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Source: Paul O – Georgia State Conference – Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict (1977) – Date Unknown.mp3 File: paul-o-georgia-state-conference-doctor-alcoholic-addict-1977-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:54:57
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And a happy good evening to you. My name is Paul, and I am a reborn alcoholic, and I am delighted to be here. I'm delighted that Max, my favorite Al-Anon, is here, and I'm delighted you're here. In fact, it'd be kind of a dull meeting if you weren't. In fact, I'm delighted to be anywhere. I'm delighted to be me today, and that's trying to figure out ways to kill myself, which is what it used to be like.
So it's been a great event for Max and I to be here. I think this is the way a conference and convention ought to be run. And I think everybody who's worked on this, and there's a lot of work to put money on, we ought to reward them all with at least another 24 hours of sobriety. In fact, I think we ought to give them a hand. Why don't we do that? It's been a great convention up to this point. I hope it has enough momentum to carry itself for the next hour.
I hope none of you have too much trouble with all that coffee you've drunk. I noticed they commented on the bladder effect of coffee. I also noticed that the meetings here are a bit shorter than I'm used to back home. I assume that was established by somebody with bladder problems. I identify with anybody with bladder problems. I happen to have been born with the world's most fashionable bladder. I've been around AA long enough to hear a lot of stories, a lot of sad stories, but there's nothing sadder than an alcoholic with a bashful bladder.
In fact, I would keep coming to these meetings and working these steps and reading this book, even if I wasn't staying sober, if it would just keep on helping me with my bladder the way it has. It hasn't really helped my capacity particularly, but my aim has improved tremendously. Another thing I noticed in my home group, I have three of them now, we start them off with a show of hands, and I haven't noticed that here and I miss it.
We start out with having a show of hands of all the alcoholics. It's a little dark out there, but I'd like to see the hand of every alcoholic in the audience. Could you raise your hand, please? Fantastic. We have a quorum, we can go on with the meeting now. And then there's those other people. The Al-Anons. Could we see the hands of the Al-Anons, please? Oh, let's give them a hand. That's enough, that's enough.
It's easy to spoil them. I always like to see Al-Anons at meetings, any kind of meeting. I think they need all the meetings they can get. I also get the impression that Al-Anons are more likely to come to AA functions than AA people going to Al-Anon functions. And I don't know why that is, particularly. I have a lot of respect for Al-Anon, I've gone to a lot of Al-Anon meetings. The most recent one was last night.
In fact, I saw it for the first time at this convention, so I saw that new pamphlet, Double Winners. And it's for AA members who are married to AA members who can be a winner in both programs. And if you're married to an alcoholic, whether you're sober or not, if you're not going to Al-Anon, you're missing something, in my opinion. So anyway, what about the newcomers? A newcomer in our home group is defined as anybody with less than 30 days of sobriety.
I don't know how that works at a convention. Could we see the hands of anybody with less than 30 days of sobriety? Would you raise your hand, please? Over here? Back there?
[00:05:02]
I can guarantee you, you're going to stay sober. If you're willing to put your hand up in the midst of all these people and identify yourself as a newcomer, if you're willing to follow instructions on this program, you're going to stay sober. And I also want to welcome those of you who didn't put your hand up. And I'm happy to tell you that you're going to make it too. Because you're my kind of alcoholic. I didn't put my hand up either.
I didn't think it was anybody's business. Anyhow, I guess I'm supposed to talk about what it was like and what happened and what it's like now. What it was like is drunk a lot. I happen to have an absolutely fascinating drunk a lot. It's a very dangerous thing for me to talk about because once I get into it, I get so fascinated that I end up taking the collection up and I haven't become an alcoholic yet.
So I have to be careful not to get too fascinated. The main thing was that really I wasn't, as Joe said, I wasn't an alcoholic. I was never meant to be an alcoholic. I never set out to be an alcoholic. It never occurred to me to be an alcoholic. My mother never suggested when I grew up I might want to become president of AA. No school sponsor ever suggested, maybe you'd like to be an alcoholic. I don't think I even look like an alcoholic, except when I'm drinking.
Didn't even really have that much of a drinking problem. Basically, I had a lot of marital problems. A lot of marital problems, see? This matches, it looks like a very saintly gal, but oh God, you know, she drove me to drink for a long time. December 2nd, I guess, will be, I think, 38 years married. And that's a long time. And it started out as a real good marriage, it really did. But it kind of deteriorated as she went through the various stages of alimonism.
Yeah. It wasn't too bad at first. She began to complain that I didn't like her. You don't like me, you don't like me, why don't you admit it? And then later on she said, you don't love me, you don't love me, why don't you admit you don't love me? And as her disease was beginning to reach the terminal stages, she was screaming at me, you hate me, you hate me, why don't you admit you hate me? And so I admitted it.
I remember saying to her, I said, there's only one person in the world whose guts I hate worse than yours. And that's my own. And as I recall, she cried a little bit and she went to bed. Because going to bed was the only thing she knew at that time was a problem. I cried a little bit and I mixed me another drink. You know, the funny part was, I don't think it was, I'm sure it wasn't that I didn't care.
If anything, I think I cared too much. And I think that's characteristic of us, that we may act like we don't care, and we may act like we don't have any morals. But I think, if anything, we care too much and we're actually puritanical. But alcohol makes us do funny things. Basically, that's what I mean when I say I'm an alcoholic. I mean that I react too usually to the drug alcohol. And therein lies my story, as a matter of fact.
And at that time, it wasn't that I said I didn't care. I tried hard to help her. I could see the things happening to her. And I cared, and I felt responsible, and I wanted to help. And I worked. I devoted myself to the job of helping her. And I used to send her to psychology classes and women's improvement things. I used to read her positive thinking books. I got her a Charles Simmons positive thinking correspondence course.
[00:10:01]
He's a very prominent positive thinker out in our area, right up to the day where they arrested him for embezzlement. Don't hear much about Charlie anymore. I thought maybe hypnosis would help her. I took a course in hypnosis. It turned out she wasn't a very good subject. I was so anxious to help, I ended up taking six courses in hypnosis. And I ended up a drunken hypnotist. I used to send her to psychiatrists.
Not just one, I think there were at least four consecutive psychiatrists. One time she was going to psychiatrists. Our two adopted daughters were going to clinical psychologists. And she was bringing the dog home with psychological interpretations. I remember one day being furious. I was screaming at her, and I said, what do you mean? I said, you tell that stupid cat and dog doctor that he's not a Beverly Hills psychiatrist.
All I want to know is, why does that dog wear my lap when I'm holding him? And you know, that dog hasn't wet my pants since I joined AA. And neither have I. I did all kinds of things to try to help her. Actually, the harder I worked on her, the sicker she got. And she got so sick that when it ended up at the psycho ward, I wasn't really surprised. So when that steel door slammed shut, and she was the one that went home, I was the one that went home.
Besides having marital problems, I had a lot of troubles with my daughter. And you know, I had to take care of her too. My predictions are kind of incorrectly valued, right? Besides having marital problems and a lot of other problems, I had a lot of trouble with insomnia. I have the world's worst case of insomnia. No question about it. I was born with it. I used to worry all day about whether or not I was going to sleep at night.
I used to worry all night about whether I was going to sleep at night. When I had a problem, I worked on it. I wasn't slovenly about anything. I thought that when you have a problem, you work on it. And if at first you don't succeed, the fact that you failed proved that you didn't try hard enough, dummy. So try it again the same way. Don't change anything. Do the same thing over and over and over again, harder.
And so I worked on my sleeping problem. The obvious thing would be to take sleeping pills, but they didn't work until the next day. Tranquilizers hadn't really been invented yet, except in the middle town they came around. You couldn't get them. They were scarce. And they were supposed to be not a sedative like a sleeping pill, but a tranquilizer. They're supposed to make you normal. And, you know, if you were too fine, too high, it would normalize you, but it wouldn't sedate you.
I got through, I'd taken six at a time. I didn't feel any effect of them. So I figured that proved I was normal to start with. It was my own little Rorschach test, psychologically. So I didn't think much in Middletown. And the only thing that really was putting me to sleep, or helping me to sleep, was to drink a couple of beers. I was going to pharmacy school at the time. And I had found that if I would go to school all day and work in a drugstore all night and then study till midnight, one, two o'clock, or whatever, and then I'd go to bed, everything I'd been studying would be running through my head.
And I'd be half awake and half asleep. And in the morning I'd be both tired and stupid. And I found out that if I drank a couple of beers right at the end of the study period, I could jump in bed, sleep real fast, and wake up smart. And that was the way I went through pharmacy school. And then I went on into graduate school and then medical school and then specialty training and private practice. And all the time I was drinking more and more and more.
And I thought that it was because my responsibilities were increasing. If you had my responsibilities, you'd have to drink too. And that was my… I don't mean to… Anything I say tonight to try to explain to you why I… Anything I say tonight that tries to explain to you why I drank, I don't want you to believe it.
[00:15:02]
Because I don't think, I don't have any idea, I thought that was one of the first things you're supposed to learn when you come to AA. It helps you figure out why you drank. And I have a list about a mile long of reasons why I drank. The longer I'm sober, the more things I remember. And actually I've come to the conclusion I drank because I'm an alcoholic, and that's what alcoholics do. Every drink I ever took, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
And I may have rationalized why I took it, but I don't really know why an alcoholic drinks, but I think that's alcoholism. And having said all that for fun today, I forget where I was. But I used to, as I say, work on getting to sleep. I got to where I was taking intravenous penicillin. I don't know if you know what I mean, but back where I come from, they used to have storefronts that would say, oral surgeon, penicillin given.
That's the barbiturator, where they put the stuff in the syringe and they put the needle in your vein, and they say, count to ten, and you say, one, and zing, you're asleep. Instant blackout. It's fantastic, really. I just love that. So I used to squirt it in my veins and put me to sleep. It was complicated in the sense that I couldn't go down to the office and put me to sleep and then drive home and go to bed.
And it just didn't seem right for me to lie there in bed with a needle in my vein and my one daughter Paula saying, hey, Ann, come watch Daddy take his nightly fix. So I would keep my penicillin in my bag, and the bag in the car, and the car in the garage, and the garage luckily was attached to the house. And after a hard day's work and a hard evening's drinking and a day of field digging, I would go out there and mix up this stuff and put the needle in my vein and try to figure out, now how much does it amount to if I can squirt it in, take that picture, and I throw it in the bag, throw it in the bag, slam the car door, run down the hall and jump in bed so I could fall asleep.
It's hard to judge it. If I got too much, I'd just zing right under the car. What that meant, it resulted in a greasy black and blue spot. And I already had so many black and blue spots I couldn't explain that adding greasy ones didn't complicate that too much, but it wasn't too practical. The worst part was, if I didn't get quite enough, I'd squirt it in, take it out, throw it in the bag, throw the bag in the car, slam the car door, run down the hall, jump in bed, and nothing would happen.
And that would make me furious, and I'd have to go back and try it over again. I'd get drunk to do it, and to get to sleep. But the biggest factor about that was, well, one of the other things was that when you start running, I couldn't put a band-aid over my arm, or I couldn't keep it held up like this so the blood caught it and all that, so what I would do is hold my arm up like this and do all this other stuff with one hand, hoping gravity would take care of that.
I'd run down the hall like this, and then I'd run into Max and I'd try to act casual, you know. It's hard to be casual when you're in a hurry like that. Actually, the worst thing about it, though, was it's in my song. It was an instant blackout, I was fast asleep, and I was fast awake, and I one time had to put myself back to sleep three times during that one night, and I decided I was kind of dumb, and ought to quit that.
And you know, I couldn't quit doing that until I didn't have any of it around. I had to force myself to not buy any more, because if I had it there, I would use it. My problem was, if I didn't have any there, I'd go get some. And it was the same way with my drinking. I never was able to quit drinking until I could quit having it there. I couldn't have it in the house and not drink it, and it was hard to not have it in the house, and it was hard to not have it in the house, because the house didn't seem like a house without some liquor there.
And it was the same way with pills. I can't have pills around, I can't have tranquilizers around, even for emergencies. I can't say, I'm not going to take this unless I really, really, really need it. But if I say that, I might as well go take it, because I'm going to really, really, really need it. I never once took a pill because I was a pill head. Every pill I ever took, I took because I had the symptom.
I either had it or I could feel it coming on. I had the symptom that only that pill would take care of. So every pill, almost like every drink that I ever took, was medically indicated at the time. And prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacist. Yeah.
[00:20:02]
It got… The nights, the days were bad and the nights were worse. And it got to where it was kind of hard to get up in the morning. But I never became a morning drinker. I would have no respect for a doctor who would drink on the job. So I had a 5 a.m. shut-off time. If it was one minute to five, I'd drink myself back to sleep. And if it was five o'clock or after, I'd just stay up and act like a martyr all day.
But it became hard to work. It's hard to go… I had the flu a lot. And one day I said to myself, my gosh. One day I said to myself, my gosh. What would you do for a patient that felt like this? The answer came right back. I'd give them something to pep them up. And so I started taking something to pep me up. I started with apatite appeasers. You know, that's the upper and the downer in it. And one day I asked myself, what are you taking any downer for when you're trying to get upper?
And so I was taking a straight amphetamine, some straight benzadrine. And I really, it worked wonders. I was a practicing alcoholic, which is a full-time job. If you haven't tried it. And being a practicing physician is kind of a full-time. I was a practicing alcoholic physician. So I really needed something to keep me on my feet. And the amphetamines really worked. I'm very grateful to how they kept me going to get to the bottom.
I don't know. The. They did have. One thing they did was affect my hearing. I couldn't listen fast enough to hear what I was saying a lot of times. I think I got, I wonder why I'm saying that again. I've already said it three times. I do a lot of. Physical exams. As an individual. Physical exams. As an internist. When I examine men, I have them take off everything but their shorts. When I examine women, I have them take off everything.
And I give them a little plastic thing. That hangs down. It has no sleeves in it, but they put their arms through a couple of holes and it hangs down from them. And they feel like they've got something on them. And they sit at a table facing this way. And I stand. On this side. And I examine their eyes, ears, nose, throat and neck. And I take a little plastic thing and I drop it down. And it's in their topless.
And then I immediately put my right hand over their left breast. And I say, I always say. Do you examine your breast regularly for lumps? It always has one of two effects. Always the same. They either say. Oh my gosh. My last doctor told me to do that. And I used to do that. But I never found any lumps. So I decided I wasn't doing it right. So I stopped doing it. But I ought to be doing it. Or. They say.
Oh no. My last doctor told me to do that. But I don't want any lumps in my breast. So I don't want to find any. So I don't examine my breast. But either way. They're thinking of the scientific aspect of why some man is standing there with his hand on their breast. And it's just real good bedside manner. So I never put my hand on a woman's breast without saying. Do you examine your breast regularly for lumps?
It's always worked very well for me. I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking about. You might want to check the morale of this audience. Anyway. One day I went to work. I had the flu. But I went to work anyhow. At the aid of a few little pills. And I was examining this gal. And she was rather small. And she wasn't at all well endowed in that department. And I examined her eyes, ears, nose, throat, neck.
And I dropped the whole thing down. I put my right hand over her. And I said. I put my right hand over her. Left nothing. I looked at her very solicitously. And I said. Do you examine your lumps regularly for breasts? Actually, this program has helped my practice a lot of ways.
[00:25:16]
One day I. Twice. Twice I decided not to. Take anything to get to sleep. It was a weekend. Both times. And I decided I wouldn't drink. I wouldn't take any pills. Wouldn't use any narcotics. I took narcotics too. I took. I guess I explained why I drank. And why I took the pills. And then the narcotics. I just kind of took those. As between meal nourishments. I just love intravenous Demerol. It's just really.
Really great stuff. I think that's fantastic. As a matter of fact. If any of you are planning a slip. Try to get some intravenous Demerol. Before you get back. Not worth going out after. But if you're going to be out there anyway. You might try it. It's good stuff. Anyway. I decided not to take anything. And see what would happen. And both times. Sunday morning. Same thing happened. I had a convulsion.
And I. My reaction to that was. Well. I was drunk last night. So alcohol couldn't have anything to do with it. And I was going to. Was sent to a neurologist. A specialist in convulsive disorders. And he didn't think to ask me if I drank. And I didn't think to tell him. And he couldn't figure out why I had convulsions. And. He ended up deciding how to go to the. The Mayo Clinic. And. I thought what I needed was a consultation.
With a good intern. And. I happened to be the best internist. I knew at the time. And I knew my case better than anybody I knew. And. I had a conference with me. And. Could see the change of personality. And the daily headaches. And the sense of impending disaster. And. The things that were going on. And it was obvious. It was certainly very obvious. That. Well. I had a brain tumor. And. And I'd die and you'd all be sorry.
And. I took Max to an attorney. And I signed a power of attorney. Turning everything over to her. And went off to the Mayo Clinic. And. After. Nine days of tests and that. They stuck me in the nut ward. And that's where the steel door slammed shut. I just found out two years ago. That she went and told them all about the pills. It took her that long before she had nerve enough to. To admit that she had told them about it.
And. I was being treated like I was crazy. And I didn't like that at all. In fact, I. I signed out of there against medical advice. And. I had the only way you do that. You have to have somebody assume responsibility for you. And the only one around to do that was Max. And she wasn't being very cooperative. And I. Finally made the ultimate threat. I told her I'd never speak to her again. She didn't do it.
So she done it. After I promised never to ever drink again. Or take a pill again. Or talk to girls again. Or swear again. Or anything else. And. I had a hard time signing my name. Because a jerk doctor watched me. And I by that time I couldn't write. If anybody watched me. It's hard enough to write. So I could read it if it didn't watch me. As a matter of fact. I've got pages of notes. Of stuff at home that I had to.
Try to rewrite. A lot of it I couldn't rewrite. For medical legal reasons. A lot of it I couldn't even rewrite. Couldn't read my own writing. And I have. Facts of that to remind me of what it was like. Back in 1966. In fact, as the years went by. You could see my writing deteriorate. Up to the end of 1966. And then. There was a blank period of. About three months when I wasn't around. And when another doctor took over my practice.
He came out of nowhere. And took over my office. And worked while I was gone. And went to AA. And when I came back. Then the change in my writing was dramatic. Some people say they still can't read it. But. It's dramatic to me. But anyhow. I made Max all these promises. And got out of there. And I got on the airplane. And immediately had a big fight. Over whether or not I was going to drink the free booze.
It just seemed to me that. It was kind of sinful to not drink it. I paid for it. And. Then we fought about it. She won. She won. I didn't drink. But by God. I wouldn't talk. And I wouldn't eat either. And that's the way Max and I. And our two daughters. Spent Christmas Day 1966. Since Christmas Day, 1966, flying back to California where I'd be treated with more respect.
[00:30:02]
I got back home and got a bottle and started drinking and I ended up in the hospital. He called the neurologist, told him about the psychiatric ward, he said I'd better see a psychiatrist there. I ended up being put in the hospital, in the nut ward of the hospital I was on the staff of. That's embarrassing. If you're on the staff of the hospital of the nut ward you're being put into and you fight hard enough to get a private room.
I didn't like it there. I'd never been taught in medical school how to act on the nut ward when you're a patient. Or how to be humble. I was trying to be humble and I didn't know how to be humble on the nut ward. I didn't know what the routine was. I didn't know what else I was supposed to be doing. I know I got furious because they wanted me to make leather belts. You know, it just didn't appeal to me.
It just didn't seem like I'd gone to school all those years so that I could sit there and make leather belts. And besides, I didn't understand the instructions. And you know, it's a funny thing. I've never been able to figure it out. But not long after that I started going to AA meetings and I've been to a lot of AA meetings since. And I've never been to one where they taught anything about occupational therapy.
And yet after I had been to not many AA meetings, I went back to that hospital and I made the most beautiful pair of moccasins you've ever seen. Really, real beautiful moccasins. They not only looked good, but they felt good. And when I got out of the hospital, I used to go home and I used to get home from work and the first thing I'd do is take off my tie and mix a drink. I got to where I'd get home and I'd take off my tie and my shoes and I'd put on my moccasins.
And I would wear my moccasins around all evenings. Go out to get gas, go to the store, go out on the patio, I'd wear my moccasins. I loved those moccasins. And they would, the tongue or whatever would break and I'd tie it and patch it up together. It took seven years before those moccasins wore out. And I felt bad when they wore out. Not bad enough to go back and get another pair, but… And for my seventh AA birthday, my dear Al-Anon wife had my moccasins brawn.
And I loved my brawn moccasins. And as long as I remember where I got them, I don't have to go back and make another pair. They're not near as comfortable now, though. Before I started making the moccasins and was trying to figure out how to spend my time in the network, what I did, basically, was I spent my time writing lists of things for Max to do in order. See, Max had worked in the office with me, been my secretary for all those years.
And I used to write letters and lists and orders of things for her to do on how to keep the world running while I was locked up in the network. And, you know, obviously, it has to be kind of nutty to do that. Of course, you have to be even nuttier to come back every morning for a new list like she did. The. The. That was my life. I used to I think of it as I used to pollute the environment. I used to try environmental control.
I divided everything into the external environment, which was everything outside myself, and the internal environment, which was everything inside my skin. It was how I felt. Like when you wake up in the middle of the night and the whole world's asleep, but you, then you're living in the internal environment. I used to try to control the entire external environment. People, places, things, situations, institutions.
I thought if I could control them, I would feel good on the inside.
[00:35:04]
And somebody, usually Max, was always screwing it up. And when they, by controlling the external didn't take care of it, I tried to control the internal by putting chemicals in. And when I would get side effects from those chemicals, I'd take other chemicals to counteract the side effects of the chemicals I was taking. So I was really a pharmacist practicing on myself. So it's better living through chemical, better living through chemistry with a way of life with me.
And what I've done since, since coming to AA, I've made the smartest business decision I've ever made. I gave up a controlling interest in my life. And God doesn't work for me anymore. I work for him. He's the director. He's the, what do they call it, general partner. And I'm the silent partner. We divide it up. I do the work and he does the worry. In fact, when things get bad, it doesn't even help for me to help him worry.
It just makes it worse. He can handle it much better himself. We have an agreement. I pedal and I say, I'll pedal and you steer. And for God's sake, watch where you're going. I'm sick of some of the places we've been, you know. So I have new directors in my life. And I wouldn't want to give the impression that I got to AA and immediately did that. I was taken to these AA meetings. I remember the day that I was sitting there in a nut ward.
Commiserating with myself of a series of misunderstandings. And the things that had gone wrong. And the fact that nobody understood me. What was a nice guy like me doing in a place like this anyway? The psychiatrist came walking up behind me. And he said, how would you like to talk to a man from AA? And you know, I didn't have the vaguest notion of how I could be any help to some drunk from AA. I thought maybe he wanted me to learn something about alcoholism while I was putting in my time there.
One thing I could tell very clearly. This guy, I could just see by the look on his face that he'd just be delighted if I said yes. I could just see that that's what he wanted me to say. And I, having signed out of one place and not wanting to sign out of another one, I wanted to please this guy. And for no other reason than that happiness is a happy psychiatrist. I wanted to make him happy. So I said yes.
And it seems like no time at all before I realized that that was a dumb thing to say. This clown came galloping into the room screaming, My name is Frank and I'm an alcoholic! Ha ha ha ha ha! And I thought, oh my God. I felt sorry for him. The only thing in life he had to brag about was the fact that he was an alcoholic. And such a loud voice. And he was yelling about being alcoholic, Alcoholics Anonymous, and waving the book.
And I think, why don't you lower your voice, man? These people all think I'm a nut. Why don't we leave it at that? It was a pitiful situation. And he had an interminable story. It went on forever. I don't remember anything he said until I remember he finally said, Well, that's my story. I'm going to a meeting tonight. Would you like to go along? And I said, hell no, I won't like it. I won't like it, but I'll go.
To please that dumb psychiatrist. And he took me to some meetings. And I heard beautiful pitches by people describing their first meeting. And I think they're delightful. I congratulate you on remembering. I don't have any idea how many meetings I was taken to before I knew what meeting I was at. And I don't remember anything about my first meeting. I do recall that it had a tremendous effect on the psychiatrist.
[00:40:06]
He was delighted. He now was very interested in me and spent a lot of time talking to me. Just before coming here, this last weekend, I was at this Joe Mention International Doctors and the AIDS Convention. And I was on a panel. There were three of us. We talked briefly. One of the other three of us was a doctor who the same psychiatrist had sent to me, or called me when he was in the hospital, the same place I was, saying that he had tried AA and hadn't made it.
But would I come and take him to some meetings to see if he'd make it now? And I thought to myself, well, he may not make it this time either. But by God, he's going to get to some meetings. I was still trying to impress the psychiatrist. So I wanted to see how many meetings I could get that guy to. This was nine months after I'd first been pushed into AA. And I took that guy to nine meetings in one week.
And on a Sunday, we got to math, a short 12-step call, and three meetings. And when I took him back to the hospital that night, he was tired. And, you know, that guy never, at that time, he didn't make the program either. But my program has never been the same since. I've never gone back to a few meetings. I used to go to one meeting a week, whether I needed it or not. And I still, to this day, go to three and four and five every week.
But that guy, that doctor was on this panel with me. And the third of the three of us was the guy who called me when he first was trying to get help. And the leader of the meeting was the guy who called me sponsor. And it occurred to me that there were four of us. And it all comes through this one psychiatrist, as a result of the psychiatrist capturing me. The point being, I got that kind of screwed up, but don't…
The point being that the psychiatrist was not an alcoholic. I asked him one time, you know, what do you all time sending people, how do you come about sending people to AA? And what happened was that when he was an intern, before I went into psychiatry, during his internship, part of the job was that he had to go to one AA meeting. He went to one AA meeting, and now his chief interest in life is to run around with his butterfly net and capture alcoholics.
Just like me. And he sends them to AA, you won't even see them. And he just sends them to AA until they get addicted to these things, these meetings, and then he won't see them anymore, and he turns them loose to AA, until maybe a year later, so if they're still having problems, then you'll see them and try to help them with their psychiatric problems. But I'm impressed with the fact of what happened as a result of one man going to one meeting.
In fact, I'm very impressed with the power of this program. And the miracles. In fact, I feel like a miracle maker. Now, I don't perform miracles, but as a result of things I do, I can watch a miracle happen. I don't listen to the details, I listen to the things that happen, the people. The things that happen, the people, it's a… I remember Wilma. Wilma was talking about her drinking. She was a drunken woman, a daily drunk.
And she was dating this guy, and she was going to meet him in a bar. And she was sitting there drinking, and waiting for him, and he was late. And finally he came in, and he apologized for being late. And he says, I really have to apologize too. And I have to tell you, I'm an alcoholic, and I can't go with you tonight. I've got to go back to AA. I'm going to a meeting. Right now. He says, would you like to come along?
She said, oh, what the hell. She put on her gloves and went with him. Hasn't had a drink today, yet. Ever since. You know, to me that's impressive. You hear it all the time. A man drunk 30, 40 years, comes to AA, never has another drink. Dies sober. I think it's fantastic. I'm a part of that. I'm a part of that. I just, again, I have the feeling that I, I don't want to give you the impression that I, the psychiatrist said why don't you go to AA and I went and I found all this. I,
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I went, I was taking the meetings and I heard a lot of dumb things. I was ashamed the day that a big, strapping, healthy young man stood up there at the podium and he said, if I don't take a drink today, I'm a success today. I said, God Almighty. I got a thousand things I got to do today before I can brag about not taking a drink, for God's sake. Of course, I was still drinking at the time. And yet, you know, not taking a drink is the most important thing I do. It's the most important thing I do today. I, I have my goal. I have very precise goal. And the number one goal is to keep me sober today. There's absolutely nothing that I am not willing to do, nothing that I'm not willing to put up with for me to stay sober today. I am certainly convinced that if I don't take a drink today, I'm a success today, no matter what, no matter what anybody thinks, no matter what I think. I'm a success if I don't drink today.
And as a result of that, the other goals can be accomplished in that. Things like, how much are you adding to the total love in the world today? Somehow that's a phrase or a question that's very meaningful to me. Let it begin with love. Couldn't begin with love with me. I was taken to my home group in Laguna Beach. And the reason I had to go to Laguna Beach is because it was 35 miles from home. And I thought I could go down there and I wouldn't run into anybody I knew. And now, 10 and a half years later, I've gone to Laguna Beach long enough that I've run into everybody that goes to Laguna Beach, so they won't run into anybody they know.
I went down there, and that's a very loving group, and they talk about love a lot, and they do a lot of hugging and kissing and rubbing and bumping. And it just scared the devil out of me. It just frightened me when anybody talked about love. I began to make some progress in that department when somebody defined love from the podium. And that was Don G. And he said that love to him meant wishing you well and being willing to take some action to help you to achieve it. Somebody else said love meant action. It's action.
It's doing something for another person. It's wishing them well and helping them to achieve it. The other day, I was reading some things about how to get along with your spouse. And if you're having trouble, I can give you two rules that I'm trying to apply. One is three C's. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain. Or if you like a phrase out of the book, there's a sentence that says, arguments and fault-finding should be avoided like the plague. And it's not in any part where when you're ten years sober, it talks about it's in the chapter to the newcomer, right? Right when we're new. Arguments and fault-finding should be avoided by the plague, like the plague. And rule two, make the other person feel important. That was a definition of love. If you want to show love to somebody, just make them feel important. Now to me, that's kind of easy. It's easier than loving somebody. So I had to begin with an understanding for me. Again, I'm back to the fact I don't want, it took me, what I wanted to say was it took me seven months of AA meetings before I could quit drinking. It took seven, during that time I gave up the narcotics. And at the end of the seven months coming to these meetings, I was finally able to accept, accept the idea that I had a drinking problem, that it was probably a serious problem, and I might even be a kind of an alcoholic. But I wasn't a drunk like a lot of the people. Somehow it was very important for me to distinguish between being an alcoholic and being a drunk. I'm not so sure today what the difference is, but it was very important to me at that time.
And it was acceptance of that fact, acceptance of the fact that that's my handicap in life. I can't
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drink like other people. What's your handicap? And don't you feel sorry for me? When I accepted my alcoholism, and accepted that as a fact of life for me, and was willing then to say, well now, what am I going to do about it? When I stopped fighting the disease, accepted the disease, and began to live in the answer instead of living in the problem, the problem ceased to be a problem. And I never ceased to be amazed at how easy it is for me today to not do the thing that I found absolutely impossible. There was nothing I could do. I didn't even get into all the things I tried to try to stop drinking back at a time when I realized I had a drinking. And I tried antidote, like somebody said, every morning I very conscientiously took the antidote, and every night I conscientiously took the antidote and drank. I said that in a meeting one time, and some other conscientious alcoholic said, what's the antidote? I drank at home. I used to lock my bar so that I had folding doors on it, a walk-up bar I had folding doors on it. I bought a lock and a half, and I locked myself out of my bar. And I did the logical thing with a key. I gave it to Max so we could fight over it every night. And I'd argue with her until she'd get us one drink, and she'd have her drink and go to bed, and I'd have my drink and then try to get more. And I'd try to find the lock, and she'd hide it better. And I got to where I tried to pick the lock, and I'd lay there on the floor, and I'd tick, because I had the lock about that far from the floor. And I'd tick, and I'd tick, and I'd tick, and I'd tick. And that's why I think, who's goddamn bar is this anyway? And I ripped the lock off. And it was when I couldn't quit that I decided I didn't have a drinking problem. And I ended up against my better judgment in AA, and I even then, I didn't continue, I didn't stop drinking until I accepted. Acceptance of my disease seemed to be the answer for me. Acceptance was the key to sobriety. And acceptance is the key to serenity for me. Because if I'm unhappy today, it's because some person, place, thing, or situation is unacceptable to me. And I'm going to stay uncomfortable until I accept that. That that's the way it's supposed to be. That that's the way that person is supposed to be. If I'm a child of God, then that person is a child of God. And if I don't like that person, I'm telling God I don't like his handiwork. That I know better than he what, how he should have that person be. I've made a terrible mistake. I've done this before. I got up to talk for an hour, and I forgot to look and see what time it was when I started talking. So I have no idea how long I've talked. So I'm going to sit down. But I, before I do, I want to, one of the things I've noticed so much in AA, before AA, I knew everything, whether it was right or wrong.
And I knew all the answers, and if I didn't know, I knew where to go to get them. It seems to be either black or white. It was one or the other. There was no shades of gray. And I've heard a lot of pitches in AA. I've talked to a lot of people, and I've seen some people that are really bad. But I've never yet seen the person who is so bad that there wasn't an awful lot of good in them. And I've certainly seen a lot of good people in AA. But I haven't seen a single person that is so good that there isn't some bad in them. And I've come to the conclusion that as long as this is earth and not heaven, no person, no thing, no place, no situation is going to be entirely good or entirely bad. There's good and bad in everything and everybody. I wasn't aware of that before. As a matter of fact, I was born with a particular genius for being able to see the flaw in everything.
And I was only too glad to tell you because I knew you wanted to know. And with sobriety, you know, I have a choice. I have a choice today. I didn't before. I have a choice as to whether I look at the good or look at the bad. Thank you all very much.