Transcript

[00:00.4 – 00:02.1] Ebby from Dallas, Texas. [00:02.1 – 00:11.1] Thank you. [00:11.1 – 00:14.3] Yeah, I'm sold on San Francisco. [00:14.3 – 00:15.2] You can say that. [00:15.2 – 00:20.1] I had two charming ladies take me on a tour today, and they certainly did a fine job. [00:20.1 – 00:22.6] I saw everything I wanted to see in a short time. [00:22.6 – 00:28.7] Had lunch at the Cliff House and saw the Embarcadero and Fisherman's Wharf and the top of the Mark. [00:28.7 – 00:29.7] We covered a lot of ground. [00:29.7 – 00:32.4] And it's nice to be here. [00:32.4 – 00:41.6] I've been asked to go over the early ground of AA, and to do so, I've got to give you some of my background as a young man. [00:41.6 – 00:45.2] I was born and raised in Albany, New York. [00:45.2 – 00:47.1] Some of you know it, the capital of the state. [00:47.1 – 00:56.2] And, uh, my father and mother had a, always had a s- uh, rented a summer cottage in Manchester, Vermont, which is only 60 miles away. [00:56.2 – 01:00.6] And it was a short trip up there by train and later on by automobile. [01:00.6 – 01:08.5] Although I remember the first time that we made it, uh, in a car that we half built ourselves in a f- in our foundry and machine shop, it took three days. [01:08.5 – 01:12.0] And then they wound up on a hill four miles south of the village. [01:12.0 – 01:17.1] It broke down for the third or fourth time, and it had to be hauled in by a team of horses. [01:17.1 – 01:25.0] And I can see the local constable saying, "Get a horse, get a horse." I can still hear him, and see my father and my older brothers coming in. [01:25.0 – 01:30.2] And it was there that I met Bill Wilson, in Manchester, Vermont. [01:30.2 – 01:38.5] Uh, I went to school in Albany, but I'd formed a great friendship with the minister's son, and he went to the local school up there. [01:38.5 – 01:39.5] It's a high school. [01:39.5 – 01:48.6] And he persuaded me, and I in turn, uh, sold a bill of goods to my family, uh, to stay up there a winter and go to school up there. [01:48.6 – 01:54.3] And I had met Bill casually before, but I got to know him very well that winter, and we became good friends. [01:54.3 – 01:57.1] And that's where our friendship started. [01:57.1 – 02:04.6] And of course, he and I and Lois W- uh, Burnham, who had a summer cottage, uh, directly across from ours on the main street of the town. [02:04.6 – 02:06.3] And I knew her from childhood. [02:06.3 – 02:08.2] In fact, she can rem- she's a little older than I am. [02:08.2 – 02:10.0] She can remember me when I was in the baby carriage. [02:10.0 – 02:17.0] And so that takes us up to, to the time that I knew Bill Wilson. [02:17.0 – 02:25.9] In my last year in school, which had turned out to be my last year because I got drinking and was expelled. [02:25.9 – 02:33.6] Well, I wasn't exactly expelled, but the, the principal of the school wrote my father a letter that summer that they didn't think they could do anything more for me, which is practically the same. [02:33.6 – 02:39.3] So I just didn't show up that fall, and my father put me to work in the, his iron foundry. [02:39.3 – 02:45.2] And, uh, my drinking was then somewhat regulated. [02:45.2 – 02:48.1] I would hold it by on a Saturday night, although I'd get drunk. [02:48.1 – 02:50.1] I was never could tell what I was gonna do. [02:50.1 – 02:59.1] I might drink some of the older men under the table, and I, I might get drunker than a hoot owl on three or four drinks and raise the devil and have a hard time. [02:59.1 – 03:01.8] But, uh, I generally managed to keep it on Saturday night. [03:01.8 – 03:12.0] I knew as a young man, I think, that, that winter that Bill and I went to school, we, we talked the situation over because the, the s- the condition was in both our families. [03:12.0 – 03:22.0] My father drank too much, my brothers did, and I could only figure that I was just the same as they were in, in, in makeup, temperamental makeup, and I'd probably go the same way. [03:22.0 – 03:28.2] But one time in Albany, I walked into the bar room of the hotel tonight, and I ordered a glass of beer. [03:28.2 – 03:30.2] And it was the finest glass of beer I ever tasted. [03:30.2 – 03:35.3] And I said, "This is for me." Just that one beer, just the little warm feeling it gave you. [03:35.3 – 03:40.2] And I used it, uh, because I had no confidence as a young man. [03:40.2 – 03:46.8] Uh, in a gathering of people, I was all right with one or two of my cronies, but when I got in a gathering, I, I was lost. [03:46.8 – 03:52.3] And I found that alcohol would overcome that, and I'd become more or less the life of the party. [03:52.3 – 03:57.8] And I think I said, "That's what I wanted to be." I wanted to be kingpin in everything I did, probably. [03:57.8 – 04:00.4] And yet I wasn't quite good enough. [04:00.4 – 04:03.6] And that alcohol brought me up to the point where at least I thought I was. [04:03.6 – 04:11.9] But it began to get pretty bad as the years went on, and, uh, the Saturday nights drunk, uh, progressed into one or two nights during the week. [04:11.9 – 04:19.9] And when the Christmas holidays came around, and the debs came out and the dances and all that like, I didn't get much work done in the foundry. [04:19.9 – 04:21.8] I, uh, got to drinking pretty heavy. [04:21.8 – 04:31.0] And it went from bad to worse, and, uh, I was in lots of hot water and lots of trouble. [04:31.0 – 04:34.6] Got so that I'd go on a drunk and couldn't get off it. [04:34.6 – 04:39.1] I remember taking the first drink in the morning, and that started the ball rolling right back in the bottle again. [04:39.1 – 04:46.3] Well, we'll skip a lot of the blow-by-blow description and get up to 1934. [04:46.3 – 04:50.2] I was living alone in a house in Manchester. [04:50.2 – 04:53.3] Uh, my father and mother were both dead. [04:53.3 – 04:58.2] And strange as it may seem, we'd never bought a house up there until 1923. [04:58.2 – 05:02.7] And my fa- mother died in '27 and father in '29. [05:02.7 – 05:05.2] I was living there alone, and I was drinking to beat the devil. [05:05.2 – 05:10.6] My brothers were all married, and they'd taken the most of the furniture, and they'd left some stuff for me, and I lived there. [05:10.6 – 05:14.2] And I was trying to paint the house alone. [05:14.2 – 05:15.3] And I had a ladder. [05:15.3 – 05:19.1] I didn't have sufficient equipment, and, uh, I was too shaky to get up on that ladder. [05:19.1 – 05:22.3] And I was making a mess of things generally. [05:22.3 – 05:25.3] I'd been arrested a couple of times for drunkenness out around the town. [05:25.3 – 05:32.1] And three times in Vermont, there's a mandatory six-month sentence in the state prison. [05:32.1 – 05:40.1] So these fellas came along, a couple of them that I'd been drinking with, used to drink with. [05:40.1 – 05:47.9] Known them for years, and, uh, they collared me down at the house one day, and they started talking to me about this Oxford Group they'd become interested in. [05:47.9 – 05:52.0] And I listened because they made sense. [05:52.0 – 05:55.4] I know that, uh, I don't think that they were alcoholics in the sense that I am. [05:55.4 – 05:57.5] They both drank heavily. [05:57.5 – 06:01.4] But I think that they could, they, they were more or less power hungry, though, both of them. [06:01.4 – 06:07.1] One was a New York stockbroker, and he just wanted to have the world, uh, by the horns where he could run it. [06:07.1 – 06:11.3] But they talked a lot of sense to me, and they left a book with me. [06:11.3 – 06:20.6] And they, they said, "Now, you've been trying to run your life your own way, and you're down on your luck, and you're not getting anywhere, and you're drinking yourself to death. [06:20.6 – 06:30.6] Why don't you try turning your life over to God?" Well, that made sense to me, and, uh, I sobered up for a few days, and I wrote my brother in Albany [06:30.6 – 06:32.5] and that I'd like to get some help on the house. [06:32.5 – 06:34.0] And he wrote back and says, "Go ahead. [06:34.0 – 06:43.2] Get a local painter and see what kind of a deal you can make with him." Well, this man had sent over a lot of equipment and one of his painters, and the two of us got the thing done. [06:43.2 – 06:50.3] We took over two weeks to do it 'cause it was a big house and a lot of work to be done around cutting sashes on the windows and everything. [06:50.3 – 06:55.8] But as soon as that house was painted, I, I lost all interest again. [06:55.8 – 06:59.1] There was nothing to look forward to, no goal to strive for. [06:59.1 – 07:03.4] At least that house painting was something to be done, to get accomplished. [07:03.4 – 07:06.2] So I went right back in the bottle again. [07:06.2 – 07:12.1] And I was apprehended by the local law for a third time. [07:12.1 – 07:19.0] And, uh, I appeared before the judge down in Bennington, the local constable whom I went to school with that one year. [07:19.0 – 07:22.9] He took me down there, and, uh, I appeared before him. [07:22.9 – 07:28.7] And it so happened that he was the father of one of the boys that had come to see me, Zebra Graves. [07:28.7 – 07:30.2] And this was Judge Graves, his father. [07:30.2 – 07:33.0] And he gives this finding. [07:33.0 – 07:38.5] He said, "Well, you'll be back here Monday." And he says, "I want you back here sober." And I'm just mentioning this. [07:38.5 – 07:42.1] It's a very little incident, but in, in my life it was a big one. [07:42.1 – 07:43.4] It, it really meant something. [07:43.4 – 07:45.6] When the, when the boy drove… [07:45.6 – 07:49.5] the lad that I went down with drove me back to the house, and I went in there all alone. [07:49.5 – 07:53.4] I remembered that I had three nice cold bottles of ale down in the cellar. [07:53.4 – 08:00.5] And I said, "Well, if I drink that ale and space it along, it would just sort of keep me up a little bit, and I won't hit the depths. [08:00.5 – 08:04.3] And I can't possibly get drunk because I can't get any more in town. [08:04.3 – 08:11.1] Everybody knows about this, and I've shut off my supply." And I walked downstairs, and I picked up one of those bottles, and I said, "Now, wait a minute. [08:11.1 – 08:16.2] The judge says, 'Don't come back here sober.' Well, this isn't exactly cricket. [08:16.2 – 08:18.9] 'Don't take a drink,' is what he meant really. [08:18.9 – 08:29.0] And you could get back there sober, and he'd never know anything about it, but it isn't exactly honest." So I walked upstairs again, and I got up there, and I said, "Oh, the devil," as this little devil sat on my shoulder. [08:29.0 – 08:32.5] "Go on down and take that ale." I walked up and down the stairs three or four times. [08:32.5 – 08:38.5] And finally, I picked them up and put them in a carton and took them over to the man next door. [08:38.5 – 08:44.0] And I said, "Here's a present for you." And believe me, that was a weight that was lifted off my shoulder. [08:44.0 – 08:45.6] It really was. [08:45.6 – 08:49.2] I felt a release from that time on. [08:49.2 – 08:57.1] And I know that night I sat down beside my bed and said my prayers like I hadn't said them in years. [08:57.1 – 09:00.3] And I said to God, I said, "I really mean business. [09:00.3 – 09:09.0] I want to quit this drinking." Well, I stayed around the house for a couple of weeks in October, and it began to get cold and inadequate. [09:09.0 – 09:10.8] I didn't want to start the furnace. [09:10.8 – 09:11.8] It was a hot water thing. [09:11.8 – 09:15.1] And one of these men that had come to see me, I didn't know. [09:15.1 – 09:20.2] There was a third man had come along into the picture, and he also had become interested in the Oxford Group. [09:20.2 – 09:30.2] And he said, "Well, why don't you shut up the house and come down and stay with me for a few days?" He lived in a town below, about 15 miles below, south of Manchester, and he had a [09:30.2 – 09:30.7] home there. [09:30.7 – 09:32.0] And he said, "Why don't you come and live with me? [09:32.0 – 09:42.1] And we got a lot of speaking to do." And, uh, less than two weeks after I joined this thing or got interested in it, I was out talking my head off at, at various places [09:42.1 – 09:42.9] in Vermont. [09:42.9 – 09:48.0] One weekend, I spoke five times: at two churches, a junior college, and two town meetings. [09:48.0 – 09:55.3] Now, I don't know what I spoke about or, or anything, but I guess the, the people could sense the fact that I had found something. [09:55.3 – 09:59.6] So that went on for a while, and we had people up from New York. [09:59.6 – 10:03.0] We started what they called house parties, the Oxford Group called them. [10:03.0 – 10:09.6] And then I went down to New York, and I stayed with one of these lads who'd come to see me for a week or two weeks. [10:09.6 – 10:19.5] And then he made an arrangement with Calvary Episcopal Church, who ran a mission on 23rd Street and First Avenue in New York City in what they call the Gashouse District. [10:19.5 – 10:20.6] It used to be called that. [10:20.6 – 10:22.9] And for me to go down. [10:22.9 – 10:30.3] And they had a brotherhood of 12 men who ran the place, supposedly under Oxford Group lines and, uh, principles. [10:30.3 – 10:33.3] So I went down there and lived for a year. [10:33.3 – 10:39.2] I sometimes thought to think that I shouldn't have done that and made the year there, but they wanted me to do it. [10:39.2 – 10:41.8] The only reason is I think I got lazy. [10:41.8 – 10:43.3] I didn't want to get out and work too hard. [10:43.3 – 10:46.2] I mean, that isn't making money, and I had just enough to get by. [10:46.2 – 10:48.9] I had a place to sleep that didn't cost me anything. [10:48.9 – 10:51.5] But on the other hand, maybe it was meant. [10:51.5 – 10:57.5] And in passing, I, I don't know whether many of you know much about the Oxford Group. [10:57.5 – 10:59.8] I'm not too familiar with it. [10:59.8 – 11:00.2] The Reverend Mr. [11:00.2 – 11:02.0] Glass told me that he'd been a member of it. [11:02.0 – 11:12.0] I'm not too, uh, sure of its origins, except it was started by a man named Frank Buchman, who was a member of the cloth, somewhere in the early [11:12.0 – 11:12.5] '30s. [11:12.5 – 11:15.3] It was 1934 when I came into the picture. [11:15.3 – 11:23.9] And I think that the, the great interest in it at that time perhaps was due to the Wall Street crash in 1929. [11:23.9 – 11:34.6] People who had lost everything, their shirt and everything else in that crash, realized that they had been paying devotion to false gods, that [11:34.6 – 11:35.1] they were not… [11:35.1 – 11:36.3] that, that they didn't… [11:36.3 – 11:37.6] were not on the right track. [11:37.6 – 11:39.9] And they were completely lost, and they were searching for something. [11:39.9 – 11:41.5] And they heard of this and came there. [11:41.5 – 11:46.0] And of course, among that number were a great many alcoholics, like myself. [11:46.0 – 11:51.5] And I was there, and I really went into the thing with spirit. [11:51.5 – 11:56.9] I tried my best to learn everything they had to teach, and they were pretty thorough in their indoctrination. [11:56.9 – 12:01.2] They had some very fine men that, uh, very wise men, too. [12:01.2 – 12:05.0] And I tried my level best to get something out of that. [12:05.0 – 12:15.2] And I think the reason that they failed, although I understand that they're still in existence out here on the West Coast under the name of Moral Re-Armament They changed the name, [12:15.2 – 12:25.3] and that name in itself was a misnomer because the thing started here in this country, and people went over to Oxford University in England, and in [12:25.3 – 12:29.5] turn from there, they sent what they called a team to South Africa. [12:29.5 – 12:33.2] And some reporters there got ahold of it and referred to them as the group from Oxford. [12:33.2 – 12:36.3] And that name stuck, and it was called the Oxford Group. [12:36.3 – 12:39.1] And it was no more the Oxford Group than man in the moon group. [12:39.1 – 12:47.3] But I tried, and it was during this time that I was living or, and, and I'd gotten in the mission that I heard about Bill Wilson. [12:47.3 – 12:53.7] And I heard that he'd been drinking heavily and, and was not wanted in very many offices in Wall Street where he worked. [12:53.7 – 12:57.2] He'd, uh, he'd made such a mess of himself. [12:57.2 – 13:07.2] So I determined that maybe I could help him, and I really put some thought into it because I knew that Bill would either take it lock, stock, and barrel and go for [13:07.2 – 13:12.5] it, and he'd really put his weight behind and get in and, and push, or he'd reject it. [13:12.5 – 13:22.7] And I think the reason he accepted it was because he saw me sober after so many years of drunkenness, and he was in great need at the time. [13:22.7 – 13:30.0] It just so happened that I, I was the man who came along at the right time when Bill needed it with what happened to be the right medicine. [13:30.0 – 13:38.7] So Bill came and went to the Oxford Group meetings with me, and we did a lot of work together. [13:38.7 – 13:43.4] Bill, uh, when I first saw him that night, didn't sober up right away. [13:43.4 – 13:45.9] Three or four days later, he came to one of our meetings. [13:45.9 – 13:48.0] At the mission, we had meetings there every night. [13:48.0 – 13:52.6] We had new men, and we gave the ones beds if we could, or we had available beds. [13:52.6 – 13:58.1] And Bill came there with a sailor, and he was drunk, and he even insisted on getting up in the rostrum and making a speech. [13:58.1 – 14:01.6] And the superintendent said, "Get him down." I said, "Let him go. [14:01.6 – 14:06.7] See what he's got." Well, he was all twisted up as a drunk is, but he, he had gotten something out of my talk. [14:06.7 – 14:16.8] As he walked to the subway with me that night and he said, he said, "I don't know what you got," but he said, "Whatever it is, I want it." So next thing I heard was that he'd gone to Towns [14:16.8 – 14:17.3] Hospital. [14:17.3 – 14:22.3] He got himself three or four bottles of beer in a taxi, and he drank the beer on the way up in the taxi. [14:22.3 – 14:26.7] And I went up to see him, and I visited him there two or three times. [14:26.7 – 14:34.7] And when he got out, I sort of rode herd on him and got him to coming around to meetings, and pretty soon he took, really took a hold of the thing. [14:34.7 – 14:39.5] And he in turn went out, and as you know, the following summer met Dr. [14:39.5 – 14:49.6] Bob in Akron and formed that great friendship and that great fellowship that was so necessary to the founding of AA, along with Sit– [14:49.6 – 14:50.4] the sister out there. [14:50.4 – 14:51.6] I can't think of her name for a minute. [14:51.6 – 14:55.9] Which was so necessary to f-founding of AA. [14:55.9 – 15:01.2] Of course, Akron claims that they, they were the first AA group. [15:01.2 – 15:08.0] I don't quite see how because from the Oxfor- group meetings, Bill Wilson continued the meetings on in his house in Brooklyn. [15:08.0 – 15:16.0] And then we went to Steinway Hall, and, uh, so New York had a group that was in perfect succession all the time. [15:16.0 – 15:23.2] But when it became Alcoholics Anonymous and when it from, uh, uh, springing off from the Oxford Group, I can't tell you, and I don't think Bill can or anybody. [15:23.2 – 15:26.8] Nobody kept a diary, and nobody knew what it was all about. [15:26.8 – 15:31.8] And you go back twenty-seven years, and it's pretty hard to remember all the details or to get things straight. [15:31.8 – 15:41.7] The book came out about nineteen thirty-nine, and of course, that was a great incentive, and so was the, uh, the article in the Saturday Evening Post, Jack Alexander. [15:41.7 – 15:51.5] Well, in the summer of nineteen thirty-six, after I'd been in New York nearly two years, I decided to go back to Albany because I lived in the [15:51.7 – 15:59.9] Sure, and I, I'd moved from the mission over to Bill Wilson's house, and I wasn't doing much more in the line of, uh, endeavor for pay than I had in the other place. [15:59.9 – 16:06.9] And I decided I'd better go back to Albany, my hometown, where I'd made such a mess of things and where I had so many amends to make. [16:06.9 – 16:08.2] And I did. [16:08.2 – 16:11.0] I went back in the summer, it was July or August. [16:11.0 – 16:17.3] And I finally got a job at the Ford Motor Company up in Green Island, which is eight or nine miles north of Albany. [16:17.3 – 16:20.9] And I worked, uh, two weeks on the day shift and two weeks on the night. [16:20.9 – 16:22.9] And I used to come down when I was working on the night shift. [16:22.9 – 16:25.9] I got through Thursday morning, wasn't due back in again till Sunday. [16:25.9 – 16:28.6] I'd come down to New York every three, third or fourth weekend. [16:28.6 – 16:32.5] And I don't know, I was getting away from the tracks. [16:32.5 – 16:42.2] Uh, I was getting away from what I had found and I guess some one thing that I wanted that God hadn't given me, and I figured that something was wrong and, uh, this little boy had been mistreated. [16:42.2 – 16:45.2] So I, I got off. [16:45.2 – 16:55.2] I know that one of the men that worked with me in Ford said, "The last week before you went to New York on that last trip," he said, "you were just like a piece of steel wire." He said, "You were so tense." He said, "I knew something was going to happen." He wasn't an [16:55.2 – 16:56.2] alcoholic himself. [16:56.2 – 16:58.7] Well, I used to see a girl down there. [16:58.7 – 16:59.7] There was no romance in it. [16:59.7 – 17:00.7] It was, she was just a friend. [17:00.7 – 17:01.7] And take her out to dinner. [17:01.7 – 17:07.3] And I took her out to dinner this one night, and she always had a Scotch highball, possibly two, and that's all. [17:07.3 – 17:08.4] At least you weren't innocent anymore. [17:08.4 – 17:09.1] That was enough. [17:09.1 – 17:10.7] Just sociability. [17:10.7 – 17:12.3] A little pickup. [17:12.3 – 17:14.8] Well, this night I ordered one. [17:14.8 – 17:17.3] She said, "What are you going to do now?" She said, "Kick your legs out from under you? [17:17.3 – 17:26.1] You got he- you got three or four months, nearly a year sobriety, or two years sobriety, and you're going to kick it all and throw it away?" I said, "Well, one drink won't hurt me." Oh, no. [17:26.1 – 17:35.1] That night at the 12:00 she finally got the taxi to let me off at the Lexington Hotel in New York and got rid of me because I was roaring drunk by that time. [17:35.1 – 17:42.6] And I called Bill up, by the way, and he sent a couple of guys over the next morning, and, uh, they got me out of the hotel and over to his house. [17:42.6 – 17:44.5] But it didn't do any good. [17:44.5 – 17:46.4] You start a cycle like that, you got to finish it. [17:46.4 – 17:51.0] And Bill went away for that weekend, and there I was in the house. [17:51.0 – 17:53.7] And he told me, "There's a bottle of Scotch in there." My sufferings were bad. [17:53.7 – 17:55.8] I needed a drink, so I just stayed drunk for a week there. [17:55.8 – 18:00.4] And I finally went back to Albany and back to the Ford Motor Company. [18:00.4 – 18:01.7] I showed up there Monday morning. [18:01.7 – 18:10.6] And, uh, superintendent met me at the clock and said, "Where you been?" I said, "I was down in New York and I was taken sick with ptomaine poisoning." Yeah. [18:10.6 – 18:20.5] "That's my story and I'm going to stick to it." And he says, "Go on back to work." And I had a man back there, a store boss, who didn't like me for sour apples, and I guess the feeling was mutual. [18:20.5 – 18:23.2] I went to work on, uh, this machine. [18:23.2 – 18:25.0] I was an inspector in the springs division. [18:25.0 – 18:28.8] And I picked up a, a leaf of a spring to put it on this testing machine. [18:28.8 – 18:31.0] He said, "What are you doing back here?" He said. [18:31.0 – 18:38.1] He said, "We got a crane broken down out there in the yard, and we got to unload steel by hand." Now, he said, "Get out there." And out I went in the yard and unloaded with this other guy. [18:38.1 – 18:42.1] And I swear, at the end of that day, my hands, I couldn't open them. [18:42.1 – 18:44.2] They were just cramped from lifting that flat steel. [18:44.2 – 18:47.3] Bale after bale of it, you know. [18:47.3 – 18:48.5] Bundle after bundle of it. [18:48.5 – 18:56.1] And, uh, I used to drive back, uh, to, to, uh, back and forth from Albany with a man, and we shared expenses. [18:56.1 – 19:03.7] And we got in the car one after the gate, and he says, "I've tried to raise some money for you." He says, "I know damn well you need a drink." I said, "Never mind raising the money. [19:03.7 – 19:04.1] I ain't got it. [19:04.1 – 19:07.1] Let's get to the nearest saloon." Well, that's the last I ever saw of the Ford plant. [19:07.1 – 19:08.5] That was it. [19:08.5 – 19:18.5] Couple days later, a few days later, the man appeared from the Ford plant, one of the security men, and he had a check for one day's pay and, and, uh, asked for my badge. [19:18.5 – 19:18.8] And I… [19:18.8 – 19:25.0] So from then on, I was right back in the same old situation again. [19:25.0 – 19:30.0] Drinking, getting sober for a few months, getting drunk again, no incentive to live. [19:30.0 – 19:32.3] I knew I was doing wrong. [19:32.3 – 19:35.9] I knew that the, I knew the answers, but I couldn't apply them. [19:35.9 – 19:41.1] And this went on in a, a very unsatisfactory situation. [19:41.1 – 19:50.8] I spent a couple of summers in Kent, Connecticut, in the High Watch Farm, which was the first alcoholic farm or health farm in this country. [19:50.8 – 19:53.0] I helped run that. [19:53.0 – 19:54.2] I was assistant manager. [19:54.2 – 20:03.1] And then I, when the man who, who ran that went on to Beech Hill in, uh, New Hampshire, in Dublin, New Hampshire, I went on there with him. [20:03.1 – 20:06.6] I was there in '46 and '47 I was in Connecticut. [20:06.6 – 20:11.8] And '49 I was in, uh, Beech Hill in, uh, New Hampshire, and I helped him run that. [20:11.8 – 20:14.6] And I was sober as long as I had responsibility and something to do. [20:14.6 – 20:16.4] But when that ended, I went right back to the bottle. [20:16.4 – 20:20.3] And I kicked around New York and kicked around New York. [20:20.3 – 20:23.3] I spent some time in a place called the Chester Crest. [20:23.3 – 20:30.3] And that's, uh, uh, they, they call it the New York Home for Intemperate Men. [20:30.3 – 20:32.9] It's now, it's now gone out of existence. [20:32.9 – 20:34.6] It's too bad because it was quite a place. [20:34.6 – 20:39.8] And they worked you pretty hard out on the farm and doing work around the place. [20:39.8 – 20:43.2] And, uh, they gave you five meetings a, a, a night. [20:43.2 – 20:47.1] You had to attend five meetings a night and twice on Sunday. [20:47.1 – 20:50.3] And believe me, I got my fill of meetings. [20:50.3 – 20:52.1] But it was right the same thing back again. [20:52.1 – 20:56.4] So that brings us up to the summer of 1953. [20:56.4 – 20:59.5] And I was there in New York. [20:59.5 – 21:02.1] I'd been, I'd come from this place up there. [21:02.1 – 21:04.0] I'd gotten drunk and gotten kicked out of there. [21:04.0 – 21:10.4] And I was wandering around New York, and I used to drop in the Intergroup, and it was then on 28th Street and Lexington Avenue. [21:10.4 – 21:13.6] And I must admit it, I was looking for a handout. [21:13.6 – 21:20.0] Trying to get enough to get a few drinks, because if I got in a place and I could get a few drinks, I could cadge a few more. [21:20.0 – 21:30.0] And Hazel Rice, bless her, came over to me and she says, "You know," she said, "I think I got something for you." She said, "Charlie Milton has been [21:30.0 – 21:40.1] over in Paris, France, and he ran into one of your friends from the Oxford Group who came to see you originally." And then in passing here, I must say that these [21:40.1 – 21:45.5] men deserve as much credit as I do for taking the message to Bill because they brought the message to me. [21:45.5 – 21:50.5] And she said she ran, he ran into, and he wants to see you. [21:50.5 – 21:56.4] So she got right on the telephone and called Charlie, and Charlie says, "Hold him there till 5:00 and I'll be down." Well, I waited. [21:56.4 – 21:57.8] 5:00, Charlie came down. [21:57.8 – 22:07.9] He said, "Where do you drink?" And I sat over on Third Avenue, right over the c- around 28th Street, and he said, "Come on, let's go over." And we sat down and walked to the bar and got a couple drinks and sat down. [22:07.9 – 22:09.6] And I got a drink; he got a Coke. [22:09.6 – 22:14.9] And he says, "Well, how would you like to go to Texas?" Texas? [22:14.9 – 22:17.0] My God, who wants to go to Texas? [22:17.0 – 22:19.7] I said, "They got no water down there. [22:19.7 – 22:22.4] The cattle are dying all over the place. [22:22.4 – 22:24.5] I don't want to go to Texas. [22:24.5 – 22:25.2] I'm broke. [22:25.2 – 22:32.9] I haven't any cent to my name, and I have no clothes." "Well," he said, "I think it'd be a good idea to get you out of New York, and I think I can arrange to have you taken in down there. [22:32.9 – 22:43.0] Maybe some of those guys will take you in on a ranch and get you full of health again." Well, he bought me another drink, and then he said, "Here's $5 [22:43.1 – 22:53.1] now." He says, "You think this thing over." He says, "I realize it's quite a proposition to take and swallow in one night." So I went home, and [22:53.1 – 22:56.4] I drank, uh, up to my limit and, uh, and saved a dollar. [22:56.4 – 22:59.6] I think in those days that I learned to drink somewhat because of necessity. [22:59.6 – 23:08.4] I had gotten so sick of being out in the cold weather in New York all night long and riding the subways and getting pinched and spending 10 days in Rikers Island, which is not pleasant. [23:08.4 – 23:12.7] And it's not pleasant to walk around the streets in the slush all night long. [23:12.7 – 23:21.2] And I used to walk from 14th Street up to 76th Street and back and over 42nd Street to Fifth Avenue, down Fifth Avenue to 14th and over again and back up. [23:21.2 – 23:26.2] And it takes three or four trips like that to make a night until something opens. [23:26.2 – 23:29.7] And, uh, if it's 4:00 in the morning or if you haven't got a cent and you can get a… [23:29.7 – 23:36.4] And I guess I learned how to hang on to that 75 cents and maybe a quarter over to get a start in the morning. [23:36.4 – 23:39.8] S- uh, 75 cents to get a bed. [23:39.8 – 23:42.3] So he repeated the performance. [23:42.3 – 23:49.1] He came down at 5:00 and took me over there and bought me another couple of drinks and then gave me the $5 again. [23:49.1 – 23:50.2] That was Thursday night. [23:50.2 – 23:56.3] And he said, "If you want to take this thing up, you come over to see me." He said, "Here's where I live. [23:56.3 – 24:04.3] Here's my telephone number." Well, I had saved enough from the night before that I, I could go through Friday night, and I went through Friday night all right. [24:04.3 – 24:08.4] On Saturday morning, I said, "This is it." And I walked up there to see him. [24:08.4 – 24:12.6] I went into his apartment house, and he was out in the street, and I just happened to catch sight of him, and he came in. [24:12.6 – 24:22.6] Well, he said, "You getting ready to go to Texas?" I said, "I don't know about Texas, but I've quit drinking." And I said, "Now, as of last night." And he said, "Let's go up in that room, and we'll have a cup of coffee and [24:22.6 – 24:32.6] talk it over." So he sold me the Texas idea, and he took me out and got me a clean shirt and, uh, gave me a hot shower and threw [24:32.6 – 24:34.7] away my underclothes and got some fresh stuff. [24:34.7 – 24:43.0] And he called Dallas and got ahold of, uh, Ole Lancaster and, uh, Cersey Whaley, and they made arrangements. [24:43.0 – 24:46.1] I said, "Yes." I could hear Cersey, or I think it was Ole. [24:46.1 – 24:47.9] He had this booming voice on the other end. [24:47.9 – 24:48.2] "All right. [24:48.2 – 24:56.3] Send the Yankee son of a bitch down here." And, uh, it came Sunday. [24:56.3 – 25:00.2] We got flight reservations for Sunday night, and they put me on that plane. [25:00.2 – 25:05.2] And I swear that that plane never left circling, uh, LaGuardia fields. [25:05.2 – 25:06.3] It went round and round and round. [25:06.3 – 25:08.1] It seems to me I was in a complete fog. [25:08.1 – 25:11.6] And Charlie had a pint of whiskey there and wouldn't give it to me. [25:11.6 – 25:19.9] And I told him a couple years later, "I'm going back and start the whole thing all over again, and I want that pint to come down here." Well, they put me up. [25:19.9 – 25:24.2] Cersey Whaley was running the, the Texas Clinic at that time, and they put me up there. [25:24.2 – 25:26.3] But they didn't give me a drink. [25:26.3 – 25:27.9] They give, did give me some goofballs. [25:27.9 – 25:30.8] And those things just make me nuttier than the seven fruitcakes. [25:30.8 – 25:36.0] And the next morning, uh, there were a bunch of people in and out of my room. [25:36.0 – 25:37.2] You'd think I was Exhibit A. [25:37.2 – 25:45.1] They wanted to come in and see this damn Yankee curiosity and who couldn't sober himself up but had been able to sober Bill Wilson up. [25:45.1 – 25:51.2] And there I was going through this, saying, "If there's anything I don't want, it's people around me when I'm gonna hangover and coming off one. [25:51.2 – 25:56.2] I just want to crawl off in a corner." And there were more people in and out of that room. [25:56.2 – 25:58.7] Well, you'd think it was some Hollywood celebrity living in there. [25:58.7 – 26:04.0] So I just burrowed further into the bedclothes and just hid myself. [26:04.0 – 26:07.2] And it was hot in there, and I'd turn off the air conditioner. [26:07.2 – 26:15.8] And Cersey'd come in and say, "Why do you turn that thing off?" I said, "Because it's playing your music." And it was, like all the symphonies and bands and everything else marching. [26:15.8 – 26:18.7] I went out on the street one day, tried to find the band, and they couldn't find it. [26:18.7 – 26:24.4] And I used to stand and look out of a little portal they had in the front door, like one of these observation doors. [26:24.4 – 26:26.9] And there was an apartment house with a balcony across the way. [26:26.9 – 26:31.5] And I'd see a chair over here on the right get up and float over and get down over here. [26:31.5 – 26:35.5] I thought that I was never coming back. [26:35.5 – 26:36.8] I mean that sincerely. [26:36.8 – 26:39.2] As I stand here, I thought my mind had never come back. [26:39.2 – 26:41.4] And there was an old colored lady in there. [26:41.4 – 26:42.2] She says, "You leave Mr. [26:42.2 – 26:51.1] Ebby alone and let him come out of this in his own way." She said, "He can get well." And they, they were just about ready to send me to a state hospital and commit me. [26:51.1 – 26:52.9] I was gone. [26:52.9 – 26:57.6] I went out walking one night, and I don't know where I walked, but I walked till 4:00 in the morning, and the police picked me up. [26:57.6 – 27:00.9] And they put me in one cell after another. [27:00.9 – 27:07.4] And I don't know, later on it developed that they thought I was the leader of a car theft gang because I was leaning up against a car. [27:07.4 – 27:09.2] I'd gotten so tired I couldn't walk any further. [27:09.2 – 27:15.9] Well, as soon as Dickie Sheridan, who was another one of my great friends down there at Herdo, he came down and got me out. [27:15.9 – 27:20.9] And then I began to shake that off and, and, uh, get back into condition. [27:20.9 – 27:22.5] And began to… [27:22.5 – 27:24.5] As they said, there began to be some fun around there. [27:24.5 – 27:25.9] And I began to go to the AA club. [27:25.9 – 27:27.6] I know I walked by it a dozen times. [27:27.6 – 27:32.3] I'd walk by the darn thing, and I was scared to go up the steps, shaken and ashamed. [27:32.3 – 27:36.7] Finally, I did, and I went around and got in the spirit of the thing. [27:36.7 – 27:41.7] And I began to get some of this Texas spirit, which as you know, is very great. [27:41.7 – 27:45.3] And I began to think that maybe I could get the world by the tail again. [27:45.3 – 27:50.1] And I sold some stock in an insurance company, which has turned out to be a fizzle. [27:50.1 – 27:59.1] And I got into an oil deal, which also turned out to be a fizzle, with the consequence that after 13 months I, I got discouraged. [27:59.1 – 28:01.6] And I said, "Well, I guess I never was meant to come down here to Texas. [28:01.6 – 28:05.2] I should have died there in New York," because I don't think I would have survived another winter. [28:05.2 – 28:15.3] Then I got drunk again Well, he, uh, I didn't stay drunk very long because the law got a hold of me and arrested me, but I got bailed out [28:15.3 – 28:19.7] by a guy that was in that drunk himself that I knew in Dallas. [28:19.7 – 28:26.3] And I was bailed out, but I was back in the county that night for nine days after the, the day, the half a day in the, in the city jail. [28:26.3 – 28:33.1] And when I got out of the county at the end of nine days, one day for good behavior, I was promptly picked up and put back in the city jail. [28:33.1 – 28:41.2] So my drinking was stretched out over about three weeks, but there was only about four or five days of active participation with the bottle. [28:41.2 – 28:50.8] But then, then I had that long period of going right back into that mental depression again and thinking that there was no use, and scared to go out on the street, scared to meet any… [28:50.8 – 28:53.8] Any time I'd see anybody with a uniform on, I'd turn right around and run. [28:53.8 – 28:56.7] I was scared of them. [28:56.7 – 28:57.8] But I got out of that. [28:57.8 – 29:05.4] I began to pick up, and then I think finally I began to realize that things were not going to, the oil wells were not going to come back. [29:05.4 – 29:12.1] That I had to accept that I had kicked myself around, whether it was wholly my fault or not didn't make any difference. [29:12.1 – 29:20.1] The result was there that I'd kicked myself around so long, and it was going to be extremely hard to get a job, and that I would have to settle for what I could do. [29:20.1 – 29:31.1] And I went to work for one of the boys there who owned a printing plant, and I worked for him a year for the mag- magnificent sum of $37 a week, I think. [29:31.1 – 29:38.9] And I used to, I didn't have a car in those days, and then I was out of work for a while, and I worked with Mickey Sheridan out on the road on his, he's a construction man. [29:38.9 – 29:43.1] I was his flag man on two or three jobs over in Irving around there. [29:43.1 – 29:49.6] And then I worked with Ben Thompson in a brickyard, and that is, he was reclaiming old brick and selling them for antique brick. [29:49.6 – 29:54.7] And then my present boss came along and gave me this job, and I've been there ever since. [29:54.7 – 30:04.2] And I've been thankful that I could again assume responsibility, and I have been helping out another person in Dallas. [30:04.2 – 30:10.0] And that has given me some incentive to stay sober, so that I've been able to get together six years. [30:10.0 – 30:14.2] And that alone has helped me. [30:14.2 – 30:24.0] I am trying to forget the big shot stuff, although sometimes when the pressure of money is on, it is hard to go along and not complain about the pricks of life. [30:24.0 – 30:34.2] But nevertheless, I, I say to myself, "If I had lived in, if I hadn't been sent to Texas, I would have died there in New York." And so I'm grateful to Charlie [30:34.2 – 30:44.2] Newton and Seabury Gray is in Paris, and Charlie who put the thing into motion and followed it through, and it cost him money, and it cost him time and effort to send me down into Texas. [30:44.2 – 30:50.9] And I'm grateful to the people in Texas who, who were patient with me until I snapped out of it and came out of the fog. [30:50.9 – 31:00.2] The, the gang in New York was disgusted with me, but there were a few like Hazel Rice stuck by me and figured that I had it in me if I could, they could only get me in the right spot. [31:00.2 – 31:10.8] So I must put aside the things that I think I like and things that I want and yet are not good for me probably, and be grateful that [31:10.8 – 31:16.5] I am alive and able to assume responsibilities of a man and hold a job down. [31:16.5 – 31:21.5] And I am also grateful that I'm able to come out and make these talks. [31:21.5 – 31:31.6] And I'm grateful to you people for asking me here, for those who put up the money to bring me here, and for my two companions today who took [31:31.6 – 31:33.0] me on such a very good trip. [31:33.0 – 31:39.2] And I must say the hospitality of California is right on a par with that of Texas, and I want to thank you all.