Transcript

[00:00:00.260 – 00:00:01.780] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. [00:00:01.780 – 00:00:06.320] My name is Ed Wagner, and I'm an alcoholic. [00:00:06.320 – 00:00:16.370] I like to pause for a brief moment when I say that I am an alcoholic, so that I myself can get the full significance of [00:00:16.370 – 00:00:17.660] that which I'm saying. [00:00:17.660 – 00:00:22.680] I remember one time the word was quite repulsive. [00:00:22.680 – 00:00:24.040] I didn't like it. [00:00:24.040 – 00:00:27.940] That was prior to AA. [00:00:27.940 – 00:00:36.660] When I came to AA, I, uh, accepted or admitted and accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic.

[00:00:36.660 – 00:00:40.220] I can't say I was very enthusiastic about it. [00:00:40.220 – 00:00:45.660] Later on, it became an opinion with me. [00:00:45.660 – 00:00:52.560] As of today, I like to feel that it's a firm conviction. [00:00:52.560 – 00:00:56.480] It isn't something that I've been convicted of. [00:00:56.480 – 00:01:07.740] It's just a firm belief on my own part that I am an alcoholic, and as one, I [00:01:07.740 – 00:01:17.880] have and I am suffering physically, mentally, and spiritually from what I believe to be one of the more [00:01:17.880 – 00:01:23.080] horrible, insidious, and very often fatal diseases. [00:01:23.080 – 00:01:33.660] A disease that I cannot be cured of, but through the grace of God and AA, which

[00:01:33.660 – 00:01:43.680] means you people, at least they've shown me how to arrest it by the simple process of doing what Mary [00:01:43.680 – 00:01:49.080] so nicely suggested before, not taking one drink for one day at a time. [00:01:49.080 – 00:01:56.300] I join with all our friends, neighboring groups, wishing Rogers well. [00:01:56.300 – 00:02:06.880] And the fact that they're celebrating the thirteenth anniversary doesn't mean that the flags are flying, but it does mean [00:02:06.880 – 00:02:09.340] that AA is continuing to grow. [00:02:09.340 – 00:02:14.400] For over those years, many newcomers have walked in the door. [00:02:14.400 – 00:02:24.520] This being a group, there were very good practices of the fifth tradition, which suggests that the sole purpose of an AA group [00:02:24.520 – 00:02:27.020] is to carry the message to those who suffers.

[00:02:27.020 – 00:02:32.280] Many of us have been able to at least maintain sobriety for a day at a time. [00:02:32.280 – 00:02:42.680] I wish on an occasion like this, I could just tell you some of the nice things that happened to me since learning of AA, [00:02:42.680 – 00:02:45.620] but it wouldn't serve any purpose. [00:02:45.620 – 00:02:55.800] The primary purpose of a speaker at, uh, an AA meeting is to share their experiences and strength and hope with someone else so that they, too, may [00:02:55.800 – 00:02:58.060] try to solve a common problem. [00:02:58.060 – 00:03:06.760] But I couldn't help but thinking before, and I know there's one girl in this room, she's very nervous. [00:03:06.760 – 00:03:10.840] She's afraid of what the hell I'm going to say next. [00:03:10.840 – 00:03:14.420] Uh, Josephine, I'll put you a little at ease.

[00:03:14.420 – 00:03:23.800] I will tell the people that we over in Brooklyn Stage sometimes give a speaker two hundred and fifty plaid stamps if they come and speak. [00:03:23.800 – 00:03:31.640] Geez, I thought Joe was a little rough on me when she demanded seven hundred and fifty for me tonight to come here and speak. [00:03:31.640 – 00:03:36.440] But I liked her enthusiasm. [00:03:36.440 – 00:03:41.980] And when she asked me, you'd think she was asking me to do a favor. [00:03:41.980 – 00:03:52.420] I should have been much more profuse in my thanks to think that even one person would have thought to ask a person to speak at an occasion [00:03:52.420 – 00:03:53.140] like this. [00:03:53.140 – 00:04:00.460] Unfortunately, I'm not going to tell you anything nice that happened to me. [00:04:00.460 – 00:04:05.780] I don't think I'm too different from maybe many of us in the room tonight.

[00:04:05.780 – 00:04:09.580] I didn't start out in life to become an alcoholic. [00:04:09.580 – 00:04:18.039] I was a product of the West Side of New York, where if a kid had a nickel, he wanted to keep it. [00:04:18.039 – 00:04:21.120] He very often had to be willing to fight for it. [00:04:21.120 – 00:04:31.220] And as I grew up, and before I'd gotten out of my teens, on several occasions, I'd [00:04:31.220 – 00:04:34.000] got into some serious difficulty with the law. [00:04:34.000 – 00:04:41.820] I didn't get arrested for intoxication or disorderly conduct. [00:04:41.820 – 00:04:47.940] It was always much more serious and always the aftermath of a drinking party. [00:04:47.940 – 00:04:54.720] I didn't think that was particularly unusual of a lot of kids around the neighborhood.

[00:04:54.720 – 00:05:01.080] My friend Mickey, a couple of hundred miles away, can think of that because he was a neighbor. [00:05:01.080 – 00:05:05.820] We're thinking of you, Mick, by the way. [00:05:05.820 – 00:05:16.000] I didn't think it was too unusual, and I remember starting to keep company with one of the neighbor's daughters, [00:05:16.000 – 00:05:22.700] becoming engaged, setting a date to get married. [00:05:22.700 – 00:05:32.260] And I remember the vows that we took that day, though I had had quite a few, I will admit. [00:05:32.260 – 00:05:42.580] And I didn't remember hearing the good priest saying anything about raiding a bastardized life with an active alcoholic [00:05:42.580 – 00:05:44.160] for twenty years after. [00:05:44.160 – 00:05:52.980] And that's putting it rather mildly, but that is about the most that I can say my wife got from me.

[00:05:52.980 – 00:05:56.840] I didn't set off just that way. [00:05:56.840 – 00:06:07.016] I realized that running around with the boys, bottle toting Saturday night drinking, Sunday drinking wasn't conducive to normalcy as far as married [00:06:07.016 – 00:06:08.136] life was concerned. [00:06:08.136 – 00:06:12.796] And I think I had all the aspirations and all the ambitions of a young fellow. [00:06:12.796 – 00:06:17.716] I wanted to be, wanted to be successful in the work that I was doing. [00:06:17.716 – 00:06:20.736] I wanted to have a family. [00:06:20.736 – 00:06:22.696] I wanted to have a little security. [00:06:22.696 – 00:06:26.296] And I thought they were all good objectives.

[00:06:26.296 – 00:06:32.316] And I proceeded to do many of the things that I had thought and planned about. [00:06:32.316 – 00:06:40.176] And in a reasonable period of time, I was doing fairly well in the work that I was doing. [00:06:40.176 – 00:06:41.436] I was making progress. [00:06:41.436 – 00:06:46.576] I had a junior executive position when I was in my, just past my mid-twenties. [00:06:46.576 – 00:06:52.236] I, uh, God was very good to us. [00:06:52.236 – 00:06:55.896] He graced us with seven wonderful, healthy children. [00:06:55.896 – 00:07:03.516] I think I had just about everything that a young fellow could want in life. [00:07:03.516 – 00:07:14.946] I have to go back just for a moment to say that knowing that I couldn't carry on as I had before being married, I

[00:07:14.946 – 00:07:20.296] had heard that it was smart to be continental, that is, to have a few good sherries with your dinner at night. [00:07:20.296 – 00:07:29.176] And at that particular time, I was working fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hours a day, and those few sherries served a very definite purpose. [00:07:29.176 – 00:07:35.156] I would come home past the point of being hungry, past the point of being tired. [00:07:35.156 – 00:07:45.176] The first would perhaps relax me a bit, the second stimulate my appetite, and the third would probably help me to get to bed because [00:07:45.176 – 00:07:47.336] I had to get up early in the morning again. [00:07:47.336 – 00:08:00.656] And between that point and a point that I'm thinking of right now, which might have been a little bit more than halfway down the line, there's [00:08:00.656 – 00:08:03.576] a story of complete alcoholic degradation. [00:08:03.576 – 00:08:11.275] Those few drinks each night grew to that many bottles each day.

[00:08:11.275 – 00:08:22.076] The good job that I had, the home, the car, the wife, [00:08:22.136 – 00:08:24.956] the children, they were all gone. [00:08:24.956 – 00:08:26.236] All. [00:08:26.236 – 00:08:36.276] I had a judge lean across the bench, tell me that I was no good to myself and less good to [00:08:36.276 – 00:08:39.076] my family, and just stay away from them. [00:08:39.076 – 00:08:41.556] That's all he asked me to do. [00:08:41.556 – 00:08:45.695] Of course, he did add something else that isn't particularly important. [00:08:45.695 – 00:08:48.236] If I didn't, he would have sent me away for a long time.

[00:08:48.236 – 00:08:55.696] The fact that he told me to stay away from them didn't make me feel bad at the time. [00:08:55.696 – 00:09:00.636] I was more interested in drinking than I was in my family. [00:09:00.636 – 00:09:07.476] Now, I'm not apologizing for anything that I did while I was drinking. [00:09:07.476 – 00:09:17.556] But I would like to say, as a sort of a defensive measure and to show you how one can transform, just a [00:09:17.556 – 00:09:27.676] few short years before, again, just a few things in life that were of real importance to me, I no longer would [00:09:27.676 – 00:09:29.116] even think about. [00:09:29.116 – 00:09:31.516] They meant absolutely nothing. [00:09:31.516 – 00:09:39.596] Time wouldn't permit a blow-by-blow, and I don't think it would be particularly good on an occasion like this.

[00:09:39.596 – 00:09:48.716] But I made my first visit to Kings County Hospital in my late twenties. [00:09:48.716 – 00:09:53.676] It was a short visit to the old G building. [00:09:53.676 – 00:10:00.556] And on leaving there, I remember too well, my brother came to my aid, as he so often had done before. [00:10:00.556 – 00:10:06.196] And, uh, we got in his car, and we get to the Dutchman's on Nostrand Avenue. [00:10:06.196 – 00:10:07.316] It was about three minutes. [00:10:07.316 – 00:10:15.756] He said to me, "You've had a tough time, kid." He said, "You probably need a drink." I did, like a hole in the head. [00:10:15.756 – 00:10:24.376] And I think he and everybody that knew me for quite a few years thereafter wishes that I'd got the hole in the head instead of the drink. [00:10:24.376 – 00:10:34.396] But I promised myself, and I don't think I was ever more honest or more sincere, drunk or sober, that nothing in the

[00:10:34.396 – 00:10:37.016] world would ever bring me back to Kings County Hospital. [00:10:37.016 – 00:10:38.296] And, buddy, I meant it. [00:10:38.296 – 00:10:42.446] But for those of you who [00:10:42.642 – 00:10:49.382] Here who are alcoholics, even though some of you are just getting tolerance tonight having to listen to a repetitious story. [00:10:49.382 – 00:10:54.902] Some of you who are alcoholics could probably pick up my story from there on. [00:10:54.902 – 00:10:59.342] You know as well as I do that I went back again and again. [00:10:59.342 – 00:11:06.222] I got my BA in Kings County, my Bachelor of Alcoholism, in the form of one of those green tickets. [00:11:06.222 – 00:11:13.362] I learned what long stays were in places like Kings Park and other state hospitals.

[00:11:13.362 – 00:11:23.602] And at no time, no time along the line did I ever remember saying to myself, "I'm going to stop drinking. [00:11:23.602 – 00:11:26.062] I should stop drinking. [00:11:26.062 – 00:11:28.982] I drink too much." At no time. [00:11:28.982 – 00:11:38.242] One might say to themselves, how could one who thought at least that they had some common sense be so utterly stupid? [00:11:38.242 – 00:11:47.602] Well, I don't think I can even blame the drink for it, but that's just how stupid I was regarding my alcoholic problem. [00:11:47.602 – 00:11:57.722] I was willing to admit that I was mental, that I was suicidal, that I was most anything, but I was [00:11:57.722 – 00:12:00.842] never willing to admit the drink was my problem. [00:12:00.842 – 00:12:03.192] I'd never thought of the word alcoholic.

[00:12:03.192 – 00:12:05.102] Honest to God, I had never thought of it. [00:12:05.102 – 00:12:09.782] I thought an alcoholic was a degraded person that was on the bow. [00:12:09.782 – 00:12:11.902] He never worked, never had a family. [00:12:11.902 – 00:12:15.962] That was just how I thought an alcoholic was. [00:12:15.962 – 00:12:25.382] Up to a point of coming to AA, and of course, I can understand Mary. [00:12:25.382 – 00:12:26.842] She was attracted there. [00:12:26.842 – 00:12:35.042] She had a beautiful blonde one night and a pretty blackhead girl a nice night, and I just had Jack McSherry walk in with a big cigar. [00:12:35.042 – 00:12:43.242] And, uh, he isn't a beautiful blonde.

[00:12:43.242 – 00:12:48.802] He's not a pretty blackhead, but to me, there's only one McSherry in AA. [00:12:48.802 – 00:12:51.802] Now, I hadn't asked for AA. [00:12:51.802 – 00:13:01.952] I was so filled with self-centeredness and egotism that, believe me, if it only costed a nickel, either I would have had that nickel [00:13:01.952 – 00:13:04.922] in my pocket yet or I'd have been buried with it. [00:13:04.922 – 00:13:06.602] I would never have asked for help. [00:13:06.602 – 00:13:16.622] I've learned something from that, too, that I didn't have to wait until a person I could reach screamed before I would be [00:13:16.622 – 00:13:18.542] willing to go and see them. [00:13:18.542 – 00:13:26.142] But yes, that particular Sunday morning, I think I had been drinking for some thirty, thirty-five, forty days.

[00:13:26.142 – 00:13:27.152] I haven't any idea. [00:13:27.152 – 00:13:31.502] Around the clock, day and night. [00:13:31.502 – 00:13:40.502] I had to have a bottle if I laid in the bed, if I sat in the chair, no matter where I went. [00:13:40.502 – 00:13:50.582] I'd gotten to a point where I couldn't go to the john, and I think I was getting drunk in there more than I was in the living room or the bedroom. [00:13:50.582 – 00:13:54.942] It wasn't a matter of wanting to drink. [00:13:54.942 – 00:13:56.002] I had to drink. [00:13:56.002 – 00:14:03.382] That particular morning, McSherry came in, and he was probably telling me about himself. [00:14:03.382 – 00:14:06.222] I will never know because I couldn't hear anything.

[00:14:06.222 – 00:14:15.282] But I do know that about every three or four minutes, I would step out of the room because that was just about how long I could go without taking a drink. [00:14:15.282 – 00:14:20.022] I would take a quick slug out of the bottle and bounce back in the room again. [00:14:20.022 – 00:14:27.262] And after about four or five such relay races, McSherry took a look at me. [00:14:27.262 – 00:14:29.542] He says, "Hey, bring the damn bottle in. [00:14:29.542 – 00:14:35.962] You'll get full like it." I never saw that in the AA book. [00:14:35.962 – 00:14:39.342] I never heard it at meetings. [00:14:39.342 – 00:14:40.822] They were words of wisdom. [00:14:40.822 – 00:14:47.602] For if McSherry told me, "Don't bring the bottle in," chances are I would never have came to AA.

[00:14:47.602 – 00:14:53.502] But he knew that there was no sense in talking, and he arranged that I go to St. [00:14:53.502 – 00:14:55.462] John's Hospital the next morning. [00:14:55.462 – 00:14:58.902] Those guys were early risers. [00:14:58.902 – 00:15:06.882] They were knocking at my door at eight o'clock just when I was going out to get my first couple for the day . [00:15:06.882 – 00:15:10.862] And after a few days in St. [00:15:10.862 – 00:15:19.742] John's, I, uh, developed one of the nicest cases of bed rumba that anybody had ever seen in their life. [00:15:19.742 – 00:15:23.001] I used to be able to lay on the bed and have my bounces. [00:15:23.001 – 00:15:28.342] And after a few days, I ventured up to what I heard them call Duffy's Tavern.

[00:15:28.342 – 00:15:38.622] And it was there that I sat on my– sat on the chair, but I actually sat on my hands on the chair so I didn't fall [00:15:38.622 – 00:15:39.162] off. [00:15:39.162 – 00:15:45.422] And I listened to the conversation that was going on. [00:15:45.422 – 00:15:50.462] There were nine fellows in the room, and they were a cross-section. [00:15:50.462 – 00:15:52.712] One was a WPA worker. [00:15:52.712 – 00:15:54.942] Another was a dental, uh, surgeon. [00:15:54.942 – 00:15:57.902] There was just a little of everything, I suppose. [00:15:57.902 – 00:16:03.542] And all of them, all of them had been in AA.

[00:16:03.542 – 00:16:05.082] All of them. [00:16:05.082 – 00:16:19.082] Now, McSherry had been visiting me twice a day, smoking big cigars that had labels on that said, "Easy does it." And [00:16:19.082 – 00:16:26.202] I figured, well, by this time, what the hell would he bring me to a place like that when there was nine here? [00:16:26.202 – 00:16:30.002] And they were all in the thing, and they were in the same boat I was in. [00:16:30.002 – 00:16:39.942] And it was then that I came to the conclusion that he was a male Joe Kirby, and he was getting forty out of the seventy-five dollars just to bring me there. [00:16:39.942 – 00:16:50.058] But believe me, had I paid seventy-five thousand dollars, which I never have and never will probably- I don't [00:16:50.058 – 00:16:56.438] think I could have ever gotten more than what I learned in that room than I learned starting that day. [00:16:56.438 – 00:17:01.538] But it didn't make any difference how long we were around.

[00:17:01.538 – 00:17:05.678] One of those fellows, I think he said he'd been sober for ten or eleven years. [00:17:05.678 – 00:17:06.598] I'm not sure. [00:17:06.598 – 00:17:16.318] But it didn't make any difference how many times you were– how long you were sober or how many times you'd been hospitalized. [00:17:16.318 – 00:17:25.958] It was there that I learned what the first drink was, and it wasn't from a book, and it wasn't just from an individual talking about it. [00:17:25.958 – 00:17:31.438] I saw for myself what the first drink meant to people. [00:17:31.438 – 00:17:40.558] Then coming to AA, I remember well, I admitted that I was an alcoholic, though I never did before. [00:17:40.558 – 00:17:43.858] I accepted the fact that I was an alcoholic. [00:17:43.858 – 00:17:46.378] The people, I loved them.

[00:17:46.378 – 00:17:50.498] I loved them then the same as I do now. [00:17:50.498 – 00:17:58.298] They're the only thing that's important to me as far as people in my life are concerned, other than my immediate family. [00:17:58.298 – 00:18:08.398] But I didn't want any part of anything in AA other than the people and the fact that I could learn how to stay sober. [00:18:08.398 – 00:18:11.638] Now, I not only admitted it, I think I accepted it. [00:18:11.638 – 00:18:16.458] But I like to remember an occasion about, uh, after a couple of months after. [00:18:16.458 – 00:18:26.718] I was probably unconsciously or subconsciously looking for some defenses or a good reason to take a drink, [00:18:26.718 – 00:18:29.678] though I didn't believe it or understand it at the time. [00:18:29.678 – 00:18:40.458] When I finally came to one of our more solid members, as I thought of him, and I went up to this big fellow, Joe, and

[00:18:40.458 – 00:18:43.808] I said, "Well now, Joe, I can understand how you guys got me sober. [00:18:43.808 – 00:18:45.088] You took me to the hospital. [00:18:45.088 – 00:18:46.418] You've been nursing me around. [00:18:46.418 – 00:18:47.798] You've been taking me to meetings. [00:18:47.798 – 00:18:50.498] You call me in the day, you call me in the night. [00:18:50.498 – 00:19:00.698] Uh, but how do I keep from taking the first drink?" Now, normally, if somebody asked anyone a question like [00:19:00.698 – 00:19:06.698] that, they'd probably start talking about the steps and the clichés and all the little things. [00:19:06.698 – 00:19:13.898] But Joe knew that even though I'd been around a few months, I was still having trouble counting Twelve Steps, no less reading them.

[00:19:13.898 – 00:19:23.998] Joe knew that there was no sense in talking like that, and he simply looked at me this way, and he said, "Well, I'll tell you what, Ed." [00:19:23.998 – 00:19:34.078] He said, "Right now," he said, "if I were you," he said, "I would just ask God each morning to help me to go through that day without taking a drink, and [00:19:34.078 – 00:19:42.538] at the end of the day, say thanks to Him." Well, I looked up at him, and I said to myself, "You simple-minded son of a so-and-so. [00:19:42.538 – 00:19:45.918] I don't even want to talk about God. [00:19:45.918 – 00:19:54.798] I don't want to hear His name mentioned." And he's telling me if I don't want– if I want to learn how not to take the drink, to do a thing like that. [00:19:54.798 – 00:19:59.718] I didn't think that anything he could have said would have been more simple. [00:19:59.718 – 00:20:05.518] You know, it's just so simple that it's been working for a few thousand days since. [00:20:05.518 – 00:20:16.278] There have been many other things as I went along, and as I'm still learning today, that I find necessary

[00:20:16.278 – 00:20:20.138] to do if I want to maintain my sobriety, even for a day at a time. [00:20:20.138 – 00:20:24.978] They suggested to me that I shouldn't become opinionated. [00:20:24.978 – 00:20:31.618] They also suggested that I should become fully aware of my problem. [00:20:31.618 – 00:20:36.998] Unless I understood it myself, I could never do anything about it. [00:20:36.998 – 00:20:42.398] Now, they didn't tell me that I should become fully aware of every other alcoholic's problem. [00:20:42.398 – 00:20:50.518] They said, "Become fully aware of your own problem." And then they suggested that attitudes was a very important thing. [00:20:50.518 – 00:20:56.898] I find that they are equally important tonight as they were just that many nights ago. [00:20:56.898 – 00:21:00.858] And then they told me to set my values.

[00:21:00.858 – 00:21:04.338] And for that, believe me, it wasn't hard. [00:21:04.338 – 00:21:15.258] For myself, I had to get some, might be peculiar ways, some thoughts that would help me at the time, [00:21:15.258 – 00:21:20.878] for– because for quite a long time, I would walk past a bar or a gin mill. [00:21:20.878 – 00:21:23.778] The porter didn't have to come out the next morning. [00:21:23.778 – 00:21:24.878] My tongue went down [00:21:25.098 – 00:21:27.698] Cleaned this whole damn sidewalk and everything was all right. [00:21:27.698 – 00:21:29.438] He had nothing to do the next day. [00:21:29.438 – 00:21:34.898] And I didn't want to take a drink consciously, but those things were happening.

[00:21:34.898 – 00:21:39.678] And they told me that, "Don't worry about it," that that too would pass. [00:21:39.678 – 00:21:47.558] And I like to thank God that now as I look past the same gin mill, he had to sweep something else off the next day. [00:21:47.558 – 00:21:57.678] And I look in, and I don't have any admiration for anybody sitting there at nine in the morning, as I so often did, trying to read the Times when I could [00:21:57.678 – 00:22:00.418] have trouble reading even the weather part of it. [00:22:00.418 – 00:22:07.478] But I thought it made me look, uh, influential, I guess, and I thought I would like to sit with a newspaper like that. [00:22:07.478 – 00:22:17.798] But I've learned to set my values at least up until tonight, and I know that tonight I can exercise the God-given choice of [00:22:17.798 – 00:22:21.178] taking a drink if I want to. [00:22:21.178 – 00:22:30.478] But I have to remember that if I want to take that drink, that I have to be willing, ready and willing, and want to take everything that goes with it.

[00:22:30.478 – 00:22:38.598] Perhaps I'll just mention a few of the little incidents that I like to keep very clear in my mind. [00:22:38.598 – 00:22:41.378] I don't ever want to forget them, not for a minute. [00:22:41.378 – 00:22:46.078] They don't bother me because I bargained with God. [00:22:46.078 – 00:22:57.348] I asked Him to do one thing, just to take the load off my shoulders each day that I didn't take one drink, and [00:22:57.348 – 00:23:00.338] He's carried out His part of that bargain pretty well. [00:23:00.338 – 00:23:06.058] But I've also added that if I did take a drink, put it back on twice as heavy. [00:23:06.058 – 00:23:12.538] And knowing what I was carrying before, I know I couldn't carry it again. [00:23:12.538 – 00:23:15.878] Twice as much would be impossible.

[00:23:15.878 – 00:23:20.018] I like to think my last drink was my last chance. [00:23:20.018 – 00:23:29.638] I like to think of just a few little incidents, a point that perhaps was maybe a little past the halfway mark without any particular provocation. [00:23:29.638 – 00:23:36.718] And again, I'll apologize, not actually, but to you who have heard the story over again. [00:23:36.718 – 00:23:39.938] If nothing else, you'll get a little tolerance tonight. [00:23:39.938 – 00:23:47.758] Uh, without any particular provocation or any trouble with my wife, I told her to get up from a chair that she was sitting on. [00:23:47.758 – 00:23:52.278] By this time, I think I had been drinking for one month, two months. [00:23:52.278 – 00:23:53.638] I don't know just how long. [00:23:53.638 – 00:23:54.878] Day and night, too.

[00:23:54.878 – 00:23:59.898] And, uh, I took a shotgun out from under the cushion of, of the chair. [00:23:59.898 – 00:24:06.678] I pointed it at her head and told her to say a prayer, that it would be the last time that she would say them. [00:24:06.678 – 00:24:14.558] Now, she could run the hundred-yard dash up those stairs in a little less than two seconds lower than the world's champion at the time. [00:24:14.558 – 00:24:15.978] She'd had a lot of experience. [00:24:15.978 – 00:24:21.618] She used to barricade herself up in the upper part of this one-family house with the children. [00:24:21.618 – 00:24:28.298] But she had a relay system set up with a neighbor, and they very nicely used to call a Hundred and Fifth Precinct. [00:24:28.298 – 00:24:29.738] They were very obliging there. [00:24:29.738 – 00:24:34.708] They always sent a couple of radio cars, never just one, and always double-manned.

[00:24:34.708 – 00:24:39.738] And this particular night, they'd done that as they so often had done before. [00:24:39.738 – 00:24:45.798] And, uh, it wasn't very difficult for me to convince those cops to take a look at my wife. [00:24:45.798 – 00:24:50.018] I think it was just a few minutes before she bore her seventh child. [00:24:50.018 – 00:24:52.618] Uh, take a look at her. [00:24:52.618 – 00:24:53.678] She's neurotic. [00:24:53.678 – 00:24:56.998] I'm going hunting in Pennsylvania the next day. [00:24:56.998 – 00:25:00.338] That's the reason for the shotgun in the house. [00:25:00.338 – 00:25:06.858] Uh, it wasn't at all hard for me to convince those cops that that was the story.

[00:25:06.858 – 00:25:16.038] In fact, so much so, the two of them come back to this particular gin mill that I had just left shortly before, and they continued to drink with me. [00:25:16.038 – 00:25:21.178] And they felt very sorry that a nice guy like me should have a wife like I had, really. [00:25:21.178 – 00:25:23.058] I mean, just, uh, uh… [00:25:23.058 – 00:25:28.078] And now, my wife has got a, a, a pretty good sense of humor, believe me. [00:25:28.078 – 00:25:29.538] It's not perverted like mine. [00:25:29.538 – 00:25:33.198] She's got a good sense of humor, and she can laugh at these things today. [00:25:33.198 – 00:25:43.537] But I've often wondered, I still do, how you or I would like to have been on the other end of that shotgun that night [00:25:43.537 – 00:25:47.938] with a suicidal maniac on the other side of it.

[00:25:47.938 – 00:25:57.658] I can be very honest with you, I loved my wife, but the barrel of that damn shotgun had no way of communicating a message like that. [00:25:57.658 – 00:26:06.098] You see, they're the things that I can have back in my house tonight or any other night that I decide I want to take a drink. [00:26:06.098 – 00:26:11.418] But when I reach out and take that drink, I've got to want everything that goes with it. [00:26:11.418 – 00:26:18.298] I can think of a little girl, and I'm not exactly a stranger here. [00:26:18.298 – 00:26:26.538] All my seven children went to this school here and were graduated from this school, and a couple of them were married here. [00:26:26.538 – 00:26:36.898] But I can think of one little girl when she was about ten, and she stood up one night and she screamed, "Daddy, I hate [00:26:36.898 – 00:26:45.058] you." And she did with all the hate and venom that a child can hate a father, and Lord knows they can too. [00:26:45.058 – 00:26:53.478] And I would just like to say I've never asked her forgiveness.

[00:26:53.478 – 00:26:57.018] I've never asked her not to hate me. [00:26:57.018 – 00:27:01.818] I've never asked for her respect or her regard. [00:27:01.818 – 00:27:06.418] Believe you me, she doesn't hate her daddy today. [00:27:06.418 – 00:27:11.718] I remember walking down the aisle again in the same church with her. [00:27:11.718 – 00:27:14.818] She didn't hold me with one hand. [00:27:14.818 – 00:27:16.598] She held me with two hands. [00:27:16.598 – 00:27:19.458] And I knew there was a message there. [00:27:19.458 – 00:27:21.458] She didn't have to say it to me.

[00:27:21.458 – 00:27:31.494] But it's one of the things that, to me That if I never drew one other sober breath as long as I lived, or if the next breath that I took was [00:27:31.494 – 00:27:37.774] the last one, it would be well worthwhile, just a little thing like that. [00:27:37.774 – 00:27:43.254] But they are the things that I can have back in my house any night I want them. [00:27:43.254 – 00:27:50.254] All I have to do is reach out, take a drink, or even want to take a drink. [00:27:50.254 – 00:27:55.054] And I must know that if I do, that I've got to want that which goes with it. [00:27:55.054 – 00:28:01.894] Or I could think of another day riding around Flatbush here with my wife in a taxi cab. [00:28:01.894 – 00:28:05.114] She looked like a Ubangi. [00:28:05.114 – 00:28:06.214] She had a lip.

[00:28:06.214 – 00:28:11.414] Makes me nausea when I even think of it yet. [00:28:11.414 – 00:28:14.734] Just a lip like that. [00:28:14.734 – 00:28:18.094] I don't remember how she got it. [00:28:18.094 – 00:28:20.134] She does. [00:28:20.134 – 00:28:27.994] From loan office to loan office, trying to get a hundred to pay a hundred. [00:28:27.994 – 00:28:34.973] I can have that back in my house anytime I want. [00:28:34.973 – 00:28:38.774] All I have to do is want a drink. [00:28:38.774 – 00:28:45.094] Or I could perhaps think of the last time leaving a hospital.

[00:28:45.094 – 00:28:48.394] I think that I mentioned before. [00:28:48.394 – 00:28:51.694] Jack took me home on a Saturday. [00:28:51.694 – 00:28:58.434] My two boys then, the older two boys, had grown up pretty well. [00:28:58.434 – 00:29:06.234] They were no longer the little kids that used to look up at their daddy and say, Daddy's still sick, mommy, having more medicine. [00:29:06.234 – 00:29:09.094] They were a little past that stage. [00:29:09.094 – 00:29:11.294] They were getting to be pretty big boys. [00:29:11.294 – 00:29:18.054] And those two fellas were laying, I got home from the hospital about five o'clock on a Saturday. [00:29:18.054 – 00:29:24.834] And by six o'clock, they were laying five to one with a neighbor that I'd be drunk before Sunday.

[00:29:24.834 – 00:29:30.714] Now, if I had any money, I'd sure as hell bet their way. [00:29:30.714 – 00:29:36.534] For I had never seen a sober Sunday for as many years as I could remember before. [00:29:36.534 – 00:29:46.884] But I would also like to think that neither of those boys or their brothers or sisters are particularly [00:29:46.884 – 00:29:52.134] sorry that they haven't had to pay off on that debt, at least up until tonight. [00:29:52.134 – 00:30:00.214] For the next night, I took a 17-inch knife out from the pillow of one of those boys. [00:30:00.214 – 00:30:04.514] Now, I'd never had any trouble with the children. [00:30:04.514 – 00:30:07.734] I think I had the graces of God long before AA. [00:30:07.734 – 00:30:10.034] Never put my hands on them.

[00:30:10.034 – 00:30:17.054] I guess unconsciously I knew that I would have killed one of them just as quick as I would have killed anyone else. [00:30:17.054 – 00:30:20.253] That's why I think it was the grace of God. [00:30:20.253 – 00:30:30.994] When I took that 17-inch knife from out from the pillow of that boy, I knew then that I know more clearly [00:30:30.994 – 00:30:31.514] now. [00:30:31.514 – 00:30:37.914] He sure as hell didn't have it under his pillow to clean his fingernails. [00:30:37.914 – 00:30:48.074] But I also know that my father, whom I never knew of to take a drink, and I don't mean to be disrespectful to his memory, [00:30:48.074 – 00:30:57.794] he could never have stood on an AA platform and told you that he'd done to my mother what I'd done to the mother of those boys. [00:30:57.794 – 00:31:00.533] He would never have lived to tell it.

[00:31:00.533 – 00:31:04.194] That could happen in my house. [00:31:04.194 – 00:31:08.834] My house isn't the only house of an alcoholic. [00:31:08.834 – 00:31:18.974] The only way it can happen is for my wanting it to happen and thinking that if I take [00:31:18.974 – 00:31:27.494] a drink or just to think that I could or should take a drink, that I have to want things like that to happen. [00:31:27.494 – 00:31:31.194] I could go on for hours on end. [00:31:31.194 – 00:31:38.174] Everything I would tell you would probably be just a little bit more degrading than the thing before it. [00:31:38.174 – 00:31:43.754] I haven't became angelic since I've come to AA. [00:31:43.754 – 00:31:46.233] I'm not looking to.

[00:31:46.233 – 00:31:49.654] I don't think I'd look good with a halo. [00:31:49.654 – 00:31:52.474] I have bursitis. [00:31:52.474 – 00:31:54.314] I wouldn't want to sprout wings. [00:31:54.314 – 00:32:05.454] But AA has taught me to try to be just a little bit better today than I was yesterday.