Good evening. I’m Sam, an alcoholic. Hi, Sam. And a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I hope the rest of you noticed those lights doing their thing there. I don’t mind it as long as everybody else sees it too. Worried about hallucinations my old age. Also smoked a lot of non-habit forming marijuana that I was addicted to. Yeah, I know. Maybe that was one of the dopers doing the lights there. Who knows? Cops in a meeting too? Good grief. I’d like to share with you some of my experience, strength, and scar tissue this evening. Get your own hope. And as usual, the story will be a little disjointed tonight. I have, uh, what somebody once called Catholic Alzheimer’s disease. Forget everything but the guilt. I went to a Catholic school for eight years, and I majored in guilt- .. with a minor in shame. I taught the nuns a lot of new words. They taught me about staying every night after school.

Took me two and a half years to learn to say, “Yes, ma’am,” and, “No, ma’am.” After that, I went in the opposite direction. I became an altar boy. I sang in the choir, and I was an example to the other little urchins in this 35-person class that I spent eight years with. I come from a family of alcoholics. Most of them drink. Those that don’t should, of course. Promised myself I’d never end up like those idiots. However, by the time I was 24, 25 years old, I’d overshot the field a little. I ran into my Aunt Bessie one day on the street, and I was pretty drunk, and she said to me, “You are the grand finale of son of a bitches in this family.” Well, I succeeded someplace. I, um, I got out of the Catholic school after eight years and went.. I started the ninth grade but never finished it. Then I went from there to a, um, reform school.

Then I got out of there, and I was a horny little kid loose on the streets by this time, 14, 15 years old, and I, uh, wanted to get out and dance with the ladies, and so I did. And I, I don’t know, something happened to me. I, I, I guess I must have been searching for my mother because I, I chased older women until there weren’t any anymore. I mean- So, um, I got put in the penitentiary when I was 18 years old because I was guilty of a few felonies that they had pictures. And so I got out of the penitentiary, and I had four years to do on parole. And I did not like it, and I started to drink, and I started to use drugs because I realized after I started that I was a fool. I should have started much earlier. I wasted all those good years when I could have been drinking.