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Source: DICOBE-00453 – Jim W – SOUTH DAKOTA FALL CONF – 1980-10-03.mp3 File: dicobe-00453-jim-w-south-dakota-fall-conf-1980-10-03.mp3 Duration: 01:11:58
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This is the 1980 South Dakota Fall AA Conference in the Rush Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota, October 3rd, 4th, and 5th of 1980. My name is Mabel, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm from Edgemont, South Dakota, and I'm very happy to be here. I can tell you the reason I'm happy to be here. I got a lot of old ideas started yesterday. My car went out, and I thought, I'm not sure how I'm going to get here today. Erwin said, be patient, it'll be ready.
I got up this morning, went to the beauty shop to have my hair done, so I look nice for all you people. I like to look nice these days. It was a time in my life that I didn't care. After returning from the beauty shop, the car wasn't ready, and all my old ideas started coming back, some of the words and thoughts and all those things that I used to do when I was drinking. Lo and behold, I found that I had to humble myself to drive the truck, rather than the comfort of a nice, air-conditioned car. Some more of my old ideas started going through my mind, and I got on my way.
On the way up, I was drinking coffee and spilled a cup of coffee down the front of my chest. I was beginning to wonder if this was to be, but I certainly am happy to be here. The closer I got to Rapid City, the better my mind became. I did some meditation and thought about my old ideas, and I thought, well, I will stop and see my daughter at the floral shop, who works there, and lo and behold, she said, wish them all a happy conference for me, and have a good time, Mother, and I have something for you.
She gave me this corsage, and thanked her for that. She didn't know that I was going to be wearing my pajamas, as she called them. She said, they match your pajamas very well, and I don't think that I'm underdressed, do you? I think it looks just fine. So, I'm very happy to be here, and I'm really on a high now, and I'm in love. I'm in love with my sobriety and AA, and I'm in love with these people that have appeared here on the stage that are going to share with you a message of some hope and serenity and some good words.
So, before we get into that, I will read how it works. Before we get into our speakers who are going to try to carry the message to we recovering alcoholics, I would just like to give you a little rundown of our AA groups in and around Edgemont, South Dakota. Edgemont is approximately 80-some miles south of Rapid City. When we moved down here six years ago, we moved to Edgemont. There was AA as such there at that time.
There was one member, bless his heart, he has since continued to choose experimentation, but he certainly tried to carry the message to the best of his ability. We attended those meetings. We went to Hot Springs, and one of the first people that I met in Hot Springs was Gretchen and Jim See. Jim will be speaking to carry his message a little later. Two beautiful people who had been in the AA program for several years. I looked up to them as elders of the AA program and respected them. They certainly carried a good message to myself and my husband, and we felt very fortunate to be able to meet their acquaintance.
Gretchen since has left. She passed away a couple years ago, sober, with the most humble and grateful sobriety that any person could have that I have ever seen. Jim was left with us to carry the message that we are very grateful for.
[00:05:10]
In Edgemont, God saw it fit through the AA program to grow, and we have been sent several people, and several have left. But those that stayed and found sobriety, happy, contented sobriety, are on this stage with us today. It warms my heart because in each one of these people, I myself personally have seen growth, and I have seen that AA does work, and it will work if the 12 steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous program are worked and practiced.
Also, we have the other two young people that were to be here. I'm a little concerned. I saw them ahead of me in Edgemont this morning. I'm just hoping that they didn't have some trouble or something. They had promised to be here. But one of our other young people who is here came into the program, and they started a group of their own for the youth and young people, although we mix and we share and we join, and that's the unity of AA.
The other lady that is here, Vivian, was with us in Edgemont, came into the program, and since has left and is doing a wonderful job in Hill City, but we consider her kind of one of ours, and she is one of ours. I think it's wonderful to be here in this theater. I think it's a beautiful theater. It makes me feel like a star, and I guess I am kind of. I feel like I'm one little star in this vast program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm very grateful for that.
We're going to try to carry a message to sober alcoholics today. What these people are going to say, I have no idea. It is whatever they say is what they feel. I'm going to ask Dave H. first, please, to give his sobriety message. Thank you, Mabel. I'm Dave, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm from Edgemont, as Mabel said, and when I was asked to speak up here, about the only meetings I know are like small town meetings in Edgemont, and they don't have a theater and a podium to speak at, and it's a little bit different, but I'll do the best I can.
Driving up here today, I felt my sobriety. I felt being grateful for the way I feel and the way I think today. It wasn't very long ago when I was actively drinking and getting high, and that's all I knew. I didn't know how to live without drugs, without alcohol, and life just didn't have a meaning for me at all, and I talked to some AA people a few years ago, and they gave me their message, and they carried the message, and they planted the seed, and it took a long time for it to grow.
I finally reached my bottom, and I had no place else to turn, and nobody told me what to do. They just said, we have something that you might want to try. You know, all you have to do is try it. If you don't like it, you can have all your misery back, which was pretty bad for me. So I tried it, and little by little, it started growing on me. I started liking what I felt. I didn't feel that blurriness of the thinking. I didn't feel the hell in the morning or at night, and I could think, and I can walk and talk now.
It feels good. I have a lot of choices now that I never had before. I was always before a someday person, a person I didn't like. Lived a lot in fantasy and not in much reality. I said, someday I'll do this. Someday I'll go to college. I was a person, I thought I was a better person than what I was. And like before, I'd say, goddammit, someday I'm going to go to college. And after a little bit of sobriety, I've changed that around. I'm not a someday person. I'll say, if it be thy will, I'll be going next fall.
[00:10:07]
I don't imagine things. I have plans, and I have goals, but it's not someday anymore. I'm working toward them. It's more of a reality than a fantasy to me. Fantasy was my whole life, and now it's a lot of reality. About the only feeling I have is that it feels good. It feels good to be alive. It feels good to carry the message, and just what a little story my is so far. It's a lot different than what it was before. It was walking down the road of hell and of death, and I was approaching there real fast.
And somewhere along the line, my higher power planted a seed of desire. A desire to get sober and clean and find out what I was missing for so long. So it took hold and it grew. And now instead of walking down that road to death and being a loser, I'm walking down the road of sobriety and finding out what life and love is. And I'm not a loser anymore. I'm a winner, and it feels good. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Were you nervous?
I'm always nervous. You won't be after you've been in the program a little longer. Next, Vivian with Bob. Is he here? Bob, are you here? Would you like to come up, please? Bob is the husband of Vivian, who we also had in Edgemont, and he just came, so I'm going to ask him to give his message at this time. Thank you, Bob. Well, I'm Bob, and I'm an alcoholic. I got down here a little bit late today. Job run a little bit later than usual, so I had to put her down here as quick as I could make her. I didn't have too much to get into specifics here today, except a few thoughts went through my mind on the way to work this morning.
I got looking back over the last year or so. I'm not going to go into my drunk-a-log, because I imagine we all got here the same way. But I think scripting has a lot to do with the way a person grows up. The only thing I can say is that where my alcoholism started, maybe not at the drinking standpoint, was that I was an only child and I was spoiled. If a person grows up in their formative years and they get everything they want, they're just as likely to latch on to any trip somebody wants to lay on them. I had a good upbringing, and I'm not saying I didn't.
But I came from a home where my religion was number one, my nationality, what have you. Everything was the best. I was a scripted bigot from the time I was a little kid, and it took me a long time to let go of that. And when I started drinking, it was a natural. I just had all the weaknesses built into a person that grows up with a bunch of hang-ups. And my drinking went on for a period of twenty-five years. And I think that if a person gets off to a bad start, the way their thinking goes, once they pull away, once they break the leash, that kid's going to start to slide and he's going to slide and he's going to slide.
And he's going to slide and he's going to stop until he hits the bottom. And that's what I did. Three years ago I had an opportunity to get some new ideas. I went through several treatment programs, and it wasn't until I went down to Denver and got hooked up with a treatment program down there that I started to turn my life around a little bit. I didn't recover right away from that one. It took me another year. But when I started realizing that people were just people and everybody was created by the same Maker and that we should all love one another and I should love my neighbor like myself and started treating people like I wanted to be treated, that's when my life started to turn around a little bit.
In the last year, nothing but good has come of it. The sobriety didn't bring all the money. The good has come of it. The sobriety didn't bring all the material rewards right away,
[00:15:02]
but it did bring sobriety, and I started feeling good. Last year, the job that I had strived for came to pass. I mean, the job got better. Lo and behold, I'd given up on it becoming any better than it was. I thought I'd reached as good as it could go, and last summer, right out of the blue, it got better yet. And this summer, as a result of that job, I latched on to another opportunity. I used to say, God, give me an opportunity to get out of this rut. I've got to do something better with my life. Lo and behold, a month ago or two months ago, I had another opportunity.
Now, I'm not going to go into details here. If you want to ask me later, I can give you some graphics, but I still wanted to do something else. And two weeks ago, another job came up that not only gave me rewards, money, it gave me a lot of pleasure to do, and it's got its rewards, too. So everything has continued to get better. I guarantee you, as sobriety is the start, it will get better. And I was driving to work this morning, and I thought, God, things are so good right now. I said, God, don't please don't let nothing happen to this. Well, there's the first step back, people, despair. If he gives it to you, he's not going to take it away from you as long as you share it with somebody else. And I believe, I believe that. As long as I share my good fortune and my happiness with other people, as long as I spread it around a little bit and give some of it away, I think I'm going to keep it, and I do believe that. And only one other little thing I have to tell you about. I'm not bringing religion into the alcohol program, but this is where we can kind of get away from our kids a little bit. And I didn't realize it until one day, one of my little boys came home this summer, and he said to me, guess what I did this afternoon, Dad? And I said, what? He said, well, I became a Christian. I said, what? Yeah, he said, I've become a Christian. I said, well, how'd you do that? And he said, well, we went down to this meeting with preachers in town this afternoon. I said, well, who is he? He said, well, we want you to come down with us tonight. So I went down. And I said, well, my God, kids, you've been brought up, I've been bringing you up in a good religious home, I thought.
I said, you mean you weren't Christians until today? He said, no, we weren't. So anyway, I went down, and here was this minister from Oklahoma. He was a Baptist revivalist minister of Southern Baptist Church. And I've learned in the last few years that every religion has something to offer. And we sat around, and there wasn't but a half a dozen couples there at this outdoor meeting, and this guy was preaching off the back of a flatbed truck and had a good little choral and musical group with him. And after they put on their talk, and he was a pretty powerful man, he said, would anybody like to come up and renew their commitment to God? I looked around, and nobody was moving. Not a soul got up.
And I said to the kids, I said, well, I said, we, I said, come on, let's go up there and do this. I said, because any time that God puts his hand out to you, no matter who it's through or in any shape or form, I said, you better grab on to it. So we did. And he had had this fellow up there giving a talk who had recovered from drugs and alcoholism. I don't know to this day whether he's with AA or not, but he did give a pretty inspiring speech himself. And we got to talking, and I, I said, well, I said, Alas, I said, you brought my kids closer to God this afternoon, and I appreciate that. And I said, it really inspires me how this other man that was here found his sobriety and everything with the help of God. I said, we all do it with the help of God. I said, but if you find one that takes more than God to help, I said, a little AA wouldn't hurt him either. And he said, Amen, brother, I agree with you a hundred percent. So not everybody is as narrow-minded as we think they are on the surface. But in closing, the only thing I'd like to say is that I'm here by the grace of God and the fellowship AA, which we have all around us today, and I'm just thankful and happy to be here. And thank you very much.
Thank you, Bob. Bob is one that we have seen become sober in this program, again, reinforcing our strength that we know it does work. We've seen it work through the principles of the AA program. Now I would like to ask Vivian, who is the wife of Bob, to share some of her experiences with you. Vivian? I'm Vivian and I'm an alcoholic. I'm from Heald City. I've
[00:20:07]
been in the program about three years now. It's a bonus in my life that alcohol brought to me. I'm really grateful to be an alcoholic. Coming in today, we were talking and every once in a while the thought crosses that maybe I'm not an alcoholic. Coming in today, I was talking to my friend and said something about how really grateful I was that I didn't have to drink anymore. It's a discovery that I made after I sobered up that I do not have to drink. And she made a remark that really hit. If I have to be grateful that I don't have to drink again, buddy, I'm an alcoholic. It was really great finding that out. It is through the fellowship that I call them discoveries. I think normal people know they don't have to drink. I didn't, I wasn't aware that I didn't have to drink. When I started, I had to drink. With the help and AA, my sponsor, the fellowship and all, I really feel great today. I'm very grateful to the program. It's just great. Mabel, I told Mabel that I was not going to talk today. She said she didn't know what anybody was going to talk about. My serenity went out the window when she called me up on stage. And that's all I've got. Thank you.
Thank you, Vivian. That's not quite the story. I asked her before and she said she was going to speak and it was just until we got here. Then she said Bob was coming. He'd be a little late. He was going to take her place and speak. And I said, well, you can't do that. You can't leave me now without talking. Besides that, Bob wasn't here yet. So that's how things work in AA. They do work out okay. And it wasn't, it didn't hurt, did it, Vivian? No. It's wonderful. Now, I would like to call on Jim C. He has always brought good messages to our meetings in Edgemont. He comes down from Hot Springs and we don't get over there as much as we'd like. But it just gives us a lot more strength and it just proves again that there is unity in the AA program. Jim, please.
Thank you, Mabel. Hi. I'm Happy Smiling Jimmy and I'm an alcoholic. Sober today by the grace of God and the help of AA. I'm going to talk about the physiology of alcoholism, the psychology of alcoholism, the etiology of alcoholism, but not today. I'm saving that one up until I know something about it. I can only tell a small, a very small part of my story. I was a drunkard for 35 years and I happened to think just recently, and we used to have a man in Chicago who said he didn't really have a drinking problem, he had a rent problem. He never could pay the rent. And I had a wife problem. I never could find a wife who could keep up with me or who could accept my drinking. And I kept changing wives because that's where the problem seemed to be. And I changed wives and I never found one that really worked out well. They kept throwing me out and divorcing me and they just didn't understand me. And I finally found one that really worked and she up and died on me.
Gretchen founded AA and Hot Springs in 1958 and she died sober. I've been out here 11 years. I moved out here from Chicago for elbow room and fresh air. When I came to Hot Springs there wasn't a group. There had been a group periodically and it had died out and started and it was pretty shaky. And today there are four meetings a week in Hot Springs, three meetings a week in Edgemont, I guess about five meetings a week in Custer, three or four meetings a week in Pine Ridge.
There are a lot of meetings around this area. In only 11 years this has all developed. It's
[00:25:06]
very gratifying to see AA growing. I was a low-bottom drunk. That's the kind of a drunk that loses everything every time. Goes back and starts from scratch and builds, puts something together again and then blows it. I don't know why but that's what I did. I lived on Skid Row in 1941 in Chicago. I was pretty near death when I came here. My sponsor said to me, you can achieve things beyond your wildest imagination in AA. I would like to think that every one of you out there, if you stick around long enough you may be able to grow a white beard. You know, I'm so tickled that I've been able to live long enough to grow a white beard. This is beyond anything I imagined. To even dream of staying sober a year was beyond my comprehension. I had never stayed sober a year since I was 14 years old. I made 11 months one time. I never made a year. So when I made my first year I kind of held my breath. I made the second one and I made the third one. You know, this thing began to look pretty good. It looked like it might become a permanent thing. And it has. It's become a permanent way of life on a 24-hour basis. And I could get drunk tomorrow. I can never get farther away than one drink from a drunk. And I learned my lesson well. I haven't had to go back to drinking since I came to my first AA meeting. And I think the reason was they told me what my problem was. My problem was the first drink. And they told me that if I didn't take the first drink I couldn't get drunk. This is simple. And it was at that time I was in pretty foggy shape. But this penetrated and I have been able to avoid taking that first drink. And how sober I am, how much I've grown. I'm trying to grow along emotional and spiritual lines. I'm studying the subject of love. I've got a lot of things ahead of me. On my 70th birthday I asked my higher power for a favor. I don't usually ask for anything. I asked him for another hundred years. This is not a laughing matter because two weeks after I made this request I read a story in the newspaper of a man in South America celebrating his 165th birthday and he was marrying his 23rd bride. So it is possible. I have 96 years to go. I'm looking forward to them eagerly. I think that the ingredient, from what I've seen, I've seen a lot of people in AA. I've attended a lot of meetings. And I think enthusiasm is the secret. You know, if I can generate 10% of the enthusiasm for this program that I had for drinking, it will be a lead pipe cinch. I'm really enthusiastic about sobriety. I'm enthusiastic about AA. And the greatest experiences of my life have been sober. And believe me, they were much greater, more gratifying, more thrilling, more exciting than anything that ever happened to me drunk. And I went all the way drunk. I went all the way down that road. And I really recommend a life of sobriety for adventure, for fun, for a real living. Thank you. Those are the rewards of being sober. You get to kiss the gray-haired, bearded men. Thank you, Jimmy. Jimmy is an asset, really, to our program around Edgemont and Hot Springs. He's had many, many, many 24 hours of sobriety. And he carries an excellent AA message. You know the story when Hutton talks, everybody listens. That's sort of what Jimmy does.
[00:30:24]
God sent them to us through the A.A. program into our group meetings and they have shared an awful lot with us. They have given us, or they have given me, a lot of the A.A. program. I hope that I have been able to give them something. They're a beautiful couple. We really enjoy them. When they came with us, they had a young baby, just a few months old. His name is Eric, and he has become a member of our A.A. group.
Since then, they have had a little girl. She too is a member of our group, and when they don't come with Mike and Joan, we miss them. We've watched them grow, as we've watched Joan and Mike grow in this program. They're a beautiful young couple, and I do think that they do have a message for us. I'm going to ask Mike first if he will say a few words on behalf of his sobriety. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mabel.
I'm Mike. I'm an alcoholic. I'm Mike. By the grace of God, I'm here today. It seems like I start out these days anymore, and I am not in such a big hurry as I used to be. I had thought and I had thought about what I was going to say when I came up here this afternoon, because all I can say is that my life is so much deeper and richer today than it was a few short months ago. I have found meaning in things I never realized there was meaning in.
I have some very beautiful members of my family that mean more to me now than I ever realized they could mean, and it's through this program that I've learned how to appreciate these things in life. I never dreamed that a year and a half ago I'd be standing on a stage in Rapid City speaking to people that I don't even know, but who share a common fellowship with me. It's something that I wouldn't change for anything in the world.
I'm really happy to be here and happy to have this chance to share my strength and hope, and I'm just glad to be here. Thank you. It's good to see you. Next, Joan, Mike's wife, who's a beautiful young girl, and we're very proud of her. My name is Joan, and I'm an alcoholic and an addict. I didn't think I'd ever be speaking in a place like this. I thought before I came up here that first they asked me to do this, and I didn't think I was going to because I didn't think I could even get up here on the stage, but I realized that you can do a lot of things when you're sober.
I don't like to think about how long I've been sober. I just try to take it for the day because sometimes I need to just take it for the hour or for even 15 minutes, and then other times it seems like it's just good. Anyway, I'm glad to be here and glad to be sober. Thank you. That's courage. These two young people have been in the program for a short time. This is their first appearance at an AA conference, and I hope they enjoy it, and I hope you all stop and say hello to them and wish them well, as Dave, who is a beautiful person.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to just say one thing.
[00:35:03]
We have up here on this stage between us close to 40 years of sobriety, and it goes from the youngest to the middle to our oldest, which only proves one more thing with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It has no hold on age, color, sex, religion, black, white, orange, yellow. It makes no difference. And it's beautiful to see the unity of AA work in this way, that we share a bond of strength and hope in the same problem, which is alcohol.
And by the grace of God and the miracles of AA, you see together here, and I wouldn't even venture to guess the number of people that are going to be at this convention with the total amount of sobriety that is going to be here in this Rabbit City Hall in the next three days. I wish to wish you all a very happy convention time, and I'm very happy that we were able to open up this three days of AA celebrating.
From here on in, there's going to be a lot of good messages, a lot of good sharing and caring. And my problem is not alcohol. Today, my thinking is sobriety. I have nothing without sobriety. I have lived the hell of alcohol. Twenty years of hell, and I am sober. I've had several 24 hours of sobriety. I have gained the wisdom to know the difference. I have the choice to drink, not drink. Today, I want to share my sobriety with all you beautiful people who have helped give me and helped me keep my sobriety with thinking sober.
So with that, we will close. And once again, I want to thank these beautiful people that I love dearly that have given so much to this program. So from now on, let's celebrate. God loves each one of you. If you will help me close with the Lord's Prayer, please. Thank you. 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, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. My husband Bill O. is taping all of these meetings. These tapes are available out at a table next to the registration table. The last speaker, I also didn't get to meet until this morning. I have talked to him over the telephone a number of times the past month.
I feel that he and I have about three things that I know of just from the short visits that we've had in common. We're both alcoholic. We both used to be policemen. He is the sponsor of my sponsor. Now, I don't know if that's good or bad, Jimmy. Would you welcome Jimmy W. from Denver? Would you welcome Jimmy W. from Denver? Hello, everybody. I'm Jim W., and I'm an alcoholic. You know, they always say it has to be a first time.
I'm 79 years old, and this is the first time I ever had a posy pinned on me. You know, I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad the committee
[00:40:02]
and my little old friend over there, the old fast stuff invited me here. But my story isn't like Arbutus. He's a real Finnish speaker. I'm going to tell you a little about things that happened to me. First, I'm going to tell you what I was like. I was a hell of a mess. I wanted you to know that. Our chairman told you that I was a police officer, and I was. Law enforcement was my career. And I worked on a skid row in the city of Denver, and you know, they say if you associate with people long enough, you become just like them.
When I first got married, I used to watch people, you know, before I got married. They'd drive around the neighborhood, and these young married couple would have their babies, and they'd have a hamburger fry in the backyard. And this is what I wanted, and I finally met the girl that I wanted to marry, and eventually we had a baby daughter, and we got a home, and we got everything we needed. And I wasn't such a bad guy, I don't think.
But you know, that booze entered into this picture. It was during Prohibition, and there's only a few people in this room who knows what I'm talking about when we talk about Rottgat. And it was terrible, but we drank it, and we couldn't hardly swallow it, and we'd say, Jesus Christ, that's good, as you were puking it up. And to me, I never did like the stuff, but the effect of it was great. And finally, it got pretty bad, this alcoholism.
I didn't know what was wrong with me. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know what it was. And I kept working, and my poor family got bewildered. I'd come home drunk, and there was something that I ate that made me like that, and I had promises. We all made them promises, I'll never do it again. And finally, it got to the point that booze was the first thing in my life. My position was second, and my family was third.
And this is the way we went for 20 long years. And how the hell my wife Clara ever stood it, I don't know. Anyhow, in 1945, it was a Sunday morning, and I'd been gone away from home for many a moon, and I laid in a joint on the skid row in the old arcade. A few people in the room know where it was. And there was a little Greek fellow running it. And how the hell he knew about AA, because I'd never heard the word AA.
And he went to the telephone, I presume, and called Alcoholics Anonymous. By the grace of God, there happened to be a man in that little club room. And he came down, and he took me out and sat me on the curb on that skid row, and he couldn't get through to me, and he went back in and called the police department and got my wife's telephone number. And she didn't want any part of me. And he finally conned her into letting him bring me home.
And he brought me home, and he cleaned me up, and he put me to bed, and he spent the rest of the afternoon telling my family what he was like, and what happened to him, what he was like then. And he spent the whole afternoon with them. And she wanted to know about AA. And he said, well, it was just one drunk talking to another drunk. And she said, hell, he's been talking to drunks for 20 years, and he never did them a bit of good.
But anyhow, it was kind of a deal for me, because I was a sick, real sick guy. And we had this little old club room. And this sponsor of mine, he never let loose of me. And he took me up there after I was able to go. And the first meeting I went to, there was only about 20 people in AA at that time in the city of Denver, and we never had a gadget like this. And I was sick and scared, and you know how you were.
And I was standing there, and a man said, any new members would you identify yourself? And I stood up, and he said, hey, fella, your zipper's open. And you know, that's enough to make a guy go out and get drunk all over again. But for a week or so, I hung around the little club. And I walked the floor. I presume a lot of you did, too. And I didn't know what in the hell it was all about. over there, and he said to me, why don't you sit down, why don't you try to accept this
[00:45:00]
thing, and I didn't know what the hell to accept, but anyhow, pretty soon a lady come in with another lady, and they went into a little office they had there, and he said to me, why don't you go in and talk to that lady in there, so I went in, and before I could open my mouth, she looked at me and she said, if you want what we have, you'll have to go to any lengths to get it, and I looked there and I said, I don't think there's either one of your tomatoes got anything I want, and as I left the room, my sponsor come into the hall and he wanted to know what in the hell was the matter, and I told him, and he said, you go in there and apologize, which I did, and that lady became my best friend, but you know, this program works in funny ways, and like I told you, we didn't have very many people, we had this little spot, we didn't have any literature, we had one big book, that's all we had, no money, but we had a lot of guts, I guess you'd call it.
We'd go out at night and take a police car and go down on a skid row and round up the drunks and bring them up to the club, and we'd convert them, and by God, you know, it worked. In 1951, Bill Wilson came to our town, and after he made all the high class joints, he wanted to know where the people had lost everything, where they'd gone, or where they could go, and we didn't have a place for the women or the men, and that night, when he made that assertion at the old Alano Club in Denver, we took up a collection and we got enough dough to start what we called the Industrial Group.
It was down on the skid row of Denver, and we had an affiliation with the Citizens' Mission, and that we could get these men five days room rent, or in a dormitory, as long as they tried to maintain their sobriety. Now these people weren't bums, they were people just like sitting out here in front of me. They were alcoholics, and they were sick, and they were scared, and they didn't know what to do, and them people were just like me.
But anyhow, we got this thing going, and we'd get these people, and we'd go down on Tuesday nights and Sunday nights and we'd talk to them. You know, it would be like talking to the living dead, no emotion of any kind, and the only crime them people had done, they got drunk. And we'd get a few of them people, the people that you showed any emotion, and we'd take them down to that club and we'd talk to them and give them a cup of coffee and a donut.
And you know, you'd be surprised and amazed at the number of people that got sober in that group. They were doctors, and ministers, and dentists, and attorneys, and like I told you, they weren't bums, they were just people that wanted a chance, they didn't want any charity, they wanted what we had, and we'd try to give it to them. But anyhow, Arbutus talked about the fellowship of A.A. and the fellowship of Al-Anon.
In the early days there was no such a thing as we had a woman's auxiliary, and we used to give them women to break our wives. They could come up to the club and we'd let them serve the refreshments, they could wash the dishes, and take the dish rags home and do all the dirty work that nobody else wanted to do. And you know, to me, I guess it was great for them, but you know, I accepted this program in its entirety.
I've never had to have a drink or a pill of any kind since July 9, 1945, and it works. And my wife and daughter, you know, we couldn't communicate. For years there we'd write notes to each other. We'd pass each other going to the bathroom, and we'd have to have the note and the daughter would be the communicator. And finally when we got into A.A., we finally were able to communicate. And you know, it's a funny thing how things are.
There we'd been married for 20 years. We had nothing in common. We were in love. I know we were in love with each other, but we couldn't converse with each other. So after I'd been in A.A. for a couple of years, she was very faithful. She'd go to meetings with me. She'd do all these things that people had to do. But she had a nervous breakdown, and I took her to the doctor and he gave her an electric shock.
And you know what he told me?
[00:50:00]
He told me, if you'd have went out and got drunk, that this would have never happened. And I thought to myself, the guy must be nuts. But she told him this, that every time that I left, that I got drunk and I had to get drunk. I must have been a little bit nuts. I always got drunk when I left home. I'd wake up in some of the damnedest places and she'd have to come and get me. I'd wake up in Kansas City.
I woke up in L.A. I woke up everywhere, but there was nothing wrong with me. I'd go to A.W.O.L. from the police department, and they allowed you five days to get back to duty. Well, I always heard people having amnesia. Well, when they found me, I wouldn't know who the hell I was or where I was. I'd come back, and finally I'd realize that I'd conned them enough, and I'd say, Jesus, yes, I'm so-and-so.
They put me in a psychopathic hospital one time. It was during the Dempsey-Tooney fight. They picked me up, and I hadn't shaved. I looked like Jim D. there this morning when I'd seen him. But anyhow, they put me in there, and I had two pints of whiskey in my socks. When I got in there, my dear wife said to him, give him a private room. I got in there just in time for dinner in the evening, and a big orderly pushed me in the bathroom.
He said, go in there and clean up, and come on out, and I'll take you in to eat. I had that liquor, and I looked up, and there was one of those round light refractors, and I crawled up on the bathtub and put the booze in there. I went in there to read, and they'd give you a big spoon, and that's all you had. I seen a guy I knew, and he's a great big tall fellow, about six foot tall. So we got together, and after the dinner hour, we went in the bathroom, and he put his foot against the bathtub, and his back against the door, and I retrieved that booze, and we drank it.
We didn't know what the hell to do with the bottle, so we disposed him in the lavatory, and we flushed it, and we had a flood. That was the first time I got in trouble in that hospital, and a lot of things happened. After three months, they asked my dear wife and the chief of police to get me out of there because I was bad for the morale of the rest of the patients. I got 86th out of a nut house. Before I go any further, I'd just like to say this.
A lot of great things have happened to me in AA, and the greatest thing that ever happened to me is when my wife Clara became my friend again. We've been married, or I've been sober, 35 years last July, and we were married 55 years the 17th of August. So any of you people out there who are doubters that this program don't work, it works, and it worked wonderfully for us. We've been very happy in AA.
We did the things that everybody should do. We became man and wife. We became pals. We made trips. I never took her on a vacation for 20 years. I'd go, but she never got to go. In this deal of AA, I think there's a partnership. Coming down to the state of Kansas in the early days of AA, they told us that we had to help them start groups. We didn't have a service legacy yet. We didn't get that until 1951.
We'd go down in little groups in Kansas or help them start it, have two members or three members or five members, and over on the western slope of Colorado and up in Wyoming and down in New Mexico. Every weekend we would go, and she never complained one damn time. She finally acquired skin cancer, and every Friday she'd have to go to the doctor and get those dry ice burns on that cancer. God damn, she never complained.
We'd go on down the highway and try to carry the message to other people. We'd go to them open meetings, and people were hungry for something, and we'd give it to them. At that time there were no detox centers, no units, no alcoholic units. If you couldn't get them in a hospital unless you had a guard with them. This is the damnedest thing. Like Barb Buder was talking about, the professionals, the doctors.
We know there's no cure for alcoholics. We know this. Alcoholism is a dreadful disease, and there's no cure for it. We can arrest it, but there's no cure for it.
[00:55:00]
And look at the people around you that you know definitely who wanted to stay sober in the worst way, but they didn't have the want to. It's a very simple thing in my book. There's A and B and C of AA, the first, second, and third step. If you keep it simple enough and follow directions, this thing is going to work. You know there's no power like the power of God. I too didn't believe in his God business until I came to AA.
This is what made me turn around. Joe Wilson told me one time in 1951 in the old Shirley Savoy Hotel in Denver, he said, when you get up in the morning, why don't you ask God for direction, and when you go to bed at night, thank him. He told me another little gimmick. He said in the morning when you get up, put God in your breast pocket, and that night put him under your pillow, and God will be with you all the time.
I'm not an orator. All I can tell you is what happened to me. I know I got into lots of trouble, and every time I got into trouble, booze caused it. When I was a young guy, about 31 years old, it was during probation time, I went up to my dentist to get my teeth cleaned. He was an alcoholic, and he shook like that, and he'd go at your mouth. The next day he said to me, Jimmy, I got a new can of alcohol, do you want a drink?
It was 180 proof alcohol. I said, sure. He sent down and got a couple of cokes, and we had a drink. The next day or two I woke up and I was at St. Luke's Hospital and a son of a gun pulled all my teeth out. My dear wife walked into that room. I wish I could have gone through the floor. You know, there are funny things that happen to us drunks. Another time, I don't know what the hell happened, I lost my service revolver, or somebody stole it or I hawked it or something.
I don't know. At least it was gone. So I didn't know what the hell to do. I didn't have any money, and Clara had no money. My daughter had a water pistol, you know, about so-and-so, looked just like a 38th police special. In them days, we wore Sam Brown belts. So I put the damn thing in my gun holster and went about my business. Here I protected the people in the city of Denver with that damn water pistol.
And, you know, one day we had an arms inspection and the captain came by, and here I come out. And of course, you know, we were very adept at lying, and I had to con him a little bit and everything was all right. But finally came the day that I got hurt real bad. And you know, they give you a year to get back to duty, and they kind of frowned on my drinking a little bit. And I did get back to duty, but it only lasted a few days, and then I had one of those mysterious, you know, amnesia deals.
And my doctor finally got me retired, and then is when my alcoholism really came to the fore. I retired in 1939. And you know, it's a funny thing how a man will think, or an alcoholic, I'd rather be with them people on that skid row than with my family. And if you've never been in a flophouse, or an alley, or under a bridge, you've got something to look forward to if you keep a-drinking. And I hope you never have to do it, because it isn't very nice.
And that livestock crawls all over you, and I'm talking about rats, and mice, and lice. And you get up in them flophouses and you're listening to them guys crying for their loved ones. You know, everybody likes to be loved. And it's a kind of a… And it's kind of a pitiful thing, listening to them grown men in their sleep, but all they want the next morning is to go hide again in a bottle. And I lived in them alleys, and I lived in them flop houses, and I had me a little, you know, condominium down in the yards.
[01:00:07]
I'd take lettuce crates and get myself a little house made, and I'd crawl in there in the daytime and come out at night. That has to be insanity, doesn't it? Restore me to sanity. My poor wife, she'd come looking for me, and she knew every joint on the skid row, and they all loved her, and they tried to help her. But I wasn't willing to be helped until that morning on July the 9th, 1945, when that stranger came into my life.
And he was a tough little guy, and God bless him. I know he's in the AA group in the sky. He has to be. And this is the guy that I have to think about and pray about, because he's the man that saved my life, my sanity, and my family, and everything that I ever knew that was good. You know, you live in those places down there, and you think about the loved ones that you left behind. I don't know how to express it, but you think you're tough, but you're not tough.
The little things that come in between you. This young little lady was talking a little while ago. My daughter didn't know what it was to have a father. She was graduating from the DU University when I came into AA. She didn't know what it was. There was no AA at that time. She just grew up by herself. Her mother had to be the father, the provider, and the whole damn thing. I never was home. I never went to a graduation of that kid, from kindergarten to first grade, from grammar school to junior high to college.
And when she graduated from college, I happened to be there, thanks to AA. You know, it isn't very nice to stand up here and tell you what a jerk you are, but I was. And I didn't want to be. I don't think there's such a thing. I don't think there's an alcoholic living that ever intended, really intended, to hurt anybody. At least I didn't. I've talked to many, many hundreds and hundreds of alcoholics, and they, too, never intended to hurt anybody.
But when we're talking about an illness, you take a person when he gets a skid row or a drunk falls down, and then people run along and they kick him off in the gutter. If you had tuberculosis and you fell down on that sidewalk, they'd call an ambulance. And you know, we have a worse disease than tuberculosis ever was. But this is the way it works. We need each other, and there's strength in numbers.
And believe me, if any of you people have any doubts about this program working, it works. Like I told Jim Dee, he's got the over-the-hill gang talking at this convention. You know, it's what I'm talking about, the real old people, the ones that came into this program and made it work for them. I can't, for the life of me, understand anymore why people are reluctant to sponsor anybody. The greatest thing that can happen to an alcoholic that's sober is to become a sponsor of some person that's just new.
It's great for both of them. The new person don't know what the hell he's missing, and neither does the older person. You can tell how a man is looking and working in this program by looking at his family. And that's the only thing, to help each other. If you've got a problem, you can sit down and talk it over, and nobody's going to violate your confidence. But right today, I think our viewers have mentioned it, we were talking about it today, some of us people.
You know that picture hanging on a wall in an A.A. club, where the two men are visiting the guy sitting on the edge of the bed? That don't happen anymore. They call, come in, and they'll try to get a hold of somebody to make a 12-step call, and lo and behold, they're too busy. They won't go. The other day I was with a coordinator, and he made 22 calls trying to get one person to make a 12-step call.
And everybody was too damn busy. So we went. It was out of our district, but we went. And this is the thing that amazes me. I asked a lady one time, she'd been sober quite a while.
[01:05:03]
She was on the commission of alcoholism in our state. And I watched her crawl up the stairs on her hands and knees when she came to A.A. And I asked her on Sunday, down at the old industrial group, the chair of Sunday meeting. She said, I'd love to, but I'm too busy. And I said, what do you got to do? She said, I have to cut my lawn. And I said, you old bag, if it hadn't been for A.A., you wouldn't have had a lawn to cut.
And I mean it. And there's a young guy here from Denver that I chose, or he chose me for a sponsor. I don't know, maybe it was the other way. But he can't understand. He goes on 12-step calls, and he can't understand why the people don't stay sober. You know, you're not keeping that guy sober. He's got to get sober himself. And this is the way it has to be. But anyhow, he works, he tries. And I love the guy like he was my own.
And he's here today. He got up this morning and drove. He laid off a $100 a day job to come up to this conference to be with you people. And he brought another old wino with him. And, you know, it was good to see him. There's another guy here from Wyoming. His name is Paul. And I seen him when he came in. He's a little old cowboy. You've seen him wandering around out here. He got so damn mad at me one time he could have killed me.
But he was bitching because somebody didn't listen to him and stay sober. You see, this is the whole thing. We can't keep anybody sober. We can sure as hell tell them how we did it. But I know that as far as I'm concerned, this program has worked the world over. And people that had lost everything have re-found themselves again. And to me, just watching them people is worth it. You know, in the early days when we was like I told you, we'd get them in a police car and take them up to that group.
And again, you wonder how God works. He works in mysterious ways. And these people were derelicts. And we'd just grab them and bring them up there and give them a cup of coffee and sit down and talk to them and they'd come back. And they were restored to the human race again. And I don't think, again I'll emphasize, there's such a thing as a hopeless alcoholic if his problem is alcohol. I don't know anything about pills or any kind of hypnotic drugs, but I do know about alcohol.
And I've handled thousands of them, I guess, when I was a police officer. And what we would do, they'd put them in jail. Where else could they put them? And then they'd get 30 days. I know people that spent two-thirds of their life in the county jail for the crime of being drunk. I've been places where guys, drunks, where you'd take them to sit on the steps of a hospital and they wouldn't come out and give them first aid.
And they'd die in somebody's arms. And this is the truth as I'm telling it to you. I've seen it with my own eyes. To me, we owe an obligation to somebody. In 1965 in Toronto, what was our theme? I'm responsible. I wonder where the hell our responsibility went to. I don't see very much of it anymore. I am responsible. And this is how we have to be. We have to be responsible. They tell us there's no cure.
A doctor can't cure you. And I tried that. I went to a psychiatrist. I went to a psychoanalyst. I went to everything a guy could go to. And you know what they told me? I drank too much. This is true. They told me I drank too much and charged you 25 bucks an hour. Now I think it's 100 bucks an hour. But anyhow, this is what they told me, and I went to many of them. And I'd sit down, and I went to priests, and I went to ministers.
And God bless them, they tried to help me, but they couldn't. Because there's one thing lacking. To want to. I didn't want to help myself. And when I came back to life again, through AA and the help of people just like you, this whole thing became a relative. You know, it isn't something that just happens.
[01:10:03]
This is something that you've got to want worse than you ever wanted anything in your whole cotton-picking life. And you've got to work at it. And you've got to work at it today. Right now. You know, you can't stay sober on last week's sobriety. You've got to do this each day. And you know, as well as I know, that yesterday was history and tomorrow's a mystery. And you're the only guy who can do this.
Nobody can do it for you. All you have is now. Right now. And it's been proven many, many, many times. And this is what I believe in. Living in the now. Well, I know it's getting late, and I'm going to keep my big match blouse shut, but I want to thank you again for allowing me to come here and be with you. And thanks to Art Budis for that wonderful talk you gave. And God bless each and every one of you.
Good night. Thank you very much, Jimmy. I'd just like to take a minute here to present our speakers with a little gift as a token of appreciation from the conference. I'm Earl Ginther, and I'm an alcoholic. And a drug addict. Let's stand and say the serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.