22nd Founders Day — Akron, OH, June 14, 1957

[00:00 – 00:07] I will now ask the Reverend Pope to open the screen. [00:07 – 00:14] May I ask you to rise for the invocation, please? [00:14 – 00:23] Our dear Heavenly Father, we rejoice in this anniversary occasion which brings us here this day. [00:23 – 00:35] We thank thee for this great organization whose redemptive power is known and loved around the world. [00:35 – 00:47] We remember this day, its faint beginnings, when two men, unable to conquer their own weakness, [00:47 – 00:53] let thy divine power flood into their lives. [00:53 – 01:03] With gratitude we remember thy beloved servants, Dr. Bob and his wife, Anne. [01:03 – 01:11] May they go from strength to strength in the life everlasting. [01:11 – 01:19] Bless this day thy dear servants, Bill and Lois. [01:19 – 01:24] Strengthen them in all they undertake. [01:24 – 01:32] Help us to know, all of us, that no failures of ours need ever be final. [01:32 – 01:41] That where we are weak, thy divine power can strengthen and uphold us. [01:41 – 01:52] Bless us as we gather here and make us humbly grateful that we can share our experience of thee with others. [01:52 – 02:06] We ask it in the name of him who said, Seek and ye shall find our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. [02:06 – 02:10] I want to give to you Bill Wilson. [02:10 – 02:12] Thank you. [02:40 – 03:05] I’m sure that each of us is today stirred, perhaps never before, by the great wonder at what God has done with so many of us truly misshapen creatures. [03:05 – 03:14] I know that the great emotion of wonder runs through you and me. [03:14 – 03:29] And we all have another emotion as we gather here at this place of our beginnings, and that is a nostalgia. [03:29 – 03:58] Around me on this platform, and out there among you, I see the faces of old-timers, their ranks dwindle, and somehow the sight of them, and being here in this city set on a hill, makes me want to turn the clock back. [03:58 – 04:15] I want again to stand in the lobby of the Mayflower and run my finger down that directory and find on it the name of our beloved friend, Walter Trump. [04:15 – 04:34] I want to hear Henrietta Starbling’s voice come over the wire, saying, I think I understand. Won’t you drive right out here? [04:34 – 04:57] She understood enough, and she cared enough. I would like to again sit in her living room and see Dr. Bob and Ann walk in the door, my first sight of that beloved couple. [04:57 – 05:13] I would like to have my talk again with Dr. Bob in Henrietta’s library. I would like to live those next months at their house at 855 Ardmore. [05:13 – 05:42] I would like to see old Bill, the man on the desk, and some of the others as they came into view. And this is an occasion when, in a sort of nostalgia, a healthy one, I am sure, we reenact and remember the past as well as the AA of today and of tomorrow. [05:43 – 06:12] Now, the program committee has brought friends of ours down here who are going to make the main talk, and this is one of those rare occasions, perhaps the very first, in which the Wilsons are quite a bit seen but not so much heard, and I think it’s a hell of a good idea. [06:12 – 06:39] But before getting on with the meeting, it seemed to me as I thought about this that this year we should especially dedicate our gathering to the memory of Dr. Bob and Ann. [06:39 – 07:00] This is Founders Day, and for myself, I believe they are here in person, and all of you know that they are here in spirit. [07:00 – 07:29] So it seemed altogether fitting that since a permanent record has now been made in our new history book to come out in the fall, AA Comes of Age, about these beginnings here, that I read you a little fragment only which has to do with those very first impressions. [07:30 – 07:42] That I had of Dr. Bob and Ann, and also the Atlantic in question. [07:42 – 08:05] I’m told also today that Sister Ignatia is not, again, too well up and about, but over time, and I think we might think of her with a special gratitude and remembrance. [08:06 – 08:22] This fragment I’m about to read is in the opening part of the book. Of course, a great deal is said about Akron, and Cleveland, and New York, and Chicago, and all of the founding groups. [08:23 – 08:31] But this is a fragment that appears early, and it would seem to especially serve this purpose. [08:32 – 08:44] You remember we met at St. Louis, declared we had come of age, and out there we reminisced a great deal. [08:45 – 08:58] So you can imagine, as you hear this, that a few of us are gathered in a hotel room talking about Dr. Bob and Ann. [08:58 – 09:11] Most of all, of course, we talked about co-founder Dr. Bob and his wife, Ann. [09:11 – 09:21] A handful of us could remember those first days at Akron, where the spark that was to become the first AA group was struck. [09:22 – 09:30] Some of us could retell tales that had been told in Dr. Bob’s living room in the little house on Ardmore Avenue. [09:30 – 09:42] And we could remember Ann as she sat in the corner by the fireplace, reading from the Bible the warning of James, that faith without work is dead. [09:43 – 09:50] Indeed, we had with us at the convention Bob and Sister Sue, who had seen the beginnings of AA Group No. 1. [09:50 – 09:54] Sue’s husband Ernie, AA No. 4, was there too. [09:54 – 10:01] And old Bill D., AA No. 3, was represented by his good widow Henrietta. [10:02 – 10:13] We were overjoyed to see Ethel, the long and sober lady of the Akron-Cleveland region, whose moving story can be read in the second edition of the AA book. [10:13 – 10:20] And right away she reminded us of all the early Akron veterans, a dozen and a half of them, [10:20 – 10:34] whose stories were the backbone of the first edition of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, and who, together with Dr. Bob, had created the first AA group in the world. [10:34 – 10:49] As these stories unfolded, we saw Dr. Bob entering the doors of St. Thomas Hospital, the first religious hospital to receive prospective members of AA for treatment on a regular basis. [10:49 – 10:59] Here they developed that great partnership between Dr. Bob and the incomparable Ignatia of the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine. [10:59 – 11:06] Her name brings to mind the classic story about the first drunk that she and Dr. Bob treated. [11:06 – 11:13] Sister Ignatia’s night supervisor wasn’t very keen about alcoholics, especially the DT variety. [11:14 – 11:21] And Dr. Bob had arrived with a request for a private room for his first cousin. [11:21 – 11:28] Sister Ignatia said to him, Doctor, we do not have any beds, much less private rooms, but I will do what I can. [11:28 – 11:37] Forthwith, she slyly bootlegged AA’s first jittering candidate for admission into the hospital’s flower room. [11:37 – 11:50] From this uncertain start of hospitalization in our pioneering time, we watched the growing procession of sufferers as they passed through the doors of St. Thomas and out into the world again, [11:50 – 11:55] most of them never to return to the hospital except as visitors. [11:55 – 12:05] From 1939 to the time Dr. Bob took leave of us in 1950, over 5,000 had thus been treated. [12:05 – 12:23] And so the ministry of Dr. Bob, his wife Anne, Sister Ignatia, and Akron’s old-timers set an example for the practice of AA’s 12 steps that will remain for all time. [12:23 – 12:27] This great tradition lives on in the person of Sister Ignatia. [12:27 – 12:39] She continues her labor of love today at Cleveland’s St. Vincent’s Charity, where grateful AA’s of the area have contributed labor and money to reconstruct an old wing of the place, [12:39 – 12:47] which has been christened Rosary Hall and set aside for the special use of the sister and her co-workers. [12:47 – 12:57] Many an AA member today believe that among the best gateways to sobriety are the alcoholic wards of the religious hospitals that cooperate with us. [12:57 – 13:05] Surely those who pass through St. Thomas at Akron and St. Vincent at Cleveland will hardly agree to us. [13:05 – 13:14] It is our hope that in due time, religious hospitals of all denominations will follow the example of these remarkable origins. [13:14 – 13:23] What Sister Ignatia, Dr. Bob, and her associates at St. Thomas have already done is a brave beginning. [13:23 – 13:31] But the future may honor them even more for the great work that their example has set in motion. [13:31 – 13:42] In 1949, ten years after the start of Dr. Bob and Sister Ignatia’s pioneering, all of this was deeply realized throughout Ohio. [13:42 – 13:49] A committee was formed to place a plaque in the alcoholic ward of St. Thomas Hospital, [13:49 – 13:55] a memorial which would clearly show how so many of us really thought and felt. [13:55 – 13:59] I was asked to write the inscription and decided to dedicate it. [13:59 – 14:05] Though Anne had passed away, Dr. Bob could still be with her. [14:05 – 14:10] Characteristically, Sister Ignatia would not let her name appear on the inscription. [14:10 – 14:17] It was on a Saturday afternoon, April 8, 1949, that we unveiled and presented the plaque to the hospital. [14:17 – 14:20] Its inscription reads and follows. [14:20 – 14:31] In gratitude, the friends of Dr. Bob and Anne affectionately dedicate this memorial to the sisters and staff of St. Thomas Hospital. [14:31 – 14:35] At Akron, birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous, [14:35 – 14:42] St. Thomas became the first religious institution to open its door to our society. [14:42 – 14:57] May the loving devotion of those who labored here in our pioneering times be a bright and wondrous example of God’s grace everlastingly set before us all. [14:57 – 15:09] Now I jump from those years of the beginning over to 1950. [15:09 – 15:18] Everyone remembers Dr. Bob’s famous final admonition to Alcoholics Anonymous. [15:18 – 15:24] Let’s not louse this thing up. Let’s keep it simple. [15:24 – 15:33] And I recall my own writing in the grapevine about his great simplicity and strength. [15:33 – 15:48] Serenely remarking to his attendants, I think this is it, Dr. Bob passed out of our sight and hearing November 19, 1950, at noonday. [15:48 – 15:58] He expanded the consuming malady in the course of which he had shown us how high faith can rise over grievous distress. [15:58 – 16:10] As he had lived, so he had died, supremely aware that in his father’s house there are many mentions. [16:10 – 16:16] Among all that he knew, memory was at flood time. [16:16 – 16:31] Who could really say what was thought and felt by the 5,000 sick ones to whom he personally ministered and freely gave a physician’s care? [16:31 – 16:44] Who could possibly record the reflections of his townsmen who had seen him sink almost into oblivion, then rise to anonymous world renown? [16:44 – 16:59] Who could express the gratitude of those tens of thousands of AA families who had so often heard of him, but who had never seen him face to face? [16:59 – 17:15] And what were the emotions of those nearest to him as they thankfully pondered the mystery of his regeneration 15 years before and all its vast consequences since? [17:15 – 17:22] Only the smallest fraction of this great blessing could be comprehended. [17:22 – 17:31] We could only say what indeed has God brought. [17:31 – 17:41] Never would Dr. Bob have us think him a saint or a superman, nor would he have us praise him or grieve his past. [17:41 – 17:45] We can almost hear him saying to us, [17:45 – 17:50] It seems to me you folks are making heavy going of this. [17:50 – 17:55] I’m not to be taken so seriously as all that. [17:55 – 18:03] I was only a first link in that chain of providential circumstances which is called AA. [18:03 – 18:14] By grace and good fortune, my link did not break, though my faults and failures could have often brought on that unhappy result. [18:14 – 18:21] I was just another alcoholic trying to get along under the grace of God. [18:21 – 18:27] So forget me, but go you and do likewise. [18:27 – 18:31] Add your own link to our chain. [18:31 – 18:36] With God’s help forge that chain well and true. [18:36 – 18:51] It was in this manner, if not in these exact words, that Dr. Bob actually did estimate himself and counsel us. [18:51 – 18:54] One more word. [18:54 – 19:04] Following his death, our trustees sent this scroll to his heirs. [19:04 – 19:09] Dr. Bob, in memoriam. [19:09 – 19:22] Alcoholics Anonymous herein records his timeless gratitude for the life and work of Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, a co-founder. [19:22 – 19:30] Known in affection as Dr. Bob, he recovered from alcoholism on June 10, 1935. [19:30 – 19:35] In that year he helped form the first Alcoholics Anonymous group. [19:35 – 19:45] This beacon he and his good wife Anne so well tended that its light at length traversed the world. [19:45 – 19:57] By the day of his departure from us in 1950, he had spiritually and medically helped countless fellow sufferers. [19:57 – 20:10] Dr. Bob was the humility that declined all honor, the integrity that brooks no compromise. [20:10 – 20:21] His was a devotion to man and God, which in bright examples will shine always. [20:21 – 20:36] The World Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous presents this testament of gratitude to the heirs of Dr. Bob and Anne. [20:36 – 20:49] And I’m sure you will all deeply know that we too are the heirs. [20:49 – 21:10] May we have a moment of silence, holding Dr. Bob and Anne in loving thought. [21:10 – 21:18] Amen. [21:18 – 21:31] All of us drunks here, nearly all of us, have had those near and dear who stayed in the caves with us. [21:31 – 21:41] Caves where the darkness was. Caves that everyone else had fled. [21:41 – 21:51] They are people who got us to where we could be reached by AA. [21:51 – 22:04] And I am one of the fortunate ones who had such a steadfast push. [22:05 – 22:12] Lois ought to add a little of her reflection to this meeting. Lois. [22:12 – 22:36] Good evening, everybody. I should say rather good afternoon. I’m a little ahead of myself, I guess. [22:37 – 22:45] It’s a great privilege to be here with you this afternoon on this thrilling occasion. [22:45 – 22:50] I thought that I too would read a little bit from Bill’s new book. [22:50 – 22:59] What I said at St. Louis represented so fully what I feel today at this wonderful anniversary. [22:59 – 23:05] But I will now give it to you in substance. [23:05 – 23:16] I want to express here before you all my gratitude for AA and my thanks for being allowed to share in this 22nd anniversary. [23:16 – 23:23] It is this sharing that makes AA the powerful good that it is. [23:23 – 23:32] Through these 22 years, you have not only been an inspiration to me and many others like me, [23:32 – 23:38] but you have given us proof of the power of good over evil. [23:38 – 23:48] You have given us a demonstration that lives, no matter how low and sordid they may become, can be changed. [23:48 – 23:59] And that men and women, through God’s grace, can be re-motivated to become constructive, useful forces. [23:59 – 24:10] I believe all these miracles have come about because the principles of AA coincide with the highest precepts we know, [24:10 – 24:15] with the fundamental laws of the universe. [24:15 – 24:24] These principles teach us how to step aside so that God can act through us. [24:24 – 24:38] I am particularly grateful to AA for showing me personally and all the other wives and husbands of AA the way to a better and more useful life. [24:38 – 24:52] From the very beginning, AA’s example has made most of us want to try to live by the 12 steps ourselves and to help others like us [24:52 – 25:00] but still are frustrated and alone to do likewise. [25:00 – 25:11] In the last 15 years, the numbers and rates of alcoholics who share this same feeling of need have increased so greatly [25:11 – 25:21] that it has become possible to band together in groups in order to better solve our problems of fear and insecurity [25:21 – 25:26] and thus pass our experience on to others who seek our help. [25:26 – 25:34] The All of Us family groups are a spontaneous response to a vital need. [25:34 – 25:40] In the family groups, we follow the lead of you in AA. [25:40 – 25:47] We admit that we, too, are powerless over alcohol. [25:47 – 25:51] We try to take our hands off your problems. [25:51 – 26:02] We try to stop bossing and nagging, acknowledging the integrity of your lives as well as that of our own. [26:02 – 26:13] We try to take our own inventory, to admit to God and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. [26:13 – 26:17] We make amends to those we have harmed. [26:17 – 26:27] We seek, through prayer and meditation, to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him. [26:27 – 26:32] And we try to carry this message to others. [26:32 – 26:42] In the family groups, we are trying to the best of our ability to live by the very same principles that have done so much for you. [26:42 – 26:50] This means to have favorable sex upon you, the alcoholics, as well as upon us. [26:50 – 26:59] And as a result, many homes have become serene, united, and joyous places. [26:59 – 27:09] At the time of the AA International Convention in Cleveland in 1950, there were probably less than 100 family groups in existence. [27:10 – 27:18] Now there are nearly 900 on the American continent, and there are groups in 10 countries abroad. [27:18 – 27:25] We have not only grown in quantity, but, we hope, in quality, too. [27:25 – 27:35] I am proud to have a part in this Founders’ Day, and I want to thank you, AA, for showing me the way [27:35 – 27:44] and giving me an opportunity to spread your message, which we in Al-Anon have adopted for our own. [27:44 – 27:46] Thank you. [27:46 – 28:08] It was really years and years ago when a very young chap turned up in AA, and he landed in our neighborhood. [28:09 – 28:19] And he talked so much about his hexes and his phobias that we, at the time, said, [28:19 – 28:22] Why, this fellow can be no alcoholic at all. [28:22 – 28:28] Although, subsequently, he really qualified and gave us a demonstration. [28:29 – 28:35] I refer to the speaker of the day, but this was a long time ago. [28:36 – 28:50] In all my AA acquaintance, I know a few who have been exposed to the alcohol problem with more difficulty, but more surely. [28:50 – 29:04] I know a few who, under great stress, met the lifetime problem so well as my good friend and neighbor Tom. [29:05 – 29:22] I hope you’re going to like this new book, and if you do like it, you can credit Tom with 50% of your liking, [29:22 – 29:35] because he is the guy who most painstakingly edited it and the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions before that. [29:36 – 29:49] So I now present you our speaker of the afternoon, my dear friend Tom Powers, once crazy and now, I submit, perfectly sane. [29:52 – 30:02] Thank you, Bill. [30:02 – 30:16] My name is Tom Powers, and that isn’t important, because in this fellowship we try, and as we go along, little by little, we succeed to work namelessly. [30:17 – 30:31] And I am an alcoholic, and that is important, because it gives to me, who was once a very useless person indeed, a very strange power. [30:31 – 30:45] And that is a power, under certain circumstances, by God’s grace, to help another human being when perhaps no one except one like myself can help him. [30:45 – 31:00] It’s a very odd payoff. It’s a strange position to find yourself in, and I’m keenly conscious of the responsibility of it always, and never so much at a time like this. [31:00 – 31:06] I’d like to say just a word in the beginning about large AA gatherings. [31:06 – 31:12] They are a kind of a burden. There’s a lot of milling around on hot days. There’s a lot of heat. [31:12 – 31:25] But I think there’s something very special in large AA gatherings, and I’d just like to mention it on this Founders’ Day occasion, and particularly with your first statewide conference coming up. [31:25 – 31:34] I’m sure that spiritual experience is not merely quantitative, so that if you have three guys with it, five have more. [31:34 – 31:48] But somehow a large gathering of people who have been picked up by God Almighty and brought into this great experience that we all share does generate a peculiar field of force. [31:48 – 31:52] This isn’t just my idea. I’ve talked to a lot of people that have felt it. [31:52 – 31:58] Out in Chicago one time, I was at a meeting. There were two or three thousand people there, and Bill spoke. [31:58 – 32:05] And at the end of that meeting, when everybody got up and said the Lord’s Prayer, I could feel my hair standing up on end. [32:05 – 32:09] That was the time when I was wondering whether there was a God or not. [32:09 – 32:15] And I figured, well, maybe there wasn’t a God, but something was going on there, and it was doing me a lot of good. [32:15 – 32:28] I do think these large gatherings, although they aren’t standard practice amongst us, are occasions to get a peculiar and particular kind of lift. [32:28 – 32:37] I didn’t start out to be an alcoholic. I guess no alcoholic does. I just started out to be a success in life. [32:37 – 32:47] And I thought the way to be a success in life was to be one of the boys, to go along, to pick out the leaders in any group I got mixed up in, and to do what they did. [32:47 – 32:58] So when I got to the University of Illinois, I found that the leaders in my fraternity house were getting drunk every Saturday night. [32:58 – 33:03] So I decided this was the thing to do in order to be a success. [33:04 – 33:09] It was Prohibition at that time, and we were drinking spiked beer. [33:09 – 33:13] You remember spiked beer? How many of you trained on spiked beer? [33:13 – 33:21] That’s where you pour something out of the neck of a bottle of near beer and put in some grain, you hope, alcohol, and drink it. [33:21 – 33:32] And I sat in on a few of these sessions, and each time I got very drunk, very fast, and then very sick, and threw up. [33:32 – 33:38] And after a little while, I took one of my co-experimenters aside, and I said, [33:38 – 33:47] This is wonderful what we’re doing, and I certainly see that there’s something here, but just why are we doing this? What is the objective? [33:47 – 33:53] And he said, Well, you’re new at this, and you haven’t learned yet to take it easy. [33:53 – 33:58] Little did I know under what different circumstances, many years later, I’d be advised to take it easy. [33:59 – 34:08] He said, If you take it easy, in between the time that you start to drink and the time that you throw up, there is a short interval of pleasure. [34:16 – 34:18] And this is what we are pursuing. [34:19 – 34:30] So I transferred to the University of Michigan, where the subject was better taught, and we didn’t drink spiked beer over there. [34:30 – 34:37] We had some pretty good booze coming across the river from Windsor at that time, and I learned to take it quite easy indeed. [34:37 – 34:43] And I learned that there was a good deal of pleasure involved, and I pursued the pleasure. [34:44 – 34:52] While pursuing the pleasure, I learned that something else was involved that was more important to me than the pleasure. [34:52 – 35:01] Ever since I had been a small guy, I had had something wrong with me that was so wrong and so constant that I got used to it. [35:01 – 35:03] I almost forgot it existed. [35:03 – 35:05] I was uneasy with people. [35:05 – 35:07] I guess you’d call it shyness. [35:07 – 35:11] I was always worried that I didn’t like people as well as I ought to. [35:12 – 35:15] I tried real hard, but they didn’t look too good to me. [35:16 – 35:21] And I was even more worried that they didn’t like me as well as they ought to. [35:21 – 35:26] So this caused a kind of constraint, and I didn’t know what to do about it except just endure it. [35:27 – 35:38] But lo and behold, with four or five or six clips of red eye in my belly, people began to look good to me. [35:39 – 35:44] And after a few more, I entered into the illusion that I looked good to them. [35:46 – 35:51] But this is not an unworthy motive in life to get along with people. [35:51 – 35:58] I started out quite innocently on the road that led to alcoholism, but this is not a normal reason to drink. [35:58 – 36:04] This is to use a drug the way reasonable and sane people use a religion. [36:04 – 36:08] That is to say, as a resource with which to meet life. [36:08 – 36:15] I also had been troubled for many years, troubled so much that I kind of forgot about it, by fear. [36:15 – 36:21] I was fearful about a great many things, and I worried that I would flunk out of school, [36:21 – 36:26] and later when I got married that I would lose my job and that this wouldn’t go right. [36:26 – 36:28] I was in a kind of a constant turmoil. [36:29 – 36:33] Except when drinking. [36:33 – 36:43] Again, with just the right amount, I found that I entered into a state of body and mind in which I was temporarily fearless. [36:43 – 36:51] And this was so attractive that I began to drink very seriously with these ends in view. [36:52 – 36:59] Now, anybody who uses a drug, not just alcohol, in this way, makes a queer discovery after a while. [36:59 – 37:01] I didn’t make it for a long time. [37:01 – 37:07] But in order to get these wonderful results, and they are wonderful, in order to keep getting them, [37:07 – 37:15] not just get more of them or improve it, in order to just stay even with the game, you have to increase the dose. [37:16 – 37:24] If today it takes 8 or 10 drinks to kill my pain of living so that life is endurable, [37:24 – 37:31] next year it will take 12 or 15 drinks, and then next year it will take 18 or 20 or whatever and whatever. [37:31 – 37:40] I got, this is an old story, many of us scan out this way, I got caught up in this pattern, and so I went. [37:40 – 37:43] This is how I became an alcoholic. [37:43 – 37:45] I did not know it was happening to me. [37:45 – 37:51] I just knew I was drinking more and more, but I kept picking out friends who drank more and more. [37:51 – 37:55] I kept lying to myself about it as alcoholics do. [37:58 – 38:00] Alcoholics have a lot of luck. [38:00 – 38:02] I ran mine out. [38:02 – 38:09] I moved from Chicago to Detroit, to Cleveland, to New York. [38:09 – 38:11] I really did some drinking in Cleveland. [38:12 – 38:15] I was really studying very hard for the Brotherhood at that time. [38:17 – 38:23] And by the time I got to Cleveland, it occurred to me that something might be wrong, [38:23 – 38:26] because I was putting down a great deal every day. [38:26 – 38:33] I tried a couple of times to quit, and the shock of sopriety was such a hideous experience. [38:33 – 38:39] To live, I was an everyday drinker, to try to live one day without the painkiller, [38:39 – 38:41] I remember one of those days very well. [38:41 – 38:45] About four o’clock in the afternoon, I thought, I’ve made a mistake to try to quit. [38:45 – 38:47] What I need to do is moderate. [38:47 – 38:50] So I quick got the jug out and moderated. [38:52 – 38:58] I was at that time heavily dependent on the stuff, on the verge of addiction. [38:58 – 39:04] By the time I got to New York, it took about a quarter booze a day to keep me going. [39:04 – 39:06] I’m not talking about to get drunk. [39:06 – 39:07] I got drunk on weekends. [39:07 – 39:10] I mean, it took a quarter day just for me to run. [39:11 – 39:16] In the meantime, I am keeping up an outer appearance of normality. [39:16 – 39:20] This is a mask I’m holding up more and more desperately. [39:20 – 39:21] I go to work. [39:21 – 39:27] I keep getting better jobs every time I’m fired, so it doesn’t look too good outwardly. [39:27 – 39:29] Inside, the atom bomb is being prepared. [39:31 – 39:33] When it went off was 1940. [39:33 – 39:35] I made a mistake that year. [39:35 – 39:37] I made a change in my diet. [39:38 – 39:41] I was living on a quarter booze a day, [39:42 – 39:44] some black coffee, [39:44 – 39:46] a little clear soup, [39:46 – 39:49] and some toast when it wasn’t too scratchy. [39:50 – 39:54] I dropped out the coffee and the soup and the toast, [39:54 – 39:57] and I began to try to live on booze alone. [39:57 – 40:00] And as anyone will tell you, this is an error. [40:00 – 40:04] Because while the stuff has a lot of fuel value, [40:04 – 40:06] it has a lot of carbohydrates, [40:06 – 40:08] it has no vitamins, [40:08 – 40:09] no minerals, [40:09 – 40:10] and no proteins, [40:10 – 40:14] and you can’t live on as much as some of us would like to. [40:16 – 40:20] So my appearance of normality, as Bill has hinted, [40:20 – 40:22] disappeared abruptly one day. [40:23 – 40:25] There were some convulsions. [40:25 – 40:28] There were some doctors running around on the scene. [40:28 – 40:30] There were some hypodermic needles. [40:30 – 40:35] There was a long, deep period of unconsciousness [40:35 – 40:38] of a type which I later learned to induce myself [40:38 – 40:42] when I learned what other drugs and alcohol were useful for. [40:43 – 40:47] But this was my first experience of deep, desperate narcosis. [40:48 – 40:51] And when I woke up, it was the next day, I judge, [40:51 – 40:53] because it was morning, [40:53 – 40:55] and I was not in my own trundle bed. [40:55 – 40:57] I was in a new trundle bed, [40:58 – 41:01] and there was a man sitting at the foot of the bed, [41:01 – 41:02] and when I said, [41:02 – 41:03] Who are you? [41:03 – 41:04] He said, [41:04 – 41:06] I’m going to be with you for a few days. [41:07 – 41:10] And then I looked up and saw the bars on the window, [41:10 – 41:12] and I knew where I was. [41:14 – 41:16] And I was horrified, [41:17 – 41:18] because for two weeks, [41:18 – 41:22] I was not in the drying-out section of this nut house, [41:22 – 41:24] I was in the nut section. [41:25 – 41:30] And my daily companions were an assortment of schizophrenics, [41:30 – 41:32] maniacs, paranoiacs, [41:32 – 41:34] I don’t know what kind of a yak I was. [41:36 – 41:38] But I wept every hour on the hour, [41:38 – 41:41] and I guess I belonged where I was, [41:41 – 41:44] and I was deeply impressed with the situation. [41:44 – 41:46] I think if somebody had thrown the first step at me then, [41:46 – 41:48] I might have taken it. [41:49 – 41:51] But alas, after a while, [41:51 – 41:54] sanity returned as it does with alcoholics, [41:55 – 41:58] and I got a lot of vitamins and a lot of sunshine [41:58 – 42:00] and a lot of psychotherapy, [42:00 – 42:02] and as my health came back, [42:02 – 42:06] that dreadful enemy of sanity came with it, [42:06 – 42:08] alcoholic optimism. [42:08 – 42:11] I began to think this wasn’t so bad after all. [42:11 – 42:13] I was in a very high-grade nut house, [42:13 – 42:15] my company was paying the freight, [42:15 – 42:18] they rushed us around in Cadillac cars, [42:18 – 42:20] they took us down to the Sound to swim, [42:20 – 42:22] I still had a keeper, [42:22 – 42:25] but he came along with me and caddied when I played golf. [42:27 – 42:30] So I thought, well, maybe it was just my nerves after all. [42:30 – 42:32] I’m the racehorse type, you know, [42:32 – 42:35] high-strung, I have to have vacations like this every once in a while. [42:37 – 42:39] They told me I mustn’t drink again, [42:39 – 42:40] but you know the answer to that. [42:40 – 42:42] As soon as I got out of there, [42:42 – 42:44] I began to think, well, now wait a minute. [42:44 – 42:47] They told me that an alcoholic is a person [42:47 – 42:49] who can’t take one drink and stop. [42:51 – 42:54] This is foolish of them, it’s a bum definition, [42:54 – 42:55] but that’s what they gave me. [42:55 – 42:57] And when I got out, I got thinking about that, [42:57 – 43:00] and I thought, well, now I’m just a young fellow, [43:00 – 43:03] and this is really not good mental hygiene [43:03 – 43:08] for me to go the rest of my life not knowing in this area, you know? [43:08 – 43:11] I never did try to take one drink and stop. [43:11 – 43:16] So one day, just two weeks after getting out of this cookie jar, [43:17 – 43:21] with the memory of the leather vests in the tub still bright in my mind, [43:21 – 43:25] but with the spirit of science and experiment [43:25 – 43:28] coming up strong from behind and overtaking it, [43:28 – 43:31] I began to see this not just as something I wanted to do, [43:31 – 43:35] but more or less my duty to the race to conduct this experiment. [43:36 – 43:40] And I went into a little saloon on Madison Avenue after work, [43:40 – 43:42] and I took one drink. [43:43 – 43:46] And those who aren’t well acquainted with alcoholism think, [43:46 – 43:48] ah-ha-ha, I know what’s going to happen now. [43:48 – 43:52] He’s going to take two drinks, and three, and five, and ten, [43:52 – 43:55] and he’ll rush out on Madison Avenue and be run over with a bus, [43:55 – 43:59] and they’ll take him to Bellevue, and he’ll know what he is. [43:59 – 44:02] Unfortunately, there are some alcoholics, [44:02 – 44:04] I am one of them, [44:04 – 44:08] in whom the connection between cause and effect [44:08 – 44:12] is not that wonderfully, blessedly close. [44:12 – 44:15] We are the class, the unfortunate class, [44:15 – 44:18] who can goof it around for a while. [44:19 – 44:22] I wouldn’t have taken a second drink on that day [44:22 – 44:25] if wild horses had been attached to me. [44:25 – 44:29] I was conducting an experiment that meant a great deal to me, [44:29 – 44:34] because if I’m an alcoholic, the sentence is, I never drink again. [44:34 – 44:37] Would you take the next drink? No. [44:37 – 44:41] I walked out onto Madison Avenue, I got onto a commuting train, [44:41 – 44:45] with this nice warm glow spreading out through my guts and my blood again. [44:45 – 44:47] Gee, it felt good. [44:47 – 44:51] And I got home, and I said nothing to nobody. [44:51 – 44:55] And the next day I did the same thing, and the next day the same thing, [44:55 – 44:57] and the next day the same thing, [44:57 – 45:02] for about six weeks, the proverbial 40 days in the wilderness. [45:02 – 45:06] And then I emerged, and I called my wife into conference, [45:06 – 45:09] and I said, the wise men up at the nuthouse have said, quote, [45:09 – 45:11] and I gave her the definition, [45:11 – 45:14] I, these 40 days, have done thus and so. [45:14 – 45:16] What do you think? [45:16 – 45:18] And she said, well, goody. [45:18 – 45:21] She said, when you were drinking around here, it was a mess, [45:21 – 45:25] but since you’ve been sober, you have been just intolerable. [45:25 – 45:27] Let’s get out the jug. [45:32 – 45:35] So we did. She liked to drink, too. [45:35 – 45:38] And I drank very carefully for a few weeks, [45:38 – 45:40] and not so carefully for a few weeks, [45:40 – 45:42] and then quite carelessly for a few weeks. [45:42 – 45:44] It’s a long story. [45:44 – 45:47] A year goes by, and I am insane again. [45:48 – 45:51] This time we have the same problem we had before. [45:51 – 45:55] Is this an alcoholic who is behaving very nuttily, [45:55 – 45:57] or is this a nut who drinks? [45:57 – 45:59] They aren’t sure. [46:00 – 46:04] And this time my company is not paying the freight. [46:04 – 46:05] I am. [46:05 – 46:08] So I go into a little cheaper laughing academy, [46:08 – 46:13] and they take the nut hypothesis first as being the most serious, [46:13 – 46:17] and I am given metazol shock treatment. [46:17 – 46:20] I will not go into what metazol shock treatment is. [46:20 – 46:23] Shock recently has become a very humane procedure. [46:23 – 46:26] They hit you across the temples with a belt of electricity. [46:26 – 46:29] A few people grab a hold of you while you’re convulsed. [46:29 – 46:32] It isn’t too bad. You’re full of curare and a lot of other drugs. [46:32 – 46:35] And if you don’t lose consciousness on the first whack, [46:35 – 46:38] they hit you again with the electricity, [46:38 – 46:40] and it’s quite painless. [46:40 – 46:43] In those days, however, they were pioneering. [46:45 – 46:46] And they gave it to you. [46:46 – 46:49] It was just short of the lethal dose of metazol. [46:49 – 46:51] Five guys held you, [46:51 – 46:53] and if you didn’t lose consciousness, it was too bad. [46:53 – 46:54] They couldn’t give you any more metazol. [46:54 – 46:56] It would kill you. [46:56 – 46:58] You had it. [46:58 – 47:01] I had three of these a week for four weeks. [47:01 – 47:03] A total of 12. [47:03 – 47:07] And to this day, I don’t know what they did for me psychologically or physically, [47:07 – 47:10] but looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, [47:10 – 47:14] I can see that spiritually they advanced the ball a little bit. [47:14 – 47:17] They did give me a little humility. [47:17 – 47:20] When the man came around after the shock treatments and said, [47:20 – 47:23] Howard, we have now treated you for being a nut. [47:23 – 47:25] May we discuss your alcohol problem? [47:25 – 47:28] I said, please, yes, let’s do. [47:31 – 47:33] It’s full of yucks now. [47:33 – 47:35] At the time, it was so deadly, seriously. [47:35 – 47:39] I wanted out of the mess I was in. [47:39 – 47:42] So he said, well, my friend, why don’t you go over to White Plains [47:42 – 47:47] and associate yourself with a group of people over there called Alcoholics Anonymous. [47:47 – 47:51] They’re doing wonderful work, and they’re healing up helpless cases, [47:51 – 47:55] and I’m afraid that’s where you may shake out. [47:55 – 47:59] And I said, gee, I’m sorry, but that wouldn’t be for me. [47:59 – 48:01] I couldn’t do that. [48:01 – 48:03] He said, well, why is that? [48:03 – 48:07] And I said, well, you see, it’s because I’m too intelligent. [48:07 – 48:09] Oh, he said, too intelligent. [48:09 – 48:12] This was a nice old guy with steel-rimmed glasses, [48:12 – 48:16] and he gave me a look-out from under the steel rims, and he said, how is that? [48:16 – 48:20] And I said, well, I’ve been educated, you see, in two universities, [48:20 – 48:24] and this thing has been described to me, and it’s got a God angle, you know? [48:24 – 48:27] Come to Jesus, sawdust trail, this stuff. [48:27 – 48:29] And I take a very broad view of that. [48:29 – 48:32] I think it’s fine for people that can go for it. [48:32 – 48:34] But we educated people, doctor. [48:34 – 48:36] This is called rapport with the doctors. [48:36 – 48:41] We educated people have to solve our problems without recourse [48:41 – 48:45] to these primitive superstitions, don’t we? [48:45 – 48:49] Well, he said, now, Powers, I can see plainly that you are a brain, [48:49 – 48:53] but we’ve had the brain in the tank here twice. [49:00 – 49:04] And it still does not look good to us. [49:04 – 49:08] So he said, just in the interest of science, [49:08 – 49:10] why don’t you go over to White Plains [49:10 – 49:15] and jump into the sawdust with these characters and see what happens to you? [49:17 – 49:21] Well, I went, and I wanted help. [49:21 – 49:25] I had a lot of things wrong with me and a lot of things that gave me trouble later, [49:25 – 49:27] but I had one thing right. [49:27 – 49:30] I desperately wanted help. [49:30 – 49:34] And in my first AA meeting, something came to me [49:34 – 49:39] which I could just sum up by the one word, authority. [49:39 – 49:41] There was authority in that meeting. [49:41 – 49:44] It wasn’t just what the people said, partly. [49:44 – 49:46] It wasn’t just the way they looked. [49:46 – 49:48] There was some truth there. [49:48 – 49:50] There was something that got to me. [49:50 – 49:52] It got past my defenses. [49:52 – 49:56] It got past all the nonsense I was in the habit of giving myself. [49:56 – 50:01] Something got inside of me, and I walked out of there knowing a few things. [50:01 – 50:05] One, these people were sick the same way I was sick. [50:05 – 50:07] They had my disease. [50:07 – 50:10] Two, they were getting over it. [50:10 – 50:12] They had a way out. [50:12 – 50:14] So I came back. [50:14 – 50:18] I began to go to meetings a couple times a week. [50:18 – 50:20] I didn’t pay too much attention to the program [50:20 – 50:24] because I screamed about the God business, and they said, well, take it easy. [50:24 – 50:28] I finally took it so easy I didn’t take it. [50:28 – 50:31] But in spite of that, I got well. [50:31 – 50:33] My alcoholism stopped. [50:33 – 50:36] I had been unable by any device to break it up, [50:36 – 50:38] so I had been crazily compulsive. [50:38 – 50:42] Now I had no desire to drink, [50:42 – 50:47] and my life began to change in other ways as the weeks and months went by. [50:47 – 50:49] I just went to a couple meetings a week, [50:49 – 50:52] and I began to run around helping other people. [50:52 – 50:54] It was the 12th step, you know, saving souls. [50:54 – 50:57] This inflated my sense of self-importance. [50:57 – 51:01] On that little AA, I not only got sober, [51:01 – 51:03] but I began to change inwardly. [51:03 – 51:05] My job got better. [51:05 – 51:07] My relationships with people got better. [51:07 – 51:11] Just ordinary things like the way grass smells and all of that [51:11 – 51:13] began to come sharp to me. [51:13 – 51:14] I began to wake up. [51:14 – 51:16] New life came into me. [51:16 – 51:21] But with this all, I didn’t take it. [51:21 – 51:22] I didn’t take it at depth. [51:22 – 51:24] I wouldn’t let go. [51:24 – 51:26] And I had an opportunity to. [51:26 – 51:33] There is an area in AA where you can choose or not to go in [51:33 – 51:35] and get what you need. [51:35 – 51:37] I held that. [51:37 – 51:39] I took this to mean the fact that I was succeeding, [51:39 – 51:41] that I’m a bright guy. [51:41 – 51:44] And I edited out the whole God business. [51:44 – 51:46] I wouldn’t buy any of it. [51:46 – 51:49] Second step, higher power comes in. [51:49 – 51:51] Third step, they even name him. [51:51 – 51:53] Yackety-yack all the way through. [51:53 – 51:55] God, God, God. [51:55 – 51:56] I just put that aside. [51:56 – 51:59] I figured someday, as this organization developed, [51:59 – 52:03] there would be a kind of an elite that would develop within it [52:03 – 52:06] who would see through this illusion of the God business, [52:06 – 52:09] and we would have a kind of high AA eventually. [52:09 – 52:13] We’d leave this gibberish in for the ignorant and the peasant. [52:13 – 52:19] I could see myself playing a kind of a prominent role in this high school. [52:19 – 52:22] Of course, the school finally got so high [52:22 – 52:25] that I began to see what the real perfection of AA would be. [52:25 – 52:30] That would be the fellowship, the spiritual joy minus God, [52:30 – 52:32] and an occasional drink. [52:36 – 52:42] I drank again, and I would like to make it perfectly clear that this was not a slip. [52:42 – 52:46] We do have slips, properly so-called, I think. [52:46 – 52:48] I wouldn’t know how to speak from my own experience. [52:48 – 52:50] You see people come in here. [52:50 – 52:52] They’re around for a few weeks or months, [52:52 – 52:55] and if something happens, they get knocked over. [52:55 – 52:57] It really looks as if they couldn’t help it. [52:57 – 52:59] That’s a slip. [52:59 – 53:02] The guy gets back without too much of a struggle. [53:02 – 53:04] You know, maybe there’s a little thrashing around. [53:04 – 53:06] In my book, that’s a slip. [53:06 – 53:10] The trouble is it’s hard to tell what the difference is. [53:10 – 53:12] Mine was not a slip. [53:12 – 53:14] I wasn’t overwhelmed by anything. [53:14 – 53:17] I deliberately turned away from this [53:17 – 53:21] through arrogance, through unreduced egotism, [53:21 – 53:26] through a very, very ill-advised and a very stupid desire [53:26 – 53:30] to try to have this cake and eat it too, [53:30 – 53:34] to try to play fast and loose with one of the most sacred things in life, [53:34 – 53:38] which is God’s gift not only of life but of rebirth. [53:38 – 53:41] I deliberately drank again. [53:41 – 53:43] I thought I was having a slip. [53:43 – 53:45] I had seen slips, [53:45 – 53:47] and I had been around for a year, [53:47 – 53:49] and I knew my chances were not good. [53:49 – 53:53] But I thought, if it doesn’t work, I’ll come back. [53:53 – 53:55] Well, it didn’t work. [53:55 – 53:56] It didn’t take a year either. [53:56 – 53:58] In six weeks, [53:58 – 54:02] the man with the white coat and the minnow thing was after me again. [54:02 – 54:10] And I finally rushed back into AA, I thought. [54:11 – 54:13] But actually, all I got into was the room [54:13 – 54:16] where they were holding the AA meeting. [54:16 – 54:20] Because I sat there making a humble face, you know, [54:20 – 54:22] but the next day I was drunk again, [54:22 – 54:24] and that one I didn’t plan. [54:24 – 54:27] And I came back to more meetings and more meetings, [54:27 – 54:29] and I continued to get drunk. [54:29 – 54:30] More meetings. [54:30 – 54:33] And I began to have little private conversations with members of AA [54:33 – 54:36] and say, what is the matter, do you think? [54:36 – 54:38] And they said, well, you are a bright fellow. [54:38 – 54:43] You were up there telling us a few weeks ago, what is the matter? [54:43 – 54:46] And as time went on and the weeks turned into months [54:46 – 54:49] and I continued to come around to AA and I continued to be drunk, [54:49 – 54:52] I saw that I was not having a slip at all, [54:52 – 54:57] but an experience for which I at that time did not know the name. [54:57 – 55:00] I would now call it a relapse. [55:00 – 55:02] I was back where I started. [55:02 – 55:04] I was into the obsession. [55:04 – 55:07] I wanted very much to be out again. [55:07 – 55:09] And I couldn’t get out again. [55:09 – 55:14] And the thing which had worked for me so miraculously the first time [55:14 – 55:19] now didn’t work, or I didn’t work yet. [55:19 – 55:23] And I would like to say that this is an experience not peculiar to me. [55:23 – 55:27] Thank God we see less and less of this kind of thing. [55:27 – 55:30] AA is a thing that’s growing in power. [55:30 – 55:33] It’s taking in more and more high-bottom people. [55:33 – 55:36] It’s taking in more and more young people. [55:36 – 55:40] And it is reducing this silly kind of experimentation [55:40 – 55:42] among well-established people. [55:42 – 55:47] But the people who find it in their hearts to be this thankless [55:47 – 55:50] as to drink after knowing what the gift of AA is [55:50 – 55:54] usually have a hard time getting back. [55:54 – 55:57] I would say to anyone who is having this experience, [55:57 – 56:00] don’t expect the first routine to work again. [56:00 – 56:05] When the prodigal son returns, they only kill the calf once. [56:05 – 56:07] The second time, you’ve got to work for it. [56:07 – 56:10] If the first time you came in on your hands and knees, [56:10 – 56:14] the second time you better get down on your belly [56:14 – 56:17] because it takes a double dose of humility, [56:17 – 56:20] and it usually takes the foil of a beating. [56:20 – 56:22] I’m not making the rules. [56:22 – 56:26] I’m just trying to report them. [56:26 – 56:31] I got back four years later, seven more nuthouses. [56:31 – 56:34] For two of those years, I couldn’t work at all. [56:34 – 56:36] I turned into a short-term periodic, [56:36 – 56:38] but I was so wacky drunk or sober [56:38 – 56:41] that I couldn’t get on a commuting train and go to New York [56:41 – 56:44] without going into the rams right on the train [56:44 – 56:46] with the horrors coming over me [56:46 – 56:49] and the sweat running off of my face in the dead of winter [56:49 – 56:52] and get off in Grand Central and quick get on another train [56:52 – 56:57] and go on home because I’m too afraid of nothing [56:57 – 56:59] in order to make a living. [56:59 – 57:02] This is the state I got to. [57:02 – 57:05] Only one element of sanity remained [57:05 – 57:08] out of my exposure to AA. [57:08 – 57:11] I knew there was an answer to that thing, [57:11 – 57:14] to this problem, here. [57:14 – 57:18] I kept coming back, not out of the goodness of my heart, [57:18 – 57:22] but because I desperately, horribly had to come back. [57:22 – 57:24] I used to sit in the back of the hall [57:24 – 57:26] and listen to people talking up here, [57:26 – 57:29] full of resentment, full of obscurity, [57:29 – 57:32] and say, I’m a better man drunk than you are sober, [57:32 – 57:36] this terribly cut-off, cocooned state [57:36 – 57:38] that alcohol puts you into. [57:38 – 57:40] And yet the one sane thing kept saying, [57:40 – 57:43] Powers, you’re going down the drain [57:43 – 57:45] with your eyes wide open [57:45 – 57:50] unless you get what these people have got again. [57:50 – 57:52] I thought, well, if I ever get it, [57:52 – 57:56] I know these 12 steps backward and forward. [57:56 – 58:00] I gave up my notions that there was no higher power. [58:00 – 58:02] I began to try to pray. [58:02 – 58:05] I made some little squeaks in that direction. [58:05 – 58:07] But I had thrown away the gift that enables you [58:07 – 58:09] to understand this thing. [58:09 – 58:11] All of us get a kind of free ride. [58:11 – 58:14] Our sanity is a gift of grace here. [58:14 – 58:17] And we have to use it to try to understand what AA is. [58:17 – 58:19] I didn’t use it that way. [58:19 – 58:20] I threw it away. [58:20 – 58:23] And now when I wanted to understand, I couldn’t. [58:23 – 58:24] I was too crazy. [58:24 – 58:25] I was too mocha. [58:25 – 58:26] Bill wasn’t kidding. [58:26 – 58:29] I was really lousy. [58:29 – 58:31] I thought, well, if I ever get it again, [58:31 – 58:34] it will be the result of some kind of a spiritual awakening. [58:34 – 58:36] You know, a light will go on [58:36 – 58:40] or a flock of doves will fly by or something. [58:40 – 58:43] It didn’t happen that way. [58:43 – 58:46] I got my ticket back into this thing [58:46 – 58:48] in a very surprising way to me. [58:48 – 58:51] I saw something I never expected to see [58:51 – 58:56] because I thought I’d been seeing it all my life. [58:56 – 59:02] I got a look at power, at me, with the false face off. [59:02 – 59:04] One day they took me to Gotham Hospital. [59:04 – 59:06] I was in and out of DTs. [59:06 – 59:08] My wife had taken the last money and the two kids [59:08 – 59:12] and gone back to Chicago because she couldn’t stand it anymore. [59:12 – 59:14] I was loaded with chloral hydrate. [59:14 – 59:15] Every time the chloral ran out, [59:15 – 59:17] I began to see bolts of cloth flying by [59:17 – 59:22] and Irishmen chewing potatoes and other things. [59:22 – 59:25] But in the intervals, those of you who have had DTs [59:25 – 59:27] know that there’s a peculiar thing about them. [59:27 – 59:30] In the intervals of the swats and the bats, [59:30 – 59:34] sometimes there are periods of remarkable clarity. [59:34 – 59:40] And in those periods, I began to see me [59:40 – 59:42] with the phony stuff removed. [59:42 – 59:45] You know the big businessman that’s so competent? [59:45 – 59:46] That’s gone. [59:46 – 59:49] That’s been ripped away by this experience. [59:49 – 59:53] The bright guy, the large dome with an answer to everything? [59:53 – 59:55] That one’s gone. [59:55 – 59:59] And I saw what lay behind that, what always lies behind it. [59:59 – 60:03] And I saw for the first time what Christ meant when he said [60:03 – 60:06] that nobody goes through this hoop [60:06 – 60:10] unless he or she becomes as a little child. [60:10 – 60:15] To become as a little child, the adult poses are dropped. [60:15 – 60:19] The notion that I am bright, that I am self-sufficient, [60:19 – 60:23] that I am running this show somehow has got to be dropped. [60:23 – 60:26] Thank God most of us find it not so hard. [60:26 – 60:29] A few people who have a combination such as I had [60:29 – 60:33] of stupidity and arrogance have to be almost killed [60:33 – 60:34] before we see it. [60:34 – 60:38] But at the last moment, I saw it. [60:38 – 60:41] For a moment the veils dropped away and I could see it. [60:41 – 60:43] I saw what I was. [60:43 – 60:48] And in seeing it, I saw and knew what every child knows, [60:48 – 60:52] that by whatever name, and the name isn’t important, [60:52 – 60:57] there is in this universe a great being [60:57 – 61:00] upon whom we all depend, [61:00 – 61:04] in whom we move and live and have our being, [61:04 – 61:09] and upon whom I depend not just for my sobriety and my sanity, [61:09 – 61:12] but the power to draw my next breath. [61:12 – 61:16] I saw it for a minute, but it was enough. [61:16 – 61:20] After four or five days, the DTs cleared up. [61:20 – 61:25] I got home and I snuck back to Semeye meetings, [61:25 – 61:27] and it was different. [61:27 – 61:29] And I didn’t get drunk. [61:29 – 61:30] I had a three-month jinx. [61:30 – 61:33] I couldn’t get past three months. [61:33 – 61:34] And I went past it. [61:34 – 61:36] It was like walking on eggs. [61:36 – 61:40] I kept thinking, oh, could it be that this is it? [61:40 – 61:43] I moved back to Chicago. [61:43 – 61:46] I went to meetings, more meetings, more meetings. [61:46 – 61:49] And the big difference was that now I was hearing it again. [61:49 – 61:50] Same words were there. [61:50 – 61:51] The people were talking. [61:51 – 61:52] Same program. [61:52 – 61:53] But I began to get it. [61:53 – 61:57] And I began to see again this parade of witnesses, [61:57 – 61:59] some of them speaking fluently and well, [61:59 – 62:01] some of them stammering. [62:01 – 62:03] The stammering ones sometimes much more eloquent [62:03 – 62:05] than the speaking type. [62:05 – 62:08] I began to see what this meant. [62:08 – 62:11] And the meaning of it, the guts and core [62:11 – 62:14] and the living thing began to move into me [62:14 – 62:18] and give me my life back again a second time [62:18 – 62:20] with this great difference. [62:20 – 62:25] But this time, I God almighty appreciated it. [62:25 – 62:27] Out of all of that stupid experiment [62:27 – 62:29] came this one great blessing, [62:29 – 62:33] which remains to me to this day just as powerful. [62:33 – 62:36] It brought with it an immense gratitude. [62:36 – 62:38] The first time I felt it with any power [62:38 – 62:41] was when I’d been dry about a year. [62:41 – 62:45] And it was becoming clear to me I really was back in again. [62:45 – 62:48] I thought, oh my God, isn’t this wonderful? [62:48 – 62:50] And people kept saying, Howard, [62:50 – 62:53] how could you have been so nutty all that time? [62:53 – 62:56] How could you have failed to get it? [62:56 – 62:58] And the answers came to me as I sat there in the meeting [62:58 – 63:00] and it came with such force [63:00 – 63:03] that I fought to keep the tears back. [63:03 – 63:05] I remembered an old story. [63:05 – 63:08] I had begun to take the advice of my sponsor [63:08 – 63:11] and I read a little bit in the Bible every day. [63:11 – 63:13] And I remembered the story [63:13 – 63:16] of the group they were trying to start [63:16 – 63:18] in Palestine a few thousand years ago [63:18 – 63:20] and some of the boys were getting it [63:20 – 63:22] and some of them weren’t. [63:22 – 63:24] And the boys that were getting it [63:24 – 63:26] came to the leader of the group [63:26 – 63:28] and they said, what’s the matter with these guys [63:28 – 63:31] that aren’t getting it? [63:31 – 63:35] And he said, they’ve got eyes, but they can’t see. [63:35 – 63:39] And they’ve got ears, but they can’t hear. [63:39 – 63:42] And I thought, this thing isn’t 2,000 years old. [63:42 – 63:45] This is here and now. [63:45 – 63:47] And this power is here and now [63:47 – 63:50] and it’s fulfilled in my life. [63:50 – 63:53] I know what he meant when he said, [63:53 – 63:56] blessed are your eyes for they see [63:56 – 63:59] and blessed are your ears for they hear. [63:59 – 64:00] Thank you. [64:00 – 64:14] Applause [64:14 – 64:18] Our Father who art in heaven [64:18 – 64:20] hallowed be thy name [64:20 – 64:22] thy kingdom come [64:22 – 64:24] thy will be done [64:24 – 64:27] on earth as it is in heaven [64:27 – 64:30] give us this day our daily bread [64:30 – 64:33] and forgive us our trespasses [64:33 – 64:37] as we forgive those who trespass against us [64:37 – 64:40] and lead us not into temptation [64:40 – 64:42] but deliver us from evil [64:42 – 64:44] for thine is the kingdom [64:44 – 64:48] and the power and the glory forever. [64:48 – 64:49] Amen.