It’s a great pleasure that I introduce to you our next speaker, Dr. Hal. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I just want you all to know that you’re looking at a very sick man tonight. I am not well. I have what has been described as an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. My name is Hal, and I’m an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. You know, despite the fact.. This darn broken wing is giving me trouble. Despite the fact that I suffer from this form of social leprosy, I’m an untouchable. I have a chronic illness for which there is no cure. The interesting phenomena in this paradox of futility is, though, that I’m a hopeless, incurable alcoholic.

As of today, by the grace of God and through the fellowship of this wonderful program that we call ourselves Alcoholics Anonymous, that’s the way we identify ourselves, and with the help given to me by just thousands upon thousands of people, as of today, this hopeless, incurable, social leper, alcoholic, hasn’t had a drop of alcohol to drink in any form whatsoever in two days, two weeks, two months, and five years. That is as of 10:30 this morning, Central Standard Time. I have to date my sobriety in the Central Time Zone for a very obvious reason. I took what I hope and pray to God will be my last drink of beverage alcohol in the Lone Star State of Texas. It was about 10:30 in the morning on Saturday, July the 21st, 1956, in the city of Fort Worth.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, when I embraced the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, when those of you who were there to help me and those of you who came after me to help me with this philosophy, when we discussed these things like defects of character and shortcomings and what to do about them, I found out that many of these things I could do something about. Many of them, I was told I would have to simply turn over to a power greater than myself, frankly, whom I choose to call God, as I understand Him. Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is a program of honesty, so I am going to attempt to be honest to a point with you tonight. I am going to strip my soul here before you. I have a defect of character that I can’t do anything about. I have a shortcoming that even God, as I understand Him, can’t do anything about, and I’m going to expose this to you tonight. That defect of character, ladies and gentlemen, is that I am not a Texan.