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Source: Glen C. – AA Share at Detroit (Date Unknown).mp3 File: glen-c-aa-share-at-detroit-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:00:31
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…many of you expected Ed L. to be here, I had the privilege of meeting him, and I'm sorry if you are a little disappointed, but I'm going to still try to do my best. And I know in this room tonight, there are a few people here, as I was told before the meeting, for their first, second, or third time, they're trying to get acquainted with the program, they're trying to get acquainted with themselves, and they're thinking a lot about themselves, and I want to ask every one of these new people, I want to ask every alcoholic in this room tonight, no matter what his length of time in the program is, I want to ask them a favor, please, I want to ask them not to compare, because there is no comparison in alcoholism.
It doesn't make a bit of difference how much you drank, or who you drank, or who you drank with, but what makes the difference is what it did to you. And wrapped up inside of each and every individual alcoholic heart in this room tonight is the answer to that. You and you alone know, and you and you alone know what it did to you, and whether or not you are an alcoholic. So please do not compare, because I'm going to, as I usually do, and I've asked to do tonight, talk about myself for a few moments.
And what I'm going to tell you isn't nice, I wasn't a very nice guy, but I want every lady and every man in this room tonight to know, to see, to hear, and get acquainted with a character that lived for just one thing each next drink, a guy that hurt everybody he came in contact with. So I'm going to talk about myself. As your chairman told you, my name is Glenn C.. I'm going to talk about my drinking, I'm going right into it.
I started drinking back in my high school days in Grand Rapids, Michigan, back in 1911, 12, 13, and 14. I was as big in those days as I am tonight, a little bit bigger. I was able to get up to certain bars and get drinks, I got them. Nothing serious happened except the fact that I was drinking when I was 15, 16, 17 years of age. But leaving Grand Rapids Central High School, I went down to Wabash University in the state of Indiana.
And I wasn't too much of a student, but in those days I was a pretty far smart hunk. I had all the answers, there was nothing the college professors could teach me. I was only taking enough studies to get by for a few athletics, I would claim. And after my second year at the university, the First World War broke out. I was a young kid, I wanted to get in. So I quit school and went back to Grand Rapids and joined the Army.
I wasn't too much of a soldier, but I was given a lot of breaks in that man's Army. I was given more passes, furloughs, and leaves than the average soldier got, and every one of them wound up in a nice junk. My drinking was picking up. I was putting more time into it. Coming out of that man's Army, I came back to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Tonight, the reason is very plain to me why I came back to Grand Rapids.
My mother and father were still alive. My mother and father had a few dollars. Going to work never entered my mind. I was too smart to work, so I came home. And I borrowed, begged, and stole every penny I could get from my folks. They were giving me money. And what they weren't giving me, I was stealing. And every penny of it went for booze. I was picked up several times by the Grand Rapids police for being drunk.
But my folks paid my fine. I laughed it off, went out, and got drunk again. This went on through 1919 and part of 1920. Then in 1920, I was picked up and charged that my mother and father couldn't pay my fine now. I was charged with robbery armed in a paneling hotel, and when they arrested me, I'm laying on top of a pool table, the old Grand Rapids Visitor Academy, paralyzed, drunk. I'm not trying to alibi. I was guilty.
Judge William B. Brown sent me to Marquette Prison in 1920, and I went to Marquette. But my father thought I'd gotten into bad company. My father went to work on Governor Grosbeck, who was then in office. And at Christmas time in 1920, I was granted my first parole to come back to Grand Rapids to go to work and behave myself. Well, I came back to Grand Rapids on my first parole, but I didn't go to work.
And I didn't behave myself. I was picked up several times by the Grand Rapids police for being drunk, and after five weeks of this, they took all they wanted of it, and I was sent back to Marquette as my first parole violation. The following year, 1921, my father again went to work on the governor, and I was granted my second parole. This time, they were going to parole me where I knew nobody, so they paroled me to the town of Marquette.
Going down to Marquette, living in the hotel, not going to work, drinking every day, drinking every night, I only lasted a few weeks, and on Thanksgiving Day night, I got a little bit too drunk, and the warden drove down two miles from the prison and took me back as my second parole violation. And the following year, 1922, the authorities in Lansing decided I was up there with the wrong class of men.
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I was still a young kid.
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And so they had me transferred to the Ionia Reformatory, where I'd be with boys my age. And I went to Ionia in April 1922. And the following year, 1923, my father again went to work on the governor, and I was granted my third parole. This time, they were going to make sure I got where nobody knew me, and they paroled me to Chicago. Well, in 1923 in Chicago, the synthetic gin was in effect, and I loved it.
And I lay drunk around Chicago for a couple weeks, and then without anyone's permission except my own, I left Chicago. I was arrested for being drunk a few days later in Indianapolis, automatically a parole violator. I was returned to Ionia as my third parole violation. And by this time, they decided in Lansing, we'd better make that brat do some time, we might wake him up. And they did. I finished my sentence in Ionia Reformatory.
And in 1929, I was discharged a free man, a free man to go out and choose the kind of a life that I wanted. It didn't take me too long to choose it. Ionia is only 34 miles from Grand Rapids. Again, I hurried home. Again, I barred, begged, and stole every penny I could get from my folks. And I took myself down to Kalamazoo. I'd been down to Kalamazoo a few times before. And there was a bunch of the boys and a bunch of the men down in Kalamazoo that lived exactly the way I wanted to live.
And they lived down the CK&S Railroad tracks. It was commonly known as a jungle. And there I went, there I lived, there I ate, there I slept, and there I made my home. Drunk every day, drunk every night, living for just one thing, my next thing. Every time I put my feet on the street in Kalamazoo, the police picked me up. They ordered me out of town, they rode me out of town, and I still laughed at them.
I was still the smart guy. This went on through 29, 30, 31, 32, and 33. I come to 33. It happens to be a year I'll never forget. I'm laying down in these same jungles, pretty drunk. And the police officer walks into the jungles and said, C., get yourself out of here. They've notified the department your father's not expected to live in Grand Rapids and they want you home. The copper walked out of the jungles, I walked over and picked up the jug, took another drink, and I didn't leave the jungles.
My dad died a couple days later in Grand Rapids and I wasn't there. That's the same dad that gave me every kind of a break a kid had ever had and I wouldn't go 50 miles to see him die. I was a pretty rotten, contemptible punk, my friend, but it didn't bother me in the least. I still thought I was a smart guy. And so through 34 and part of 35, I continued giving Kalamazoo a beating. And then in 35, I decided I'd try new territory for a while, so I went down to Lansing, but it was the same story in Lansing.
Drunk every day, drunk every night, living for just one thing, my next drink. I was wiring my mother, telephoning my mother, bleeding my mother for her last dollar. When she could send me money, I paid my fines, and when she couldn't, I went to the Mason County Jail and done my time. And then in the very latter part of 35, again, I was picked up on a charge that my mother could not pay my fine on. This time, I'm supposed to steal an overcoat out of a beer parlor.
Standing here tonight, before you find people in Detroit, I do not know whether I stole the coat or whether I didn't. But evidently, I did. Because Judge Carr gave me four years in Jackson Prison. And I went to Jackson Prison in 1936 in February. But my mother needed me badly at home. She was practically out of money, and friends of our family got the Governor Fitzgerald, who was then in office. And at Christmas time in 1936, I was granted my fourth parole to again come back to Grand Rapids to go to work and behave myself.
Well, I came back to Grand Rapids on my fourth parole, but again, I didn't go to work and I didn't behave myself, and I didn't last five weeks. In less than three weeks' time, I'm on my way back to Jackson with my fourth parole violation. And the following year, 1937, another year I'll never forget, my mother had her third stroke in Grand Rapids. She was bad off. And friends of our family got the Governor Fitzgerald, and I was granted a temporary parole.
Some of you people in this room tonight do not know what a temporary parole is. I want to tell you what one is. I have a purpose in telling you.
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A temporary parole is a parole that they release a prisoner from an institution to go to his given destination, perform his business, and to return to prison on his word of honor. I was granted 15 days by Governor Fitzgerald to take the money that I had from the second half of the national bonus to go to Grand Rapids, put my mother into a hospital, and return to prison on my word of honor. Well, I went to Grand Rapids.
I took my mother out of the home on Lafayette Street. I took her out to the Veterans Facility Hospital, which was known in those days as Soldier's Home Hospital. I had that privilege being an ex-soldier, and I also had enough dough in my pocket to put her into any private hospital I'd have chosen, but I didn't. My mother lived out there about five days, and she died. I was there when she died, half drunk and half sober, if there is any such a thing as that, when my mother died.
But she hadn't been buried three hours in the ground, and I got as drunk as any man ever got in his life, and I stayed that way. And I said to anyone who would listen to me, if they want me back in Jackson Prison, they can come and get me. But you probably have read in your local papers they're quite accommodating about those kind of things. They came and got me. And they took me back as my fifth parole violation.
And again I was given my time to do, but having only a four-year maximum, I was discharged a free man in 1939, just ten years from the time that I was discharged a free man before. And again I was given a chance to choose the kind of a life that I wanted. And again it didn't take me long to choose it. This time I didn't have any crutches to lean on. This time I was on my own for the first time in my life.
And I hurried back to Kalamazoo as fast as I could get there, right back down in the jungle, right back down in the mud where I belonged. And again that's where I lived and where I ate and where I slept and where I made my home. And as I said, the Kalamazoo police were getting sick and tired of me. And so the following spring, 1940, they brought me up in circuit court in Kalamazoo in front of George V. Weimer, charged with being an [unclear] drunkard.
And Judge Weimer gave me six months to two years in Jackson Prison. And I went to Jackson Prison and I did those two years. And again I was discharged a free man. And again I hurried back to Kalamazoo as fast as I could get there. And the following spring, 1943, I'm up in circuit court in front of Judge Weimer the second time. And the second time he sent me to Jackson Prison that morning, he gave me one to two years in Jackson Prison.
And I went to Jackson Prison and did those two years. And again I was discharged. And again I was a free man. And again I hurried back to Kalamazoo as fast as I could get there. And on January the 10th, 1945, I'm up in circuit court in Kalamazoo in front of Judge Weimer the third time, charged with being an [unclear] drunkard. And Judge Weimer on that January morning gave me a year, 11 months, and 29 days to two years, which happens to be every hour that he could give me.
And I'll never forget the words that Judge Weimer said to me on that January morning. After sentencing me, he said, this court regrets deeply that it cannot give you life. Judge Weimer died a few years ago in Kalamazoo. I'm very happy to tell you people in this room tonight that many times before his death, Judge Weimer and I had some fine talks together. We became so we knew each other, we understood each other.
Judge Weimer was a fine man in every sense of the word. But on the morning of January the 10th, 1945, when he said his court regretted that it could not give me life, he meant every word that he said. I was that kind of a person. But I went to Jackson Prison and did those two years. It's those two years I want to talk about for just a second. Because during those last two years in Jackson Prison, there happened to be another character in there from Kalamazoo, a guy that I laid in the mud and the gutters and the skid rows with half of my life.
And he was paroled out of Jackson Prison 13 months before it was my time to come out. And Shy went back to Kalamazoo on parole. And after he was home about a month or close thereto, I got my first letter from Shy. Now you know that he wasn't allowed to write to me personally, but some of you may not know that in prison, some of us had ways and means of getting mail we're not supposed to get. And I had one of those ways.
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And in that letter, Shy says to me, Glenn, I'm living at home again with my mother. I'm working at the Sutherland Paper Company. I haven't had a drink. I found something called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I didn't know what he was talking about, because to me it didn't make too much sense. In My Book, People Like Shy W. Just Didn't Quit Drinking, So I Tossed the Letter Over My Shoulder and Forgot About It, But People Like Shy W. Don't Give Up, Those Letters Kept On Coming, and About Once a Month, The Folks There, Too, for the Next Twelve or Thirteen Months, I Got a Letter from Shy, They All Told Me About the Same Thing, and He Always Mentioned Alcoholics Anonymous, Well, in Jackson Prison, as in most prisons, you're allowed to read certain magazines at certain times, I happened to like to read, and I did have the privilege of reading a couple of small articles about AA, I don't remember tonight too much that I read, except in those days, most articles about AA, the term God, as you understand it, was usually mentioned, and I didn't know anything about God, I turned my back on God when I was old enough to turn my back, but I read those articles, and just shortly before my last discharge, I got my last letter from Shy, and in the letter, he says, Glenn, you're coming out of that joint again in a few days, and again, we want you to come back to Kalamazoo, but a different Kalamazoo, my mother and I have a home for you to live in, that's something you haven't had in a long time, we've got a job waiting for you at the Sutherland Paper Company, that's also something you haven't had in a long time, but the finest part of it all is, we've got Alcoholics Anonymous waiting for you, come on back and get coming, I got that letter and I read it, and on Friday afternoon, December the 6th, 1946, I was discharged from Jackson Prison the last time, they took me down to the bus station and asked me where I wanted to go, I didn't fool them any, I told them Kalamazoo, and they put me on the bus bound for Kalamazoo, well, the bus running from Jackson, Michigan to Kalamazoo, Michigan happens to go through Battle Creek, as most of you know, and when the bus pulled into the bus station in Battle Creek on Jackson Street on a Friday afternoon, I got off on the bus, don't ask me why I got off, I don't know, I just got off, and I walked down Jackson Street and I walked into Otto Gims Saloon, I ordered myself a drink and I got it, and I proceeded to get just as drunk as any man ever got in his life, I remember nothing about that Friday night whatsoever, it's a total blank to me, but I woke up the next morning, Saturday morning, December the 7th, 1946, a morning I'll never forget, and I woke up in Shorty Gleason's flop house over on Capitol Avenue, which happens to sit right in the heart of Skid Row in Battle Creek, and I came down the stairs of that flop house that morning, I thought about a lot of things I hadn't thought about too much before, I thought about my mother and my dad who I know I'd hurt in their graves years ahead of their time, I thought about a lot of people and a lot of places I'd hurt in every way humanly possible, and I thought about Shy W. and those words he'd used on me, and I came to the corner of Capitol Avenue and Jackson Street, and on that particular corner on Skid Row there happens to be a lamppost, I know it's still there, I passed it a few weeks ago and I could have got out of my car and kissed it, it's still there, I came to that lamppost on that Saturday morning, I did something I never did before in my life, I asked for help, and I asked for help in the only way that I knew how, and I said, God, if there is a God, help me now because I'm on my last time around, I know to a lot of you people sitting in this room tonight that probably would not constitute a prayer, but to me, my friends, it will always be one, because from that moment until the present moment I have been given the greatest gift that God can bestow upon a human being, from that moment until the present moment I have been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, from that moment until the present moment I have not had a drink, through the grace of God, through the AA program, and through people like us sitting in this room tonight, and that is why I brought you people to that morning, because I feel in my heart tonight that for every alcoholic in this room tonight, that he or she like myself also came to their last time around, and that is why I'm going to ask you again, please, do not compare,
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I'm all through talking about myself, I told you it wasn't nice and it isn't nice, but I wanted you to hear it, I wanted you to know it, I wanted you to see here and become acquainted with a character that hurt everybody that he came in contact with, that lived for just one thing, his next drink, how he got it and who he hurt getting it never bothered him in the least, and I wanted you to meet that kind of a guy, and so I'm all through talking about myself, but I would like to talk about something worthwhile, something that I love with all of my heart, and that is the Alcoholics Anonymous program, I love this program dearly, I love it a lot more than I can express to you people in this room tonight in words, I know that I'd rather be standing up here this very moment without my arms and my legs than I would be standing up here without the AA program, I love it and I love to talk about it, the first step of this program told me that we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable, if you and I were to go out that door this moment and start down that near street and walk up to the first drinking man or drinking woman that we met and we were to say to them, are you powerless over alcohol, they'd probably turn around to you and say, well, if I drink too much I get drunk, but if you ask that same party, if through drinking has your life become unmanageable, they'd say, get away from me, screwball, I always have ran the show and I can still run it tonight, of course they might be laying out there in their gutter when they tell us that, but in their book they can still run the show, but I feel in my heart tonight that for every alcoholic in this room tonight, including myself, our lives have become unmanageable, there's a lot of people in a lot of places that come into AA, they're out of this and they're out of that, they get sober, things start picking up for them and then they change their minds, I spent a couple of years in AA in Kalamazoo, I moved to Holland, Michigan, I went to work in a factory there on the first shift and there was a guy coming in every day on the second shift drunk, they tried everything on Joe, they laid him off, they gave him leaves of absence, they tried it all and it didn't work and they finally fired him, and the day after they fired him they called me out in the office and Joe sat there all sick and shaky and vomiting, he said, Glenn, can you help me?
I said, Joe, I don't think I can, but I think AA can, would you like to go home with me? He said, I'd love to, so I pulled him in the car and I took him home, and he sat down in our kitchen, he got some coffee into him, he got some soup into him, and he sat there and he gladly admitted that he was powerless over alcohol, his life had become unmanageable, he had a wife and four children, the wife was about to have baby number five, there wasn't a loaf of bread in the house, there wasn't a bottle of milk in the house, and we were able to get Joe another job and he went to work, and he attended our meetings religiously for just three weeks, and then the night of the next meeting the phone rang, it was Joe on the other end of the line, he said, Glenn, where do you think I'm at?
I said, I don't know, Joe, where are you? He said, Glenn, I'm down at the North End Tavern having a couple of beers. You know, I made an awful mistake the other night, I told you people I was alcoholic, and these beers aren't bothering me at all, Glenn, I got this baby licked. I said, Joe, my friend, you told us the other night you were alcoholic and if you were, Joe, you're still one tonight, I wish you'd go on home, your wife and kids need you, forget those beers, Joe. I said, Glenn, I got the baby beat and the phone went off.
Well, that same night he and another guy checked into the Warm Friend Tavern Hotel with a cup of horse or whiskey, and they got kicked out for making too much noise the next morning, you can't make too much noise in Holland anyway, so they went out to a motel on 31 Highway, and they laid out there for eight days and eight nights drunk. The man that ran the place was getting the booze for them, and then Joe decided to go down home and clean up. This is quite a few years ago, my friend, Joe went down home, he went in the house, the wife was down at the doctor's and the four kids were next door, so he cleaned up and he packed his clothes and he left Holland, and he hasn't got back to Holland yet.
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The wife went to the hospital a few days later to have the baby, the baby was stillborn dead, the four children are now at a sister's home in Chicago, the wife's working in a factory in Holland, but Joe hasn't got back there yet. I'm not trying to scare anybody in this room tonight, and I'm not trying to shove anything down anyone's throat in this room tonight. I'm only trying to tell every alcoholic in this room, including myself, that we either are or we aren't.
There aren't any halfway measures in alcoholism, and if we know in our heart tonight that we are alcoholic, we also know in our heart tonight that our lives have become unmanageable. And then I came to the second step of this program that says I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I told you people a few moments ago that I didn't know anything about God, and I didn't, but they told me I was to find my own conception of God, a God that I understood.
And I'm very happy to be able to stand up here tonight and say that I did exactly that. I found a God that I understand, a God that I take my everyday trials and tribulations to and talk them over with. Yes, I make a lot of mistakes every day of my life, and I feel I've been making a lot more of them. But I take my mistakes, my trials, my tribulations to my God, and I find out that they aren't coming up quite so often.
And after a few meetings under my belt in Kalamazoo, I started seeing things around me I'd never noticed before. I saw leaves and lawns, lakes, trees, a lot of beautiful things. And then I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that a power greater than myself existed all around me. And then the next thing I know, I was walking down the streets of Kalamazoo sober and out of jail, and that was a new deal on me. And then I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that a power greater than myself existed within me.
And I feel in my heart tonight that Almighty God exists within every person on the face of this earth. But people have lived as I have lived, and perhaps some of you have lived, just haven't given God a chance. So I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, and I came to the third step of this program, a step that I'm never tired of talking about. The third step of alcoholics, anonymous to me, has always been the difference between a person getting AA and AA getting a person. I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand it.
I hope there isn't a person in this room tonight wondering why a character like myself would turn their will and their life over to the care of God. But if such a person is in this room tonight, I want that person to know that when it comes to a drink of liquor, I haven't got the willpower of a five-year-old boy. I haven't got it tonight, and I haven't had it for a long time, and I won't have it as long as I live. So I didn't have two choices in this deal. I only had one, and that one lies right in the heart of the third step of this program, where I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand it, and the job that I have in my hands tonight and every day of my life, 24 hours at a time, is to keep it there.
I wish that every lady and every man in this room tonight could have been down in Ohio with me several years ago when I walked into a local YMCA on a Saturday night to talk. And as I came through the door with a friend of mine, he pointed over the side of the wall and he said, Look, Len, he's been drunk for three weeks. And the guy that he pointed at had been in AA for eleven and a half years. The guy that he pointed at had been the first AA in that county. The guy that he pointed at had just become the delegate on this third legacy deal that we've all heard so much about.
And he stood over there drunk, and I was up in front there a few moments later popping off. I couldn't get him out of my mind. He was with me every moment. And when I came to the third step of this program, I probably emphasized stronger than I ever did, the fact that people like you and I, taking it out of God's hands and putting it back at our own, and as I said a moment ago, I wish you could have seen him after the meeting, I'm, I was still standing up in front, just like I am now, and he'd come off that wall, and he'd come right up that center aisle, and he got right out in front of me, he looked up at my face and screamed at me, he said, Glenn, I can't get sober, and the tears were streaming down his face like a baby,
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the man's 60 years old, he said, you were talking to me, I did exactly what you said, I took it out of God's hands and I can't get it back, I'm very happy to tell you people in this room tonight, that he did get it back into God's hands, but I want you to remember that he hadn't had a drink in 11 and a half years, and that's a lot of nights in anybody's language, and then I came to the fourth step of this program, where it says I made a searching and [unclear] moral inventory of myself, a few people that would speak to me told me that I was to dig in there deep, and I'm very grateful to Almighty God in this program that I did exactly that, and I'm still digging tonight, I didn't come up with a very pretty picture, I hadn't been a very nice guy, but I brought myself up where I could see myself for the first time in my life, it wasn't too nice to look at, but as strange as it may seem to you, when I was digging in there deep, I found I had a couple of good characteristics, and I feel in my heart tonight that Almighty God bestowed good in every person on the face of this earth, so I had something to work on, as we all have, and so I had a job on my hands, as we all have, and that job was to rid myself of my character defects and give the good ones a chance to go to work, and that's the one that I'm working on tonight, and then I came to the fifth step of this program, where a very beautiful privilege is given every member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I told you people I found God in AA, and I did exactly that, I found a God that I take my everyday trials and tribulations to, I make mistakes and I admit them to God gladly and openly and honestly, yes, I admit them to God, and then they told me that I was to admit them to myself, they told me that I was to get honest with that guy looking back at me from the mirror, and I've got to be honest with you and tell you that it wasn't easy, because all my life I've been anything but honest, and they told me I had to get square with that guy looking back at me, but I admitted these things gladly to myself, and then they told me I had to admit them to another human being, and I can remember that night like it was last week, I'd been to a couple of meetings with Shy in Kalamazoo, I came home from a Monday night meeting and I was going to work the next morning, Tuesday, the first job I'd had in 35 years, I'd been on vacation, and Shy and I put a pot of coffee on the kitchen table and we sat down and started talking, and we were still sitting there when his mother got up to get our breakfast the next morning, I told Shy W. things that night I never told any person before in my life, Shy told me a lot of things, but I did most of the talking, but I went to work the next morning, I wasn't tired, I'd unloaded for the first time in my life, and if you don't think that's beautiful medicine, try it sometime, so I stand ready at any time of day or night, ready to admit to God, to myself, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs, and then we come at this stage in the program to the sixth step that tells you and I we are entirely ready to ask God to remove our defects of character, you and I are entirely ready, why?
We're entirely ready because we have admitted that we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives have become unmanageable, we have made the decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand it, we've taken a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, we've admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs, so we are entirely ready to ask God to remove our defects of character, and in the seventh step of this program, we humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings, we humbly ask God, humility, I've heard the word defined a thousand different ways,
[00:35:09]
I probably standing up here this moment do not know the correct meaning of the word humility, but humility before God to me this very moment means nothing more than bringing myself down to my own level, bringing myself down to be the kind of a guy that God intended me to be a long while ago, the kind of a guy that I step out of my hotel each and every morning of my life, that every man, woman, and child that I meet in the course of that day, I know that their soul is just as precious to God as my own, my love of my fellow man, my wanting to be with my fellow man, and my wanting to be able through the grace of God in this program to help my fellow man has become my humility before God, at a level that God intended me to be at a long while ago, and at that level, trying to be the kind of a guy that God intended me to be a long while ago, and at that level, I humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings, and then I came to the 8th and 9th step of this program, where it says we made a list of all the persons that we harmed and became willing to make amends to them all, and made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others, I personally never made a written list of all the people that I harmed, I can't stand up here and give you a good legitimate reason why I didn't, there could have been a paper shortage about that time, I don't know, but I did make a mental list, and I'm still making it tonight, I hurt a lot of people in a lot of places, I found some begging still a lot of dollars in a lot of places, and I thank almighty God in the A&E program that I've been able to go a lot of places, and I've been able to pay a dollar here and a dollar there, but I think the finest thing that I learned in the entire 9th step of this program was that I learned to apologize, I had never apologized to any man, woman, or child before coming into AA, and I can remember my first apology like that was also last year, I'll tell you about that one too, there was a guy graduated in the same class I did in school, and right shortly after school he left Grand Rapids and he went to Kalamazoo in the jewelry business right on the main street of Michigan Avenue, and for about 35 years every time I was out of jail I was in that jewelry store, bumming Apple for the price of a jug, and if his customers were in the way I shoved them out of the way, if his wife was in the way I pushed her out of the way, I wanted the price of a bottle and that man was giving it to me, and that man took that kind of a beating from me for that many years, and I went to him and tried to apologize and I didn't know how, I don't remember word for word that I said to Apple that morning, but I do remember saying to him, I've gone into something they call Alcoholics Anonymous, Apple, and I don't know whether I'm going to drink or whether I'm not, but I do know that I haven't gotten any friends, and I've been an awful heel with you Apple, I've hurt you in many, many ways, won't you please forgive me and be my friend?
I walked out of that store a few minutes later, he had one arm around my shoulder, he was squeezing my hand, and we were both crying like a couple of school kids. I'd apologized for the first time in my life, but believe me my friend, it wasn't the last, because any time that my side of the fence is not entirely clean, I'm the only guy on the face of this earth that can do anything about it. So I make amends wherever possible, and then I came to the tenth step of this program, and next to the word God, I come to the most important word in my life, and that happens to be the first word of the tenth step, and that word happens to be continue.
[00:40:00]
And I'm hoping and praying to God this very moment that if you people here in this room tonight don't carry a word out that door with you when you go home, I hope you'll take the word continue with you when you think about it. It can turn out to be the difference between drunkenness and [unclear]. It can turn out to be the difference between a lot of grief, misery, and rottenness, and a certain degree of peace of mind, happiness, and contentment that we all want so badly.
And so I'm going to try in my screwball way to drive that word continue into your hearts and minds, because for every alcoholic in this room tonight, including myself, we must continue to remember that we are powerless over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable. We must continue to remember that we have placed our will and our lives into the hands of God as we understand him, and we must continue to try to keep it there.
We must continue to take a searching and [unclear] moral inventory of ourselves. We must continue to stand ready at any time of day or night, ready to admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrong. We must continue to humbly ask God to remove our shortcoming, and we must continue to make amends wherever possible, and we must continue to take a personal inventory, and when we are wrong, promptly admit it.
I'm hoping the word continue will ring up there in your heart tonight, because I stand up here looking out across the room at you. I'm thinking of a lot of my friends in a lot of places that forgot the word continue. I could go on here for hours boring you and telling you about them. I'm not going to. Don't be afraid. But there's one, one very dear friend of mine that had happened right here in Detroit, and I'm going to tell you about him, because he left me an awful, awful lot quite a few years ago, and I'm hoping when I'm through he leaves something for every lady and every man in this room. The guy that I'm talking about walked into a certain shop in Detroit about 12 or 13 years ago, and he asked for a job.
Sick, shaking, vomiting, and the guy that ran the shop gave him a job, and he started him out as a sweeper in the shop, and then he came into AA, and for eight and a half years he did a fine job in AA. I've been to many meetings here in your city of Detroit in those days when people come up and took me by the arm and said, look, see that guy over there? That's my sponsor. Danny did a fine job. And then those eight and a half years he went from that sweeper job right up to the top of the ladder. He became plant manager.
And then the man that owned the shop and ran the shop took a vacation and went to California, and the first Friday afternoon that he was gone, Danny went downtown and got drunk. The members of his group caught up with him at the downtown hotel a few days later, but he fooled them. He checked out of that hotel and checked into another one, and that lasted until the following Saturday morning, and Danny died. I happened to be in Detroit the morning that Danny died, and I had the privilege of meeting his pastor out in East Detroit on that Saturday night.
He gave me a lot to think about, and I'm hoping that he's got a few. It's mighty true, my friend, he had forgotten to continue. It's mighty true that he had taken it out of God's hands and put it back in his own, but there's something vitally more important there for you and I, and that is the fact that he never had another chance. And there isn't a lady or man within the hearing of my voice, including myself, that has a way on the face of this earth to know that you and I will ever be given another one. And so we only have one duty before God and our fellow man, that is to carry on with the one that we have.
And that is why I'm trying, as I told you a moment ago, to drive that word, continue, into your hearts tonight. And then we come to the eleventh step of this program, and I call it the beauty of this entire deal, and to me it's exactly that, where we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out.
[00:45:20]
Let everybody for just a moment think about ourselves. Think about what kind of people were we not too long ago, and what kind of people are we tonight, and why. How many times have any of you in this room like myself been walking down the particular town or city that you happen to live in, walking down the sidewalk and someone passed you on the sidewalk and you heard them say, look at that drunken bum, look at that guy, he'll spend the rest of his life in jail, get away from people like that.
Look at that drunken woman, she'll die in a drunkard's grave. You're wasting your time with people like that. How many times have you and I in this very room tonight heard those words said about you and I, that you and I are sitting in this room tonight, members of Alcoholics Anonymous, to me the greatest gift that God can bestow upon a human being, and you and I in this very room tonight are given a chance to know that same God better. I can only say it because it's in my heart and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, so help me God.
Right here before me in this room tonight, no matter what your walking life may be, no matter where you're going or where you've been, but sitting here as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, we are the most fortunate people on the face of this earth. Yes, you and I are given a chance to know that same God better. What a fortunate bunch of people we are. And let's continue in our particular way to keep ourselves just that fortunate.
And then we come to the twelfth step of this program that says having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. We try to carry this message through alcoholics and the practicing principles in all of our affairs. Having had a spiritual awakening, I can't talk about it. I don't know anything about it. I'm very grateful to almighty God tonight that I can stand here and honestly say I feel that to a small degree, somewhere along the line, I have had some form of a spiritual awakening for which I'm deeply grateful.
Yes, but the second part of that twelfth step says we try to carry this message to alcoholics. I can't talk about that part of the deal because that part of the deal is the reason that you and I are in this room tonight. Because somebody somewhere along the line took time to come to you and I when you and I needed that somebody worse than we needed life itself. And there's one thing very important for me and for every member of A in this room tonight, and that is the fact that we should never forget that that next sick woman or sick man on the end of that telephone, that we in this room tonight may be the only people on the face of this earth that has got an answer for that sick alcoholic. Yes, that person needs you and I. Needs you and I probably worse than they need life itself.
I go into a lot of towns and a lot of cities every year of my life. I go back into groups after being gone a year or two and I look around the room for some of the old timers. I don't see too many of them. They're getting a little further apart. But I'm a great guy to ask questions. And so I ask about some of them. I get a lot of funny answers but they all wind up in the same spot. I ask about this guy. They tell me they haven't seen him for a year, he just don't come to meetings anymore. Then I ask about another guy and they say, well, we haven't seen him now in a year, year and a half.
We called him up here a few weeks ago and we asked him to make a 12-step call up in his neighborhood, but he told us he'd made his share, let some of the newer guys make them. Well, I'm hoping and praying to God that no member of AA in this room tonight, including myself, will ever bring ourselves to the point in our thinking that we have done our share in AA.
[00:50:16]
Yes, in my book there aren't any shares in AA. And I go along so much with my good friend, Clem L., who died a few years ago in Chicago, when he said to me one night, Glenn, if I were given the privilege by Almighty God of calling on 10,000 men and women for the next 10,000 days, I wouldn't be paying back one 10,000th of the blessings bestowed upon me. I go along with Clem very, very much. Yes, my friend, I'm sorry for those people. I'm deeply sorry for them. They are trying to do the impossible. They are trying to rest on their laurels in AA and there aren't any laurels in AA.
They have become self-satisfied in AA. They have gotten all they want out of AA. And they haven't got time to think about that sick man or sick woman coming up. And they have forgotten the most important day in their life, the day that someone came to them and through the grace of God handed to them the Alcoholics Anonymous program. And there's a few people and a few places that get just a little bit too fussy about who they go to see. Let's you and I think back for just a moment.
When your friend or your friend in AA came to you, did they ask you how much money you had? Did they ask you what side of the tracks you were born on? Did they ask you what the color of your skin was? Did they ask you how far you went in school? You know they didn't. They only asked you one question, the same as they did me. What do you want to do about your drinking? And you and I are sitting in this room tonight, members of AA, and why should we or any of us at any time want to know too much about that sick man or sick woman on the other end of that line?
That was thrown back into our face a good many years ago in Kalamazoo and I'm going to tell you about it. I have never forgotten it and I don't think I ever will. I'd gone down to Muskegon a couple of days on AA work and I'd come back into Kalamazoo and there was a 12-step call on the telephone pad. Been in there for a couple of days but nobody had made it. The 12-step call happened to be down on Kodak Street, if you're acquainted in Kalamazoo, and it happened to be on a colored guy.
Shy got home from work that afternoon and I got a hold of him and he and I made that call about 7 o'clock that night, but we might as well have stayed home. We got there, we were too late, the guy was dead. I'm not trying to scare anybody in this room tonight, my friend. I'm only trying to tell you and myself at the same time that that sick man or that sick woman on the other end of that telephone, that postcard, that letter, that call, whatever it happened to be, that that man or woman needs you and I and this program was given to you and I through the grace of God and AA and we only have one duty before God and our fellow man, that is to give it to those sick alcoholics in our own particular ways as quickly as we can.
And so whatever your way of life may be, carry that message to other alcoholics. I've always said, and I'll still say it again tonight, that I think the greatest work in 12-step work is example, is people like you and I walking down the particular towns and cities that we're in with our head up, our chin up, our eyes open, knowing what town it is, what time it is, what day it is. People didn't see us that way for a long, long time. And when people, particularly alcoholics, see you and I that way, they're going to start asking a lot of questions.
[00:55:02]
And when an alcoholic asks too many questions, something's going to give. And the first thing you know, you've got a new member of AA right by the arm coming through that door because you, in your way, did the greatest work there is to do in 12-step work, and that is example. So whatever your way in life may be, whatever your method may be, my dear friend, let's, you and I, in our own particular way, carry this message to other alcoholics.
And then we come to the last few words of this program that says we practice these principles in all of our affairs. That's a full-time order for you and I. It's going to keep you and I busy the rest of our lives, 24 hours at a time, one day at a time, trying as well as we can to practice these principles in all of our affairs. We're going to make a lot of mistakes. We're going to do things that aren't just right. But thanks to Almighty God in this program, those things gone on.
I hear a lot of reasons and a lot of excuses from a lot of people of why they get drunk. But I think chief amongst those all is resentment. It's something that you and I just aren't big enough to carry around. But I was a pretty lucky guy coming into this field. I was given an answer to my resentment a good many years ago in AA. I'm going to pass it along to you. If you like it, keep it. If you don't, just toss it over your shoulder.
But I attended a meeting in Benton Harbor, Michigan, quite a few years ago. And in those days, the speakers used to answer questions after the meetings of many places. And the speaker that night, who's a good friend of mine tonight, was answering questions. And some guy jumped up back in the middle of the hall and said, what's a speaker? He said, there's a guy in this group, he said, I hate his gut. What do I do about it? And I remember my friend the speaker said, is he sober? Oh, he looks like he's sober. He acts like he's sober. The guy's no good. If he don't quit coming to these meetings, I'm going to stay away from there.
He added, you do hate this guy. He said, I really do. He said, all right, I'm going to ask you what to do. If you want to do it, that's your business. You tell me you hate this guy, he said, I really do. He said, okay. When you get home tonight, get your clothes off and just before you climb in bed, get on your knees and pray for that man as hard as you can pray for him. And when you come up off your knees, you won't be hating that man because you can't hate a person and pray for them at the same time. My friend the speaker was telling the truth that night, my friend. I couldn't read it in books. I tried it myself. And it's the truest thing ever spoken. You cannot pray for a man and hate him at the same time.
And so you and I, in our own particular ways, will try to practice these principles in all of our affairs. And if we can go to bed tonight, which happens to be the 22nd day of April, and we can say to our God in our way, thank you, God, for the past 24 hours of sobriety that you have given me, you and I have had a pretty nice day. And if Almighty God grants you and I the privilege of waking up tomorrow morning, the 23rd day of April, and we're big enough in our way to go to our God in our own way, and ask for 24 hours of sobriety, guidance, and direction, you and I are in for another fine day.
Yes, 24 hours at a time, trying to live and be the kind of people that God intended us to be a long while ago. And so with that thought in mind, and that word continuing in my heart, I want to thank every lady and every man in this room tonight for being here. It's been mighty swell being with you. I'm sorry that your friend L. couldn't make it. He had to go out of town. And I hope and I pray to God that I haven't bored any of you in any way. It's really been a privilege.
And so with that thought in mind, the word continue in my heart, and you fine people in my heart tonight, again I want to thank you, and I want to just leave you with a little thought, that's been left to me many times, let's every lady and every man in this room tonight, no matter who we are or where we're going, let's every one of us be just a little more careful how we live,
[01:00:17]
because we might be the only Bible that a lot of people ever read, thank you friends, thank you.