Well, I’m not gonna go into, uh, any, uh, big line of talk tonight. We got too good a speaker from what I’ve heard. I’ve met him before, but I don’t think I ever heard him speak. We, uh, have Blackie from San Francisco. Blackie? We have to get a little room. My name is Bob Sitton or Blackie, whatever you wanna call me, and I’m an alcoholic. I didn’t get this way overnight. When I get up to make a talk or get into a discussion, I have to remember that I have paid my admission fee. I paid my dues in the twenty-five and a half years that I drank preceding Alcoholics Anonymous. I started when I was thirteen years old on Dale Red and Grappo. I celebrated my thirteenth birthday for three days and nights, and I couldn’t even take a drink of water for a week afterwards. The only thing I could do was sneak out to the milk house and get a big, cold jar of milk. I didn’t keep on drinking after that. I drank occasionally at school dances and different affairs.

And it seemed like that no matter when or where or what I drank, I couldn’t get enough. And, uh, needless to say, my folks weren’t very happy about it because whenever there was any kind of a party or something, somebody had to watch me. Very early in my young life, I started carrying a bottle. I went through high school. I was kicked out twice for bootlegging in high school. By the time I graduated from high school in 1933, I had a very serious drinking problem. I was young. I was very energetic. I was very active. I was a star in athletics in my school. I was the only man that represented Yuba City Union High School in the Northern California Conference at Chico. I was high point that man, man that day, and I won all the honors for the whole state for the school. When it come time to graduate, they found out that I didn’t have enough credits in mathematics. I hadn’t passed algebra in three years.

Several of the teachers got together, and for six or seven nights, they raked me over the coals. And three disinterested members of the faculty gave me a test, and I squeaked through with a D minus. That was so that I could appear at the assembly in the gymnasium when they passed out the diplomas, when the State Athletic Association presented the school with the trophies. That was the only reason. I don’t think there were very many people in that school by the time I had spent four years there that really loved me as a student. I caused too much trouble. After the graduation, I couldn’t get into the gym quick enough, the locker room, to take off my cap and gown and get out the back door. And my buddy and I laid down behind a big hedge and drank a, a quart, not a fifth, of Gordon’s gin while the reception was going on for all the students and all our projects that we’d made in school were exhibited in the school cafeteria. And they had a buffet, and some more medals were presented.