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Source: Dick P – Cleveland Meeting – Source 11-8-84 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: dick-p-cleveland-meeting-source-11-8-84-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:10:26
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It's good to welcome back Dick P.. Dick has led here several times. He has a real good message. And by the size of the crowd, a lot of people feel the same way. They want to hear him again. And after Dick's lead, we'd appreciate that you have short comments and not short leads. Okay? So, Dick, come on. Hey, you all right? I'm taking a lesson from you. Whatever you do. Whatever you do. Last Christmas, I went to a Christmas party about a week before Christmas.
And it was not an AA Christmas party. And we all were in a very nice place. A fellow sat across from me at the table who happened to be one of the most wealthiest men in Cleveland. Of course, I didn't know him well. And he asked me one question. He asked me, What makes you think there's a God? Now, that's something to sit and think about. How would you answer it? I was born and raised in the Catholic religion.
And I couldn't think of anything to say to him. So I wound up saying, I'm sober. They took me out to the Newberg group. And they took me to the Thursday morning group. And I meant that. It didn't make sense to him. But it made a lot of sense to me. Because that's why I believe there's a God. Because I'm here today and I'm sober. Dear God, grant me the grace to be helpful in this program. Amen. Through the grace of God and Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't had a drink in 29 years and 9 months.
And these are the happiest days of my life. I'm completely out of trouble. Physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and even financially out of trouble. And I know how to stay out of trouble if I want to. Because they don't sell whiskey at these meetings. I wouldn't lead an AEA meeting if I weren't permitted to say that I come out of a saloon. And many of the things I might have to say you might disagree with, just put them on a shelf.
You might be able to use them later. But this for sure, if you're an alcoholic, keep coming back to these meetings because this is the only place you're going to hear the answer to your problem. The first time I heard an AEA lead say, AEA begins at home, I went home. I sat with Betty and the three kids, and she said, aren't you going to the meeting? And I said, no, I'm going to stay home and help you with the three kids.
And she was shocked. She said, Dick, what are you going to teach the three kids? Barroom jokes? And what do you know that you want those kids to know? And she was right. AEA does not begin at home. AEA begins at these meetings, and if you go to enough of these meetings, then perhaps you'll have something to take home. I can say one thing from the bottom of my heart. I did not want to be a drunk. I did not want to be a drunk.
I was born and raised right up the street at Fulton and Denison overlooking Brookside Park. I went to St. Boniface Great School and St. Boniface High School, and I was an older boy. I was taking commercial photography in high school, and I worked a year after school in order to buy a camera because I wanted to get better grades. And I only say that because I believe at that point I had values. I believe at that time in my life I knew that if I wanted anything out of this world, I was going to have to work for it.
And if I wanted respect of men, I was going to have to earn their respect. And I believe I had those values in 1943 when we all got out of high school
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and we all went down on Euclid Avenue to join the Navy,
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and the Navy turned me down because I was a year younger than the rest of the guys in the school. And I went right across the street on Euclid Avenue, and I joined the Merchant Marine. And in three days I was out on the Atlantic Ocean, and they put me right down into the engine room of the ship, and for that I'll be forever grateful because I met the type of people that I wanted to be like. I met the type of people that to this day I think are the hardest-working, most industrious, responsible, intelligent men I've ever met.
And those were the marine engineers. And I had all of the qualifications to become a marine engineer. At that time it required three years of work and study, and I was anxious to put that time in. And in fact I progressed very rapidly for six or seven months in the Merchant Marine. And then I went ashore in a foreign country with a part of the crew, and we nonchalantly went into a saloon, and we nonchalantly had my first drink.
And I gotta say that I liked it. I liked it so much that when I drank all day and the crew went back to the ship, I stayed there and I slept in a booth. And the next day I continued to drink with another part of the crew, and when I ran out of money, I pawned that camera for ten bucks and never seen it again. I continued to drink and I slept in a booth that night, and the next day I started drinking with another part of the crew, and when I ran out of money a second time, I pawned a watch my dad had given me when I got out of high school, and a watch that I knew at the time was absolutely priceless to me.
Ten bucks, never seen it again. I continued to drink until the ship sailed, and they hauled me on board as they did many times after that, and they called me up on the bridge, they fined me six days' wages, and then they put me down in the fo'c'sle where I was alone with my legs dangling off the side of the bunk, and able to take a look at what had happened. And I was shaking all over outwardly. I couldn't handle a cup of coffee, and that scared me because I'd never had anything like that happen to me before in my life.
And I was a kid. I tried putting together what had taken place here, and I couldn't. I couldn't add and subtract things, and that scared me. And I believe that sitting on the end of that bunk, I took an inventory. And I don't believe that I was an alcoholic with the first drink. I believe I could have stopped right then. But I do believe that my values changed like that with the first drink. That the one thing that I got out of that alcohol that made it all worthwhile was I didn't have to work or study any longer in order to become a marine engineer.
Two or three double-headers, and I was an engineer. Two or three more double-headers, I was a chief engineer. And two or three more double-headers, I was anything I wanted to be. I remember shaking all over, and I went up in the mess hall of the ship, and they sent a guy down for me. And he said, Buddy, you can play around in port all you want, but there's a war on, and you're getting down in that engine room where you belong.
And I told that guy I'm not physically well enough to go down in that engine room. And he said, I really had my first decision to make, because he poured me a drink that big in a clear glass. And he said, and I looked at that drink, and I got sick to my stomach just looking at it. And he said, ah, hold your nose and swallow that. You'll be all right. And I held my nose, and I swallowed that whiskey, and 15 minutes later I was an engineer again.
And I can say in honesty that from October of 1943, I didn't voluntarily go another morning without a drink until I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I can say in honesty that from October of 1943, I didn't buy another suit of clothes until I was in Alcoholics Anonymous for three months, and my sponsor bought me a suit. And I can say in honesty that from October of 1943, I didn't buy another pair of shoes
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until I was in Alcoholics Anonymous for nine months. And one night at the Newberg Group, all sitting around the table, they chipped together to buy me a pair of real shoes, because they were sick and tired of seeing me in these stupid putter pants and tennis shoes and uniform that I was wearing to all these meetings. And I have to say they didn't give me the money. They took me to the store. I continued to drink, and in 1948 I was physically thrown out of the Merchant Marine.
Now that's not easy to do. In the Merchant Marine you can commit violent crimes and never stand a trial. It's up to the captain of the ship. It takes a lot of little mooching and watching and stealing and missing watches and missing ships that builds a reputation around you, and the crew throws you out. And we happened to be in the port of New York, and I was on the street. I had no papers. I had no money. I had no clothing. I had nothing.
And I had a second decision to make, because I knew I could have called my dad here in Cleveland, who had no idea what had taken place, and said, Dad, I'm in New York City, and I'm sick, broke, drunk, and hungry. He'd have been on the first plane up there to get me out of trouble. But I didn't have the guts. I had been writing home all these years, kind of telling them how I was progressing in the Merchant Marine, kind of building myself up in these letters, and I didn't have the guts to let them know I was a failure.
And so I went on the street, and at that time I spent two and a half years on the street. If I were to tell you how often I was locked up or put into hospitals, you simply wouldn't believe me. And it annoys me when I hear guys talk about that street rather loosely, that, you know, there's nothing real bad about the STEM, that in fact there's something romantic about Skid Row. Well, let me tell you that there is absolutely no nothing romantic.
You go right down the end of this street behind the big buildings, and there's a creek down there, and it runs for 13 miles, and try just spending one night tonight down in that creek, and you'll know what Skid Row is. And another thing that annoys me is when they talk about the crushed careers that are down on Skid Row. The doctors and the lawyers and the engineers and the designers and the writers that are down on Skid Row.
And I believe that they're down there, because the big book tells me they're down there. But in two and a half years, I didn't meet a what? I met a bunch of, I wish I'd have been a doctor. If I'd have studied, I'd have been an engineer. I could have been a writer. I would have been a lawyer. I met a bunch of cheap, chiseling drunks trying to find success out of the neck of a bottle, just like me. You know, at the end of that period of time, that two and a half years, we were routinely out on the end of a dock, all of us drunk.
And the cops picked us up in a wagon, which they did regularly. And they would take us over to a place called Hudson and Jay Clinic. And from there, they would either put you in jail or take you over to the hospital. And this night, they picked the gang of us up, and they took us over to Hudson and Jay. And one of the doctors said, hey, this fellow's real sick. We better not take him out. We better put him in the back room and see what's wrong.
And they gave me a stripped-down physical, and the doctor said, we better not send him over to Bellevue. We better send him out to the Staten Island Marine Hospital. And out at that hospital, they had no place for drunks. They put me down in a basement room. They called it a chain locker. They used to look in on you every once in a while and see if you were going to live. And they kept me down in that room for six weeks.
And then when they decided I was going to live, they put me up in the contagious ward. And they kept me up in that contagious ward for six weeks. And then when they decided I was going to live and I wasn't contagious, why, then they gave me bathrobe and slippers and pajamas like all the other decently sick people. And they put me down on the third floor of the hospital. And I was able to walk the halls the first time in three months.
And I could hear them talking about me behind the doors. I could hear the doctors pointing me out and the nurses telling the patients. Pointing me out and the nurses telling the patients, you see that fell out in that hall?
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That's the biggest drunk they ever brought in this hospital. And my values had changed to the point where I was absolutely proud of that. I used to walk straighter. I used to think they're talking about me. And then I got a letter from my girl Betty. We'd been going together since she was 14. She had no idea what had taken place. She knew me as an author boy who didn't drink, smoke, or swear. My dad was a superintendent down the mill.
My brother was a research director of an international corporation, and there was me. And so Betty wrote me a letter saying she was going to come up and visit me in that hospital on her 21st birthday. And I went around that hospital knowing she was coming up there, and I changed my tune. I begged those doctors and those nurses and the Red Cross and the Blue Cross and the ministers and even the Catholic chapel, give me a break. Tell her I got a tropical disease. Tell her anything.
But don't tell her how I happened to be here. And those very intelligent people didn't tell her. And I think it's criminal tonight that they didn't tell her. So did she. She married me in that hospital. Her first real indication that there was a problem was she had to buy me clothes because they burnt the clothes that I came in in. But I want to say that nobody has ever helped me in my life that has opened a door or answered a phone or give me a dollar or got me a job or got me out of a jam.
Nobody has ever helped me in my life except the people that stood me right up against a wall and exposed me. They were the people that forced me to look at what was happening to myself and to my family. And these are the only people I'm going to ever call friend. So before the meeting, Bill and I were talking and it used to be said right here at the Thursday morning group that if over half the people like you in AA, you're not working the program.
There was a guy that used to sit right over there under that picture named Tom D.. And I led a meeting on Christmas Eve when I was sober two years and ten months. And I believe I felt at the time, with that time of sobriety, that I had just done fantastic, that I had just sacrificed tremendously by going to the Blessed Sacrament group on a Saturday night, the night before Christmas and when I probably should have been home.
There were fifty beautiful comments, one Tom D. stood up and said, You stink. And that went on for twenty minutes on why I stunk. That's important to me. You see, I've been to a lot. I've been to thousands and thousands of meetings. I've been to five since last week this time. And yet I don't remember many of them. I remember that one. I hated him for five years after that. I didn't start talking to him until one morning at the Thursday morning group.
But he told me where I stood in AA. And thank God that he wasn't in a popularity contest. Then he married me. We got out of the hospital and I didn't know anything about Manhattan. I took her down on the street. I have to say that that was south and west. I only know one AA that came off that street and that was George G.. They stayed in the same place as I did. One time a bunch of us from the angle went to a conference in New York and they of course all wanted to go see South Street.
And we all took a taxi down to South Street and I was going to show them how they wouldn't go into those bars. I mean, they don't name the bars. They number them. The ladies room in number five is a trap door in the middle of the room. And I took Betty down there.
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And complete disregard. Almost inhuman. When I drank up everything she owned she came back to Cleveland and I shipped out. And I stayed away six or seven months and when the ship got back to Cleveland or New York I hitchhiked to Edgewater Park and went looking for Betty. And I couldn't work at that time. I was a physical wreck. And so Betty and I moved in with my folks. And they lived in a beautiful home out in the suburbs.
They had beautiful furniture. And I didn't fit in with decent people any longer. It wasn't long and my dad was saying, Dick, you simply can't come in the house with those stupid tennis shoes and the slush and look what's happening to the carpets. And then it wasn't long and my dad was saying, Dick, when you sit down put some papers down there, would you? You don't bathe. Look what's happening to the furniture.
And then it wasn't long and my dad was saying, Dick, we love Betty and she can stay here but you've got to go. And Betty and I moved out to the corners of Addison and Superior. And if you're familiar with those corners, it's not the best neighborhood in this city. I led a meeting at St. Francis not long ago and I wanted to take Betty around the corner to where we used to be and she wouldn't go with me.
We lived down in a basement there. There were no rooms. There was two boiler rooms and a laundry room. And we moved down in that basement and we lived three years down in that basement. We had three kids down in that basement. And when I got real serious trouble around those corners, I ran away. I left her in that basement and I shipped out. And they tell me that two weeks later they broke the doors down to get her out of that basement and take her home with their folks.
And I stayed away six or seven months and when the ship got back to New York, I hitchhiked to Edgewater Park and went looking for Betty. And the day I got home not far from here on one of these beautiful side streets where I knew that her parents lived, I came home and I turned the corner and I seen her sitting on the front steps of the house. It was a spring day. The three kids were up on a porch.
One was still in a buggy. And the sun was coming through these trees. And I really, my values had changed to the point where I was positive she was going to be absolutely thrilled to see me. So much so I went clean around the city block to come at her from a different direction like a kamikaze plane coming out of the sun. So much so that when I got up to her and she hadn't seen me, I was afraid for her that she would hurt herself when she threw her arms around me.
And when I got up to her and she seen me, she said, Please, Dick, go away. Give us a break. We got the lights, gas, and telephone on here all the time. We eat three meals a day like other people eat. I don't have to call the kids in to wash their clothes. I got an extra set of clothes. Give us a break and leave us alone. But at that time I believe I was an alcoholic and I believe that I knew that I was an alcoholic.
With all these years sober, I'm not convinced that the alcoholic is always the last one to know. I knew that I had trouble with that booze. But I had never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life. And I begged her to move in with me and she moved in with me into a place worse than Addison and Superior, a place down below Detroit and 65th overlooking Edgewater Park, a backyard that they nicknamed the Wine Hill.
And with that, my family and her family rebelled at having those grandkids down in that neighborhood and they grabbed Betty and the three kids on a Sunday morning and they got a place with them up on 86th and Denison. And I moved into the Denison Gardens. They moved up there. Of course, they didn't have nothing to do with me. But they moved up there on a Sunday morning and I came up on 86th and I was booching the people coming home from church and I happened to hit a livey. I was pretty good at that.
Right out of the middle of the crowd, I walked up to this guy and I said, buddy, are you holding?
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And he handed me ten bucks. And I said, geez, that's pretty good. Do you know where I can get a drink around the neighborhood? And he took me into the Denison Gardens across the street and he hired me as a bartender. That was a family joke. I couldn't hit the glass. I became a bar rag in there. I was in trouble and I couldn't think anymore. Nothing was right. The family was starving. There was never any lights on.
There was never any heat in that house. And I was always in the Denison Gardens. I was a joke around those corners. I think a criteria is Betty led an Al-Anon anniversary on my 25th anniversary. And it was in Akron and there was just a huge crowd of women, no men. And I was sitting up front with Betty. And there were to be no comments. And as soon as Betty sat down, a lady jumped right out of the middle and she said, what's the biggest thing you got out of your husband's sobriety?
And I was going to answer her. And Betty got up and she said, they don't laugh at my husband anymore. She didn't even have to think it over. I could have balded her. But it's true. I mean, I was a joke right up the street here. I used to get these jobs on manpower and hanging circulars on doorways and handing out coke samples and unloading refrigeration cars. And sometimes I'd get 24 or 25 bucks together.
And I'd get up to the Denison Gardens and they'd bet me on yesterday's ball game. They'd bet me on a ball game that was a bowling game played the week before in Chicago. And then show me an old newspaper. And I'd pay off, but they'd buy. That's really what was… I used to sometimes fall off that bar stool and go crashing into the telephone booth and split my lip and they'd buy. They'd all laugh and they'd buy me drinks.
And when they'd stop buying, I'd say, you want me to do it again? Anything. As long as they bought the drinks. And they used to have these meetings around my front room because they knew that this couldn't go on. My mother-in-law in her, really, was probably my best friend. She used to buy me a fifth of whiskey and then call me up at the gardens. In fact, it's Melrose 9780. And you can try that and you'll get them.
And she would call me up at the gardens. She'd say, Dick, if you come home, I'll give you a fifth. And we'd just like to talk to you. And when the fifth is gone, you can go back. And so that was pretty good. Every week I would come home, she'd give me the fifth of whiskey. They'd all sit around the front room and holler at me. I'd drink the fifth, and when the fifth went empty, I'd go back. And that went on for a long time.
My mother-in-law, in her charity, felt that there was something she had to do to break Betty and I up. That really, as long as I was there, no money could come in the house. Nothing could come in the house. I would pawn it or I would take the money one way or another. I had to have that money. And so I went into, she called me home one day in her charity. She had cooked up a story about me running around with some woman down the street.
And I didn't say yes or no anymore. I used to mumble around and fumble around. As long as I had the fifth, I felt pretty safe. And so she called me home this morning and she handed me the fifth. And I was sitting there with it between my legs when they called Betty out of the kitchen. And they all got around and they said, Betty, we want you to hear this from Dick, because Dick is running around with Molly down the street.
Aren't you, Dick? And before I could say anything, Betty bust out laughing. And she said, if he is, she's buying. And then she said, don't you understand? He doesn't know whether he's a boy or a girl. And with that, I ran out of the house. And I went down 86th Street down into Brookside Park. And if you're familiar with Brookside Park, it's 13 and a half miles long and six miles deep. There's bottle gangs down there.
There's trestles down there. There's all kinds of things go on right behind us here. And I stayed down in that park. I stayed down in that park, and the only time I'd come out would be two o'clock in the morning when nobody could see me,
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and I'd go into Denison Gardens, and I'd call my brother, and I'd call my dad, and her mother, and her brother, and I'd scream into that phone. I'm… what do you think I'm, nothing? I'm somebody. I'd scream in that phone. I am too running around. What do you think I'm, just nobody? I'm somebody. And I… if I could pray this morning the way I prayed then, and if I would do this morning one-tenth of what I promised God I would do, if he would help me get sober, I'd be the best AA Cleveland ever had.
But I didn't get no help, and I stayed down in that creek back here through October, November. In November I came out of the park. I went looking for the family. Of course, the house was dark. There was nobody there, and I went over to my brother's house, and he… they were all sitting around the table eating turkey, and I banged on the front door, and he came to the front door, and he handed me three bucks.
And he said, beat it Dick, you'll spoil this. And I stood out on his front lawn screaming at him. I don't care, you know. I really don't care. But I cared. I stayed down in the park through December, and Christmas Day I come out of the park. And if anything I missed through that bottle, it was Christmas when my kids were Santa Claus age. My kids were Santa Claus age, and Christmas Day they had nothing. No lights, no heat, no nothing.
And I come out of that park dragging a Christmas tree, and it was snowing out, and Betty came to the front door and said, if you stole the tree, take it back. And there was a ewing of snow where I turned around and dragged it back down the hill and threw it away and went back in the park. January and February, I froze half to death down there. And when I come out one morning in February, really, really chilled.
I went into the Denison Gardens at 5.30 in the morning, and that morning Clem handed me a fifth of whiskey, and he threw me out in the street. Very, very important day to me, because he closed the biggest door ever closed on me in my life. I wasn't allowed in any bar on Denison Avenue, and I can rattle them off all the way from Fulton, from the AA, the old AA, to AAA, to the Brookside, to the Froggies, to the Paramount, to the Peanut Bar, to the Denison Gardens, to the AA, right straight down Denison and all the way down Lorraine. I just wasn't allowed in any of those places.
You know, one of the things that we perhaps miss in AA is the beautiful feeling that we're always welcome. No matter what happened yesterday, you know one of the beautiful parts of my home group Newberg is nobody has ever asked me to explain what I said or did yesterday. All they've ever asked me is what I'm doing to maintain my sobriety today. You know, I was so used to walking into the AA up here, and seeing the bartender come around the bar with the bar rag, and throwing the bar, for Christ's sakes, are you here again? Do I have to throw you out again?
It was a constant thing. When I was sober a year in AA, on my anniversary, Betty and I were going to St. Ignatius right down here, from 86th, and of course we passed the AA, and the guy was out sweeping the sidewalk, and when he seen me, I was sober a year, he said, hey buddy, keep moving, mooch. I don't want you in my bar. It burned down. It burned down here. But when Clem threw me out in that street, he closed the biggest door ever closed on me in my life.
I had the fifth he gave me, and I went home that morning, and I was sitting on, Betty left me in, and I was sitting on the couch freezing to death when the public health officials come over. And that morning, for the first time, they seen me with a bottle, and they said, to Betty, unless your husband gets out of the household, and you go on relief so we can feed those kids,
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we're taking those three kids away from you. And with that, Betty turned to me and said, Dick, I'm not going to lose my kids, you got to leave. And I was afraid to run, and I wasn't allowed in any of the bars, and I had part of the bottle left, and I told her, call the priest, I'll take the pledge. Now, that was a family joke. But she went next door, and she called the father of Ryan, who we had never heard of, at St. Ignatius Parish, right down the street, where we had never gone to church in our life, and she told that complete stranger that my husband has to get out of the household, or they're going to take my kids.
And with that, he said, if you'll keep them there for just a few minutes, we'd like to send the guy over. And what seemed to me like just moments, because my sponsor lived across the street from St. Ignatius, a guy walked into my front room, he looked like a drunk, he said he was sober four years, and then he sat down with me, and he started talking about alcohol this, and alcohol that, and I had half the bottle left, and I got the idea he wanted my bottle.
And I jumped up, and I threatened to hit him in the head with the bottle. Now, that's real important to me, because this I believe more than anything else in Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe that once AA has helped a guy up out of that basement, maybe out of the gutter, back into some decent clothes, maybe back to a job, maybe back to his family, maybe even back to his God, that then he's either going to carry this message, or he's going to get drunk.
And it's as simple as that. And I believe that whether he's sober five years, fifteen years, or thirty-five years, that he's either going to continue to carry this message, or he's going to get drunk. And it's as simple as that. There simply is no quitting, because alcoholism doesn't quit. And so when I get a call on that telephone, I know that I got to be real careful how I answer that call. Because my sobriety might depend on it.
But I don't know what I'm going to do if I go in a guy's front room, and he threatens to hit me in the head with a bottle. He's not supposed to do that, you know. Read the book. He's supposed to say, I want sobriety more than anything else in this world. Now, that's all right. If you ever had a hundred people right up here on Denison grab you, and say, buddy, you sold my lawnmower. And if I ever kept you sober, ha ha, didn't have much to chat.
But this guy was talking about me getting sober. And in his charity, he said, buddy, I don't want your fifth. In fact, you drink what's left in that bottle, and I'll buy you a fifth. Ho ho, I took a chance. I drank the bottle, and this complete stranger went out, and he came back with a fifth of whiskey. And then he started talking about a hospital, and I said, I ain't going to no hospital. And he said, this is different in this hospital.
In this hospital, you go through two wooden doors, and when you're on the other side, you're in free. There's no mother-in-laws, no cops, no kids, no wives, no bill collectors, nobody around back of those doors except drunks. And he said, they give you four ounces of whiskey every four hours. He didn't say nothing about cutting it off. I don't remember going into Rosary Hall. I don't remember the first three days except that Skid S., Sister Ass Skid S. would come in and see me.
And he was looking down over the railing at me, and he said, you don't look like you want to talk. And I said, I don't, and he left. But I remember him being there, and that's important, because we were just talking about it the other night. How many guys they brought in. They were bringing new guys in and taking guys down the end, and they were cutting them off the whiskey, but they were keeping me on the whiskey.
And then it seemed like a couple of days longer, and they were bringing more new guys in and taking guys out. And they cut them off the whiskey, but they kept me on the whiskey. And so I was laying in the bed with the sides up.
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I don't know how long. When a nurse came in one night, late at night, she had my drink in her hand. She reached over the railing, and she said, Dick, this is your last drink. And I believe I would have attacked her. But this was a big nurse. This was the biggest woman I've ever seen in my life. She had a cigar in her mouth. And I made my first good decision. The next morning, they had the sides down on my bunk.
I was sitting with my legs dangling over the side. When Sister Ignatius sent a patient in for me, and I told that patient, you go tell that nun, whoever she is, that I know how to talk to her. Now, that's very important to me, because you can go out to Newberg Sunday night, and there's guys out there who tell you that I didn't put sentences together when I come into this program. But they used to sit up with me until 3 o'clock in the morning, asking me who read last night.
And I, to this moment, cannot remember ever having been out of the bed in Rosary Hall. And yet I know word for word what that nun said to me that day, and it was nothing spiritual. This little nun come flying in that room, she stuck her hand in my chest, and she said, Listen you, this AA is a big business, and the men out in that hall are busy people. Now, if you want to get sober, you go out there and you listen to what they have to say.
And if you don't want to get sober, then you get your clothes and get out of here. And then she said, don't waste their time. And those were the last civil words that nun said to me for a year to the day. She's seen me 300 times, and every time she's seen me, she's said something nasty. I would walk into Rosary Hall, she'd wait until there was 50 AAs around, and then she'd say, I seen Betty Friday night, and she's wearing her high school clothes.
You know, I used to sit at these meetings, even the Thursday morning group, where the lead would be saying this wonderful nun, who saved them in seven days. I could have thrown a chair at the guy, because maybe that same day, she'd stop smiling when she'd see me, she'd wait until there were 48 AAs around, and then she'd say, what are you going to be when you grow up, Dick? And then when I had a year of sobriety at Jordan Hall, with some 300 AAs there, Sister Ignatia ran up in front of everybody, she threw her arms around me, and she kissed me.
And then she turned around and she said out loud, he'll never make two. You know, I don't know how she knew. I never seen her act like that with any other drunk. But if she'd have smiled at me once, I'd have taken that as some kind of a license. I don't know how Newberg knew. You know, Bill W. came into town with Lois W., and because they had started Al-Anon while I was in the hospital, they had to take me down to the hotel to meet Bill W..
Me and another new guy, and neither one of us had any clothes. So they took him down to Higbee's and they bought him a $150 suit. And then they took me out to the women's exchange and they bought me an $8 suit. And I hated them for five years. But somehow they knew, I'm a rock and gold mine in this suit. I can stay drunk till April in this suit. And I don't wear a watch. I got out of that hospital on a Saturday, and I believe to this minute, that if they had left me on that front porch by myself, I would have been drunk on Sunday.
And so it scares me to death when I hear a guy lead a meeting, and he says, don't carry the alcoholic. Now I will agree that not all alcoholics need to be carried. And I will agree that carrying some alcoholics might even hurt them. And I will agree that when he takes a drink… And I will agree that when he takes a drink at a Sunday school picnic, he quit AA, but until he takes that drink, how can I possibly know, how can I possibly be the judge of how badly that man might want to stay sober?
[00:45:12]
So you take a look around any church, and you'll see a picture of the good shepherd carrying the sheep back to the flock. You know, he's not pointing away, and he's not drawing a map in the sand. He's got that sheep wrapped around his neck, and he's carrying them back. And that Saturday night, I no sooner got into the house, and the Newberg group came 13 miles across Cleveland to pick me up, a complete stranger to them, and took me to the Saturday 8005 group. And on Sunday, they took me to Newberg. And then on Monday, they picked me up and took me over to Lorraine Monday.
And on Tuesday, to the Smith W. group. And on Wednesday, to the Baxter group. And on Thursday, to the Angle group. And on Friday, to the Charity group. And on Saturday, back to 8005. And Sunday, to Newberg. And Monday, Lorraine Monday. And Tuesday, Smith W.. And Wednesday, to Baxter. And Thursday, to the Angle. And Friday, to the Charity. And Saturday, back to 8005. And when I started really screaming at them, they started taking me to the Thursday morning group, the Wednesday morning group, the Sunday morning group. In fact, I used to sneak out of that house at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and the secretary of the Memphis group used to sit on Denison on a motorcycle. And I can still hear that. He'd say, get on, I'm going down late.
I wouldn't have got on the bike for $50. He used to give me a quarter and I'd get on the bus and he'd follow me down. You know, thank God they stayed with me. Thank God they built a fence around me. Gradually, I came to believe I was safe with these guys. You know, Mike's sitting back there, but one morning, they said they were going to take me to a church on a Sunday morning. And I said, I can't go to the church, look at me in these stupid putter pants, and how could I go into a church looking like this?
And all the AA's from the angle in Newburgh were telling me, we're going to pick you up Sunday morning anyway. And Sunday morning at 8 o'clock, a car pulled up in front of our house, and there was Johnny G., Skid S., Billy H., a whole bunch of guys, 125 years of sobriety, and they're blowing their horn. And I came out to the front door, I said, I told you I ain't going, I ain't going. And Skid came right up on my lawn, he started screaming out, come on out of that house, you're drunk. And he kept it up. And I went back and I woke Betty up, I said, listen, they're crazy out there. But I got in the car, and now all of a sudden we got anonymity.
Gradually, gradually I found out I was safe at these meetings. And I want to say that in the first year they left me alone at one meeting. Now they took me to that meeting, and they picked me up from that meeting, but they took me to that meeting, and Skid, I had heard 13, 14 times, and he said, Dick, we want you to hear Jimmy C. tonight. It was the Bosworth group, they said, sit down in the back, after the meeting they'll bring you coffee and donuts, because I had these shakes still. And he said, right after the meeting, they'll take care of you and we'll pick you up.
And I was sitting there listening to the guy lead, Jimmy C. was very loud, he was sober forever, he was pounding that podium, and he said, unless you're 100% honest, you can't stay sober. And I got up and I ran out of the group. I ran around that parking lot about four or five times, I panicked, I couldn't go back in, I didn't know where to go, and I went out to Newburgh. And I sat down next to Tommy F., and I said, Tommy, the guy leading tonight, he said, unless you're 100% honest, you can't stay sober. He said, he didn't mean you.
Fifteen percent for you. As long as next year it's 60. And I believe that tonight. I believe that God gives the grace to any drunk that walks through those doors, no matter where he's at physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, or financially, all he's got to do is want. All he's got to do is want it. I found out I was safe at these meetings, and then Sister Ignacia gave me a letter down to Republic Steel, and I took it down to the employment office, they read the letter, they sent me up for a physical, I threw a jerry on the physical, they sent me back, and they waived the physical.
[00:50:14]
And they put me in the powerhouse of the Republic, and there were no AA's there. So I was going to a meeting every night and every morning, and I've heard a lot of guys in AA, in fact, even at that time, all the guys from the far west groups got a hold of me, and they said, you know, you're really hiding out in AA, you're simply going to too many meetings, you've got three kids, you're really supposed to be taking care of those kids.
Well, I don't believe that. See, I say you bet your life I'm hiding out in AA. I'm hiding out in AA tonight. I'm going to go this morning, I'm going to go from here over to Stella Meyers, Friday night I'm going to be at Stella Meyers, Saturday I'm going to be in Lorraine, and Sunday I'm going to be in Newburgh. You bet your life I'm hiding out in this program. That bottle beat me half to death. And the only way for me to get away from that bottle is right here at these meetings. Because this is where the grace of God is.
I found out, I mean, I was at that mill, and they were all drinking, and they were passing the bottle, and I thought, I'm safe at these meetings, but how about when there's no AAs around, and they're handing me that bottle. One of these days I'm going to grab it. But I didn't have to worry about that, because one Thursday morning they took me to the Thursday morning group, and we were sitting in the back, and it was the most important day of my life. Not the day I came into AA, but that day was the most important day of my life.
Because the guy that led that meeting that morning, in a room just like this up on Ridge and Denison, was a great big six foot something, two hundred and something pound steel worker. He was a giant of a man, and he convinced me that whatever bit me, bit him. I was sitting on the end of my chair listening to him, because I thought, he can't stop drinking, and I can't stop drinking, that somehow he and I are sick alike. And then he said he was sober eight years, and he knew eight thousand alcoholics, and he never knew a one that knelt down in the morning and asked God for help, and then went out and got drunk that day.
And I turned to Skid and said, he's a liar. Now the second that that giant sat down, and before any comments, Skid and Johnny took me right around up the front, and they said, this guy called you a liar. And I said, no. He grabbed me over by a piano, and this was before the comments. And that's important to me, that was a Thursday morning group. And there are two of the traditions that saved my life. The third tradition is all that is necessary for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous is a desire to stop drinking.
It doesn't say anything about a sincere or honest desire. It doesn't say anything about having real shoes or real trousers. It simply says a desire. And the fifth tradition is that it's the responsibility of every group to help the alcoholic who still suffers. And Pat had me up against a piano that morning, and everybody was paying attention, and they let them be with me. That was the most important day of my life. Nobody came up and said, I just got laid off. Nobody came up and said, I just made superintendent. Nobody came up and said, come on now, let me show you my new car.
Nobody came up and said, I threw a 284 game last night. No, this was AA. And he had me up in front, and they left them be with me. And he asked me why I called him a liar. And I said, no, mistaken. And he said, and I said, you said, all a guy's got to do is kneel down and ask God for help, and he won't drink. And I knelt while I was drinking. I prayed while I was drinking. I prayed while I was blue in the kisser, I prayed. I prayed with the drink in the hand, I prayed. And I didn't get no help.
And he said, there's a difference in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a main line from the gutter to God, that when a drunk kneels down in the gutter, God hears him, no matter what. And I said, I can't believe that. And so he asked me the most important question that can be asked of any new man.
[00:55:12]
He said, do you believe that I'm an alcoholic? And I can ask that this morning. Do you believe that I'm an alcoholic? And I said, I believe whatever bit you bit me. So he asked the second most important question. If I'm an alcoholic, then how can I stay sober eight years? And I can ask you that this morning. If I'm an alcoholic, how can I stay sober all these years? And I said, I don't know. And he said, it's magic. Tomorrow morning when you get up, you go out in the front room behind a big chair where no one will catch you doing something decent.
And you kneel down and you say, who's ever helping Pat stay sober, help me. And I guarantee that you won't drink. Oh, those are big words to an alcoholic. You know, I've had people say, you know, if you take another fifth of whiskey, you're going to die. They were lying. If you take another fifth of whiskey, we're going to throw you out, we're going to lock you up, we're going to do this, we're going to do that.
They were lying. Nobody ever told me how not to drink. And here was a guy standing there guaranteeing me that I wouldn't drink. And the next morning I got up and went behind a big chair. And I knelt down and I said, who's ever keeping Pat sober, help me. You know, the next morning and the next week and the next month and the next year, I said that prayer behind that chair. And I got fanatic about it. You know, I used to get up at 5.30 in the morning, get to Republic Steel from here, you have to take the Denison bus and then the Clark bus and then transfer to the bridge bus and then go down 146 steps and I go to ring that card and I think I didn't say that prayer.
And I go back up those 146 steps and the bridge bus and transfer to the Clark bus and transfer to the Denison bus and go behind the chair. You know, that's not what's important. What's important was out at Newberg, nobody laughed when I told them about that. When I was out at Newberg, nobody told me, you could have sat in the bus, God's everywhere. Uh-huh, not for me. It had to be behind the chair. It had to be behind the chair. And so if anybody in this room were to tell me this morning that they knelt down in the morning and asked God for help to stay sober for a day, and I'm not even saying sincerely or honestly.
Just simply knelt down and asked God for help to stay sober for a day and they got drunk in a day, I wouldn't believe them. And if Bill W. had told me that he knew I got drunk, that knelt down in the morning and asked God for help to stay sober for a day and that guy got drunk that day, I wouldn't have believed him. Because that's the most important part of my program. I don't have to put my shoes under the bed. I would no sooner walk out of that house without asking for God's grace for the day than I walk out of that house without my trousers on.
Now I found out I was safe at these meetings and with the grace of God, he would help me stay sober as long as I was willing to ask for it. But I was sober a long time and I had nothing. I got garnished 23 pages at Republic Steel. I had nothing. I had no driver's license, I had no library card, I had nothing. I had a full-time job and nobody was paying me. And so I couldn't even feed the family. And the guys that came into AA with me are doing terrific. They're getting new suits, they're cleaning up, they're not shaking, they're making comments, the whole shot. And I'm getting nothing. And I'm sober a long while.
And it started getting to me, so what, you're sober. You're useless drunk or sober. So what, you know you can stay sober. It's of no use. And the Newberg group was going on a retreat and I'm not selling retreats. But the Newberg group went on a retreat and after the retreat, I could tell from their comments something had happened out of St. Stanislaus Retreat House. And I thought maybe that would help me. And so on Monday, I called out of St. Stanislaus Retreat House and I asked the Jesuit if I could meet him.
Treat House, and I asked the Jesuit if I could make a retreat, I said I had never been out there, I didn't know how to make a retreat, he said come out Friday night, and then they put a bottle of beer in front of everybody, and they put one in front of me, and I panicked,
[01:00:04]
I thought my gosh, someone's going to open that, and then someone's going to pour it for me, and someone will have, what am I going to do? I didn't have to worry about that because the Jesuit had come out of nowhere, and he reached in front of everybody, and he said you don't get one, and I ran out of the room, and I went up on the third floor of the retreat house, and I wouldn't come out, and I sat in that room all night, and all the next day I wallowed in self-pity, can't even go to church like other people, can't even do anything right, kids, buying the kids used Boy Scout outfits, trying to make up for enough to last for the week at home, and sober, so what you're sober, I had to come out sometime, and I snuck down the back steps of that old retreat house, and I didn't know my way out, but I got into the middle right where the chapel was, just as the Jesuit stood up, and he started talking about Christian charity, and he said you know, it's very difficult for those men of the John Carroll Alumni Retreat League to really do God's will, as God laid it out, because when they were asked for help, generally what they had to do was sign a check, or hand over some cash, because there were organizations for that, he said in fact it was difficult for he as a Jesuit priest, to really do God's will, as God laid it out, to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and harbor the harborless, and instruct the ignorant, and visit the sick, and comfort the afflicted, he said it was difficult for he as a Jesuit priest, because when he was asked for help, generally what he did was write out a check, or hand over some cash, he said in fact there is only one group of people that I know, that can actually go down on 25th or Bolivar, and pick up a derelict drunk, and help him back out of the basement, maybe out of the gutter, back to some decent clothes, maybe back to a family, maybe even back to his God, and he said these very valuable and useful people are the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I darn near jumped up in that pew, and said that's me, I'm one of those guys, and I want to tell you something, I haven't lost that from 40 seconds since then, I'm somebody tonight, I'm a normal decent human being tonight, I'm a father, and a grandfather, and a worker, and a boater tonight, I'm everything I ever wanted to be tonight, and the only thing that can take that away from me is a drink, and I ain't going, one other thing that can take that away from me, and that's a small change in AA, and I have to say two things about AA very quickly, one is I think AA is getting better, I think AA is getting better because there were a good number of groups in this city when I came in where I was not welcome, there were places where just before Christmas they would say we're having a Christmas party, but Dick why don't you go to the Angle, we'd love to have Betty, but you're just not, you know, you're just kind of, please go to Newburgh or the Angle, that's not so today, I don't know any place a drunk can't go, but I'll tell you what scares me, and this is my opinion, when they start reading off those leads and they say Sue B., and John R., and Jack T., and Dick P., now who the hell is Dick P.?
I mean try looking Dick P. up in the phone book, and you are taking my usefulness away from me, if you can't find me, you're destroying the very thing that I worked so hard to earn, when you can't find me, I'm in that phone book, and I don't want to be anonymous, you be anonymous, you know that's the grace that keeps me sober, read the tradition, it says at the level of the press and the radio, right, I'm not likely to become a NBC Anchorman, I'm a drunk, and I hope that I die with that thought in my mind, and when they bury me all I want out of this world is somebody said he tried, I'm going to close with a quick
[01:05:04]
story, I got, there was another guy come into AA with me, died last year, sober, actually it's the guy that sister had sent in with me, for me, his name was Jimmy, and he was a teamster, and he had the shakes, he had the shakes so bad he couldn't get a key into the lock of his truck, we used to shake all over the place at these meetings, and I mean really bounce, and you kind of sit next to each other, in fact at Newbury they still had a pole like that, and George A. and those guys used to squeeze us up against the pole during the meeting, so we wouldn't bounce all over, and then one night when we were sober a year or so, why Skid and Tommy and Billy and those guys said you know you guys ought to make a comment, you're going to all these meetings, and you're not saying anything, why don't you get up and say something, and both of us said we ain't going to say nothing, and he said just get up and say thanks, and sit down, like as if someone drove you home from the meeting, or your wife made you a good supper, just get up and say thanks, and so for the next months, Jimmy and I would go to these meetings, and of course we sat in the back, and the guy would lead, and then they'd say if the meeting's over for comments, why Jimmy would say you make a comment, and I'd say no you say thanks, and boy we'd be bouncing all over that place, and the guy would say if there's no further comments, and we'd both go oh thank God, and that happened every night for months, and one night, one morning at the Thursday morning group, Jim B. led the meeting, and Jim B. became one of my favorite AA's, and that was the greatest lead I've ever heard, and that morning I had never seen the guy before, he got up and he hit everything right straight down the middle, and Jimmy and I were sitting on the edge of the chairs, and I said to Jimmy you got to say thanks, and he said you say thanks, and I said no you say thanks, and the comments opened up, and we were bouncing back and forth with this, and he says can you see my heart, and I said well take a look at mine, and the next thing you know Jimmy jumped up right out in the middle of the crowd at the Thursday morning group, and he said thanks, and he fainted, he knocked the chairs flying all over the room, the guys had to take them up and carry them into the men's room and put water on them, and Jim B. got back up to the podium, and he said if all you've got to do is say thanks, keep your seat, and he sat down, and I jumped up and I called him every filthy name I could lay my tongue to, and I ran out that door, and I went out to Newberg and I was screaming about this lousy son of a gun, and they said he got you on your feet didn't he, it took me a long time to understand why Jim B. would do that to a new guy making his first comment, but what he was trying to say, because he was in no popularity contest, was when they passed that basket, and you're looking through your pockets for a quarter and you don't have, well you know I put a dollar in there, and you put a nickel in, I'm not talking about the new guy, maybe he should take something out, I'm talking about the guy like me, and I put a nickel in that basket, that's not enough, thanks just isn't enough, and when I get a call on that telephone and a guy needs help, and I got all kinds of commitments around town, I'm going to make myself a millionaire or superintendent or something, and I don't make that call, thanks just isn't enough, and when the Super Bowl is on on a Sunday night, and I know that I can afford to miss Newberg, but some new guy might have his eyes glued on my empty chair, and get the idea that he can afford to miss, and then I'm going to find out that thanks isn't enough, and I want to say when you hear a guy like me up here, that's got everything this program has had to offer, and I say I can never thank AA enough, I can try, I want to thank you for listening, and say the Our Father.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
[01:10:02]
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.