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Source: DICOBE-00348 – Ray O – CORNHUSKER RNDP VI – 1983-08-19.mp3 File: dicobe-00348-ray-o-cornhusker-rndp-vi-1983-08-19.mp3 Duration: 01:21:04
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It's my pleasure to introduce tonight's speaker. And just in a way of introduction, I want to say that I sat by the pool with him this afternoon, and we exchanged a few sicknesses. And I can tell you right now, he didn't get to Alcoholics Anonymous by mistake, and neither did I. And he isn't staying here by mistake, and neither am I. I already knew about that, because last year, as you know, his wife Stephanie spoke, the Al-Anon and last turned AA member.
And she told me something about Ray in his drinking days. She said that he snored a lot. And that they had a dog also that snored a lot and just bothered the hell out of her, and she couldn't sleep. And it was really, by the time Ray got in, it was usually okay that she was already asleep, and she'd just stay asleep. But the damn dog kept her awake until he got in, and then they had to fight. So she went to a veterinarian, and the veterinarian suggested that he might tie some soft, gentle, that she might tie some soft, gentle piece of ribbon or something around the dog's private, and it would prevent him from snoring.
And this became a habit of hers, and Ray had been away for a few days, and he came in in a drunken stance, threw all his goddamn clothes off on the floor, flopped down on the bed, and immediately passed out and started snoring. And she couldn't hang it. So she got another ribbon, a blue one, and tied it around his private, and he stopped snoring. This is all fine. It's a nice story. What happened was the next morning that Ray woke up, and he looked down, and, my God, and he looked at the dog, and the dog was similarly tied in a red ribbon, and he said, you know, I don't know where the hell we were last night, but we won first and second prize.
Give a corn husk to welcome Ray. Right? My name is Ray O'Keefe, and I'm an alcoholic. I am a member of the world-famous Mamaronek Group located at Mamaronek, New York. You've all heard of that group, no doubt. I bring you the warm and the affectionate greeting of the world-famous Mamaronek Group. I am authorized by the Steering Committee to issue a very successful conference. The vote of our committee was 11 to 7.
I think I want to thank Dick for that introduction. I really have to give it a little more thought. Sorry, it's substantially true, except there wasn't a ribbon on me, it was a sash. He seems a little preoccupied with the male members. He's certainly well-named. It's a very difficult bunch. It is good to be in Nebraska. I've met some of my old AA pals, including Dick, that I met before and had some chats with them.
And, of course, one of my heroes is here. We'll speak to you tomorrow night. John Harris is one of my heroes, and he's here, and his wife, Dottie. And I met all the AA pals, and I even met some of the Al-Anon ladies. And I was very surprised, really, that they would be here, the Al-Anon ladies, in such great number. I had assumed that they would be in Lincoln tonight, in Lincoln, Nebraska, at a very important and significant meeting of Al-Anon, which is being held in Lincoln.
It is being held in the mother church of all Al-Anon, the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Revenge.
[00:05:10]
Let me tell you about my drinking now. I don't want you to miss any of this. It's a thrill a minute. I grew up in one of the neighborhoods in New York City. And my neighborhood was rough, and it was tough, and it was Irish. Now, you may not understand that. And it was Irish. Now, you may not understand it here in Nebraska, but they drank in that neighborhood. You would actually see people on the street under the influence of alcohol.
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Hard to believe, but true nevertheless. As you looked at where I lived, you'd see a little drinking. My mother, the widow O'Keeffe, was known to take a drink from time to time. And when the pressure got on, Kitty would go for the light wines and the spirits, and something would fly, usually one of the children. My brother Billy, on the other hand, was a very bad drinker. And in a neighborhood of Irish drunks, Billy O'Keeffe stood out.
So when I showed up at the local joint and ordered up whatever it was they were serving 14-year-olds that afternoon, no one paid any attention to me. It was just another O'Keeffe coming by. I don't really recall what they gave me that day. I suspect it was a beer. That was the neighborhood drink. But whatever it was, I liked it. I liked everything about it. I liked the way it looked. And I liked the way it smelled.
And I liked the way it tasted. And I liked what it did for my head. And I liked the noise and the smoke and the confusion. And I liked the fist fights and the Irish music. I liked the bullshit. That's what I really liked. And I went on to like it for the next 20 years. I was going through the parochial school system, in a manner of speaking. And I got into all of the trouble you might imagine a young man would get into trying to go through that system drunk.
I was thrown out of high school a number of times. I held the neighborhood record for being thrown out of high school, a record previously established by my brother Billy. When I was finished with high school, or more properly put, when they were finished with me, because someone made a mistake in a small school in New England, I got a chance to leave the neighborhood. And I went away to college. And my drinking changed.
I found every time I changed my environment, my drinking changed. When I got north, they weren't drinking that way. There were no bars in that state, just restaurants. And they sat around the table, and they drank beer out of bottles. And they sang college songs. And they wore white shoes in the wintertime. And being a man of no particular moral fiber, I got a pair of white shoes. I learned the words to some of those songs.
I got very collegiate. World War II was just about over, and things were slow on the campus. So one day I got a haircut and joined the Navy. And I ended up on a minesweeper in San Francisco. And I hate to be indelicate before such a large group, but I have to tell you, I had a lot of trouble with my kidneys when I drank. And in the Navy, we slept three to a cheer. Don't get ahead of me, lady, this is very difficult.
I came back from my first liberty in San Francisco with all the beer in me I could buy. And I went to sleep, and I had one of these attacks. And I met the fellow that slept below me that night. He figured he'd be wet sometime in his Naval career. But it hadn't occurred to him it would happen while he was in the Navy. But it hadn't occurred to him it would happen while he was sleeping. I was immediately transferred to a lower bunk.
The rest of my Naval career was undistinguished, and I arrived home some years later. Undistinguished, unhonored, unloved. Everything was under control in the neighborhood. The widow was in the weeds somewhere.
[00:10:00]
My brother Billy was absent without leave from the New York City Police Department. Having thrown a citizen off a roof, the citizen had identified the Irish cop, and my brother Billy went west and went into a more peaceful line of work. He went back in the United States Marine Corps. The 5220 Club was available for heroes. We got a 52 weeks of $20 a week for being veterans, and I qualified for a few checks.
And I gravitated to the local joints, and I took up the game of shuffleboard. And I was planning a life of petty crime with some of my boyhood companions when I had one of those clear thoughts that come from time to time. I recall that I'd been to college. So I got on a bus. I got on a bus and went back up there, and I arrived in the middle of a blizzard, and I walked into this place, and there they were sitting around a table drinking beer out of a bottle, singing no songs, wearing no shoes.
So I got another pair of shoes. And now a grateful government was sending me a check every month, so I was moderately solvent and therefore moderately drunk all the time. And I was staggering around the campus one day in my usual condition, and I saw a list of names on a bulletin board of people who were qualified to graduate. And my name was on the list. And that was very good news. I thought I had another year to go.
I notified the widow of this great event, and she came north to witness this event. Some ten years later, I served as a trustee of that college, and they were still talking about my mother. It's not often in the state of Vermont where they see a little old lady get off a train drunk at 9 o'clock in the morning. She and I staggered around under the elms. That was a very tender sight. I came back home to the neighborhood, and the question was what to do.
My uncles had voted unanimously that I become a New York City policeman, because that's what my father had been, and that's what my brother was, and that's what all my uncles and my cousins were doing, except for the two morons that worked for the telephone company. But I told them I wasn't going to do any of those things. I told them I'd received a scholarship to law school, and I'd be unemployed for the next several years, and that was received with mixed emotions.
But that's what happened. I went to law school, and my drinking began to change again. I didn't know anything about lawyers or law schools. We didn't have any lawyers in my neighborhood. We had cops and we had priests. We really didn't need any lawyers. I hate to be disloyal to the profession that's done so well for me, but I have to tell you, when I got to law school, I found I was in the company of the greatest collection of stiffs that had ever assembled under one roof.
These people were deadly. They all wore a suit and they all had eyeglasses, and I looked around for somebody to drink with, a companion. My mother always told me to play with nice boys my own age. Nobody drank in this crowd. They were all students. They were all studying. So I became the biggest student they ever had in that place, and I didn't drink at all in my first year, and very rarely in the next two years.
With the result that, when I came out of school, I was taken into a large, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Wall Street law firm. They hired me as sort of the resident immigrant. It was not a total loss, however. I learned to say, oh, really, instead of no shit. My superiors there were determined that I'd be a trial lawyer, and so I was sent up to the courthouse in New York City to learn my trade, and I wasn't in the courthouse very long when I discovered that all the smart guys were across the street in a saloon.
So I moved my office into the saloon, and I noticed that very few of the smart guys And I noticed that very few of the brothers of the profession were knocking down shots in beers where anybody could see them.
[00:15:06]
So I began to drink in a different, a more civilized, a more genteel fashion. I discovered scotch in a tall glass with water and ice, and you sip on that. It takes a little while, but it gets the job done. I was introduced to all of the mysteries and all of the rituals that surround the very, very dry martini. And to this night and to this moment, my love, my admiration, and my affection for the very, very dry martini is surely the greatest taste of unrequited love the world has ever seen.
I was so loyal to those things that they almost destroyed me. Well, after about a year of this civilizing influence, it was necessary for my natural development that I be married. And I had located a lady, or she had located me, I'm not sure how those things work. Ms. O'Keefe, my wife, my current wife, I always call her my current wife, I find it keeps her on her toes. Ms. O'Keefe is from a totally different background than mine.
She was raised in a large house with devoted parents and servants and a fence and a dog. In a word, her family had a buck. Now, I drank a lot in those days, but I knew what was going on. I will not burden you with the details of my wedding day, but I assure you that when the O'Keefe's from the Bronx hit the Westchester Country Club, they set a few records. There was only one fight that was not a particularly good fight.
My Uncle Bernie hit a waiter. After that, we settled down and set up housekeeping, and Ms. O'Keefe began to produce children in a rather boring and monotonous fashion. And with the regularity that's known only to the devout Roman Catholics. A couple of years later, I received a phone call, and I was invited to come see the dean of the law school I had attended. And I went down and saw the dean, and the dean appointed me to the faculty, and I became Professor O'Keefe.
And I responded to that with great alacrity. And there I was, the boy professor. And there was something about that job that made me very nervous, and I wasn't quite sure what there was in my background that justified it. And I knew that I drank a great deal, so I determined that I would not drink so much. I determined that I would control my drinking in order to be able to handle that position. And so I entered into a phase of controlled drinking.
I was then 27 years of age when I thought I'd have to control my drinking. And I was very unsuccessful at that, but as the time passed, as it worked out, it turned out that I was a good teacher. And once I became aware that I actually could handle a job and I was a good teacher, then it wasn't necessary for me to control my drinking anymore. I found back to drink the way I wanted to drink. It wasn't necessary for me to control my drinking anymore.
I found back to drink the way I wanted to drink. That was the only way I knew. I only knew the one way how to drink. My father died when I was two, and I had my brother Billy, who was four years older. And Billy was my hero. He was a big, tall, 6'3", good-looking Irishman. And I did everything just like Billy, because I wanted to be like Billy. And he told me all the good things in life. He gave me all my instructions, and I did everything just the way he did.
And I drank like Billy. I drank until I fell down, or the place went on fire, or the cops arrived, or something happened. I would see people leaving, and I would wonder where they were going. So I went back out to drink this way and continued to teach. And in this period of time, too, I was in politics in a mild sort of a way, in sort of the periphery of politics. I even ran for office one time and lost.
And I was moving around in New York City in legal circles and getting known. And Mrs. O'Keefe and I bought a large, semi-authentic colonial home in a village in New York called Larchmont, a village which abounds in semi-authentic colonial homes.
[00:20:05]
And we added up to five or six kids in this big house, and the usual number of motor vehicles, and the usual memberships in all the usual places. And I was teaching and working and politicking. And had you asked me in those days how I was doing, I would have told you I was doing very well. As a matter of fact, I would have told you that whether you asked me or not was one of my favorite themes, the American Dream and the O'Keefe version.
Truth of the matter was, at this time at age 34, I had turned into a daily drunk, and my day would have killed a lesser man. I used to come to in the morning in that wet bed because the problem had continued unabated all of those years. And I would struggle out of that wet sack, and I would begin my morning calisthenics. My calisthenics were performed kneeling on the floor of a bathroom with my head in a bowl.
And I would have all the water running, the water in a shower and the water in a tub and the water in a sink, because I did not want Ms. O'Keefe and all those little O'Keefes to know that Professor O'Keefe was dying. I would come downstairs in my sincere blue suit with a vest carrying over my shoulder like Santa Claus a sack of wet laundry, because Ms. O'Keefe told me that the diaper service was for the children.
And she did not think that a lady of her extreme breeding ought to do the wash of a 34-year-old bedwetter. If you can imagine a man of my stature in the community starting off each morning with a load of wash. But once I got my wash out of the way, help was at hand. I used to keep a quart of vodka in the refrigerator. My children call that daddy's juice. And I'd take a few bangs on daddy's juice. And then the question was, would I throw up in front of all those people?
I knew if I lit up a cigarette I was finished. Sooner or later I'd get to New York on a train and I'd arrive at Grand Central. I don't know how familiar you might be with Grand Central, but it is not really a railroad terminal. It is a collection of saloons that are connected by tunnels. And I would tear around the tunnels like a mole and pop up here or there. And I would do a repair job and then I would head for the school.
And as soon as I got into that imposing institution, my first thought was, how do I get out? And I'd get out and I'd tear across town and steal. Every morning I'd steal 20 bucks, which is a lot of money back then. And that would be my drinking money. And I'd end up where I really belonged, in the bar opposite the courthouse. And by this time the other lawyers, they had long since stopped taking me seriously.
And I was like a playmate. And I'd run in and I'd buy a drink and they'd buy a drink and the bartender would buy a drink. And we'd have a good old time for some period of time. Maybe we'd talk business and maybe we wouldn't. It wasn't important, but the drinks kept coming. And I had it figured out in some peculiar alcoholic fashion that I was very brilliant at around 2 o'clock. So I'd schedule my classes at 2 and I'd zoom up there and I'd shortchange those students and tear out of the building and go over to Grand Central to commute.
Now even though I grew up in the city, I understood the theory of commuting. Commuters are entitled to a drink before they get on a train. So I'd have 10 or 12 and I would take a train going north. It didn't have to go to Larchmont. North was good enough for me. And I got to see a great deal more of Bridgeport, Connecticut than any civilized person ought to have to. Sooner or later I'd arrive home and bounce off a few walls take what was left of Daddy's juice out of the refrigerator, fill up an old cheese glass and inquire if anybody wanted a martini.
But I was the only one that drank in that house in those days. So I'd have a few pops and then I'd eat or not eat depending on my mood. Evenings I would spend in civic endeavor. Lawyers are very fond of civic endeavor. Civic endeavor by me was cracking up the car or puking on some hostess's sofa
[00:25:02]
or playing a little grab ass with the ladies of Larchmont and a sorrier looking crop you have never seen. Most nights I'd just stay home and vegetate and I'd watch television with one eye like this trying to get those sets to come together. And I would drink and I'd watch television with one eye and I'd go through the programming and through the late show and on into the morning. And finally my big moment would come and they played the Star Spangled Banner and the Marines would go up Mount Suribachi and the destroyers would cut through the water and they'd be playing that song and I would cry.
I would weep and sob and cry and then I'd go upstairs and wet the bed, that was it. Now this is not once in a while, this is every day. Weekends I would save for binges. And if everybody around me would mind their own business, which was extremely rare I could get drunk three times on Saturday and three times on Sunday. Well, as anybody who's ever been married can tell you while all of this was going on Mrs. O'Keefe was not entirely silent.
From time to time she would have the temerity to suggest that there was something radically wrong with the way that I drank. But I'd pay no attention to it, why should I? First of all, she's my wife, how much can she know? Secondly, she's not an attorney and I would tell her that. And then I would explain to her what is now known in the literature as the O'Keefe theory of the relativity of drinking which is to say that some people drink more than other people and I would explain that to her, that on a relative scale I was not really such a big drinker.
As a matter of fact, I would say I don't drink as much as my mother. And she would say, nobody drinks as much at all. I'd have to leave. I'd have to leave for three or four days because she had offended my mother. It's the American way, you can't let people offend your mother. Well, it drove her crazy and she betook herself to her doctor who, as you might suspect, is an obstetrician and he could find nothing the matter with her until she told him that she lived with a drunk and this explained a lot of things and he sent her home to me with a message and the message that she brought me was that her doctor, the obstetrician had diagnosed her husband, the professor, as an alcoholic.
Oh, that was so unkind. I rose to defend myself, as was my custom and I launched into one of my speeches and the first point I made was a good one. I took a rather dim view of a physician who would diagnose a patient without having seen the patient. I was against that shabby type of medical practice all too common in our country today. I then launched into high gear and I asked Mrs. O'Keefe a question to which she has not yet discovered the answer.
I asked her what kind of a man became an obstetrician in the first place. And at this point the conversation was coming downhill at a terrible rate and then it happened. Then it happened. And I don't know how this happened. I cannot explain to you how this happened. I can explain many, many other things to you and I probably will in the second or third hour.
[00:30:00]
But in the middle of all of this yelling and confusion, I suddenly stopped and I admitted to Mrs. O'Keefe for the first time that I've ever admitted to anyone that there was at least the possibility that I drank too much sometimes. This was a very serious tactical error. Three days later, I was a prisoner in a mental institution in Stanford, Connecticut. And I was only there a matter of moments when I discovered a very serious architectural deficiency in the building.
There was no doorknob on my side of the door. They had sandbagged the old professor. And in addition to all of this terrible stuff that was going on, I was overcome with great feelings of self-pity because it happened also to be the occasion of my 35th birthday. And I mentioned this to a man in a white coat who was passing by. And I very carefully explained to that cretin that on that very day, I had attained age 35.
And therefore, under the Constitution of the United States of America, was eligible for the office of president. He urged me not to plan any campaign. He said there were two other presidents in residence. And then he went away and he left me. And then I did for the next week or so all of those warm, wonderful, happy, and interesting things that alcoholics do when they withdraw from alcohol. I shook. I sweat. I did everything wonderful that you can think about.
And I finally came up for air after about a week. And I was then visited by the staff of the hospital. And they, of course, were psychiatrists because this was a very fancy raffle box, as befitted a man of my stature. And I was visited by three psychiatrists and I gave them three different stories. And they threatened to expel me from a mental institution. I also, while I was there, took the opportunity to formulate what is also in the literature as the key form of modified therapy for the disease of alcoholism, which is known to the world as the game of Monopoly.
I had instituted a 24 hour Monopoly game with three other guys who were there. They were not there for alcoholism. They were just there. One of them was under the impression that I was his real estate broker. And if you know anything about the game of Monopoly, and some nuts think you're his real estate broker, you can do very, very well. I had the boardwalk. I had a number of hotels. And I was doing just great with the Monopoly therapy.
And we were into about three days of the marathon when I was told I had a visitor. And I didn't know who that would be. So I went back in my room and I waited. And through the door of that room came this very imposing looking guy. And he told me that he was from the Darien, Connecticut group of Alcoholics Anonymous. And at the hospital, they'd asked him to speak to me of our program. And I immediately reverted to type. And I almost had him by the throat and I was screaming at him.
I said, Alcoholics Anonymous, what are you, out of your mind? And I started. And he told me to shut up. That is tacky. That is tacky. I immediately forgave him because I understood that he really had not been told who I was.
[00:35:04]
So I continued to speak so that he would have the benefit of my training and my thoughts on the matter. And he told me to sit down and to shut up and, for God's sake, to listen to him. Well, he was an imposing looking fellow and I was not a well person. So for the first time in 35 years, I sat. And he began to explain to me, as I have been trying to indicate to you, and as we are instructed in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, what his life had been like, how he had come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and what life had been for him since.
And he asked me if I would like to go with him to meetings. And I said, Do you mean outside to meetings, sir? And he said, Outside. And I said, I'll go. Besides that, he had given me matches. No one else had allowed me to have any matches. And I thought that showed a certain degree of confidence in me. And that's how it began in the early winter of 1963. And he began to drive me around all over and we went to meetings every night.
And he was very faithful and very loyal. And he made arrangements for me to return home and to begin to attend meetings locally. And I came out and started to go locally. And I don't recall so much of all of that. I was too new and too nervous and too afraid and too everything. And the hospital had turned me loose with a large jar of those pills that they insist on giving alcoholics. As one of my friends says, I was dealing with that lethal segment of the medical profession that considers the disease of alcoholism to be caused by some type of a valium deficiency.
And I was eating these things and my head buzzed a lot. But I knew myself fairly well. I figured I would come to Alcoholics Anonymous. You would recognize me as a superior person. You would elect me your president. I was always president if I joined something. I would serve a term as your president and that would be that. Another fascinating chapter added to an already exciting life. Well, it should come as no surprise to you, although it was a terrible shock to me, to find out that I lasted only 10 months.
And after 10 months, I began to drink again. And this time, of course, I drank with a great difference because I had turned away from the great power that is in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was to continue to drink for a period of time. And I will not take you through it because it just takes too long and it still makes the hair on the back of my neck go up when I think about it. But just let me indicate to you in a general way that it was without question the worst period of my life.
It was murder. It was pure and simple murder. I never knew when I'd be drinking and I never knew when I would not be drinking. I never knew when I would begin and I never knew where I would be when it was all over. I would drink a week and then I wouldn't drink a month. Or I'd drink a month and then I wouldn't drink a week. I would drink and come to the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I would come to the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and then I would drink.
Things began to happen to me in this period of time that had never happened to me before. And I do not speak to you now of things that happened to me in this period of time that I no longer consider to be significant. I do not speak to you now of the fact that I was dismissed from the faculty and fired as a tenured professor of law. And that all of the honors and all of the prestige and all of the governmental appointments and all of the commissions
[00:40:03]
and everything else that went through that job that I truly loved was taken from me in a matter of about 15 minutes. I do not speak to you of the fact that I was in serious, and I mean very serious, personal, professional, and financial difficulties. And I do not even speak to you of the fact that I had lost the affection of all those who were around me. All of this happened to me in this period of time, but this is not what I am speaking to you about.
What I now recognize was happening to me at that time was that there was, in my case, and perhaps in yours, a terrible, terrible wasting of my spirit. My spirit, that thing that separates me from my cat and separates me even from each of you, that spirit which gives to this particular form whatever individuality or personality or character that it might have. And this was a spirit which once burned in me so bright, and it was extinguished.
And I knew it, and there was nothing that I could do about it. I had already been here, and this didn't work for me. And by this time, I'd been everywhere else. I'd been through the drying-out places and the hospitals and the doctors and the nurses. And I've been through the drying-out joints and the farms and the sanitariums. And I've been through my friends, and I've been through the politicians, and I've been through the jobs and the money.
I've been up and down every avenue there was, and the result was always the same. I was drunk. And it wasn't as though I didn't know about alcoholism. I knew about alcoholism. I had a memory. I remembered my neighborhood. I knew about my family. I had been to the funeral. I knew what happened to people that drank the way I drank. But the fact that I knew it, as the book tells us, the fact that I had self-knowledge, couldn't do anything for me.
And so I continued to drink. And truly, truly, as I stand here, truly, I did not think it would ever end as it did. But my time came one day. One day, my time came. I don't know any more about this than you do. But it seems to me that there is a time for all of us. And it seems to me that there is a time for each of us. I say to you that there is a line somewhere beyond which we simply are not permitted to think.
And I say to you that there is a point somewhere below which we are simply not permitted to go. And it seems to me that there is a level of pain somewhere beyond which no human is required to endure. I don't know where this line is for you. I only know what happened to me. And this is an individual and a personal thing. And it is different in each case. In each case, and for some, it may be death.
[00:45:01]
And that's the way it was for my brother Billy. They called me that night from the Veterans Hospital in Minneapolis. And the man told me that my brother had died of alcoholism in the hospital. Where they had taken him from the skid row of Minneapolis. And so my brother and my hero died the way alcoholics do. Without friends. Without family. And a long, long way from our neighborhood. But my brother Billy doesn't drink anymore.
And that's how he stopped. And for other people it can be something trivial. But that line is there. Somewhere. And we all come to it in our own time. And in our own way. But come to it, we must. And I arrived on a day that wasn't so different than many, many other days. I was three or four days away from a drink. I was nervous. I was thirsty. I wasn't quite sure what to do. There was a bar nearby.
I was in this place where I worked. And I did something that was… Something else allowed me to do. I called a long-time friend of mine who was a long-time member of this program. And a good friend. He is my sponsor and his name is John. And John worked sort of nearby. I told him what was going on and he came right over. And he walked into that room. And he looked so good. And I felt so bad. And I asked him what I would have to do to be as successful as he was in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And John gave me that wonderful look that he has. And he said, don't drink. Go to meetings. You'll be alright. Well, I didn't want him to tell me that. In fact, I told him I didn't want him to tell me that. I told him he really didn't appreciate the problem. I said, you see, John, the real problem here is this place where I work. So the lawyer of my talents should not be in a place like this. Well, he said, don't drink. You go to meetings. You'll be alright.
I said, now at home it's worse. She has the court order. I can't go there anymore. I'm out. Yeah, he said, well, don't drink then. You go to meetings. I said, I'm being sued by Bankers Trust. You read that in the law journal about all the money that they say that I took? Yeah, he said, well, don't drink. You go to meetings. I said, well, don't drink. You go to meetings. I sensed that there was no dialogue there.
And so did John because he said, come on, Raymond, you're not doing very much. And he called up, made some phone calls. He took me and he put me on a train for Larchmont. It's about a 40-minute ride. Halfway up, I reconsidered. You understand. What did I call him for? I must have panicked. Don't drink, huh? Don't drink my ass, don't drink. Wait till this train stops. When I got off the train at Larchmont, standing on the platform of the Larchmont station was my mailman, a guy named Al, who was then chairman of the world-famous Lamarna Group.
And Al said, get in the car. And I said, get out of here, Al. I don't hang around with mailmen. He said, some guy named John called me about you. Get in the car. Well, a man of my stature cannot afford to have a fight with a mailman or anybody else for that matter. So I got in Al's car. I said, Al, get in the car. He said, get in the car. I said, get in the car. He said, get in the car. For that matter.
So I got in Al's car. I said, Al, I'm in a lot of trouble. Yeah, he said, well, don't drink.
[00:50:00]
You got a meeting. So if any of you are foolish enough to seek my advice because I've traveled to come here, don't drink. You got a meeting. Al took me for a ride, and he came back that night. And he took me to the world's greatest day, Igloo. And I didn't drink that day. And that was the 24th day of November 1965. And the reason I didn't drink that day was that two members of our fellowship were so filled with the gratitude of our fellowship that they took what God sent that day, a drunken, dishonest, arrogant man.
And because they were so very grateful for what they had received, they gave me a day. And I hope, I really do hope, that it is that same sense of gratitude that allows me to come to you in Omaha tonight. Because just like Al and just like John, and like every sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I have a great debt to pay, and this is one of the ways that I do that. Well, after I had that day, of course, the other days began.
And I would see John every day, and I'd see Al every night, and I'd get my instructions. And I'd been hanging around for a few months, whatever it was, and John took me one day outside, and he said to me, you know, Raymond, you're not a bad fellow, and you're hanging around pretty good. He said, it is time for you to learn something of the program. He said, there's a great deal more to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, besides not drinking.
He said, it's time for you to learn something of the program. He said, it is time for you to read the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And because I am the way I am, I said, all right, John, what are you kidding? I read the book. Rarely have we seen anyone fail who has thoroughly followed our path. And he gave me that look. He gave me that look. You know that look? That look that long-time members of AA reserve for smart-ass people.
And John said, read it again. And I said, yes, John. Because every time we had a conversation, that's how it ended. I say, yes, John, and I went and did what he told me to do. And I began to read again the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. I was appalled at my initial ignorance. I really did not understand or appreciate that the book had been written some five years after the meeting of Bill and Bob in Akron, Ohio.
I did not know or understand or appreciate that approximately 100 men and women had become sober before this book was written. I did not understand that the book is nothing more or less than a chronicle of the early members. I did not appreciate the fact that the steps that are contained in the fifth chapter of that book are steps that these men and women take and took literally before this book was written.
I thought when first I came to Alcoholics Anonymous that if I told you my name was Ray O'Keefe and that I was an alcoholic, I was doing something about the first step of this program. Of course, that's my name, and I'm an alcoholic. The men and women who founded our program did a great deal more than simply identify themselves as alcoholics. They admitted that they were powerless over alcohol and that their lives had become unmanageable.
Their lives had become unmanageable because they were powerless over alcohol. It was all the same thing to them. They were powerless. They had no power. They were without power. It says in the book that the dilemma of the alcoholic is his lack of power. He has no power. He is powerless. But they didn't drink, and time began to pass for them. And time has passed for me and for the people whose anniversaries were introduced this evening.
And time has passed for the cornhusker around us.
[00:55:03]
And if you come here new, time will pass for you. And time has a wonderful way of passing in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It passes one day at a time. And somewhere after this succession of days, these men and these women came to believe that there was a power greater than their own. And they believed that this power greater than their own could restore them to sanity. This was not just a casual opinion that they had.
They believed this. They really believed that there was this power greater than their own. And they believed that that power could do that for them, restore them to sanity. And they believed that this power greater than their own could do that for them, restore them to sanity. So true was that belief that they made a decision to turn over their will and their lives to the care of that power that they had come to believe in, that God as they each understood him.
And they were very, very bright. Because at a time in the history of our country when no one else had this notion, they conceived alcoholism to be a disease. They conceived it to be a disease that was physical and mental and spiritual, a disease of the body and of the mind and of the spirit. When they stopped drinking, they found out their bodies responded quickly. When they came to believe that they could be restored to sanity, they enjoyed a mental recovery.
It was slower than the physical recovery, but it was perceptible. They could see it. It was noticeable. And when they made that decision, when they made that decision, the decision to turn over the life wasn't very much. They had admitted that their lives were unmanageable. But the decision to turn over the will, the alcoholic will, that was the thing that had me in all of that trouble for all of those years and I never knew it.
I never knew that I was, what the book describes, an extreme example of self-will run riot. When they were able to make that decision, not only did they begin to enjoy a spiritual recovery, but they set down a spiritual way of life to which you and I are heir. They left that to us. And they were smart enough to know that it isn't enough to stop drinking and start praying. A lot of people have tried that.
It doesn't work. They knew that if they were to be successful, if they were to be sober, somehow they would have to change. And in order to effect this change in themselves, they began a searching and a fearless inventory of themselves. They could be searching because by now they were relatively clear. They could be fearless because they had made a decision to place their life into the care of this God of their understanding.
Imagine an alcoholic without fear. That's impossible. It embarrasses me to tell you that the ruling emotion of my life when I drank was fear. For all of those years, the boy professor and the great man was afraid. Most of the time. This program helps with that. So great was the love and the affection of these people, one for the other, that when they were finished writing that inventory, they were able to admit it to themselves, to this power that they had come to believe in.
And then they brought it, I think, as I did, to my sponsor. And I gave to him. And it was he who pointed out to me the exact nature of my wrongs. And he was the one who told me what it was necessary for me to hear. And he became the first person in my life who ever knew not only who I was, but what I was. And that was a great relief for me to go through that. It was a great relief for me to go through that.
And then they developed an attitude which was difficult for me. They became entirely ready to have God removed from them all of these defects of character.
[01:00:01]
And with compelling logic, they went to this great power that they had come to believe in. And they humbly asked that power to take from them their shortcomings and their defects. And it began to work for them. And it's worked for millions of people since. And if the one thing that must be agreed upon if the appreciation of Alcoholics Anonymous is ever written or thought of, the one thing upon which there must be unanimous opinion is that it works.
It really works. And of course, if anybody ever had any doubt of that, they'd need only come to Omaha and stand in the middle of this room on this evening and take one look and have one feel of the great vibrations that are coming to me from you. And they would all know without any further proof or evidence that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous works. Thank you. They knew too, these men and women, that they had not come here alone.
They knew that in their lives, as in mine, there was a certain amount of wreckage. And so they wrote a list of everyone they had ever harmed. And they became willing to make amends to everyone on the list. And they didn't talk about it. They went out and they did it. And if you remember in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, it tells us of Dr. Bob's first day. And he got home late from work and Bill asked him where he'd been.
And he said he had been driving around Akron, Ohio in his old Buick, mending fences. It's an old Vermont expression. He was making amends the very first day that he stopped drinking. And I don't think that we need wait so long in our program to do all the things that are expected of us. I think in my own case, it was best that I do everything right away and all at once. And the book tells us what we can expect if we are painstaking about this phase of our development.
We will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past or wish to shut the door upon it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will leave us. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us all of the things we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
They will always materialize if we work for them. And I am very pleased to report to you that each and every one of those promises has come into my life, wholly, solely, and simply because I am a member of this fellowship. And by this time… Thank you very much. By this time, these men and women were very sober people. And the book tells us that they had been restored to sanity. And they knew, as you know and I know, that what had been given to them was the most precious of gifts.
And in order to maintain that gift, they resolved that they would continue to take personal inventory. They knew they could not afford the luxury of a resentment. They knew they could not be resentful or hateful. They knew that if they were hateful, they would drink. And if they drank, they would die. It was simple with them. And so when they were wrong, they promptly admitted that they were wrong.
And so great and so true was their reliance upon this power greater than their own.
[01:05:05]
They resolved that they would improve their conscious contact with God. And they did that by prayer and by meditation. They meditated. They gave thought to their condition. They considered who they were and what they were. And they engaged in a very excellent form of meditation. It is the form of meditation in which you are now engaged. They listened. They listened. On the odd chance that this power that they had come to believe in would speak to them.
And this power that they had come to believe in did speak to them. In their groups. At their meetings. And they prayed, brothers. They prayed. And you certainly don't need a sermon from me on the value of prayer. When they prayed, they prayed only for knowledge of God's will for them. And the power to carry that out. I don't know how it was with you. But it always seemed to me, as I was young and growing, I always had this feeling that I did not belong.
I sensed that I was in the wrong family, in the wrong neighborhood, at the wrong time, in the wrong school. I always had that feeling that I really did not belong. And this was true even though I was a success. Even though I was a successful child. I had friends. I was good in school. I was fair at sports, nothing special. I was good at the work that I did. I moved in the circles I was supposed to move in, I guess.
But there was always something wrong. I always had that feeling it was here somewhere, it was in the middle somewhere, that I did not belong. It was an empty feeling. And there was a hole there. And the wind blew. And it made the days very long. And it made the nights very dark. And then I came to you. And you taught me to pray. And the 12 and 12 tells us in the chapter on prayer and meditation. And this is not a quote, but it's close.
It says that perhaps one of the greatest benefits that prayer brings to us. Is the great sense of belonging that comes to us. We are no longer lost or alone or frightened or purposeless. But despite all of the evidence in the world around us. We know that the real values in life are truth and justice and love. And that we understand that a great power watches over us. And that when we turn to him, all will be well with us here and hereafter.
And I am able as an experienced member of Alcoholics Anonymous to report to you. That that great sense of belonging has come to me. And when I tell you that my name is Ray O'Keefe and that I am an alcoholic. And a member of the Mamernic group. What I am really telling you is who I am. And what I am. And where I belong. And that's very important to me. To know where I belong. And it seems to me too that I belong here with you.
And that I know from my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. That this is where I am supposed to be now. It isn't enough that I am a member of my group. I belong to my group. I really belong to them. And I hope you belong to your group. Because that's what keeps us alive. A little while later these men and these women came upon a prayer they thought might help. And this time they prayed for themselves.
And the only thing they asked was peace of mind.
[01:10:01]
And so they asked God to grant them the serenity to accept the things they could not change. And they did change. Something happened to these men and to these women. Something has happened to me. Something happens to everyone who comes here. And puts this program into their lives. And puts their lives into this program. There was a great difference in these men and women. There was a great difference between being drunk and being sober.
There was a great conversion of their values. And a great substitution of their standards. And this difference in them. The difference between being drunk and being sober. They termed a spiritual awakening. And they had that spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. And these were the men and the women who in the beginning of this process had admitted that they were hopeless and helpless and powerless.
These were the ones who had no power. But having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. They found that they held in their hands and in their hearts and in our program one of the greatest sources of spiritual power that the world has ever seen. They actually had the power to arrest the disease of alcoholism. They actually had the power to save life. And the only thing they were using was that great power of example of one drunk for another.
And armed with that power and having had that kind of a spiritual awakening they began to carry the message to the alcoholics. And they did that so well that you and I have come together on a night in August of 1983 in the great city of Omaha in the state of Nebraska. And that my dear, dear brothers and sisters is a long, long way from Akron, Ohio. And they knew. They knew. They knew what my sponsor knew.
They knew what my pal Dick knows. They knew that there is so much more here besides not drinking. They knew that there was so much more to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous other than a simple device to keep me from drinking like a pig. They knew that what had been given to them was an entirely new way of living. They knew that and in order to enjoy that new way of life they resolved that they would practice principles in all their affairs.
And so where they had been, as I always was, very dishonest they tried not to be so dishonest. Where they had been, as I always was, very arrogant they tried not to be so arrogant. Happily for me and perhaps for us all they said we were not to be saints they said it is not a program of spiritual perfection it is a program of spiritual progress. And my sponsor has instructed me and so I believe that I can progress in the program if I don't drink and go to the meetings.
You really shouldn't encourage me. I could really keep you for the next weekend, only to tell you of all of the wonderful,
[01:15:03]
wonderful things that have happened in my life, solely and simply because I am a member of this fellowship. But I would not keep you that long. If you have a good wish for me, and I am sure that you do, please be assured that anything, anything at all that you might wish for me has already happened in my life. I have been now for the last many years a professor of law, and only this year was reappointed to the same faculties from which I was dismissed in 1963.
I only mention that because it is so recent that I start my first class there in two weeks, which will be about the time I'm finished speaking here. Lots of other things have happened in my life, all of which are good, and I won't catalog them for you. You know everything works out as it's supposed to do, and it always certainly has in my life. The most important thing I can tell you, which will give you a little idea of how I live now, is that I bring you the warm and the fraternal greetings of five of my children who are members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I don't know if that's a record, but that's a lot of distance. I am, as you suspect, one of the members of Alcoholics Anonymous who has the great honor and privilege, as does my friend John and Dottie, of traveling whenever we're asked to speak in Alcoholics Anonymous. It gives us the great opportunity to go around and be treated like first-class citizens. And it's fun. And everywhere I go, I say just about the same thing.
So if you've heard this before, you're hearing it again. I don't make any apologies for that. And I'd like to end, as I am doing now, by speaking to you of a pamphlet that is dear to me. In Alcoholics Anonymous, it is a member's view of Alcoholics Anonymous. And in that pamphlet, at the end, the author takes a biblical turn, and he reminds us of the time when John the Baptist was once again languishing in one of Herod's prisons.
And John sent two of his friends to inquire of his cousin Jesus as to whether or not he was the Messiah. And so these two men found the Lord, and they walked with him a while. And one day they stopped him, and they asked him the question. And they said to him, Are you the Messiah? Are you the one that we have been waiting for, or should we wait for another? And the Lord really didn't answer that question directly.
But he said to these two men, Go back to John and tell John only what you have seen and only what you have heard. Tell John that the blind see and the lame walk. Tell John that the deaf hear and the sick are made well. And tell John that the poor have the gospel brought to them. In my early training, I was told that the word poor in that context could mean poor in spirit. And we all know that the word gospel simply means good news.
And so my dear brothers and sisters here in Omaha, in happy Cornhusker Roundup assembled, if you will accept a report from me based upon my years in Alcoholics Anonymous, I will tell you only what I have seen and only what I have heard.
[01:20:05]
And based upon that observation, it seems to me that the blind do see and that the lame do walk. And I know that the deaf can hear. And most certainly the sick are made well. And I have seen over and over and over again through the longest day. And I know that the blind do see and that the sick are made well.