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Source: Johnny W – Breakfast Meeting – Date Unknown.mp3 File: johnny-w-breakfast-meeting-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:51:00
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So, without any further ado, I'll give you our speaker from the Bushwick Group, a terrific guy, Johnny W., please. I usually say good evening, but it's morning, you know, and from the beginning I'm mixed up. My name is John W. and I'm an alcoholic. Raise it down or up? How come you're so loud on this? I'm loud anyway. I'll be looking into it. All right, all right, I got it, I got it. You know, I fool around with these things all day down at work where I work in a school.
In the morning I fool around with them if somebody wants to use one. And when they come I have it all ready, but I can't handle it for myself. I'm very happy that I'm here this morning and I'm very thankful and grateful to the people who asked me to come. I'm not a member of the Matt Talbot Group. I'm a member of the Imitatio Christi Group, which was in existence before Matt Talbot. My friend Joe D. said when all these, we used to do the same thing, I understand, take people out to the retreat house when they didn't have money.
And, you know, we have a big mailing list, three or four hundred people. But most of them belong to the Matt Talbot Group now. I think they gave them something, I don't know what it was. But my friend Joe D. said, Matt Talbot, what group does he belong to? Because we were talking about alcoholics. I remember the first retreat that I made out in Jamaica. The priest was reading The Life of Matt Talbot.
And I thought it was good, I read it with his little iron hat. He was a drunk, all right. They didn't have AA at that time, but he got straightened out anyway. And another thing my friend Joe D. said in his story, that he used to always look through the papers when it was Irish sweepstakes time, you know. He was always looking for his name. And he never saw it. And then after he came into AA, he found out you had to buy a ticket.
And that's the reason it wasn't in there. So when I came in here this morning, I came in for nothing. I didn't have to buy a ticket. So I didn't have any stub, you know. But our good friend John there, or Tom, he said, I'll get you a couple. And he did, he got me two stubs. No wonder you can't win, you know. I had the wrong end of the ticket. But that's all right, I got another thing. And I don't know what it is.
It's heavy, it feels like money. But I got this, he said, in appreciation of my coming here. And if anybody should appreciate it, it's me. Sunday morning I'm usually, by this time, back on the couch, sleeping. So, now, as the chairman again said, we came here because of AA. And we came to AA because we drank. And that's why I'm here. I see a lot, a whole lot of people in here that know me. That have heard me dozens and dozens of times.
But then you have to remember that I have to listen to myself, too. I always think of the story I heard from some guy over in the Amsterdam group.
[00:05:03]
Who spoke about a girl in the band on the corner. She played one of them big bass drums, she used to beat it. And they had all kinds of horns and everything. And they'd play and then they'd stop. And she'd stand up and say, I drank a quart of whiskey every day, but I don't do that anymore. And the band would start again, she'd beat the drum. And they'd stop again and she said, I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes every day and I don't do that anymore.
And again went the horns and the drum, banging and stop. And she said, I used to go out with a man every night and I don't do that anymore. All I do is beat this damn drum. This is… This is… This is what's the matter with me, you know, I just keep beating that damn drum. I drank for 25 years before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a product of the east side of Harlem in New York. I was born in Harlem and I learned to drink.
I learned to drink there. Everybody in my family drank. My father, my mother, my sisters, my brothers, my aunts, my uncles, and all the neighbors, everybody drank. So we all had the same problem. Or we didn't have any problem. I lived in a tenement house. And it was six stories high and you could get a drink any place. All you had to do was go upstairs and rap on the door. Something always came out.
When the door opened, some drunk would fall out or they'd stick a ball out. And I found out they were speakeasies. Now I didn't drink in these places at that time. My father, as I understand alcoholics, I would say he was an alcoholic. He always had a bottle. He was always trying to get rid of it so he could get another one. And I found out that this was the trait of the alcoholic. On a Sunday morning I could see him mixing up a concoction of hot water and hot sugar and hot booze.
He called it some kind of a punch. And I used to get a drink of it. And the only thing I remember about it now is that I liked it. I liked what it did. It went rolling down and it kept my tummy nice and warm. And I didn't have any trouble with it at that time. I was only about six years old. And I didn't start drinking when I was six. But if ever there was any social drinking in my life, that was it.
And so we skip over my social drinking. When I was about 16, I got out on a corner with the boys and we started to drink. And we bought whiskey by the pint. A quarter a pint. Wonderful stuff. The guy had cheap stuff for 15 cents, you know. But no cola, no nothing. And we were these top shelf drinkers, you know. And so we paid a quarter. And for a half a buck you could get drunk. And I did. I remember the man that sold it to me.
He was an old Italian man. And he had a grocery store in the neighborhood too. He had a big nose and it was all full of holes. He used to drink this stuff too, you know. And now, as I look now and as you can see, it didn't do much for my nose either. The only reason I don't have a lot of holes is I stopped drinking this stuff in time. This was my start of drinking where I pinpointed. I drank before, you know, at home getting a drink.
But this was my start. And from then on, until I came to AA, I drank whenever I got the chance. And I never refused a drink unless I misunderstood the question. And of course, sometimes you get mixed up with that too. When I was about 18, I went to work downtown in New York. And for the time of the year and the job that I had, it was a good job. I knew the right people, but I drank. And I drank on this job and I drank when I was home.
And I drank. And when I was there five years, I got fired for drinking. Just so I won't forget it, I'd like to tell you that every job that I ever had, I lost because of booze. Every job that I ever had, booze got me fired.
[00:10:00]
So when I first started to work there, I met a young lady. She lived in Brooklyn, I lived in New York. And we started to go around together. And we became engaged. And we had one of them long alcoholic engagements. You know, they keep going around and around. When I got fired, she still worked there. Many times when I was supposed to be in Brooklyn, I was up in New York. And she would come up looking for me.
And I was either drunk when she got there or waiting for her to come up so I could get started. And then one night we decided to get married. And when I was 24 years of age, I got married. And everything went fine for about an hour. And right after the pictures were taken, I got drunk and that was it. The story of my life. As soon as something happened, I got drunk. At this time of my life, I didn't have much trouble.
I didn't have much money. I couldn't drink what I wanted to and I couldn't get in too much trouble. But the war came along. Now I didn't have any trouble in the Army or the Navy. I wasn't in either one of them. But I did go to work in a defense plant. And I worked that night and I started to make a lot of money. And I started to drink when I wanted to and what I wanted to and where I wanted to. And for three years, I had a ball and I just didn't give a damn.
Just didn't give a damn. Again, my favorite story. I throw these in. And by the way, I heard it in the retreat house. About the guy who wanted to buy a racehorse. And he knew a man who had one and he went to look at it. And the guy showed him the horse and he showed him his arms and his legs. Or whatever a horse has, he showed him. And everything looked good. He said to him, can he run? He said, can he run?
And he took the horse outside. And he hit him on a rump and the horse took off and he ran right into a brick wall. And the guy said, what's the matter with him? Is he blind? He said, no, he just don't give a damn. That's the shape I was in at this point. I just kept running into a brick wall. And so I lasted on this job for three years and the war ended. And I got let out with many thousands of other people.
Now all the fellows that were in war were coming home. And they were getting rest periods and furloughs. And they had 5220 clubs. And I didn't have anything. I was just tired. And so I thought I should have a little rest too. My wife worked all this time. And she saved her money. The only thing I had was a drawer full of war bonds. And the only reason I had them was they took the money out of my pay.
I didn't tell them to. Some guy kept saying something about a war and money. And I didn't even know what I was doing out in this plant. I went back and forth there every day because I could drink going out in the car. I could drink while I was working and I could drink on the way back in the car. And I never missed any time that way. I missed a lot of time after I got there. And so I figured I should have a little rest too.
I have a sister who lives up around Poughkeepsie. I called her around this time and asked her if I could come up and spend a couple of weeks. And she said yes. So one morning I left home and I had $50. And I stopped in the town. And I bought all the whiskey they had. Two bottles of Four Roses. And then I went to her house and I was going to stay there a couple of weeks. Two days later my wife was standing there.
And I didn't know where she came from or why she was there. But my sister had to call her to come up and take this bird home. They didn't know what to do with me. They knew I drank but they didn't know what happened. And there was a lot of funny things happening up there. My sister had a little garden. It was all full of tomato plants. And the plants were full of tomatoes. And I like tomatoes. And I was sitting out there with a salt shaker in one hand.
And a bottle of Four Roses in the other. And I kept falling into the tomatoes. And a lot of funny things happened to me out there in the garden. And I wound up back in Brooklyn. Now this was in August of 1941. Now, this was in August of 1945, and I was still tired, and sometime around November, my wife said to me,
[00:15:08]
John, you'd better go back to work. A cutting remark if I ever heard one, you know. This is an awful thing to tell a guy who's doing so good, you know. I was always doing good. And so, my job. I talk about this job, and as I have said this a hundred times too, there are many people who know me. They don't know my name, they don't know what group I come from, but when I talk about this job, they know me.
And I went to work in the Woolworth's 5 and 10 store. Now, I worked in Woolworth's before. The reason I talk about this job is that I had it two and a half months. And if ever I did any drinking at all, and could get it as much as I wanted to, this was it. I went to a small store in Brooklyn, there was one man there, and he was the manager. He was a young man, he'd just got out of the army. And so I figured I'd be the assistant manager.
And I was all dressed up in my communion suit. Not this one, this is a new one. But the one that I had then, I bought it during the war, and it was all out of shape. Even the sleeves, you couldn't move them, they were all stuck with beer and wine. And I was always running into the tail, trying to look good, you know. And I figured I was going to be the assistant manager, and actually I was a porter in the place.
And it didn't take long to find that out either. About ten minutes, I had a pair of overalls on. And he told me about the floor and the ceiling and the counters. And now, again, getting back to what we started out with, as far as drinking was concerned, there wasn't a question anymore whether I wanted to drink or whether I liked to drink. I had to drink. I couldn't do anything without it. I couldn't touch anything.
I just kept going up and down, my head went this way, I went that way, and I was a little mixed up. But I knew about the first drink, even then. I knew it when I was a little boy. And I knew about the morning drink. I knew what that did. I saw my father do it. And so when I went to this place, I bought a bottle, and I brought it in. So that in the morning when I went in, I could stop shaking, I'd take a couple of drinks, and I'd be straightened out.
And that's the only thing that ever straightened me out, a couple of drinks. Most times I got too straight, you know. I'd be stiff as a board, but I didn't shake, you know, and that was important. So one of the first things that this man told me to do in the morning was dress windows. And a window in a Woolworth's store is all glass, and it's a hell of a place to put an active alcoholic. As I said before, you go in like this, and nothing happens, you know.
And as I understand window dressing, it's an art in itself. Maybe a lost art, but I know I didn't know anything about it. It was lost when I got it. And my boss was trying to show me how to do this. Many times he watched me putting things in the window, and he said, one of these days you're going to knock the whole thing over. And I said, never happened. But it did. And it wasn't much. I had a book window in one time.
I had about a thousand books in there. No AA books. Just as well I wouldn't have read them anyway. I was doing good, you know. But I was putting the last book on the last shelf, on the last riser, and I don't know what happened, but the whole thing went right into the window. So I stepped out, and I closed the door. And I went down, I got my coat, and I left. And I drank. I came back the next morning about 10 o'clock, and my boss was standing there.
And I said, do I still work here? And he said, yes. I said, what do you want me to do? He said, straighten out the window. I bought hundreds of bottles in this place. It was easy. Very easy. There was a liquor store two doors away. I didn't have any money, but Woolworth had. And I became this guy's silent partner. And I flopped around this place for about two and a half months. One day I went in there, and a girl said to me, the boss wants to see you downstairs.
And I went down, and he handed me my pay. And he said, you're fired. And I had acquired that nice, dopey look that I have seen on so many other alcoholics since.
[00:20:01]
And I said, why? Nice and dopey. And he said, you drink too much. I didn't think he knew I was drinking. And I was falling all over this place. One of the things I found out was that this happened right after New Year's, and one of the things that I found out was that in every Woolworth's store all over the country on New Year's Day, they take an inventory. And so my boss took an inventory. And I think he took mine while he was there, because that's when I got fired.
But in order to do this, they have to clean out the bins and the shelves and see what they have. And they found a lot of empty whiskey bottles. And they don't sell whiskey bottles anymore. So he must have thought I was drinking, or I had my own business going. And he was right on both counts. And so I got fired. And I didn't like the job anyway. But I loved them bottles. And for seven more years, the same thing happened to me.
I went and I came. I had many jobs, I had many good jobs, good paying jobs. But I drank. And always the same thing. You get called in, you're fired. And that same dopey look. Why? I've never lost that dopey look. I still have it. And I know why now, too. And I found it out here. Before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, or before they came to me, I worked in Brooklyn. I worked at night. I worked in a defense plant.
And we made precision parts for the Navy. Now what they made with the parts I made, I don't know. What they did with them, I don't know. But I made some because I worked there three years. And I read blueprints and I used the machinery and I used their tools. And if I ever saw one now, a blueprint or a micrometer or anything that they ever used, I wouldn't know which end was up. I don't remember. But I worked there three years.
So I must have did something. And I worked there from four until eleven-thirty or something at night. And I drank going to work. I drank on the job. And I drank coming home. I got fired out of there for the same reason, for drinking. One night I went in too drunk. My boss wanted me to work. I wanted to sing. He didn't want any entertainers. I had a steel hammer. He said I wanted to hit him with it.
And I missed him. And I kept dancing around him. And the next thing I knew I was down the street. And there was an armed guard, one on each side of me. This I remember. And so I went and I drank. My wife didn't know I lost my job. For the next two weeks I went back and forth collecting money. And finally I got my last check. And it was worth ninety-four dollars. And I cashed it and I got drunk. And the next morning I woke up in my own home.
And I did what all other alcoholics do when they get up. I reached for my pants. Not to put them on. To see what was in them. And it was a dollar and sixty-five cents. And I had ninety-four dollars the night before. When I started to drink, I could get drunk for a half a buck on a quart of this wonderful stuff that we drank up in Harlem. And at this point, I could still get drunk for a half a buck.
One whiskey. Or three beers. So I must have been drinking with elephants that night. If there's anybody new here, I would like to pass this on to you. That you do not build up tolerance for drinking as you go. You lose tolerance for drinking. The only thing is that you get drunk quicker. You think you're drinking. But somebody else is drinking it. I knew that when I was young. When I used to go into the bar and a guy would leave a drink and he'd go to the bathroom and I used to drink it.
And then you get a punch in the nose. But he thought he drank it. He thought he was doing a lot of drinking. So you don't build up tolerance. You lose it. And so, my wife watched me this morning. She asked me about my job. I told her I lost it.
[00:25:02]
She asked me to please do something about this drinking. One thing I remember, I hope I never forget it. And I have seen it many, many times on other people. The look that I saw in my wife's face. I would call it despair. No place to go. No one to turn to. Trying to help, but not being able to. And so she asked me to go and talk to the priest. I said I would. I had a $1.65. And I was dry. And I was nervous.
And I needed a drink. So I went around the corner first and I had a couple of balls. And then I went to see the priest. And by that time I was feeling like a priest myself. And I was going to tell him a few things. And he didn't know me and he didn't know I was coming. And I think he wished I hadn't. But with all the arrogance and all the ego and self-pity and crying like a baby, I stood in front of this man telling him what a wonderful man I was and all the wonderful jobs that I had and how well my family was doing.
And all he kept telling me was what a bum I was. That's just what he told me. He said, you're a bum. And I didn't like him. That's a, you know, they talk about spiritual awakenings. I got one that morning. He shook me up. Right up until the time that I rang that doorbell in the rectory, I was doing good. But he stopped me. I heard a fellow tell me something last night. It's a story, I guess. As long as I'm talking about a priest.
There was a priest in one of the parishes. He was very tired. He needed a rest. He went to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said to him, go home and take off your collar and get into some, you know, loose clothes and go out and have a ball. So he did. He went home. He put on a sports shirt and he went out. And he went to the playboy club, you know. And he was sitting at the table. And one of these bunny girls or whatever you call them came over to him, you know.
And she said, well, you have Father John. And he looked at her. He said, how do you know I'm Father John? She said, I'm Sister Rose. I go to the same psychiatrist. I don't know. I don't know where that fits in, but it's all right. About an hour after I met this priest, he introduced me to my half a sponsor. My half a sponsor was sitting here in the middle of the room, Joe, Joe D.. Joe came over to the rectory, took me out of it, and brought me over to the school.
He spoke to me. He spent his whole lunch hour with me. He spoke to me for a long time after that. And he gave me all the literature they had down there. He told me all about himself. He told me about AA. And I didn't know what he was talking about. I never heard of AA. Didn't know anything about it. But as I said before, up to the time that I rang that doorbell, I wouldn't have went anyway, even if I did know, because I was doing good.
But Joe talked to me. He kept telling me about AA. And he asked me if I'd like to go to an AA meeting. And I said yes, I think. I don't even remember that. So he took me home. I can remember that too. He said, I'll take you home. I said no. While he was talking to me, and I was in bad shape at this time, I could see these big A's coming out of his forehead. Two big A's. That's all he was talking about was AA.
So I figured these things are sticking out on him. And if he'd take me home, and I live right around the corner from the group, all the neighbors will see it. And they'll find out I'm a drunk. And you know, I have learned about that since too. All the neighbors in my block knew I was a drunk. And if they didn't, I let them know it. I live on a long street in Brooklyn, and all the houses are the same.
I used to have a hell of a job there when I first moved there, you know. I was in more parlors and dining rooms. Dining Rooms, and, and, you don't live here mister, get down the next stop, you know.
[00:30:02]
I remember one time I went up, and I opened the door, and the door opened, and there was a lady, and she had a little baby in her hand, and I said, oh man, wrong place, I had my shoes off, and everything, you know. I was in the wrong hall. But I, I, I, many times, and as most alcoholics can understand, many times you can't make it on, on two, so you go down on all four, down the street on your knees. I did it, and I guess if the neighbors were looking out, maybe the wife would say to the husband, look at W., he's learning how to pray the hard way, you know.
But they, they didn't have kind thoughts like that, they knew, they knew about me. And so Joe took me home anyway, and he said, I'll be back at 7 30 tonight, and I'll take you to an AA meeting. And I, I rested, I guess, I don't know, I didn't drink. At seven o'clock he rang my bell. Now he, he's a smart cookie, Joe is, and he was having a little trouble with his boys, pigeons, his boys, that's what he called them, boys, you know. And so he figured if I get there at 7 30, that guy might find a half a buck between seven and 7 30, and he'll be gone.
So he came at seven. Talking about boys, I gotta tell this, Joe told me, Joe B. told me to tell you this, about the two soldiers over in England during the war. One of them was an English soldier, one was an American soldier. And the English soldier says, or the American says, hey look, a boid on a coib. And the English fella said, that's not a boid, that's a bird. He said, a joib's like a boid, you know. And we, I just threw that in for nothing.
Joe was watching me. My friend Joe D. came with another gentleman, and by the time they got there, I was falling apart, and I needed a drink. And so I went out with these two guys, because I thought I was going to get a drink. And I met two of the cheapest guys I ever met in my life. All they talked about was whiskey, but they didn't buy any. And they put me in the back of a car, and they took me to the Crown Heights group in Brooklyn. I don't know anything about the meeting, I don't remember, the only thing I remember is that the people who spoke there came from Spring Valley, New York.
And my two friends knew them. And they brought me up, and they shook my hand. And this did something for me. Because I was shaking my own hand enough, and I couldn't stay still, you know. They were asking me to drink coffee. I said, I don't drink coffee. I couldn't lift it. And I still have that trouble, you know. But whatever happened at the meeting, I don't know. I hope and pray many times that what did happen to me, should happen to everybody who walks through the doors of AA. When I met my two friends, I wasn't worth a damn to anybody.
I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, I couldn't write, I couldn't hold my hand still, I couldn't hold my head still, I couldn't work. And the most important thing that I found out was that I couldn't drink. And I learned it from my two friends, and the many friends that were there. Now I had a feeling, I didn't get any feeling like a lot of people say, that they were home. I was wishing I was home, but I wasn't. But I did get some kind of a feeling. I felt like I was going to belong to something. I like what Joe told me in the morning. I like what Tom told me in the car. And I felt like I was going to belong to something. I never belonged to anything. I did, I belonged to what they call, the Saturday morning pig's head club. And this got a guy sober in Van Wyke one night. It was in a saloon right around the corner from me. It was a big shuffleboard deal. And we used to go around there on Saturday morning and play shuffleboard and buy a big pig's head across the street, throw it into a pot and cook it. And then we used to eat it and wash it down with cold beer. And then you wonder why you get the DTs.
And this is what I belong to. When I first came to AA, some guy said to me, did you ever have the DTs? I had them when they first came out, but I didn't know what they were. No, I didn't know what they were. But now I had this feeling that I was going to belong to
[00:35:03]
something. And so they brought me home that night and they left me at my door and they said, we'll meet you tomorrow night down in the Bushwick group. And as I told you, I live right around the corner from it. And so the next morning when I woke up and the thought that came to me then, rather than the thought that I had for many years before, where am I going to get a drink? The thought came to me then that I'm going to meet them guys tonight. And so I didn't drink, but I shook and I sweat. And I went around to the Bushwick group that night and my two friends were there. I met my two friends, as many of you know, in March of 1953, 15 years ago.
It was my good fortune two weeks ago, three weeks ago, whatever it was to celebrate my 15th anniversary. I haven't had a drink since I came to AA. And what's more important, I have never had a desire to drink since I came to AA. And this is one of the reasons for it, what I'm trying to do here today. I have been trying to do this, as I told you in the beginning, like the girl with the drum, beat that damn drum. This is the third time this week that I have spoken. And I still go anytime they ask me. They told me one thing, never say no on behalf of AA.
And I am not big enough to do it. I'm not that big. Anybody who asks me, I say yes. And this is what has kept me sober, one of the many things. I learned how to make coffee in the Bushwick group. And I've been making coffee for 15 years. No resentments. I hang out in the kitchen and I like it. And it keeps me sober. We got the same pot, the same grounds, everything's in the bottom. If they complain about it, I blame the pot. And if they tell me it's good, I blame the pot.
No resentments. This is one of the things that have helped keep me sober. Open a group on Thursday and Sunday, and I have been doing it ever since I came to AA. And I still do it. And as long as I live there, and as long as I can do it, I will do it. They told me to go to many meetings, and I did. I went to a meeting every night for 11 years, every night. Open meeting, closed meeting, anniversary. You talk, I listen. You listen, I talk. They told me this would keep me sober. I couldn't understand how anybody could keep sober by talking about drinking. I am like the many, many thousands of other people.
How can you stay sober? All you talk about is drinking. But I found out that there is a difference and any drinking that I talk about is the bad part of it. I don't think about anything that's good in AA about my drinking. So-called fun. I had a lot of fun when I was a young guy. I was the life of the party. I learned how to play a couple of chords on a guitar, and I got in a saloon, and I still know them same four chords. I still played a guitar, but I got away with a lot of it because I had a lot of fun. You walk into a saloon with a guitar, people think you're a musician. That's what they thought I was, and I wasn't. But as long as you're drinking, it doesn't make any difference. It's very important who you meet when you first come to AA. I met the right two people, and they taught me how to stay away from one drink just one day at a time. My friend Joe said to me, all you got to do is stay away from one drink. He said, you drink and you get drunk. I said, I know that. That's why I drink. However, you don't drink. So he said, you just come along with it. Stick around. And so I stuck around with them. And so I met two important people in my life that are still my good friends. And it's very important to me that we laugh in AA.
There was no fun in stories that we hear. My story is just as tragic as anybody else's. I just tell it that way. And it's not funny. And anybody that was around when I drank and anything that I just told you, you can be sure there was nobody laughing. But it's important that we laugh.
[00:40:05]
And now, just a couple of weeks ago, I was in a group in Mill Basin. And I like this, and I add it every time I get a chance. And on the wall, there was a sign. I guess it's a prayer. But the sign reads that it took a long time to come out of the darkness into the light, into a life of live and let live. And it said, Lord, teach us to laugh. But God, never let us forget how we cried. And this makes a lot of sense to me. It doesn't make sense to new people, I'm sure, because they laugh, you know. And you wonder why people are laughing in AA. I did.
I couldn't understand it. When I was a couple of days around, they took me up to Spring Valley, New York. And the guy that drove the car, he was a getaway man for some mob over in New York. And he had one of these overdrives. And I was sitting in the back, and I had the beads in my hand, and I'm praying. And he's talking about a road, and I didn't see any road. And finally, we got to Spring Valley. And this guy was one of the speakers.
And he got up, and he told his story. And then he told his story, and it's a joke again. He told a story about the guy that worked in the drugstore, and the man that owned it. And one day, he had to go out, and he left this young guy to take care of the store. And he said, if anybody comes in, take care of him. So when he came back, he asked him if anybody came in. He said, yes, there was a man in. And he took care of him. He said, well, what's the matter with him? He said, he had a very bad cough. He said, did you give him something? He said, yes, I gave him castor oil. And the druggist looked at him. He said, castor oil? He said, that's not for a cough. He said, no, but he'll think twice before he coughs.
And that's what happened up in Spring Valley. And I said, what are they laughing at? They took them a week to explain the story to him. I didn't know what they were laughing. But I learned that we don't have to laugh to be happy, but in laughing around here in AA, we can laugh at ourselves, as I have done many times. There are a lot of scars and a lot of heartaches that'll never be chased away. They're still here.
Any that I have, I have to live with them. I'm very grateful to Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm grateful to my sponsor, my two sponsors for teaching me how to stay away from a drink. And I'm grateful to God for guiding me into AA. Thank you. John, thank you. You were wonderful. And before we close, one other thing. We have our next retreat. It's on a rough weekend, but I'm sure you'll get twice the amount out of it if you go. It's on the 4th of July weekend. Starts on the 5th of July on a Friday night, ends at 5 o'clock on the 7th on a Sunday evening. It's about the one week in July that we could get because they have a new set up in the retreat house. They have the Christian brothers coming in the week before and the nuns the following week after. So we're right in good company.
Let's see, there was one other thing that helped. The Big Dinner is in May. We do have tickets and a letter that's sent out by Matt Inc.
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That will be sent out either this week or the following week. But we do have tickets. If anybody wants them, we can arrange to get them to you. So have no fear about that. That's a terrific dinner in case anybody that hasn't been there. It's an afternoon out and it's an afternoon of good, solid AA. There's two AA speakers. And now we are fortunate again to have a very good friend of AA and a member.
He always says that he's an alcoholic first. To close the breakfast for us this morning, I'll give you Brother Francis, please. Before we finish, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the members of the group for inviting this little country boy from Jersey. Also, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Johnny. So many of the things that he mentioned we can laugh at, but the hidden meaning there, the necessity of learning, the necessity of knowledge, and because of my knowledge, I'm capable of loving and serving.
If AA means anything to me, I have to learn something about it. And I learn at meetings. I don't learn by a casual conversation. I don't learn by watching the advertisement for Alcoholics Anonymous at the Late Late Late Show. I learn at meetings. And from what I learn, this then becomes part of me. If it's part of me, I can share. I think the tremendous message that he brought, the efforts to do this one day at a time.
He told so many incidents that were rather humorous, but there was a point behind each one of them, a point of learning, a point actually of seeing exactly what I am. I think that one thing could be mentioned here, and that is the necessity, as was mentioned by John, of remembering, because it's through remembrance that we will get understanding. From understanding will follow tolerance. If I know and I understand, there is a possibility that I will be thankful. And if I do have gratitude for the things that I have, a necessary thing to follow that, it must follow it, is joy and peace of mind.
And so when we finish this morning in the prayer, let us keep in mind that the prayer should be a prayer not of the selfish nature, but the prayer of asking of our higher power the things that are for the peace of each one of us. The peace that's necessary, that we can be knowledgeable, loving, and sharing. I am asked to remind you that at certain areas they do have some signs up concerning platters, plates, cups, saucers, and I believe that they have some tables extended out from the others on the side.
The hired hands claim that this helps them in cleaning up. We are asked if you could cooperate with that. Those of you that care to, please. We're asked to say the prayer of the canonization for Matt Talbot. O Jesus, true friend of the humble worker, thou has given us thy servant Matthew a wonderful example of victory over vice, a model of penance and of love for the Holy Eucharist. Grant we beseech thee that we thy servants may overcome all our wicked passions
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and sanctify our lives with penance and love like his. If it is to be in accordance with thy adorable designs that thy pious servant may be glorified by the Church, deign to manifest by the heavenly favors the power he enjoys in thy sight, who livest and reignest forever and ever. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.