire 32 years of the Tampa, Texas roundup. And at this time, I'd like for Alvin and Helen, Kay or Kane, Kay or Kane, he said Miami-Nemeth, it didn't mean nothing to him, would they stand and let's give them a hand?
Alvin told me before the meeting here the signaling that they had made 29 years for the Tampa, Texas roundup. We also have another man that has made 19 of these Tampa, Texas roundups, and his name is Mike Rainbow, and I know most of you know him. Mike, stand up. We really appreciate that, and we hope you're here for another night. Mike has been here for 19 or 29 years.
[00:05:00]
Now, if there's any further announcements here, I will turn this over to Joe C., who will introduce our speaker for the night. Hi, everybody. I'm winging it up here. Before I go into my memorized opening, I'm going to get rid of these things. There may be those here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level, our public relation policy based on attraction rather than promotion, and we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker or indeed any A.A. member be identified by full name published or broadcast reports.
In other words, we want to protect everybody's anonymity, the level of press, radio, and TV, and things of that kind. The coffee told me on the West, we country boys, when we come to the city, especially if we're ex-alcoholics, get lost. I thought they said the coffee would be on the West side, but isn't it over here? Isn't that the North side? Huh? It's in the hall over here? What direction is that?
Well, that's what they told me. Thank you. I'm going to be all right if you just give me a couple minutes up here. I've been asked to do something else. They don't want to ask you smokers not to smoke. But this room doesn't eliminate the smoke too well with this big a crowd, and they've asked you to smoke just as little as possible. Well, you have to have a cigarette light up. Now, that's a pretty soft announcement coming from a guy with a halo around his head.
I haven't smoked in seven or eight years. But they will appreciate that. Also, I know they had a birthday and a big cake out here in the open country about a couple hours ago, and I don't know that person's name, but a good friend of mine, Ray C. from San Angelo, he didn't take a drink for four months down in our country, but you people really got him sober up here for five years, and he's got 13 years.
He's from San Angelo. He's got 13 years today. Ray C., will you stand up, please? Will you stand up, please? Now, somebody else had a birthday out here tonight. Somebody tell me who that is. Warren, for how many years? Five. Five. Will you please stand up? Congratulations. Now, who else has a birthday today? Anybody, please. Our speaker asked me a few minutes ago if there was anybody brand new here tonight.
I said, hell, yes, there's got to be. Some people are new two or three times tonight. But anyway, I don't know what he meant by new, but I said, I'll find out. And will anybody who's been coming to AA 30 days or less, please stand up, all of you. I know you. Look over here. Yeah, look over here. Everybody. Thank you. Thank you. I knew there would be some. Now, I think I'm through. I hope I haven't missed anything.
My name is Joe Clary, and I'm a magazine salesman. And I'm from Midland, Texas. And I sell subscriptions to The Great Buying. And I've been doing it for about 17 of 19 years up here. I missed the last year or two. Couldn't help it. And so tonight and the next two days around here, if anybody wants to subscribe to The Great Buying, I'd be happy to take their subscription and send it to New York. The Great Buying only costs less than two cents a day.
I personally think it's, next to you personally, it's the best close stepper we have. And it'll cost you $5, and I'll either have them send you a bill or send your name in with the $5. And our motto, I'm still ex officio a member of that Great Buying committee in New York. And our motto in New York is that when anyone, anywhere, reaches out for a Great Buying, we always want a Great Buying to be there.
Thank you. Now, my name is Joe T. I mean Joe C. And I'm from Midland, T. And I'm an alcoholic. And I haven't had a drink since the 14th day of 5th, wait a minute, I messed up again, 14th day of December, 1959. I'm always extremely grateful for that, and I'm always happy. I don't know any place else I'd rather be than right up here tonight. And the reason I'm up here is because I haven't had a drink for, well, 19 years.
And if I'm lucky, I'll make it to 20. And I haven't been before this big a crowd in many, many a day. It's just wonderful to stay in here and really see your happy faces. I woke up this morning,
[00:10:00]
and when I wake up breathing, I'm always grateful. And I move a little, you know, and I feel pretty good, and I get up, and I'm really ungrateful, it's a habit of mine. I've lived by the motto for a long time, many years, and it's helped me to be grateful that you can't be grateful and unhappy at the same time. And I'm not always glad to hear the alarm clock when it goes off in the morning, but I'm real glad I do hear it.
And you know, that helps me get started. So I've had another good day. I enjoyed driving up here today, and I've had another good day in AA, and it really helps me to try to live that way. This thing's been a fantastic thing in my life, this AA program. I'm one of the lucky ones. I like AA, I enjoy going to meetings, and you know, when you like AA, you don't have any trouble going, and you go in and you enjoy it.
And I think you're real lucky when you feel that way. And I don't have any great spiritual deal, but I ask for help every morning, and I read the 24-hour book. And surprisingly enough, I have a wife who's in Al-Anon. It took me six years to get her to Al-Anon. Marceline White's a sponsor. She had a lot to do with that, finally. But I got to reading her Al-Anon book three or four years ago, and I got to reading it in the morning, and it began to help me.
And it only takes a few minutes. I read the 24-hour book. I've got to stay loyal to my alcoholic bills. Then I read the Al-Anon book, and it helps me a great deal. And this all only takes a few minutes, and I usually say the serenity prayer and thank the Lord and ask Him to help me be pleasant with all whom I come in contact that day and take an honest look at myself. And the thing about that Al-Anon book, it tells me, it helps me so many times with a problem that day because they don't have the excuse of being an alcoholic.
And so they've got to have something in that book to tell you how to cope with your living problems that day. And it's amazing what it'll do for you. And I recommend it to you. I really do. Some of you alcoholics ought to try a Peter O. Al-Anon practice. I just don't know. I don't want to make a speech to you tonight, but I drank for a long time, that smart-aleck drinking in high school and passed out once in a while.
I didn't drink every day, of course. The last five or ten years I drank, I just couldn't handle it at all. And I certainly wasn't an alcoholic. But after I got here, and it was around two or three years, I realized that you can live a few minutes without air and you can live a few days without water and you can live 50 weeks sometimes without food, but you can live 49 years without any brains because I did that.
I really did. And the thing I appreciate tonight is that my attitude has changed so much in the last 10, 15, 18 years and it just keeps getting better all the time. I go to a lot of AA meetings and I think that's the answer for me because that keeps me two or three times a week at least. It keeps me remembering where I came from and it keeps me thinking about this program. It's amazing how I feel about things now.
I'm not good and I never will be. I'll never be St. Joseph. Don't want to be because, you know, if 400 years ago they talked about St. Joseph who used to walk the streets of Midland, Texas, why, everybody would think I was a real oddball now. They really wouldn't. I don't want to be that good, but I want to be a little gooder than I am. And I personally, I don't know if anyone knows this, but I am getting a little gooder gradually, you know.
Weekend, month in, year in, year out. And now I just want to be a good member of my community. I want to contribute as a citizen of my community and be good to my friends. And it's not hard to be good to AA people. It's not hard to practice some of these principles in AA meetings, but just doing what little I'm doing every day sort of helps me practice it in my business life and from day to day. And I just want to try to live a good life a day at a time.
And I think that's a great way to live. And it's wonderful to have those kind of values. I was on a cruise. It was a sober sailor's cruise last week for seven days out of Los Angeles. Most of the California people, and I'm taking an extra minute or two, but I can't tell you what a wonder. There were 732 people on that cruise. They told us there was 240 in the crew, like putting a thousand people in the boat, and about 500 of them alcoholics and the balance 235 or 4,000 alcoholics.
And there's no way to describe what a wonderful time we had. Nobody who isn't an Alcoholics Anonymous would even begin to understand. You just can't tell it to a bunch of civilians. 50 meetings a day, and good music, and good entertainment, and all the fun, and all the laughter, and everybody had me, and it was just a great thing. The reason I brought it up, half of Clancy's Emerson, everybody at Clancy's Emerson, Clancy Emerson, everybody, Clancy, I, and this audience, how many from the Pacific group were there?
[00:15:04]
I don't know, there was more than a dozen, there was more than 20, this gentleman's group, and I asked quite a few of those people, including his sponsor, Clancy, says, I'm going to introduce Flint next week and talk to Texas and, you know, tell them something to say about him. And he said, oh yeah, we'll let you know, and then they always tell me what a nice fellow he is. What a wonderful fellow he is, and that's all, and they never came back and told me anything.
Well, I've heard Clancy brag about him for 10 or 12 years, and he is really a fine person, and that's the way they love him out there. You're going to hear a fine talk tonight, I'm not going to try to tell you his story. He went to school, he became a professional man, he'll tell you all about it. And he and his wife are really loved in California AA, and in the Pacific group, and now I give you a trinity of San Clemente, California.
I just saw the former president on TV in Gene Autry's box watching the Angels in Baltimore play, and they're both from the same hometown. Can you come up? Somebody down in front here just said, oh, that one! That's President Nixon. My name is Clint H., and I'm an alcoholic. I'm glad to see Joe here, I'm glad to see so many familiar faces here, people that I've seen in California, people that I've seen in Texas, and I'm grateful to be a part of the 32nd annual Top of Texas Roundup.
And if you're new here this weekend in Alcoholics Anonymous, I think you're going to have a marvelous time. I've been sober in Alcoholics Anonymous since the 14th of August, 1966, and so this deal was doing real well when I got here. I got a hunch it'll be doing real well when I leave, and I can't tell you how grateful I am to be a part of this conference, to be here at this conference this weekend.
And Betty and I are delighted to have been invited and just delighted to be here. We've heard several of the speakers in California, and you're really in for a treat, and it's just a fantastic experience to be here. We got here this afternoon, and Tom tried to tell me a little about the vocabulary here, that Texas, and I didn't think I'd have any trouble with it, but he finally explained to me that here, minuet means you and I have dined, and I'm glad that I got that straight.
I'm just a drunk, and everything that is good in my life is because of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there are a lot of things that are good in my life. I have a charming, delightful wife. We've been married just over eight years. We met here in Alcoholics Anonymous. She'll talk tomorrow morning, and she's just one of those special people. I'd marry her again tomorrow morning. And I've got a job I like, and I've got a home that's comfortable.
If you're new here, you might wonder why I'm here, and I'll tell you why. I'm not here to interfere with your drinking. I'm not here because I think I'll say some magic phrase that's going to talk you out of that next drink. That's not going to happen. The booze will talk you out of that next drink, but what you hear in Alcoholics Anonymous, I suppose, at least what I heard in Alcoholics Anonymous, was extraordinarily important to me in terms of being willing to try to go a day without a drink, but I knew that the booze was bad when I got here, and that's how I got here.
And so I know that there's nothing that I'm going to say here tonight that'll talk you out of that next drink. I'm not here to interfere with your drinking. I'm here because I was told 13 years ago when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous that if I was willing to do the things that they asked me to do here, it might be possible for me to get by a day without a drink. And that's how it's turned out, and when they ask me to go someplace, I go, and when I'm asked to take a 12-step call or wash cups or whatever it is,
[00:20:02]
I do that because that's the mainstay of my life. It's the most important thing in my life. Alcoholics Anonymous comes ahead of the marriage and the job and everything else, and I'm here for me, and it's a very, very selfish program in that sense. My sobriety is the most important sobriety here in this room to me, and I hope that your sobriety is or becomes the most important sobriety here. And let me put it to you this way.
If you go out after the meeting tonight and get drunk, my wife won't leave me. My life will go on. My sobriety is really contingent upon my maintenance of some kind of a spiritual condition, and that's what this is all about. I didn't know that when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm not sure that it would be clear to you, and there's no way for anybody to come into AA and get any real sense in a few days or a few weeks of what's happening here.
But if you can take a minute and mark a couple of things as you go along, it might be very interesting to you. One of the things you might notice is that you will feel better after a meeting than you do before a meeting. Best thing I know about Alcoholics Anonymous. At 8.30 when I go to a meeting, I may feel all right. I may feel a little bit weird. At 10 o'clock when the meeting's over, I usually feel good.
I feel a lot better than I did when I… And I don't go into meetings feeling weird anymore so much. I don't go into meetings scared. I don't go into meetings afraid. I won't get through the day without taking a drink. Those days and those feelings are behind me pretty much. I go into meetings because I expect to get a spiritual thing out of them. I go into meetings because I promised somebody I'd meet them there.
I go into meetings because that's a habit that I've developed. I go into meetings to celebrate life. But no matter how I'm feeling when I go in, I invariably feel better when I go out. And there's something else that happens to me in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that has never happened anyplace else. And you'll find it in the meetings that you attend as you go along. And that is that someplace, sometime, somebody along the way is going to touch you.
You're going to be sitting in a meeting not expecting much one of these nights. And somebody is going to say something that'll just touch you and make you glad that you got to that meeting. And I never allowed myself to be touched before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. I picked up an attitude early in the Church of the Air in Billings, Montana that I was going to sit in the back pew with my feet up on the seat and they had me and my arms folded like this and I wasn't going to let them get through to me.
And I didn't know why I picked up that attitude for a while. And one day it was clear to me that we were told that we ought to give our hearts to Jesus. And I looked around at those people in the church and none of them looked like they were any too happy about what they'd done with their heart. It seemed to make them grumpy. We went to church four and five times a week and we got that hellfire and brimstone.
And my uncle got himself saved one day and they sent him to China to be a missionary. And I don't want to go to China. I noticed the women in the church made a lot of bandages for the missionaries. I wasn't sure what they did, but anybody that needs that damn many bandages isn't having that good a time. It was kind of a topsy-turvy home I grew up in. My dad had a drinking problem. He brought violence and unpredictability into the home.
My mother was a very, very staunch churchgoer and so we had her influence. The questions that were asked always bothered me. My dad used to say, When are you going to be a man? I don't know. I don't know when I'm going to be a man. I'm not sure what a man is. I can't say that. I don't know how to act. I don't know what a man acts like. I don't know how a man feels or what he says or does. I just have that awful feeling that I'm never going to make it.
And my mother had a few questions of her own. She'd say, Where are you going to spend eternity? I don't know. Or she'd take a few minutes and tell us where we were going to spend eternity. Have you found God yet? Or it's another one. And she'd always point out in the middle of all this that he holds you in the hollow of his hand. He holds you in the hollow of his hand. And that should have warmed me, should have comforted me, I guess.
But it didn't. I always was afraid to find God, or to have him notice me. I had the feeling somehow that if he ever…
[00:25:00]
it'd be one of those. What will you do when you meet your Maker? That confrontation did not really thrill me. What will you do? I don't know. I don't know, but it's going to be bad. Run, I guess. I had some other problems going for me. And these are problems that were there before I ever drank. That sense of guilt I developed early. And I want to remember to say that there in that church, they talked about love and hope and faith, and I didn't hear it.
I heard about guilt. That's all I heard. I heard hellfire and brimstone. I heard an awful lot of negative things, and I never heard the warmth. I never heard the hope. I never heard any of it. And I don't know why, but I never did. And so there was a lot of guilt. From an early age, there was a lot of guilt in my life. And there was another problem. We never had any money, and we grew up in goofy little places, and we moved a lot.
And I was always ashamed of our home. I was always ashamed of my father and of the car he drove. My mother embarrassed me, and I was ashamed of that. That has two levels, I think. I was ashamed of my mother, and I was ashamed of being ashamed of her. I had the feeling I ought to be proud of her, and I wasn't. My father's car, the dog embarrassed me, for Christ's sake. Everything associated with our home bothered me.
And I had another problem, and I guess we all get it sooner or later, in some form or another. They talked about potential, and I've known forever that I'm supposed to be operating up here at this level, and I operate down here, and I don't know how to close that gap. I don't know how to make my life live up to that potential they assured me that I had. And these emotional problems are disquieting.
These emotional problems are problems that make me feel like I'm from a different planet. They're problems that make… Somebody said in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I was sitting there not expecting anything one night, and a guy said, he touched me so, because he said he always had the feeling that other people got secret instruction on how to get along in this world that he never got. And I thought, oh, it was that day I quit school.
They told him that day all about it, how to get along. My brother had that information. I don't know where he got it. It's just strange. I have an identical twin brother that grew up in the same home that I did. When I was getting thrown in the drunk tank in Glendale, California, he was graduating with honors from college. He's one of those straight arrows. He's always owned his own home. He mowed the lawn.
We're identical twins. He eats breakfast. He's that kind of a guy. Now, when you get to Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the first questions you ask is, why me? After you convince yourself you're an alcoholic. Why me? And I sure had that question. Why not that brother of mine? You tell me it may be hereditary. Well, we're identical twins. What do you think of that? You tell me it might be environmental.
Well, we grew up in the same home for 17 years. We both had a drunken father. We both went to the same church. We both heard the same hellfire and brimstone. And it's a perplexing business. This kid, I'll tell you what kind of a guy he is. He fastens the seat belt. I don't say he does it maliciously, but he does. He and I took a different path. I remember we moved to Denver in the 8th grade. We lived on the wrong side of the tracks as we usually did.
But that year we went to school in a part of town where they had a little bit of money. And we got off and after football practice we'd get a ride home with somebody's folks in their Cadillac or Chrysler. And I'd make them let me out about six blocks from where we really lived. Up the hill a little bit where they had grass out in front and maybe paint on the wall of the home. And I hoped that these people would think I lived in one of those houses because I couldn't bear to leave.
I lived in one of those houses because I couldn't bear to have him see where we really lived.
[00:30:00]
I'd gladly run the six blocks home because I didn't want him to see where we lived. And if my brother was in the car, he'd say, no, no, hell no, it's down here about six blocks. He'd let him get right in front of the place, and he'd say, that's it, and I'd go, gee. The guy's impossible. He was down in California a few years ago. Betty and I were laughing about that because Betty's heard me tell that, and she asked Carl about it.
He remembered those days, which kind of surprised me because they seemed to roll off his back. And I said, well, didn't it ever bother you to have those people see that rat hole we lived in? I mean, weren't you ever faintly embarrassed about it? You know what he said? He said, you know, I never accepted the responsibility for the condition that place was in. You see how sick he is? He's terrible! Well, of course, he took the healthier path, and I have come to know, and if you're new here tonight, you might kick it around, it was never the things that happened to me that got me into trouble.
It was never the environment. It wasn't ever the hereditary factor. The things that seemed to get me into trouble were my reactions to the things that came along. My reactions have always been immature. My reactions have always been extraordinarily short-sighted. My reactions have always focused from a self-obsessed point of view that doesn't admit of anybody else's feelings or opinion. My reactions have gotten me in trouble time and time and time again.
And there was one more thing that I had going for me, and I guess Peggy Lee says it as well as anybody in that song, Is That All There Is? I've known forever that there's just not enough. I don't know what the experience is, but it doesn't give me enough. In that song, Peggy Lee, when she was a little girl, her father took her to a circus, and after the circus is over, she has the feeling that there really ought to be more to a circus than that.
And I understand, on Christmas night, I don't know how many years, on Christmas night, after the gifts were opened and my grandmother made us fold up the paper and put it in the drawer someplace, you know, that'll take a little of the zing out of it. I always had the feeling, Is That All There Is? I don't know that I said it like that, but when I heard Peggy Lee sing the song, I knew how she felt. Is that all there is to Christmas?
And it wasn't that the gifts were scroungy. They were, but I'm not going to work on that. It's that there's a promise to Christmas, and nobody fulfilled the promise again this year. When my first son was born, I was 19 years old, and I had that same feeling. Is that all there is? People said congratulations. Oh, what? I don't want to be married, I don't want to have a son, I don't want that terrible responsibility.
And it just kind of plays out. Is that all there is? I don't have any experience in life that gives me what I really think it ought to give me. And Peggy Lee's got an answer to that, and the answer is you might as well keep on dancing and break out the booth. And why not? Except that dancing's a sin, of course, and you don't want to do that. And so when I had an opportunity to drink, I drank because I didn't think it would do anything with those problems.
I had no idea, really. I'd lived in my skin all my life. I didn't know it from any other point of view, and I wasn't that aware of those problems. All I knew was that there was a certain lack of peace in my life, a certain sense of alienation from everybody around me. I had no idea why my father drank. I had no idea what alcohol would do to me. And one night at a party in high school, vodka and orange juice, I had two or three of those drinks, and I drank them because they were forbidden.
I drank them because we were not supposed to drink booze. And I don't think that's alcoholic necessarily, that's just part of the human thing. If something is forbidden, it's automatically just a little more interesting than it would otherwise be. They say that's why Adam and Eve went after that apple. They weren't crazy about fruit so much, they just weren't supposed to. And it's been like that. Somebody said one night they should have forbidden them the snake, and they'd eaten that damn thing and saved us all a lot of time.
I don't know the answer to that. I loved what that booze did for me. I don't know that I was really consciously aware of it, but I wasn't afraid that night after three or four of those drinks. I didn't feel guilty, I didn't feel ashamed, I didn't worry about potential, or about is that all. One of the nice things about that booze in the early years before it really turned sour on us is that there is a point, it may not last very long, but it may only be 90 seconds
[00:35:01]
in a week's time, but you don't have to say is that all there is. It's chemical peace of mind, and who cares? It's better than no peace of mind at all, and that's how I got in. And I remember that first drink, and that may be a giveaway, I don't remember my first taco, but I am. So that started a love affair with that booze that lasted until I was 29 years old and came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I tried to keep those bad feelings down, and of course they go and they go and they go.
When I got to Alcoholics Anonymous I was terribly afraid. After I was willing to be a member of AA, I went through a period of time where I didn't think that I really belonged here because I heard stories from the podium about people that had tried to commit murder or rob banks or do that kind of thing. And I had never done that. My jail time was weekend time, my crimes were misdemeanors, and I wasn't sure that I belonged here for that reason.
I heard I remember hearing a guy say one night at a meeting that he had been certified as an alcoholic by the State of California, and he rattled off a certificate number. And I just had that feeling, God, I wish I had a number, something to authenticate me as a member of AA. And it turns out that those things are not really what alcoholism is about. They're not really what seemed to create so much trouble in my life.
Everybody I know well in AA comes into Alcoholics Anonymous carrying a couple of secrets, little secrets, don't amount to anything. And I had mine, and I wasn't going to tell them to anybody. Little nickel-and-dime compromises that I'd made along the road, and I don't know why I couldn't forget about them, but I couldn't. Little hen-house things that I had done to other people that I knew a man wouldn't do.
And it's the kind of thing that when I think about it, I need a drink. I found out the hard way one time that I couldn't get my family moved 60 miles. I found out about it, I was stationed in the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton in California, and I got transferred to El Toro. And it involved moving the family, and she was about ready to leave me. I'd been married before, and this was my second marriage, and we had a little kid.
I didn't want that marriage to break up, and apparently she didn't either, and I finally talked her into moving up there to the new duty station with me. It was only 60 miles away, and the move wasn't an involved move because we didn't own a stick of furniture. And she finally decided that she'd go with me, and I promised I wouldn't drink so much, and she promised she wouldn't do so much yelling and carrying on, and we were going to be more tolerant of one another, and it was a new beginning and a new hope in that marriage, and we had the little baby after all, and I wanted very much for things to work out, and I was once more going to really start over and tighten up my act and do a job.
I was supposed to go down there on a Friday night because I'd been staying in the B.O.Q. at the new duty station, and I got down there on Saturday morning because I got drunk Friday night. It wasn't a really good start, but she was still willing to go, and I said, You wait right here. I'll go get a trailer, and I'll put our stuff in it, and we'll make the move. I found a trailer, I rented it, and it was too small and it wouldn't hold all our stuff, and so I said, You wait right here.
I'm going to take this load up and I'll be back in a couple of hours, and I'll get you and I'll get the boy and the rest of our stuff and we'll make the move. And she said, Okay, and I started off. I was sick that day. I hadn't been eating, and I'd been drinking pretty good every day for a couple of weeks. I always stopped in that club after work for two drinks and never got out of there until I closed it.
I can't drink two drinks. That's because I'm alcoholic, and that's the way that had been, and I was sick and I needed a drink that day. And I stopped at the club on my way past the base for a drink. It would make me a better companion and a better father. I'd have more fun with that woman that weekend. I'd just kind of relax and settle down and then complete the move. And all I wanted was two drinks, and I stopped there about noon on Saturday.
And I don't know where Saturday afternoon went or Saturday night or Sunday or Sunday night. They're gone. I woke up Monday morning in the B.O.Q. alone and afraid, and I went down to the end of the hall and looked out, and there was my car and the trailer and the first load of stuff in it, and I had no idea where she'd gone that weekend. I didn't know who she'd talked to. I didn't know who now knew about my drinking problem.
And I felt bad. And I found that apartment and unloaded that stuff in it, took the trailer back, and I
[00:40:03]
went back to the apartment. I was broke and I was sick. I didn't know how to get a hold of that wife. And I lay there all that day in the living room needing a drink and not being able to get one, and I died just a little bit more because I've always known that a man can get his family moved 60 miles up the road and I can't do it. You'll never be on a police blotter, and I couldn't think of that after that without needing a drink, and I was going to take that to my grave.
I don't know what little nickel-and-dime compromises you brought in here with you to Alcoholics Anonymous, but those are the things we have to attend after we get here, and there are steps designed to help us take care of that stuff. That secret had a lot of power over me as long as it was a secret, and of course it doesn't today or I couldn't talk about it here. And my life was filled with that kind of trash.
It was never the big stuff, it was always that little stuff that I wanted to slide under the rug and forget about. And that's the way it went, and I didn't plan it that way, I didn't want to be that kind of a person. I didn't want to stand in front of the General at El Toro that day and have him level a finger at me and say, there isn't any room in the Marine Corps for an alcoholic. I had my shoes shined and my brass was polished and my hair was cut and my uniform was clean, and I wanted to be a good Marine officer.
I really did. The day never came when I wasn't interested in being a good Marine officer. I was proud of that uniform and proud of the fact that I had gotten a commission, and I couldn't pack the gear, and that was a heartbreaker. And he finally dismissed me after he had read some fitness reports about me. One of them, one major said about me. He said, this officer consistently fails to live up to the low standards he has set for himself.
That's a cold shot, it was brief, but cold. And when this General finally dismissed me, I did an about-face and I walked out of his office. I knew three things. I knew I wasn't an alcoholic. I knew that if he thought I was, his judgment was bad, and he was a two-star General, that's frightening. And I knew one other thing. I knew I needed a drink more than I needed anything else that day. I got some vodka and I put it under the seat of my car and drove out through the main gate of the basin, collected my salute and went into the orange groves north of that basin.
Went down a long dirt road and turned around so I could see any incoming traffic. It's elaborate precautions for a guy that's only going to have two drinks and then go back to work. And I didn't get out of the orange groves that day and on many other days. I was sitting in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting one night years later and I was touched very much by a woman I heard talk because she said that she sat in her apartment in Hollywood one night on her mantel with her cat looking over the shambles of the living room and said that prayer that alcoholics say.
And her prayer was a very simple prayer, and I've said it many times, and maybe you have too. I never thought of it as a prayer. And she called it a prayer, that woman, that night in Hollywood. She said the prayer goes like this, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? And I was out there in those orange groves saying that prayer, knowing the next thing I'd see would be a military police jeep coming down the road and they'd cart me off.
I got sent to the base psychiatrist. I got to talk to him, he wanted me to share my secret thoughts with him. No thank you. I showed up drunk in his office one day, he just was furious. I found out the high point of my military career was the day I found out that this guy was really a dermatologist and not a psychiatrist, and of course I continued to lie to him as if he had been a psychiatrist. I did my part, I want to get well, and that's the way it was, just a shambles.
And I wound up living in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles. I started out in an apartment there and quickly graduated to my car, and then to a garage. Four of us lived in that garage, well it was a double garage, we weren't crowded. I had warrants out for my arrest for bad checks, the Marine Corps gave me some money when I got out of the service, I put it in the bank, the bank gave me some blank checks, and I guess I thought it would all come out even, I don't know.
The checks lasted a little longer.
[00:45:00]
there's a warrant out for not paying child support, a couple of drunk driving charges, a hit and run one night when I slammed into a parked car, I woke up in the Glendale drunk tank as often as not it seemed, and it's quickly something that we get used to, it's surprising how fast I got used to the drunk tank, how fast I learned to say if I ever get like that guy in that next cell I'll do something about my drinking, because they were real alcoholics, guys that had chili on their chest and a beard and three days older than a tree, obviously didn't care, and that's one thing I hung on to long after every other excuse was gone, alcoholics are people that don't care, I care, therefore I can't be an alcoholic.
And I shuffled down to the front of the Glendale Municipal Court, and the judge had reached the charges, and he'd always want to ask me if I was ready to plead, and I said yes, and he wanted to know how, some of them said guilty with an explanation, and I understood that, and I just said guilty, because I'm guilty, I'm not guilty of what the charge is, but I'm guilty, and it's easier to say, and you do the day or two or whatever, you pay the fine, and it's not that long until you're back in there again, shuffling down to the front of the Municipal Court in Glendale, and that's the best I can do is say guilty, Your Honor.
I woke up in that little room one night, and it was a nasty little room, it had a linoleum floor, and my feet stuck to it, and there were always bottles tipped over and wine and beer on the floor, and I came to in that room one night, and the three guys that lived there in the garage with me were in my room, and I don't know how they got in there, I always locked the door from the inside, I lived a terrified life in those days, and I got up out of bed, and one of them hit me and down I went, and I got up again, and I thought, what have I done to get these guys this furious, and I got hit again, and I went down, and I began to get a little nervous, because they looked like they were serious, and I was in no position to defend myself, and I got up a few more times, and I went down a couple more times, and I stayed down for a while, and I thought they were gone, and I got up and down I went again, and I, really it was a night of terror for me, because I thought they'd never leave, and then I came to and it was daylight, and I could see my own blood along the wall, and they were gone, and I got up and I was battered and bruised, the door was still locked from the inside, and I couldn't imagine how they'd gotten in there that night, or what I'd done, and it was some time later, sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't know what was said, but something, somebody said, make me know that I had been alone all that night, stumbling around in that room, terrified and alone, stand up and lose my balance, and stumble into the edge of the dresser, and cut myself, stumble into the bed, and cut myself, fall down on the floor, and pass out, and wake up, and stumble some more, and that's not the result of social drinking.
That's alcoholism, that's what it is, and I didn't know it then. I was selling encyclopedias door to door when I could get out of bed and earn a little something to drink on, and a guy that hired me to do that was a bail bondsman, and that's how we'd met, and he got a hold of me one day, and he said, where have you been? And I said, I've been drunk. He said, for a week? I haven't seen you in a week.
And I said, I guess so. And he said, I've got to take you someplace. And I thought he was going to take me back to jail, which was all right, better than stumbling around that room alone. I thought he might take me to Camarillo, which is the laughing academy nearby, and maybe they'd find that brain tumor I had. I hope they would. Or maybe take me to county hospital, and they were sure to give me a jar of pills.
They were giving pills out in those days. And so I didn't fight with him much. I just said, okay, I didn't ask him where we were going either. And about noon that day, he took me over to a club in Glendale. We went around behind the laundry and up a long flight of stairs, and I sat down with about 14 or 15 guys, men and women, in the back of a hall around a table. Somebody said, do you think you can get through the rest of the day without taking another drink?
I don't know why, but there was something about the way that man asked me that question that made me want to say, yes, I can do that. I went to another meeting that night in Hollywood, and I heard a guy talk. He talked about bad checks, and he doubled my vision of AA. I thought, Jesus, it's not only about drinking, it's about bad checks too. Those people were…
[00:50:01]
Years later I was to hear a guy named Walter talk about a look in Alcoholics Anonymous that he called the Molokai look. He had visited the island of Molokai, and they have lepers there. And the people that work there with the lepers and devote their lives to those people develop a look in their eyes. They have a certain thing going, the look of people that are consistently willing to give more than they get out of life.
And the reason they got that look is because they get so much. And the reason they get so much is because they are consistently willing to give more than they get. Can you see that look in AA? And these guys in that club in Glendale had that look. And I was attracted to it. If you're new here tonight, if you look around, you'll spot people with that look. When you spot somebody with that look, grab them and hang on, because you and that person are going to have a lot of fun.
A lot of fun. More fun than you've ever had. More laughs than you've ever had. Right here. Right here with these drunks. Something about the way one guy looked one night, I was five days sober, allowed me to go up to him and say, how do you get to sleep at night if you don't drink? I thought that was a new question, you know. I didn't know that anybody else had ever gone through a sleepless night because they weren't drunk.
And while that film was, all those things I did or didn't do, he said, do you really want to get to sleep tonight? And I said, yeah. He said, where do you live? He said, it's a place down the street. I didn't tell him it was a garage. He said, do you live alone? And I said, yeah. He said, I'll tell you, if you really want to get to sleep tonight, just for openers, make your bed. And I thought, what is that?
I really, I'm a little too cool for all that, you know. I didn't come to this guy for housekeeping hints. I can get that from the Marine Corps. He said, really, just for openers, put clean sheets on your bed. And I wondered how he knew about those sheets. That psychiatrist didn't talk about the sheets. And I'm not quite as cool now. My hallmark attitude when I got here is I'm a little too cool for all that.
And that night I was too cool for that. I'm standing there in Levi's and a T-shirt and tennis shoes and one sock, and I'm too cool for this guy. And then he says, after you get that bed made and get into it, say a little prayer. And I thought, oh, boy, here we go. He even told me the prayer. He said, say this one, if God be for us, who can be against us? Well, that's St. Paul. I never did like St. Paul.
I've gone to bed in a clean bed before. I've said a prayer before, and it doesn't help you get to sleep. From the time I'm a little kid, we said prayers. We said, no, I lay me down to sleep. That does not work. You get to that part about if I should die before I wake, that will keep you awake a while. Working out that. And so I'm a little annoyed with this guy, and I get back to my garage. And I look at that bed, and there's something I can't get out of my mind.
I'm annoyed, and I know what he tells me to do won't work, except he knew about those sheets. And he stalks a lot better with me than he ought to be because of that. See, this is one drunk talking to another here. That's all that is. Those 12 steps are developed by drunks. They're for us to work. If those drunks had found a way to stay sober on seven steps, that's all we'd have. But they don't want to take them either.
There's 12 of them. They're developed by drunks here, not by the National Council, by drunks and alcoholics. Well, I'm there at a crossroads. I don't want to do what this goofy old buzzard told me to do. But he knew about those sheets. And I finally found some clean sheets someplace and put them on that bed, and I got into the bed. I've got a decision to make. I'm going to say a prayer, right? What if those other guys overhear me?
They'll be in there for sure. I don't know how many times I said that prayer, or really why. I do know I know it wouldn't work. If God be for us, who can be against us? The next thing I knew, it was dawn. I'd slept all night long. I hadn't slept like that in a year. I wasn't jerking and snapping around. There weren't any nightmares. There wasn't sweating. I didn't shake. I slept all night. And I suppose I woke up with the sense of, well, it's about time I got a night's sleep.
[00:55:00]
Because that's my attitude. But I look back on that as an interesting thing. Because what the guy told me to do will not work for me. And the fact that I knew it wouldn't work did not keep it from working for me. And that's the way it's been. And I haven't embraced this program and jumped on these steps with any real… Only as I had to. I heard a guy one night in a meeting say something that moved me a little bit off of that attitude.
He said that he had spent the first year and a half of his sobriety laying around in bed reading books trying to find the answers to problems that are caused by laying around in bed reading books all the time. And that's kind of my attitude. I'm going to take an intellectual approach to this thing somehow. I sure don't want to take any of these steps. If I turn my will and my life over to the care of God, he's going to send me to China.
He's going to make me go back with that XY. And those things I can't do. But I didn't drink. And I went to those meetings. And bit by bit by bit, I got a job. I began to have a sense of peace in my life. I began to know that I can't stop drinking, but I am not drinking. That's an amazing thing to realize one day. I'm just a drunk and I cannot quit. I'm trying. And I haven't had a drink in six weeks.
Or four months. Or ten months. And the year went by. This program is an incredible thing. I love it in Alcoholics Anonymous. I love it in Alcoholics Anonymous because this is where I grew up. This is where I learned to live in the world. This is where I learned to love. Betty and I met here and fell in love here. And married here. In your midst. And I learned to do something about that terrible, agonizing business of I'll never be a man.
It's an odd thing the way it works out. I hated my ex-wife. Now in two years I got a sponsor. His name is Clancy. And he's one of these guys that never seemed to want to talk about the problem that was really bothering him. I went to him one time with a terrible problem. I hate my ex-wife. And all of a sudden, all he wants to talk about is whether or not I'm paying child support. Well, maybe I will someday, if she shows up.
He pointed out to me that if I wanted to change how I felt about anybody or anything, I had to change my actions first. And my feelings would follow. He told me in my case I had to start paying child support. I paid it, but just enough to stay out of jail. I paid it, but I'd go over there and give it to her in person and tell her how to spend it. Oh, I was cute. I'd pay it, but I'd pay it a week later or give her half of it.
And you've got to hate somebody if you're treating them like that. And he told me I had to pay the child support. I didn't even have a checking account in those days, and I'm two years, two and a half years sober. And there was a reason for that. I don't do real good with a checking account. I went back to jail for a day when I was five months sober for checks I wrote while I was drinking. So I had to add another money order to my list on payday and go in the bank and get a long list of money orders.
Those tellers hated to see me coming. Sometimes in exasperation, one of them would say, Mr. H., if you had a checking account, you know, we charge you 35 cents a piece for these money orders. If you had a checking account, why, you could do it for a dime. It would cost you less to write a check. And if I would feel an ornery, I'd say, when I write a check, it usually costs me about four dollars and a couple of days in jail.
That makes them nervous. They do the money orders, and we can get out of them. So I added another money order, and I had to get the envelope filled out and mail it right. Just put it in a little slot in the bank. I gave it ten minutes thought. I'd work out a way not to do it quite yet. And the months went by, and I was paying that child support. Not because I wanted to. I'd been told to do it. I'd been told to do it.
I said, if you can't get around to taking it over there without being cued, put it in the mail. If you can't get it in the mail, get yourself another sponsor. He's held me back, I'll tell you. One day, uh, toward the end of that year, just like clockwork every payday, I got a money order out to her. I found myself going over there to give her the money a week early.
[01:00:03]
She'd called, it was Christmas. She needed it a week early, and I'll be damned if I didn't find myself going over there to give her that money in person a week early, just because she needed it. And that's not like me. I'm not a compulsive child support payer, you know what I mean? But I hope I don't soon forget how I felt that day. I walked up and gave her the money. I handed it to her with no comment. Spent a minute or two with my youngster talking about playing ball that weekend together. It's funny how courtesy will get you by so many situations that you can't get by. Simple courtesy. And I left her apartment and walked down the stairs that night, about dusk in Santa Monica. I felt more like a man than I had ever felt before in my life. The only thing that changed was I was paying child support. There's not enough child support in the state to buy me that fee, and I spent a lot more on that trying to forget I didn't have it. And it seems like an odd thing, and the reward is clearly out of proportion to what I put into it. And I hope I don't soon forget it, because it's just another bit of evidence in my life that something is happening to me, that it's possible for me to go first class in my gut. And that's the way it was. I was finally four years sober when I'd taken an inventory, I'd taken a fifth step, I got a sponsor, and I was at a crossroads again. I'd gotten into a self-will run riot situation and hurt other people and made a shambles out of relationships. I felt awful bad about it. Abraham Lincoln said one time, they say he said one time that he'd been driven to his knees on many occasions by the firm conviction that he had no place else to go.
And there I was, in an apartment in Santa Monica, kneeling down by my bed. I knew that if I didn't do something about this program and about my spiritual condition, I was going to go back to chemical peace of mind. And I, for some reason or other, had enough anguish to say, you take it. These are not my days. These are yours. I use all my days up. I really don't know who you are or what you are, but if you want me to go to China, I'll go to China.
He doesn't want me in China. He wants me to stay here and pay child support. That's what he wants me to do. But I'm glad I was willing to go. See, I don't know what will make me happy. I think I do, but I don't. I'll tell you, to get my life in line with God's will is really the only thing I have to do. And I can take off my pack and relax to do that. Isn't that nice? I can take off my pack and relax to get my life in line with God's will. The biggest victories I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous have been the direct result of letting go. Letting go of the notion I can drink like other people.
Letting go of the notion I don't need a sponsor. Letting go of the notion I don't have to take Step 3 or 4 or whatever it is. This got to be very exciting to me, because I've known for some time that I'm a spiritual seeker. I've known since I sat on those pews in the church in Billings that there was some reason I always wanted to go down front. I had no idea, and I buried a lot of that with booze.
And to find that I can give myself permission here to admit I have spiritual needs is a marvelous thing. I think the question is, is that all there is? It's a spiritual question. It's been too many times when my intellectual needs and my emotional needs and my physical needs have been met, and I still have that great bundle of needs that forces me to say, is that all there is? It's a spiritual question. And there's an answer. For me it's called AA.
I decided, since I got so excited about this, if this higher power of mine had something he wanted me to do, I'd probably find a way to put it into my head. I had worked since I'd been sober, and I had never really enjoyed the jobs that I had. And somebody said, what do you want to do? I'd say, I don't know. I know what I don't want to do. Finally somebody said, tear up that list. For God's sake, don't start limiting yourself.
And I'm glad I did, because what I do today was on that list of things I don't want to do. I promised I'd keep an open mind and examine any goofy, far-fetched idea, no matter how dumb it was, on the simple notion that this higher power you've been telling me about might have some interest in it. I don't know why I thought he would. It doesn't seem logical to think he would. And a couple of months went by, and I'm helping somebody move one afternoon, and another guy on the program is holding down the other end of the dresser.
[01:05:00]
He looked at me, and he said, you know, you want to go to law school. And I thought, what is that? He was a lawyer and had been sober 17 years at the time. I never saw this guy, and he happened to be over there helping somebody move that day. And I thought about it, and I looked into it, and I talked to Clancy about it. I found out it could be done. I have to work during the day. I have to be at night. It takes four years.
I went back to him and said, you know how old I'll be in four years if I go to law school? And he said, how old will you be in four years if you don't go to law school? I would never have thought of that. And the days go by. A.A. was first, and the marriage was second. I finally got a checking account when Betty and I got married. I thought I ought to have a check to pay the preacher instead of a money order.
Part of the human race. You know, it's odd, those little things that add up to so much. Getting the driver's license back was a big deal for me. And now I'm going to school three nights a week. Going to meetings. I'm told I can't say no to an A.A. request, and I believe that. I thought surely the day would come. When it came, you just go do the thing, whatever it is. And people in that class I started with, without any sea anchor in their life, dropped out, disappeared. I don't know where they went.
I'm still there, plugging away four years later. I found out that I don't have the best mind in the world. And I always thought I did. And if I just gave it my best shot, I can do anything I want to, and there are limits. And that was difficult for me to accept. I gave it the best thing I could, and I found out that I can't always pull off the top grades. There are other people in this world that are just a little brighter than me.
Now, I don't want to admit that, but I'll tell you something. It's true whether I admit it or not, and it's just as well if I do know it, because that lets me do a little extra work and keep up with those guys. And so the day came in 1975 that I graduated. And then I had to take the bar examination, and that's a colorful experience in California. It's three days, and you sit, and you write like crazy.
But that wasn't the biggest hurdle for me. For guys like me, filling out the application to take the bar examination is the toughest part. They ask a lot of awkward questions on that application. They want to know where I've lived since I was 16 years old. That's a lot of addresses. And to put down a 1961 Ford Comet is a little awkward as a residence address. Or they say, have you ever been arrested for anything other than a minor traffic ticket?
And then they leave three little lines. And I put C. Attached Page. And I had a lot of confusion. Were you ever named as a defendant in a civil action? Include disillusions, divorces, annulments. And another page went on the back. Were you ever the subject of any discipline while a member of the armed forces? And I put more. And I didn't want to put it all down there, and you told me it had to go down there.
You told me I couldn't crank failure into that thing. You told me I couldn't run. You told me it's just take a stand from this position, I won't retreat. And I can't be looking over my shoulder. So it all went down there, even the stuff they'd never find out. At the end of those pages that were attached, I was able to say, these problems that I've told you about are related to a drinking problem. And on the 14th of August 1966, I joined AA.
And I haven't had a drink, and I haven't had a related problem since that time, and nine years has gone by. And I bundled it all up with twine and sent it off. And they let me take the test. I just knew they wouldn't, but they did. They let me take the test. And that test is something else, because after the three days, you've got to wait four months until you find out. And I'm sitting at home with Betty on Thanksgiving Eve in 1975, and I get phone rings at 10 o'clock at night.
And a guy I sponsored that worked at the Herald-Examiner newspaper there said, I just saw the list of people from the state of California that passed the bar examination, and your name is on that list. And I really, my mind, I had trouble with that,
[01:10:00]
because I just was so, I don't know what it was, but I hear all that time and all that work and struggle, and I passed, and I passed it the first time. And I can't do that. The next morning was Thanksgiving Day, and I carried all those notes out to the alley and threw them away, those things that just piled, things I'd saved and studied. Now I could discard it and orient my efforts toward the practice.
I started to cry at the breakfast table that morning because I'm just a drunk. And by that afternoon I was thinking, you know, they ought to really tighten this up to keep those dumb yo-yos out of it. That arrogance comes back just like that. But I love it. I love that. It captures me. It captures me and excites me. Last year I was back over in Glendale. I appeared in the Superior Court. It's in the same building as the Municipal Court where I'd been so many times.
But it's one flight up, and I appeared in the Superior Court. They called the case, and I answered ready for the defendant. Took care of the thing, whatever it was. And when I left the building, I walked past the Municipal Court. I just happened to. I wasn't really thinking about it. Somebody opened the door, and I looked down, and there's my replacement standing in front of the judge. And I just had that odd moment.
He almost seemed to be saying, the way his shoulders were set, I could almost hear him saying, guilty, your honor. And I thought, there's no way for me to get from being the defendant in the Municipal Court to answering ready in the Superior. It's only one flight up, but it's light years away. There isn't any way for me to do that. And it was an odd sense of, not accomplishment, not pride, just wonder.
Just another example. Every time I see a guy that comes into Alcoholics Anonymous that can't stay sober. And I look in his eyes, and there's nobody home. And I watch him hang around these meetings for a while. And against his best effort, laugh at a meeting sometimes. And look again and see that his eyes are inhabited. I get that same sense of, it cannot be done, and it's done. I get that sense that he really does hold me in the hollow of his hand.
I can't fall out. I can crawl out. But I can't fall out. I looked for a long time. And I realized a few years ago that they're all looking. We're all looking, and they're unhappy and alcoholic. Billy Graham comes into L.A. and filled the Coliseum for 10 days in a row. Betty and I were talking about that one morning. Betty said, I'm so glad our search is over. And I thought, boy, that's right. My search ended when I met you. I didn't know it was over.
I did not know the search was over until a few years ago. And now I know this is my home. This is where I am. This is where I live my life, right here. I'm not going anywhere from here. Not going anywhere. I sponsor a guy that's on the East Coast. And he's a lovely human being. He's a physician. And he's in the Army back there now. And last year, he had a tough time of it because he diagnosed intestinal cancer in himself.
And the diagnosis was confirmed. And he went through the surgery and the chemotherapy and all the rest of it. We were in pretty frequent telephone contact. His ex-wife came back into his home to help him take care of the children. And she was involved in this and concerned about it. And she said one time, I guess you'll have to change your lifestyle a good deal now. And he said, I'm not sure I know what you mean.
And she said, aren't you afraid to meet your maker? And he called me and we were talking about it. And, of course, we knew you have to go to meetings. You have to take the 12-step calls. Not because you're going to live forever, but because you're not. Because you've got to make this day the best day there is. And it can be. We go to meetings and we discharge our responsibilities. And he knew that and I knew that.
And we were talking a couple of weeks later. And I said, by the way, what did you tell your wife when she asked you if you were afraid to meet your maker? And I love this guy. And he said, I told her I meet him every day. Oh, boy. Isn't that wild? My mother used to say, what will you do when you… And those guys in that club in Glendale introduced us. And we've been good friends for a while now. And my life is enormously better since then.
And there's a way to go if you're new here tonight. I don't know if you're an alcoholic or not. You don't have to know that either. The first step is phrased in a weird little way. It says, are you powerful? The first step is phrased in a weird little way. It says, are you powerless over alcohol? That's the question. You may not know what an alcoholic is, but I expect you know what powerlessness is.
And I expect you know what alcohol is. You can work that out for yourself. If you belong here,
[01:15:01]
you'll be glad you finally came home. You don't have to have a burning desire to stop drinking. You have to be willing to become willing, to become willing, to become willing to look into the proposition of becoming willing, to become willing to postpone one drink one day. And if you're there, you're at as good a starting place as you need to be. You see, I'm just a drunk, and I can't stay sober. And because of God's grace, because of this program, because of you people, I'm glad to be alive tonight. Thank you.
Thank you, Clint. I know a lot of these people, and I see their faces. That's a great talk. Whether you're new here tonight or whether you're 29 years here tonight, 29th time, I like to use the word grateful, but you can use the word thanksgiving for what we've listened to tonight and what we'll probably hear at 10 o'clock tonight. Now, we're through if the committee's through. Is the committee through?
Well, then, let's rise and close in the usual manner. Join hands. Keith, will you lead us, please? Amen.