My name is Gene and I too am an alcoholic. Hi, Gene. And always when I- Drink, lots and lots and lots. Okay, wise guy. Sounds like the Rose Bowl. Whenever I identify myself as an alcoholic, I base that identification on how I interpret the definition of the word alcoholic, as it’s defined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, a book written by alcoholics for alcoholics. And in that book it says this: “We alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking.” And that’s all it says. Doesn’t make any reference to how much you drink, what you drink, where you drink, or what happened as a result of your drinking. It doesn’t say in order to be an alcoholic you gotta drink wine, live on skid row, spend weekends in drunk tanks, marry the same woman four or five times. Most of us do that when we’re sober. I certainly do appreciate this. I’d like to thank the committee for inviting me down here. It’s always a treat to come down to this part of the country.

For those of you who don’t know where I live, I, I live in what is popularly known in California as the wine country. That ought to make you feel good. The Napa Valley, if you don’t know where that is, if you’ve ever seen a TV program called Falcon Crest, that’s where I live. And believe it or not, we do have AA in the wine country, too. Not too good, but we have it, you know. I don’t really know, and I tell, I tell you this in all honesty, what I, I want to talk to you about tonight. It’s, I feel, uh, very mixed emotions here because, uh, first off, I’m envious of all of you. You’re so young. I remember when I was that young and, uh, I’d like to hit you all. And then I’m so happy to see you here because I came to Alcoholics Anonymous when I was 24 years old. But I certainly wasn’t any example of success in this program. I fought you tooth and nail for six years. It took me six years to reach my first year of sobriety.

And for any other reason than the fact that I’m probably too dumb to realize what they were trying to teach me, I failed to, I failed miserably at this program. Uh, having, uh, you know, no education has not been a, uh, an aid to me in sobriety. I come from the Lower East Side of New York City, and I was born and raised in what would be called a ghetto area, I guess, uh, nowadays. And, uh, education in my early life was a very difficult thing for me. Uh, I just, uh, I can’t even explain it, you know? You all went to school, most of you, at least to the sixth or seventh grade, some of you. And in the school that I went to, you know, in every class, there’s always three kinds of kids. There’s the smart kids, and there’s the average kids, and then in every class there’s a couple of dumbbells, you know? And I was the dumbbell in my class, you know? I was the guy that just couldn’t catch on to anything.