Audio
Transcript
Source: San Marcos AA Group Meeting – Public Excerpt – Date Unknown.wav File: san-marcos-aa-group-meeting-public-excerpt-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:56:03
============================================================
Well, it's getting near that hour. I say we start. This is the San Marcos Group of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for membership. We are self-supporting through our own contribution.
It is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, does not engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any cause. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Here at this unit of the Texas Department… [Brief unclear speech.] I don't pick up the wrong thing. But anyway, we are all gathered here for one purpose, to seek sobriety. And my name is [name unclear] and I'm an alcoholic. I have been sober for two years and three months. I am very grateful for this group due to the fact that I began this new way of life, this sober way of life.
And I feel very humble, very grateful for the things that AA has taught me. I still have a lot of defects. I'm still working on them. I get discouraged at times because of the 12 steps. But after talking to other AA members, they give you these little phrases of take it easy, don't worry too much, just take what you can and leave the rest for another day. And being able to associate with others that have a similar sickness, and that was one thing that really floored me in 49 and 50. I never could realize or accept that alcoholism was a sickness.
I couldn't see that anybody that was pouring poison into their system should be considered a sick person. But after 12 years of experimenting, I began to realize after some study and some association with other AA members, coming to meeting after meeting, really not accepting it. What I wanted was sobriety when I first came. I wanted to get dried out because I could see myself slipping. I was very confused, frustrated. And after three or four months, things started to shape up a little bit so that I could cope and give some kind of a decision of my own.
AA has taught me a lot of things. I'm very happy to be here tonight. I wish we had more in our group. We have a lot of tentative alcoholics in San Marcos. Some have put their nose in the door and then they want to be petted or babied or something. I see them occasionally. But this isn't what we're here for, to go out and sweep the streets and go in homes and bring these people to a place where they can find help.
Our main purpose is for those that have a drinking problem and are an alcoholic and want to find a new way of life without drinking, well, this is the place for you or any AA meeting place. I've traveled all over the world. I've been in some foreign AA places. I have been in several states in AA and it's all the same. Their meetings are similar. Their talks are similar. Their fellowship and friendship is the same.
[00:05:24]
If you want it, they all open their arms and you're welcome to come in. When I made my slip way back there in 50, I was in Washington, D.C. I was away from my home group and I went to AA groups that had doctors and lawyers. Financially well-to-do people were attending. White collar. I was in the service. I felt as though they were all looking down at me. I imagine they welcomed me, but I didn't take it that way.
I had an excuse to get away and take a drink, feel sorry for myself, and that's just the way it works. Then when you take that first one, well, that is the end. For me, as long as I keep clear of that first drink, I can get along. I fight it. I think about it, but as long as I know where I can get a hold of an AA member to have a cup of coffee or meet him on the street and talk a few minutes with him to get this compulsion off my back, it isn't long that I have another day, and as days pile up, I believe he gets stronger.
Well, that's the way I feel today. I don't have a compulsion, but I do think about it, and sometimes when I think about it, it scares me to the point that I've just got to change my trend of thought and get away from it. If I can't hunt an AA person, if I can't find an AA person soon, well, I'm off to a nearby town to attend AA meetings. Some say they are happy that they know they're an alcoholic. Well, I can't say I'm happy. I'm just beginning to find some happiness not being a drunk, but I will say that I'm happy that I found AA because AA, if it hadn't been for AA, I wouldn't be here tonight because two years ago last November, I was just at the end of my ropes.
I couldn't even think for myself. I was afraid to get in the car. Fears were built up so great that I imagine if I hadn't come into AA that I would have tried something foolish, committing suicide or something like that as an easy way out. But I don't want to go any further with mine. We have some wonderful people here from out of town, and I sure would like to hear that man I heard last night. Houston, you come up and send us a message. I'll do my best.
The thing I like about coming over here, you get to sit down. My name is Houston. I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the help of other AAs and a wonderful wife, I haven't had a drink since January the 8th, 1954. Isn't this good drinking weather? This is the kind of weather I always liked to see come along when I was drinking. I could really get a good one on in this kind of weather.
[00:10:04]
I believe now it's better weather to stay sober in. We don't have many here tonight, but that's one thing about AA. It doesn't take but two people to have an AA meeting, and it doesn't make any difference where it's at or when it is. I have a lot of memories of San Marcos. I moved here to San Marcos on the 22nd of February, I believe it was, after I had my last drink in January. I had a pretty rough time of it for a while, but I found that I could always go and find someone. It didn't particularly have to be another AA.
When I really got down and thought I was going to give it up, go get a bottle, I usually found an AA, but if I didn't, I could find someone else. I would go to the house, have a cup of coffee, and drinking never be mentioned, but I would go away feeling better. I could go on back to the job and work a little while longer. A lot of times I'd even go to the house and drink a cup of coffee with my wife.
I think one thing in AA that helps us more than anything is the fellowship of AA. We all have a common problem. We know what the other fellow has gone through because we've been through it too. We know what the new person is going through when they come in, and that first 30 to 60 days is really rough. I've made this remark before, I think that a person is really sincere, really wants to stop drinking, wants sobriety, and more than anything else they can achieve happy sobriety. It's something someone else cannot do for you. We have all got to do it for ourselves, and we can't do it for someone else either. We've got to do it for ourselves.
I went to AA meetings for two years before I got on the program. I wasn't going because I wanted to. I wasn't going to help myself, but to help my wife. She wanted me to go. To make her feel better I went, but then I'd go get drunk. I wanted to quit drinking all right. I wanted to quit drinking for her, family, but I really wasn't trying to do this for me alone. But when I decided that I had to sober up for Houston and just put everything else aside but myself, I didn't have too much trouble.
That is the reason we say it's a selfish program. I don't go into my story very much.
[00:15:09]
As Alma said a number of times, she could tell my story better than I could, and I'm sure she can because I don't remember much of it. The last few years of my drinking, I couldn't remember one day what I did the day before. I poured a lot of concrete floors in New Braunfels and San Antonio that I didn't even remember pouring. So I imagine she does remember more of it than I do. But I did have a dual problem.
It was about a little over four years that I had a narcotic problem. To no fault of my own, I never bought any narcotics illegal, and I can truthfully say that I never got a lift from a narcotic. But I did get addicted to it, through doctors giving it to me. I've taken three withdrawals from narcotics. And I don't know of anything any worse than a withdrawal from narcotics. Alcohol is rough, as we all know.
But I still think narcotics is much worse. But I still think narcotics is much worse. And so many alcoholics lean to drugs of different kind to get off of the alcohol. They find themselves in as bad or worse predicament with drugs. And there's not too many of them that turn to drugs that really stay off of alcohol. So they don't gain anything, they lose. I drank for a long time. I'd taken my first drink of whiskey when I was either 12 or 13 years old.
I'm not sure exactly. I believe I was 13. And I got drunk. The first time I'd taken a drink, I got drunk. I don't remember of ever drinking after that for just one drink. I didn't want one drink. I didn't want one drink. Because one drink didn't do what I wanted it to do. As I grew older, I drank more. And for the last, I would say, six or eight years, my drinking was heavy. I've been in numerous hospitals.
Luckily, I can say that I was only in one jail. I woke up in Fredericksburg one morning. I didn't know where I was at other than I knew that I was in jail. I didn't know how I got there or when I got there. But I had run off the road over there close to Fredericksburg.
[00:20:08]
Most of you, I guess all of you have been through that part of the country. There's some pretty good-sized live oak trees along that road. And I got one of them. They didn't book me. In fact, the next morning, about nine o'clock, I guess, the sheriff came down and got me out of his cell and take me out to his office. He opened his desk drawer and there was a pint of whiskey with just about one drink taken out of it.
He said, you look like you need a drink. And I did, believe me. We sat there and drank that whiskey and talked. He take me down and showed me my pickup. The old front end tore off of it. He got me away back into San Antonio. And didn't even book me. Although he knew I was driving drunk, had whiskey in the car, in the pickup. But he let me go back. The only thing I could ever figure out on that was, I was from New Braunfels.
New Braunfels. And this sheriff was a German. There was a lot of German people around New Braunfels. That's the only reason I could figure that he didn't book me. But I was fortunate. There's been many times that I could have been locked up and should have been locked up. But I got by some way. I don't know how. I woke up on the side of the road between New Braunfels and San Antonio. I've been to New Braunfels and San Antonio many a time.
And I didn't know whether I was going to San Antonio or whether I was going back to New Braunfels until I would look in my glove compartment. And if I had my medicine, I had already been to San Antonio. If I didn't have it, I was going. And that is how bad the blackouts had gotten with me. I had to go in three times a week to get these drugs. I was on Dilaudid. Of course, I was drinking all the time, too.
And the two of them together just didn't work. I believe we have a new man here tonight, as I understand it. I would just like to say to him that the time of sobriety is not so important. It is a quality of your sobriety. The time will take care of itself, one day at a time. One day at a time. One day at a time runs into weeks, months, and years. I've been in AA for a little over 11 years. It's all been done one day at a time.
From 15 minutes to one day. I've put off going to get a bottle 15 minutes. Right here in San Marcos. I'm going to work another 15 minutes and I'm going to the county line.
[00:25:03]
But I never did get to the county line. That 15 minutes would finally run into a day. They were long days. That's for sure. Another thing I think is very important to anyone new in this program is not to try to grasp all of the program at one time. If we take the part of the program that suits our needs and the part that doesn't suit our needs, forget about it. If something about the program upsets us in any way, let that part go by. It will come later.
As far as working the 12 steps, I don't believe that anyone has ever worked all of the steps complete. I don't believe it can be done. But we can try. I don't believe the program would work if it could be done. I think we have to have something to work on. One of the best things for me is to see someone drunk. I can see myself in any drunk. We all act more or less the same way when we're drunk. A lot of people resent the word sanity.
But did any of you ever see a drunk man that was sane? Or a woman? Not completely. We are all the same. We are all the same. Not completely. We are all more or less insane when we're drunk. I guess I was more than most. I'm kind of at a loss for words tonight as usual. I can think what I want to say, but I can't get it into words. It just don't come out right. In 6th grade they didn't teach public speaking, and that's as high as I got.
So I didn't learn much about it there. I'll give up and let someone else do the talking for a while. Thank you. Well, speaking for all, we all appreciate you making those miles from Seguin here on a night like this and bringing this message. Your sincerity and honesty with yourself has proven that this program works. We have another gentleman from out of town. I'd like to hear Horace. Another gentleman from out of town. I'd like to hear Horace.
My name is Horace. I am an alcoholic. I haven't had a drink since May 18th of last year. That isn't a very long time. That is, that length of sobriety isn't very long when you consider that I first became acquainted with AA in 57. That was in the San Antonio State Hospital. When I first went in there, I didn't know whether, that is, before I went in there, I didn't know whether I was crazy for drinking the way I was or whether the drinking was making me crazy.
Well, I was put in the alcoholic ward there and I found out that I was just like all the rest of them. It might have been a little bit better if I'd have been scared a little bit more. If I'd have been, if it had been impressed upon me that I really was a little bit crazy to drink the way I was, which I was, because I got out of there and I started drinking again, and I'd go for
[00:30:02]
three or four months and finally I had something had come up that I don't know what it is different reasons that I'd start drinking again didn't matter what in other words I was a periodic drinker and I couldn't seem to get away from it but I got the years sobriety after moving to Houston I thought I was sitting on top of the world I had this liquor business like that and I was tracking business I hadn't taken a drink really hadn't had a great compulsion to drink getting along very good and every other respect but there's a couple of nights there where I couldn't sleep so I thought well after all it's been a long time since I've had a drink if I get a pint you know why just take a couple of drinks to help me sleep that night I'll be alright and you know I kill I didn't kill that pint that night I don't even remember now it was only a pint now there was a time years ago when I drink a fifth and a day and think nothing of it and go about my business and do it every day but this is only one pint before I I don't even remember when I fell over passed out I guess I still had about that much in the pint when I woke up in the morning and I was pretty grateful because boy even with just that little bit I was really wanting a drink I was just as shaky as I'd ever been years ago when I'd wake up in the morning and have to have a drink before I could do anything before I could almost dress myself. Since that time I I think that I have gotten the program to the extent where with the help of my good wife and the AA program that I'll be able to maintain my sobriety. I don't worry about tomorrow as we all know we shouldn't worry about tomorrow. I take each day as it comes. We read the we have the 24-hour book and read that every morning and it leaves us leaves me with a good thought and I'm sure it does Joyce for the day it reminds me that I can't drink and I'm getting along pretty good but at one time it wasn't that way.
I found out a long time ago I didn't start drinking in my early in my teens like you some did I was 21 before I ever drank you might say drank now I can remember when I was oh a little kid probably 12 13 years of age when I sneaked some rock and rye brandy out of the cupboard because that was there my folks didn't drink they they had that there on the cover for when you got a bad cold you know but I knew that it was I know that it was booze you know and at that age and I thought well I thought I was always wanting to try some of it to see what it would do so I can't exactly recall how much I drank of it I do remember filling the bottle up the little same level with water I should have known at that time you know conning doing things like that I should have known right there I was a good potential alcoholic but it had absolutely no effect on me and I thought well maybe it's just medicine after all maybe it isn't supposed to make you drunk you know I found out when I was about 21 and I did have a high tolerance for alcohol they went out with a drinking crowd and got the reputation of being able to drink and hold it and so in order to maintain that reputation I would I wouldn't let myself go I was always drinking but I never drank to get drunk sure I wanted to get high and everything else but I didn't want to I didn't want to get drunk I didn't want to get sloppy or loud or anything like that when I felt myself getting having a little bit too much well then I cut it off but usually I'd had quite a bit to drink and more than anyone else there at that time I thought I was quite a man drinking like that it wasn't that it just again I happen to have a good liver you know that would take care of it only in those days I this course it built up my ego and I was a man for drinking like that I didn't realize that I was I drank because it was inflating my own ego there really was something wrong with me I must have had an insecure feeling I had no I had an inferior a feeling of inferiority that's the reason I drank I had to show people a while that I could do something you know that better than anyone else so I think that that's the
[00:35:02]
reason why when I found out that when I began to lose control over alcohol I would go off by myself I wouldn't go in a hotel room a motel room because I live in Cleveland Ohio in those days and up there you can get a drink anytime of the day or night with the exception of three or four hours in the morning usually during the summertime and it's an hour that's because of the daylight saving it it's kind of a funny thing up there you know they have daylight savings the state is on standard time and Cleveland Ohio was on daylight saving time well the state said you had to close the liquor stores at 330 but then of course that was only 230 daylight time so you could really I mean you could stay open and they could stay open the next hour actually it was 430 in the morning they were still serving liquor legally they could open up at 6 o'clock so at any rate there was only a few hours there that during the 24 hours that you couldn't buy a drink over the bar that had been my pattern of drinking I had always drank in a bar because I like company and I like to talk to people but whenever I find myself if I began getting on small benders you know when this would happen when I find myself getting drunk I'd get away from the neighborhood where I usually drank Cleveland's a big city I'd go way over on the east side of town nobody would know me I could drink and I could get drunk luckily I never got thrown in I got thrown in jail twice for drunkenness all that time but I drank and of course people would tell me I remember I rented at that time I didn't own my own home and the man who I rented from was an alcoholic and he knew of course he found out how much I drank and and he told me he says the he didn't want to tell me that I was drinking too much of course but he did give me the big book to read. Well in those days I just thumbed through it and I thought well that isn't for me and that was the end of that.
There was other people who tried to get me to stop drinking as much as I did they said it was sooner they would get me finally and I said no not me because I thought that liquor was pretty good you know I thought liquor made me well for one thing witty you know I thought that I could talk I thought I was a lot sharper when I had that stuff under my belt. I remember one time I was in a bar and I guess I must have been pretty well loaded because I thought that I was talking pretty smart I mean pretty you know I was being very funny only this fellow sitting next to me he didn't have a sense of humor I was the only one that was seeing anything funny in this stuff. Well I know but I knew I was pretty witty because it was a couple of guys sitting at a table back there and one of them said to the other loud enough for me to hear who is that joker up there so you know I knew I was pretty witty. I thought I thought that I was pretty smart I can remember one time when I was drinking and this time I hadn't had too much to drink but I it had hit me quickly hit me quick that day you know how it is if you remember when you were drinking sometimes it seems oh you can drink all day and all night you get by other times you probably have a half a dozen and you'd be looped. Well this time I hadn't had too much to drink and but it it had hit me. I had my car parked out on the street but in a parking lot and I got in the car and I had this is during the war and I had a an old Buick Roadmaster it was a big old tub it must have weighed four ton heavy and I don't know you know how it is when you're drinking when you're drinking like I was you didn't have the car greased you know I didn't take care of it and boy it steered like a truck. Well in my condition I pulled out you know and I and the car parked over there and I swung but I didn't swing quite soon enough when I scraped the side of this car. Well I thought well here I'm in a parking lot and I looked around nobody saw me and I thought gee here I'm stewed I'm gonna be smart I'm gonna get out of here before somebody comes around they'll throw me in the can if I don't get out of here. So I thought I was pretty smart in doing that but of course I wasn't because they somebody had got my to my license number and I heard about it later incidentally this after doing that I drove away and I was driving all right then but this kind of shook me up hitting this car you know and so I drove quite a ways away getting away from that neighborhood entirely and I drank and I got pretty well stewed and I think I slept in the car that night I got so drunk but at any rate the next day I came home and I parked in front of the house and I was getting out and I just going
[00:40:03]
up the steps when this fella that had been on the car that I hit the day before drove up and boy I was sick you know although I'd had a few drinks you know to straighten up I was sick and I surely didn't want to have any headache from him or my wife or anyone else in fact I'd read I'd made up my mind when I walked in the house if my wife was gonna give me any static oh boy I was gonna get up get myself looped again but anyway this fella he wasn't as big as I was so he didn't get real tough but he said that he made it pretty clear that he was gonna go to the police and he was gonna do this that and the other and he saw that I was half loaded to begin with and he said you were probably drunk yesterday or this that and the other and I was really too sick to do much of anything about it but at any rate I wasn't so smart after all although I thought I was smart. Incidentally of course nothing came of that I the man did go to the police but they told him well since it didn't happen on a city street it happened in private property they really couldn't prosecute me and the man and although they would give me a warning that you know to pay this man's damage well at any rate when I sobered up I was more than happy to pay the damage to this man's car because usually I'm not that kind of a guy. Liquor I thought in those days for one thing it gave me a lot of courage I can't remember one time when I was before I was married now I don't know whether I can't say whether I was an alcohol whether I was born an alcoholic or whether I became one due to drinking excessively but at any rate I know that I was drinking heavily before I ever got married before I met Joyce this is many years ago as a young man. Well I'd let this girl take my car that night I was working in a filling station I had to close it up and it seems that she'd had trouble with a car the starter stuck or something and since she couldn't she had her sister with her and of course she was gonna bring the car back before I closed up the station and it got to be 1030 and I was supposed to close up at 10 she wasn't back yet finally I saw this car driving in and she had a there wasn't there was a little Ford v8 coupe it was in 1934 two fell there were four of them in that front seat see the two fellows and two girls and boy I really blew up here I give my this girl I'm this girl you know my car and here she looks as though she went out she and her sister and picked up a couple of bottles but at any rate it seemed that I had trouble with the car and these fellows that helped to get it going and but they hadn't had anything to do that night and I thought they'd just stick around with the girls while I was this girl I let the gave the car to she it was driving it still driving it and she pulled in the station and she said we had trouble with a car and these fellows helped us out but you know I had had I'd had a date you know I'd had a date with this girl and I was working it was a bad night maybe almost as bad as this we get a lot of these nights up in Cleveland Ohio rain and it's miserable but at any rate there wasn't much business that night and I'd ask a fellow to go up and get me a couple of bottles of wine now I never drank my wine much not even in the beginning I mean I love whiskey I like whiskey but there was no I I couldn't there was a store just around the corner that sold wine and I asked this fellow to go up and get him and I drank two bottles of wine so I guess I was feeling pretty high you know when I when they brought the car back well I got pretty indignant about these guys in there even though they'd helped get the car back to the filling station and I made some nasty remarks probably due to this wine and I've been drinking so this guy he one of these fellows got out of the car and you know he weighed about 195 and he's not six foot two and but but you know I I had that wine in me you know I was I had a lot of courage see though this big lug wasn't gonna scare me so he said a few things and I said a few things and pow right across the kisser I got it and geez I didn't even see it coming so I started swinging and I the more I swear you know he even though he's I didn't I thought you know as big as he was I thought well I'll be able to handle him he won't be as agile as I am you know but boy he was backpedaling I chased him all over the not all over that lot you know he knocked me down four or five times I mean he'd back paddle but every once in a while he'd stop and pow I'd get it and down I'd go in other words I had a lot of courage that time due to that wine but I certainly didn't have any sense taking a fight by the guy like him oh was I a mess the next day. You never saw anything. I went to a dentist and he says, that guy must have had brass knuckles, my face was swollen out here, I lost a couple teeth, molars too, later, not then, I mean it loosened them up so bad they came up, but anyway, I mean there you go, I thought I was witty, I really wasn't, I thought I was, I thought it gave me a lot of courage, it didn't, it just didn't give me any sense, a lot of, I had a lot of misconceptions at that time about alcohol, I thought it was doing
[00:45:21]
a lot of things for me and all the time it was just tearing on something on the inside of me that was going to eventually really tear me apart, and it did, it eventually did, I had, I started a business in Cleveland, Ohio, or a suburb of Cleveland, Lakewood, I owned a business, had men working for me, started, I was drinking awfully heavy, this is a window cleaning and janitor service business incidentally, I had, I was making a darn good living off it, and I left the, I began neglecting the business because I was drinking so much, it finally got down, so I only had a couple of women, a couple of men, a couple of women working for me, business got so bad, I was finally going out washing windows myself and just buying enough to get booze, just earning enough money to drink on, and every once in a while I'd go home, I'd, of course I gave the wife enough money to live on, but I mean I, everything else went for booze. I finally had to sell the business to a competitor of mine, who was a friend, who had been a friendly competitor, and he told me if I straight myself out, he'd give me a job of managing his business. He had a bigger business than I did. I sold the accounts to him and he bought the, he bought the equipment that I had at about 30 cents on the dollar, I guess. I didn't get much out of it because all I got was the worth of the contracts, providing I could maintain those for another year, in other words I had to get a renewal of their contracts before I'd even get paid for them, but at any rate I wasn't interested in that. I was so sick from drinking, not eating, trying to work and getting worse every day, that I thought that I just had to quit. This stuff had really got me down. So I did, I went to work for him, and I straightened myself out. I didn't drink for over about three or four months, and this fellow wanted to go to Florida, the owner of the business, and he put me in charge, and I managed that business for about a year, but in that time, that is, I didn't take, I drank, but I watched it, I tried to watch it, and I just wouldn't allow myself, I just, I was afraid to drink really, but it didn't, it was, sooner or later of course, I just started going on benders again. I mean, I had no, I was an alcoholic before I took that, I couldn't do that, even though I didn't have any will left, it wasn't a matter of will power. I started drinking again, before you know it, why his business, it was beginning to suffer, because of my management, I was drinking like a fish again. He came back from Florida, and he says, well, he says, look, Garney, he used to call me Garney, which is a contraction of G., he said, he says, he says, this is not going so good, he said, I'm gonna run it for a while, he says, you can work for me if you like. I went by that time, my wife wouldn't have anything to do with me. I got a room, a pretty nice room in Lakewood, Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland, and I worked every day, but I was drinking every day, and finally this landlady, she didn't tell me to get out, but I mean, she didn't like it very much, because I was drinking so much, she knew it. So I decided, well, I'd move down a little bit closer to town, closer to North Cleveland, and in other words, what I was doing, I was just gradually working my way towards Skid Row, and that's just about where I ended up. I ended up in a hotel room right at the edge of Skid Row in Cleveland, right on the Cuyahoga River. It was a hotel, an old fourth-class hotel, it catered mostly to the Lake Seamen there in Cleveland, and stumble bums like myself. I lived there, I guess, for about two weeks, but I still wasn't making enough money, I was drinking more and more, I still wasn't making enough money to even pay my hotel room. I began sleeping in cars, parked used car lots. I'd really hit bottom. I finally got straightened out enough so that I quit drinking on my own, and I finally got straightened out enough so that I could get on my feet again. This fellow that I had been working for, he said that, he saw that I'd straightened out, he said, look, he says, if you want to subcontract the commercial accounts and
[00:50:02]
handle those, he says, you can have it. He says, on a 75% basis. Now that was a very good deal for me. He would furnish all, he'd furnish all office equipment and everything, he'd pay insurance and everything. I'd get 75% and furnish, see to it that the work got done, whether I did it myself or hired help to do it. So that went along for about six months, and I, well at any rate, when it started when things, when I got myself straightened out and I got feeling good again, well boom, naturally I started drinking again. The upshot of it was that I had to, I decided that I'd better come to Texas, get away from it. Those bars up there were, I just knew too many people that drank and I don't know. In other words, what I was doing, I was running, I was trying to run away from myself, I thought it was a geographical cure, well more than many of us have taken that. I thought if I got away from that locality, I wouldn't drink anymore. I was supposed to start off early Saturday morning for Texas and Pontiac that I had at that time, and on a Saturday morning, but before I left, I thought, I said in the meantime, why the wife and I got back together again. I said goodbye to her and I said, well, I said, I'll let you know when I get down there, New Braunfels, Texas. And then after I left there, I thought, well I better say goodbye to the old buddies, you know. So when I had my own business incident, it's the winter cleaning business, I had practically 90%, I had about 90% of the bars and lounges as contracts on the west side of Cleveland, Lakewood, Ohio, and Rocky River, another suburb, because I knew them all. They let me, sure they gave me their business because they got their money back three or four times over. But at any rate, I went around all these bars, I didn't, and I only stopped for a couple of drinks in each one just to say goodbye, and I started off, boy, I was pretty high when I left, when I left Cleveland. It took me about two, I think it took me about 17 days to drive down here because I was drinking all the way, and I got down here to New Braunfels and I thought, jeez, I'm in an awful mess. I was shaky and I thought, well I got to get off of this stuff before I see my folks, because I was looking to go to my folks here. I think I drove between Austin and San Antone a dozen times. I was in San Antone, I think, I'd wake up in the morning and I'd stop somewhere, by this time I was drinking beer, I was trying to taper off on beer, you know. Stop off and have a couple of beers and think, well, when I get straightened out I'm gonna stop in New Braunfels and then everything will be all right. But boy, when I get to New Braunfels, by that time I needed a couple more beers, you know, well then after I got a couple more beers, I thought, hell, I can't go in there now, I'm getting stewed again, so then I, well I got to get out of this town, so I go to Austin. So then I had to be drinking in Austin, of course you can't drink in this town, I found that out first trip through, and so then I'd go back again, see, and I must have made 12 trips between there just drinking and trying to sober up so that I could see my folks who I hadn't seen in a good number of years. I couldn't do it. At any rate, I'm very grateful for my sobriety, I can, I'm thankful that I found the AA program, I found sobriety, I found a good wife in the AA program, I love her much, and I'm sure that if I can maintain my present frame of mind, which I have at the moment, things are going to be all right as far as drinking goes. I didn't take a drink today, I'm grateful for that, I know when I wake up in the morning I can say to myself, I'm not going to take a drink today, and that's about as far as it'll go. I spent too much time here, given my story, I didn't even mean to talk this long, but at any rate, I want to thank you all for listening to me anyway.
Horace, you helped us. Your sincerity and what have it. I know that you work this program a day at a time, a minute at a time if necessary, and it isn't the length but the quality, as Houston says. I'm sure we all appreciate the out-of-towners coming in, and I have a few announcements, if you bear with me I'll go through them. I got a postcard a little late, it was for all members invited to open meeting Saturday night, February 13, 8 p.m., Downtown Club, 608 West 7th Street. Burl, are they starting a Saturday night meeting now? That was just a special call
[00:55:06]
meeting for that one night. The Southwest Texas Conference Area Conference Office from Aransas Pass is asking for donations to build up their fund so that the delegates of the state can go to New York for the annual April Conference which is held in New York, and they're asking for donations and information on the groups.