Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jack Brennan. I’m an alcoholic. Hi.

You know, down where they come from, that Harold Wilson comes from, last night, I was down his country, and down there, whenever they say, “Hi,” I always tell them, “Hi, y’all.” And that’s the way they talk. And they talk beautifully well up here, too. I never heard the Twelve Steps read so nicely.

And I come from Brooklyn. I do hope that you people will be able to understand me. And if you don’t, remember, I’m at a disadvantage, too.

And if there are any policemen present, I have just one word for you: Peace. You know, I come to these conferences pretty regularly, and these conventions, and always I’ll meet someone having breakfast or something, and I’ll be introduced to them.

Generally, it’s a sweet young thing, you know. And they say, uh, “This is Jack Brennan.” And they always look at me with surprise. And they say, “The Jack Brennan?” And I often ask them, I say, “What do they expect? Two heads?” And I, um– It happened again this morning, and I really don’t know what people expect me to look like.

I’m, uh, just an average fellow. I can go out into the world, and if I don’t tell anybody I’m an alcoholic, I don’t think they’ll ever know it. And if I keep my mouth shut, they’ll never know that I’m stupid. And I just go through life, and I work, and I have my family to raise, and just a very normal guy.

But there is one big difference. When I told you this morning that I’m an alcoholic, that’s the thing to remember, not my name. My name is not important. But the fact that I can come up here on a plane and stand here and talk to you people, and you sit there so nicely and listen, that

is a miracle. So you had best believe this morning that you are listening to a miracle. And I am not the only miracle here in AA. I do believe that each and every alcoholic that comes to Alcoholics Anonymous and maintains their sobriety are miracles.

Because as you so well heard last night from Harold, the big book and the beginning of AA, we are people who should be dead. I know myself that I was given a ticket to death some thirty years ago. I was given five years to live by three very eminent doctors in New York.

I was given five years to live, and I was told that I would spend the latter part of that five years, if I made it, in a mental institution suffering from wet brain. I was also told that I was a homicidal maniac and that it would be possible for me to wipe my family out overnight and not know that I did it. It was also said by those three doctors that if I did live, I would never be able to work another day in my life and that it was impossible

for me to differentiate between right and wrong. Well, I don’t have any animosity toward anybody because I’m in AA. I just love everybody. I love doctors, too.

But I would like for you to be the judge, because of those three doctors, two of them are dead, and the third guy, he don’t look very good, I’ll tell you. So which brings me then to the miracle part of this program. The doctors are not wrong.

They know exactly what their books teach them. But you see, here we have what they don’t study in their medical schools. We have here a higher power. We have here a very loving higher power whom I choose to call God.

And it’s this individual that gave to Bill Wilson the power for him to help another alcoholic, and the two of them together to go out and help a third. And as a result of this, here we sit this morning, many, many people in meetings like this and all over this country, some four hundred and fifty thousand recovered alcoholics.

That’s the miracle part of this, because you see, until Bill Wilson, and thirty-eight years ago, there was absolutely no help for the alcoholic anywhere in this world. The alcoholic was the bane of society. No self-respecting doctor would have him cluttering up the office.

And as much as people loved him, as much as people tolerated him, there was no help, and it was a very hopeless, helpless situation. Therefore, we get the name of being helpless, hopeless, chronic alcoholics with good reason. There was absolutely no survival rate for us. So I look about at these conventions, and I see people, and so many, and I see each one of the alcoholics sitting here that would affect the life

of maybe six other people, and I say, “Thank God for AA.” I am a very proud, happy member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have done nothing in this world except to turn myself over to Alcoholics Anonymous and to the care of God as I understand Him. And I have been able to maintain my sobriety and live with dignity as a human being for the past twenty-six years. An impossible situation.

Impossible. I only delve into these things very lightly because of my faith, don’t you see? I have the utmost faith in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I believe that it is the only place for the alcoholic to find what he needs in this world: understanding, and a beautifully well laid out program for the alcoholic to live. Because as the man that opened the meeting here today said, he came to AA to stop and stay stopped. He didn’t come to stop, but to remain stopped.

And I like to say that in a little different way. I came to AA in order to learn to live because I didn’t know how to live. And I don’t care who that you are, I don’t care how much money that you have, position in life, or your sex. I don’t care what your color.

I don’t care what your age. If you are a human being, you can be affected with the disease of alcoholism. And the doctors, as clever as they are and as smart as they are, they have pinpointed the disease of alcoholism, and they know that it’s an upsetment in the body chemistry.

Well, this was enough for me. When I learned that I was not crazy and that I was not an immoral person, when I learned that I was not a moral degenerate, then I was willing to come into AA and try. And as a result of that, I have lived a long and happy life, and I’m just about the happiest guy that ever walked the face of this earth.

And a lot of people say to me, “Well, Jack, if you’re so happy, why don’t you laugh once in a while?” Well, I do laugh inside, don’t you see? Because I don’t see well, and I don’t hear well. And that has been a problem with me, but a very beautiful problem. I love it.

You know what it is? When I get somebody yapping in my ear, I just have to turn my bad ear to them. I hear nothing. And I can see, I can see just as far as I want to see, actually.

After the first ten feet, it gets very blurred, but that’s all right, too. I was at a meeting one time in Jersey, and I used to watch my wife very well because she would sit down at a table, and all the girls would gather around, and, and they would discuss their favorite subject, me. And what it was like to live with me.

And I used to sit down at the end of the table, and this night I was particularly watching my wife because she was in a very funny humor. And I knew that something was about to happen, and some of the girls asked her, “Well, why is he always so quiet?” And she said, “I don’t know. I guess he’s just stupid.” And I looked at her lips, and I saw what she was saying, and I laughed to myself inside. And then they said, “Well, doesn’t he ever get excited?” And she says, “No.” And she– “But there’s so many people here at this meeting.” She says, “Oh, he can’t see.

He doesn’t know how many people are here.” And this is the way that it went with me and my wife. And we lived a very beautiful life, but it was not always so. And the reason that I came here today was because that there is one individual sitting out there. Now, I’m not so stupid to believe that when I come here to speak to so many people that everybody’s going to stop drinking and live different life.

Not true. But I do know one thing. I know that there is one individual here that has to hear what I have to say, and that’s why I came. Now, you see, I believe that this is simply the way that my friend upstairs uses me.

He uses me to carry the message here and there to people, and I always find that there is one individual sitting out there whose life will be changed by what I say here today. So this, to me, is simply an extension of a twelve-step call from LaGuardia Airport to Canada. And I don’t like Canada.

I don’t like Canada at all because I was here about five years ago with my son, and I sat at an intersection in a rented car waiting for the light to turn green. And somebody came along and hit me in the back a terrific wallop, drove me clean across the intersection. And I was a little upset, and I got out, of course, and he didn’t speak English.

He spoke French. It was in Quebec. And I sent a little kid, I gave him a half a dollar to go get a cop, and he come back, and he spoke French, too. And do you know what it is to be standing between two Frenchmen, and they’re deciding your fate?

I thought I was going to get locked up for him hitting me. And, you know, it was the strangest, weirdest feeling. So I told my boy, I said, “We’re never going to go to Canada again.” But, you see, my friend upstairs said, “Jack, you got to go,” and here I am. So while I’m here, I’m going to speak real quick, and I’m going to get out, and I’m not going to ride in any cars if I can help it.

I suffer from the disease of alcoholism. And the simple disease that I suffer from is chemical in nature, and it manifests itself in me in three areas: mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Remember, the one physical disease that I suffer from, chemical in nature, manifests itself in me mentally, physically, and spiritually. Mentally, it enables me to do things that normally I would never be able to do. And it manifests itself in me physically in that it interrupts my life, that I can’t sleep, that I can’t eat, and if I stop drinking, I’m afraid that I’m going to die.

And I throw up, and I retch, and I puke, and this is the physical manifestation of the simple disease of alcoholism. And then it manifests itself me in a spiritual manner. And when they tell you that there’s no, uh, religion here in AA, you had best believe it. Because spirituality, me, is simply a person, a spiritual person is simply an individual who is wanted and needed and loved.

And if you are wanted and needed and loved, then you’re spiritual. And if you are not wanted and needed and loved, then you are not spiritual, period. And there are many, many people who have never taken a drink that are not spiritual. And there are many people here in AA get quite confused about spirituality.

I don’t, because you see, my name is Jack Brennan. I’m a very stupid individual. I had to get stupid in order to understand this program. It’s geared for people like me, very confused, sick people.

And the, the life that I lived before I came to AA took everything in my mind and distorted it. So you see, when I came here to AA, I found out that I suffered from a disease, as I’ve explained. And a spiritual rebirth or the growth of a spiritual individual here in AA is, uh, almost impossible not to achieve, not to achieve, because our 12 steps are the l- are the rungs of a ladder that we alcoholics climb towards spiritual perfection.

In other words, we become wanted and needed in this world, and loved. I never knew any of these things because when I was born, I was born in a family that was, uh, an alcoholic home. I was one of nine children, and I was the only child that was affected by my father’s drinking. And my father was a fine man.

I don’t know if it makes any difference or not, but he was Irish, and a lot of people call this the Irish virus, but that’s not true. It’s a chemical disease of alcoholism that we suffer from. And he was Irish, and he came to this country, and he settled down. He was gonna earn a living for his family.

Well, it never happened because he was afflicted with the disease of alcoholism. And when I came along, I think it was for about six months that they were happy, my mother and father, that they had a new child. It didn’t last more than six months, I’m sure, because I was completely different from the rest of the family from the very beginning. I was inflicted with the disease of alcoholism from the first moment that I was born.

And people will say, “Well, how can you be an alcoholic if you don’t drink?” Very true. It wasn’t until I took my first drink that I became an alcoholic, but I had the physical chemical makeup of the alcoholic a long time before I knew what whiskey was. And how did it affect me? Well, I couldn’t go to school.

I couldn’t go to school, and I lived with ungrounded and unfounded fear. I was afraid of everything as a child. I used to sit in my room, and I used to tremble when my father was drunk. The rest of the eight kids used to go to school and get good reports and carry on and play games and do just what they were supposed to do.

Not me. I was obsessed with my father’s drinking, and I used to beg him, “Please, Pop, don’t drink anymore.” And he would get sober, and he would be sick, and he would be remorseful. And I used to look at him, and pity used to well up in me, and I’d say, “Please, Pop, no more.” And he’d say, “No, Jack, no more. That’s it.

I won’t drink no more of that stuff.” And two weeks later, he would come home drunk again. And he used to have me on the end of a string like a yo-yo, and I was happy, and I was very proud of my father when he didn’t drink. And I used to tell my mother, “Mom, he stopped this time for sure.” And she would say, “Yeah, Jack, we’ll see.” Because, you see, she knew better than I did. She lived with him a much longer time than I did.

Well, the result of that was that I soon learned to hate my father. He never told me the truth, and I learned to hate alcohol. So actually, there is no earthly reason for me to be standing here talking to you as an alcoholic. Because if it had anything to do with a matter of choice, I would never have ever take a drink.

I hated the stuff. I watched my father become an animal every time that he drank, and I knew what caused it, alcohol. And it didn’t matter whether it was beer, wine, or whiskey. When he drank, he was a terror.

And so theoretically, I should never, ever have become an alcoholic. Maybe one of my brothers or my sisters, but not me, because I was that kid that was most affected by my father’s drinking, and I should have stayed away from that stuff with a, with a deadly passion, never touch it. But you see, I have no choice about what I am.

I was born exactly the way my friend upstairs wanted me to be born. I was born with a chemical imbalance in my system that caused me to see things with a tremendously different eye than my family, my brothers and sisters. And when I took my first drink, I found relief in alcohol.

I found relief from ungrounded and unfounded fear. And for the first time in my life, at 12 years of age, I knew what it was to be happy and to look at the world, I think, like normal people look at the world. Not with fear, not with terror, but look at the world and be able to evaluate it with eyes that see just the same as normal people’s eyes.

It had never, ever happened to me. I always lived with terror. In school, when a nun would ask me a question, I wouldn’t answer. I would sit like Denise the Dunce because I was afraid that if I answered a question and made a mistake, someone would laugh at me, and I didn’t like to be laughed at, ever.

And I thought always as I sat in school that everybody knew that I had my brother’s pants on and my brother’s shoes. And I was sure that everybody knew that my father was home drunk, a raving maniac with booze, threatening my mother. And these are the thoughts that went through my mind as a kid. And I sat in school terror-stricken, and I would run out at recess time and run home and open the door and find out if my mother were hurt or whether she were alive or dead.

And you don’t know how it is for a child to live as I lived. But all this changed at age 12. Both my brother and I were in a bedroom because it was raining, and my father was on another drunk. And my father told– my mother told us to get into the bedroom and be quiet, and that maybe it wouldn’t be too bad this time.

Well, I knew different. I knew that there was another sleepless night coming, probably another sleepless weekend, and I would be sitting between my mother and father and trying to keep peace between them so that they wouldn’t hurt each other, because I loved both of them very much, don’t you see? I was a, quite a normal kid in the love department.

I thought my mother was a, a, a beautiful angel put on the Earth, and I thought my father was the strongest man that ever walked the face of the Earth. He was capable of anything. I was a pretty normal kid when it came to that. But you see, when he drank, I couldn’t sleep.

My nights were filled with terror, and I knew another one was coming. And my brother, who was younger than I, well, he was only ten, he came up from under the bed with a bottle of wine, and he said, “Jack, look what I found.” And I said, “What is it?” And he said, “I think it’s what the old man drinks.” And I said, “Well, that’s nice.” And he took the cork out, and he smelt it. And he said, “Jack, it smells sweet.

You wanna try it?” I said, “No. You try it.” You see, my mother didn’t raise no stupid children. I wanted to see what it did to him. Well, he took a drink, and he said, “Oh, it’s sweet, and it’s nice, and it’s good.

Have some.” And I watched him for a few minutes, and he didn’t fall down or anything, so I tried it. And my brother kept repeating how nice and sweet that it was, but he was stupid. Because you see, to me, it wasn’t nice and sweet. I didn’t know what it tasted like.

All I knew that when it hit my stomach, I was changed. For the first time in my life, I looked out at the world without fear, and I looked at that bottle in amazement, and I said, “No wonder the old man is always sipping on this stuff,” because it changes your life. And I looked at my brother again.

I said, “Joe, have another one.” He said, “Yeah.” And he took a second drink, and I took a second drink, and now I was ten foot tall. I was a different person in two minutes. And for the first time in my life, I knew what it was to feel good. And I kept looking at my brother for his reaction, and that dummy kept saying it’s sweet.

And I looked at him and I said, “Are you stupid or what? Don’t you understand what this stuff is?” He says, “What are you talking about?” And that was over 40 year ago. And if you go out to Lynbrook, Long Island tonight or any time and drink with my brother, his name is Joe. And if you’re an alcoholic, don’t drink with him, because he will do the same thing to you today that he did to me 40 years ago.

He’ll give you one drink, he’ll give you a second drink, and then he’ll put the cork in the bottle, and you’ve had it, period. And he has been doing it. Now, we had the same mother, and we had the same father. We ate the same clothe– we ate the same food and wore the same clothes, went to the same school.

There was absolutely no differen- To my brother and myself. Our only difference was two years in age. But you see, I was born chemically deficient.

I was born with the chemical body of an alcoholic, and when I got the booze, I found relief. Now, I will leave it to you. If you felt as I felt, would you stop drinking? I doubt it very much.

I could sit down now and start worrying about getting home to New York because I have told you practically all there is to tell you. I have described for you the difference between a normal person and an alcoholic. A normal person drinks and stops, and he drinks because it’s time, or because he wants it, or because that he thinks that he would like it.

The alcoholic drinks out of necessity in order to be able to look and operate in this world. Well, I drank that day. My brother quit. He said to me that if I kept drinking, I was going to get sick, and I said, “You are stupid.” And I believed it.

And I said, “Joe, if the Lord made anything better than this, he must have keep it up there for himself.” And I kept drinking, and the next thing I know, it was Sunday morning, and my mother was bending over me and crying bitter tears. And I looked at her, and I said, “Mom, what’s wrong?” And I woke up, and I had in my belly for the first time what the alcoholics know so well: remorse. I didn’t know what I had done, but I know that something was wrong.

I felt it. And I said, “Please stop crying and tell me what happened.” And she said, “Jack, for the love of God, don’t ever again do what you did yesterday.” And I said, “Mom, what did I do?” She said, “You drink almost three-quarters of a gallon of wine, and then you tried to take a bath, and you passed out in the bathtub, and you almost drowned.” And I looked at her with eyes.

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. And I said, “What day is it?” She said, “Sunday, and it’s time to go to church. Please get up and promise me, Jack, no more.” And I said, “Mom, stop crying. Never again.” And I meant it with all my heart because anybody that found what I found in alcohol was not about to stop drinking.

And the only thing that bothered me that my mother would find out about it, so I had to be a sneaky drinker. And while I was talking to her and reassuring her, and while she was telling me, “Jack, one in this family is enough, please,” and I was telling her, “No more, Mom, that’s it, stop crying,” I was planning how to get more because you see, I needed alcohol to live with, to live on. And now you say, how does a 12-year-old boy get alcohol?

Well, it’s very simple if you’re an Irish Catholic and an altar boy. And I was an Irish Catholic, and I was an altar boy. And I asked for the early mass right away. I got the six o’clock mass on a steady diet, and I would get there at a quarter after 5:00, and I would set up very nicely.

And I would say at this time, too, that they go first class in those sacristies, I tell you. Some of the best drinks I ever had came out of sacristies. And when I had my morning nip in the church, I could go to school, and I could answer questions, and I could be one of the kids. And all my worries about my father would be out of my mind.

I wouldn’t think about it. I would have a good day. But sometimes I would run into an alcoholic priest, and he would get there at a quarter to 5:00. And then I was in trouble, don’t you see?

I couldn’t get my morning drink, and I would go to school, and I would be Dinny-The-Dunce again. And the nun used to look at me, say, “What happened to you this morning? Where’s the smart little boy that was here yesterday?” And I never told anybody that the difference between my having a little wine in the morning was what made me able to operate. Well, I won’t stand here and bore you too long today, believe it.

But I drank every opportunity that I got. I drank in order to live. Not that I liked it, not that I wanted it, but without it, I was nothing. Without it, I was a 12-year-old scared kid.

With it, I could operate like my brother. I had been told all my life to be like my brother, and I tried desperately to be like my brother. My brother, before he died, God rest him, had one job for 37 years. My average was about 37 jobs a year.

He went to church when it wasn’t even Sunday. When he took his clothes off, he hung them up in a closet. When he went to school, he had his books so nice and orderly. He did his studying at home.

Me, I was a round block in a square hole all my life. And I tried to be like my brother, and I fell on my face a thousand times. I couldn’t be like my brother. Now I understand why.

Because he was a normal individual, I was an alcoholic, so I began to hate him. And you see, when I left home at the age of 16, I didn’t leave home because I wanted to leave home. They talk about the progression of alcohol. You had best believe it.

The disease of alcoholism is a long, slow train ride. It starts at that end, and it goes to that end. And you can, as an alcoholic, get off that train anywhere along the station, any station along the line that you want. I could have qualified for Alcoholics Anonymous at 16 years of age, at 14 years of age.

So I know that age is not a factor here in Alcoholics Anonymous. I know that. But I was a full-blown alcoholic with the first drink that I took. And where alcohol took me on my train ride, I hope that some individual here today will listen to what I say and not try and compare

with me. And if I can prevent one individual from doing some of the things that I’ve done during my lifetime, then this trip here will be well worth it. I don’t like to fly.

I believe that flying is for the birds. I am scared stiff when I fly, and I hold my breath in LaGuardia, and it’s quite difficult, you know, to come to Canada, especially if the plane is late. You don’t breathe too good.

And yesterday was a particularly bad day for me, but I’m here because I think it’s important. I think it’s important for one individual to know one thing: You don’t have to go to the end of the line. And you people that came into AA and don’t know what it is and don’t know what the inside of a jail looks like and don’t know what a straitjacket feels like and don’t know what a mental institution is, I say thank God.

And I say thank God for AA and for you people that have come in and have not lost your home and have not lost your family and have not been beaten half to death so many times as I was. I say thank you because you have proved to me that I am in the right place, that AA does work. It guaranteed each and every time, and you don’t have to go to the end of the line, and I hope that you don’t.

You see, because at age 16, my mother came home and found me threatening my father with a .38 revolver. I had a bottle of whiskey on the table. I had a roll of stolen money, and I couldn’t understand why she was so upset. I said, “Mom, he’s useless.

I’ll kill him.” And she said, “No, you won’t.” She said, “You take your filthy money and your filthy gun and your whiskey and get out of our home. And don’t come back no more. We don’t need you.” She said, “Jack, I don’t understand you. I was happy when you were born, but you’ve done nothing but hurt everybody you ever come in contact with from the moment that you were born.” And she said, “Your father

there may not be the best father, but he’s not like you. He’s not vicious. He doesn’t hurt anybody. He doesn’t provide too well for you, it’s true, but he’s a sick man.

But he’s properly sorry, and you’re not. You’re just a vicious animal.” I was to remember those words. I was to remember them good. ‘Cause I left home at 16, and I’m not very proud of the things that I have done, have done.

But I would say to you only one thing: that when I drink, I’m capable of doing anything, and that’s just about exactly what I did when I was drinking. Because I would think nothing in a few short years of running around with a mob in New York that you would be caught dead with, a bunch of nasty people.

And I was very proud to be associated with them because to me, they were a means to an end. I could drink the way that I wanted. I didn’t have to work. I never had to report for a job in the morning.

I could live pretty much as I lived, and I always had plenty of money for my alcohol, and that was important to me. See, I was a wheelman for a mob. I don’t know if you gentle people know what a wheelman is, but a wheelman is the guy that drives the car, and I’ve driven a car at 100, 110 miles an hour with police chasing me.

And remember what I said in the beginning, peace. No more. I have had much trouble with police, much trouble, but that’s all in the past. Let me tell you something.

I have gone into bars and grills and drugstores in the beginning, and then later on, I graduated to nightclubs, and I graduated to a lot of bigger things, and I stuck up a lot of joints in my time, and I’ve stolen an awful lot of money in my time. And I want to tell you one thing. When I would put my head down to sleep, whether it be a best hotel in New York or Jerry the Washington, DC, or some fleabag hideout from the police, it didn’t matter.

Every time that I slept, I woke up. I was back to being a 12-year-old scared kid. Can you understand that? If you’re an alcoholic, you can understand it because the alcoholic is actually two people.

He is two people just exactly like I have two hands, so one in front of the other. The one that he creates with alcohol and puts up in front of the other because he cannot stand the individual as an alcoholic that he was born. So I was two people. I would go out at night, and I would be chased by cops.

I would hurt people, and I’ve hurt many, many people because my mother was right. I was vicious. I thought the world owed me a living, and I was about to take it, and I was not satisfied ever with taking a man’s money. You know, it’s a terrible feeling when I think back now, and I see some of the sights in my mind’s eye of people with my gun pressed deep into their

belly with their mouth hanging open out of fear. And I can also see many, many times in my mind people that I was not satisfied with just taking their money, but that I would bash across the bridge of the nose with a gun. I can still see the blood coming out of the corner of their eyes.

And if you think I’m proud, I’m not. I’m not a bit proud. I’m not a bit happy. But I must be honest with you people and tell you exactly where alcohol took me.

And you know, there was a time in my life, just like you, that I didn’t know what the inside of a jail looked like. I didn’t know what the cold feel of a barrel of a gun felt like. I didn’t know any of these things, and it was only with the use of alcohol that I found out. So if you’re like me, or you were like me as a kid, and you’ve come into AA, I say thank God, because had I done it, then I never would have experienced what

I did. But my friend upstairs is the one that made me an alcoholic. My friend upstairs is the one that took me to the places that I went. And my friend upstairs is the one that brought me into AA.

But you see, it wasn’t just as gentle as that, because my disease progressed. My disease progressed very rapidly, and I graduated from little things to big things, and then suddenly I lost my first job on account of alcohol. You see, they called me in one day because I had that happy alcoholic habit. I would wake up in the morning and be a scared 12-year-old kid, and I would hold my head in my hands and I would say, “My God, what am I doing?” And then I would

smell my gun to see had it been fired, and I would look in my pocket for money. And then I would start to ask questions, stupid questions, don’t you know? Like I would call someone on the phone and say to him, “Hey, Pete,” or Willie, “How did it go last night?” And they would say to me, “Jack, don’t you know? You drove the car.” And I always had the blank and blackouts.

And it was because of this that they told me one day, they called me and they said, “Jack, you are probably the best wheel man in New York State, but we think that maybe you have a little trouble with alcohol.” My nickname was Crazy Jack the Umbriago. I don’t know whether you know that, but what it means is Crazy Jack the Drunken. And I used to laugh when they laughed, but inside I seethed because I didn’t like to be like my father.

I didn’t like anybody to talk about my alcohol or mention I was drinking too. I wanted no part of that. When they called me Crazy Jack the Umbriago, it hurt me, but I lived with it. But you see, they knew.

They called me in this particular day and they told me, “Jack, suppose one day that instead of taking us home, that you would take us to a police station. What would happen?” And I had to admit that they had a point. So that was the time that I lost my first job on account of alcohol. They got themselves a new wheel man, and I was taken out of the business.

I went out on my own, and for the next couple of years, I got in more trouble than any one human being should get into. I’ve been arrested over 125 times. I’ve done a little time here and there in New York State. But I will say one thing to you: Had it not been for alcohol, I would never have been able to do the things that I did.

You see, I used to sit in prisons, and I used to sit in jails, and I had social workers and priests and ministers come to me and try to help me. And they would say to me, “Jack, we’re going to help you. You’re too young and you’re too nice a boy to be doing the things that you’re doing.” And they would say, “We’re going to help you.” And I would look at them and I would say, “Tell me how.” And they would say, “Well, all you have to do is stop drinking, and we’ll help you.” And I used to chase them.

I used to get indignant. I would ask them, “Why don’t you, instead of telling me to stop drinking, ask me to stop breathing? I could do it easier.” It would be easier for me to stop drink, uh, breathing than it would be to stop drinking. You must realize, I was convinced in my mind that there was absolutely no way for me to live without

drinking. Because when I didn’t drink, 12 years old and scared, and who needs a 12-year-old scared kid in a man’s body? I had gotten married. I had gotten married, and my wife was getting to the point where she was asking questions, like, “When do you work?” and, “Where does the money come from?”

and, “Jack, don’t you think you’re drinking a little too much?” And now I was a little leery because here, you see, excuse me, I knew there was something wrong. But I felt that one day I was gonna hit the right combination and be able to drink like my brother. Never happened. I left home again, and I went to sea as a merchant seaman, rather than have my wife see me get up in the morning and ask her stupid questions.

“Why do you drink that when it makes you sick?” And I used to look at her because she never understood what made me sick made me better. And she couldn’t understand it. She said, “You’re so deathly sick and you want to drink.” And I said, “It has to be. Just go away.

Leave me alone.” Now, you know, no alcoholic can long tolerate that. So I went to sea as a merchant seaman, and I had much more trouble. And I came back home one time after the Normandy invasion, and I was beaten half to death because of a battle I had gotten into in Marseilles in France. I was 16 days in a coma, and when I came into New York, I was on a hospital ship.

And when a doctor told me that I was going home, I wanted to kill him. I couldn’t go home, because if I went home, my secret would be out, and my wife would know what that I was, and I couldn’t have that. But as fate would have it, they took my papers away. I couldn’t ship no more, and I went home as a hero, a returned hero, because I sailed on gasoline tankers during the war.

And people used to say to me, “What a brave man.” I wasn’t brave. I was drunk. I didn’t know the difference. I didn’t even know the war had started till I got torpedoed the first time.

And I had to ask the guy that was swimming next to me, let me hold his life jacket, and I asked him what happened. He said, “We got torpedoed.” And I said, “What’s that?” And he explained it to me, you see. And he said, “There’s a war on.” And I said, “Really? Who’s fighting?” And then I told him, I said, “You know, a guy could get hurt over here.” And he gave me a chance.

They took me into England, you see. They gave me a chance to go home by plane. Or to wait and get another ship, and I’d wait and get another ship because I wasn’t about to go home. But now here I was home after being two months in a hospital, two months in a hospital, all broken up and beaten up.

And I went home to a wife that didn’t know me. I became an animal. I walked into the house and I told her, “Where is the booze?” And she said, “Jack, what are, what are you talking about? I live here with my little son, and we don’t have any booze.

I don’t have any company.” I had never been in that apartment. It was on the sixth floor in Brooklyn. And I said, “Well, run down and get some booze and take that stupid kid with you. He makes too much noise.” Well, you see, I was a returned hero, and she wasn’t about to say no, so she went down the stairs and got me a bottle of booze and come back

up. And I took it and I went in the bedroom and I shut the door and I said, “Leave me alone. Don’t bother me. Don’t talk to me, and keep that kid quiet.” And I would sit at that window and look out that bedroom window at nothing, and I would dream my dreams.

And when the booze was finished, I would go out and I would say to her, “Go down and get me some more whiskey.” And she would look at me in horror, and I would say, “Shut your mouth. Don’t look so stupid. Go down and get me some booze.” You see, now she was beginning to see what alcohol had covered up for so long.

She was beginning to see me, not as a 12-year-old scared kid, but as the al- alcoholic capable of anything. One day she said to me, “Jack, you’re my husband. I have a son here that needs a father, and I need a husband, and I’m gonna help you.” And I said, “You help me and I’ll kill you, because everybody that ever helped me attacked my booze, and I can’t live without it.

So just leave me alone and don’t bother me.” She said, “I’m warning you, I’m gonna help you.” Well, she helped me. Oh my, I don’t think I could survive her help anymore, believe it. I’m a little too old, but then it was very necessary. I went out to get an evening drink one time because she refused to buy any more booze for me, and I went to my favorite bar and a man almost had a stroke.

He said to me, “Jack, please get out.” And I said, “What’s wrong with you, dummy?” And he said, “Your wife was here, and she told me that if I give you even one drink today, she’s gonna set fire to my bar.” And I said, “She has taken leave of her senses.” I went to a little grocery store delicatessen to get a six-pack of beer because I was dying, and the guy did the same thing. My wife had visited an area of about 10 square miles.

And I couldn’t get a drink nowhere, and I went home loaded for bear. I was gonna kill her. Open the door, I said, “I’m gonna bury you.” And she said, “Wait. Before you bury me, what’s your problem?” I say, “You know what’s my problem, smarty.” And I said, “What did you do that for?

You’re, you’re killing me.” She said, “No, no.” She said, “Do you want a drink?” I knew there was something wrong. And I say, “Yeah.” And she said, “Well, I’ll buy you a drink.” I couldn’t understand it. I said, “What I gotta do for it?” And she said, “You gotta get on the subway and ride with me to New York.” Well, that was 15 minutes underground, and I thought that over real good.

She said, “If you want a drink, you’ll do it, because the only way you’re gonna get one.” So I got on the subway for a drink, and I suffered for 15 minutes of horror, and when I got off, I was so shook up she bought me another one. And I said, “Now what do we do?” She said, “We are going into that church.” And I looked at the church. I said, “I can’t go in there.” And she said, “Why not?” I said, “Because I’m Irish Catholic.

That’s a Protestant church.” And she said, “Jack, believe me, you are gonna go in there. You haven’t been in any church for 20 years, you drunken bum, and you’re gonna go in there.” So I went in there, and I sat in the back of the room, and I asked her, “What kind of place is this?” She said, “This is Alcoholics Anonymous, and they’re gonna help you.” And I laughed. I say, “I know.

Stop drinking.” And you know something? There was some dummy got up like I’m up here tonight, and the only thing that I heard him say is, “Don’t take the first drink and you won’t get drunk.” And I called out to him from the back of the room. I said, “I’ll bury you.” “If I get close enough to you, I’ll bury you.

What are you, a Boy Scout?” “Did you think that up all by yourself, or did somebody teach you?” And I said to my wife, “Let’s get out of this dump.” I said, “You gotta be out of your mind. I knew that before I came here.” “I knew that in Brooklyn. How can you get drunk if you don’t drink?” And she said, “You are helpless.” And I said, “You better leave me alone, because I’m getting a little annoyed with you.” And

we get out on the sidewalk, and we parted, and I went home about three or four days later, and it was the beginning of the Third World War. Because there was two cops in my apartment. Well, you know, cops I can’t tolerate. Now they’re all right, you see, but then, oh my, no.

Cops were in this world just to cross little children across the street. That’s it. And if you walk real fast and look straight ahead when you passed one, he might even leave you alone. You didn’t ignore them.

You just completely ignored cops, and here was two in my apartment. And I said to him, “Well, what do you do here?” I didn’t say that, really, you know, but, uh- There’s too many ladies over here today. And he got a little nasty.

He said, “We’re here to protect your wife. She called us.” And you know, one of the first laws of the mafia is you don’t call cops. If you got a trouble, you take care of it yourself. And I said, “My wife, she wouldn’t do that.

She knows better.” He said, “Well, she called us, kid.” He said, “She’s got marks on her throat. You almost killed her last night.” I said, “I wasn’t even home last night.” “Oh, yes, you were.” And then she got into the picture. She said, “Oh, yes, you were,” and she said, “You had me hanging out the sixth story window.” And she said, “I got news for you, buddy. From here on, I’m gonna take care of me and my children.

You watch out, because I’m gonna get you. Now, you are a helpless, hopeless, chronic alcoholic, and you don’t want help, so I’m gonna give you what you don’t want. Now, you make one move, and you’re gonna go so far nobody gonna find you again.” I couldn’t believe it. Here was a naive, sweet, little, stupid woman that I had married.

And I said, “What’s come over you?” She said, “You.” She told me, she said, “You have educated me, uh, like you wouldn’t believe. You are the nastiest bum that walks, and you’ve got me the same way.” And she said, “But watch out, Brennan. Your time is coming.” Well, you see, that day I had a little tussle with those two cops.

They wouldn’t leave, so I threw them out, naturally, and they frown on that, even in Brooklyn. And they went out, and they get reinforcements, and then they come back, and then they threw me out. And then for about a year and a half, we were playing king of the hill with my apartment, you see. And I roamed around the streets of Brooklyn looking for cops.

And the unfortunate part of it was that I found them. And I want to tell you something, that’s a losing proposition. There’s just too damn many of them, you see. And you can do all right with one or two maybe, but I tell you, when it gets to be five or six, you got trouble.

Well, I had trouble. You see, because they would take me in the back of station houses or into an alley somewhere, and they would beat me half to death, and they would bounce me off walls, and they would give me a lot of grief. And when they got tired beating on me, don’t you see, then they would say to me, “Hey, kid, please, don’t get up no more.” And I would say, “Oh, yeah,

I’m gonna get up, and I’m gonna kill one of you people.” Well, they used to put their foot in my throat, and they used to say, “Well, you can’t hit that guy no more.” And I would say, “Please, let me get up.” And they would say, “No, you’ve had it. You’re a maniac. You’re crazy.” And then they would call for ambulance and a straitjacket, and they would put me into Kings County Hospital or Bellevue, and they would

give me a big, fat needle and knock me out. Now, do you know what it is to come to in a straitjacket? And you take your tongue, and you run it around the roof of your mouth and see how many stitches that you have. And you feel that your head is all pulled together up here.

You must have the more stitches. And if you try to breathe too heavy, you can’t ’cause you’re all wrapped up with the broken ribs and adhesive tape. Yeah, I know what it is, but that was not problems for me. A beating like that was not my problem.

My problem was that when I woke up, I was a 12-year-old scared kid, and I used to say, “Oh my God, what am I doing now? And what did I do last night, and why am I here like this?” And I would say, “Never, never no more am I gonna take a drink. I don’t care if I choke, I won’t drink no more. I don’t want this.” And then, you see, they would properly allow me out, maybe 20 days or 15 or 18, and I would go home.

And I would be full of remorse, and I would be sick, and I’d be 12 years old and scared. And I’d go home late at night when it got dark because I was ashamed. And I’d walk into the house, and I’d say to my wife, “Well, I’m home.” She’d say, “Yeah, I see.” And she’d say, “Jack, what are you gonna do?” I said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do.” And I would say, “Just let me sit in a corner, and I’d be all right.

I’d think about something.” And I would sit in a corner, and I would be terrified, and I would be petrified, and I was sober. But what a way to live. If the phone would ring, I would have panic. And if I had to walk across the street, I just couldn’t do it.

And my brother would come, and he’d say, “Come on and get you a job.” I couldn’t walk in the gutter. I couldn’t walk on the road. I couldn’t step outside the house. And the fear and the remorse was so great inside me.

And my wife used to say to me, “Jack, how do you feel?” I said, “I feel all right. I just don’t know what to do.” And she’d say to me, “How about AA?” I’d say, “No, that doesn’t work. Those are different people. They’re not like me.

I think I’m crazy, Roz.” And she would say, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.” Well, would you believe that I went through that thing 12 different times? Twelve times beaten half to death in a straitjacket, Kings County Bellevue Hospital. I talk kind of funny sometimes, you see, because my jaws have been kicked up into the roof of my mouth a dozen times. I’m blind in one eye.

I don’t hear on one side of my head. I get some pains in my head these days that you wouldn’t believe. My equilibrium is very poor. But you see, I’m an alcoholic, and I had to find out the hard way.

So I hope that if you haven’t experienced any of these things, that my being here today will help you to avoid them. I finally would convince my wife to give me 50 cents because I couldn’t live without a drink. I thought I would just take one, just one, and then I’ll go to New York or somewhere. I’ll get a few dollars together.

I’ll work. I’ll do something. And now here was a 12-year-old scared kid walking down the street and take just one beer, just one beer. I didn’t want no more.

I didn’t want no more beatings. I didn’t want no more of that nonsense. All I wanted to do was to live, to be able to work or go look for a job. But you see, the moment that I took that one beer, it was like somebody turned a key up here in my head, and I wouldn’t think no more.

All my good intentions go right out the window. And I would look for a cop that beat on me last week and repeat the same thing all over again. Well, I won’t stand here and bore you to death, believe it. But the last time I got out of the hospital, I was taken before a magistrate.

My wife stood on one side with my two children. I had two children, one a little infant. And the judge said to me, “Jack, please listen to what I’m saying. Try to understand.” I had just come out of a madhouse for the 12th time.

The two detectives that picked me up at the door wouldn’t let me have a drink. I was 12 years old again, and I was scared. I had ice water in my belly. My knees were rubber.

I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t remember anything. I was sick to the death. And the judge said, “I know how you feel.” He said, “I have a prognosis here on you.” And he said, “I must tell you because we’re not gonna

lock you up anymore. But what we’re gonna do, as the doctor ordered, we’re gonna remove you from your home for the protection of your family.” And I looked at my wife, and I said, “Is that what you want?” She said, “Yeah, that what I want.” And she said, “I got some news for you, kid. If you stick your filthy face in my home where I’m raising my children that have just been awarded to me,” she said, “I’m gonna kill you.” She said,

“I’ll get you while you’re sleeping. I’ll get you, but I’ll put a knife in your belly, and I’ll kill you,” she said, “because I have had you up to here.” She said, “These two kids are gonna get a chance to live.” And she repeated almost word for word the same thing my mother had told me when I was 16. “You have done nothing but hurt everybody you ever came in contact with.

You’re a vicious, nasty bum. Get out of our lives and let us live.” So I was taken to New York, courtesy of the police department of Brooklyn, and I was told that I was not allowed to travel in Brooklyn. And the judge read to me that piece of paper that I told you at the beginning and gave me five years to live.

And I went to New York, and I lived on the Bowery for two and a half years. Well now, I don’t know whether you knew that about me before I came here with my lovely suit and my clean shirt and my shave. Well, I want to tell you something. I put in two years of hell on the Bowery in New York, and I lived like a rat in a trap.

And I cursed God every moment that I had a sane thought. And if you walked near me and I was on my feet and you had a pair of shoes on your feet, I would spit at you because I hated you. I hated everybody that walked and talked. And all I wanted was somebody to beat me so bad one day that I would die.

I was just one mass of hate. And I lived in the snow, and I lived in the rain, and I got hit with taxi cabs, and I fell down subway stairs, and I had body lice. And I want to tell you something. Alcohol was my only friend.

Nobody wanted me, nobody needed me, and nobody loved me. I was the most unspiritual individual that you ever saw in your life. And I hated you, and I hated God, and I hated my mother, and I hated my father. I even hated me.

Well, you see, thirty-eight years ago, Bill Wilson was given the gift of Alcoholics Anonymous for people just like me. And my friend upstairs watches each and every alcoholic, no matter where he goes, until he cries out in despair for help. And when you cry out in despair for help, you get a sudden answer. You get a sponsor, and he carries you to AA because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

The man upstairs has sent the sponsor for you, and now you are in AA and under the care of God as you understand him, whether you be Protestant, Jew, atheist, or whatever. That’s the way I see it. That’s the only way that I can tell you why that I’m here today.

Because my friend upstairs watched me, and he watched me good on the Bowery. And he watched me until one day I lay in a Bowery bathroom in the back of a filthy bar, and I tried to take a morning drink out of a bottle of smoke. And I had hemorrhages of the stomach, and I fell down on my hands and knees and hooked my chin on the bowl.

And I lived actually and watched myself run down a toilet bowl. And I couldn’t stop breathing. I couldn’t stop bleeding. And every time that I retched, I bled a little more.

And it was that that caused me to look at the bottle I had in my hand. And I said to me, I said, “Jack, it must be true. It must be the alcohol that’s doing these things to you because nothing else is bothering you. You’ve got it, and you can’t drink it.” So I resigned myself to dying that day, and I threw the bottle over my shoulder, and I just laid there and

went into a coma. But you see, my friend upstairs has different ideas. Because while I was laying there, I saw pictures of my wife. In my mind, it was like a kaleidoscope.

And I saw pictures of many, many things, people that I had hurt, ships that I had been on. And it was like my whole life was revolving around in flashes in my head. And then came one strange picture, and I was in a light looking down at a group of people. And they were all milling about, and they were all clean.

They were all drinking coffee. And suddenly, I remembered what that it was. It was that AA meeting I had been at with my wife. And I said, “Oh, my God almighty.

Jack, you had it, you damn fool, and you blew it. You blew it. You had the answer.” And that was it, AA. And I think that I even cried a little bit because I thought there was no hope for me.

But my friend upstairs took care of that because he put hope into me. And somehow, my sick mind, I said, “If only it were possible.” And I crawled out of that dump I don’t know how many hours later on my hands and knees. And I was a mess. I was full of blood.

I had no shoes. I had no clothes. I had nothing. I was full of vermin.

I had hair down my face. I don’t remember even bathing. And I crawled out, and in the decrepit condition that I was in, I– and I asked someone and made them understand what I want, please to call AA for me.

And they did. And I sat, and they told me, “Sit. Sit, kid, and don’t move. Don’t go nowhere.” Evidently, they knew what the alcoholic on the Bowery was.

His mind can be here, and his body can be there. He don’t know. But he told me, “Please sit. They’re coming.” And I sat, and I had a tremendous effort to stay in one place.

And I had to keep convincing myself that I wasn’t dreaming, that it really had happened. And my sponsor did come. Now, you see, I’m a guy that believes everything that’s told to me here in AA. I necessarily must.

Because you see, I was a big Irish Catholic, and I used to hate a lot of people that belonged to minority groups. And yet when I was sitting, waiting for my sponsor to come to do what I thought would be to save my life, my last and only resort, my sponsor came with his wife. And he was this big, and she was that big.

And she kept saying, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” And he kept saying to her, “It’s all right, Jean. Be quiet. He won’t hurt you.” And he said to me “My name is Sam Cohen, and I’m an alcoholic, and I’m here to help you.” And I looked at him

and I said, “Oh, my goodness. How wrong I have been all my life.” Nobody wanted me. Nobody needed me. Nobody loved me.

And here was this little Jewish man holding out his hand to me. Are you trying to convince me that there’s any religion in AA? You can’t. Spiritual?

Yes, he was. His next words amazed me. He said, “Well, that’s all right, Jack.” He said, “If you come with me and Gene, you don’t have to drink no more, and you’re gonna be all right.” Now, either he had to be an idiot, he had to be a maniac for anybody to look at me and say I’m gonna be all right, or he knew something that a

lot of good doctors and scientists and priests didn’t know. And what did he know? Well, you see, he knew what AA was because he was an alcoholic, and he had been there. And I said to him, “Please,” I said, “don’t fool me.

I’ve been fooled too many times.” I said, “Do you think that there’s hope for me?” He said, “Oh, sure. I tell you, you come with me and you come with Gene, and we’ll carry you to AA, and you don’t have to drink no more, and you’ll be all right.” Well, I’m all right. I’m fine. Now, you see, when you come into AA, you pay your money and you take your choice, and

if you think maybe your little bottle of pills will help you, you take them. And if you think you need a soft couch and some office, by all means. And when you get through playing games, you come back. We’ll still be here.

Because I want to tell you something, and I want to tell you loud and clear, I don’t believe there’s any help anywhere for the alcoholic except here, and I believe that with all my heart. And you can tell me all kinds of theoretical theory that you want. I don’t understand you because I’m stupid.

All I know is what my eyes see, and my eyes for 26 years have watched miracles. I have watched dead men get up and walk. And I said to my friend Sam Cohen many times, “This guy will never make it.” He said, “Bite your tongue.” And finally, I learned there is no one beyond the scope of the higher power.

No one. And Bill Wilson told us that the higher power is the head of AA, and this is where our help came from, and I learned it the hard way. And I would say to you that anybody would try to add to the work of the higher power, I wouldn’t want to walk on the same side of the street with you in a lightning storm, believe it.

Because my friend upstairs don’t need any help. He’s doing real good all by himself. So leave me alone and leave Him alone. If you want to play games, go somewhere else.

Now, you see, I come into AA, I was sick. I tell you I was sick. And the very first moment that I set my foot at an AA meeting, I found what I was looking for in the bottom of a bottle for 26 years. Six years or 20 years, whatever it was.

Understanding. Nobody said to me, “Get that bum out of here. He stinks too bad.” No. “Come in.

Sit down. Here’s a cup of coffee if you want to drink it. If you don’t want it, leave it there, but we’re just glad to see you.” Understanding. They knew how I felt, and they used to turn their back and walk away, you see, and not watch me drink my coffee because I couldn’t pick up a cup.

I had to bend over and lap it up like a dog. I had had 203 stitches just in that part of my right hand. I couldn’t handle a cup. So you see, my friends knew in AA.

And everybody kept telling me, “Jack, keep coming back.” I says, “Sure, I keep coming back. I got no place else to go. Nobody else wants me.” And they said, “Well, we want you.” And I used to say to Sam Cohn, “Sam, what do you suppose would happen if they found out, you know, that I was a stickup artist?” He said, “I don’t care what you think.” One day he introduced me to a guy, and I, I shook hands with him, and my hand felt very funny.

And I said, “Sam, who was that guy?” He said, “He was a cop.” Oh. I said, “Sam, you shouldn’t have done that.” “I don’t like them people. Now, if it’s me or him, the plate ain’t big enough for two of us.” What I want to tell you, I learned on the knees of a little alcoholic Jewish AA individual.

Yeah. He taught me how to live, and he taught me so much. I’ll be so ever grateful to him. He died two weeks before Bill Wilson, and I tell you, I miss him sorely.

I don’t miss him so much because there’s so many people around that he’s helped that I can talk to and see him, you see. Well, how did he help me? Well, I tell you, he guided me, and I didn’t run from sponsor to sponsor. When Sam Cohn told me what to do, I did it because I wanted to stay alive.

I didn’t question him. I never said, “But.” I came to him one day after about two years in AA. I said, “Sam, I owe you my life.” He said, “You’re stupid.” Man, he said, “You Irish people are all stupid.” But he said, “You particularly, you’re very stupid.” And I said, “You know, you Jewish people are all stupid, too, because if I was working like I used to, I’d kill you for saying that.” And

we used to get along good, see. But he said, “Jack, my friend upstairs helped you, not me. He sent me out for you, and I brought the body. That’s all I did.” And he said, “You know, you want to thank me?

No, because what I did for you was done for me, and the guy that did it for me had it done for him, and you carry it all the way back to the first individual, Bill Wilson. He had it done for him by the higher power. So if you want to talk to anybody about gratitude, talk to him, not me.” I said, “That, that is dirty pool.” I said, “Because I don’t speak to that guy, you know.” He said, “No, I know you don’t.

You’re a rotten, ungrateful Irish bastard.” Oh, that was terrible. I said, “Sam, you don’t speak to me like that, you know.” He said, “I’ll speak to you any damn way I please. I don’t pray to you.” And he said, “Stupid. He sent me out for you, and you got a job now, and you got a room, and you got a pair of shoes, and you got friends, and you go out talking at AA

meetings, and you don’t talk to him? Shame on you.” And he was right. So I said, “All right. Tell me what to do.” And he said, “Okay.

You speak to him just like you speak to me.” Then you, “Now wait just a minute.” He said, “You had better clean it up a little bit first.” So that night I went out, and I speak to my friend upstairs. I didn’t take the bus home. I walked home, 20 long blocks, and on the way I told him, I said, “You know, my friend, uh, I ain’t been doing too good up till this time.

I heard a lot of you are citizens down here.” And I said, “But you know, I’m an alcoholic. You sent that nasty little Jew there out for me, and I owe you a whole bunch, and I don’t know what you got in mind for me because I should be dead.” But I said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. From here on in, if you tell me what to do, I’ll do it.” And he’s been telling me what to do for 26 years.

And sometimes, you know, I say to him, “Well, I think you’re wrong.” And I say, “But I’m gonna do it anyway. But if you get in trouble, don’t come crying to me.” He has never been wrong. No matter how bad it looked, he’s never been wrong. He always knows what he’s doing.

So I’ve come to depend so much on a higher power. I turn my life and will over to him every morning of my life because I’m Jack Brennan. I’m an alcoholic. I don’t know how to live, and I can’t live without guidance from my friend upstairs and people in AA through him.

So here we go. What has happened to me in 26 years? Unbelievable. I was in AA for four years, and my wife– or three years.

My wife came to an AA meeting. I told Sam Cohn. I said, “Watch her. She’s up to something.” And he said, “Boy, you a suspicious guy.” I say, “I am.

I know her. She’s bad news.” I said, “Keep a good eye on her, Sam, because you know, uh, I’m in trouble.” You know what she wanted? Wanted to wish me well. She said, “I’ve been watching you, Jack.

I speak with Sam quite a bit. You’re doing pretty good. I’m so happy for you.” And she said, “Jack, you got a little room. Why don’t you come on home?

And you could sleep on the couch, you know, and you could give me what you pay for the room, and that way I’d be able to raise the children a little better because I’m on welfare.” And I said, “All right, I’ll do that.” So I went home, and I thought that I was at the peak of my life. I could see my little kids now, you see, and I could see them going to school and coming. Of course, I didn’t live with the family.

I’d stay there late at night. If there was a little something left, I could go in the refrigerator and take something. And I thought I had it made. I said, “Oh, thank you, God.

Oh, how nice.” He had much more in store for me, much more. You see, if we do as the Third Step tells us and turn our life and will over to the care of God as we understand Him, He will give us so much more than we would even dare to ask for. We are pikers compared to how magnificent He is to us. I learned this the hard way.

I learned it. I was so grateful for every little thing that happened to me that He must have looked down, and He said, “This slob is good with anything.” And He give me so much more because I asked for nothing except one day of good living, as every alcoholic does. Don’t you see how beautiful our program is?

We alcoholic, all we ask for is one day of sober good living, and it’s so easy for the man upstairs to listen to us and see what we want, and He say, “I got to give them a little more because they so stupid they don’t know what they want.” That what He did to me. See, one night I come home. My wife said to me, she said, “Jack, isn’t that couch getting a little hard?” And I said, “No.” “No.” You see, that’s what our use

and abuse of alcohol. And finally she made it very clear. She made improper advances to me. And I got scared.

I went up to the holy mountain. And I spoke to my monk friend up there. I said, “Hey, our woman’s making noise like a wife again.” He said, “Oh, that’s good.” I said, “How the hell do you know? You’re a monk.” And he said, “Stupid, go home.

I know.” So I went home. Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it? You know, hardest thing I ever did in my life. See, because I’m alcoholic, and I had to sit at a table, put my head down because I couldn’t pick it up.

And I had to be so ashamed, and I sighed, and I got red and, because I didn’t know what knife and fork to use or when or how to cut meat. And my little daughter used to sit on my lap and tell me, “Go ahead, Pop. You can do it.” And she would hold my hand while I cut my meat. And my wife used to take me down into the basement, sit me before a big mirror when the kids were in bed, and teach me how to speak.

Yeah. It’s the use and abuse of alcohol. But I grew. I grew so much because, you see, I have here today with me my, my son, 19 years of age, my AA baby,

and he’s a beautiful child. This was a gift from my friend upstairs because I asked for nothing except one day of good living. And my life has been plateau after plateau, always better. I think that I have enough faith for everybody sitting in this room.

Turn your life and will over to the care of God as you understand Him, and watch out. He will do more for you than you ever think possible. He gave me this new boy that I have, and He gave me everything that I have in this world, and I have much. I have much inside me.

I don’t think I’ll ever make much as a workman or a businessman because I don’t know anything about stocks and bonds, you know. I don’t know anything about saving money, and I have a lot of trouble with the bank all the time. They’re always wrong, but I pay, and that’s the way it is. And I could get lost in a telephone booth, I tell you.

But I’m so happy. I’m happy because, as my friend Sam Cohn told me, he said to me one day, “Jack, be yourself.” And you know what a relief that was to be yourself. And he says to me, “We love you, Jack, because you’re an alcoholic.” And I said, “Sam, in this business of love, you know, men and men don’t love men where I come from.”

I said, “You’re not, uh…” He said, “No.” “No.” He said, “We simply love you because you’re an alcoholic.” Now, I want to ask you normal people sitting out there, do you love your spouse? Or is it spouses? I don’t know.

Do you love them because they’re alcoholics, or do you love them in spite of their being an alcoholic? Which? You see, my friends in AA love me because I’m an alcoholic, and nobody ever did that to me before. And they told me, “Be myself.” And they never told me, “Be like my brother,” or, “Be like the guy down…” No, “Be yourself, because if you’re yourself, we can

help you. We see the real you.” So I was a 12-year-old scared kid when I come into AA in a man’s body and beat half to death, and I grew. After I got back with my wife and had my third child, I thought that that was the end of everything. I thought I was just the, the epitome of living, but there was more yet to be in store.

You see, you never have the good unless you have the bad. I have a son 30 years of age. He’s an active alcoholic. Right at this moment, he’s in AA and sober for about four, five months.

I hope- I hope and pray that this time he makes it, because it’s 12 long years that he has torn me up and torn my wife up. But you see, that’s another story. I have watched him in bowlies.

I’ve watched him in mental institutions and state prisons. I’ve gone to visit him. And I look at him, and I would say to my friend upstairs, “Why?” And he would say, “Jack, I tell you why. Because of what you are today, he one day too will be.” So you see, all my garbage in my life has become useful

through the steps of AA, thank God. I can smell my garbage now, and it don’t bother me too much because I can put it to good use for you people, people like you all over the country. But you see, my wife was of a different nature. She was normal people.

And she would say to me, “Jack, how could you be so cruel and let him run? He might die.” I’d say, “No, he won’t die, and if he does, I won’t kill him because my friend upstairs has, uh, control over that, not me.” And I would say, “Roz, we have to let him run. We have to let him find his own peace.” So my fa- my son finally, a year and a half ago, called me after six years’ absence from home,

and he told me, “Papa, I’m sick and tired of being sick, so I want to come home. Could I?” I said, “Yes, you’re sober, and go to AA. Only way you can come home.” So he came home to my little home in Shenandoah, and he brought his wife, and he brought me a granddaughter I didn’t know. And for that Christmas, I want to tell you, we, my wife and I, and my son here, and my other daughter, I have three children,

we had the most beautiful Christmas that we ever had in, uh, all my memory. I never had a good Christmas until that year, a year and a half ago Christmas. And it was beautiful. The kid was going to AA, and my wife was so happy.

And you know, they all went home to their respective homes, and I said, “Roz, we have got it made. Oh, have we got it made. The kid’s in AA. I got a few bucks in the bank.

The mortgage is paid. We– everything is just grand.” And I said, “Maybe now you and I can start to live.” And she said, “Yeah, that’s so nice.” And we used to sit in a rocking chair, you know, me in the rocker and her, and she used to fall asleep and watch the TV, and I used to shoot ’em. I used to watch the shoot ’em ups, you know.

Talk about living. Oh my God, that was beautiful. I always rooted for the Indians, you know. I- I was partial to Indians.

And I would wake her up at 11 o’clock at night, and I’d say, “Hey, come on, kid. Let’s go to bed.” And she– I’d say, “Did you see that picture?” She’d said, “No. Was it good?” I’d say, “Yeah.” She said, “I’m glad you’re happy, little boy.” And that’s the way she treated me. Well, I was g- gonna go to Midland, Texas, that, right after Christmas that year, don’t you see?

And that’s where His Lordship that spoke last night came from. Midland. They got wall-to-wall oil wells in Midland. And, uh, I was due to fly down on a Friday.

Had tickets. And that Friday or Wednesday, I became very upset, and I didn’t know why. And I couldn’t understand it. And I went home, and I told my wife, I said, “Roz, I don’t feel good.

I feel like, you know, something’s about to happen.” She said, “Oh, it’s your disease.” She said, “You should know that.” And I said, “No, something’s wrong. I don’t like it.” Thursday morning, it, it became unbearable. I finally, I went to the airport from work, and I asked them, “Please change my tickets from Friday to Saturday. I want to spend another day home.

I don’t, I don’t feel I could go.” Now, that would put me in Midland at 7:30 at night, and a speaking engagement for me that was 8:30 that night. I had one hour to get in the– I didn’t mind. That’s how important that it was to me. Well, I went to bed that Friday night, and my wife was teasing at me.

And she said, “Jack, you’re alcoholic, you know that?” I say, “I guess I am.” And she said, “You know, you should be in Texas now. They’re all waiting on you down there. You got a lot of friends.” And I said, “Nah. No, I belong here, Roz.” And I said, “You go to bed and leave me alone.

I’ll be all right. Wake me up in the morning. I’ll catch an early flight.” Well, you see, I thank God I was home because He was watching me. I live in a little house by myself and with my wife and only one big stupid dog, that’s all, and nobody else, nobody close.

Well, that night at 1:30, she woke me up, and she was hollering from her room. And I went in there. She was crouched behind the door. And she said, “Jack, something’s wrong.

I can’t breathe.” And I took her downstairs, and I calmed her down. I said, “Oh, come on. You’ll be all right.” And I got an ambulance for her, and I carried her off to the hospital, and I followed in a car. I never see her alive again.

Five hours, she was dead. And you know, it was a tremendous blow, a tremendous blow. And I left that hospital, and I went out into the yard, into the courtyard of the hospital, and I spoke to my friend upstairs, and I said, “What do You do to me?” And I said, “You know, uh, You must need her awful bad if You take her from me because, uh, nobody needs her more than I do.

And when You, when I bury her, I’m gonna bury half of me.” And I said, “Why would You do a thing like that to me?” And you know, suddenly came back to me a lot of things. I stood there, and it was bitter cold, I tell you, January. And my answer came.

My friend upstairs hadn’t taken anything away from me. He had given me back that woman for 25 whole years. Twenty-five years He had given me back and allowed me to make amends and to prove to herself, to prove to everybody that I was not what people thought that I was.

And she was happy when she died, beautifully happy. Son was in AA. So I didn’t go home. I got in the car, and I went down to Pennsylvania, and I picked up my boy, that one that sits there.

And I said to him, “John, we lost Mom.” And he says, “Yeah, I know.” And he said to me a very profound thing. He said, “Pop, you think that maybe you had it good before, close to the Man upstairs.” He says, “Wait till you see now. She’s up there telling Him what to do.” How right that is, because I looked at him that day, and I said, “Well, my wife is not dead, never.” She taught me everything that I know.

She helped me. Everything that I ever did, I did with her help. I was too stupid to get myself locked up. She helped me.

She taught me. She changed my life. She was of a non, uh, she was not a Catholic when we were married, and she was baptized and converted before she died. My children were baptized.

So now I stood at a crossroads again, no wife, all alone in this world, and lonely. And I went to meetings here, and I went to meetings there, and I’m very happy, and I’m very glad to be able to tell you that my Friend upstairs once again took care of me because I met a girl in Oklahoma, a woman, and she lives in Drexel, Missouri. Now, don’t look for it on a map.

You won’t find it. I had trouble finding it, believe me. But anyway, we’ve known each other now for the past year and a half, and come July 10th, uh, we will be married. And on July 11th, I leave from John F.

Kennedy and go to Galway, Ireland, to speak at a convention in Galway, Ireland, and it will be my honeymoon too. So my life is not over. My children love this woman. She’s two and a half years in AA, and she’s beautiful, very understanding, and just exactly what that I need.

So if I’ve said anything here today to help you, I’m very grateful. And the thing that I want to impress on you most is that where my strength and my hope and my faith comes from, comes from a higher power. And I have a little prayer here on these little yellow cards, and I would like to leave them here for you. My son is sitting, and take one home with you, and join me tomorrow morning or any morning you want.

It’s called The Secret, and it says, “I meet my God in the morning when my day is at its best, and His presence comes like sunrise, like a glory in my breast. And all day long that presence lingers, and all day long He stays with me, and we sail in perfect calmness o’er a very troubled sea. So I think I know the secret learned from many a troubled way. You must seek Him in the morning if you want Him throughout the day.” And when I have that little prayer in my heart and out of my mind in the morning, I know that it’s gonna be a beautiful day,

and I’m not gonna get drunk, and I’m gonna live the way my Friend upstairs wants me to live, thinking of the other individual. So I want to thank the powers that be that enabled me to come here and leave a little of my gratitude with you people, and I want to thank you for sitting there tonight.