Good evening. I’m Sam, an alcoholic. Member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don’t want to tell you how to run your meeting, but are there any other alcoholics here tonight? Thank you. God. I’ve had a recurring nightmare of waking up in an Al-Anon meeting. Afraid it has finally happened. Uh, Sam gave me a list of twenty-three words I can’t use tonight. Here they are if you’d like to hear them. I feel pretty good. I picked up three dollars that fell off the money tree. And it’s a full moon. I don’t mind full moons. I get out– I, I’m still a sinner. I sin a lot, as a matter of fact. Every chance I get. At my age, I better do it, you know, while I still can. I spent two days this week coveting my neighbor’s wife. Why not? If you’re wondering about relationships, uh, do it. Do it. As soon as you’re able to get it up, get it on. Um.. Relationships don’t cause nearly as much trouble as discussion meetings. Because that’s usually what they discuss. Of course.

At least some of them I’ve been going to lately. I’ve– Goddammit. I live in Los Angeles, and, uh, there’s some strange groups there. They’re so far removed from A&A, I don’t know what the hell’s going on over there. Oh, I was raised in a primitive AA. I’ve been sober two years longer than God. And I’m an AA-theist. That’s somebody that doesn’t believe in Clancy. And that– I was raised in primitive AA in Venice, where the only requirement for membership was breathing. We didn’t have any traditions there. It was every man for himself. We’d pass the basket and go right out the back door. And our, our group wasn’t very large, and it was always poor. Nobody had any money i-in those days. And so we’d go to a rich group and pass our own basket. And steal literature. Our literature rack was a who’s who of AA groups in the beach area in Los Angeles. Anyway, how I got there, uh, rather tragic. Most AA stories are, really. Uh, uh, I’m into, into drama, uh, that sort of thing.

I did a lot of that. I’ve overacted quite a good deal in my sobriety, as a matter of fact. What was it she said? I can’t go on this way. I said that a month ago. Leave you with no hope. Or very little, maybe. Get your own hope. You don’t need many of mine. It’s, uh, I can tell you that I’ve survived. I’ve survived a lot of things. I survived a lot of it ’cause I’ve wanted to. But when I was drinking, I didn’t want to do much of anything except keep on drinking. I don’t know how you people drank, but I did a lot of it. I drank anything that had alcohol in it that was too thin to chew. That– ’cause it, it might work, and most of the time it did for me. And if it didn’t, then I’d switch to something else. I do not identify with people who specialize. They say, “Well, my drink was scotch,” or something. I understand. Should have gone on a little longer, I think. ‘Cause I also loved pills. I liked amphetamines. I bullshitted myself that they enhanced my intelligence.