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Source: Recovery and Family Life – Three AA and Al-Anon Shares (Date Unknown).mp3 File: recovery-and-family-life-three-aa-and-al-anon-shares-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:01:59
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Tommy said he was scared, and he's scared, and I feel like a skeleton and a hurricane. I always get nervous. I don't know why in the hell all you nice people that know me don't go swimming. I didn't know what this panel was going to be till I got here, but I'm awfully glad it's about the one thing that I know best, and that's me. I can simply ask you people, if you will, today to bear with me in your indulgence, I think in your understanding and in your love as you did many, many years ago.
And I think today that I need to look back into my life before I came into A and since. I'm glad to know that we have some other high-bottom drunks on the program. I'm a rebel by birth and one by nature, certainly. My father was a college president, and I grew up on a campus with 3,000 women, and I was skinny. And alcohol was neither kept nor used in my family. My father had been a, grandfather had been a Methodist minister.
My grandfather had died on the, my mother's father had died on the front porch in the 80s. He was that much of an alcoholic. So alcohol was neither kept nor used nor tolerated in my house. And yet at the age of 13, I felt my inadequacy very keenly, and I took my first drink of white corn whiskey out of a flat pint. I got drunk that first night. I blacked out that first night. I passed out that first night.
And the next morning, I took my first morning drink. Nobody told me about the morning drink. I could simply feel that if the stuff had made me feel that good the night before, it would make me feel that good the next morning. And so I took my first morning drink, and I didn't learn until I had come into AA that that was not the proper thing to do. But I became, at that time, in that early age in life, a problem drinker, right from the word go.
I wasn't a problem to myself, but certainly to my family, I was causing embarrassing situations. My father shunned me off to a military academy, and I got in with little tougher and older boys, and I learned to do a little more drinking. And I was becoming more and more a problem. And I know when graduation was held and everybody was up on the stage in their uniforms and getting their [unclear], I was down in the cold and drunk, and I didn't wake up until about a day and a half after everybody else had gone back from school.
And this, to me, was just part of life. It didn't bother me particularly much. And shortly thereafter, I made my first trip to a state institution. I drove my car up one cold winter's morning to this state hospital, and I asked them to drain the automobile and drain me, and they did both. And in those days, they slapped you in a room about half the size of this, which was built for 40 men and accommodated 160, and there was no medication, not even an aspirin. I don't care how sick, whether you had DTs or what.
And we were just simply locked up, but oddly enough, as far back in those days, we were committed as chronic alcoholics, chronic delirious. And this experience didn't faze me very much. I stayed, and I got sober pretty quickly. I was a kid, and I could bounce back, and I got out, and then my life just became one series of confusions after another. I got into college, and I drank myself out of several colleges, and I was, I'd just been eliminated, shall I say, from one college.
And I was home, and we were in the basement of a new house, and we were shooting crap and drinking whiskey, and I won $11 a half pint of whiskey and a little gray hat. And I walked by one of the dormitories at the college, and I saw a very pretty little girl outside, and I tossed her a note, asked her for a date,
[00:05:08]
and in about three or four months, we ran off and got married. She married an alcoholic. Now, away from the discipline of my family, my drinking became very bad. By now, my weekends of Saturday and Sunday were going into the middle of the week. I was drinking for one, two, and three weeks at a time, eating nothing. By this time, I knew what it was to be not only in state hospitals, but in private sanitaria, in hospitals. I knew what it was to be in jail.
And yet, through all this confusion, and this was during the Depression, we had a little daughter, and as many of us have thought by the advent of parenthood, it didn't do very much for me. It didn't straighten me up at all. I loved my youngster, but I kept on drinking. By now, my life was really a mess, and so was my family's. I couldn't provide the simple necessities of food on the table. I couldn't pay the rent, our lights, our phone.
We were rejected from apartments one after another, but I always managed to buy whiskey. By now, I had gotten into drinking where I was drinking, anything and everything. And I had gotten to where I would drink now for three, four, five, six, or seven weeks. The blackouts, the dirt, the filth that all of us know, the anguish, the aloneness, they return home with the inevitable tears of remorse and the promises. And I know, even as Tommy says, as we progress as alcoholics, I got a very good job, and I was in sales work.
And by this time, we had a second little girl, and I came home one night to find her very critically ill, and my wife and I stayed up with her for several days and nights, as you would with a child. She had infantile paralysis, and so one evening, in desperation, I took my older daughter, who was some four or five years older, and we went down to this church, and it was almost dusk, and I asked the minister to come up to the church, and if he would, and pray for us, and pray for the life of my baby.
And he opened the doors to the church and didn't cut any lights on, and my oldest daughter and I knelt at the altar, and with the tears streaming down my face, with my heart broken, and the concern that I had inside for this little sick youngster, I simply said, God, if you let my baby live, I don't care whether she wears braces or whether she wears crutches, but if you will just let her live, I'll quit drinking.
And I walked out of that church, and I sent my five-year-old daughter on home, and I got back some four or five days later filthy and dirty and drunk, and I cradled that sick youngster in my arms, and she lived, and she didn't wear braces, and she didn't wear crutches, and I didn't quit drinking. I think possibly in my life I lost one of the things that most alcoholics lose somewhere along the way. Possibly I lost my faith in God or in a power greater than myself, because I had bargained with something very precious to me, and I had bargained with the only thing that I placed any value on, and that was a lousy drink of whiskey, and I couldn't keep it.
And so life became a series of instances and confusions. By this time I was in a hospital, out of a hospital, in a jail, out of a jail. I have done some farming at the insistence of some municipal authorities on the protection of a Winchester shotgun and shackles on your ankle. I know what it is to sweat out a drunk with your arms handcuffed to the side of a cell with your coveralls tied with ropes at the bottom and a half pint of hot castor oil poured down your throat, and yet these things didn't make very much sense to me. They didn't bother me. I could snap back reasonably well, and yet through all this maze of confusion I knew one simple fact.
I knew that getting drunk was my problem, and I didn't have any resentments against life or against people, I don't think. And somehow we managed to buy or to build a little new house, and I woke one morning to find my mother there and my wife, and they were crying, and I was crying, tears that we were all so familiar with.
[00:10:11]
My mother said, well, you're going back up to Stanton and get well, and my wife came upstairs and I said, honey, I'm going up to Stanton and get well, and she said, yes, but you're never coming back to me. And I walked out of that house to go to the sanitarium, and I didn't go back to my wife, I never did go back to her, and I lost my family then. I lost them not because I loved them, but because I got drunk. And I think I lost my faith in my fellow man when I lost those I loved. The next couple of years were just a series of short periods of sobriety in between drunks.
And somehow I managed to, [unclear] by my father to get into the service. I joined the Navy, and my feeling was that I could [unclear] or something, something crazy, you know, wipe off part of this ledge of which I didn't like. And so I went into boot camp and did very well, and I had a chance to be made a petty officer in boot training and didn't take it. And I got transferred in the armed guard, and I started fouling up in the Navy.
And I fouled up, but good, because I was at this stage in my drinking where after two or three drinks I was drinking completely in a blackout. And this blackout could last for hours, it could last for days, and it did both. And I had had four summary court-martials in the Navy, and a summary court-martial in the Navy is next to a general, it's next to the highest you can get. And yet at each of these summary court-martials I had managed to tell a summary court that I was in trying to do the best I could, and my wife was going with someone else while I was in the service, fabrication of lies, which I must have told reasonably convincingly.
And they believed it. And I think the horrible and insidious part of this thing was I believed it. I had fabricated a defense mechanism, a whole life of untruth, and I believed it. I had nothing of any value to hold on to. And so I had been in close confinement for 90 days, and I was restored to duty. And I went out into New York City and I got drunk and managed to get back to base because I knew this time if I didn't I was in trouble.
And that night I tossed out of my bunk and I broke my glasses and bruised myself up a little bit. The next morning I got a special four-hour liberty chip to get my glasses fixed. And I walked out of that armed guard center and I knew that if I so much as took a drink, something terrible was going to happen. And I walked up and I got my shoes shined, my neck suppressed. I got a ham salad sandwich, a glass of buttermilk, and a Coca-Cola. This I remember very, very distinctly. And I got on the subway at 4th Avenue there, 34th Street in Brooklyn.
And when I woke up, I was in a room a little bit smaller than this. There were a group of rather nondescript poorly dressed men in there. And it was all hardwood maple furniture. And I looked at the clock and it was 8.30. And my first reaction was, my God, I'm five hours over leave. And I put my hand to my face and I had about an inch of beard. And the paper at which I was reading had been 32 days since I had left the armed guard center in Brooklyn. And to this day I can't tell you a single second of what transpired in that 32 days. I do know that I had wired home repeatedly for money, must have received it.
I'd gotten away with it somehow. The next 12 days were a living hell for me. I was terrified. I knew this time I faced a real tough job when I went back. And I slept in flop houses. I was panhandling for nickels and dimes to buy anything I could with on the streets of New York. I'm still in the Navy uniform. By this time I have scabies so badly. My body is almost twice its normal size. I'm in massive sores. I am terrified. I was even kicked out of the Siemens Institute in the Navy uniform because I was so filthy.
And finally, in desperation, one night I ate in the Borough Hall station. I just didn't know what to do and I got on my hands and knees and I tried to crawl in front of a train twice,
[00:15:01]
each time somebody picked me up and put me back on a bench. The third time, why, some sailors did, and they took me up and bought me a couple of drinks, and I begged them to turn me in. I couldn't run. I was too sick. I couldn't go anymore. And one of them gave me two dollars and says, get the hell out of here. And you hear mentioned in this thing called, But for the Grace of God. Now, I don't know why, as sick as I was, why I just got on a train and I went back to the Iron Guard Center and I surrendered.
But I didn't know what else to do. I don't know what I was praying for, but I must have prayed. I don't know what I was thinking about. I just was tired. I was sick. I hurt. I ached. And I didn't care what I had to face. Anything was better than what I was going through. And I walked up to the gangplank, and the officer of the deck took a look at me, and took a look at the log book, and turned his back, and he said, sailor, get the hell out of here, because they're going to throw the book at you. And I slumped. I couldn't go any further.
And the next morning, I was taken to Captain's Mast, and I couldn't stand up, but I was beaten until I did stand up. And I was awarded a general court marshal for desertion in time of war, and they put me in solitary confinement until I would stand trial at Harts Island. And after about three days in solitary confinement, I went into deep tears, and I was transferred to St. Albans Naval Hospital. And I stayed there for about six weeks, and my hearing came up, my medical survey board, and these doctors asked me many, many questions, and I was given finally the opportunity to ask any questions I might, or make any statements in my own defense. And I don't know why, by this time I was sober.
And I simply said to this board, and I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why it came, except I think maybe I'd given up, I just said simply, gentlemen, how can I stop drinking? I didn't care what I was going to get. If I was going to get 20 years to life, it didn't make any difference. For the first and only time in my life, I asked this simple question, how can I stop drinking? And I was told that the commanding officer on the locked ward in which I was a prisoner would talk to me the next day, and he did.
And I'm very, very grateful that that man was a good doctor, a good, competent psychiatrist, a good officer. He took a look at my record, and he said, son, I don't think anything will help you, but you might try alcoholics' anonymous. And I simply said, what's that? Now, I've been in 53 different sanitary and hospitals. I've been in some that cost 200 bucks a day, and some that cost only the cold decks that I had to suffer on until I got sober.
And yet, somewhere along the line, I'd never heard of alcoholics' anonymous. And I was given the privilege to go out in the hall with guards and see if I could get the address of alcoholics' anonymous in New York City. And I did. It was listed in those days under AA, under Wick's Publishing Company. And I wrote a rather simple letter, I guess, and said I'd like to know something about AA or talk to somebody in AA.
And Bobby B., who was then Bill's secretary, wrote me up just a little letter, said somebody would come to see me. And didn't even have any literature to send you in those days. And one Sunday afternoon, two strangers did come to see me. And they were two men, very much as any other man in this room, or if I would have been a woman, as any other woman in this room. And these men came in to see me. I was locked in a solitary cell.
And these men came in, and for the first time in my life, somebody came in to talk to me about me. And they didn't talk down to me, but they reached out. They reached out in what I think is AA, which is the simple understanding and sharing that we find in here. And for the first time in my life, somebody began to talk about themselves. And they didn't admonish me, and they didn't set up a, you know, set of rules or do's or don'ts.
But they talked about themselves, and they talked about the experiences of others that had been shared with them. And these men said they were willing to share their experiences and their love and their understanding with me if I wanted to and if I was willing to share it. And they left me the big book, and I read it all through that night in the head. And the day finally came when these men came back to see me several times again.
And these men had said something to me that made an awful lot of sense. They said that this thing called alcoholism, which they had, was a twofold illness, a mental obsession coupled with a physical allergy.
[00:20:09]
And they suggested that through their combined experiences, they had learned to stay sober just one day at a time. And this made sense to me, because when they said this thing was a disease, this thing was an illness, I could understand why I had destroyed the things that I wanted, why I had lost those that I loved the most, why I had created all the destructiveness that I had created in my life. And for the first time in my life, I could understand it.
It didn't forgive it, but it made it bearable. It made it understandable for me, and this was a simple definition by simple people. Drunks, people who had suffered as I had in more or less degree. And so the day finally came when I was taken down on Sand Street in Brooklyn, and I was stripped of my Navy uniform. And I was given an $8 suit of clothes, an $11 overcoat, a 50-cent cap, and a 50-cent shirt.
And I was taken back to that big hospital, to the bursar's office, and I was read off. I was given a $20 bill, and I was given a yellow ticket, which read, A constitutional psychopathic, emotionally unstable, guilty of desertion in time of war and Unfit for Further Military or Naval Service. And I was taken to the gates of that big hospital under guard, and I was turned loose. Now I think I lost there the third thing that most alcoholics that I've known seem to lose, somewhere along the way.
Because I lost all respect that I had for me. And yet, standing at the gates of that big hospital was the thing which I sense in this room. And there was a man there, a member of AA. And he took me that night into the intimacy and privacy of his own home. And I was a stranger, and I was a drunk, and he accepted me just as I was. Just as dirty, just as unkempt inside, and just as much of a failure as I knew I was.
But this man accepted me just as I was and not as I wanted to be. And nobody else in this world had ever done that. And that night to my first meeting in AA in Forest Hills, and there went over 20 or 25 people there that night. But I walked into that room for the first time in my life with a given group of people. I somehow felt at ease. I didn't know any of these people. And I sensed some things there that night that have been very important to me since.
First of all, I think when I walked into that room and you accepted me just as I was and not as I wanted to be, I think I got back some measure of my faith in my fellow man. Because you had accepted me as I was. And I think as I sat in that room that night, I sensed two other things. That in this room there was something greater than the individual and greater than the sum total of individuals. And this thing to me means what we see so often and hear so often in AA, that there was a principle above self.
And I knew that night that if I violated this principle, that I was in trouble. And I think I sensed a third thing there that night that has been particularly invaluable to me. And that is that AA is not for perfect people. But that this program is a program for people who have made mistakes and for those of us who continue to make mistakes. And I think I knew that night that no matter whatever happened, I could come back through these doors and receive the same love and the same welcome.
And so I made a little progress for me. I was sober almost a year. And I didn't have any goals. And I had a very meager job. And I didn't have any place to go. And I was privileged to go to a lot of meetings. And I was privileged to do a lot of 12-step work. And it helped me get sober. And, oh, after almost a year I got drunk. I didn't have any slips. And I stayed drunk for a few months. I mean sober for a few months longer after that.
And then I had to put some things together. And I stayed sober for two and a half years. And in all this time I was very active in AA, thank God. And I still went to a lot of meetings. And I did a lot of 12-step work. And I did what I'm doing right now, which I find very difficult to do.
[00:25:00]
And after this two and a half year period of drinking, I mean two and a half year period of sobriety, when I got drunk again, I came out and I had to formulate for me some things which had to make sense. And one of these was that I was an alcoholic and that I could never drink safely again, not for 24 hours, but that I could never take another drink safely again. I had to recognize for me that I couldn't stay sober by myself, nor could I live alone.
And I had to, for me, recognize the fact that this was a program of acceptance and this was a program of action or do something. I couldn't sit on my mental and physical fanny [unclear] and just stay around the realm of this thing, that if I wanted any compensation for my life, I had to put something into this thing. And so I worked very hard today. And it was my life. I felt this thing keenly, and I still believe that feeling AA is a lot more important than wanting it or knowing it.
I think this is a program in which I have to be willing, even though I don't want to. And I said many, many times that I wanted to get drunk and it didn't bother me. And I said for many, many years that if I ever wanted to take a drink, I was in trouble. And so life went along, and by this time I had a new wife and a new family and a new job and a new home, and I had been reasonably successful in my job.
And life was going its merry way, and I was very active in AA. And one morning at 2 o'clock in the morning after 15 years in AA without a drink, I woke up and I was crying and shaking, and I said I wanted to take a drink. I wanted to take a drink. And I think for the first time, and certainly since I'd been in AA, I wanted to take one drink, and I didn't want to get drunk. And so I took that drink.
And I had some phenobarbital in the house too, so I took a handful of that. I woke up the next morning and I had no compulsion. And fantastically enough, I had no remorse. And I had no shame. And I went about my way and I went about my AA, and a week later I took another drink at 2 o'clock in the morning. And the third week I did the same thing. And now I became terrified. This wasn't a normal pattern for me.
It wasn't a usual thing for me. I knew something was going to happen. And so I called my wife and I called Barney S., and I went over to Barney's and I stayed a week, and I wasn't much better. And then I went into Stanford Hall and stayed for 5 weeks. And why I say tonight, or this afternoon, that it's important for me that I get these things out of me, because in about 2 more weeks, it'll be 5 years since I had that trouble.
But I found it extremely difficult, this time, to walk back in those doors. I found in here the same love. I found the same understanding. But I had to come back in here, and I had to sit, and I had to be willing to wait. I wasn't comfortable. I didn't want to drink. And I talked to some of the older people, and I was told that when you first came in here, the thing that got you sober, by some of those who knew me back in the old days of 24th Street, go out and find yourself a dirty drunk.
And that's exactly what I did. And what I have tried to do in the last few years is get back basically to what I did when I first came into AA. I had to realize, first of all, that I was an alcoholic, that I couldn't drink safely, that I couldn't stay sober alone. I needed you people. I needed you very desperately. I needed meetings. I needed them very desperately. I needed the guys and the gals who can't come in here, who are making mistakes.
I needed the new people who were coming in here. I needed to work with other people. And so I sat, and I heard him say, kind of foolish, but I know how all of you feel when you come back to this thing, but I was willing. And to me, the most important thing in my life today is the willingness to use you people and to use AA. Use you and use AA when I don't want to do it. when I would rather do something else, the willingness to use the love and to use the knowledge that you folks have shared with me, and for you people who accepted me when I first came in on my hands and knees, and accepted me this last time, thank you.
[00:30:17]
Thank you very much. I'm very glad to be here this morning. In fact, I guess I could say I'm very glad to be anywhere. If I weren't, that would be quite strange. A power greater than ourselves. I have learned through my years in AA that all through my life I have been at the beck and call of powers that were greater than myself. And that leads me into my favorite theme of late, the power of invisible forces in our universe and in the life of man himself.
If you give it a thought, I think you will realize that the most powerful things in this universe are invisible. Powers that we cannot see, we can see their effect and feel their effect, but they in themselves are invisible. To name a few, gravity, electricity, heat, cold, even the forces that spawn Betsy that we are patiently awaiting a few drops of rain from. In the life of man, too, the many invisible powers that affect all three phases of his life, physical, mental, and spiritual. In the physical, of course, there is pain, physical pain.
There are the invisible forces that create growth, that bring us from an infant into an adult. The invisible forces in food that give us our strength and nutrition. In our mental life, of course, there is the power of thoughts. Invisible, but you all know that thoughts have swayed the course of this world of ours. Now, of course, in the spiritual life of a person, the invisible force of fear, resentment, self-pity, hate, love, jealousy, envy, any one of them, very forceful, very powerful, unseen, but we can see and feel their effect.
And I think that man, as he is born, is an incomplete person, much as a car that comes off the assembly line. A car is complete in every detail except for the power which shall become its motivating force, namely gasoline. And in man, too, there must be some force from the outside that will give him motivation for his existence and his life. Through my infant years, of course, the power of instinct ruled and guided me. You've seen the infant. They cry out in the middle of the night when they're hungry. When they are awake, they constantly move their arms and legs to gain strength and stature.
As I grew up, of course, the power of my parents' love, the power of friendship, of people, youngsters I got to know. All these things are very nebulous, however. There were many times when I was a kid that I doubted whether my folks liked me or not, especially when you're in a family of more than one. You oftentimes think they think more of your brother or your sister than they do of yourself. So I spent many miserable hours when I was a kid. I liked to know that I was normal. I liked to feel that I fit. And I was never quite sure.
You see, we are born with a peculiar type of blindness that doesn't allow us to see ourselves as we see other people, doesn't allow ourselves to judge ourselves as we judge other people. So the only way I could tell was the way people reacted to me. And, of course, people being people, all of us the same basically, they don't always react as we expect they will or hope they will. And this brings up vague doubts. I had a terrific amount of inferiority when I was a kid. I used to wonder about what was all this existence about, what was everything about.
I had a lack of courage. Anything that I had never done before, I hesitated to try for fear that I would fail. I couldn't stand to be laughed at. I couldn't ask a girl to dance. I wouldn't have been able to stand it if she refused me. And it's a funny thing. Members of the opposite sex in school that I thought the most of, they were the ones that I would never speak to. They are the ones that I shied away from.
[00:35:08]
When I was 17, I bumped into another great power, invisible power in this world, booze. And overnight, I became a giant. Overnight, my whole world changed. Overnight, I came under the domination of a nightmarish thing that in 20 years was going to almost destroy me. It isn't so important that I got drunk the first time I drank, which I did. I drank in the morning, the first time I ever drank. But what happened to me spiritually was the big thing. Now I could ask a girl to dance. Now I could do things that I hadn't been able to do before.
Now I found a scapegoat. If I made a botch of things, I could blame booze. It was wonderful. And when you speak of humility, what greater humility is there than that? For me to stand here and admit that there was something in a bottle that could do for me what I couldn't do myself. But think of it for a minute. If you were to stand two bottles of colorless liquid on the table there, one containing water and one containing alcohol, they both look the same, yet in one of them lurks an invisible power that if a person applies himself diligently to it or counterparts of it for a period of 20 years, it will bring him to his knees a babbling idiot crying out for help. Is it any wonder that man can't cope against anything like that?
Is it any wonder that he falls because of a power like that? I like to sometimes relate this little story to indicate what booze did to me. Back in 1932, I worked for the town of West Hartford, and one of our jobs was to deliver salt pork to people on welfare. Or I think they called it the relief rolls then. It was at the tail end of the Depression. And the government gave out salt pork under the F.E.R.A. administration.
And it was one of our jobs to deliver this to the families in town. A lot of them happened to be of Italian extraction. They had vineyards and grew their own grapes and made their own wine. So consequently, we always got loaded when we delivered that pork. There was one family at one end of the town that had a ferocious police dog. He was on a chain that went the length of the yard, and another one came down so that he could cross the whole yard.
Every time we came with our pork, you'd think he was going to kill us. One particular Saturday, we happened to reverse the route for some reason or other, so that when we got to this particular family, I was drunk. We were all drunk, in fact, more or less. And I didn't remember this, but the lads told me afterwards. When that dog came after us, I chased him into the kennel, put down my basket, got on my hands and knees, and shook my fist at him and dared him to come out.
That's the kind of courage booze gave me. I had a lot of fun with booze. It made my life a very happy thing for 15 years. It made everything that I did much more enjoyable. Of course, I suffered the hangovers, but what was that? I made a lot of money. I made a lot of money. It made everything that I did much more enjoyable. Of course, I suffered the hangovers, but what was that? I mean, to be sick and know why you're sick is nothing. It's when you don't know why you're sick that you worry.
And everything that we did, fishing trips, football games, name it, booze was always a focal point, and I always enjoyed it. And I like to repeat again, it didn't have to be that I was using it, just the knowledge that it was there. As I've said before, much the same as a man with a bank account. Even if he doesn't go near that bank, just the knowledge that it is there gives him a feeling of security within himself.
And that's the way booze was with me, even when I wasn't drinking. You see, it had assumed complete control of me. There is no question about that. The last five years, however, were different. The pendulum started to swing the other way. I noticed that if I started drinking on a Tuesday, I was still drunk by Saturday or Sunday. I noticed that now it was not a one-day thing, a two-day thing. It lengthened into weeks.
I noticed, too, that all those things that I had suffered during my childhood, all those fears, doubts, insecurity, all of these were coming back multiplied a million times.
[00:40:02]
And the last year of my drinking life was a veritable hell. I had forgotten how to laugh. I enjoyed nothing. I had only one purpose. That was the next drink. I didn't care how I got it or who I hurt. I had become a deceitful wretch. I wasn't honest with myself or with anybody else. I made promises and knew when I made them I didn't intend to keep them. How can you be happy living that way? It was miserable, absolutely miserable, constant depression.
And drinking more and more booze, trying to get rid of that depression and having it not work. Going on the wagon, trying all kinds of things, all kinds of tricks, trying to get back to that nice relationship in the beginning, but failing always, the condition getting worse and worse, until finally there is no release at all with alcohol. The more alcohol it has taken in, the worse the condition becomes.
And so when I came into AA, I was not only powerless over alcohol, I was powerless. As a human being, I was a failure. I didn't know there was anyone else like me in the world. I thought I was alone. I knew there were people that drank the way I did and people who wound up in the gutter, but I didn't think they cared. I know differently now. But I did care. I cared desperately. And I wanted to know, is there something that could be done about this?
Now my first contact in AA, another great power entered my life. The power that happens to be the creator of all these other invisible powers. And I took AA away with me that day, and it's been with me ever since. In our second step, we say that we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. With me it had to be more than that. I had been almost spiritually destroyed already by a power greater than myself.
A power greater than that power had to restore me to sanity. Me, I was helpless. I was alone. I wasn't even a physical shell of arrogance anymore. That too had fallen apart. I had no job. I was hopelessly in debt. I had lawyers after me. I had the sheriff after me. A constant nightmare. Inability to sleep. You know it well. It's a pretty awful thing. And I had a lot of questions when I came into AA, but they told me, And I had a lot of questions when I came into AA, but they told me, Elmer, first things being first, you must do something about the booze problem.
And I learned a very simple little thing, something that had never occurred to me before. I realized that I didn't have to stop drinking. All I had to do was to not start. If I stayed away from only one drink, that took care of everything else. Because not starting, of course, took care of stopping. And that's the way it has been since. They told me about patience. I wanted a job. I wanted to get my bills paid.
I wanted to feel better. I was a wreck, spiritually, mentally, and physically. I wanted that to change. They told me, Elmer, it took you 20 years to get where you are now. It's going to take a little while to change it. And it has, but it has been well worth it. After I'd been in AA for about six months, I realized that I would have to do something about this myself if I wanted anything to happen to me.
That made sense. I became a drunk, or an alcoholic, or whatever you want to call it, because I did the drinking. No one else did it for me. No one waved a wand over my head and said, Elmer, you will now be an alcoholic. I did it. I did all the drinking. I did all the despicable things. All of it, I did. So it made sense that I had to do something in this thing we call AA. So I started to do 12-step work.
I couldn't tell anyone much about AA, but I could tell them that they had friends somewhere in the world who cared about them. I could tell them about the first drink, staying away from that. But more than that, I could bring them a little bit of hope. Where there was complete despair, I could at least light a little candle of hope within them. I could give them the same thing that had been given to me.
And certainly we all know that that is the big thing. That is the thing that really counts. But the funny part of it is, what was happening to me? You see, when I went out to see these people, I practiced our anonymity 100%. For the first time in my life, I did something for someone else for their sake, for no other reward, not a pat on the back for nothing, only to see if I could give them some hope.
[00:45:01]
I liked the way it made me feel, made me feel good. And even though I spent many sleepless nights in the beginning because of going out to see different people, somehow or other I didn't get tired, or not tired in the way that I used to get tired. And I liked the way it felt. And I think that that is when I started to grow a little in AA. Physical sobriety is good, yes, but AA offers so much more. I used to ask myself, was there any way I could go through life without the threat of the first drink hanging over my head?
Was there any way I could go through life without having to fight this thing we call booze? I found out there was. What put me on the track was I heard a speaker one time, gave the first step, admitted he was powerless over alcohol and that he had become unmanageable. Then he mentioned that he was unmanageable before he ever drank. And that started me thinking. And I realized actually that the booze was not my big problem.
The big problem was these invisible forces that had been churning around inside of me, much as a volcano churns inside the bowels of the earth. And that the alcoholism had been an eruption to relieve that boiling that had been going on in there all the time. I realized that I had a sickness in here. I realized that I had to do something about that. I had to get rid of all those things that were in there.
And the 12 steps said I could. I had to get rid of the fears, the hatreds, the resentments. Discouragement. There's a bad one. Discouragement. Boredom. All those things, I had to try to get rid of them if I could. And I prayed. Wherever I happened to be, street corners or anywhere else. Asking all the time to please let me get rid of these things that were boiling around inside of me. Took me about three years, but it was the most fascinating three years of my life.
Because I began to learn about me. For the first time in my life I began to see what made me Elmer Tick. And it was wonderful. And I began to realize how senseless these things are. Because after a while you begin to pick up another vision. A vision other than your own. That comes from this power that runs the universe. I began to see myself as I saw other people. I began to be able to laugh at myself.
But more than that. Analyzing these things I realized. Resentments for instance. Who was being hurt by my being resentful? Only me. Often times someone else didn't even know about it. This business of living today. What an important thing. Or right now as I live. I remember very vividly one time I used to sing. And I did solos. And of course I used to get frightfully nervous. I'd have to bolster myself up with booze.
Many times I sat up there in the choir loft. With a Creole turpentine bottle with whiskey in it. Have a little shot now and then to give myself courage. Imagine. Well anyways this particular time. It was a solo that I didn't care too much about. For three weeks I spent a miserable time. Being nervous. Thinking to myself how I'm going to follow this thing up. So when the time came to do it. I couldn't do it.
I had to have someone else do it. And for two weeks afterwards I was miserable. Being such a flop. So there was five weeks of my life. Spent in misery for something I didn't even do. How crazy can you get? But that's the way it is. Jealousy. This lad. Very good friend of mine was a bass soloist. Very jealous nature. But he didn't drink the poor guy. So he had no way to get rid of it. And they used to say to him.
Why can't you be like Elmer? He isn't jealous. But they didn't know. And afterwards. A few years after I'd been in AA. I asked him one time. I said when people talk to you. After we've done solos. A cantata or something. They tell you how well I did. Don't they? He says yes. And it burns me up. I says well don't be burned up about it. Because they tell me how well you did. I said you see people can't tell you to your face.
Nearly as well as they can tell someone else. How well they thought you did. Self pity. I remember one time. I was sitting on a snow bank outside the house. It was ten o'clock at night. Shoveling the walk. And I felt miserable. I thought to myself. Now why does this have to happen to me? But you know it didn't. Nobody was making me stay there. I could take off. I could go somewhere else. And then the thought came.
[00:50:00]
Yeah but you'd still be there. Wouldn't you? And that's the way it is. So you begin to analyze all these things. And you realize how foolish they are. How silly they are. And going along in AA. This power that we call God. This power that runs the universe. Becomes a very real and vivid thing. Instead of that dead weight in here. Instead of that stone. You have a feeling of exhilaration. A feeling of peace.
Nothing else in the world outside changes. I still work. I still have the same problem. But I welcome problems now. Because I realize a life without problems. Would be very boring. Problems and troubles. I look at as the hills and curves. On the highway of life. They make it interesting. Some of them you solve. Some of them you don't. But it doesn't matter. The thing that matters is. How do you feel about them?
That's what matters to me. And in AA. I have come up with a few pet philosophies. My own. I don't allow people to push me around. But I don't get mad at them for trying. I don't expect to be perfect. And I don't want to be. But I don't expect anyone else to be either. So anything they do or say. Just rolls off like water from a duck's back. What a wonderful thing that is. When you think of it. Because this is a pretty hectic world we're living in.
You see how people run around at work. Like chickens with their head cut off. It's wonderful not to have to go through all that. Another philosophy of mine is. I'm not too particularly interested anymore. As to whether people like me or not. But I am very vitally interested that I like them. You see I'm interested now. That I have a good feeling in here. That I have a good feeling of love for my fellow men.
Sometimes I often wish that the Ten Commandments could even be rewritten. Instead of saying thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not even feel like killing. Thou shalt not even feel like committing adultery. Because that's where the thing begins. Inside here where those feelings are. And they are all more powerful than we are. But to go back. What a wonderful thing it is. To be able to walk down the street.
Freed from the tyranny of fear. Freed from all the things that boiled inside before. To be able to enjoy the universe. To enjoy people. To enjoy yourself. To like being alone sometimes. Just with your own thoughts. To really love life. And to recognize the difference between making a living. And the high art of living. It's a wonderful thing and it's so simple. And it's free. Here in AA we are offered the greatest jewel that man can find.
Something that he has looked for for centuries. Some have found it and some have not. The secret of inner peace. You heard peace of mind mentioned tonight. Peace of mind is good. But even that can't compare with inner peace. The inner peace that you can get here in AA. And I am firmly convinced. That we of all people are among the luckiest on the face of this earth. Because I know myself. If I had not been almost destroyed by that power that was in booze.
I would never have been able to find the power that we call God. Because you can say what you want. Alcoholism is basically and fundamentally a spiritual thing too. And you have the both balanced against each other. The two ways of life. And just a comparison of the two. Where one is a life of hell, no joy, depression. Every hand on the shoulder of foe. Every ring on the phone from a foe. Every piece of mail from a foe.
A life of hiding. Always being afraid of getting caught for something you have done that you should not have done. Thinking of life as it could have been. As it could have been. And as it really is. Or this way of life in AA. The ability to walk down the street. Face people and face yourself. Not being afraid of getting caught for something because you have nothing to hide. Absolutely nothing. Your life is an open book.
Where every hand on the shoulder is a friend. Every ring on the phone is from a friend. Every piece of mail is from a friend. Just a comparison of the two. Should give anyone the answer. Thanks. Applause.
[00:55:07]
Applause. Well Helen said I could say a few words but Florence kind of put me to shame because I thought she was going to say a little bit more and she did. But I'll not talk long because. But I do think this cute little story is about two Ellen ladies that went out to speak at a meeting. And they was to share the time that evening. And this first lady got up. Perhaps it could have been me. And I started talking and I closed my eyes you know.
Gee I talked so long that everybody walked out. And when I opened my eyes I asked the other person. Well where did everyone go? And they said well you talked too long. Everybody walked out. And I said well why didn't you leave? And she said well I'm the next speaker. Laughter. But that really isn't a true story. But anyway it kind of is like me. But anyway the Al-Anon family group in the harbor area did start March 4th 1945.
And our first meeting was in San Pedro. And that little pamphlet we called it the non-alcoholic pamphlet at that time. Was written by Emily [surname unclear] a wife of an alcoholic in Long Beach. And Smitty the husband of an alcoholic wife in San Pedro. And we went to that meeting. The first meeting was in San Pedro. And then we'd go back and forth. Long Beach and San Pedro. Then ten months later there was eight of us.
Six ladies and two men. We started the Long Beach group. So it's been a wonderful, wonderful years. But we did have a problem in our home for 25 years. We was married in 1921. And until 1946 we had a drinking problem in our home. We came from South Dakota out here. And we was married in 21. Came out here in 23. And we had 25 years of a problem and 16 years of living hell. Until we found Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon.
Well I'd read about Alcoholics Anonymous in our Long Beach newspaper. And I asked my husband could I write to New York. Those were the days we had to write to New York. How fortunate you folks are nowadays. You can pick up a phone. And I wrote and I'd give anything in the world for that letter I wrote. It must have been the dilly. I bet it was everything about my husband but not me. So anyway my husband got straightened around and they took him to this first meeting.
Down at the E-Bell Theater that night. And every speaker that spoke I would poke my husband in the ribs. I thought you listen brother there's nothing wrong with me. And he listened but he didn't come back for a year and a half. But thank God the AA's you know I can just see Boots P. Long Beach. Come back Flossie. Come on back you come back. And I think thank God for the alcoholics. I love them.
I'm not happy unless I'm around AA and Al-Anon people. So I kept coming back. I looked like warmed over death. And I looked like a sad sack. And I saw all these wonderful people. And I thought my gosh where are the alcoholics. I thought he was going to come wheeling them in you know. And I couldn't believe these people ever drank. And they had wrist watches on and they had smiles. Gee. Everything we had was hocked.
So anyway like I say I jabbed the poor man. And then I kept it coming and so we was going to start the Al-Anon family group. And so I still didn't think there was anything wrong with me when I went to that first meeting. Like I say I need Al-Anon and the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous more right today than I did 20 years ago. Because I didn't know I had one defective character then. I thought gee everything was okay.
And I just give him the Dickens all the time. Why do you drink so much. It's the same old story. I didn't know he was sick and then here I made him sicker by yakety yak and nagging and wee. When I'd want to get him off the Davenport. I'd just take his wine bottle and he'd follow me you know and he'd just. I didn't want company to come because I knew what he was going to find. But if you ladies haven't tried that or men you try that.
You try that. That's a good way to get him off the Davenport. Well, in a way, like I say that night I walked into that meeting, there was a pilot light that lit my heart that night. And has never dimmed in 20 years.
[01:00:01]
In fact, it grows brighter. And today is one of the days, just brighter and brighter. So in a way, I had my eyes opened 20 years ago. I've been coming to Al-Anon and A.A. now. The 1st of March was my 20th anniversary in Al-Anon at Alcoholics Anonymous. And then they did put the phone in the harbor area in our home. And they did put it in our home. And we had it for seven and a half years. It was the happiest days of our life.
It was like a 12-step house and a central office. And I don't know how we lived through it all, but we were happy, boy. I could wash the guy's socks with one hand and the telephone on the other hand. And boy, it was a ball. And there's a lot of folks in this room today that came to our house, too. And they're sober, thank God. Well, in a way, it's real wonderful. In last September, we celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary and my husband's 18th year of sobriety.
We had a wonderful Christmas. And everything has just been wonderful. But he did pass away the 1st of March, or February, and talk about a tribute to Alcoholics Anonymous and to the love that was in that funeral that day. Well, words can't describe. It was packed out, way to the sidewalk, loudspeakers out in front, an AA guy giving a talk, and our Baptist preacher, but they all liked the AA guy the best.
And our daughter sang the Lord's Prayer on a recording. It was her daddy's favorite song. She just sang it at many of these conventions. Oh, I'm not the guest speaker. I'm going to get down first. Well, anyway, it was wonderful. And like I say, I thank God for AA and Al-Anon, and I thank Al-Anon and AA for God. And Helen, I hope I didn't talk too long.