Transcript

[00:00.7 – 00:02.7] My, uh, name is G. [00:02.7 – 00:06.3] Dewey Speeds, and the G in my name is anonymous. [00:06.3 – 00:12.0] Uh, I have been in this fellowship for quite a long time. [00:12.0 – 00:15.9] Before I go any further, I have a habit of walking away from this microphone. [00:15.9 – 00:18.0] If you can't hear me, don't hesitate to call me. [00:18.0 – 00:19.0] I'm not thin-skinned. [00:19.0 – 00:29.4] Uh, I've been around in this fellowship quite a long time, and, uh, in fact, uh, so long that, uh, a great many people refer to me a-as the old master. [00:29.4 – 00:34.6] I regret to tell you, however, that many of those people do not enunciate properly. [00:34.6 – 00:43.9] Although I have been a member of this fellowship a long time, this may come as somewhat a prize to you, surprise to you. [00:43.9 – 00:46.0] I am not an alcoholic. [00:46.0 – 00:56.8] And if there are any doubting Thomases in this audience who'd like to take me up on that, I suggest that you go back to the Massillon State Hospital at Massillon, Ohio, [00:56.8 – 01:06.9] and check the admittance records for 1934 and 1935, and you'll find my name there on two separate, on two separate occasions listed not [01:06.9 – 01:09.5] as an alcoholic, but as a chronic inebriate. [01:09.5 – 01:10.8] I like that so much better. [01:10.8 – 01:19.6] Before I became a member of this fellowship, I was able to talk on quite a wide variety of subjects. [01:19.6 – 01:25.7] By using the maximum amount of imagination and the minimum amount of truth, I had come up with some pretty good stories. [01:25.7 – 01:28.7] I could be anything I wanted to be. [01:28.7 – 01:33.6] If you wanted to talk professional football, I was the guy who used to stop New Jersey and Thorpe, those guys. [01:33.6 – 01:37.9] If you wanted to talk professional baseball, I, I fanned Babe Ruth and Ted Williams and those fellows. [01:37.9 – 01:38.4] Nothing to it. [01:38.4 – 01:41.6] If you wanted to talk big game hunting, I was there. [01:41.6 – 01:44.4] Or deep sea fishing, I was there. [01:44.4 – 01:48.2] And I'm sure I could have interested you in my personal experience in space travel. [01:48.2 – 01:56.1] Because long before the world ever heard of the Sputnik, I had been in orbit many, many times, and I never had to use a rocket to get there. [01:56.1 – 02:06.5] When I came into this fellowship, they insisted I must use the maximum amount of truth and the minimum amount of imagination, [02:06.5 – 02:12.0] so you're stuck with a very ordinary talk from an or- very ordinary drunk who doesn't know how to handle his liquor. [02:12.0 – 02:18.9] I didn't get started in my drinking career as early in life as some, but no one can say I didn't make the best of it once I got it going. [02:18.9 – 02:21.9] There were two reasons for my late start. [02:21.9 – 02:26.9] When I was about thirteen years old, my favorite uncle died of acute alcoholism. [02:26.9 – 02:30.8] He was not only my uncle, he was my pal, my friend, and I was heartbroken. [02:30.8 – 02:37.5] I still think about him, what a natural he would've been for AA, but there was no AA available to him at the time. [02:37.5 – 02:45.2] He tried everything he could, and he couldn't make it by himself, which makes me feel that I'll never be gr- half grateful enough for what AA has done for me. [02:45.2 – 02:54.3] The result of his early passing, I went through high school and finished my education, but scarcely knew what liquor tasted like. [02:54.3 – 03:00.2] Uh, now, there was another reason for my late start, and that was my own immediate family. [03:00.2 – 03:06.6] Uh, we had a law in the Speeds family, and it was just as rigid and just as permanent as any of the laws of the Medes or Persians. [03:06.6 – 03:09.6] When Sunday came, you went to church, period. [03:09.6 – 03:15.6] I remember my mother getting me up and dressed, and when I could hardly toddle around, ru- wrestled me off to Sunday school. [03:15.6 – 03:18.9] And as soon as I was housebroken, I had to stay for church. [03:18.9 – 03:23.3] That meant from the time I was about that high, it was two or three services on Sunday and during the week. [03:23.3 – 03:28.8] Why, they used to say of my father that he was a very ambitious Christian. [03:28.8 – 03:33.7] He wasn't fanatical, but he, they said he was everything but the pastor and the janitor. [03:33.7 – 03:38.0] And he was very generous with my time, especially the work to do around the church. [03:38.0 – 03:45.8] I could dust if, uh, if the janitor didn't show up, I could dust seats and I could shovel the snow, or I could run errands for the minister. [03:45.8 – 03:53.1] And a lot of things that I, that I could do in there when the rest of the fellows were out learning to throw, uh, throw forward passes or throw knuckle balls. [03:53.1 – 04:01.8] I was looking forward to the time when I could get out and graduate from high school and get away from home and start living the kind of life I wanted to live. [04:01.8 – 04:11.8] But before I got around to graduating, um, I, uh, happened to know a lot of nosy relatives and friends of the family, and they began [04:11.8 – 04:13.9] snooping around the family tree. [04:13.9 – 04:19.4] And they noticed there never had been a minister in the Speeds family before, and they decided there should be one, and I was it. [04:19.4 – 04:23.2] And everybody was wildly enthusiastic about this but me. [04:23.2 – 04:25.4] I rebelled as much as I could. [04:25.4 – 04:33.0] At that particular stage of my life, my dad was physically fit, used to having his own way, and even more important, he was bigger than I was. [04:33.0 – 04:36.3] So I went to the seminary for a year. [04:36.3 – 04:40.6] And when I got away from home, I had a chance to do the thinking for myself. [04:40.6 – 04:46.0] At the end of the first year, I was faced with the most serious problem of all my life. [04:46.0 – 04:51.1] I have always believed in God, and I've always believed in Jesus Christ 'cause I was brought up that way. [04:51.1 – 04:56.7] But I have never been able to quite swallow all the man-made theology they try to wrap around Christ's shoulders. [04:56.7 – 05:01.7] And I seriously doubt whether Christ would recognize some of it himself if he were to come back today. [05:01.7 – 05:09.7] Now, my problem was this: Shall I go on out to become a minister and go on out and preach things I don't believe and go to hell as a hypocrite? [05:09.7 – 05:13.6] Or shall I come right out and tell them and go to hell as a non-believer? [05:13.6 – 05:15.4] I thought the latter way was better. [05:15.4 – 05:22.3] So one day, I mustered up enough courage to go down to the big brass, and I told him that I didn't think I was cut out to be a minister. [05:22.3 – 05:25.2] And you know, much to my surprise, he agreed with me. [05:25.2 – 05:32.0] So I, uh, left seminary and went down to state and majored in metallurgy. [05:32.0 – 05:35.1] I don't know whether the clergy appreciates this or not. [05:35.1 – 05:40.1] When I walked away from that seminary, I gave the clergy the best damn break they ever had in their lives. [05:40.1 – 05:41.6] They may not appreciate it, but I know it. [05:41.6 – 05:47.0] I went on through school, scarcely knew what liquor was like. [05:47.0 – 05:49.6] See, there were too many kids in the Speeds family. [05:49.6 – 05:51.1] We're only about a year and a half apart. [05:51.1 – 05:52.9] A couple was in school at the same time. [05:52.9 – 05:54.0] The money wasn't very plentiful. [05:54.0 – 05:58.1] And I knew if I wanted an education, I couldn't, wouldn't be able to crawl around. [05:58.1 – 06:06.2] So I finished at school, and I, when I was through, I was able to get a job with one of the major steel companies as a research in, a research laboratory. [06:06.2 – 06:12.1] And I worked there for several years, and still no drinking to amount to anything. [06:12.1 – 06:15.2] But I fell in love with the steel business. [06:15.2 – 06:25.2] I knew that if I was going to amount to anything in the steel business, I would have to get down into the plant, learn how to melt steel, roll steel, and work with the fellas that ma- well, had their hands in [06:25.2 – 06:25.8] it all the time. [06:25.8 – 06:29.2] So I asked for a transfer, and they took me seriously. [06:29.2 – 06:33.5] They transferred me to the open-hearth department as a second helper on an open-hearth furnace. [06:33.5 – 06:38.9] Now, I don't know how many of you men here are familiar, in here, are familiar with steel mill practice. [06:38.9 – 06:45.5] But I can tell you this, regardless of what the Saturday Evening Post may say about it, there's damn little glamour to it. [06:45.5 – 06:53.0] You do your work with a six- with a sixteen-pound sledge, a crowbar, and a rule bar, and it's hot work, and it's damnably hard work. [06:53.0 – 06:56.8] But once you're bitten by that molten metal bug, you never quite get over it. [06:56.8 – 07:01.9] And I went down, and I was very happy to be in the steel plant with the men. [07:01.9 – 07:09.5] Now, they had a slogan down in this plant, that if you wanna make good l- if you wanna make good steel, you've got to learn to drink good whiskey. [07:09.5 – 07:12.8] And if you wanna sell steel, you've gotta learn to hold your whiskey. [07:12.8 – 07:20.5] Well, it seemed to me that all that stood between me and success was to find some tea- somebody could teach me how to drink properly. [07:20.5 – 07:21.8] And that wasn't any job at all. [07:21.8 – 07:24.5] There were a lot of ap- very good teachers down there. [07:24.5 – 07:26.1] Very– In fact, everybody was a teacher. [07:26.1 – 07:28.7] And I turned out to be a very apt student. [07:28.7 – 07:32.9] It wasn't long while I was bending my elbow with the best of them. [07:32.9 – 07:38.2] For the first ten years of my life down in the plant, everything was pretty much a bowl of cherries. [07:38.2 – 07:48.6] I was promoted over men that were older men than I was, and they didn't seem to object to it, and I think the reason was that I was a pretty good spender, and I was willing to drink with anybody, anytime, [07:48.6 – 07:49.3] anywhere. [07:49.3 – 07:53.3] So the first ten years was pretty much, uh, pretty much all right. [07:53.3 – 07:55.5] I went into the second decade of my drinking. [07:55.5 – 08:00.1] Still, still more promotions and more money, which eventually cost me my job. [08:00.1 – 08:06.5] The old man called me in one day and told me that due to the Depression, we're falling off orders. [08:06.5 – 08:10.1] They were, uh, they were going to have to abolish my department, and I no longer had a job. [08:10.1 – 08:13.7] Now, that was just a nice way of firing me without using those nasty words. [08:13.7 – 08:16.1] And I was pretty much upset. [08:16.1 – 08:18.1] I was jolted right down to the heels. [08:18.1 – 08:20.4] After all, I was a pretty big shot. [08:20.4 – 08:21.9] A pretty big cog in that wheel. [08:21.9 – 08:22.7] At least, I thought so. [08:22.7 – 08:30.7] And, uh, I was sore about it at first, and then I felt sorry for them because I couldn't understand how they hoped to run that big corporation without me. [08:30.7 – 08:34.0] But you know, somehow or other, they managed. [08:34.0 – 08:39.7] Uh, I saw their, um, their, their final balance for the past year not long ago. [08:39.7 – 08:44.1] And despite the fact I haven't been with them for a long time, they seem to have done pretty well. [08:44.1 – 08:46.9] I'm speaking of the Republic Steel Corporation. [08:46.9 – 08:53.6] Well, I made up my mind that I was going out, and I would get a better damn job than they ever thought of giving to a fella. [08:53.6 – 08:59.2] And with the luck of an alcoholic, about six weeks later, I was appointed liquidating manager of a bank. [08:59.2 – 09:07.9] Unfortunately for me, my interpretation of the word liquidating and their interpretation of the word liquidating didn't jive at all. [09:07.9 – 09:11.4] And about 12 months later, I'm out reading the help wanted ads again. [09:11.4 – 09:14.5] I lost a couple more jobs. [09:14.5 – 09:16.1] Things weren't going so good. [09:16.1 – 09:24.3] The Black Thursday of, of, uh, in October 1929, when the market crashed, I lost all the money I had. [09:24.3 – 09:32.5] I had made quite a considerable pile out of the markets when marg- margins were low and call money was cheap, and I did all right. [09:32.5 – 09:36.3] In fact, my income from the market was far more than my income from the plant. [09:36.3 – 09:38.3] That all went overnight. [09:38.3 – 09:45.4] And, uh, along with that went not only my, all the stock market, but my insurance money and everything along with it. [09:45.4 – 09:50.9] And on top of that, my, uh, wife divorced me and took two children away from me. [09:50.9 – 09:54.3] And then came the crowning blow of all. [09:54.3 – 09:55.9] My mother died. [09:55.9 – 10:00.9] Now, I've never been a, particularly a mother's boy, nor had she ever tried to dominate my life. [10:00.9 – 10:08.2] But I never once had gone to her to talk with her that I didn't feel, when I came away, that I didn't feel I was taking some help and some hope with me. [10:08.2 – 10:12.0] Now that she was gone, the world looked pretty black indeed. [10:12.0 – 10:15.0] And then, too, my, my drinking bothered me. [10:15.0 – 10:16.4] I couldn't understand. [10:16.4 – 10:18.1] I knew I wasn't drinking like the other fellas. [10:18.1 – 10:22.3] So one day, I drove out in the country to be by myself. [10:22.3 – 10:27.1] And I thought this thing all over and all over, and I came up with a very brilliant conclusion. [10:27.1 – 10:29.5] That it wasn't my fault that I was getting drunk. [10:29.5 – 10:32.5] It was the fault of these lousy bums I was running around with. [10:32.5 – 10:33.8] Those were the fellas that were getting drunk. [10:33.8 – 10:37.4] So why not start life all over again? [10:37.4 – 10:43.6] Go on out where the sky is clear and the air is fresh, pure, and grass is green. [10:43.6 – 10:46.8] Go out there and start your life all over again. [10:46.8 – 10:54.3] So for the next ten years, I roamed all over this country, east, west, north, and south, taking this wonderful ten-year geographical cure. [10:54.3 – 11:02.0] Now, the fallacy of that sort of a cure, as most of you know, if you're an alcoholic, you don't walk away from John Barleycorn. [11:02.0 – 11:04.1] John Barleycorn walks right in your shadow. [11:04.1 – 11:07.0] Walks right in your footsteps. [11:07.0 – 11:11.7] When you go out, all you have to do is let your guard down, and John's right there with you. [11:11.7 – 11:16.1] When I started on this geographical cure, I had a sort of plan in mind. [11:16.1 – 11:19.5] I was going out and get myself a new job, a new job. [11:19.5 – 11:20.8] Never had any trouble getting a job. [11:20.8 – 11:26.0] Uh, I'd start there, and for the first eight or ten weeks, I worked like the very devil. [11:26.0 – 11:31.0] And I attracted the attention of the bosses, and, uh, I behaved myself. [11:31.0 – 11:32.6] I didn't, uh, crawl around. [11:32.6 – 11:33.8] I didn't go out at night. [11:33.8 – 11:36.7] Stayed home so I was able to go to work the next morning. [11:36.7 – 11:45.1] But, you know, when you're young, you can't just exactly sit around the, uh, lobby of the YMCA reading the Ladies Home Journal every night of your life, you know. [11:45.1 – 11:52.7] There comes a time when you want to go out and find out what's going on in the town, and I never knew a place where you could find out any quicker than down at a little barroom. [11:52.7 – 11:56.6] I think people drink pretty much the same all the country over. [11:56.6 – 12:04.2] I found much, wasn't much difference between Boston and Detroit or Washington and Los Angeles or even San Francisco or Sacramento. [12:04.2 – 12:11.5] And, uh, if I know, I don't think I ever went into a town that I didn't, couldn't find somebody that knew somebody that I knew. [12:11.5 – 12:14.8] And pretty soon, I had the same company of drinking friends around I always had. [12:14.8 – 12:20.7] And then about the time they would be ready to promote me, I'd be off on a bender with my newly found friends. [12:20.7 – 12:24.5] When I came back, they'd fire me, and then I'd have to start this thing all over again. [12:24.5 – 12:32.4] It seemed to me that I always got drun- drunk at the wrong time, at the wrong place, in front of the wrong people. [12:32.4 – 12:42.5] When I was in, uh, I worked for, on, for Benjamin Fairless, the late pres- chairman of the board of the United States Steel Corporation, the biggest industrial job in the [12:42.5 – 12:42.8] world. [12:42.8 – 12:46.8] Ben was a very, very democratic fellow. [12:46.8 – 12:51.0] He used to come down to the laboratory and call me by my first name, and we'd talk about the touch. [12:51.0 – 12:53.6] But after all, he, at that time, was our general manager. [12:53.6 – 12:55.9] I wasn't running around with him, hobnobbing around. [12:55.9 – 12:57.0] He didn't say anything like it. [12:57.0 – 12:58.4] But he was Mr. [12:58.4 – 12:59.9] Fairless, and I'm just one of the help. [12:59.9 – 13:08.0] But one time, at a Christmas party, I felt very much on a par with Ben, and I decided I would call him and wish him a merry Christmas. [13:08.0 – 13:09.9] So I got him on the phone. [13:09.9 – 13:13.3] He was a little long, longer getting to the phone than he did ordinarily. [13:13.3 – 13:18.1] And when he did get to the phone, he was not quite as pleasant as he had been on former occasions. [13:18.1 – 13:20.5] Now, the hour of the morning might had something to do. [13:20.5 – 13:21.5] It was four o'clock. [13:21.5 – 13:23.7] And I said, "Mr. [13:23.7 – 13:32.6] Fairless, this is Dewey Speed, and I want to wish you a very merry Christmas." And he says, quiet for a long time, he said, "Well, Dewey, by God, you know, I think you're serious about that. [13:32.6 – 13:42.8] This is the third time since noon yesterday you called to tell me that." Well, my geographical cure came very, [13:42.8 – 13:48.2] but close one day on Christmas Day down east, down at the Valley Forge Hotel. [13:48.2 – 13:51.2] I was a periodic drinker, and I was on one of my good periods. [13:51.2 – 13:54.2] I had a very good job, nice place to live. [13:54.2 – 14:00.7] Christmas time came along, and all the other, other men had homes and families to go to, and poor Dewey didn't have it. [14:00.7 – 14:04.0] And I, oh, I could pity myself like nobody's business. [14:04.0 – 14:08.6] It never occurred to me that it was my own fault that I didn't have a home to go, go to. [14:08.6 – 14:13.4] So this particular morning, I went back in, down to the bar, and I got a hold of my friend, the bartender. [14:13.4 – 14:16.5] "Al, I want you to send up three fifths to my room." He can't do it. [14:16.5 – 14:21.9] He says, "Liquor, good liquor's hard to get." Well, I put on one of the best sales talks I ever put on in my whole life. [14:21.9 – 14:30.4] I told him that I'd spent a lot of money in that bar, and I was going to have a very important party up in my room, and I felt that I was entitled to that liquor. [14:30.4 – 14:32.4] And he broke down and sent it up. [14:32.4 – 14:37.4] Now, the only thing I didn't tell Al about the party was that I was the only one invited to the party. [14:37.4 – 14:40.7] And I'm not sure just what all went on that day. [14:40.7 – 14:49.2] I must have had a extreme case of tonillitis because when it came to paying my bill, when I finally got around to leaving the place, I had to borrow money to, to get out of the hotel. [14:49.2 – 14:58.2] This, I went up to my room and started drinking, and about four o'clock in the afternoon, the manager of the hotel knew I was in my room, called in and asked me how I was doing. [14:58.2 – 14:59.8] I had developed the hiccups. [14:59.8 – 15:03.1] They were so violent, they were affecting my heart, and I couldn't talk, couldn't answer him. [15:03.1 – 15:07.6] So he took a key and opened the door and took one look and ran for the doctor. [15:07.6 – 15:10.4] When the doc came, I was too ill to move. [15:10.4 – 15:15.3] So they shot something into me, and a couple hours later, they wrestled me off to a hospital. [15:15.3 – 15:20.8] A couple days later, when the fog lifted, I began to recognize what was going on. [15:20.8 – 15:23.3] And my doctor came in to see me. [15:23.3 – 15:29.7] He was a little short, s- square-shouldered fellow, so I thought a sort of a rarefied sense of humor, I thought. [15:29.7 – 15:35.8] And he sat down on the edge of the bed, and he told me that, flat out, that my drinking career had come to the crossroads. [15:35.8 – 15:46.2] "Now, you gotta make up your mind whether you want to drink and die or sober up and live." He said, "You're not really well acquainted around this little town here, are you?" "No, I'm not." [15:46.2 – 15:52.2] He says, "Well, we have a hell of a nice little graveyard out here at the edge of town." He says, "There's nice ivy growing up over the tombstones. [15:52.2 – 15:55.4] There's nice pine trees growing up there, beautiful pine trees. [15:55.4 – 16:00.9] And there's a lot of old revolutionary heroes buried out in that cemetery, and you're working for a re- reliable company. [16:00.9 – 16:05.1] If you want to drink and die, I think they'll bury you at no cost to yourself," and then he walked out. [16:05.1 – 16:08.3] Well, nobody ever talked to me like that before. [16:08.3 – 16:10.5] He really jolted me right down to my heels. [16:10.5 – 16:15.1] That guy really scared me, at least for 10 minutes anyway. [16:15.1 – 16:20.8] And then I figured, "Well, this old bugger's just trying to hand me the same old line, all the rest of them." But I wasn't too sure. [16:20.8 – 16:21.8] He sounded rather convincing. [16:21.8 – 16:24.3] So I called the nurse in. [16:24.3 – 16:26.4] She was an elderly person, and she said, "Well, Mr. [16:26.4 – 16:33.5] Speed, I don't believe that you realize how near you came to dying the other night when you come in here." So I knew she was telling the truth. [16:33.5 – 16:41.0] So as much as I like to drink, I like to live better, and you can do a lot of things when you see the old gentleman there with the scythe right in front of your face. [16:41.0 – 16:43.3] So I had this in mind. [16:43.3 – 16:46.9] I drank for 10 years very much like a gentleman. [16:46.9 – 16:57.5] Now, if I lay off the stuff, say, for a year, a year and a half, and give Mother Nature a chance to rebuild my system, or to put it a little more bluntly, to put a new lining in my stomach, [16:57.5 – 17:00.2] I couldn't understand why I couldn't continue to drink like a gentleman. [17:00.2 – 17:01.1] That's what I had in mind. [17:01.1 – 17:03.4] And I started out on that premise. [17:03.4 – 17:08.2] And I want to tell you, that was the most miserable period of my life, barring none. [17:08.2 – 17:09.9] I'd go out. [17:09.9 – 17:10.9] I was a salesman. [17:10.9 – 17:19.3] I'd go out in the club car on the train, and fellas would be sitting there with their drinks, talking, laughing, and I'm there sick and sitting, sucking a lousy bottle of ginger ale. [17:19.3 – 17:26.1] And they'd come up to me, and they'd want to know what the trouble was, and I'd have to tell them I had a nervous breakdown or an aftermath of the flu. [17:26.1 – 17:28.9] Uh, incidentally, flu was my favorite disease. [17:28.9 – 17:31.5] I had 17 different varieties, and I needed them too. [17:31.5 – 17:37.9] Then in the evening, when we'd come off the road and be in the hotel, the lights were low and the women were beautiful. [17:37.9 – 17:39.6] They're always beautiful when the lights are low. [17:39.6 – 17:42.7] There I am with my lousy bottle of ginger ale. [17:42.7 – 17:44.8] Jesus, it was, I tell you, it was terrible. [17:44.8 – 17:48.4] But I grit my teeth because I'm a bullheaded guy. [17:48.4 – 17:52.6] I figured I'll stick this thing out for a year, a year and a half, and then I'll show them how to drink. [17:52.6 – 17:58.8] Well, during all this period, I don't know how long this went on, but one morning I had a, I had a letter. [17:58.8 – 18:04.0] So it asked me how I would like to come out to New York and take a job in the export steel sales division. [18:04.0 – 18:09.0] Of all companies, Republic Steel Corporation, the company that fired me years before. [18:09.0 – 18:12.2] Well, I recognized this as a chance to kick back. [18:12.2 – 18:14.5] I promised myself I wouldn't drink on the job. [18:14.5 – 18:16.0] I'm gonna make a go of this thing. [18:16.0 – 18:23.2] I kept that promise for about three weeks, and then I began to rea- rationalize a little bit. [18:23.2 – 18:25.5] After all, my customers- [18:25.7 – 18:26.6] My bread and butter. [18:26.6 – 18:29.6] The other salesmen were buying their customers drinks. [18:29.6 – 18:38.4] And not that I wanted it for myself, you understand, but I didn't seem, it didn't seem to be quite fair that the other salesmen should be buying their customers drinks and I wasn't. [18:38.4 – 18:43.8] So, as I say, not because I wanted it myself, but because I wanted to be fair with my customers, so they had a drink. [18:43.8 – 18:48.1] That was a mistake to start with, because I soon began to get too many customers. [18:48.1 – 18:51.6] Now, that brings us up to 1939. [18:51.6 – 19:01.7] In 1939, in Akron, Ohio, in Hank Williams' home, there were a group of men, nameless as yet, and they were holding meetings once a week [19:01.7 – 19:07.8] under the auspices of the Oxford Group, which has been defined to me as a non-sectarian evangelical group. [19:07.8 – 19:14.7] And they were, these group later, or this group, and then later on, came to be known as the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. [19:14.7 – 19:24.7] There were 12 men coming down to those meetings at, at, at Akron once a week, and there was a rumor floating around that these 10 men were planning [19:24.7 – 19:29.0] to sever a connection with the Oxford Group and go to Cleveland and start a group of their own. [19:29.0 – 19:36.7] You see, there were certain aspects of the Oxford Group religion that were not satisfactory to some of the alcoholics. [19:36.7 – 19:42.2] To be very frank with you, there were some of the actions on the part of the alcoholic that wasn't quite satisfactory to the Oxford Group, too. [19:42.2 – 19:44.6] Nevertheless, Dr. [19:44.6 – 19:52.0] Bob knew about this, and he didn't object to it, but he didn't think the group as a whole was quite mature enough to start out on their own. [19:52.0 – 19:56.8] Nevertheless, these fellows, uh, started this group. [19:56.8 – 20:02.8] Now, back in New York, there were some rumors floating around our office that affected me a lot more personally. [20:02.8 – 20:04.8] And one morning it happened. [20:04.8 – 20:14.9] An old man called me in and told me that he thought I had a very brilliant drinking career ahead of me, and he thought it was a shame to have anything as prosaic as a job to mar that [20:14.9 – 20:16.0] brilliant drinking career. [20:16.0 – 20:24.5] And that he was going to arrange a separation for me from my company, that I might devote 95% of my ti- my time drinking instead of only 93. [20:24.5 – 20:26.7] And I'm out of a job again. [20:26.7 – 20:29.3] And I don't know what to do. [20:29.3 – 20:31.6] So, I did what a non-alcoholic does when he doesn't know what to do. [20:31.6 – 20:35.1] I went out and got drunk for six weeks, and then something happened. [20:35.1 – 20:43.0] I suppose in the life of everyone else, there's, comes times when some little thing happens, you may look back on it after years and call it incidental. [20:43.0 – 20:46.4] And I may have called this incidental at times, but I don't anymore. [20:46.4 – 20:51.7] I think this, something was happening that was answers probably to somebody's prayers for me. [20:51.7 – 21:01.8] Because six weeks after I'd been fired, job as export sales, I was in Cleveland, Ohio, district sales manager of an industrial chemical [21:01.8 – 21:02.2] company. [21:02.2 – 21:07.9] Now, I don't know anything about industrial chemicals, period, excepting as a layman. [21:07.9 – 21:10.2] So, here I am. [21:10.2 – 21:12.2] I didn't want to leave the East. [21:12.2 – 21:13.1] I wanted to stay in the East. [21:13.1 – 21:15.1] I'm in a city I didn't want to live in. [21:15.1 – 21:17.4] I'm on a job I don't know anything about. [21:17.4 – 21:20.0] I can't call that coincidental. [21:20.0 – 21:22.5] I started out on this job. [21:22.5 – 21:25.7] First place, I was able to get to a place to live. [21:25.7 – 21:32.0] It was a very wealthy lady in Lakewood, Ohio, who thought I was a perfect gentleman because she thought I did… [21:32.0 – 21:34.3] She wanted someone in the house that didn't drink, and I told her I didn't. [21:34.3 – 21:38.0] Now, I did miss some of the details, but, uh, anyway, she thought I was quite all right. [21:38.0 – 21:41.8] And this job started to pay off right away. [21:41.8 – 21:45.2] Not, uh, best paying, best job I ever had. [21:45.2 – 21:48.2] Everything cracked right, and I made big money from the start. [21:48.2 – 21:49.8] Now, I'm on the way back. [21:49.8 – 21:51.1] I've got the thing licked. [21:51.1 – 21:54.1] No more of this, no more of this petty foolish stuff. [21:54.1 – 21:56.9] I'll, I'll mind my business, and I'll make a go of this thing. [21:56.9 – 22:01.5] And I kept on working, and orders began coming in, and everything was going fine. [22:01.5 – 22:08.9] And then, maybe six weeks later, I started getting blue spells, disgusted and, and, uh, down in the mouth. [22:08.9 – 22:14.2] I thought, uh, my customers didn't appreciate me, my boss didn't appreciate me, and nobody did. [22:14.2 – 22:17.6] And that everybody was talking about me, and nobody liked me, and so on and so forth. [22:17.6 – 22:22.6] And nothing was further from the truth because I was getting along better now than I'd ever been in my life before. [22:22.6 – 22:29.4] Well, this got so bad that finally I had to go to the doctor, and doctor gave me a very thorough examination. [22:29.4 – 22:34.4] Much to my surprise, when he finished, he told me there was nothing organically wrong with me. [22:34.4 – 22:38.7] I had a little low blood pressure, and that's what caused these blues and despondent spells. [22:38.7 – 22:44.1] So he asked me flat, flat out, he says, "Do you drink, Spears?" "Oh, certainly not. [22:44.1 – 22:54.1] You know, the very idea." So I put, uh, he s- ma- he suggested that I go down to the liquor store and get a quart of good brandy, and that I should take one [22:54.1 – 22:56.5] drink a day, that's all, before my dinner. [22:56.5 – 22:58.4] Take a good drink and then put the bottle away and forget about it. [22:58.4 – 23:02.7] Well, you know, up to that time, I, I could take doctors or leave them. [23:02.7 – 23:05.9] I didn't have too much for them because they knew too much about me. [23:05.9 – 23:07.7] But here was a doctor I liked. [23:07.7 – 23:10.2] You know, he had a hell of a lot of good common sense, this guy. [23:10.2 – 23:14.8] A- and I burned the rubber off my heels getting down to that store and getting this bottle of brandy. [23:14.8 – 23:18.5] And I did what he told me to do for one week, religiously. [23:18.5 – 23:20.3] One drink before my dinner. [23:20.3 – 23:21.5] Of course, I didn't want to cheat myself. [23:21.5 – 23:25.9] My drink amount was about that much in a water glass. [23:25.9 – 23:36.0] By the time I was shaved up, freshened, this ki- was kicking around, the world began to look a little rose-tinted again. [23:36.0 – 23:38.9] I thought I had everything under the bridge. [23:38.9 – 23:42.0] Next week, I started fooling around with nightcaps. [23:42.0 – 23:48.4] I'd get in bed and get a book, and then I would get a, take a big slug of liquor, and then I'd just ooze off into sleep. [23:48.4 – 23:49.9] And that was wonderful for a couple of nights. [23:49.9 – 23:60.0] And finally one day, I met a fellow on the street, Danny, and he said, "How about a beer?" Well, you know, beer never hurt anybody, so we went [23:60.0 – 24:00.6] in and had a beer. [24:00.6 – 24:08.9] And we're in there, and he says, "How about a shot?" And, well, we'll make it a small one now because I've got this thing licked, and we're not going to get drunk, and I'm not going to spoil this. [24:08.9 – 24:14.6] So, we had a beer and a shot, and we had a shot and a beer, and then we had a beer and a shot. [24:14.6 – 24:23.7] And three weeks later, the old lady who thought I was a perfect gentleman was trying to get me out of that house, trying to find some way to get me out of there without calling the cops so she wouldn't be embarrassed. [24:23.7 – 24:29.1] And then something else happened that was a bit unusual, though I might have called it coincidental. [24:29.1 – 24:38.4] In the city of Cleveland, upwards of, say upwards of three-quarters of a million people, there were 12 men trying to find a way, uh, trying to start an AA group. [24:38.4 – 24:42.7] My aunt Lee didn't, wasn't, wasn't a drinking woman. [24:42.7 – 24:43.9] She's a very religious person. [24:43.9 – 24:46.3] But she had a brother who worked downtown in an office. [24:46.3 – 24:56.5] And this brother had a secretary who was engaged to a cousin of a brother-in-law of a sister-in-law way around the bush of one of these 12 fellas, these AA's, [24:56.5 – 24:57.4] who were trying to start a group. [24:57.4 – 25:00.0] And that's how I made my first contact with AA. [25:00.0 – 25:02.3] I remember just as well now as it happened yesterday. [25:02.3 – 25:04.1] This happened on Sunday. [25:04.1 – 25:10.0] I'd been in my room all day, stretched across the bed for the simple reason that I was too drunk to stand up. [25:10.0 – 25:12.4] But I wasn't alone in that room. [25:12.4 – 25:14.7] There was a miniature Sousa band in that room. [25:14.7 – 25:16.7] These fellas were about that high. [25:16.7 – 25:20.4] They had black beards and red uniforms and shiny instruments. [25:20.4 – 25:30.5] And they marched from underneath my bed, up over top of me, down the other side, around, around, around, around, around, playing The Stars and Stripes forever and ever and [25:30.5 – 25:31.5] ever and ever and ever. [25:31.5 – 25:36.9] And I want to tell you fellas, I have never heard that piece played like that before nor since. [25:36.9 – 25:40.1] And I hope to God I never do again. [25:40.1 – 25:45.3] Because after three or four hours of The Stars and Stripes forever, it begins to taste the keg, you know. [25:45.3 – 25:49.2] And they were still playing it when the knock came at the door. [25:49.2 – 25:52.9] And before I'd get the door to answer, in stepped the holy ruler himself, Mr. [25:52.9 – 25:53.5] AA. [25:53.5 – 25:55.1] I never heard the term before. [25:55.1 – 25:56.0] I didn't know what it was all about. [25:56.0 – 26:04.5] But he said that he understood I had a drinking problem, and, uh, he was from AA, and he would like to talk to me about it. [26:04.5 – 26:07.3] Well, he didn't mention that, uh, drinking being a problem. [26:07.3 – 26:08.7] I knew he was as far as I'm there. [26:08.7 – 26:14.4] I had a, a half a case of Ramada down on my bed, right down, right within hand of, into my arm. [26:14.4 – 26:20.7] And, uh, I told him, I said, "Now, when I want a drink, all I have to do is reach down and pick up a bottle. [26:20.7 – 26:25.0] It's no problem at all." He didn't last that one off a little bit. [26:25.0 – 26:32.4] And then in my wildest drunken imagination, I couldn't figure out what in the hell an automobile club had to do with cutting out drinking. [26:32.4 – 26:33.0] I told him so. [26:33.0 – 26:38.1] Well, he was a pretty patient guy, and he explained there was only two AA's in this one. [26:38.1 – 26:40.2] Then he started to talk. [26:40.2 – 26:42.0] And could he talk, and did he talk. [26:42.0 – 26:46.2] I think he was vaccinated with some kind of recording needle because he just kept on going. [26:46.2 – 26:52.4] And I was hoping he would stop because I was due for a drink, and I didn't want to drink in front of him because he sounded a little bit like a minister. [26:52.4 – 26:54.5] So I did the next thing, best thing. [26:54.5 – 26:55.3] I passed out. [26:55.3 – 27:02.3] And the next morning, I waken up in the sanatorium side of Cleveland, and the first horrible thing I heard about AA was this. [27:02.3 – 27:05.1] Out in the hall, two fellas were painting out there. [27:05.1 – 27:12.3] And one of them said, "In AA, it's total sobriety the rest of your life." Well, my chin dropped from there clear down to here. [27:12.3 – 27:13.7] The rest of my life, he said. [27:13.7 – 27:17.8] As soon as they left, I put on my robe, left slippers. [27:17.8 – 27:21.8] There was a payphone down the hall, about a half a mile down, or at least seemed that way that morning. [27:21.8 – 27:25.0] And I finally got down there, and I called this fella up who poured me in the night before. [27:25.0 – 27:32.7] And I said, "Now, look, I know I'm drinking too much, and I want to do something about it." But I said, "Hells bells, let's not go overboard with this thing. [27:32.7 – 27:38.5] What do you do on Christmas or on New Year's Eve or when you went back for the homecoming game or on your birthday? [27:38.5 – 27:43.6] You had to have a little whiskey once in a while." He says, "No, we don't drink." Well, I had a good God. [27:43.6 – 27:46.4] I, "Well, suppose maybe you could do it. [27:46.4 – 27:48.6] But, uh, what would be the point? [27:48.6 – 27:53.6] You might as well lay down and die if you couldn't have a little fun." And that was my attitude toward AA when I first heard about it. [27:53.6 – 27:59.8] When I was able to get out of the place, he came, my sponsor came around and asked me if I'd like to go to a meeting with him. [27:59.8 – 28:06.1] And I did, not because I had any idea of hooking up such a crackpot fellowship as this. [28:06.1 – 28:08.9] But I did it out of sheer courtesy to my sponsor. [28:08.9 – 28:11.4] He was a devil of a nice fella, and he probably saved my life. [28:11.4 – 28:15.5] So I went to, oh, probably half a dozen meetings by then. [28:15.5 – 28:21.5] And there, there were certain things about it that, uh, I conceded sounded all right. [28:21.5 – 28:23.2] That is, if you were an alcoholic. [28:23.2 – 28:25.9] Of course, I wasn't an alcoholic, so it didn't affect me. [28:25.9 – 28:30.5] Now, I have a story to tell, and my wife's pulling ears shut already. [28:30.5 – 28:32.4] I've only been telling this story for 29 years. [28:32.4 – 28:35.8] But if you've heard it before, please don't stop me. [28:35.8 – 28:37.0] I still like to tell it. [28:37.0 – 28:40.8] That, uh, this talk about not being, not affecting me. [28:40.8 – 28:45.2] Two soldiers up for their ch- physical examination for the stars. [28:45.2 – 28:54.0] Doctor noticed on the one cheek of one of the boys, there was a red rash in the form of a strawberry, size of a strawberry, and really red like a strawberry. [28:54.0 – 28:56.1] Doc asked him whether he'd gotten that in service. [28:56.1 – 29:01.2] He said, "No." He said, "About s- about three months before he was born, his mother was pregnant with him. [29:01.2 – 29:03.7] She developed an intense appetite for strawberries. [29:03.7 – 29:06.6] She ate strawberries, dreamed strawberries, and only slept strawberries. [29:06.6 – 29:09.9] And when he was born, that strawberry appeared on his cheek. [29:09.9 – 29:14.4] She had marked him." Well, the next chap came up for his examination. [29:14.4 – 29:21.7] Doc said, "Bill, what do you think of that fella's idea?" And this guy who had made a little sterner stuff, and he said, "Ah, this guy, he's nuts." He said, "Take my own case. [29:21.7 – 29:28.3] About three months before I was born, my mother went down to the city one afternoon and went into a music store. [29:28.3 – 29:29.3] She bought a book of records. [29:29.3 – 29:34.4] And as she was leaving the store, she slipped and fell on the icy sidewalk, and she broke every one of those records. [29:34.4 – 29:35.7] But it didn't affect me. [29:35.7 – 29:36.5] It didn't affect me. [29:36.5 – 29:37.1] It didn't affect me. [29:37.1 – 29:37.8] It didn't affect me. [29:37.8 – 29:44.9] It didn't affect me." Well, I was just as silly as that fellow was. [29:44.9 – 29:46.9] Here I had AA right in the palm of my hand. [29:46.9 – 29:49.8] The only thing that would lead me in to go with my drinking was the thought to the side, those didn't affect me. [29:49.8 – 29:52.3] I quit going to meetings. [29:52.3 – 29:58.0] Fortunately for me, about three weeks later, I put on a bender to end all benders. [29:58.0 – 30:01.3] I got a, a touch of one of my 17 varieties of flu. [30:01.3 – 30:02.8] I can't tell you which one it was. [30:02.8 – 30:06.3] But anyway, I went home, went to bed, and I started drinking in bed. [30:06.3 – 30:08.0] And I drank for nine days. [30:08.0 – 30:13.2] And at the end of the nine days, I thought I'd waken up one morning, and I was convinced that I was going to die. [30:13.2 – 30:14.1] I'd had it. [30:14.1 – 30:15.9] And I'm sure I was, I'm serious about that. [30:15.9 – 30:20.2] I couldn't keep anything on my stomach, and I was in terrible shape. [30:20.2 – 30:30.3] That morning, as I looked at the half-filled bottle, it occurred to me that I, at that particular phase in my life, I had a pretty much of an exaggerated opinion of my own [30:30.3 – 30:30.8] intelligence. [30:30.8 – 30:37.1] I might haven't had a little enough, little enough common sense to keep it to myself, but at least I thought I had more on the ball than anybody else. [30:37.1 – 30:40.7] But this morning, it occurred to me that I didn't have the brains of a dog. [30:40.7 – 30:50.0] Now, no self-respecting dog would pick at a poison bone time and time and time again, knowing exactly what it would do to him, and that's exactly what I was doing with this bottle of liquor. [30:50.0 – 30:52.1] I knew what would happen to me, and I kept at it. [30:52.1 – 31:02.3] That morning, as I looked at that half-full bottle, the thought occurred to me that all the real troubles in my life, I say real troubles, I could trace right down into the next glad bottle. [31:02.3 – 31:06.8] My domestic troubles, my financial troubles, my job trouble, trouble getting along with people. [31:06.8 – 31:08.3] Try it sometime. [31:08.3 – 31:10.9] When I wasn't drinking, I wasn't in trouble. [31:10.9 – 31:12.9] Or if I did get into trouble, I was able to face it. [31:12.9 – 31:16.5] And I was, I was, I was up against it. [31:16.5 – 31:18.3] I was going up against a stone wall. [31:18.3 – 31:20.2] I thought I had tried everything. [31:20.2 – 31:22.8] I tried AA, and I tried religion, so forth and so on. [31:22.8 – 31:32.8] And then a thought came to me that a fellow who I knew got into AA only recently, and he, I thought he was a worse drunk than I was, and he seemed to be [31:32.8 – 31:33.3] doing all right. [31:33.3 – 31:34.5] He seemed to be getting something out of this. [31:34.5 – 31:38.7] And it occurred to me that just possibly, I might have missed the boat. [31:38.7 – 31:40.7] Maybe these holy rollers had something. [31:40.7 – 31:46.5] So when I was able to get up and get out of bed on my own steam, I went back to that same friend. [31:46.5 – 31:47.1] I went to bed. [31:47.1 – 31:51.2] A couple days later, when my mind cleared up a bit, I went downstairs. [31:51.2 – 31:52.7] I got ahold of the fellow who ran the place. [31:52.7 – 32:00.8] I said, "Bill, I want you to come over here, and I want you to sit down with me and tell me from scratch all there is to know about AA." And he laughed at me. [32:00.8 – 32:02.4] He said, "You remember this meeting? [32:02.4 – 32:12.5] You were down here a couple of weeks ago, and you were telling us how to run it." You see, I had this in mind, that, uh, if they would get a pool of the fellas with some promotional [32:12.5 – 32:22.9] ideas, a little bit of writing ability, and they'd take a lot of this God stuff out of that book and rewrite the thing and adopt sort of a middle road policy. [32:22.9 – 32:23.3] Give the… [32:23.3 – 32:27.0] Don't be so rigid about it, and give the fellas a drink of a little beer once in a while. [32:27.0 – 32:29.9] Of course, not on meeting night or something like that, but once in a while they have a drink. [32:29.9 – 32:32.0] And you know, they didn't go for that with a fuss. [32:32.0 – 32:33.8] Said, "If they don't want to go for it, we're all right. [32:33.8 – 32:36.1] Let them run it themselves," and they did. [32:36.1 – 32:40.2] I thought I would quit and give them a chance to catch up with me, and they did that, too. [32:40.2 – 32:43.3] So I went into this thing again. [32:43.3 – 32:47.1] So, uh, Bill laughed at me, and he said, "You were out here. [32:47.1 – 32:47.5] You remember? [32:47.5 – 32:50.7] You were telling us how to run this thing." I said, "Bill, will you forget that? [32:50.7 – 32:55.4] I'd like to know this time." And I'll never forget how kind that fellow was. [32:55.4 – 33:01.0] After taking all my lip only a few weeks before, he sat down there in that very afternoon, and he told me about AA. [33:01.0 – 33:01.9] And this is what he said. [33:01.9 – 33:12.2] He said, "AA is a spiritual fellowship, and we believe that if we live in such a way as to deserve it, we can get spiritual help to control our drinking." [33:12.2 – 33:22.4] And he said, "Control, not cure." And then almost in the same breath, he pointed out that it was very important for me to go on out and help somebody else get, get, uh, control [33:22.4 – 33:23.2] of their drinking. [33:23.2 – 33:25.2] He laid out a little plan for me. [33:25.2 – 33:33.2] He suggested that every morning, before I left the house, that I would have a little prayer and a little meditation and ask God to stay sober that day. [33:33.2 – 33:37.6] And then at night, to express my gratitude in prayer. [33:37.6 – 33:40.8] Well, that was all right, excepting for one thing. [33:40.8 – 33:41.6] I couldn't pray. [33:41.6 – 33:46.8] You see, when I walked out of that sermon a year before, I turned my back on God. [33:46.8 – 33:52.4] I turned my back on all the good things my parents taught me, all the good things everybody else tried to teach me. [33:52.4 – 33:54.3] I lived my life for myself. [33:54.3 – 33:59.7] Now that I'd dug the hole right down to the bottom myself, I didn't have the guts to pray. [33:59.7 – 34:01.3] I thought it would be a sacrilege. [34:01.3 – 34:05.4] But I knew I had to do something because I was at the end of my rope. [34:05.4 – 34:08.7] So I came into AA on this basis. [34:08.7 – 34:09.6] I figured it out. [34:09.6 – 34:12.1] I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. [34:12.1 – 34:15.7] I was sure these fellas couldn't make a worse mess out of my life than I made out of it myself. [34:15.7 – 34:22.9] So I would go into AA for 30 days, and I would do what, whatever they told me to do, and mechanically if I had to. [34:22.9 – 34:29.5] If I had to walk around at night at midnight smoking a cigar, wearing a cheesy hat, I'd do that, too. [34:29.5 – 34:32.2] So I, I knew I had to do something. [34:32.2 – 34:37.1] So that was the basis that I came into AA. [34:37.1 – 34:39.8] Virtually dared them to sober me up. [34:39.8 – 34:42.9] I went to my first meeting on my own. [34:42.9 – 34:46.0] And I sat on my hands to keep from falling off the chair. [34:46.0 – 34:47.8] When the meeting was over, Dr. [34:47.8 – 34:48.9] Bob came over. [34:48.9 – 34:59.1] He said, "Well, what do you think of it?" I said, "Well, Doc, I, I feel like a kid going to school again." He said, "That's about what it amounts to." He said, "This is a, an, AA is an ed- is an, an educational [34:59.1 – 35:09.1] institution." He says, "There's no provisions made for the teacher to resign, no provisions made for the pupil to graduate." He said, "We are both the pupils and the teacher." [35:09.1 – 35:16.1] And he told me that night that it was just as important for me to pray as it was to preach and just as important to learn as it was to teach. [35:16.1 – 35:19.0] And he quoted me a little verse from Pope's Essay. [35:19.0 – 35:22.3] He said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing. [35:22.3 – 35:24.9] Drink deep or taste not of this Pierian spring. [35:24.9 – 35:33.9] For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking deeply sobers us again." Now, he said, "I want you to get on and stay with the fellas that know something about this program. [35:33.9 – 35:43.0] Stay with the fellas that are working at it, and learn all you can." Well, that wasn't as easy as it sounded because at that particular time, Bill and Doc were the only ones that really knew what the score was. [35:43.0 – 35:46.1] There were a hell of a lot of us in AA at that time who didn't even know there was a game on. [35:46.1 – 35:52.4] So I started going back to the meetings, and they were a terrible experience. [35:52.4 – 35:54.0] I was nervous. [35:54.0 – 35:55.3] I was sight of them. [35:55.3 – 35:58.5] I heard a lot of things I didn't agree with, things I didn't want to hear. [35:58.5 – 36:02.6] I still hear things, a lot of things in AA that I don't want to hear and that I don't agree with. [36:02.6 – 36:09.9] But I've learned since that I can put aside that which I don't want for temporary and for, keep it for further reference. [36:09.9 – 36:19.6] And, uh, I was scared to death when I suddenly realized one day how nearly and how close I came to damaging my brain permanently. [36:19.6 – 36:23.2] When I was in school, I had a phenomenal memory. [36:23.2 – 36:25.3] I could read and memorize as I went along. [36:25.3 – 36:26.2] I never took notes. [36:26.2 – 36:30.8] Now, I can't remember what I did yesterday afternoon or yesterday morning. [36:30.8 – 36:31.6] It was that close. [36:31.6 – 36:37.9] And this was a terrible thing to face up to, and this was, these were terrible days. [36:37.9 – 36:45.7] And while, uh, during this terrible period when it was touch and go whether I would be s- able to stick it out or not, these words came to help me. [36:45.7 – 36:48.6] They must have been back in my subconscious mind for a long time. [36:48.6 – 36:51.0] When I was a youngster, I used to pump- [36:51.6 – 36:53.9] for church, and I got a half a dollar a Sunday. [36:53.9 – 36:58.0] And I never paid any particular attention to what the minister said out there in front. [36:58.0 – 37:01.2] I was in the back of that screen trying to figure out what I could buy for 50 cents. [37:01.2 – 37:02.8] Kids could buy something for 50 cents then. [37:02.8 – 37:13.4] Well, one day he said, "When you pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' you should be sure your tablecloth's clean, and then you'll have a better chance of getting your daily bread." [37:13.4 – 37:19.0] And I knew then and there, I knew then and there why I never got help from prayer before. [37:19.0 – 37:20.9] Certainly, I prayed like a son of a gun. [37:20.9 – 37:24.2] I remember the first time I got in jail for drinking. [37:24.2 – 37:28.7] Oh, boy, I thought, "These are gonna be headlines in the paper." And I prayed that night, and I prayed and prayed. [37:28.7 – 37:38.7] See, I had in mind my Sunday school lesson I'd heard when I was a boy about the time when the early Christians were put in jail, and through their prayers and prayers of those outside, the bars dropped off [37:38.7 – 37:40.5] the jailers, and they walked out free men. [37:40.5 – 37:49.9] Well, I tell you, I never prayed a jai- a bar or a jail door in my life, and I had no faith in prayer because if I, somebody didn't come down with a $15 cost, I stayed there. [37:49.9 – 37:54.8] And I didn't, I, uh, when I peculiar mind. [37:54.8 – 37:58.7] When I got broke, I used to pray for a pocketbook with $60 in it. [37:58.7 – 38:01.1] Now, don't ask me why it wasn't 40 or 70 because I don't know. [38:01.1 – 38:04.7] I wanted $60, and I never found more than two bits in my life. [38:04.7 – 38:07.1] So that's why I had no faith in prayer. [38:07.1 – 38:17.2] When this, he said, those words came back to me, "When you pray, 'Give us, us this day our daily bread,' be sure your tablecloth is clean," I knew then and there [38:17.2 – 38:22.8] that if I was going to ex-expect God to help me with my sobriety, I'm gonna have to start up cleaning this tablecloth. [38:22.8 – 38:25.8] And I've been cleaning at it for 29 years. [38:25.8 – 38:30.0] And believe it or not, there's still spots on it, and it's probably just as well that there are. [38:30.0 – 38:36.6] If I'd been able to clean it quite a little white in 15 years, I doubt whether I would had, would had the incentive to keep on going with AA. [38:36.6 – 38:45.1] But as long as there are spots on that tablecloth, I'm going to be an active AA, as long as I'm physically and mentally able of, of doing so. [38:45.1 – 38:48.3] Doc left me that night. [38:48.3 – 38:50.1] He gave me one parting shot. [38:50.1 – 38:55.2] He said, "Now, look, one thing you'll remember is don't take your arithmetic… [38:55.2 – 38:56.0] Don't finish… [38:56.0 – 38:57.1] Start with your algebra. [38:57.1 – 39:07.1] Finish taking your arithmetic." And I interpreted that to mean, I said, "But first things first." So I started out on that basis, doing everything people told me to do. [39:07.1 – 39:09.3] I was in such a position, I had no choice. [39:09.3 – 39:10.2] I had to accept. [39:10.2 – 39:20.2] So they went on, and I heard thing, one of the things that annoyed me a great deal was that everybody in the place started telling me I must work [39:20.2 – 39:20.9] the program. [39:20.9 – 39:22.5] But nobody told me how. [39:22.5 – 39:29.2] They, um, well, first meeting I went to, one fellow got up and told me how much liquor he drank while he was, before he came into the AA. [39:29.2 – 39:33.2] Another meeting, a man told me what a good job he had gotten through AA. [39:33.2 – 39:38.7] Another one told me, uh, how many jails he'd been in, so forth. [39:38.7 – 39:43.8] And about the fourth night, I got up, and I said, "Look," I said, "if you're gonna tell stories, let me in on it. [39:43.8 – 39:54.0] I can tell you some pretty good ones myself." "But I want to know how to work the program." Well, I didn't know at the time, but I, I was a member of the stuffed-shirt group, and the beginners were not supposed to talk [39:54.0 – 39:56.7] for the first three to four months, six months, I believe it was. [39:56.7 – 40:00.7] So I guess they decided they would put the quietus on me and put me in my place. [40:00.7 – 40:05.0] Because the next Sunday morning, at 6 o'clock in the morning, I got a telephone call. [40:05.0 – 40:05.7] It was zero weather. [40:05.7 – 40:07.0] The blizzard was going on outside. [40:07.0 – 40:16.6] And some fellow had some hillbilly who had been drinking since he was 13 years old, one that had suddenly decided to quit drinking, lived in New York. [40:16.6 – 40:21.2] And the calls were re- uh, returned back, and I got the call. [40:21.2 – 40:24.5] And, uh, incidentally, that was only one of the first. [40:24.5 – 40:28.4] Whenever they had a man that was too tough that nobody wanted to bother with, I got the call. [40:28.4 – 40:29.9] They were going to quiet me down. [40:29.9 – 40:40.3] Well, I started out looking for this fellow that morning, and I hunted for him, and finally, I found him and his wife and little boy in one of the most terrible po- uh, poverty-stricken [40:40.3 – 40:41.3] places you ever saw in your life. [40:41.3 – 40:42.8] There were three of them living in one room. [40:42.8 – 40:47.5] And the only one in the room that said there was a half a loaf of bread and a half a bottle of milk. [40:47.5 – 40:49.8] That had been their menu for days. [40:49.8 – 40:53.0] She had the, the whips packed and was ready to leave. [40:53.0 – 40:55.6] I finally got her quieted down, and she agreed to give me another chance. [40:55.6 – 40:57.6] And then I went over to talk to the little boy. [40:57.6 – 40:58.7] He was crying in the corner. [40:58.7 – 41:01.1] Every time he opened his mouth, he had it slapped shut. [41:01.1 – 41:02.0] I got him quieted down. [41:02.0 – 41:04.1] And then I went over to talk to the man. [41:04.1 – 41:07.1] He was sitting on the edge of the bed, shaking as I had never seen a man shake before. [41:07.1 – 41:08.6] At first, I thought he had a saint by his pants. [41:08.6 – 41:11.7] And he shook and shook and shook. [41:11.7 – 41:18.7] In my first call, and I was nervous and, and, uh, embarrassed, and, uh, I didn't know what I said to him, and I'm damn sure he didn't know what I said to him either. [41:18.7 – 41:24.6] But when I got up to go, he followed me out the door, and he said, "Can you come back tomorrow?" "Yes, I will be back tomorrow. [41:24.6 – 41:31.1] I'm going to get this cookie." I went, I went back the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day. [41:31.1 – 41:34.0] And finally, this fellow quit shaking and went back to work. [41:34.0 – 41:40.2] About two weeks after that, I went down to their house one night, and she met me at the door. [41:40.2 – 41:42.5] She was all flushed with excitement. [41:42.5 – 41:47.7] "Look, look, he gave it all to me." She showed me the first industrial paycheck she had ever seen. [41:47.7 – 41:50.0] He'd always found time to cash it on the way home. [41:50.0 – 41:51.4] She never knew how much money they had. [41:51.4 – 41:53.2] And he told me, "It's all mine. [41:53.2 – 41:56.8] I run a suit myself." She was beginning to get something out of AA. [41:56.8 – 42:02.4] In the next three months, the whole marvelous miracle of AA unfolded right before my very eyes. [42:02.4 – 42:08.8] About two weeks later, two or three weeks later, I went down, and the little boy came out. [42:08.8 – 42:11.5] He laid down a little pair of shoes, a romper suit, and a top coat. [42:11.5 – 42:13.3] He looked up at me and said, "Mr. [42:13.3 – 42:14.7] Reeves, my dad got these for me. [42:14.7 – 42:23.7] He said I ain't scared of them anymore." And then, for the first time in my life, I began to realize how many people, other than ourselves, we hurt when we drink to excess. [42:23.7 – 42:27.4] I had a little boy and a little girl, and no doubt I had hurt them just the same. [42:27.4 – 42:29.0] And it still hurts to talk about it. [42:29.0 – 42:31.5] But the little boy was getting something out of this now. [42:31.5 – 42:33.7] Three months passed. [42:33.7 – 42:34.1] He called me. [42:34.1 – 42:36.2] He said, "We moved." I went down. [42:36.2 – 42:40.0] I stood on the porch that night before I ra- rang the bell. [42:40.0 – 42:41.2] It wasn't a palace. [42:41.2 – 42:41.9] It wasn't a mansion. [42:41.9 – 42:43.1] It was a nice little cottage. [42:43.1 – 42:47.6] There were drapes and curtains at the window and rugs on the floor. [42:47.6 – 42:54.4] And where I was standing, I could look straight back in the kitchen, and I saw a great, nice, shiny refrigerator with honest-to-God food in it. [42:54.4 – 42:57.8] And these people thought a modern miracle had happened. [42:57.8 – 42:59.5] This fella hadn't had a drink for three months. [42:59.5 – 43:09.0] He was up there in front with his boy at the, sitting at the table helping him with his lessons, and she was sewing and listening to radio, and they couldn't believe it. [43:09.0 – 43:14.3] And I never saw happiness shine out of people's eyes like shone out of their eyes that night. [43:14.3 – 43:16.4] And that night, I became an A.A. [43:16.4 – 43:16.9] in fact. [43:16.9 – 43:19.3] Up to that time, I was only registered. [43:19.3 – 43:25.0] Because my age, I was, I was still doubting whether it would be worthwhile for me to try to stay sober the rest of my life. [43:25.0 – 43:29.8] I'd lived a pretty rotten sort of a life, and I felt the people would always remember that. [43:29.8 – 43:31.8] They'd always look at me as that no-good so-and-so. [43:31.8 – 43:41.9] But that night, there seemed to be a little patch of blue in the sky because it occurred to me that perhaps now, if I could forget my own troubles and try to bring a little happiness to the lives of other people, [43:41.9 – 43:44.0] maybe I could become people too. [43:44.0 – 43:46.2] And it worked out very nicely for me. [43:46.2 – 43:53.3] Not long after that, the Saturday Evening Post articles came out, and people began to flood into Cleveland from all parts of the country. [43:53.3 – 43:57.1] In fact, Cleveland began the, became the hub of A.A. [43:57.1 – 44:02.2] activity because it was a little closer to the rest of the country than New York and a little more accessible than Akron. [44:02.2 – 44:05.3] And people from all parts of the country came in there. [44:05.3 – 44:07.2] At night, we'd go home from work. [44:07.2 – 44:13.1] There would be 10 men at the Statler Hotel, some more, eight more at the hot- at, at the other hotels. [44:13.1 – 44:17.9] And they pressed us into service regardless of how much experience you had. [44:17.9 – 44:19.3] It wasn't a question of whether you wanted to work. [44:19.3 – 44:19.9] You had to work. [44:19.9 – 44:27.1] And, uh, I want to say this to the younger people here tonight who are coming into this thing. [44:27.1 – 44:29.3] I ne- I never give advice. [44:29.3 – 44:32.8] The only advice I ever gave was, "Don't take any advice from me. [44:32.8 – 44:42.9] You might get drunk." But if I'm coming into this thing, I can tell you this: that your best, uh, defense against that first drink is activity in A.A. [44:42.9 – 44:45.0] Be active somewhere. [44:45.0 – 44:48.0] Helping put the chairs up, helping clean out the ashtrays. [44:48.0 – 44:50.1] There's no menial task in A.A. [44:50.1 – 44:51.4] They're all worthwhile. [44:51.4 – 44:54.0] Just as worthwhile as the fella stands up and pops off for half an hour. [44:54.0 – 44:59.7] And, and some say, some say that you can go to meetings and sit there, and it'll wear off on you. [44:59.7 – 45:04.9] But I'm here to tell you that if you start taking internally, it'll work a lot more faster. [45:04.9 – 45:08.2] And, so that's what I would do. [45:08.2 – 45:09.2] If I were coming in A.A. [45:09.2 – 45:17.1] a new man tonight, I would go up to the secretary, and I would just pester the hell out of him until he gave me some kind of a job, regardless of what it was, and I think he would thank you for it afterwards. [45:17.1 – 45:22.3] So I'm beginning, I'm getting back into my regular routine at A.A. [45:22.3 – 45:25.3] I'm, I'm beginning to, to see a little daylight. [45:25.3 – 45:27.4] Things are beginning to, uh, just take a little shape. [45:27.4 – 45:30.3] I've got a man now that I sponsored, and he's doing all right. [45:30.3 – 45:32.1] It's sort of got in my blood. [45:32.1 – 45:35.9] I guess like a salesman, the first time he goes out and gets a, a big order on the first call. [45:35.9 – 45:40.5] And I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna dry up the world. [45:40.5 – 45:42.0] I'm gonna evangelize the whole world. [45:42.0 – 45:46.1] I shanghaied a lot of the bars too, and I brought them home to my house. [45:46.1 – 45:46.6] We fed them. [45:46.6 – 45:46.9] We… [45:46.9 – 45:48.5] Uh, I say we. [45:48.5 – 45:49.9] My wife cooked for them. [45:49.9 – 45:52.2] We sewed clothing on them and so forth. [45:52.2 – 45:55.3] And finally, one day, I was out in southern part of the state. [45:55.3 – 46:03.9] I called in to get a price, and she told me I had better get home because she had three, three of my babies in the living room, and they were all drunk, and three was about all she could handle. [46:03.9 – 46:07.6] So I learned the hard way that you don't do it that way. [46:07.6 – 46:08.6] But I did. [46:08.6 – 46:11.0] I was all confused by the end. [46:11.0 – 46:17.7] I, and the pieces of my life, like a little crossword, well, like a jigsaw puzzle, began to fit together. [46:17.7 – 46:19.3] Began, little pictures began to appear. [46:19.3 – 46:22.5] But there was one thing that bothered me a lot. [46:22.5 – 46:31.9] From the time I had gotten into A.A., I heard people stand up and give the most wonderful experience, uh, tell about the most wonderful religious, uh, spiritual experiences they'd ever had. [46:31.9 – 46:33.8] And they were marvelous to listen to. [46:33.8 – 46:35.6] And damn it, I never had one. [46:35.6 – 46:40.3] I never, I never heard the angels fluttering over my shoulder, and I used to listen for them. [46:40.3 – 46:43.8] And I never heard them singing nice songs when I went to bed at night, like some of the fellas said. [46:43.8 – 46:45.4] That bothered me. [46:45.4 – 46:49.3] I remember when Bill used to come out to visit with Doc. [46:49.3 – 46:49.9] They come from… [46:49.9 – 46:56.3] And Bill's told this many times, how when he was in the hospital the last time, and he thought he was going to die. [46:56.3 – 47:04.0] One afternoon, he got out of bed, kneeled down on the side of the bed, and prayed to God, if there was a God, to help him. [47:04.0 – 47:14.1] And then he said, and to use Bill's own words, he suddenly, it seemed that the lights in the room flared up into a dazzling, blinding white light, brilliant light, [47:14.1 – 47:20.0] and he fancied he was standing off on a hill somewhere, way off in the distance, and the wind was blowing through him, cleansing his body and his soul. [47:20.0 – 47:22.9] And then he was really scared because he thought he was going crazy. [47:22.9 – 47:24.4] When Dr. [47:24.4 – 47:29.9] Silkworth came back in the room, he asked Bill about it, or asked Doc about it. [47:29.9 – 47:35.4] And if Doc had been a less kindly, less kindly and understanding man, and told Bill that he was nuts, that would have been the end of A.A. [47:35.4 – 47:36.1] right then and there. [47:36.1 – 47:46.4] But Doc was kind enough and considerate enough to admit that once or twice during his career as a physician and surgeon that people with so-called incurable diseases [47:46.4 – 47:49.6] suddenly had those diseases arrested by some unknown power. [47:49.6 – 47:59.6] And he told Bill, "I don't know what you have, Bill, but whatever it is, for God's sake, hang on to it." Well, I'd go home at night, and I'd plop down in my old, my Davenport, [47:59.6 – 48:03.2] and I'd watch our old chandelier, and I'd watch it, and I'd watch it, and watch it. [48:03.2 – 48:03.4] You know? [48:03.4 – 48:04.8] Nothing ever happened. [48:04.8 – 48:05.9] Once in a while, a bulb would burn out. [48:05.9 – 48:07.0] That's about all. [48:07.0 – 48:09.4] And I didn't feel too good about it. [48:09.4 – 48:12.2] If they could flare up for Bill, why the hell couldn't they flare up for me once in a while? [48:12.2 – 48:14.5] Christmas time came along. [48:14.5 – 48:16.3] Still no spiritual experience. [48:16.3 – 48:21.4] I went home, passed up the Christmas party to help my wife, or at least I went home. [48:21.4 – 48:30.1] About 4:00 in the afternoon, she went out to deliver some gifts, and I went into my upstairs, my own den, to do a little meditating, make a little inventory. [48:30.1 – 48:39.1] And as I was walking up the stairs, the thought occurred to me that for the first time since drinking had been a problem, I was sober and reasonably happy in my sobriety. [48:39.1 – 48:46.2] Now, I wasn't giggling down my sleeve or anything like that, but I had a nice inner feeling that everything was going well. [48:46.2 – 48:48.9] I was getting along well with my wife, my boss, my neighbors. [48:48.9 – 48:52.8] My salary was ample enough to furnish me a good living. [48:52.8 – 48:55.6] I began to tear that thought apart. [48:55.6 – 48:58.2] How my parents couldn't do that for me. [48:58.2 – 49:00.4] The doctor couldn't do it for me. [49:00.4 – 49:02.1] Psychiatrists and the clergy couldn't do it. [49:02.1 – 49:04.5] And needless to say, I couldn't do it myself. [49:04.5 – 49:08.0] So to me, it was just a matter of mere deductive reasoning. [49:08.0 – 49:10.4] I must be getting help from somebody, someplace. [49:10.4 – 49:20.2] And then I remembered what Bill had told me at the sanitarium, that this was a spiritual fellowship, and if we lived in such a way as to deserve it, we would get spiritual help to control our drinking. [49:20.2 – 49:23.4] I went up into my room, and I picked up a one-volume dictionary. [49:23.4 – 49:27.1] I looked up the word spiritual, and all it said was pertaining to heavenly. [49:27.1 – 49:30.6] Then I looked up the word heavenly, and it said pertaining to the good. [49:30.6 – 49:40.7] And I put the book down, and I thought to myself, "I wonder if that's it." If we live good, we think good, if we pray to a good God, if we choose [49:40.7 – 49:50.9] the good from the bad, if we start living the life somewhere along the lines that our mother taught us to live when we were toddling around or even sooner, wouldn't it necessarily mean that we were living a spiritual [49:50.9 – 49:51.2] life? [49:51.2 – 49:52.5] I had figured out this. [49:52.5 – 49:56.9] If a man, let's say a man, a boy, acts like a man, he's a manly fellow. [49:56.9 – 50:04.6] And I began to feel that day that if I acted good, or goodly, which is synonymous with God, wouldn't it follow that I was living the spiritual life? [50:04.6 – 50:08.3] And I took it that because it was simple, and I like to keep my A.A. [50:08.3 – 50:08.7] simple. [50:08.7 – 50:16.8] It made it a little easier for me to go and to talk to the men who were still in bed in the throes of alcoholism and tell them they need not fear this word spiritual anymore. [50:16.8 – 50:19.0] Just come on out and live the good life. [50:19.0 – 50:24.8] Now, when I came into A.A., I didn't come in for any spiritual awakening. [50:24.8 – 50:27.5] I didn't come in for religion or any… [50:27.5 – 50:29.7] All I wanted to get rid of my drinking. [50:29.7 – 50:31.5] That's all. [50:31.5 – 50:35.4] But in gaining my sobriety, I gained a new concept of God. [50:35.4 – 50:39.4] My first concept of God I think I got from a Sunday school leaflet. [50:39.4 – 50:45.2] He was standing on a clo- uh, sitting on a golden throne way out in the cloud, and the angels were playing harps all around him. [50:45.2 – 50:49.9] And that's about as close as I ever came to God, somebody way off in the distance. [50:49.9 – 50:50.8] A.A. [50:50.8 – 50:52.6] has given me a different view of things. [50:52.6 – 50:54.2] I like to think of A.A. [50:54.2 – 50:56.8] now, of God now as a great power. [50:56.8 – 51:01.5] That's what, that's exercising itself all over my life. [51:01.5 – 51:08.3] I, th- I think I have the feeling that I can be as close to that power as I deserve to be. [51:08.3 – 51:18.4] And if I'm not as close to God tonight as I was six weeks ago, two months ago, or three months ago, I'm the one that's moved because I f- I know forever, now, that He's forever constant. [51:18.4 – 51:26.5] And if I were to ask God tonight for a very special favor, I couldn't ask for anything finer than just the privilege of carrying this A.A. [51:26.5 – 51:33.5] message up to my very last hour on this earth because then, and only then, will I know whether I really made this program. [51:33.5 – 51:40.0] I like to think of, of God as my friend, not as my forebears taught me. [51:40.0 – 51:48.1] I don't believe God, the path God chose for us to, to live, to lead, to go by is a cross to bear, a bear and a burden to carry. [51:48.1 – 51:50.3] I think it's a blueprint, and we're very fortunate to have it. [51:50.3 – 51:58.6] I think once we live in, learn to live in the stride, get in the stride, God's will for us can be just as comfortable as an old shoe and just as practical as a kitchen chair. [51:58.6 – 52:03.8] I like to think of God as a great light shining across my life. [52:03.8 – 52:08.7] All I have to do is face that light, and the shadows will have to fall back of me. [52:08.7 – 52:09.7] It's as simple as that. [52:09.7 – 52:14.4] Now, if you'll bear with me for one more minute, I want to turn the pages of A.A. [52:14.4 – 52:18.0] back a while to the early days of A.A., and I'm not gonna be very long with it. [52:18.0 – 52:22.3] When I came into this fellowship, we had no traditions. [52:22.3 – 52:25.2] We had no pr- no guides of any kind. [52:25.2 – 52:30.7] Every problem, every new problem came up was satis- was settled by trial and error. [52:30.7 – 52:36.7] And sometimes we came very near resorting to our fists, and that's not the way to win friends and influence people. [52:36.7 – 52:41.3] We fought about this, and we fought about that. [52:41.3 – 52:42.3] They used to kid us. [52:42.3 – 52:46.7] They said the only thing we could agree on, that there was two sides to every question: our side and the wrong side. [52:46.7 – 52:54.7] And it was during this terrible time when, when, uh, uh, we began to wonder whether w- we'd ever able to get A.A. [52:54.7 – 52:57.6] up off the road, off the floor if we didn't cut out this fighting. [52:57.6 – 53:08.3] And those unhappy circumstances gave birth to the idea of sta- of standardizing, of setting a set of standards or which [53:08.3 – 53:12.6] later came to be known as the 12 Traditions of A.A. [53:12.6 – 53:22.7] And believe me, it was a, the strict adherence to those 12 tradition- traditions saved A.A.'s life, and they're no- nonetheless important, less important [53:22.7 – 53:23.6] now than they were then. [53:23.6 – 53:33.8] I, the longer I remain in A.A., the more conscious I become of my duty, my personal responsibility to maintain and preserve those traditions [53:33.8 – 53:39.5] so that the alcoholics of tomorrow will have the ch- same chance for sobriety that I have today. [53:39.5 – 53:47.8] Surely, this must be the, this must be the responsibility of every man and woman who has ever gained, gained sobriety through the help of A.A. [53:47.8 – 53:56.1] If Abraham Lincoln had been in A.A., I think he would express his opinion of our common problem, common responsibility in a manner something like this. [53:56.1 – 54:07.0] "Once more than 13 years ago, our co-founders came forth with a new plan, conceived in love and service and dedicated to the proposition [54:07.0 – 54:11.8] that the alcoholic can be restored by the grace of God and the help of enlightened AAs. [54:11.8 – 54:18.2] Today, we are engaged in a great humane effort to make that plan available to all who may be concerned. [54:18.2 – 54:28.4] But we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot devote this plan by mere word of mouth, but rather by assuming our individual and non-transferable [54:28.4 – 54:31.6] responsibility of personally carrying the message of A.A. [54:31.6 – 54:33.1] to those who s- who still suffer. [54:33.1 – 54:41.2] The world will little note, nor long remember who we are or what we are, but what we do here will never be forgotten. [54:41.2 – 54:49.9] It is for us who are willing and able to ever increase our efforts in this great field of endeavor without hope of gain, reward, or recognition. [54:49.9 – 54:57.1] It is ours to hold high the torch and to work with increased devotion to the unfinished task which lies before us. [54:57.1 – 55:07.2] And it is for us to highly resolve that this new lease on life, granted by God, shall not have been given in vain, and that this fellowship of A.A., [55:07.2 – 55:08.8] by A.A., and for A.A. [55:08.8 – 55:10.9] shall not perish from this earth." Thank you.