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Source: Charlie M – Speaker Talk – 1961-06-10.mp3 File: charlie-m-speaker-talk-1961-06-10.mp3 Duration: 00:51:29
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Thank you. I think I can say good evening, friends. I've got a little competition in that $125,000 ball fair out on Diamond Glass. It's pretty rough. I'm just a two-bit ex-drunkard. But in case somebody here doesn't know me, my name is Carly Norton, and I am an alcoholic. Now, through those doors walk the finest people on the face of the earth. This hall is our sanctuary, our Shangri-La. There is no class distinction in here. Rich men, poor men, and all others come here for one purpose, that is, to get relief from alcoholism. Perhaps they've tried everything else, and AA seems to be the last hope. All we have is the power to build into another alcoholic a transmission line, the ability to talk the same language, and then our means, like these, of understanding people, or group therapy, as medicine calls it. We cannot make a man stay sober. But we do believe, by association with each other and following the principles of AA, an alcoholic will want to stay sober. I think there is a destiny that makes us brothers. None goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our very own. Now, God gave us two ears and one mouth so we could listen more and talk less. Some AA groups have a large sign in their hall, O Lord, teach me to keep my big mouth shut. But I can never do that when it comes to talking AA. I've been talking it for twenty years, and I'll keep talking until the day the bell rings.
I've never heard of anybody getting into AA by mistake, so I presume we're all here for one purpose. So let's get comfortable. If you have anything worrying you, put it under your chair. They say worry is like a rocking chair. It will give you something to do, but won't get you anywhere. And to the newcomer, I hope there's a brand new man here in the hall tonight, because that is the man I want to talk to. Let me say there comes a time when you have to think it out or drink it out. If you are an alcoholic, you have an incurable disease, which is a combination of an allergy of the body and a dispassion of the mind. It is the number three or four disease in this country, but there is hope.
So if you're the lowest man on the totem pole now, don't give up, because at one time each of us was the low man on the totem pole. And if we can stay sober, so can you. Now before I go too far, let me tell you, I'm one of these serious speakers. You're not going to hear a bunch of jokes, because to me this is a matter of life or death. We are not playing for marbles. Only the now is ours, so let's make the most of it. Only the now.
This week we're burying three of our members. The now is dawn for them. Now my story, or rather my entry in the A.A.A. would probably be better described by the story of the little frog that got caught in a rut in the road. He couldn't get out. And all of his friends and relatives came, and they yanked and pulled and yanked and pulled. They couldn't get him out. Night came and they went on home. Next morning one of them was out in the yard and they saw this little frog hopping around just as big as life. They said, how in the world did you get out of that rut? Oh, he says, a big truck came along and I had to get out.
And that's about the way that I came into A.A.A. I came out of the Navy in 1919. I went to work for a builder. This man turned out to be an alcoholic. He died at an early age. He built a lot of buildings over here in the plaza and all over Kansas City. But he was a money maker. We all made money under him. But our drinking increased, too, under him. He would have a shack on the job, and on the way home at night we'd all stop and have a drink or two and tell a story or two and go on home. And pretty soon it got to be a little larger crowd, a few more drinks, a few more stories, and getting home later and later. And so finally some nights we didn't get home
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at all. Well, later on I was lucky enough to buy his interest in the business out. But I don't blame it all on drinking, because we had a depression start in 1929. And in 1931 I woke up one morning broke. But I still had the luck with me. I grabbed a job with an insurance company, wrote all my creditors, told them I couldn't pay them. They said, well, you're stealing me. I didn't have anything. But I would pay them when I got the money.
By George, they believed me. So I grabbed this insurance company, and then I learned about drinking from insurance men. Oh boy, real estate men were sissy. I had to go down to the office at 6.30 or 6 o'clock in the morning to open the after-day's mail. By 8 they were coming in. Prohibition was on. Whiskey was hard to get if you didn't know somebody. So they knew me, and they knew I knew the right people. So we'd go out for a few drinks, and get back for a little while, and out for more drinks. And that went on day after day until 1934, when the company went broke and I lost my job. But I had a rain check on another real estate company, and I called the fella, and he said, come on over. And I went to work for him. He was a real man. One of the finest I ever met in my life. He was a heavy drinker, but he was not an alcohol. And he treated me like a brother.
But I wasn't doing any good. I remember once I was down in my favorite tavern, and I couldn't get sober, and I couldn't get drunk. Probably some of you have been that way. And I was disgusted with myself. And I called him up. I said, Larry, I'm down here in the plume, and I can't get in, and I can't get out. He says, I'll come get you. So he did. Took me down to the Rosedale Bathhouse. Well, that was quite a deal. They had me undressed, and they put me in a tub of hot something or other, and a tub of cold, and back to the hot, and go lay down on that rubber cot. Well, the cot was cold, and I said, give me a drink.
I can't lay there. You don't get any drinks in here. But just about then, old Joe Blow blew in. Oh, he was hiring free sheets in the wind. And I saw him speak over to a cot and put a pint under it. Soon as he got in the tub, I was over under that cot and got a pint. I drank the whole thing, and didn't have time to put the bottle back, so I put it under my cot. Well, Joe came back, and he reached under one side and under the other side, and says, who in the hell got my whiskey? Then he went around smelling noses, and of course, mine was the longest. Well, I lit out the front of the Rosedale Bathhouse, minus my clothes. They came flying out a couple minutes later. Well, I just calmly dressed there, took a cab, went back to the saloon, called Larry. I said, Larry, I'm back. Well, he said, how could you be back there so soon? I said, well, they threw me out. Well, he says, you'll just have to get sober on your own. I'm not going to do that anymore. Okay, I'll be around in a few days. Now, in this favorite tavern of mine, they had a room upstairs where they helped change clothes. Whenever I would get Popeye'd and out of control, they'd put me up there to sweep it off. That was called Room 13, and they'd always yell back, is Room 13 occupied? Nope. Well, we've got a customer. Then at night, they would measure the bottles. I think they had rats in that saloon, because I never drank so many different kinds of drinks in all my life, because the next morning when they measured the bottles, it seemed like all of them were down, and that went on my tab. Well, that's just one incident. Drinking kept on going, kept getting worse. I'd try drinking only beer, no drinking during business hours, and then only drinking on the weekends. It was awful in those days. And then along came my old friend, DeLorean Freeman. We had a third floor in our house, and when those things came along, I'd get to the third floor. And it wasn't long until Oscar, my pet snake, would come over the foot of the bed, and he'd sit there and go like this with me. He didn't frighten me, but he was so damn big. And then I would hear the music, the music of the angels. It was almost worth getting drunk to hear that music. Once in a while, I'd think about it. I'd never heard such music in all my life. Well, this went along with incident after incident. I remember one night down
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on Southwest Boulevard, I thought I wanted to go home. My car was uptown, and I went through an alley to take a short cut, and I woke up at sixteen. Walling up with a cop beating on the bottom of my shoes. He said, What are you doing here? I said, What do you think I'm doing? I'm sleeping. He said, Well, you can't sleep here with your feet out in the street. Somebody will run over you. I said, Well, I'm hunting for my car. So I found my car, and I went home. And the next morning, reading the paper, I saw where a man was shot and killed in that alley within five minutes of the time I went through there. Well, I didn't have a gun, so I knew I didn't shoot him, but I was pretty sure the police would be looking for me pretty soon. Never heard another word from him. We're pretty lucky.
You know, we're just lucky to be alive. Well, incident after incident, if you fellows who haven't been down to the bottom of the well, let me tell you, don't go down there. Don't go down there. You can see the bottom without getting there. We old-timers here are just hoping and praying that we can say something or do something that you will listen to, so that you don't have to go through all the hell we went through. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemies. It was just one thing after another. Remorse while the poor horsemen were nothing. That last one of despair was after me all the time. And I promised everything on every time. So good. So, finally in the fall of 1940, while I sold my ship, I'd been in for myself a couple years, I sold out the firm I'm with now. But it was too early. It was in October, and they didn't want me over there till the first of the year, so I had a couple of months of heavy drinking to do. And I did it. I drove a bunch down to Camp Leonard Wood. They were just building the camp, and they said jobs were plentiful, so they hired me, and I went down to the saloon and told them the next morning to be at the garage at 8 o'clock, and I was right on it. Well, I got to the garage about 9 o'clock, and the attendant said, boy, there's been a bunch of people waiting for you. Well, I'll be back in a minute. And I went down to the saloon, and there they were, half of them pot-eyed. So after a few drinks and taking a couple of courts along the river, we headed to Fort Leonard Wood. We got down there, had a friend there, and he got them all jobs.
I just kept on drinking. So in the last three days, they came around, and they said, uh, Charlie, we have filled your car with gasoline, and all the money we can raise is 30 cents. So that'll buy your lunch on the way home. You see, they bought me two beers and one hot dog. Well, when I got home, there wasn't anybody home. And by that time, I had accumulated one of the nicest ulcers you ever heard of. And it was gnawing at me, so I just kicked in the window and went in and called the drugstore and said, send me a pint and two ounces of Paragoric. This is my regular form. Drink the whiskey, then take the Paragoric to keep pain away. It was pretty good, so I ordered another one. Well, when I woke up, the doctor was there. He gave me a shot. He said, I want you to get sober, because I want to talk.
I said, all right, Doc. So in a couple more days, he came back, and he said, now, my boy, we're going to have it out. We can operate on that ulcer of yours, and you've got a 50-50 chance with that whiskey we can operate on, and you have less than a year to live. So get your books in order, and don't call me anymore. The next time you get drunk, call the undertaker. Well, it just scared the hell out of me. I stayed dry for two weeks. And along came Christmas and New Year, and off I went again. And when I started to work for two firms, boy, I could have walked under a snake with an umbrella. I was so low that morning, I just snook in. But I sobered up, and I stayed sober the whole month of January.
And in February, I began to sniff some of that stuff. In March, I was in full swing again. And along toward the end of March, his wife and I had been getting along beautifully. Hardly speaking to each other, but we had a few little chats. And two AA, one AA called on me, a little lawyer. I didn't know him. He came in, and he said,
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What papers? Well, I knew he didn't know what I was talking about, so I said, what do you want? He said, we got a letter about your drinking. Huh. I said, I don't have any trouble with my drinking, what's the matter with you? So, he explained that he was a wino, and he drank a glass of wine that made him sleepy, and when he woke up he took another glass, and so forth and so on. I said, how long does this go on? Well, he says, till I run out of money.
Well, I said, you're a darn fool, why don't you drink good whiskey? And I said, I don't want any of that stuff, so goodbye. Well, he gave me some literature, and I threw it in the wastebasket, but that wasn't the end of it. And about five minutes in came another bird, a fellow with whom I had been drunk many, many times, a very good friend of mine. I called him my sponsor. I said, Charlie, do you want to meet the finest bunch of people in the world?
I said, no, George, you don't mean that. Yeah, I said, George, you're crazy. I got less than six months to live, and you've lost two fortunes over whiskey. We can't quit drinking. Well, he says, I've quit. I said, well, let's go over to the saloon and have a drink. He said, I'll go with you. And he drank Coca-Cola. So while we were there, he said, did I ever ask you for a favor? I said, no, you never did.
I'm going to ask you for one. I want you to go to a meeting with me. Oh, I said, George, I'll tell you. I don't know what an alcoholic is. You want to call me a drunk, that's all right. This alcoholic business looks like a cover-up. Well, the short of it was I went to the meeting. There were eight of us there. I had been drunk with five of them. And I knew they passed that bottle before the evening was over.
But they didn't. Oh, the story is you think my story's bad. You should have heard the stories in those days. They were really weird. I think they used their imagination to the utmost. So when I came home, the little woman was sitting up. Well, what was it? I said, a bunch of drunks. They got a racket. I haven't got anything. They can't get anything out of me. But I did notice an undercurrent. I don't know what it was.
But I'm going back next Friday and find out. And I went back the next Friday. And I kept on going back. And our correspondence then was through a post office box. I think we still have the same number of post office boxes. And the mail was put on a table, and everybody grabbed some. So on the way home, I threw mine away. And some of those people wrote in the second or third time. And they began counting noses.
And again, my nose was the longest. And I remember Dr. Mason telling me, Charlie, if you don't call on other people, you're not going to stay focused. Well, I said, Doc, I've read the big book. I've memorized the text. That won't do it. Well, how right he was. Because on June the 10th was our annual real estate board picnic. And I always played baseball. And after the ball game, we had a big bucket of beer, bottled beer.
And I grabbed the bottle, and I lifted it. I said, boy, you're not supposed to drink that. Oh, one won't hurt me. Next morning at 7 o'clock, two AAs came and got me, brought me into the Victoria Hotel. And I stayed there for three days. But I was drunker afterwards than I was when I got there, because I had my favorite bootlegger bringing me booze. So they took me home. Oh, that was a wild welcome when I got home that time.
I went up into my daughter's bedroom, and I told the wife I should just leave the food outside. When I'm ready to come downstairs, I'll come down. And I stayed there for three days and four nights. Well, the first 24 hours, of course, I don't know what happened. The bed was going around so fast I couldn't keep up with it. But the second day, I began to sober. And the third day, I began to reminisce a little bit.
Maybe I'd better quit drinking a little. I'll quit for two weeks. I had heard the word on it. Yeah, I knew I was lying. Well, I'll quit for six months. You're still lying. I'll quit for a year. You're still lying. So I just quit making decisions there. That evening, when I was getting ready to retire, I went to the looking glass. Boy, I was a baby. I just had healthy eyes. And my eyeballs were hanging down my chest.
It was black. I was sick. And I went to the looking glass. And I said, God, you've got to help me.
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I think I've lost my job. And I think I've lost my home. And that's all I was thinking about. So, of course, you know the answer I got. Well, I went back to bed. Couldn't sleep. Back to the looking glass. Back to the bed. Somewhere in one of those trips to the looking glass, the man upstairs must have said, I believe he means it. Because I went to bed and went to sleep. And the next morning, my mind was just as clear as it is right now.
I've wanted to quit drinking more than anything else in the world. I got dressed and went downstairs. My wife was eating breakfast. And I said, Honey, how many times have I told you I was going to stop drinking? Well, she said, well, over a thousand. I wouldn't believe you on a sack of bites. Well, I said, I'm going to tell you once more. I'm going back to AA. And I don't think I'll ever take another drink.
Well, she says, I've got news for you. I'm going to leave you. I just made the biggest decision of my life. And there I was, getting booted out. Well, she left. And I went back to work. And I was fired. Now, firing a salesman on a commission is almost an impossibility. I had hired him. But I had a drawing account. And I had an ironclad contract for one year of $250 a month. And I had only used six months.
So I figured they owed me $1,500. And the boss says, yes, we'll give you a check. And what did I think of? Boy, I can stay drunk now for about 60 days. But I didn't like that being fired. So I asked him, I said, I'd like to come by your house Sunday and talk to you. All right. So I went by and talked to him. And I told him. And I said, Frank, I can go to work somewhere else. And I can use that money too.
But I don't want to be fired. I want to make you a good man. Well, he says, the board's decided already I can't change it. Oh, I said, you're the boss. Let's all just stop. Anyway, I put on the best sales talk of my life. And the outcome was that if I ever took another drink, I would never come in these offices again. And on the strength of that, he hired me back. And we cut out the drawing account.
We cancelled it. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. And all I was trying to do was make that 250 a month penny. So I went to the priest. And I said, Father, how long will it take for me to convince you that I've quit drinking? Well, he says, in about five years we'll begin to believe him. I said, well, let's make it ten years. Oh, I was big boy. I was going big. It was all right. So I went back to AA.
And I remember telling Doc Mason and others, I said, boy, I've got to have 12 steplers. I'm alone. And I can't stand four walls crowding me in. So for a solid year, I was out practically every night. I was living at the Desilvermans Hotel. And I'd come in at 6, 7, 8 o'clock in the morning with tears in my eyes. I can talk beautifully in a monotone. Just talk until I would sleep as quick as I'll get up.
Then sit there waiting for him to wake up. He wakes up like a wild tiger. Give me a drink. Well, you told me you wanted to quit. Oh, get out of here. I don't want any of that stuff. And there I sat all night with the guy that ran me out. But who stayed sober? I did. Well, in early 1941, after the Jack Alexander article came out in the Saturday Evening Post, there were three men in Kansas City who wrote to our foundation in New York seeking information about AA.
One was a doctor, Dr. Mason I mentioned. One an accountant who is now in Milwaukee. And one a druggist who has not made the program. These letters were given to one John Poole. He's now the chief traveling candy salesman out of Chicago. And John met them at the old Robert E. Lee Hotel. And explained AA to them, and this group started. The first meeting was at the Victoria Hotel. The owner of the Victoria, his son, was in AA.
Not here. I think in St. Louis. The second meeting was at the Pickwick Hotel. That was my first meeting. And we moved into a larger room in the Pickwick. And Johnny Poole kept hammering, You won't get anywhere until your wives get into this picture. But we didn't want our wives. In fact, remember, I didn't have a wife at the time. But I wouldn't want her down there at those drunks anyway.
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But some of them were. I'll never forget Vera Robinson, Susie Mason, and a few others that came there. And even then, we had trouble. Because we were not growing. In fact, at one time, we voted to disband the group. We were all in favor of disbanding, and our tongues were hanging out. And we were just about to vote when this said Harvey Littlefield, the accountant, said, Just a minute. I have never told my story here because I don't want to tell it.
But I'm going to tell it. And he did tell it, and it was a sinner. He said, Don't you see this is the only thing I have ever found that's helped me? I don't want to lose it. And I don't want to see you fellows lose it. Well, we never voted. Thank God we didn't. So we got our heads together and said, Well, what are we going to do? Well, we had to. The only way we got customers was to file them up to drunks in saloons or calling on relatives or fellows that we knew that drank, and they'd run us off.
So we went down to see Landon Leonard, and Landon wrote up an article, and he wouldn't put our post office box numbers in it. I said, Landon, you're going to be sorry, boy. So in came the letters, and his desk was piled high, and he says, Johnson, Judas, I've got to answer every one of those letters. Well, since that time, he's put our post office box. And I invited Landon out here tonight, but he couldn't make it.
And he says, My heart will be there, and any time you people want an article, you have it. He's been a great friend. Well, we grew from that time on. We moved many times. We were at the Union Hall, 114 West, 116 West Linden for one or two meetings. We were over at the Raffertellers, Boulevard Manor. Armored force, first down the basement, used to be a bar. We moved away and then moved back upstairs to the ballroom.
We were at 39th and Truth. We were at the New Bern Hotel. We were at the Lucerne Hotel. We were at the YMCA. And finally, we took a lease at 34th and Main. And tonight, I showed Robbie the signatures for the first three years on the lease. Every year, we had to put three new signatures on. And there we went to the Elk Club, the community church, and finally we lived here, the North Shangri-La. This is the first roster of this group.
There's 18 names on there. There's four of them dead that I know of. There's eight of them that made the program. Some of them were only there one or two meetings. We really had some damage in those days. There wasn't much left, but the Undertakers were some of them. These names I don't remember very well. Well, from this group has sprung many other groups. I don't know how many are around here now.
I know there's at least 15. But all we had to start with was the big book and the Jack Alexander article. Now, we were really a good two-stepping group. That was all. The first step and the twelfth step. We'd get them to admit, and we admitted, and we'd go work on other drugs. That was fine. And it kept us focused. But we forgot all about Mr. In-Between. But we hung together because we knew if we didn't, we would certainly all hang separately.
Well, when I was sober a year, it was hard to believe a year had gone by. It just seemed like it. It only seemed like a couple years ago before it's called on me. I was still doing everything rotten that I did when I was drinking, writing hot checks, cheating, lying, stealing, anything to get to the dream. So I couldn't figure how come I had a year of sobriety. So I tossed it over with some of the boys.
And we decided, as the man upstairs had given us a period of grace, that we'd better start doing something about the rest of the tip if we were going to maintain our sobriety. Our fears were well-rounded. All alcoholics seem to have terrible fears. I guess other people do, too. Fear of what happened yesterday. Fear of what might happen tomorrow. One sure cure for fear is prayer. Don't ever underestimate the power of prayer.
For in my humble opinion, faith is the higher faculty than reason. Think that over. Faith is the higher faculty than reason. You can reason things, but if you believe, things will happen that you never could reason. I'm thinking about that old… I'm thinking about that old story I've told so many times. I heard it in Chicago. Seems
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like a sponsor got himself a baby, and this baby had to pass his test saloon every day on the way to work, going and coming. And he told his sponsor, he said, I'm having an awful time. He said, my mouth just drools when I go by that saloon. And his sponsor said, well, why don't you try praying? So the bird thought he'd try. So here's what he figured out. He turned his prayer upstairs, and it went to St. Pete, and he turned it over to the recording angel. And the recording angel began looking in book after book for John Quincy Jones of Chicago, Illinois. He went through hundreds of books, and finally he found it. John Quincy Jones of Chicago, Illinois. He said, give him anything he wants.
He hasn't asked for anything for thirty years. Well, this same house he finally got around to the four steps taking his inventory, and after several weeks more of sobriety, he concluded it was worth it. He went to the mirror and took a good look at himself, and he said, boy, you're not near as bad as I thought you were. He had condensed his inventory into seven little words. Pride, avarice, envy, lust, anger, gluttony, and sloth, which you Christians will recognize as the seven deadly sins. He didn't have much of an inventory, In the fifth chapter of our big book, it says, Seldom have we seen anyone fail who has faithfully followed in our footsteps. If you are sincerely honest and ready to go to any extreme for your sobriety, then you are ready for our twelve steps. And in our first one, some of you can read them, we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. In my opinion, there are as many approaches to this program as there are members. We must remember we have nervous bodies and active minds, and we have the rest of our lives to work this program.
The spiritual life is not a therapy, we have to live it. We have peace priding anything or anybody, even alcohol. Our so-called willpower is non-existent. We are without defense against the first drink. Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics. This is the first step of recovery. The delusion that we are like other people may soon be, has to be smashed. We are like men who have lost their legs that never grow new ones.
In our second step, we came to believe that the power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And in the third step, we made the decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand it. In thinking about our day, we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, a thought, or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we've done this for a while. What used to be a hunch or occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of our minds. Now we come to the working step. Step four, we've made a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves. We're sober, but the question is, are we sober and happy? We might be for a while, but the time has come to enjoy life or enjoy it. We're going to take ourselves apart and lay the pieces out on the table.
This is a moral inventory, so we must look at the good points as well as the bad. What a feeling of really knowing ourselves comes over us upon completion of this step. In step five, we admitted to God through ourselves and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Confession is good for the soul. Some admit to themselves, they say God knows everything, and it's nobody else's business. But we have decided we are not planning for martyrdom, but life itself. So we make the steps.
In steps six and seven, we're entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character and humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. And I'm all right. In steps eight and nine, we made a list of persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
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And in nine, we made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except to do so would injure them or others. In step four, we made an inventory. Now in step ten, we continue to make an inventory, a daily inventory. And when we're wrong, we're going to promptly admit it. In beautiful step eleven, we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for him. Knowledge of his will for us is hard to carry without. We know what prayer is, and meditation is nothing more than mental prayer. I often think of a story, it's an old one, about the workman at noon that stopped in church every noon on his lunch hour. He's been there fifteen minutes to a half hour, and this fellow worker stopped in one of his guys. He stopped in church every day. What are you doing there? Oh, he says, I just sit there looking at God, and he looks back at me. That's meditation. And our final step, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of each step, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
I'm getting a little curious in here. I think I'll tell the story about the big fat colored woman that's going to the revival meeting. She was given an amen and praised the Lord and all the preachers saying he went in there, all kinds of tents of mayhem and murder down in the kitchen at Markham. And he finally got around to snuffing it, and she says, uh-oh, he's done gone from preaching now to meth. So, I think I'll take a drink of water now.
Now, as to this spiritual experience or awakening in our twelfth step, I've never had a bold lightning hit me, but I've had some experience. If you want an easy win and want it tonight, I can tell you how to get it. When we're saying the Our Father at the end of this meeting, you keep quiet for a minute, listen to the other, and you'll feel the arm of God around your pulse. I decided to go above and beyond. The other one was a little different. The only good grade I ever got in college was logic, and I always try to figure things out.
So, after talking to the boys at the end of my first year, I got the same. Many times during my drinking, I knew I was lost, and I'd stop and think, well, let's see, to whom can I turn? Well, I'll go to my friend. I went to my friend, and I said, do you think I'm drinking too much? Yeah, you're drinking too much. I'm going to quit. Use your willpower. If I use it, I'll come the next day again. So, again, I thought, but now, to whom can I turn? Well, I'll go to my relative. And I did. Well, he's a sober, come over for lunch Sunday. That's the quickest way to make an alcoholic mad I know of. It didn't work anyway, so I got drunk again. Let's see now. I'll go to the doctor. So, I went to the doctor, and I became a pigeon spawn. I took crystal shots in the arm, and I'd go for about two weeks, and then I'd get drunk. I'd go back and say, they don't work. You've got to try something else. So, they tried something else, and finally, after about six or eight weeks of that, they said, we give up. We can't do anything for you. So, then I got drunk easier.
Then I went to the priest. Take the plague. Well, I've taken more plagues than anybody in this room, and probably more, too. The last one I took was down at the procedural that's called the Broadway, and I run from there to the first balloon to get a drink. I had a buddy with me, and we'd been sitting at eighth and walnut, talking about splitting drinks. He said, let's go take the plague. I said, let's go. We wobbled over there, and the priest said, you're both drunk. Oh, no, we're not drunk. You're too much. Give us the plague. Well, he said, I'll do it, but I won't do any good. So, we ran to the balloon.
We lit back to eighth and walnut and kept on drinking. In the afternoon, I said, Mike, I thought we were going to quit drinking. We took the plague. Oh, he says, it don't begin until Monday. Well, I tried my friends. I tried my relatives. I tried the doctors. I tried the priests. Then AA came along, and we only worked the first and twelfth tests. They were not sufficient. So, we got busy working the in-between tests, two through
[00:40:02]
eleven, and then it dawned on me. To whom can I turn, O Lord, what be? Without the spiritual side of this program, we have nothing. Then was born the please and the thanks, as we say every day, and the AA prayer was given to us, and literature got thicker, and we learned to live. It was all beautiful, but how were we going to keep matters in hand? Then came the twelfth edition, showing us the way. Time does not permit me covering this edition tonight, but they are a very essential part of this program. November has been the month set aside for this edition, and I urge you all, if you don't have a copy of it yet, who is a member of AA? Anybody who says he is a member of AA? What are the rules? There are no rules. To whom do we go for help? To God, as we understand it.
That's all in the tradition. Well, now, let's look over some of our things. We say, we only say it's over twenty-four hours at a time. I never saw a drunk in my life that couldn't say it's over twenty-four hours. I remember one case when we were at an Uber in a hotel. I went out to see the fellow on Saturday afternoon. He agreed he could say it's over twenty-four hours. Well, we had dinner Sunday evening, and when I got there, there was a note in this cell. I say drive twenty-four hours. Goodbye. I never saw him again. But that's how we do it. We don't quit drinking for the rest of our lives.
For our lives, it would be ridiculous. It's too far away, yet we might be dead by morning. Who knows? And then the word honesty. Oh, how honest I used to be in the saloon. If you turned your back, you lost your change right now. But, we do learn to go to that looking glass and see the biggest liar in the world. If you want to meet him, you'll get home tonight, look at him in the looking glass. He's there. If you can't be honest with yourself, how in the world are you going to be honest with other people? You can kid us. We're used to it. We grow fat on it. You can take it. What good is our money to you if you stay so drunk? But just get honest once. One day. Honest. You'll like it. Tolerate it. You'll hear and see a great many things in A.A. that don't please you. But remember, A.A. was not intended to please you, but to help you. Anger and resentment are the number one killers. If you allow them to roam, they're going to throw you. They say speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Humility. Be what you are and just that. Tough I used to have it. I am what I am because I am. Now that doesn't mean that we can't do something. For instance, my friend Taylor Jackson. They play the organ beautifully. Dr. Tipton repairs broken bodies. I've heard Father Dowling and others, even Bill Wilson, talk beautiful songs. I can't play the organ. I can't repair a broken body. I can't even give a good speech. But I can certainly listen to those things, and I can certainly congratulate them on their ability. Because each man has been given something to do. Do what you can and do it well. Then old self-pity and selfishness.
Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well. Poor me. I'm one of seven kids in the family, and I'm the only alcoholic. Why? Well, again, my logic comes to the front. I could have cancer, diabetes, TB, or some of the other dreadfully incurable diseases. Nobody loves me. The world is out of depth. Well, have you ever stopped to think that the hospitals are full of people, the mental institutions are bulging at the seams, the jails and prisons are overflowing, but we're all here as free as the bird? Why? Oh, why do so many…
Why? Oh, why do so many alcoholics want their whiskey straight and their AA diluted?
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The road's not lonely except if you want it to be lonely. Give of yourself to others and enjoy the many benefits of AA. Let's look up. To get a letter, you must write a letter. To have friends, you must be a friend. By all means, keep up your enthusiasm. They say years wrinkle the skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Gratitude is the music of the heart. I never forget the story of the ten letters. Ten cured, one came back and said, I wonder how many alcoholics have taken this program, got on their feet, got on easy street, and then said to hell with it.
How many funerals I've been to over the last twenty years, I don't know, but some of them were sad and weak. Remember, you are a man, not a god. You are flesh and not an angel. How can you possibly expect to always remain in the same state of mind when the angels in heaven and the first man in paradise fail to do so? You will always be an alien in a world of sober people, so be careful how you live, because you might be the only Bible some people will ever read.
Sure, things will be rough at times, but the darkest hour has no more menace than the brightest. They say it's easier to fill the bed of a mountain's horn than to satisfy the heart of man. Live and let live. Yes, I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day. And if you must judge your fellow man, judge him not by the laws of the land, but by the kindness in your heart. Pray don't find fault with the man who limps or stumbles along the road, unless you have worn the same shoes he wears or struggled beneath his load.
There may be tacks in his shoes that hurt, so hidden away from view. For the burden he bears placed on your back might cause you to stumble too. And to our friend the Clipper. Many years ago I read in the Great Vine an article by Elgar Brown, Chicago. And he said, A humility turns the pointing finger of criticism inward. And if I can see myself without a side, as God himself must be, then I will have neither the urge nor the opportunity to heap in power on those who also don't appear.
I think there's some good in all of us, but we will only let it out. At least we can have good thought. A beautiful thought is a line written by angel hands upon the pages of the soul, and left to bear witness to keep the feelings. Always remember, no matter who you are or what you are, you are no better in the sight of the man upstairs than the next man, whoever or whatever he may be. If you are an alcoholic, you have something that is given to very few men.
If you have something that God has not given to mothers or fathers, to priests or preachers, to doctors or others, you have the power to talk to another alcoholic in his language. Right now somebody's shouting from high heaven, won't somebody help me? He hasn't found any. You might get the call tonight. Are you going to be too sleepy or say what I said? Let him find it. If you do, that man will die.
You might have died if somebody hadn't called on you. For your own life goes to him again and again and again. Very often we are asked, how many times should we call on the prospect? I'll tell you. For giving is living, the angel said. Go feed to the hungry. Sweep care of his bread. And must I keep giving again and again? Oh no, the angel said. His glance appeared to be true. Just keep giving until the master stops giving to you.
You can be ten feet tall if you want to. You can rest assured that if you've done your very best in AA and in helping others, when the time comes for you to stand and be counted before the masters, his words will be, well done, my true and faithful servant. I like to think of AA not as a quarter glass resort, but rather the beginning of a newer, fuller, and richer life, supported by a wealth of education from the college of experience.
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I like to think of this little hall as the little hall where God has done so much. Now, in closing, I want to draw you a picture of a big, wide road, extending as far as the eye can see. Down this road a man walks. He whistles, he toots, he tucks a flower, and on he walks looking for bushes and trees and up at the sun. He seems to be at perfect peace with the world. This man is an alcoholic who has found what all men seek to eat with wine.
He is noticing things he never had time for during his drinking career. As he walks there comes a cry from the wilderness, and off the road steps our friend, and back he comes with four worn trousers on his arms. And the two of them go down the road, and soon both of them are off, and back they come with two more, four foot tall and weary trousers. And on they walk until today there are over three hundred thousand of us walking down this big, wide road, all headed the same direction, all noticing the finer things of life, and all bending our ears for that cry in the wilderness.
Thank you. Thank you.