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Source: Jim H – Speaker Talk – Date Unknown.mp3 File: jim-h-speaker-talk-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:38:33
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Ladies and gentlemen, we are now about to open the sixth annual Chicago Intergroup Conference. May I be one of the first to wish you hi. Hi! I'd like to welcome everybody that could get out this morning for the opening of this conference. And may we open this meeting in the traditional AA spirit with a quiet time, please. Father John B. will now give us the invocation. Would you kindly rise. O God, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, thou hast filled the hearts of thy faithful gathered here this morning for the sixth Chicago Intergroup Conference with the gifts of charity and to share and strengthen and deepen the AA experience in us.
We implore thy gentle mercy, grant thy servants here gathered health of mind and of body, so that they may love thee with all their strength and may do with all their heart that which is most pleasing to thee, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our anonymity, like our sobriety, is a treasured possession. We ask the help of our guests, especially those of the press and radio, in protecting the anonymity of all alcoholics present or mentioned here today.
We hope you hear something at this meeting which you can take away with you and use. We respectfully request, however, that you leave the name of all AA members, both those on the platform and those in the audience, here where they belong, in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is an honest desire to stop drinking. AA has no dues or fees, but we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
Our opening speaker this morning is a man that I've seen around this program quite a few, 24 hours, probably a lot of you also have, and I know you are going to get a very, very good opening message from Jim H. of the Evans Avenue Group. I can swallow my chest back down. I'd like to say to everyone, hi. All right. Makes me feel a little better. I'm jumping all around inside and the floors are going up and down and, well, I have the words.
I've never seen so many faces, happy faces, good-looking faces. But you see, I'm faced with the faces. I'm usually out in the faces. This is a face, too.
[00:05:00]
It's been called a lot of other things back in the day than a lot of other things this face was, I think, and I know. But it's a little silly to be jumping up and down, I know, and to have this feeling when I know that I'm with my people. You see, you are the people that helped me to help myself to get a grip on the little me that was left, the little of the me that was left. Although there's not very much of me still, but I have a chance to develop this me from you.
I guess I'm about the biggest fool that ever came around, A.A. I know I'm about the biggest chump that ever passed through. But I know one thing, too, that I'm the most fortunate whino to ever get into A.A. It was a hard fight. I fought every way of every step of the way because I wasn't looking for anything. But I found two people, two groups of people in my life that have helped me to be able to say that I don't think there's anyone on earth that is enjoying life any better than this fool is today.
And better still, I know how I came to enjoy this life. Each and every one of you that are here today had something directly or indirectly to do with a chump like me being able to come to a place where I can have a peace in life for me. And with me getting into this A.A. program and your help, all the way, I was able to develop, still trying. Anything I say about E.D., develop, I mean I.N.G. because I am continuing to develop a program of my own.
And I understand that each and every one of us have to develop a program of his or her own. I know, for me, I know there are these two groups of people are very important to me. I know that I found these understanding people when I came to A.A. They probably found me because I wasn't looking for anything, but they were there, and I needed it. But there are another group of people that kept me and helped me and produced a way for me to find these understanding people, and those were the caring people.
And they meant an awful lot in my life. As I sit back and go over my life, and every now and then I do, I'm not afraid now, these people come out to me because I know all down that path of my scattered, splattered, trailing, sailing and humdrumming through life, people care. Bus drivers, policemen, air drivers, conductors, tavern owners, pool hall owners, drugstores, people in the street, they care.
They care about a chump like me when I didn't care anything about myself. They cared what happened, not particularly probably to Jimmy H., but they cared about a helpless drunk, a helpless fool out there, and that's what I was. And I'll tell you a little something here. I don't have very much time to lay on this, and I'm a little shaky as I sit, but I'll tell you one thing. I didn't pass over any thin line that I couldn't see or anything by drinking.
I passed over that little line that took me from controlled to uncontrolled drinking, from sociable to, you know, knock down and drag out drinking. And there's a lot of things that I can't remember, but I can remember this. When I was 17 years old, I took my first drink, Virginia Dare wine, and I ended up on wine, but go back, Virginia Dare, 1937. And it reminds me of that song about out of an orange-colored sky.
See, I was walking along and wham, bam, alakazam. Well, after that first drink, the very first one, it was wham, bam, in a jam. Jimmy H. was in a jam from then on. Blackout, drunk, clown, and act of a fool. All the rest of the young kids, they carried on. They did what… But I was such a shock there to come out of that. That's right. They had to take me home the first night. I came back down. It was in the wintertime, and I was located out in this neighborhood, Woodlawn.
It was a little bit of neighborhood within the neighborhood, and a lot of you probably know about it or seen it or have been around it. White City borders it on the west, and Tivoli on the east, 63rd to L on 63rd and 66th.
[00:10:00]
Well, I left that neighborhood. It still hasn't very much changed out there. There's White City, the Tivoli is torn down, and me. And I say I'm fortunate to be there today. The neighborhood is very unfortunate, but I mean I am because I can see things in that neighborhood I have never seen before in my life. And I have sailed through it, dragged while it rolls around it. And in that neighborhood, you have these people.
They're all around there. You know, they've been there a long time. They've seen people grow up, and they've got these whispering campaigns. They were right. There he is. There he lay. Once again, how did he come back? We all grew up from the Army. We all went to the Army, came back in. A lot of the guys got killed and everything, and I survived. And a wino usually survives a lot of things. But anyway, I get from that neighborhood, and I got to come back in here and talk about the people that got me in here.
These caring people, they cared so much about what happened to me, the things that I was doing out there, to anybody and everybody. Everybody that tried to help me or put their hands on me, I took them as far as they would let me. I put a flash on them. And every time many people out there try to help me, I know there are people out there that care. Because if it wasn't for those people that cared, the things that I deserve and justice was given to me, five hydrogen bombs tried to me wouldn't give me the things that I deserve, you see.
Because I can remember some of the things that I have pulled out there. But those people cared until they could pray, I guess, the prayers of somebody, somewhere, got me around to the place where I found my people, the understanding people. And this team got me here, and I call it a team on my program when I think about it, the caring people. They are very important to me. And because I have my 12 steps now, my tradition, my serenity prayer, and all my little things that go along, my suggestions and my understanding people, you know, I used to say that so much because I hear people always say, you don't understand.
No, you don't understand. I'm going where I can get my understanding people. I've got to make meetings. Sure, and I have my understanding people, and I have to make meetings, but I cannot look down and throw a glance, and I'm glad that I've come to this point in my life that I can't forget that there were somebody else in my life. These understanding people. These are caring people. They don't understand, but they care.
And by their caring and their prayers, and these prayers of the understanding people, and I've heard them pray after these meetings and retreats, and there were retreats there, say a prayer for that stumbling, jumbling, still-stagging, wiling, smearing drunk that's lost out there. That was for me because I was a phony from the beginning. I've been running all my life. I came out of the Army. I'll give you a little slant on it.
Break through it because I'll tell you something. I don't know too much about my past because I have been forgetting so much and so long. I'm telling you the truth. The only time that I can remember is back in these meetings. I hear a guy coming in, and I see him with his eyes back in his head, and that look in his face, and I hear something that has just happened to him, and I can see the things that have happened to me.
Flashback comes. You see, my life was lived, our existence was passed along in so many little splashes and cuts and, you know, little pieces that I can remember, but I know one thing, that I was running and hiding and trying to forget so hard because I didn't want to remember the things that I was doing and that was happening to me, and they were saying that I was doing because, as I said, I had a blackout from the very first getting drank, and every time I took a drink, I got drunk, and I had a blackout.
So you know what happened. It was lucky I was with my crowd, a certain little bunch, but see, the crowd thins out at certain times and go home, you know, but then I picked up and was in another crowd, and so things began to happen to me. I rode those L trains from Howard Street to Stony Island all night long trying to make it to Roosevelt Road. I've ridden the buses. I've blacked out. My pockets turned inside out.
I've done those things so long, people telling me what happened and why did I do it. Ah, you came up in a night. How I graduated from high school, I don't know because today I can hardly write my name. I'm telling you the truth, and to read a column or anything, that's the damage that I've done to myself and that I have allowed to be done because I didn't care, but there were people that did care about me and tried to do something for another human being, and I wouldn't let them, and I found these understanding people, and I want to get off of that right now because I know my people, and I know what I have to do in order to keep this little that I have, and that's to keep this.
The only way that I can keep this. The only way that I can keep this, but I know I was a big, I was running so hard and so fast, being so many people, uh, running from me, I was running from yesterday to tomorrow, always running cause I was getting away from what happened last night, making plans about tomorrow, you see, running all day, and I know now that tomorrow will be the day when I get there, today will be yesterday, so I was continuously running, food, food, so it was a party for me to come in here, I slept in lots all over the city,
[00:15:27]
vacant lot, took the geographical cure, quit that job, I lied so in that post office, that's what I am today, employed, postal employee, now don't get excited, your mail is going right, the air mail is going air mail today, it was going by submarine, that's right, it started out by submarine, with me having parcel post, going freight and all that kind of stuff, the guy said, look, I just, you're good working when you're here, buddy, but you're not dependable, you're not here on the weekends, you're not here when you say, and, uh, you know, in a society like this, there are certain things that a person has to do in order to keep certain ways of living, you get a paycheck, you have to punch in, and you have to come out, and certain things you have to go by and do, and I sit up in these taverns, and there's something like an electrical shock wave, start paralysis, start running over my body when I take a drink, then I start daydreaming at that clock, see, and I said, I've got to call that post office, because I'm getting there, slow charge, all over, just a slow paralysis, I know I'm watching that clock, and I know what has happened before, I've got to call, so bartender, he knows me, because he called me my name, hot beer doggy H., see, that was a great thing for a guy to walk up and say, there he comes, hot beer dog, got it sitting up there, and I'm a big family man, okay, here I am, hot beer doggy, in the corner, I sat in the corner with my back to the wall, watching the door and the clock, playing my music and dreaming, that's what I did most of my life, I found out something, that I could dream away from me, I had been running from me all these days and years, running, running, being somebody else, because I did not like the me that every now and then I would come to see, and so I started running, dreaming, I would sit in that bar stool and I would gaze in that mirror, and every now and then, old Jimmy H. would look pretty good to himself after that second hot beer, and it got to the point that I would stash a wine bottle in the men's room, you know, I didn't want anyone to know I was a wine, you know, drink a little wine, not a wine though, drink a little wine, and I would recharge that luncheon fluid, see, because I knew I had to get away, and I knew I had to come back in time to call that post office and go down there, and so all these things in my mind and getting away from me was really something to handle, there I would go, I would go around this world in three or four hours, I would make a trip everywhere that I had dreamed I would like to go, I would be an aviator, I would be so many things, and I would trail around this world, I would stop off in France, head to Africa, because I wanted to scoop up some of those diamonds that they said they had somewhere on the east coast, I knew they were there because I've heard people, I've seen it in the movies, yes, I've seen it because I went to the movies to get away from me, a lot of times I was shaking so hard I didn't know what to do, I had to hold my hands, fold my arms and all these things, so I had to do it, I had to get away, but anyway, this drinking of mine was something else, so I lied, I lied so in that post office, doctor's certificates, bronchitis, neuritis, tonsillitis, aches, you name them, I had them, brain, pinched brain, those, I didn't say anything about that, but I mean, I had a lot, so I lied so much I just got sick of lying, I lied, everybody died, all the older people died in my family, and I started getting on my young cousins, I started burying them, and the man used to look, he said, who died now, Jim H., I got sick of lying, I lied, I lied, and I took the job, I said, I lied so much they were catching up with me too, so I resigned, the guy said that was the greatest thing that ever happened to this chap, I resigned, I cut out, I took my buddy, we said, we're cutting, Jim, we're gonna take the job, this guy here, I don't know what he was, my traveling buddy, you've heard of people that carry things, carry a malaria, carry a this, he never had it, but he carried it, anytime I wanted to do something, he was ready, let's see how it goes, but anyway, he would disappear, I'm trying to see you later, and he would tell me all the things that happened, but he was ready to pack up then when I left, I said, let's go to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, back up the land, working on the gang, the gang, all these times, in jail and out of jail, I was introduced to another drink in Alabama called Saurac, you people probably don't know too much about Saurac, you probably went to the store and bought it for paint remover or something, but it was a bitter up drink, it will dry you up, it will mummy, if I can get that word, it's a new word, then mummerize you, mummify you, it will take everything in you and dry it up, but I was so fortunate, I couldn't hold on to that because I was black and white,
[00:20:04]
I would come back out and I would end up in jail, get back in and come back out, made it back to Chicago, into the vacant lots, and I am telling you the truth, made the rounds again, I went back to that post office one shaken day and tried to get back in there and I made it, I tell you the prayers of you people, no prayers of mine because I couldn't even bargain then, I made it back, and the same old thing, after a year of doing that, the guy walked up to me and said, Jim H., we got a letter from you from that hospital over there, institution, a rest place, he said you're lucky that you've been over there, because what you've been doing around here, I had bottles on every floor, it was just like Rommel in his desert sweep, he had supplies stashed everywhere and the British couldn't understand it, I had my supplies everywhere in that post office that I thought that I would come across, and I had my way stashed, and they would take this bottle and they would do this, they said you're okay, but you just, I would stay there ten and twelve hours, I didn't have anywhere to sleep, people put me out, working a job, making at least eighty dollars a week and couldn't pay ten dollars room rent, couldn't pay ten dollars room rent, so the guy said, H., look, he said, will you meet some fellas and see what you can do, the hospital said that you are chronic, alcoholic, incurable, they have given up, you're a veteran, said, will you try it?
I did, I said sure, I'd do anything because I was on a bargain, I was dealing, angle shooting, I came into AA on an angle, and this is what reminded me of the day I met a fella when I came in there on an angle, I met Mr. M., and he's sitting right down there today, very mature fella, he's eighty-six years old, soon he is eighty-six, or will be very soon, and he's spent nineteen or twenty years, nineteen I think, and I used to hear him say he would be there every day that I come, every day, every Saturday, see I was playing a game, I was trying to win this boss's confidence so I could solve for time, time was in my, I was trying to get time so I could work things out, I could always work them out, get back into my con game and shape everything that happened to, had happened to me that could happen to a human being and still be living somewhere, spiritually, physically almost, mentally, gone, just that little spark I think that's in every living thing that's crutching for a grip, just a good grip to try to carry out a plan that's higher than my understanding, that's all I had when I backed in, rolled in, washed in, jabbed in an angle my way into AA, that's just the way that I came in here, looking for nothing but time and a new way to restore myself and get this phony deal of swinging one more time, because I knew if I got fired I'd be back in those vacant lots, and I had ran out of running, lied out of lying out almost, shook out of shakes, I was out of everything but that little thing in my mind that kept saying there is a way somewhere for you to make it, for you to find that solution, that mixture solution to drink.
But in there I sat up in these meetings so long, and like Mr. M. was telling me one day, he said, he came into AA on a bargain too, they had a house in the court, and so he came in here and that house stayed in court so long, and he stayed around AA so long until he got so used to this good living that he was here. And he said, I heard it said that he was six or seven years old when he came in here, and I asked him, why did you stop at six or seven? He said, I got almost ready to die before I started into living, and that was a wonderful thing for me to hear.
You see, I began to see things in his aim, and the first time in my life I settled down and quit that spinning and got settled somewhere where I could sit down, although I was a phony, but I could sit down and things started coming before me. I heard people talking, I couldn't see, I couldn't do anything, I had steps on the wall and I heard people talking, this and that, and I stayed around there so long until I began to thaw out, I was something like a frozen man, I began to get feelings, I began to look around.
And I heard somebody say something one day about moving a building, and I think there's something that attracts a lot of fool-like me attention, there was a little something that maybe he said, and a guy said something about moving a building. He was talking, he was pointing at anybody, he said, you can even move a building. I was nervous and shaking, but my cousin scratched at me a long time, I sat it down, he said, do you think you can move a building?
And I didn't say nothing, I'm looking, he said, if you can take one brick or one plank, you can move that building across the street, you can cut it down to where you can have them, that's the way we work this program, that is the way we live our lives, because all I ever thought of living was a lifetime of 80, 70, 60, all those years, but one day at a time, something that a fool like me can have right now.
[00:25:13]
And after a while, I began to throw out, I began to have feelings again, taste and cough, steps didn't mean a thing, I heard some guy talk about the big book, you got to get the big book, you got to take these steps in rotation, you got to get with it, baby, you got to get with this thing and get in it, how could I read, how could I understand anything? Steps didn't mean anything to me, I wasn't looking for them in a way, I got tricked in here on the phone, I was looking around waiting for time, but I'll tell you something I did understand and what message I did get, I started getting a feeling, I started feeling something that I've never felt before in my life, I heard people in there talking about dreaming nightmares, I heard them in there talking about waking up sweating, looking for a clock, trying to find out what time it was, I heard them talking these things, and they were spot a clock and one hand's on three, one on nine, they didn't know if it was a quarter to three or 15 minutes after nine, they didn't know if it was Monday, Sunday, what month, day or night, I heard them talking these things, I heard them talking about running away from something, feet stuck in sand and molasses can't run, sinking into quicksand or something up to the neck, I heard them, they were talking about me, I began to french, I began to listen, I heard them laughing about things, I heard them talking about things I've wanted to talk about all my life, and they were laughing, they were pure happy, my shaking slowed down, my coffee splashing up and down, and I gripped my cup and I looked around, I always thought people were looking at me, and I looked around to see the spilling and everything, and I had the taste of coffee, young lady looked back and kind of smiled, everything is all right, she was trembling a little too, and I put it down and I began to listen again, I went to work, and I wasn't looking for the boss to impress him then, I came back, I was thinking about what they were saying in here, I heard people talking about something I wanted to talk about, so I made it back, in and out, in and out of those meetings, and I began to laugh, I began to get a feeling that I never had before in my life, clocks started to mean something to me, calendars, creases in my pants, shoes shine, I had lost it, I had withdrew from the world out in those vacant lots, because I would sit down in those vacant lots, I'm telling you something, and open me a wine bottle, because I had gotten away to ask anybody for a quarter, once upon a time I wouldn't, I would be kind of skillful, pay back, I'll see you later, pawn shop for my place, I had everything that I ever gotten was in pawn that was pawnable, and anything that anybody else would let me have, it went to, oh yeah, I was a cat, but I'll tell you this, I would sit up in those back seats in those vacant lots, and I would screw top off a wine bottle and take me a swig, and something would happen to me, a little for realness would ease into me, and I would begin to tremble, why am I here, how did I get here, it looked like five million nightmares ago, that I was somewhere making plans for the future, thinking about what I would like to do and be, what happened, how can I get out of this hole, I saw a way, it took effort, it took ability, but I didn't want to see it, it was coming down to for real, and I'd have to hurry and take me a swig of that wine, it would blot out things, it would take me away from that, because I was too far to realize anything, and then I would sail out of that hole, I would head up into the clam dykes up around Alaska, I knew they had gold mines up there, and I would break in the air and they had tremors and it would open up sometimes, or else maybe I would head down into the Sierra Madre, into the Inca's land, that Aztec, they had buried treasures out there, I met a Spanish dead, and people were talking about it for three or four hundred years, I would locate it, and I would come back to Chicago, and I would close up that avenue lounge, that's my tavern, where they had stepped over me and called me a wine head bum that I had left this world, yes, I would go in there and I would close it from the inside though, I would lock it, and I would give the boss nine or ten hundred dollars like they used to do in the army, and I would turn on all the music that I want, I'd have my crowd, give them the best, champagne, caviar, imported caviar, the best, my dreams in the backseat of that car, but then I'd slowly have to come back to me, my fluid would die down, and it kept doing that day in and day out, I have to be me at some time in this fantastic dream, I'm telling you it is something to settle down and see the truth, I ran from the truth, I had lied and lied so much that I really didn't even know what the truth was, you don't believe it, you just say something over and over and over, it's over and over and over, I had tried to be so many people, I had tried to be John to impress Helen, I had tried to be Slim to impress Jim, I had tried to be slim to impress Jim. I was a channel through which personalities travel. I was never like that.
[00:30:02]
Running from yesterday, heading into tomorrow, today running, running, running. Where was I going? AA, this place here gave me a chance to be still for the first time in my life. I heard people, I would look here, I got so good when I got in here, I got the taste of water, coffee, I began to want to eat. Put on clothes, look around, I could hear again a little better. So I went back to that tavern, I had something.
I heard these people talking about one day at a time. I had the real senses coming back. I could understand music. I could hear it. I could understand people. Personality jumped in. Boy, I went back to the Avenue Lounge. I told the guys, look, some of them said, some of them didn't want to see me, some were glad. Because those that were glad didn't know they had lost that doer and her partner. And they seen me come in and they said, how big coke? One coke? Give the rest what they want.
And I would put my quarter in that box and it would start in and they would start in the playing again and I could hear that music. I kept doing that and I became important. As I heard my man that made this program and it helped me out so much, Ted, say, you'll get important. Say, we should not get important and use that I funny. You know, there is an I and I got it from him. I got everything that I know about living from people, from these people here.
That I, it's three points in it with me. The little me that was left, God up there with that hello and you. That gave me me and made me a part of this we. I saw somewhere on the program where it said I was the braggart. Well, that fit me. I've never been our, we, fitted anywhere. Today I am. Yes, I did fit somewhere. I won't go into all that where I fit in. You know about where I did fit. But I'm telling you the truth. I went back out there and I couldn't do a thing.
I started going to those taverns and presently showing those guys I had willpower. I didn't sit around AA long enough to get in it. I was around it. I was going to use AA. But anyway, I cut through there and after a while, you know what happened and it was a scuffle. I didn't go back out there where I had been and start off where I had left. I heard a lot of people say you go back. Oh, no. I went way down, but I realized now I was never on anything. I didn't have a slip.
I don't believe in slips. What I don't believe in doesn't make any sense anyway. It doesn't make any sense. I'm telling you, I stayed out there for one time. It was a drunk. I don't know what kind of drunk. It wasn't the worst one. But something happened. These prayers of these people. I went in back into AA, trembling, shaking. But this time I went into AA. I came in there and stayed there until the meeting was over.
I wasn't rushing in and rushing out to be up on the scene. Hiya, everybody. Oh, hey. What do you say, baby? Hey, now, clean. Money. Five dollars. Let's go. Job. One day at a time. No, no. I went in there and I sat down and I saw a sign on that wall that said, Came to Believe. And Mickey helped me out so much. That's my boy. So many people helped me out so much. I can't name them. And Mickey said, that sign says, Came to Believe. And I know what it meant.
I came to believe that a telephone call would work. I came to believe that I put some candy or gum in my mouth. I'm still chewing. Double bubble. See? Yeah, I miss double bubble. I miss a lot of things in my life. I am a baby and I'm going back up. I like Santa Claus. And don't talk about it. That's all right anyway. Abraham Lincoln, too. But I mean, I stand down there on Van Buren and look in those windows.
The little boys, they say, hey, I want to see, too. See? But I start chewing gum and I start keeping those meetings. I start joining in with these people. I start selling tickets. I start being in AA. And you know one thing? Nobody has to tell you what you're doing or am I doing all right. Or do you think? You start feeling this. You know, when you're in AA and when you quit lying and Alabama, I'll tell you something. And I found out that people care. I was up in Toronto. I'm telling you, I love to go up there.
And I've been, I'm calling my angel a saint. That's why I went up there for a while. I have a lot of bills in my life and a lot of billers and everything. A biller helped me out so much. All the people around here. Laura, I'm telling you the truth. That's my girl, Mildred. So many people in my life, so many people that have contributed to this fool's pace. Now today I have a pace. I went up there to see Bill and I heard him talk.
I heard him talk about AA has become of age. I heard him up there talking about our responsibility to life, to living, to the alcoholic, to really human beings. And I saw people from France, Ireland, Scotland, all over. You name it, Finland. We can understand a lot of language, but I can understand that feeling in that handshake. People care about people. I met people from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina.
[00:35:00]
I know the things that they write about in these papers and things and these different corps and things. You know AA is doing an awful lot more than a lot of these so-called organizations to give human relationships. Because I met people from all over this world and they meant that handshake. Partner, you see an AA shake your hand, you've got a handshake. And you have got help. And AA is knocking out a lot of words and a lot of things in this language and the meaning.
And those words are beginning to mean something to me today. Impossible. That is how, who could be more impossible than a lot of us, especially this whiny? To make it, to learn how to pray, to have a pace, can look out into the world. That's right. I don't have to look down there now. Look down upon anybody. Don't have to look up to anyone. I can look straight out into the world and get a piece of my own.
I'm not afraid to take a chance now. I have never done a thing in my life because I didn't want to be wrong. I was afraid to do anything, therefore I never made any decisions. Everybody was making decisions for me. Telling me what to do, when not to do it. Don't do this. Eat, sleep, get up, go back, get out. Not being big or superior, but being, coming into my own. And I know how that I'm getting this.
From people like you, understanding and caring. I can't ever forget that. I have my understanding people. I have my caring people. Before I found my understanding people, they kept me alive. And tried to find out what to do and how. They have this power that I am just beginning to understand. But I believe. I believe a lot of things today. I never believed before. But I'm telling you, I don't have to reach out into this solar system, out into the galaxy to search for any jewels or go down in the treasure to see El Madre, to look for something to impress people anymore.
You have taught me and have helped me to help myself to understand that all these values are right in here. My whole universe of good living to go to bed and lay down and sleep to rest without tossing and turning all night. What values could be better than that? To wake up and get up. Look out of those windows and don't care if it's snowing, fleeting or hailing. It's a good, hailing, fleeting, snowing day.
Because I am sober. I am sober with this weed. I am not afraid. Values. And I want to thank these people for mad people. I want to thank you for giving me a whole lot more of me that I never could have gotten this morning without you allowing me to share with you this wonderful beginning of this great conference. Thank you. Applause What a wonderful, wonderful beginning to this conference, wasn't it?
Applause You heard it, Jim, and we all thank you very much for that opening talk.