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Source: Ebby T. and Icky S – Kansas City (1960) – Date Unknown.mp3 File: ebby-t-and-icky-s-kansas-city-1960-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:17:35
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Bill's story in the Big Book, it was a cold November day in 1934 when he was sitting at home, congratulating himself that he had enough gin to last him for another 24 hours, he received a telephone call from an old drinking buddy of his, he invited him out to the house and he thought, well that'll be fine, I don't have to drink secretly now, we can drink in the open, but when this old drinking buddy of his came, he was sober, and he gave Bill the some ideas, I believe that he had been in the Oxford group and he gave Bill some ideas that later when Bill sobered up, they began to put those ideas together and out of this great thing came AA. We have that man with us today that made that call on Bill, he now lives in Dallas, Texas, and we give you Ebby Thatcher.
My name is Ebby, my name is Ebby and I'm certainly an alcoholic. I'm going to try to give you briefly a rundown on the events that preceded the time when Mr. Kennett's organization became known as Alcoholics Anonymous. That is insofar as I saw it. As Kennett tells you, it was in 1934 that I went to see Bill. I had been living in Vermont, we had a home up there, my family, my father and mother were dead and the house was vacant, the rest of the brothers were married and living elsewhere, and I was living there alone.
I was living alone with a lot of bats. We used to have some sessions at night chasing those bats around. I was drunk most of the time, got into trouble with the law on two occasions, and one day as I was moping around the house, I'd been trying to paint it, but it got so I couldn't get up beyond the third rung of that ladder, and I gave that up as a bad job. My father and I were just back in the bottle again, and these two fellows dropped in to see me, and I'd known both of them and I'd drunk with both of them. I don't think that you could call them really alcoholics, but they were heavy drinkers, baller crazy, both of them, and they'd had trouble in life, they'd lost their money, and they'd become interested in the Oxford group.
And they sat down and talked to me, and they just talked fundamentals about God, they opened right up about it, and they said, Father Debbie Thatcher's been running his life long enough, and how about turning it over to a higher power? And many things they told me, and left literature, and indoctrination I later got from the Oxford group. The things that we see today in IA, various sayings and the principles and logic of it, I think a great deal of it came from the Oxford group.
Well, I made a deal with a painter, a boss painter, and he sent me around a man and some equipment. I sobered up, and after about ten days, the two of us painted the house. It was a pretty good sized house, a lot of trim on it. And then as soon as that job was over, I went right back to the bottle again. And I got himself a little off the third class. And I was taken down to the county street, some twenty miles away, on a Friday, and I was told to come back on Monday.
The judge said, I haven't got time to try you today. I'll set you trial on Monday. Because three times in one year, I've been arrested, and the state of my mind was the man was a six-month sentence in the state prison. So, of course, he didn't want to give me that name. He happened to be the father of one of the men who came to see me. In the meantime, a third man had been around there, and he appeared Monday when I went down for trial. So the judge here released me under my own recognizance, because we had it all cut and dried with this stuff beforehand. He sent me under his wing. I went back to the house, and we closed up the house, and I went down to stay with him in a nearby village. He had a summer home there.
I stayed there a couple of weeks. We all arrived, and I got some people off to New York, and it was only about ten days after I got sober that I went out and spoke five times in one weekend. I don't know what I talked for. But I did feel that somehow a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
[00:05:04]
I mean, I was really an occupant of alcohol, and I was for three or seven months. But I slipped again later on. I mean, as most of you know, I've had recurring trouble off and on. But after that weekend trip around there, I went to New York, and I stayed for a month with one of the two men who came to see me first. And then I went to live on a mission, which was run by Calvary Episcopal Church under Oxford group principles.
There were twelve of us in there called the Brotherhood, and I was one of the twelve that helped run the place. And we had a room for about thirty men to come in nightly, and we had a meeting every night, a regular religious mission meeting. And from there, of course, I circulated around the day time. I didn't have a regular job. I circulated around. I went down to Wall Street, and then I found out that Bill was in trouble for drinking. I'd known Bill for a number of years. I'd known him since about 1911.
And in 1912, we went to school together up there in Vermont for one year. Bill and I had been fast friends. Of course, he married a girl that I'd known all my life, Lois, his wife, for the summer of the same time that my people were summer residents here. And I'd grown up with her. And I saw Bill off and on, of course, for years afterwards. We only got drunk together once, and that's when he landed in Albany, my hometown. He called me up, and I took him out, and I had to be playing around with some flyers at the time.
Well, out at the airport, there was a barnstorming, and it was a Saturday night, and Bill was going on up to East Dorset, and I got the brilliant idea, why don't you get a plane and I'd go up with him. So we landed the plane right there on his spot. And the next day, we got up there. At least we fell out of the plane. I certainly feel sorry for that pilot, because he had two drunks on his hands, which was not much fun, let me tell you.
Well, I determined that maybe Bill would be ready for something like the Oxford Group. I was only sober a little over a month, possibly six weeks. But sometimes I think we do some of our most effective work in the early stages. Our enthusiasm is on fire. Later on, I think sometimes we lose that enthusiasm, although we may be just as stable. But anyway, I got over to see Bill, and as you heard, I had a talk with him. He didn't sober up that day, but that night he walked the subway with me at one o'clock in the morning, and he said, I don't know what you got, old boy, but he said, I want it.
But he didn't sober up for three or four days. And then he came over to the mission one night, and he had a guy with him, and it turned out to be a sailor he was running to in a bar, and the both were pretty drunk. And Bill got up and made a talk, and he was going to get right up on the platform, and the superintendent said, get him down, get him down, go ahead, let him talk, let's see what he's got to say.
And I could tell, even though Bill was drinking, that something was working on him already. And a few days later, he went to town hospital, sobered himself up, and he hasn't had a drink since. And Bill and I saw each other, and I kind of rode hurry on him for a while, took him around the oxford group meetings, and he attended them, and later on he spoke. And if anybody can tell me when our bunch drifted away from the exact date, when we drifted away from the oxford group, and formed our colleagues, I'd like to meet that man, because Bill and I don't know.
It is very hard to figure the date back there. None of us ever kept any records, and you go back 25 years, and you're carefully accurate on everything. I know, since I left New York, Bill wrote me a letter one time, and asked me if I knew what we did the first Christmas, because the grapevine wanted a story on it. I can't tell, Lois can't tell, I don't know what I went home to Albany for Christmas, or what I stayed at the Wilson's, or what.
[00:10:05]
So if you go back, probing back in your memory 25 years, it's pretty hard to make any accurate statements. You all know that Bill went to Akron and contacted Dr. Bob Smith, and Bill and Dr. Bob went ahead and formed the nucleus of what is now North Carolina, while I fell by the wayside in April of 1937. I'm not going to attempt to say why, I think I can realize what it is, but it is awfully hard to put in words.
But I've had trouble off and on all through the years, but if I wanted to sit down and sum up the months that I've been sober, I can probably account for 16 or 17 years of sobriety out of the last 25. But then I lost my island after consecutively. Since I've been here in Texas, I've been in Texas, I first had 13 months when I first came, and then I got off the beam and away I went. And it didn't get too bad, Bill, thank you.
Bill, doctor of the sheriff, I've been to the county jail, the city jail, I worked for the city, the county, the city, not on the internet, not on the mission at all. Get out of me, pick me up again and back I'd go. Believe me, you can't look cross-eyed at a drink in Dallas, you get in the jail. And I haven't had a drink since, six years, seven, eight months. But somebody the other night, I won't say who it was, approached me, behind the ear, but so much is said and done and written for the new man, but very little for the person who has trouble off and on.
Especially for the old gray-beards, the bleeding dickens, or whatever you want to call them. And certainly I can qualify to talk on that thing, but I don't know that I can give you any information that's valuable. I sometimes think that the reason we stay drunk so long, people who have had a long record of sobriety and then fall off, is first, our pride is hurt. I think that's one of the biggest things.
We're not so sorry that we hurt somebody or that, but we are sorry that that wonderful record that we have is gone. And I think it just sort of dulls us to believe that we can't get up and be the little bit of a big operator we've been. That's just one third. I mean, second, of course, is the fact that when you started one of those things, that little old bell that's still in me, and always will be, I guess, till I die, says, well, now that you have started this thing, you might just as well make a going out of it.
And that's exactly what you do, I believe. You keep it up. As you know, physically, as the years go on, when you've had a layoff for ten years, you're going to have one awful time getting back in shape again. There's no question about that. I don't have trouble daily or every few days, the way some people say they do, about taking a drink or wanting to take a drink. It does come back once in a while, sometimes in the springtime or in the fall. I don't know if it's a change of seasons or whatever.
You've got to blame it on something. You know, as old Omar Khayyam said, come fill the cup, and in the fire of spring, you'll win a garment of repentance. And I always used to believe it, man. It should come spring, man. If I'd been on the wagon a few months, I'd had to have my spring drunk, so look at that. I don't know just what makes us fall off the wagon to drink again after we have been sober for a number of years.
It is undoubtedly due to wrong thinking, and that wrong thinking can sneak in sometimes and get so set in your mind that you don't know what to do. It's said in your mind that you don't recognize it.
[00:15:02]
I know that I've had a number of drunks that I can look back on now and know that I was drunk mentally a long time before I took a drink. And that, that comes on me every once in a while. That desire, the first thing you know, I'm thinking along the lines of taking a drink. And so far, I say for five years, maybe months, I've been able to think the thing through and know exactly what's going to happen.
I can almost, like, go through a bunch of doors. You go through one door and another one, and each one getting worse all the time. More tired, more trouble, and more fears. You wind up in the same old spot. And I also know that I couldn't just give you up and die. And that is probably one thing that holds me back. I don't know the discouragement when things are not breaking for you. A man is liable to lose his faith for the time being and reach for a drink.
But there's one thing sure. I can't say that you will get the breaks if you sober up. No man can say that. Sometimes nobody does get the good breaks. But certainly you will not be able to take advantage of them if you're drunk. But if you're sober, and they do come along, then you're able to handle them according to your own ability. But not if you're drinking. I'd like to just briefly, I'm not a long-winded speaker, I never was.
I'd just briefly like to tell you how I got to Texas. One of these same men came to see me, the Oxford group, one of the first two. Had been living in Paris for some years. And there was a man from New York, Charlie Milton, who was over there on business and pleasure combined. And he went to a small AA meeting in Paris, France one night and ran into this fellow. And this fellow said, how's old Levy doing?
And he said, I don't know old Levy, from what I hear he's not billing. He just ain't billing at all. So, and he says, well, he says he's licked in New York. And he says, well, he says he's licked in New York, I said, of course Levy, I know that. He says a bunch of down on him, whether that's right or not. He says he doesn't enter into what they are, and they're not trying to help him in any way. And he says he's under a blanket of despair down there, and he says you can't do something when you go back to get him out of New York.
And the guy said he was, and those were not mere words. I was drinking at the time, and I dropped into the AA intergroup on Lexington Avenue every once in a while, sometimes just to make a touch. I'll be perfectly honest. A lot of times just to sit down and get my wind and figure out where I was going for the day. And I was trying to get back, I was trying to get back in AA, but I just didn't have any reason for living.
Any reason, anything to keep me going. And one of the girls, Hazel Rice, she was then secretary, she's now in the Central Law Office for General Service, said to me, she says, bye girlie, I think I know somebody who can help you, Levy. He's got something for you. She went to the phone and called this guy up, and he says, hold on there, I'll be down. So he came down at five o'clock, and the first word he said, what do you drink?
Well, I said, I've been drinking over here on 3rd Avenue. He said, let's go. And of course, those were pleasant words, and I was feeling the way I was. And we went over there, and he bought me a cup of whiskey, and we sat down at the table, and he said, how'd you like to go to Texas? And Texas was far out of my thoughts at that time, I assure you. So he said, well, he says, you're not going to do any good here in New York, you're just going to die eventually.
So I said, well, that's good. He said, they haven't got any water down there, the cattle are dying, everything's wrong. They're dying on the clothes, they're broke. Well, he says, we can fix up that a little bit, he says. Well, I said, I don't know. Well, he said, here's five dollars. He said, I'll see you tomorrow at the same time. He saw me tomorrow at the same time. I'd given it some thought, but I guess I was still thinking more about getting the five dollars together the next night.
Which I did, I got it. It was the same story. And that was Thursday night. And he said, no, no more. He said, but I'll be at my apartment. He gave me the number and the phone. And if you want to make up your mind to go to Texas, he said, we can do it.
[00:20:02]
So I didn't see him Friday night. I nursed that five dollars along. I had enough to eat and enough to sleep. Flop, they call it. Well, I began to think that maybe that's the wisest thing to do is to get out of New York. I might just as well go down and die down there as die on the streets of New York, so. I wandered around that Saturday morning and said, all right, let's get cleaned up. And he took me up to his apartment and sent the suit out and got it pressed and gave me some clean underwear and got some shirts and bought some shirts.
He called up Dallas and got over to Lancaster and said, send me out, you son of a bitch. I know that's what he said because he's got a booming voice and I was right alongside the telephone. So Sunday night, Charlie loaded me on the nonstop plane from Dallas. And I'm telling you, I didn't have a drink. And I learned afterwards that he had a pint of whiskey and didn't give it to me. I told him later on, I got to go back and threw the whole thing all over him.
It wasn't fair. Well, anyway, I landed in Dallas and I was pretty badly shaken because I was badly physically. I ran way down. He shoved me. And that's been a great help to me. And for a long time, I really didn't realize that I was in Texas. I had hallucinations all over the place for two or three weeks. It was really rough. I think that some other guy, you know, saw me down in the clinic that I had at that time.
And I really didn't know myself what I was going to make of that. I swear the old noggin had really snapped. But with time and patience, I came out of it. And I said to me, I'm grateful. I must express my appreciation for the people down there who were patient with me in Dallas and for Charlie Milton who really did something. He acted. He did it. He didn't talk if he really did it. He came to see me and it cost him money to send me down.
And he went ahead and did it. And I think I've tried to prove that he didn't do it in vain. I know that I probably would have died within six months in New York in that situation. I've been committed somewhere forever. No one would ever get out if I hadn't come down there. I'm grateful to those people who did it and to all you people here. I certainly enjoyed coming up here this weekend. I enjoyed the party last night.
It was a lot of fun. Excellent food too, by the way. And I think that's about all I can say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ebby. Well, Ebby may have had some difficulties with this program, but AA still owes him a big debt of gratitude. I heard Bill Wilson say that in St. Louis at the 20th anniversary five years ago this coming July, that if Ebby hadn't have called on him that cold day in November, there might not have been any AA today, because the idea wouldn't have come from the way it worked out at that particular time.
So we still owe Ebby an awful lot. The last speaker we have on our program today also comes from Dallas, Texas. He's just finished serving four years on the General Service Board of AA. That's the service board in New York. And prior to that, he was General Service Representative for the state of Texas for two years. I've had the privilege of visiting with him since yesterday morning about 11 o'clock.
With he and Ebby both, I know that his AA is good and is solid, and I know that we're going to get a good message from him. A.K. Sheridan. Thanks very much, Jan. There's still some seats down here if you drunks don't want to stay in. I'm not going to do it all like I did the other day. I got up to a place like this, and I said, can you hear back there? And that guy said, yeah. And the joker sitting down here jumped up and said, let me swap places with you.
I do want to thank you for being asked to be on this program. And it's necessary that I remind myself that Alcoholics Anonymous does not need me,
[00:25:07]
but that I need AA more than I ever did in all my life. Because as I stand here today, I have more to lose than I ever had before in all my life. It's necessary that I remind myself that I'm not cured, and I'm only one little drink from being the stupidest, stinkiest, nastiest drunk that you've ever smelled. The chairman was so nice, but he didn't tell you that I'm a drunkard. And through trying to follow the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and with the help of God and the group of people like yourself, that I haven't had a drink of any kind of alcoholic beverage or goofballs of any kind.
In 11 days and 3 months and 14 years at 4.30 this afternoon, by the grace of God and nothing that I have ever done or ever will be able to do, it's truly been a gift. And it's just been through people like yourself that has made this possible. But that truly doesn't have anything to do with our being here today, any length of time. Because you know, old drunks never die, they just smell that away. And when they asked me to be here today, I knew that I was moving out of those old Texas Bricks leagues, because Kansas City, as I understand it, is in the big leagues now.
And I told everybody when we come up here, I said, you know, we want to be careful, we don't want to be too good up there, they'll trade us to them damn Yankees. But we're all awfully happy to be here this beautiful, sunny afternoon. I understand this is the first time you've seen the sun in Kansas City in so long. And it seems like the old Kansas City drunk often said to his wife as he sat down to dine, I don't give a damn where this snow goes, I hope it don't get into my wine.
Said they watched the cellars more than they did anything else when you all were snowbound for so long up here. And just to be honest with you, I'm shaking like two men right now. I don't know how come, but when I get up before a group of people like this, my stomach just starts to go in all directions and I'm just standing here holding on. So there's not a crap game going on up here, it's my knees that are really shaking that you hear.
Because you know the true, correct definition of frustration is exactly like I feel. And real frustration is the same as a sterile rabbit, if you know what I mean. It finally dawned on her. Yeah, old Flaherty just caught that one. In fact, I'm just as nervous as a Mexican peon that didn't have a patio to pace in. If you're tongue-tied, don't try that one. But truly, you know, we're hundreds and hundreds of miles from home.
But Ebby and I self really truly believe that we have more friends right here this afternoon than all of our 20 years drinking experience, or living the life of a drunkard. And we haven't been in Kansas City but two days. But there is something in this room this afternoon, between total strangers, that brings you and me closer together than any bond, I don't know what it is. Whether it's the attraction for one drunk that has another, or the love of one drunk, or what this mutual feeling exists in the air in every meeting that you and me have ever been to.
People write about it, they talk about it, we can't see it, but it's here. So we feel as if it's home. And we're awful glad to be here. Because just a few short years ago on Sunday, I was living in a tin shack on the Trinity River at home. on the Trinity River at home, two colored families lived there with me,
[00:30:04]
and I was a derelict, and I mustn't forget what I was drinking. Between squad cars, late at night, we have drive-in pig stands, and they stacked the beer cases in the rear, and I had a gunny sack for ten or twelve old empty beer bottles, and I can still see that old dirty cotton that I used for stoppers, and after they closed, like an animal, I went around behind and poured the drinks or whatever was left in every bottle until I got my toe sack full of what I lived on.
A man with a college education, and within walking distance with one of the finest homes and wife and family in the city of Dallas, a derelict, so I mustn't forget to thank God in you that today I didn't have to do that. And I could come and be with you. But I don't want to ever get like that old boy that was talking at the AA meeting, and he got off on the spiritual side of the program, and he was just giving them this, got this, and got that, and asked everybody that's standing up, want to go to heaven, and everybody in the room got all worked up except one old drunk over there, and he just sat still, and so he pointed him out, and he asked him, he says, Frank, don't you want to go to God, see God, go to heaven? He said, sure I do. He said, why didn't you stand up? He said, I thought you was trying to get up a car load to go this afternoon. I'd rather be here if it's all the same with you.
So we all thank him, and I'd just rather be here and be with you drunk. And I truly, I have to do everything the hard way, and instead of trying to talk on one subject this afternoon, real good, I want to try to talk on two, and you know neither one of them will be good, but the last half of this talk is going to be good because it's about me, and I love to talk about me, but I would like to say a few words about you and Alcoholics Anonymous.
As Ken told you, the groups in Texas were nice enough to choose me to be a member of the Board of Trustees to Alcoholics Anonymous General Service Headquarters in New York, and I was truly your trustee, and by using the General Service Third Legacy Plan, the meeting was held in Brownwood on September the 18th in 1954, and that was the day that I was chosen to be your trustee. There was over 165 groups from the state of Texas represented at that Sunday afternoon meeting.
There was no nominations from the floor, no politicking, a list of people that said that they would like to serve as trustees from the state of Texas, name was on a blackboard, no talks of any kind were given, and by balloting, a two-thirds majority was necessary, and I was chosen as your service to serve for you as a trustee to the Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I know that in the mind of each and every one of you, you have a definition of what is a trustee.
I'd like to say that it's not a gift that you can do anything that you want to with, but it is a trust that is placed in the hands of a person, and it's necessary for that person to make a report to someone of what takes place and transpires while you are a trustee, and those men and women that serve as members of the General Service Board of Trustees, I can really tell you that they're servants, and at any time any member of AA wants to find out anything about what he owns, you can find out from that group of people, so I would briefly like to make a report for you.
I believe I know what the drunk wants to know from the questions that they ask.
[00:35:04]
You want to know how Alcoholics Anonymous is. How are the groups in the various parts of the country? How is the New York headquarters? How is the grapevine? How are the group funds? How is Bill and Lois? And we could talk all day what to do with poop balls, what to do with slippers, what to do with the old-timers, what to do with who goes with who and who sleeps with who. All those same questions, they're all the same.
What do you do? Well, I believe that we have come up with the answer on all the questions that are important on all the questions that are important in this wonderful fellowship. I like to call it what Bill calls it, he calls it kinship. And an answer, it's a very short answer, and it's an answer that most drunks like myself don't like to hear, but this is the answer. You are Alcoholics Anonymous. If you want to find out about any of the answers, avail yourself of a simple little mechanism called a mirror.
Look real good at it, not cross-eyed, look real good at it when you go home. You are Alcoholics Anonymous. You own the grapevine. The general headquarters and all the staff of people there are paid by you and by me. If you don't like them, cut their money off. They won't work for nothing. You be sure and take a good look. You will be able to tell how your group is, how much money you sent to New York.
You'll be able to tell why the grapevine is in the red, because the drunks don't subscribe to it. That's the only reason, and you own it. You look back there on that literature rack, you're the only organization in the world that owns everything that's in it. You own the Brook Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12 Steps and the 12 Traditions is yours. So if anything happens to the prescription that saved your and my life, be sure and don't blame anybody else.
Be sure. Just blame yourself. You are AA. And you are the only person in AA. The only time in AA, if you remember correctly, is the word I is usually when some drunk gets up and says, I am an alcoholic. The personal pronoun I does not appear in our book, Alcoholics Anonymous. And in our wonderful steps, thank God, I isn't in there. I stay drunk. You'll stay drunk too when you get for yourself. The first and only letter in there that's any important is the word we.
And I believe we have to have a partner. I call him God. And that's what we've got to preserve with our 12 Steps, our 12 Traditions, and our unity. And don't think that that's new in AA. The next time you drop a dollar bill, the next time you drop a dollar bill in the contribution plate, it goes by you. Take a good look at it. On the back, we stole that too. We steal everything in AA. It's there. That light of service means they tell me, I don't know Greek from Latin, but somebody that can read it told me that if that light ever goes out, this dollar bill isn't any good.
Any time we let anything happen to these 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, don't look for any place to go. We'll already be there. You know what I'm talking about. There ain't no snow. Just remember that. And don't be so damn tight with them. I know it's something. So truly, there's more unity in AA. There's more groups. We have the largest membership.
[00:40:00]
We're better off financially than we've ever been, thanks to the generosity of groups like this. The wonderful people that you choose to send as delegates will come back and bring you the message. So this is a report that I would like to give to you. That alcoholic alcoholism is not a bad thing. That alcoholic synonymous in the practice is not form. It is a life. It is the order and soundness of a man or woman.
It's not something else to be got, to be added, but it is a new life of those faculties you have. It is to do right. It is to love. It is to serve. It is to think. It is to be humble. You are alcoholic synonymous. And I hope that as a member of AA, that I served you and made a good trustee for you. Because the foundation is in good shape. We have a little money. And with the help of you, we will continue to do better.
But always keep in mind that AA is based on the failures of the individual. We are servants only to serve. And to be of the drunk, servants of the drunk yet to come. You will never see a successful drinker in AA. That's the truth. If we hadn't been failures, we wouldn't be here this afternoon. So I'm very happy that I can tell you a few things like that. And worldwide, AA is growing more than ever, the wildest imagination in all over the world.
And when your delegates come back, avail yourself of the opportunity to hear him and get the report of the General Service Conference. In the effort of everyone that made it possible, and Eddie and I were talking about today, we've been a few places, but not many, but we never have seen such an entertainment committee for the outside speakers as they give here in Kansas City. One of the nicest we've ever been afforded.
They put us up at this big fine hotel down here on Armour. All the conveniences and everything. The committee even put in their old Fallon, or some of them even got in there a book. On there it says Gideon. We didn't know who that was, but there's one in there. And so we got to reading the things you know, last night after we got home. And it says if you're lonesome, read so-and-so. So I got to reading on and I read where it's all about there.
And then it had in there, it said, Postscripts. If you're still lonesome, call room 806 and ask for Mabel. Now we're not used to that kind of service. We usually have to get out and hustle ourselves. I tell you, this Kansas City's got us all going. So I got to reading on and I read where it's all about there. And then it had in there, it said, Postscripts. If you're still lonesome, call room 806 and ask for Mabel.
Now we're not used to that kind of service. We usually have to get out and hustle ourselves. I tell you, this Kansas City's got us all going. Now I'm kind of like the old drunk, you know, that come into town and got thrown off the freight train and all he had left was just a few bucks in his pocket, trying to sober up and cut off over here on the north side and come in with the rest of them winos out there, you know.
And he walked by one of these houses of dubious reputation and he saw this sign up there and it said, Beer bed, boys and babes, five dollars. Oh, he thought that's for me. So he went in, the old lady was running the joint, you know, and said, Would you like to see his bed? He said, No, no. Said, They're just getting ready to eat. Says, You want something to eat? Said, uh, they're just getting ready to eat. Said, you want something to eat? No, no, I don't want anything to eat, he said.
He said, you like to see any of the girls? He said, no, I'm not interested.
[00:45:00]
Said, well, what do you want? He said, lady, all I want to know is that beer, draft beer or bottle beer. So, we're getting down to this point in this little part of the program where I like that I'm going to talk about me, and I love talking about you, and especially money. I said, told them this morning, you know, we get off talking about money and AA and the Bleeding Deacons and the Moaning Elders, they all say, don't talk about money, you know. They're like my wife, she says I'm money crazy, but I know she gets mad as hell when we run out. So, I don't mind ever talking about money, but AA has been awfully good to me, and it taught me three things that I'd like to talk to you about very briefly, and first is that you have to have a problem, and second, you have to have a person with that problem, and third, you have to find the power that can do something with the problem and the person, and briefly, problem is my drinking, the person is me, and the power is greater than I am, and due to the fact that today is Palm Sunday, I thought it might be appropriate for me to talk about this AA solution to the drinking problem, because, you know, I love that word problem, because I never could solve it until I got into AA, and they said, we have a solution, and that pictures me something that will flow, and I'll drink anything that I can't choose, so that was really for me.
And, you know, the problem starts with the letter P, and that's the 16th letter of the alphabet, and it has played one of the most prominent parts in my life of any other thing that I might know, so I'm going to play around with this letter P this afternoon in regard to my drinking problem. I was phony as an eight dollar bill, just as phony as I could be. I should call up some relatives in this town, and really make amends, because I have literally embarrassed them so many times. I happen to be named after and related to some real money in Kansas City, and you give me one drink, and I can get on their yacht quicker, and tell more people about my middle name, and who I am, than any little son of a gun that you ever saw drunk. I haven't got the nerve to call them relatives. Phony, I don't know why it is, but I would rather climb a hundred foot tree and tell a lie, than stand flat footed on the ground telling the truth. One drink, any and everything, just as phony as I can be. I don't know whether you all were, but I was full of self-pity. Pity, man, I'm telling you, it just ate me up.
Nobody had it as bad as I did. Nobody. Nobody ever got in as much trouble through this drug as I did. Everybody else had it easier, just self-pity, and I know now what that self-pity was. All in the world, it was, as the name says, the bondage of self, and with this, I was a playboy. I don't know whether you all know what the definition for playboy is, but that's a cramp with money, and if you look around with a lot of these slippers, that's what they are. They're playboys. God's gift to women, you know what I mean? Man, if they only knew what them women thought of.
But you know, I was poisoned with whiskey and egotism, and I don't know which is the worse, the whiskey you were poisoned to make me sicker than egotism, because I lived on both all the time that I was drinking. What worried me was the word promise, another piece. My promise was nothing. I hope you all didn't have to go through all of the things that I had to for 20 years of promising people that
[00:50:05]
you were going to be somewhere, or you were going to do something, and not do it. I never got so tired of saying, I'm sorry, and sure enough, I was. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Promise meant nothing to me. It's just wonderful to be able to write a letter and say, I will try to be in Kansas City at such and such time, because 20 years in my life, hell, I didn't know what I'd be at such and such a time.
Promise, nothing. I was full of false pride. I don't know what hurts the alcoholic much more than pride, unless it would be resentment. And I was so full of it, I was a pain in you know where. That false pride can get me in more trouble than anything that I've ever had. And I didn't know it till I met you people. I was physically sick, another piece, physically sick. I weighed 109 pounds, dripping wet. That was my fighting weight.
That was my fighting weight. And one that really nails this all, I was puffed up. Man, I was puffed up more ways than one. If you've ever drunk that old cheap wine as long as I did, you can't get your shoes on, you know, your feet swell. I was puffed up all right. But boy, I was puffed up more ways than one too. And it took AA to let that hot air out of me. And that puffed up got me in an awful lot of trouble.
But I guess if it was truthfully known, the letter P that caused me the most trouble was those men that wear a blue uniform. God bless their souls. Not to lie, I don't love them yet. I've got to though someday. I don't know, I don't know why it is, but I can be standing on the corner minding my own business. I have only drunk two bottles of beer, swear to it, two bottles, never anymore and never in less. Why two? I often wonder. Two bottles.
Here comes up one of those representatives of the city form of government. He enters into a conversation with me. He asked me some of the damn foolish questions I've ever heard a white man ask another one. And all the time I know who his mother and father is. And during the conversation, I start telling him they don't like it. I've been looking for one all my life, and I haven't found one that he has no regard to his parents are. And there I am. And I ended up after he's worked me over with that nightstick and blackjack. And you know, I'm a great resistor at 109 pounds. I just fight hell out of him, you know. There I end up on the concrete floor in that backfield. I've yet to ever get a bed in one of those joints. I'm sure they got them, but I never get on there because they give me six months in the PFAC. And then that's hard labor. I never will forget the first sentence I got was in Cook County jail. And I was a young kid. And I stood there before this nice man and he's a nice judge. And he gave me six weeks in that jail. And he just looked down at me and man, I don't know why y'all had the same trouble I did. Man, I was dirty. So he just looked at me and he said, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Six weeks in the Cook County jail.
So I know about it. But you know, there's always a funny side of life about anything that you do. I was drinking while intoxicated in a little town of Texarkana, Texas. And I run into this same deal I was telling you about. And they throwed me in the jail. And oh, I was sick. And another wino in there
[00:55:00]
was the greatest chemist that the world has ever known. Far as anybody. He came to me and he says, if you can get a dime, we can get a drink. Now I said, now that's going to be a wonderful brand of whiskey we're going to get for a dime in jail. He says, if you can't get a dime, if you can get a loaf of light bread, we can get a drink. Well, after looking at that old night jailer for a couple of nights, I thought that he was kind of tenderhearted. So I knew he wouldn't give us a dime. So I asked him if he would happen to have an old stale loaf of light bread like they had any damn thing else except old stale loaf of light bread. He said, sure. And I said, well, we're hungry. We haven't had anything to eat, which was the truth. So when the rest of the winos went to bed, my newfound friend came over and he had discovered that they were painting the city jail in Texarkana. And in the corner was a 55-gallon drum of shellac. We pinched a little hole in the bottom of that loaf of light bread, a little larger one, and when everything got quiet and serene, we entered into the greatest chemistry known to man.
We poured that shellac through that loaf of light bread with our little tin cups, and we caught that pure green alcohol from the loaf of that light bread. You talk about manna from heaven, boy, that was it. The Lord was taking care of us even there. The third time that I come up, before Judge McGuire's drunk, he looks at me, he says, Judge, I don't know where you're getting that whiskey. We've looked this place high and low, but I'll tell you one thing. He says, I'm going to give you one hour to get out of Texarkana, and he says, if you'll ever come back here, I'll give you one year.
They hauled us in the squad car to the city limits. Now, when you get thrown out of jail, you know about them police. But it's wonderful to be able to go back to Texarkana. I've had several jobs there, just finished up one. Judge McGuire's family and I, we're all good friends, and it was really a wonderful thing to get to talk to the Episcopal Church over there about two weeks ago. And twice I had to stop and adjust that halo, and it's just right up there, you know.
And by the way, that thing will just slip down, it's the damnedest noose you've ever seen. It'll hang any time. But in all seriousness, the trouble with that fee was that I couldn't be a partner, and I've yet to find a drinking alcoholic that can. I couldn't be a partner in business because I was so irresponsible and so sick, in such tormental conditions, that I couldn't do any kind of work worthwhile.
They never know when we're going to be there. They don't know what kind of shape we're going to be when we do get there. We can disrupt an organization more than any hundred people that's ever been on one payroll. Why they like us, I don't know. I've always wished that they didn't like the damn alcoholics, but they love us for some reason. Another everybody covers up for us. They feel sorry for us. So I couldn't be a partner in business, and I couldn't be a partner in marriage, which is a very, very serious thing when you've got as fine a wife as I got.
And we just started drinking together, socially, homebrew days, bathtub gin, nighthawks up here at the mule box. We used to come from Dallas up here just to hear the nighthawks. Ride a train, come up here five or six couples of us, had a big time, thought we were just the cutest ones, you know, drinking that bathtub gin. Drinking wasn't any problem. Neither was marriage. But it got to be a problem, and I couldn't be a partner in marriage.
And then I couldn't be even a partner in drinking. I got to the point that I couldn't even get along with John Barlicourt. Get Along with John Barticone, and when a man with a drinking problem can't tell what he's going to do when he takes one drink, well he can't even get along with what's causing
[01:00:00]
him the problem. So my drinking problem got completely out of hand, and then I found out what the letter P really meant in my life. Because I was either in the poorhouse, some form of penitentiary, constant. Only one thing saved me, and that was the war. Because I'd reached the point that no physician, no psychologist, no pastor, or person could keep me from being drunk, and the war came along. I have a wonderful, wonderful occupation. I'm a dynamite man, and it's a funny thing, technically they call them powder men. The word's P, and I've learned how to handle every known form of explosives known to man, except a half-pint bottle of whiskey.
If they gave me the hydrogen, the H-bomb, the atomic bomb, none of us had seen the real, sure enough, one they got. The cobalt bomb, that's the one that ends all bombs, but I would rather play with it than one of them stinking little half-pints of whiskey, I'll tell you that. I'll get in more trouble with that little half-pint than I will with it, because this is slow death. That little half-pint is slow death.
You just make one mistake with the other, and nobody cares when you're in that kind of shape. The reason that I know that this was such a problem and it took something else, I stayed overseas, at your expense, as a master sergeant in your army, teaching the Russians how to use explosives for three and a half years, and I was in a demolition squad, and out of the twelve men that went over there, one and a half of us come back. A man in California runs around on a scooter.
Bottom half of him was blown away, and all I lost was my soft teeth, and glasses, all the time I was over there, drunk. And I only had one idea at all that I was coming back home with those master sergeant stripes I was going to stay over there. Well, I didn't have this enough to know it, but they did need demolition men, and every time they'd lock me up for being drunk, when the old man would come around and ask me if they're going to be court-martialed, I said, well, there's no more shooting.
I said, you either give me them six stripes back, take all the charges off of my service record, or you can go get some other damn fool to do this demolition work, and you know the government will make a deal with you just exactly like that. So I stayed over there for a long time, and isn't it odd how dumb we can get with this problem? I come back and got into Alcoholics Anonymous, and had trouble with the spiritual side of the program. I wonder who's been taking care of me for the past 20 years.
But that's the way it was. So you see, I met you folks with a drinking problem, and that same letter P saved my life. You told me about a power greater than myself, whom I now call God. You taught me to do one thing that I always knew about, but I didn't have sense enough to do. You told me if you want to keep what we're telling you about, you have to talk to it. It's awful hard for a drunk to ever talk, and be honest. You told me when you talk to him, says there's no use to you lying anymore to him, he's heard all of those lies. So just talk to him, and this is what you told me, that his will be done, not mine. In a short time, after being in the group,
[01:05:05]
and being with a group of people like you, my wife and I pick up a little child's prayer, and it says, we thank you now, dear Lord, for home, and friends, and food, and may we live this day to show our gratitude. That simple little prayer changed our way of life. Prayer. The word peace. You taught me patience. I don't have much of it. I'd love to have a lot of it, but I do have patience towards all men.
I heard an old man say the other day, he said, I never did much for mankind, but I was crazy about them womankind. So I've even learned some patience about them womankind. The word patience now to me means so much, and I believe that here this afternoon we saw a demonstration of patience that I never have seen equal anywhere before in the AA history of 25 years. We have seen patience through God with my friend and your friends who told Bill that he could stay sober. To me, that is patience, and it's so rewarding when you see it, because you see it with your eyes, and it's so wonderful that the men have started a stay sober.
They did stay sober through this wonderful program in patience, and then you taught me the beautiful word pardon. A lady in my group gave me that word on a little card that she had written. It said, God alone will alone will abundantly pardon, and I had such a guilt complex in my life that I needed just that. Because when I humbly asked God for the guidance and strength to stay sober for one day, and was willing to admit to God and another person the exact nature of my wrongs, I needed a great deal of pardon, and AA told me that this power greater than I would pardon me, and I believe that he does, and it's through this pardon that I was given a sense of relief from this compulsion to drink.
And as a result of these, I truly have a pardon. I just wish that Leobel could have been with me here today, and to know you, my wife. We're now pardoned, and I believe that the greatest relationship that can exist between man and woman is that of pardon, and I believe that between man and woman, it's through the matrimony and a man and a woman being friends. And we are friends, and it took me a long time to find out how beautiful it could be, because you know you won't do a thing to your friend that you do to your wife.
I don't know why. I just bristled when this beautiful girl over here started talking about don't nag. I started telling a real good story, but she was so nice I was scared to, but I will tell it anyway. It seems as if this drunk was laying in this all he would see, with one of them old white nightgown shirts, you know, on him, and this shirt kept coming through there, and he asked her for a little drink, and she said no. Said give me just one little pill. She said no. Said give me just a little corral to hide. She says hell no.
He's just begging for everything. She walked over and grabbed him by that shirt and shook him real good and says, you're not gonna get another damn thing. Lay there and shake it out. He just looked right up at her and says, lady, you don't know it, says, but I'm married to your
[01:10:04]
sister. I was married to her sister, I know. But it ain't that way anymore. Now, we got to know each other real well, because you see, my wife is the cause of my drinking. Yes, sir. My wife didn't understand me. She understood me too damn well, if you know what I'm talking about. But it is wonderful to be a partner, but the wonderful thing that you have given me is peace. Some form of peace of mind, and I think that's the most beautiful thing in the AA program, is the fact that we have some semblance of happiness. To me, this group here represents the greatest hope for happiness that a person could see. I wish we had a live TV in this room this afternoon. If you could see your faces as I see you, you would realize that in this program, it was in and through us, the drink is to die.
It is only through you that I can say so. So, everything that I have, everything I ever expect to have, I owe to you people, and through this beautiful program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know who Deuteronomy was, but he was one of them old great beards. Neiman didn't write that book, but anyway, they named the book after him, Deuteronomy. I'm afraid that he knew more about you and me than anybody that I've ever read about, including the big book. It says very plainly in there that a man or woman that lives the life of righteousness and brokenness, so lives to see the day that which is day was night, and night was day. Now, if that isn't a description of me, nobody ever was.
Night was day. I was always at the wrong place at the wrong time, and when Bill says that we're children of the night, I think he knows what we're talking about. And I want to picture to you the most beautiful thing that I've seen in a long time, the recovery of this soul sickness that a person with a drinking problem had. And this happened in a little small group at Whistler Falls. This was a birthday party.
A man's first birthday, and he lived out on a farm about ten miles. So he told his kids that afternoon to get cleaned up that they were going into town. They were going to the annual meeting. He had a little boy about this big, and this is the story he told. As they got started into town, his son turned to him and he says, Dad, is that man from AA going to be there tonight? He says, who's that? He says, that man from God.
And he says, it just shouldn't. He says, Son, there's no man from God at AA. He says, Daddy, that man that come out to our house when you was living out there in the corn shed has told you that you didn't have to drink that corn whiskey anymore, because if that man wasn't from God, says he worked for it. I wonder how many members of Alcoholics Anonymous, including myself, have gone into work lately.
I wonder how many old boys or girls right here this afternoon that don't know anything about this AA program. I can tell you how many. Ninety-seven percent. 97 out of every 100. You represent 3% in Kansas City. In my hometown, it's probably less, because we don't do too good a job either.
[01:15:03]
So we people in AA must never get so smug in complacent. We're pretty dressed up, we got a dollar in our pocket. We mustn't get ever so smug in complacent that we forget what a good old stinkin' nasty pukin' drunk really what kind of shape he's in. I pray to God that those doors back there never are closed to anything that can crawl or walk through them that says he's got an alcoholic problem and he wants to stop drinking.
This is home. This is the only place in the world a drunk has got to go. I hope we just keep it just as simple as anybody possibly can. Open our arms and our heart and like Ebby says, your pocketbook too is necessary to give that old man or gal the hope that you and folks gave to me. And I think it's there for all of us. And the reason I believe that it's there is that the drunk told me why. If you have trouble with this word God that I have used this afternoon, please just add the letter O and it spells good.
Because everything in this world that is good is God's. And God won't have anything to do with anything unless it is good. And that's why I know from the bottom of my heart that Alcoholics Anonymous is good. And I thank God for AA because it was through AA that I found you and found God. And in closing I'd like to read you a short listener. This is a poem written by the man by the name of Bishop. And the title of it is The Searcher.
It says, I tried to find where my soul might be. I looked to God and he eluded me. I searched myself, I drunkered out and found all three. Thank you ever so much and God bless you. God bless you.