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Source: DICOBE-00310 – Fred F – FALL RNDP – 1980-10-15.mp3 File: dicobe-00310-fred-f-fall-rndp-1980-10-15.mp3 Duration: 00:46:56
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By the way, I got a resentment, you know. Last fall, my wife and I went down to Seashore, and I'm coming back, and I got in Wilmington, Delaware, and I got turned around. I don't know how I got turned around, but, you know, I was following directions, but somehow, I got lost, and I went through a stop sign, and I got a ticket. All the years I was driving that car drunk, I never had any problems like that, you know. But Fred is going to lead our meeting tonight, and I want you to give him a warm welcome. Fred S. from Wilmington, Delaware. Fred?
Hi, everybody. My name is Fred F., and I'm an alcoholic. I'm a very grateful member of this fellowship, and a member of the Today Group, a Friday night men's discussion group in Wilmington, Delaware, where you get speeding tickets. Oscar, don't feel so bad. I married a gal who's with me here tonight, and a beautiful member of AA, and was convinced that I should get out of Washington and live in Wilmington. I've been driving for 47 years, got my first ticket in Wilmington doing 58 miles an hour, 36 bucks. You're a great looking bunch of drunks out there, even when they put the lights out. I think, first of all, I'd like to ask us all to give a rousing vote of thanks to Larry and his committee for one hell of a fine job at this AA roundup. Never have I had such food, such air, such sleep, and such coffee at such a low price. Tonight I'm going to share with you about what happened to me, how I got here, and what it's like now, and of course what it's like now is how I can live a happy and serene and sober life by just doing what you people in the fellowship told me when I got here, and letting my higher powers, I understand it, guide me. I'm the youngest of three boys. My father was a distinguished Episcopal bishop, which of course makes me a son of a bishop and I've been called worse. He was a liberal character, God love him. We had no temperance in our home. I can remember during Prohibition that he made a good 3.2 beer, that he made elderberry wine, he always picked a good alder wine. When I got so I could partake and drink a little, I found out he made a lousy Manhattan, he only put in one jigger, but we grow.
I didn't have very much trouble with booze in the beginning. I had what some people call success with social drinking, and I didn't start drinking at a very early age. As a matter of fact, I didn't have a drink until I had finished my last year at college, dear old Brown up in Providence, in case you wondered where this Yankee accent comes from, and that's a very damn wet school, but like most of it I assure you I made up for it later on. Also like a great many of you people, my first job was in a big city, New York City, where drinking is done at noontime in the morning, and anytime you can get it, buy it, beg it, or steal it. Must be a New Yorker. Also like a great many of you people, I went into service in World War II. My son says, remember dad, tell them World War II so they'll know. I was with a tank destroyer outfit, a lot of great guys, and we had five
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campaigns in the European theater, and I was lucky. I got back, I didn't get hit, and as I look back on it, I think that's where I got bitten with a bug, or that's where my alcoholism showed up, and I didn't know it. A morning drink overseas was nothing. The important thing was, were you breathing? I came back from overseas, and I went back into my profession, which is newspaper, public relations, at that time radio, and starting TV. It's a rat race, it's a hard-drinking life, it's a good life, lots of parties and lots of pressure, and I started to use booze to maintain that schedule and to maintain that pressure. I'm sure that as the after-effects of the war wore off, and as I progressed in my profession, so did my alcoholism. There's only one person who knew this, or who realized it, and that was the bishop. Now it's strange that I should tell this story, because it deals with West Virginia. In 1949, I had a chance to come down here and do a fundraising job for the community chest tied in with the old USO. By this time, I was married and had two very young children. I didn't have the money to make that move, so I went to the bishop for a loan.
Always kept my credit good with the old boy. And by the way, the old boy and the old man, those are my tears, my terms of endearment for him, he's a hell of a guy. And I told him what my opportunity was, and he said, that's great, and I told him how much I needed, and he said, the usual terms, and I said yes, and he gave me a check. And I thanked him, and I turned around already patting myself on the back and ready to leave, and he said, wait a minute, Freddy, I want to say something to you. And he pointed the finger right at me. He said, Freddy, you're an outkey. That dirty, lousy word. I'd never heard it before. I'd never been called an alcoholic or an outkey, but he knew. And he said to me, if you don't go and see my friends in AA and let them wise you up, you'll lose everything you have. Now because of my affection and regard and love for that man, I did what he asked me. I was living in the town of Morrisville, Pennsylvania at the time, and I got in my car and I drove to the intergroup office on St. James Street in Philadelphia. And as a typical alcoholic, although I didn't know it and certainly sure in hell wasn't going to admit it, I remember that trip because before I had the guts to go in and see what you kooks were all about at AA, I had to stop at the little Irish bar on the corner of Locust Street and have a couple of Boilermakers. Give me the chance and the courage and the guts to go in there. And when I went in there, there was one older gentleman sitting at a desk and he said, hi, how are you? He didn't ask me if I wanted this for me or my father or a friend or my wife. He gave me a list of meetings, the where and when, and he explained to me open and closed meetings. And he gave me a number of pamphlets, which I don't remember because I didn't read them. And I thanked him and I got the hell out of there. I got into my car and I went over this list of meetings and they were all in churches and schools and places that I'd had my belly full of. And I said to hell with it. And I never attended an AA meeting. And I packed my family and all my belongings and I came down here to you good people in West Virginia and I settled in Bill Bailey's town, St. Albans. And I did the job down there and we had a successful fundraising opportunity. And when that was finished, I got a chance to do something I've always wanted to do,
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become an editor of a weekly newspaper. So I signed on with Mother Dawson and her two boys from the St. Albans Advertiser. And I lived on Coal River Road and I was a regular customer at Joe's Bar right over the Iron Bridge. And as Bill reminded me yesterday, yes, I drank at the Choo In. I had fun working on that paper. Mother Dawson was a charter member of the WTCU down here. But Riley and his brother were two of the best drinking partners I ever had. And we had that place on the night that we published that sheet loaded with alcohol and how we ever got it off, let alone get it on, still amazes me. Drinking for me at this time was an absolute necessity. I couldn't go any longer than two hours without a good healthy belt from the jug. No ice, usually no chaser, and certainly no fixers. During that year, we had a successful time.
Mother Dawson sold that paper, sold her rights to it, and gave the rest to her two sons, my drinking buddies. And as you'll find out with most drinking buddies that you used to have, they treated me real fine. They gave me two weeks severance pay and kicked me out. I spent a delightful ten days up and down the Kanawha River selling waterless aluminum to you lovely ladies. If I made one cash sale a day, that was all right because I could spend the rest of the time in the bar. Finally, I wanted to bail out of this great state of West Virginia, which I had to do. By this time we had another youngster. My Nancy was born in Charleston. I put my three children and my wife in what remained of the family car and I headed back to Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. It's amazing what you can do as a drunk. It only took me 17 days to make that trip. I'd go as far as I could and I'd run out of money and I'd park them in a hotel or a motel and I'd go ahead and find a friend or somebody and borrow, buy or beg it. And finally, I made it to Philadelphia and when I got there, you can bet the one person I didn't look up was the bishop. Because by this time he would have known. All he'd had to do was to look at me.
I was drinking two-fifths of booze a day. I had lost all confidence in myself as a newspaper man. I couldn't look you in the eye to write a story, much less get it correct. And crazy and funny as it may seem, I couldn't type a story without getting my hand stuck in the keys. Fortunately, and I'm sure that my higher power was helping me even then, I found a family who took my family in, gave us an apartment to stay in until, quote, Fred could get straightened out. And for me that began a series of very interesting jobs.
I signed on to a dry-cleaning firm, running the washers and extractors. And this was in June, when you lovely ladies are bringing in all those damn drapes and the winter clothes. And I had the owner of that firm buttered up that he had a college-bred kid working for him, and if he wanted to keep me, he had to pay me by the day, which of course is heaven for the alcoholic. And another good break for me, another fringe benefit, the plant was right next to Moroni's Bar. So I could have my morning drink, I could drink my lunch, and I could save myself every two hours. Finally the slack season came in and I was the first to go. And believe it or not, the next job I had was working as a roofer. Now how the hell I ever stayed on some of those roofs, or kept from being burned to death with some of that hot tar that you swing around on those mops. I don't know, but I want to tell you that I didn't keep that job, I quit.
By this time my family was ready to leave me, and they did. My wife took the two little
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girls, age three and five, and went to live at a woman's hospital and teach in their school. This left me with the older child, a boy of seven, who came and lived with me in a furnished room. And I had a job which I think was quite appropriate for a bishop's son. I became the assistant sexton in a big Roman Catholic parish down in southwest Philadelphia. Now this wasn't a bad job. The only thing bad about it was the head sexton. That guy was always trying to follow me at noontime to see where I was drinking my lunch. But I got one meal a day out of that job, which probably saved my liver. I knew where the altar wine was kept, and I used it. And I'm ashamed to say that I stole from the poor box, because naturally I was poor. And I never missed with the ushers and the other members of the staff and taking up the collection at all masses, for the church, for Father Farrell, and for me. And that kept me drinking in private club on Sunday, because at that time Philadelphia was a blue-lost city. I had my first experience with the law at this time, and I tell this story simply for anybody who maybe knew, or who may doubt at all, that at one time we were all insane.
And this led to my meeting with the bishop. On a Thursday I recognized from my cash flow that I was broke. Being a con man and thirsty, I had the nerve to walk into a bank. This is 1953, before they had the fancy numbers on the check, for beautiful cashiers like my wife now with a computer. And I told this guy, I said, gee, give me a book of checks. I left my checks at home, and I got to catch that thot. And God bless that man, he passed me a bunch of checks, didn't even look up my name. And I'm ashamed and astounded to say that over the next three days I cashed ten of those checks to the tune of 150 bucks without an account in the bank. Now that's not sane and that's not civil. And on Tuesday morning as I was rushing for a bus, I felt a large thump on my shoulder, and I looked around and saw my big Irish sergeant friend from the police department. He says, hey Buster, the chief wants to see you. And I looked at him with my baby brown innocent eyes, and I said, what's wrong? What have I done? And he smiled, he says, you've got a lot of paper out in this town, baby. So I went with my friend the sergeant, I knew the chief, and I walked into the chief's office, and still being a good con man, I looked him right in the eye, and I said, hi chief, how are you? You go to my church. And he looked at me, he says, hey Buster, let's leave religion out of this, throw him in number two. And I landed in number two, and I didn't like it very much when they slammed that gate, I got claustrophobia. And after a little while of sweating it out, they let me make a call, and as I made that call, the call went to the bishop. About seven o'clock that night, another sergeant, quite upset, came to my cell and let me out, and I said, what the hell is the matter with you? I'm the guy that's in here. He said, my God, is that your father?
I said, oh yes, the bishop's here, everything's going to be all right. And I had the humiliating and I think sorrowing experience as I look back at it, of not only going to see my father, but my mother in the chief's office. And as I walked in, I said, hi dad, how are you? And the bishop looked at me, he says, hi Freddie, my boy, I see you're still bending the elbow. And I said, yes, but. You know, one of those yes, buts that we always have. And why this
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came back to my mind at that time, I'm sure was because of the last time I saw my father and what he said to me. And I said to him, yes dad, if you'll just give me that lousy hundred and fifty bucks, I'll pay these guys off and I'll do what you told me, I'll go to Alcoholics Anonymous. And he looked back at me and he smiled, and he shook his head. He said, sorry Freddie, can't help you. And they took me back to number two. And I sat on that poor excuse for a bed, and you know what I said. I said, I'll be an S.O.B. my own father. And then strangely enough, some of my Bible training and teaching came back to me, and the old boy did just what it's said to do in the Bible, if you know anything about the book of St. Matthew. It says very clearly, I was in prison and ye visited me.
He visited me and he damn well left me. That's the best thing that ever happened. And a brother in law of mine, a good guy all the way from California, a lawyer, wired me that hundred and fifty bucks. And I went the next, excuse me, the next morning with my friend the chief. We paid off those little dillies. And the only S.O.B. that gave me a bad time was the guy in whose bar I did most of my drinking. And I'll tell you, I fixed him, I didn't drink there anymore. And it wasn't long after that that I lost my boy. School time was coming and I had to put him in an orphanage. And I'm sure as I face it now that this was the one thing that broke my back, that made me realize what a real fraud I was, what a phony, what a failure. As I turned this kid over to the sister at St. John's Orphanage, I said to him, don't worry kid, you're better off here and at least the old man can see you every weekend. And I'll just get straightened around. And I went out and I got on the trolley car and I went back to the center of Philadelphia and I had two one night stands. One in the Ben Franklin and one in the old Bellevue Stratford. And again being pretty sick and pretty insane I walked out of there without paying those bills. By this time I had left the church and I was working at the same hospital where my former wife had been. And I was working on a maintenance crew, a heavy drinking, hard drinking bunch, great guys. And I had a tough boss, a mother superior, who wouldn't pay me by the day, but paid me by the week and made the very unkind suggestion that I give some of the money to my wife. Finally they caught up with me on those bills and I made plans to pay them off and they didn't lock me up, they let me go. I continued working, I got hurt on the job and I hadn't paid them and they came looking for me. And my last drink was the same day that I came to this fellowship, September 20th, 1954. I had been living with a kind black family who also worked at this hospital and who had rented me a runaway bed in their living room for sixty cents a night, that's all I was willing to pay. I had gotten up that morning and had a quart of beer, that's all I had, and I was in a neighborhood bar with another gentleman.
Now remember, I was working as a maintenance man, but I always carried a briefcase. Two things I had in the briefcase, a church missile and a half pint. Why, I don't know. I'd had one beer and I'd finished it and I had a half a beer in front of me and two gentlemen in a nice business suit came to the door and they didn't bother with my buddy, they just pointed at me and they said, are you Fred F.? I said, yeah, I'm Fred F., I'll be right with you in just a minute. So I picked up that beer and I drank it and I said to myself, Buster, one of your big deals from the bar has come through, let's go. And I went out and I was a little shook up when one of the guys got behind me and the other guy got in front of me and he opened the door and there was a police car out there. So I went quietly and I got in the back with one of these detectives and he looked at me and said, I suppose you
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know what this is all about. I couldn't possibly know. There might have been more checks, might have been something I'd done. Blackouts were very frequent with me now. That god awful fear that I carried for those last months of being without booze, that I would do anything for booze. I had to, you know the feeling. They said, no, your wife had you picked up on a drunken rap. And I said, that's very strange, I talked to her this morning and she didn't mention it. Again, I was lucky. I wasn't taken to the can where I belonged.
I was taken down and released to Philadelphia General Hospital in the alcohol ward. I was given a thorough physical examination and a tête-à-tête with a psychiatrist. He didn't make any sense to me because I didn't tell any truth to him. That man asked me if I thought I had a problem with booze. I said, of course not, what's a little beer in the morning? He knew he was a member of AA. Dr. Downs, he's dead now, God bless him. There were only five beds in that ward and they were all filled and I was free to go. And it's on that same day that I met my sponsor, Ed Duffy. He's still my sponsor today. And he said to me, look, we can't keep you here, but if you'll wait about half an hour for me, I'll take you to a place where you can get some help. Now, I had a quarter in my pocket. That was the price in those days of a beer or a bus ride. So I waited. And I got into the car with him and he's a beautiful person. He'd been in the program about five years at that time. And on the way up, he said to me, Fred, he said, you know, I've not always had this car or this job. He said, I had a similar problem to yours. You can call me a drunk.
You can call me an alky. And he said, where I'm taking you, these people can help you. And then he said, what I think are the magic words of anybody's success in AA, they can help you if you want it and if you let them. And in all of the 12-step cases that I've been privileged to use and the ones I've lost and the ones I've won, if they don't want it and they don't let us give it to them, it's tough. You have to let them go. Maybe you'll get them on the second round. But I never forgot those words. And where he took me was Club 4021 in Washington. I mean, in Philadelphia at Walnut and 40th Street. And I knew what I was getting into because I saw the two little AAs on the door. And I had to make up my mind if I had the guts to go in there. And thank God I did. And then the second thing that moved me. Ed was talking about love last night. I walked in that door.
I had a pair of pants, a shirt, and a pair of shoes with holes. I had about a three-day growth of beard and I didn't smell very well. There was a guy sitting on a couch in the room on the left and he got up. And he came out and he said, My name is Tom. Watch you as we're glad to see you. God, nobody has been glad to see me in months. Nobody dared to stick a hand out because I always wanted something. And this guy that I never saw before, we're glad to see you. I've never forgotten that. And I went in and I sat down in their coffee bar and they bought me a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee and we talked. There were three men as I remember it. And I got asked the question that we all get asked, Can you go 24 hours without a drink? And I said, Hell no, no way. And they said, Let's try it for 24 minutes. And before I knew it, I had four hours. Four hours without a drink.
And then my sponsor came to me and he said, You've done pretty well in the past. My sponsor came to me and he said, you've done pretty well this afternoon. He said, I want you to attend the meeting tonight. I think you need it. I think it'll be good
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for you. Here's a buck. And then I heard the words that we hear so many times and that I've never forgotten. He said to me, you've got a choice. This buck will last you for a couple of hookers or a few beers and we'll never see you again. If you can go out and have something to eat and come back, it will be worth your while. And I thanked him and I took the buck and I went out and I walked around 40th and Market Street. There are literally dozen bars. Why I didn't go in, I'll never know. But I went into a hash house and I had the damnedest steak and hamburger and cup of coffee that I ever hoped to remember. And it stayed down and I don't know why. And I went back and I went to my first meeting.
And being a good preacher's son, I sat right in the back row. And there were three speakers, two men and a woman. The man and the woman had exactly the same pattern of drinking that I did, the morning drink, the shakes, the fears. And I heard for the first time the vehement denial, which we hear time and time again of the practicing alcoholic, that this couldn't be me. Now this was 1954 when you didn't have a meeting every day. And many of the members of that club were older men. I say that cautiously now, I'm 65. But I don't feel it and I don't look it and I'm a bridegroom for the second time, I'll tell you about that.
And these old codgers would say to me, I was 37. Now listen, kid. God damn it, don't drink, get back here tonight. That's all I want to hear, don't talk, shut up. And one old codger said to me, you come back here, I got a job I can get for you tomorrow. A job. I knew the Mother Superior was through. So I went back there at noontime the next day, and by God, I was lucky enough to get a job driving an elevator in the Jefferson Hospital at 10th and Samson Street, 35 bucks a week and three square meals a day. And I hope I never forget the first two weeks on that automatic elevator. Every time it stopped, I thought my head would go right through that gate. And an interesting thing about that, today I'm a federal bureaucrat. My office is at 10th and Chessman. And every day I buy my newspaper on a corner and I look up, and I see the door that I used to go through for my first sober job, given to me by this beautiful fellowship of alcoholics and non-alcoholics. And it's a good reminder. I kept that job for a while. Another man who was a newspaper man gave me a tip and I got back on at the Philadelphia Inquirer and into my profession. I was transferred from there to Boston, which is my hometown and where I got this beautiful accent. And I was able after almost a year to get my family back, to buy a home and to start a good career again. And after two years in that area, I landed in the great state of New Hampshire doing a public relations game for children and adults, a hospital for the crippled. And I got my first taste of service. Grace talked about service today. It's beautiful, don't miss it. For some reason, because I never had had, I guess, a member of the executive committee of the Boston Intergroup in any of the neighboring counties, I got that job. I used to have to drive 70 miles down and 70 miles back, twice a month to do that job. And it was beautiful. The program of Alcoholics Anonymous is a miracle program. As I look out at you people, as I served with Larry, who was a delegate with me in New
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York, and I've heard stories, every one of us is a miracle. I've told you pretty much about how I got here and why I got here. And I told you some of the experiences of my early AA. And I'd like to share for just a moment with you what I feel is an important thing that was also mentioned today, growth. If you're going to be successful in the AA program, you've got to grow. I was so rumbled on when I came to you people that I had to stay on the first step for almost 14 months.
That's all I could handle. Admit that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life sure in hell was a mess. Getting a higher power, as I understood him, was not difficult for me once I dried out. Yes, I said the same prayers at Grace's house, God get me out of this mess and I won't drink again. All of us have said that, I'm sure. Aloud, on our knees, trembling, in jail, after a horrible night or day. I had a very real belief, I still do, I have a very real faith in a higher power. But I was not using it when I was drinking, I was abusing it. I didn't really get to the fourth or fifth step, for me, until about my third year in the program. Being a preacher's son and my father being a high Episcopalian, I was familiar with confession. Taking the fifth step with another member of AA gave me the lift that you hear us in the fellowship talk about. If you haven't done it, do it. None of us have done anything so bad that the other guy can't match it. Listen to your story.
But this gives you a lift. If you don't clean out the garbage, you really never get to know what you can do and who you are. Hell, I thought I was a big success because I graduated from college and had a couple of good jobs in New York. I was a mess, until I got to you people. Until I went through my private hell with booze. And I also agree with what Ed said last night, as I got sober in this program. It was the alcohol that made me sick, not the problems I had with my wife, my family, or the fact that I could never manage money. Sound familiar? I still can't manage money. So you know what I did? I married a banker.
And at 63 years of age, for the first time in my not-too-dull life, I take my paycheck, I sign my name on it, and I say, here, Alka, we got money in the bank. First time. For me. That's growth. That's honesty. I was at one time a one and a twelve stepper, because I was anxious to have people have what I had. I remember my first pigeon. A fellow by the name of Dick Carroll. God love him, he drank himself to death. He was a Boston painter. Worked very hard with him. He and I were buddies, and I came back to the club one day, and somebody said to me, hey, your pigeon's drunk. I said, what do you mean he's drunk? He said, he's drunk, he's in AA. He said, no more. I went over there and was passed out cold on the bed. I saw him the next morning and said, what the hell's the matter with you? He said, I'm helping him with an alcoholic. What's your answer? He was an alcoholic. He died an alcoholic. But it was a good lesson for me. Let me say just a couple of things about the fellowship and about service, and then I'll shut up. Support people who are doing your service work if you can't do it yourself. I come from the old
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school where I was taught never say no in AA. I've tried to practice that. But again, I agree with Grace. There are certain things that you don't do well, and you know it, and you should say no. Some people cannot 12-step. Continue to be an example. Raise money for dancing. Be a smartass when you speak like me and say, look, get it up. When you sober up, you tighten up. Stop throwing quarters in the basket that doesn't pay for the coffee you have tonight. I can say that. I'm a preacher, son. I heard my father beg many times. But we do need money.
We're a million strong. We're in 92 countries. Those of you who are at New Orleans, 20,500 beautiful drunks staggering all over Bourbon Street. Wonderful. Sober as judges. We also have another real problem today. Today we have more rehabilitation centers and drying out places than you can shake a stick at. Thank God most of those centers plant the seed of Alcoholics Anonymous and our beautiful 12 Steps of Recovery.
I am a firm believer that the people who come out of there, if they don't come with us, if they don't participate on a daily basis with the AA program, they're not going to make it. And I say this whenever I get a chance. It is important for us to help those people do their fourth and fifth steps. Get a sponsor. If you haven't got a sponsor, please, for God's sake, get one. They're beautiful people. If you haven't sponsored somebody, try it. You'll like it. Share. Do what you can. Probably the most wonderful two weeks of my life was participating with Larry on panel 25 as the delegate from the Washington, D.C. area when he was your delegate.
Meeting with those other 91 delegates and discussing everything. We didn't always agree. In fact, we disagreed many times. But the respect and the love is there. I don't know any group, any fellowship, like this. There is no lodge, there is no church, and I'm not being disrespectful. There is no congregation that I know of that will do what members of Alcoholics Anonymous do in the way of service, in the way of sharing, in the way of coming to the help of the still-suffering alcoholic. We've got ten million to work on.
Meetings like this are fabulous. I don't know how you did it for the price. I ran a convention two years ago in Washington, D.C., the Northeast Regional Convention, and we had to pay 63 cents for a cup of coffee. One cup of coffee. So keep asking. Things are great for me now. I accepted an invitation like this in Delaware three years ago. A young lady came up to me. We had a nice conversation. She's a member of AA. I married her. I live in Delaware.
So thank you for changing me. Thank you for showing me how to grow. Thank you for letting me share. This is a very rare privilege to be asked to speak to this group on a Saturday night. It's good for my ego, which I try to keep under control. But I think most of all I should say to you thank you for giving me back my life, and God bless you. Before the meeting started, Larry told me, he said, we have a gift here for the speaker.
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If he does a good job, give it to him. If he doesn't, you keep it. I'm going to give it to Fred. Don't forget the Red Ball meeting and the Al-Anon meeting over in what's the name of that room? I don't know. I'm not going to get in trouble with my wife by not mentioning that Al-Anon meeting. I don't care. We're going to close this meeting with the Lord's Prayer. We all stand and join hands. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
