My name is Gene, and I, too, am an alcoholic. Hi, Gene. It was interesting counting up how many newcomers there are and how reluctant they are to, uh, get their name on the board. But I was thinking, you know, 20-odd newcomers at this meeting, I can remember, and I’m not trying to impress you with longevity, but I can remember when 20 people would’ve been called a roundup in AA, you know. So that’s, that’s a hell of a thing to see that many people. And, uh, I noticed my little friend Cathy over there wasn’t the last one this week. She made it, uh, you know, pretty good. And Curly down here at the end finally got up enough nerve to say it. Welcome, glad to have you here with us, you know. Get a haircut. You look like a bum.

You know, I mentioned at the first meeting here two weeks ago that, uh, I have had– always had trouble with education because I don’t have any education and, and that long words always confused me and multi-syllable words confused me, and that, uh, I have never been able to read intelligently, and I still can’t really read too well. Uh, so some people wondered, you know, how I, uh, became able to grasp the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I believe I told you, uh, then or some other place that, uh, I had to see the program Alcoholics Anonymous in action. Uh, the words really didn’t mean that much to me. The first time I read this book, I, I understood about twenty-five percent of it because anything that got past two or three syllables, you know, was very difficult for me, and, and I just didn’t know what it meant, and, uh, my ego didn’t permit me to, uh, run around asking questions because I was afraid you’d think I was dumb and ignorant.

So I stayed drunk for six years with that kind of an attitude. And then finally, you know, a-as I just said, I found myself in the company of men and women who, who walked like they talked. You know, there’s an old saying in our program, you know, that you can’t walk the walk until you’ve talked the talk, or you can’t talk the talk until you’ve walked the walk, you know. The words meant nothing to me. Uh, the actions did. It’s just, uh, as I was at a meeting this afternoon and, uh, we were talking about this and, uh, and I hope I don’t offend anybody here, and I certainly don’t offend Curly down there, you know. Everybody gets haircuts on Saturday, you know. But, uh, you know, I hear a lot of people getting up and saying, “Well, I’m a gra– My name is Jim, and I’m a grateful alcoholic,” you know. And a lot of people say, “Oh, I’m so grateful for AA,” and all that. You know, words don’t mean crap to me.