Part of the Northern California State Library about alcoholism that was recorded on September the twenty-fifth, nineteen eighty-one, at the sixth annual Tahoe Fall Festival of Alcoholics Anonymous, held at Fallen Leaf Lake, California. The principal speaker is Serenity Sam of Hawthorne, California. Please observe the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous, and do not play this recording for entertainment or commercial purposes. And please do not break the anonymity of the speaker or any AA member at any public level. Original record and this copy were both made by Bart Daniel of thirteen thirty-two San Inez Way, Sacramento, California, zip nine five eight one six. I’d like to introduce our main speaker for the night, Serenity Sam from Hawthorne. Good evening. I’m Sam, an alcoholic. Semi-retired asshole. Might as well tell it like it is. Get your camera ready. I’m about ready to wet my pants. As I was coming in here, two Al-Anons got me up against the wall and released me.

Gotta watch it I’m not near a door either. Oh, there’s a– I need a, a watch or a clock. Have you got one there, Flash? Do what? Oh, my God. We can’t hear you. Oh, my goodness. Raise up. Oh, my God. Better? You ready? Okay. Hit it. I think I’m glad to be here. I’m not sure. Caught the tail end of the riot today. But, uh, well, it made me feel at home. I come from a group where, uh, a lot of that goes on. W-we’re an extreme example of open-mindedness. We’re in riots. There, you better.. Well, listen, I’m used to worse than that. We have a group drunk in the Venice group where I sobered up, uh, and he’s drunk every week. All he knows is keep coming back. He’s caused a little bit of trouble there. We had a speaker come down there one night, and Brian’s standing out in the parking lot doing his number, you know, with a wine bottle, and the guy says, “Is this the Venice AA group?” And Brian says, “Yes, and I’m the secretary.” I may leave you with no hope tonight. I don’t own a watch.

I’ve been sober a long time. I, I had a watch when I came to AA, but- The only reason I still had it was because it had a minute hand on it. That’s all. Well, the, the kind of people I drank with, uh, we didn’t care what day it was, let alone what time it was. If somebody’d ask me what time it was, and I’d say, “Quarter after something,” because it, it didn’t matter. Uh, I don’t know how you people drank, but I did a lot of it. Uh, I did not mess around with it. I drank anything that was too thin to chew. I took any pill I could get my hands on, and I smoked as much non-habit forming weed as I could get, uh- And I promptly became addicted to that and a lot of other things. Uh, I’m of an addictive nature. I, uh, used to tell my sponsor that. Uh, I picked him for my sponsor. I didn’t realize that he had bullshit filters in his ears. So I’d tell him about all the things I did, and then I’d say, “You see, I’m of an addictive nature.” And he’d say, “I’m gonna tell you what you are.