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Source: Tom, Louise M., and Al T. – SENY Convention Session (Excerpt; Source Label 1961).mp3 File: tom-louise-m-and-al-t-seny-convention-session-excerpt-source-1961.mp3 Duration: 00:52:54
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Would've been anywhere in the world. I come from a little town in western North Carolina. I moved to Baltimore in 1942. Most all of you know what a little town is. It's… a place where everybody knows everybody else. They know whose check's good and whose wife isn't. They have a weekly newspaper, most of them, and people subscribe to it. They don't necessarily want to find out what's going on. They know that. They just want to find out who's been caught at it.
And it was there that my drinking started. I was 16, 17 years old, I guess. And I can remember the first drink that I ever took in my life. With that first drink, I experienced a blackout. I don't mean passing out. I mean a blackout, because I went to three classes in school that morning, and I have no recollection of it at all. I knew that that wasn't apparently right, because I'd seen people drink before.
But I thought it was part of the drinking, and it didn't bother me. Over the period of years, though, my drinking progressed. Blackouts became more frequent. And I'd had them all the time that I drank. I drove automobiles, I worked. I carried on an apparently normal existence, and I don't have any recollection of things that happened to me at all. I know that one time, after a particularly rough drinking bout, in which I experienced a blackout, I saw the old town drunk, and I asked him, I said, Henry, I said, have you ever had a blackout?
He said, hell, son, I had them when they first came out. And that was to be my pattern for several years. The day came when I knew that my drinking was out of hand, but yet I was unwilling to do anything about it. I thought that I could still turn this thing on and off like a water tap. I could quit when I wanted to. But eventually the day came that I couldn't. And my wife, who's here with me this morning, made the call and brought AA to me.
A man called me one Saturday night, told me that he was from Alcoholics Anonymous, and said that he understood that I was having trouble with my drinking and would I like to talk to somebody from AA. And I told him that I would. Why I told him that I don't know. But he came around and I don't remember what he said. I don't remember what he told me at all other than would I attend a meeting with him.
And the meeting was several days ahead. I told him that I would. And he asked me if I thought that I could stay sober until then. I told him that I didn't know. And I didn't stay sober, I didn't drink too much, but I continued to drink up until the time that I went to that first meeting, and it was a closed meeting. And it was held in the basement of a man's home. And on the wall up behind the secretary's desk, there were the twelve steps and the twelve traditions of AA.
And every once in a while somebody would refer to one of the steps or one of the traditions, and I thought these monkeys are going to make me learn these things and stand up and recite them, and if I do it in the proper manner, then maybe they'll vote me into this. There was an old man there that night that had charge of the program,
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and I remember the subject. It was a discussion meeting. I remember the subject that he had was the third step that we made a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of God as we understood him. And I thought, I want no parts of these holy rollers. Because I had been compelled to go to church when I was a child. I had to go to Sunday school, morning service, evening service, young people's union, prayer meeting in the middle of the week.
And since I was a disobedient little somebody, my mother's punishment for disobedience that I would do was compel me to go to the woman's missionary society with her. And I had a whole lot better attendance at the woman's missionary society than a lot of those old biddies that belonged to it regularly. So I wanted no parts of that. I had made a promise, if you'd call it a promise, to myself that when I become of age, I'll stay away from church.
And I did for quite a few years. And this subject of this night, I wanted no parts of that. After the meeting was over, I was ready to leave. I was going to slip out. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was sure that I would return to drinking. And there was a man who stopped me and told me, he said, Tom, he said, you may have heard some things here tonight that upset you, that bother you. But he said, don't let them bother you.
Don't let them upset you. This is a program that we try to stay away from one drink 24 hours at a time. We do it on a daily basis. And if 24 hours is too much for you, then you cut it down into the segments that you can handle, that you can use. But above all, the most important thing you can do is to keep attending meetings. And I was fortunate in the early days of AA, I got hold of a big book, Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I didn't start at the front cover and start to read, because there was a chapter in there called How It Works. And that's what I was interested in finding out, was how this thing works. And I was told that it was the stories or that it was the experience of the first hundred people that came into Alcoholics Anonymous. And that was the thing that I wanted to try to follow if it were humanly possible for me to do.
And that's the thing that I want to follow today. My first meeting was over nine years ago. And I realized that today, possibly more than I did the first meeting that I attended, I need to stick close to the teachings of the big book. The big book holds the answer to life for me. And I can't become so smart or so self-sufficient that I know the answers without going to it. So one of the best pieces of advice that I think that I could hand to the new man or the new woman that comes into AA is to suggest that they get hold of a big book, keep it handy, attend meetings, but never lose the big book.
AA has been awfully good to me. Things have happened to me since I came into AA that there's no price that could be put on them. Today I have the love and respect of my family again. I have the love and respect of a wife that stuck by me through all my drinking. And I'm sure that it was her prayers and prayers of others that finally brought me to Alcoholics Anonymous. And by taking you people by the hand and working this thing on a 24-hour basis, working the 12 steps of AA to the best of my ability with no deviation from them,
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this thing will work for anybody that tries it and that wants to. We say in AA that we need a sincere desire to stop drinking. When I came in, I don't think I had a sincere desire. I hurt all over and I was sick. But you gave me that desire. You gave me that will to live. The things that you have given me are completely beyond price. There's a passage in the Bible, and I'm no Bible student. Paul started it this morning when he said that where there were two or three gathered together in my name, there will I be also.
Today I don't have to balk at the third step of Alcoholics Anonymous to make a decision to turn my will and life over to the care of God as I understand Him. I believe I've returned to that God that I understand. And He's not the God of creed or religion, because some of the tenets of my church I still don't necessarily hold to. But He's a God that has answered a lot of my prayers. He's a God that I feel that I can walk with day by day, one that I understand, one that I want to do His will for me.
As I said, I'm no Bible student, but there's a passage in the Bible that tells just exactly how I feel about AA and will wrap this whole thing up. It's a story of Ruth and Naomi. Times have been hard, and Naomi has told Ruth that it would be better that she leave her. And Ruth's answer to Naomi is just exactly the way that I feel about AA and the way I want AA to work for me from now on. Ruth tells her that whether thou goest, I will go.
And whether thou lodgest, I will lodge. That thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. And that's the way I want it to be with me and AA. Thank you. Thank you very much, Tom, for a nice opening address. You know, it's really wonderful to think of the people. Here's Tom from Baltimore. We've got other people here from Florida. We've got other people from Indianapolis and Chicago. And they all come to contribute their portion to help the sobriety of somebody else that they don't even know.
But that's one of the mysteries of AA. Tom, there's a story there about meeting the girl in Paris that reminds me of the story. A fellow went to the movies and they had this picture. And they came to a part where the girl was just undressing to go in for a swim. And just then a freight train came along and spoiled everything. So this guy went to this movie for about seven or eight days. Somebody said, why don't you go to the movies?
He said, well, that picture's going to be the same. He said, well, I'm hoping that someday that freight will be late. We've got some books here of the meeting in the New York vicinity. So if there's anybody here from out of town that wants a meeting list, we'd be glad to pass them out to you. We now have the pleasure of introducing a lady all the way from Florida, Louise M.. Thank you, Al, and thank you, fellow AA members.
My name is Louise, and I might as well say my last name too, it's M., and I am an alcoholic.
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By the grace of God, I'm sober today. I am a visitor, I'm not a delegate to the convention. I am a visitor in New York City, and I was very kindly invited to join the convention here, and then to have this wonderful opportunity to talk to you, to tell you some of the gratitude that I feel to AA for gaining my sobriety, and then for the wonderful principles that I have learned in the Twelve Steps of AA, and how God has made it possible that I might be able to carry them through, not only from my AA life, but through other avenues of my life.
As the Twelve Steps says, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. I started drinking when I was a young girl, because it was smart, because that was what people did, to have a good time, to relax. And wherever I went, I was offered a drink, and so I took it. What I didn't know was that I was to become an alcoholic.
Surely I didn't plan this way, because I would have never chosen this way of life at all, but step by step, it happened. And after once crossing this invisible line that we who are alcoholics here know, then it was impossible for me to step back across the line, and to go back to this way of living that I had chosen for my life, the way of taking a drink to have fun, to relax. It was no longer possible for me to do this, for my life must be different from now on.
After having crossed this invisible line, then I started looking for ways out, after the years of heartbreak and of sorrow and of suffering. Seeing those who love me lose faith in me, and those whom I loved, to see them lose faith in me also. The broken promises, the broken hopes, the broken dreams, the broken health, the broken life, it was mine. I'm so grateful then that I was led to AA, and gained sobriety through AA, and then became a whole person, a real person.
I found God in AA, I found that he cared for me, and I found that he had a purpose for my life. I never knew that there was one, but not the way I had chosen to live. There was no purpose in that, because I was going in all directions at one time, and there was no purpose and no direction. But through him I was able to find a purpose and find a direction. I always wanted to do something to help people.
So in finding the 12 steps in AA, I was able to take the message to alcoholics, and from then I was able to, let's say, broaden it. For not only were alcoholics in trouble, but there were many other people in trouble in the world. And don't think that I'm saying it's not important to help alcoholics, because it is, it's most important. But God just chose to use my days and my nights in helping alcoholics too, but in also helping other people.
In learning how to work the 12 steps, taking the message from one alcoholic to another, it gave me a thrill, for I could not… I could take a message from one person to another. It was about this time that I read a book called Each One Teach One. It seemed very much like the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. For the message was not to alcoholics, but to the half of the people of the world who cannot read and write.
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The half of the people of the world who are at the very bottom of the ladder of life. These are the primitive people, the people who live in the jungles of Africa. The people who live on the streets of India, Calcutta, the large cities, who live and they die there on the streets. With having just a little bit of know-how in their lives, they would be able to lift themselves from this condition that they are forced to live in by their ignorance.
The doors of all progress are locked to them because of this one thing, this simple little thing. They can't read and they can't write. Well, this method of Each One Teach One is a very simple method of teaching people to read and to write. Before you can have any progress, you must have know-how. And before you can have any kind of know-how, you must learn how to read and to write. We can send our best seeds abroad, but we've got written directions on the package.
And if a person can't read, he doesn't know how to plant these seeds, nor does he know how to repair the machinery that we send to him. Nor does a woman know how to take care of her baby so they don't die. Sixty percent of them die before they're a year old, simply because they lack know-how. And hate, ah, it's easy to spread among a people who are hungry all their lives and who see their children born into a world where they too will be hungry.
And I have seen hate spread. Well, I've got 15 minutes, so I've got to talk fast. I mean, I've got about five minutes left, I think. So, anyway, my 12-step work then was to go on not only among my group in the city in Louisiana and Florida, the cities in which I live, but it was to then go on to the people of the world. Then I was to go on and go to travel in these countries, having these simple tools of each one teach one.
I went to an organization that taught me how to use this. This organization is the Koinonia Foundation in Baltimore. And they were willing to accept me. They knew my alcoholic background. They knew, they didn't know all of the horrors of it, because it wasn't necessary for them to know. I was, I was a new person. I was sober. And they took me and they trained me. And I wanted to be used. I wanted to be used by God to relieve the needs of the world.
And that's the kind of people they were looking for. So, and I went to Africa. Oh, I traveled most of the continent in Africa, taking this message of each one teach one. And wherever I went, I was welcomed, so the people wanted this simple message that I have. It's so simple to us, but to them it's everything. And they want it. They want it real bad, and they've got to know it now. I was grateful that I could go as one who had known sorrow and suffering, and who had been given a second chance in life.
One who could feel the misunderstanding that they feel. One who had been misunderstood. One who had compassion. And I could go and I could, though I had never lived in the jungles the way they live, but I lived in the jungles of the life that I had made for myself. And somehow or another, God made it so that I was able to meet them on their level. And we were friends, and they welcomed me. They loved me.
And I was able to help them in their lives. In places, one area they came and they brought me gifts of eggs, which are gifts for kings. That is their gift, a gift for kings. I worked with over 200 tribes of Africa. I trained over 2,000 African leaders in the each one teach one technique. And because I am a Christian, which I became after I became a sober alcoholic, then I used this as a tool to lead them to Jesus Christ.
Because he's been everything to me, and he still is. And I expect him to continue to be. And then I traveled many thousands of miles in a little automobile.
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I crossed the continent of Africa and was acclaimed to be the first woman to ever cross the continent of Africa alone. I was in areas where there are cannibals. I was chased by wild elephants and was in the midst of terrorists. But everywhere, God was there with me. When I was chased by elephants, I'll tell you the first thing I thought of after I got free and clear. I knew I was safe. You know what I thought of?
You know, I thought of a drink. A nice cold beer. But just so quick, God removed that thought from me and I was able to keep on. I'm home for a rest and to do some writing and some speaking. And then I plan to go back to Africa again to continue my 12-step work. Not only with AA's, because I did meet AA's. Loners living way in the bush in Africa. Sober, by themselves. I was the first AA in the flesh they had ever met.
We held meetings right there. And I spoke to a convention in Central Africa and was with many of the wonderful groups in South Africa. So, I'll be doing AA work, but also continuing my Each One Teach One work. It's a time of great decision in Africa. It's whether Africa is going communistic or not. Perhaps can depend upon such a simple little thing as this. Letting them know that the people of America do care about them.
That God doesn't intend for them to live in this difficult way they are living. So, I'm so grateful that by the grace of God and AA, I'm sober and able to do this wonderful work. Or, let me put it this way, to let God do this wonderful work through me. Thank you very much. Applause Thank you very much, Louise. That was a very inspiring talk. You know, we hastily passed judgment on what they're doing in the Congo.
And I guess Louise could tell you a lot of things which we really don't know anything about. Here in America, most of us have had the chance to better ourselves regardless of how rich or poor we were or how we started. We have the opportunity to go forward. I was a poor boy, one of ten children. My first job was a little store down on 408. And I worked in an ice wagon. I worked in shipyards. I worked at everything.
I didn't drink when I was in high school because I didn't go to high school. Therefore, I didn't drink in college because I didn't go to college. But I had the opportunity, even so, to go forward and study. Because you can do a lot of studying after you get out of school. You can do a lot of studying at night and it doesn't cost you anything. Are there any other people who are supposed to appear on this program in this room?
If not, we're going to call on Al. Are you? All right, Al. Thank you. I am Al T. and I am from Michigan. And I am very grateful for being able to attend as a delegate to my first conference here in New York the coming week. And I would like to say that I am very grateful for what AA has done for me. I recall my first two meetings in AA that I… It was never a hand before my AA time to ever get up before a group and talk unless I had a bottle.
And I remember after three or four meetings, after I heard the speaker, that I said to myself, I wish that someday that I could do what that fellow is doing, get up and talk. And at that time, I had New York pictured as the brains of AA, I don't know why, I just didn't know much about AA, but I figured that New York was the heart of AA, out in Michigan, we was just a little bit of it,
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and I said, from that thinking, I said, and I wish that I could even talk in New York, not as any great speaker, which I'm not, but here I am standing today, I think God answered and gave me what I was asking for that day in which I never thought that would ever happen. I also found out that AA is the same all over. AA is just what the individual person makes of it. You hear of people going to some areas and say, well, that's a cold area, they're very cool.
To me, groups of people in AA are just as cool as you want them to be. I find that AA is alike all over the country, because it has been good to me. They say in AA that we all talk and understand the same language. Now, I'm going to disagree with that on my case. I think that. For this particular reason, I don't believe there's too many farmers out here today, and I'm sure that if I told my story up here that you wouldn't understand my language.
But I feel like the story I once heard about we understand and talk the same language. Seems like this lady was going shopping, and she had a little son named Johnny, and he was slightly retarded. Before she left for the store, she says, Johnny, now, I've only got so much money, and when I get there, don't ask for a thing. So he agreed. They got to this store, and she got through with her shopping, and she couldn't find Johnny. She looked over at another department, and there Johnny sat in a little red wagon.
She went over and said, Johnny, let's go home, and Johnny wouldn't move. She couldn't get Johnny out of that little red wagon. Finally, the clerk came over and wanted to know what was the matter, and she tried, and Johnny wouldn't get out of that little red wagon. Finally, the store manager came up, and she told him what was wrong, and she said, now, don't touch him because he's a little bit retarded. So he went over and he talked to him, and Johnny wouldn't get out of that little red wagon.
Finally, the manager said, well, as long as he's a little retarded, and he happened to look over and he saw a psychiatrist, and he called for a psychiatrist to come over, and they told him what was wrong. The child was retarded, and he talked, and he talked, and he couldn't get Johnny out of that little red wagon. Finally, a stranger walked up, and he wanted to know what was the matter, and they told him. He said, I'll get him out of that little red wagon. They said, now he's retarded, don't lay a hand on him. He goes over, and pretty soon, he comes with Johnny.
The psychiatrist said to him, what did you do, or what did you say that you got him out of that little red wagon? Well, he says, I'll tell you. He says, that kid and I understand and talk the same language, and he says, I just told him to get the hell out of that little red wagon, or I'll break every bone in his body. Well, I would like to qualify myself just a little, not too much, because that's where I'm going to get to the point of maybe you will see why I'm an AA.
Maybe you want to understand this language, as I said before, because I'm a farmer, but I raise hogs, lots of hogs, and I'm going to show you, tell you the insanity part of this program, and you will see that I was nuts.
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I was a great hand during farrowing time, that's when they're having little pigs, is to stay with the sows, because you save a lot of pigs. Sometimes they get laid down and so forth. Well, I used to sit with my little bottle, drinking, and maybe at the farrowing time you'd have ten to twenty-five sows, maybe farrowing one day, within a one or two day period, and I would sit there nights in pens with them.
And you see, when a hog has pigs, they have from one to maybe sometimes twenty, but the average is about ten. Well, so they come in different periods. Maybe one will be born, and then there will be a five minute lapse, and maybe another, and then maybe they'll come two or three, one after another. But I used to sit there with my little bottle and bargain with an old sow. I'd bargain with her and say, I'll take a drink on each pig. Well, she might have one pig, and then maybe if the time lapse is too long, I'd cheat on her.
Now, if I wasn't crazy to sit there in a pen with a bottle and bargain with an old sow and then cheat on her, that isn't being insane. For this particular reason, I never bargained with my wife on my drinking, but I would with an old dumb animal. But that, I've done a lot of crazy things in my life that I'm not proud of, and the way I am proud of them, for this reason. And maybe if I hadn't done these things, that I wouldn't be here today, because I am glad that I am an alcoholic, because I feel in my own mind that by eliminating the alcohol didn't eliminate my problem, because it's a makeup within me that I found escape to the alcohol.
Maybe if I hadn't turned to alcohol, I might be walking the streets today within that emotional disturbance and character defects and so forth. I might be in an institution. I don't know. But for that reason, that I'm glad that I'm an alcoholic is because that I'm learning to live with myself without alcohol. As far as what AA has done for me, I always was able to work. The bottle didn't interfere with my work because I drank continually, but it didn't interfere.
But the point was that I wanted to quit drinking. I got to the point that I wanted to quit. I was on wine the last, because I didn't care for whiskey. And beer, I had to drink too much of it. And the next thing was white port wine was the best. I didn't like any other. So I was on wine, which I would drink on the average of about three-fifths a day, but I was working, so the effects of it wasn't as bad if I wasn't working.
And I got to the point that I no longer enjoyed my drinking. The more I drank, the more depressed I got. One day, I picked up a bottle of wine and I says, God, is this stuff getting me? I didn't say it. Maybe subconsciously, I was asking God, but I was saying it like I always had said it. God, get me out of this. I did that day. Say, God, is this stuff getting me? I went on to drink.
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About a month or so later, I had a cow develop mastitis. If anybody wants to know what mastitis is, it's inflammation of the milk tank. I'll put it that way. So I had to go to town and get some penicillin so I could treat it. I went into this drugstore, bought the penicillin, and walked to the bar next to the drugstore. I was in there drinking my double wine highballs. And during the course of the evening, I looked up and a fellow walked in that bar that I knew before he went into AA, but I hadn't seen him for a couple years. I knew he'd been sober and he needed AA.
He walked in and I said, Johnny, come over and I'll buy you a Coke. And I bought him a Coke. So, I don't know why, I never had any idea of getting sober when I went in town. I went in for a drink. I said, how did you stop your drinking? And I knew how he'd stopped his drinking, but I asked him. Well, he says, you want to know something about it? And I said, yes. So he went, we went down to his home, and this was on a Friday night, and he said, why don't you come up tomorrow night and go to a meeting with my wife and I. I told him I would.
I got up Saturday morning. I said, I'm not going to that damn AA meeting, I told my wife. I called Johnny up and told him my sister was coming and I couldn't make it. Well, my sister wasn't coming. So, it went on that following week and nobody mentioned AA to me. My wife, not a soul, mentioned AA. The following Saturday morning, I came in the house and I said to my wife, we're going to the AA meeting tonight, in which we did.
To me, it wasn't hard for me on the spiritual side of the program, because all I have to do is look back and think of the night that I was in town that Friday night. I asked for it, and I got it. The only thing that I can't help but believe that there was a power greater than myself when I came to that part of the program, when I look back to this night. Because when I went to town, I wasn't very seldom I went to town at night. But on this occasion, I went for the penicillin. I went into this bar that I hadn't been in this bar for about eight months.
This AA member walks into the bar and hadn't been in that bar for eight, nine months, and he just stopped in for a package of cigarettes. There was a time element there that I knew that I had nothing to do about, and I'm sure that my sponsor had nothing to do about. Because I don't believe there's a man in this world, outside of God, smart enough to plan and time it so perfectly. Because there could have been one second difference. Maybe he could have been there two minutes before and got his cigarettes.
So the whole thing wasn't hard for me that there's somebody else greater than John and I to plan this meeting. I attended my first meeting, and I stayed right with the program up until today, and I hope tomorrow, and so on. I'm willing. So it wasn't hard for me. I do know the first week that I had quite a time. Now that morning drink, where was it? And I didn't want it. I didn't get it. But when it came Thursday morning, I said to myself, they say, they tell me in AA that you should get up in the morning and ask for sobriety for that day and give thanks at night, and which I had been doing for that first week up to that time.
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And I woke up that morning and I thought, well, isn't there some other easy way? I don't want it, but why should I have to suffer for it? And a thought came into my mind, I imagine it was put there, that this morning, instead of asking for sobriety, ask not to want to drink, to remove desire. To me, that was my spiritual awakening, because from that moment until now, I have had no desire to want to drink.
Now, I'm going to say something now that probably a lot of you will say, that guy's nuts. Go ahead and say it when I get through, because I said it when I heard it. We have a group near the Ohio line, Blissfield, and they have an anniversary every year in which the last one was the 13th. And they have an attorney out of Toledo, Ohio, that started out when the Blissfield group started on his first year of sobriety, in which that made his 13th.
And he has talked to every anniversary, these 13th anniversaries. And the last anniversary, during his course of talk, he mentioned that he didn't like to hear people in AA that had been in AA for some time and had their two feet on the ground, he didn't like to hear him say that they was just one drink away from a drunk. Now, when that fellow got through saying that, there was others, including myself, and I'll speak for myself, I said, what is the matter with that guy?
He's ready to take a drink, 13 years of sobriety, and he says he's not one drink away from a drunk. Well, maybe you're saying that too. I'm going to say it now. Today, I'm not just one drink away from a drunk. Go ahead and say it, I did. I went home, and for three days, I was trying to figure out what that man meant with 13 years of sobriety making that statement. And I think on the third day, a thought came into my mind, and I'll try to give it to you, why I say that I'm not just one drink away from a drunk.
When I first came into AA, all I had between me and that drunk was the length of my arm. I was in AA for some time, and all I had between me and that drink was my arm. After some time of sobriety in AA, I've learned to live with myself, to put up and cope with things that I got drunk on that I no longer got drunk on. So, at the end of six years, if I'm just an arm length away from that drunk, I can't give AA a hell of a lot of credit.
That's all that arm length away from a drink. I feel that after six years, and I'll have to work good many six years on it, that I feel after six years that I've removed some of that arm, and I've put a lot of AA between me and that drink. And the only way that I'll ever take that drink is to remove all the AA I've got, because if anybody keeps their AA within them, they'll never take that drink. So I can say this, I am just AA away from a drink which would lead to a drunk.
I have to give AA some credit for my sobriety. When I came into AA, I wasn't capable of doing anything. AA is there now to help me to live with myself.
[00:50:05]
I have character defects today as I had them before, but each day I'm in this program, I drive these character defects deeper. Sometimes they'll come back out, and I know what to do with them today, and I hope I can continue. Like I heard one fella say once, if you think you have your character defects removed, go out and buy a quart of Four Roses and watch them bloom. Well, I've seen fellas that have slips, and their character defects are right back there.
And some more added, I'll tell you the truth, I've got new character defects since I stopped drinking than I had when I was drinking. I develop new character defects every day, but I hope that I can continue to handle them. I heard a fella talk in Brooklyn last night, and he said he talked with an individual that had a slip, and he said, well, what caused it? He says, I was emotionally upset. Well, he says, what was wrong?
He says, my shoelaces broke. Well, don't take much to disturb us, but I do feel this way, that I hope that I can continue. I do know I had nothing to do with it, only become willing. It's you people out there that I am grateful for. I am grateful for AA. I said that I'm glad I'm an alcoholic because I've learned how to live again. Now, I clipped a piece out of a paper here that I'm going to quit. My favorite poems, and it was Arthur Godfrey's.
He had several of them in here, and here was one of his favorites. He says I'm a great lover of poetry. The love of a beautiful maid, the love of a staunch true man, the love of a baby unafraid, has existed since time began. But the greatest love, the love of loves, even greater than that of a mother, is a tender, passionate love of one drunken bum for another. Thank you. Thank you very much, Al.