Your seats, and we'll continue on with the meeting. One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, don't, don't go. Last night I laid in bed watching the clock tick from a quarter after 11:00 to 1:30, thinking of some of the funniest, wisest, most profound shit I've ever thought without taking acid, as we heard about yesterday. And of course, I can't remember any of it. So without further ado, and with greatest pride and gratitude, I would like to introduce our speaker for to- for tonight, Howard P. from Arizona. Thank you. Thank you very much. My name is Howard and I am an alcoholic. Howard. I. I. Kathleen, thank you very much for inviting us to come out here to this thing. We're thrilled, and it's a beautiful, beautiful place. If the o- if something has gone wrong this weekend, the only people that know it are the committee. Everything, you know, to the rest of us, everything went wonderful. Uh, it's, uh, it's good to be back. It was 107 or something like that when Pat and I left Phoenix this week, so we're g- we're- we've really enjoyed this weekend in more ways than one. We've seen some friends. Gary and I were on the, uh, central service committee 20 years ago in Los Angeles. Anyway, it's, it's really been good, and there've been– there's really been some, some good speakers. Uh, uh, Jerry gave a great talk, and, and Marge. I haven't, uh, I haven't seen Marge, but Marge gave a great talk. And, and Mary Fran from, also from Arizona, and f- gave a great Al-Anon talk. Uh, we expect another, I, I, I don't know John, but John's gonna speak tomorrow. And I know Molly. Molly and I have been buddies for t- for 30 years now. She was here. She's been sober 31 years, and, uh, we've been talking to each other ever since then. And, uh, we love each other, so that's a good thing. Uh, and actually that is five out of… I know there were Alateen speakers. I'm sure it was a great speaker. I heard someone say, "Get the tapes and listen to that guy," because she gave a great Alateen talk. So, so do that. And, uh, anyway, that's about six out of seven great speakers. Also want to talk– This isn't counting against my time. This is counting against your time. I wanna thank Joanne for being such a wonderful hostess. She has been the perfect hostess, having given us all the freedom that we wanted, but always being there to help whenever we asked. And, uh, anyway, this has been a, a great thing for us and, uh, and we're grateful that we're here. Uh, we, we were at a, a marathon meeting on gratitude and, uh, and I bet I'm gonna tell this story early in my talk because I'm getting old. And as you, as you get older, you cry more. And I, I saw this in the 80th anniversary of Time Magazine. And I was in Los Angeles, and I called Pat to tell her about it, and I started blubbering. And then she was crying, and my daughter was crying, and it ain't that big a deal, but… Uh, in this anniversary edition of Time Magazine, it's 80th an- they highlight each year and identify, from their point of view, the most important moment of each year. And in 1935, they told the story of Bill Wilson learning to staying sober and taking, uh, uh, a meeting Dr. Bob, and how he went to live with Dr. Bob and lived, and Bob stayed sober for about three weeks and then went to a medical convention and got as drunk as you can get. In the Big Book, Bob says that "a spree to end all sprees." And he came back, and he didn't even make it home. He made it to some neighbor's house, who called Anne, and Anne sent Bill over to get Bob. And Bob took him home and gave him a few drinks. And the next morning, because Bob had to do surgery, he gave him a bottle of beer to keep his nerves steady while he did surgery. And the Time Magazine says the most important moment of 1935 was on June the 10th, when Bob Smith did not take a drink after he finished surgery. I'm grateful for that, you know. That's a, that's a big moment in my life, uh, and I think a big moment in all of our lives. I made that, and I didn't cry I look at my watch fairly frequently during my talk, not to see what time it is, but to give the chairman and other people that are worried about it a sense of optimism that I care what time it is. He give, he gave me the time limit, so I know when I'm supposed to stop, but I didn't think I got started when I was supposed to get started either. But it's gonna work out. It's gonna work out. I, uh, I also, in my talk… See, I know that AA speakers are not authorities. In the Big Book, uh, I also, because I'm not an authority, make up stuff and say that it's in the Big Book in order to add credibility to my talk. And nobody ever checks. A guy named Tom Ivester was telling me that, uh, uh, and I think it's true, that in the doctor's opinion, it says, "Frothy emotional appeal will seldom suffice. What these alcoholic types need must have depth and weight." I want to tell you at the start, my talk is frothy emotional appeal. What has depth and weight is to do the deal. Do the steps, go to the meetings, listen to learn. All of… You know, that's where the depth and weight is. And, uh, I think the most spiritual thing I do in Alcoholics Anonymous is laugh. And, uh, so I try to say things I think are funny. And if you guys don't think it's funny, I'm not offended, but I'm gonna say about three things that I think funny, and if they don't get any laughs, I'm going right to God. And I'm gonna tell you about the deeper fundamental concepts of God. Okay? Well, in December of 1932, I was born in Los Angeles, California, but before I ever remember anything about California, I rem- I was moved to this little town in Sumner County, Kansas, uh, uh, right in the middle of the Bible Belt. Uh, I, I used to believe that, uh, that was the Bible Belt, and it turns out as I get around the United States, everybody thinks they're in the Bible Belt. Well, that's not true, actually. California doesn't think it's in the Bible Belt. And California is happy not to be in the Bible Belt. But the rest of us don't know where the Bible Belt is. But I'm here to tell you it buckles about 45 miles southwest of Wichita, Kansas in this Methodist church. In this little farm community where I learned to live and, and learned to feel and, uh, where I saw a movie where they trained wild elephants by taking, by rounding up the herd and then taking the, the baby elephants out of the herd and putting a chain around their right front leg and snubbing them up to a big tree. And the baby elephant fought the chain and fought the chain and fought the chain until its experience taught it that it's futile to pull against a tight chain. Soon as the trainer saw that the baby elephant had learned that, he went ahead with the rest of his training. And the elephant is trained all its life, and always this belief that as soon as the, the chain is tight on the big elephant's leg, that it can't pull loose. That's reinforced in the training for all the elephant's life, so that in the movie in the middle, uh, uh, uh, there was a big elephant helping harvest the forest, pushing the trees. I do a little pantomime with this. He pushes the trees over and they hook up, uh, uh, and he pulls the tree out, with the harness, out of the forest. And then in the afternoon when they wanted to hold the elephant there, they drove a relatively short stake deep enough in the ground that when they put the chain around the big elephant's right front leg and wrapped the other end around this little stake, it would get tight on the big elephant's leg. And because of the limiting belief they imposed on the elephant, as soon as the rope gets tight, it stops pulling. It isn't the chain or the rope that holds the elephant. It isn't the stake that holds the elephant. It's the limiting belief that they imposed on the elephant that holds the elephant. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with approximately 976,402 baby… It's just about- Nobody knows exactly, but I came in with about that many baby elephant beliefs just like the chains. And I didn't know what I believed, but I, I, but, but my very nature is to behave like what I believe is true. And, uh, the first thing I learned of a spiritual nature was that I was separate from God, that God was up in heaven, way up in heaven, behind the pearly gates on the streets of gold, and I was in this little town in Kansas. So I knew we were separate. If they'd said he was in St. Louis, I would've known we were separate, but- … I really knew it. And then, and then it becomes part of the Methodist church teaching that you are separate because of Adam and Eve, and that the only way that you're ever going to resolve that separateness is by accepting Jesus Christ and his crucifixion as your Lord and Savior. Now, when I'm a little kid, I do that. Didn't work. I, I mean, I didn't feel good about it, and I thought that was what was gonna happen. Uh, I learned to pray. I remember the first time I prayed, when I knew what I was praying for and who I was praying to. I was praying for God. I was praying to God up there in heaven that it not rain because the farmers were gonna harvest their wheat. This was Sunday morning in the Methodist church. Gonna start harvest Monday. Sunday afternoon it rained. It hailed. The wind blew, destroyed all the wheat in Sumner County, Kansas. Now, nobody pointed the finger at me- … but I knew whose fault it was. I knew who wasn't doing what you have to do to have God answer your prayer. Now, if you're four years old and you've assumed the entire responsibility for wiping out the Kansas wheat crop- … what you have is an ego problem. On page 45 in the Big Book- … the third edition- … it says, "Lack of power is our dilemma." And I can tell you, I lacked the power. I didn't know I lacked the power, but I lacked the power. I lacked the power to feel good. I lacked the power to see goodness in my life. Uh, uh, I, I wasn't a bad student, that I was never good enough to meet my potential, and that made me feel bad. I wasn't a good brother. I was a good brother, but not as good as I could have been. My dad made it clear to me that I wasn't any good and I never would be any good, and he did that to help me. He whipped me to help me. He beat me to help me, too. Being beaten didn't make me an alcoholic, but I'm telling you, I never got where I liked it. I understand that right here in California there are people that get where they like it. But I'm not one of them. But I did not, I did not feel good. I could not feel good. And, uh, when I was about 13, 12 or 13 years old, I drank a half of a half a pint of whiskey, and I felt good. It was a good feeling, good feeling. And, and when- I drank it. I remember thinking the same thing many of us remember thinking, and that is, "This is what they mean when they say, 'Let's go have a few drinks and get to feeling good.'" And, uh, now that, you know, in AA I have discovered that what that was was a spiritual experience. On page 569 in the big book. In appendix two it describes- … it describes a spiritual experience with language similar to a change of consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Now, is that about a half of a half a pint? Further validation is found earlier on that same page where it says, "This experience is frequently accompanied by a sudden spectacular upheaval." Sure was with me. I'd drink a couple of drinks, and I'd get that change of consciousness, and then I'd drink the rest of it, and I'd have a sudden spectacular upheaval. And- … and I did that and did that and did that. About the time I started drinking, I met this redhead, that girl in the seventh grade, and I fell in love with her. I really fell in love with her. I know now what love is, and that was what it was. It was love. And I've loved her ever since, except when I hated her. There were times. But, uh, I was, I was very much in love with her, and she wasn't in love with me. And we went through high school and, and, uh, I went into the Navy, and then I heard that she had broken up with her fiancé, and I, uh, I put in for leave that day. And I went right home, and it was like magic how I, I… all the opportunities for us to go together and date and… And I had learned some Shakespeare. Don't know… You know, it was just appealed. I hated it when I was in school, but it was just God working in my life. A little synchronicity that we were talking about earlier, and I could say to her, "Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eyes, against whom all the world cannot hold argument, persuade my heart?" You know, and, and she fell like a rock for that. And we got married- … when we were 20. And, uh, here we are, a little more than 20. And, uh, we're still married and still in love. Thank you. Actually, if there's a… I know your, your applause is because you're, you're glad that Pat and I are married. But I'll tell you this: we're, we're very, very happily married, and we, we love each other, and we get along well and all that stuff. And that's true mostly because she joined Al-Anon when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. And what they do in Al-Anon is find the strength to live their lives in such a way that, uh, that they can help me, she could help me find a better way to be a better husband. And I'm very… I was very slow with it, but, uh, it could not have happened. It… What happened would not have happened if she hadn't gone to Al-Anon. So I hope I can make that point, but, uh, if I haven't, just believe me. Uh, but, uh, you know, alcohol, drinking was, was the fun of my life. It was the foundation of me being somebody, of me being, you know, just having fun. I didn't get in a lot of trouble. She was mad at me about it a lot, but, but, uh, uh, we… she will acknowledge that. She says that in Al-Anon talks. There was a time when we had a lot of fun, and we had fun because we went with people that drank, and they… we just had fun. But in 1959, I got a job as an entry level engineer, and there were some things I was very good at. I, I could do great analysis work. But I had to write reports, and I couldn't write reports. I didn't know how to start them or, you know. And I was criticized for that. And one Wednesday night, the report had to be done Friday, and I hadn't even started on the report. And, uh, so I took all the stuff home so that I'd write the report at home. I'd never done that. Did that that Wednesday night, and I couldn't get started. I couldn't think of how to get started. And I went over to the refrigerator and opened it, not looking for anything specific, and there was a pint of whiskey that was still about half full. A Navy chief by the name of Bandy had been over the other, the, the, the weekend before to our patio party, of which I was the captain. And, uh- He had brought bourbon because you don't like beer. Nobody liked the beer I had. I had Edelweiss beer, which cost a, a buck and a quarter for a case at Texas Liquor Store. But we had lots of it, I'm telling you. Anyway, he was drinking this, and I drank about half of Bandy's half a pint. And I went over and sat down, and I was looking at this stuff, and my mind began to put it together. I need to write an introduction to describe what this analysis is about. Then I need to, in the body of the report, describe the significant findings in the analysis. And then I need to write a conclusion to make recommendations that, uh, are appropriate for those findings. And I went over, and I finished Bandy's whiskey. And I sat down, and so help me, as many of you know, I discovered a technical vocabulary that I didn't even know I had. And I wrote this report, and it was a good report. And I knew it. I knew it when I was writing it. And I took it to work, and, uh, they circulated it, approved it. And, uh, and then a couple of days later, my boss's boss come out with this report in his hand and said, "Did you write this?" I said, "Yes." He said, "We knew you'd do it if you'd just give us the effort." I thought, "Effort, your ass. I gave you effort." This was whiskey. But I knew, don't tell him whiskey. Let him think effort. They'll give you a raise for effort. They won't give you anything for whiskey. The important thing is I know it's whiskey. And it was whiskey, and it was whiskey from then on out. I just learned, as we all do, that you don't have to wait till Wednesday night to start the process. You can start the process any day at lunch. Then in a little bit, you find you can start the process any time of any day. It's lunchtime somewhere. Marge mentioned this. I identified with Marge in lots of ways, but particularly in this way. She reached a place in her drinking where she discovered that alcohol combined with bennies- … solve every problem in your life, with the exception of controlling your body function. Now, Marge didn't get into that, but I'm telling you. I'm an expert right there. That was about the time Pat got twin beds. We've had twin beds since then. I haven't had, I haven't had a drink for over 30 years. She still has. That's a traumatic experience, is what that is. I went from a process analyst to an engineer to a senior engineer, and then we moved from General Dynamics Astronautics in San Diego to Hughes, uh, Tool Company Aircraft Division in Culver City as kind of a senior senior engineer. And then I was promoted to an engineering manager. And that's not setting the world on fire, but that's a steady series of promotions which I got 'cause I drank whiskey. Which is the truth. It just that pretty soon, ultimately, it got where I had to drink so much before I was brilliant that my speech was slurred. And my coordination was off. And hell, if you didn't know better, you'd have thought I was drunk. My boss thought I was drunk. My wife thought I was drunk. And, uh, in 1970, I think I got my last promotion. And then in 1972, I was taken out of management because my boss said I'd lost credibility with the people that I managed. Pat, for about the 976th time, was going to leave me and take the kids if I, because of my drinking. And that always kind of kept me in line. And I promised her I'd stop drinking. And then I went back, and in very short time this time, I said, "Pat," just a flash of honesty, "some people are born to drink, and I'm one of them." "And I don't want you to go, and I sure don't want you to take the kids. I want us to stay together. But if I can't drink at all, I guess you gotta go." Now, that wasn't easy. But as my sponsor says, when it comes between whiskey and me, whatever the hell else is… My, my sponsor was a Catholic priest. And he said it actually reached the spot where whiskey had to go or heaven did. He said it wasn't an easy choice, but… Anyway, uh, soon after that, or while all of this is going on, I have a convulsing seizure. Uh, a doctor diagnosed me as being acutely intoxicated with probable alcoholic neuropathy after I told him I wasn't drinking at all. And, uh, I was taking Desbutal, which Carl, Kathleen's late husband, told me when we were in the program together, he said that Desbutal was the Chevre rigor of amphetamines. And he was absolutely right. And he told me the chemistry of it. You know, it was, uh … He loved them, too. And, uh … But in this process, I got hopelessly in debt. I simply wasn't making enough money to make the payments that I had to make, and Pat didn't know. She always paid the bills and, and she didn't know that I owed this money. And I was having to put stuff on the Bank America and then borrow money from the credit union to pay the Bank America. And then that was double the limit again, and then back into the credit union. And I had an opportunity to sell some equipment that I didn't own. Equipment that I found right before the owner lost it. And I, I gave the equipment to a fence, and, uh, he was going to sell it and give me, split it with me. And, and it was 10 days after that that I came to, and, uh, a Monday morning. And I'd been Sunday in the Tattletail trying to line up some direct sales- … of test equipment with these manufacturing entrepreneurs that hung out in the Tattletail for use in their manufacturing facilities. Whiskey had stopped making me smart. That was stupid. They didn't have … You know, they couldn't even keep a TV set tuned in so you could see it. And, you know, and I … Anyway, boy, the next morning I woke up and, uh, I thought, "Boy, I shouldn't have said anything about test equipment in the Tattletail." You know, "'Cause they'll know that I was stealing it from…" And then I thought, "The company doesn't own that. That's owned by the federal government." "And its value is greater than, uh, the minimum that would require ultimately an investigation by the FBI." And, uh, you know, on page eight- … it says, "Words cannot explain the terrible feeling we find in this bitter morass of self-pity." Quicksand stretches all around. And, and it's quicksand. It's quicksand. There's no bottom. You know, all … my wife leaving me, getting emotional, all of those things, those are bottoms. But I don't … Uh, you know, when there's no bottom, when my life is plummeting, when everything is disintegrating, and there's nothing in my life to stop it, that's when I say, "I think I'll stop drinking until this blows over." And I knew a guy in AA who had … I'd known him at Hughes and, and at the Tattletail. And, uh, he had left the Tattletail about eight years earlier, and we got the word back. And we always got pretty straight word, we thought, that he was now the president of Alcoholics Anonymous worldwide. And I wouldn't have called a lesser light. I would, you know … And, and I called. I got his number and I called and asked him … Well, I drank a half pint of whiskey first, and then I called him and, and said, "Would you take me to an AA meeting?" And he said, "You know, my home group meets tonight, and it's a beginner's meeting." It'll be the perfect meeting for you. Are you drinking now?" And I said, "No," 'cause I wasn't. I had finished a half a pint, and right now I am not drinking. I missed his response. You know, I didn't get it for a long time because how he responded was, "Well, try not to drink anymore." I drank a lot more. So by 6:00 o'clock in the evening I didn't know what the hell I called AA for. Things aren't that bad. I hope he don't show up. But he showed up in a pickup truck which was just what I thought the president of AA Worldwide would be driving in. And I got in and I remember saying, "I am not an alcoholic." And he smiled from ear to ear, beautiful smile, wonderful guy. And he said, "I don't know if you're an alcoholic or not, but we're going to the right place." And he took me to the Culver City Studio group which is the oldest group in the West Side in Los Angeles, and a spinoff from the, the, the Cecil Hotel meeting. And, and, uh, these guys are big book oriented, back, you know. And they had sarcastic things to say once in a while, some of them did, about the 12 and 12. And, uh, but they… But, but anyway, they had the beginners meeting, and you didn't know it if you was new, but they had back then kind of a Pat and Mike routine. The first thing they say, "Anybody here on their first or second meeting?" And my hand went up. Now, as soon as the hand went up, whatever the format was going to be, they may have planned to talk on gratitude. But as soon as there's a newcomer there, then they go into this Pat and Mike routine, and the topic is what is alcoholism and how do alcoholics stop drinking? And they call on Chuck Innis, and, and Chuck talks about going by… He's a editor at MGM and, and, uh, uh, he goes by the backstage bar after work to have one drink, two at the most. Right? And he said the next thing he knows it's last call for alcohol, and he's arguing with the bartender saying, "Your clock is 10 minutes fast. We got time, by God, for me to have a double and I want it," you know? Heck, he just stopped in for one or two, you know? But when he's telling that, I'm, I, I'm thinking, "I've done that lots of times." You know? And then he talked about Tuesday stopping by, guess where? The backstage bar. Guess what for? Two drinks, three at the most. Last call for alcohol, you know? And he does it Wednesday, and then he's doing it Thursday. And he said, "I came to al-… I got in so much trouble, I came to Alcoholics Anonymous to learn that the reason I kept doing that was first, I have an insane obsessive belief that somehow, some way, this time I'm really just going to have two drinks, three at the most. And this insane obsession is so overwhelming that on Tuesday night I cannot bring it into my consciousness that that's what I said Monday and I failed. And on Wednesday night I can't bring Tuesday in, and on Thursday night I can't." And he said, "Coupled with this insane obsession," and I'm a thinking, "I'm here, you know, this is the place for me." Then he said, "Coupled with that is a peculiar, a peculiar allergy that is, is characteristic of only alcoholics. And that is once we start to drink, we experience a phenomenon of craving for more." Well, that let me off the hook. And I told Kenny at the break, "If craving is the discriminating feature between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic, I'm a non-alcoholic." He said, "Oh?" And I said, "Yeah. I never craved a drink. I don't ever remember craving a drink." He said, "What time did you start drinking?" I said, "About 6:00 o'clock in the morning." He said, "Why did you start at…" I said, "'Cause I had a hangover from the night before." And he said, "How many drinks did it take to get over the hangover?" I said, "A couple of double shots would do it." And he said, "And once you had the two double shots, did you stop?" And I said, "No." He said, "Why didn't you stop?" I thought for a minute and said, "Well, because I wanted another drink, but I didn't crave it." He said, "There's a class of alcoholic, many fine members of AA are made up out of this class, and that is the class where once they start to drink they keep slugging them down so fast that the craving doesn't have an opportunity to set in." I immediately identified myself in that class. And, uh, the second half of the meeting they, they talked about God. And they said some good things, but they didn't say anything that made that appealing to me. I had, I had repeatedly tried to find goodness … in God, and I found goodness in drinking whiskey. And, uh, I, uh, I was sure God wasn't gonna be my answer. And after the meeting, I got into the pickup truck and, and Kenny said, "Well, what did you think?" And I said, "Well, I am an alcoholic, but AA can't help me." And he said, "Why?" And I said, "Well, all that stuff about God." Uh, and I said, "I'm not an atheist." And I had gone through some rigamaroles that, that ultimately- Mm … I had developed a concept of God to my own satisfaction, and I explained that to Kenny. And, and they had read the top of page 93 in the big book. Where it says, e- emphasize to the newcomer whatever concept he has of God that will work for him, provided it makes sense to him. Well, that fit my God and me perfectly. So when we got to the pickup, I said, "I'm not an atheist. To me, my concept of God is that God is the immutable laws of nature, and inherent in the law is unlimited … to help me with God." "But can you not drink?" I said, "Yes, I can not drink." And he said, "We gotta stop taking Bennies, too." I don't know how he knew I took Bennies. I didn't tell him. He may have noticed that I said the same thing over and over. Real fast. But, uh, he told me something that, you know, and, and I, I don't know. I know I'm a slow learner, and I know my, my AA history testifies to that, but I got good stuff at the very start, and it worked for me. It's just that I was so screwed up in my life that it, you know, and it just a little … It, it, it's a reversal of the old Chinese water torture. You know, where they, they'd hold a guy down and they'd just drop at regular intervals a drop of water on his head until he went crazy. Now, AA is a reversal of that. They hit you with a new idea every once in a while at regular intervals until you gradually start becoming sane. But it's a gradual process. And K- And, and, and, uh, uh, Kenny didn't argue with me. You know, w- you hear people say, "One alcoholic talking to another," or as happened last night, one Al-Anon talking to another, when Mary Fran described her husband as being generous, the kindest, and just went through a series of wonderful things. And I nod my, I nudge my wife to let her know that that's a good description of me. Then Mary Fran says, "And the most self-centered." Pat gave me the elbow back. That, but you see, that's the way you teach me. You don't say, "Howard is self-centered." You can say I am or he is, and I can see that I am, because that doesn't attack me. But if you start telling me what's wrong with me, I could not be helped that way. I immediately slam shut, and you are no longer my friend. You no longer have any credibility. Just get the hell away from me. And I've always been that way. I don't want to be that way. But that's the way I am. But I came here. Chuck, Chuck Ennis didn't say, "Howard has this op-" Say he told about his drinking, and I saw me in that. And, uh, uh, and Kenny didn't argue with me. He let me be right. Even when I was so far wrong, he let me be right. And, uh, but he said, "I was just like you. I wasn't gonna work the steps." But he said, "I kept slipping, and what I finally decided to do," he said he was just like me also. I told him, I said, "God don't change things in order to accommodate people and their problems. I have to make my life work." And he said, "I understand what you're saying, because that's the way I was. But I kept slipping. And what I decided was to stop drinking and stop taking Bennies, and go to meetings and listen how these people made their life work because these people's lives obviously work." And he said, "I had to go to a lot of meetings, because if that's your approach, you got, you'll hear a bunch of stuff that won't fit. So you gotta grab a lot of opportunities to hear a lot of stuff." But he said, "Time and time and time again, I would hear somebody describe a solution to a problem that I didn't know I had." Until my head said, "If I would do that in my life, my life would be better." And he said when I'd remember to do it, my life was better. Now, that, that made sense to me. And on August the 4th, 1972, I had, I dr- I got drunk one more time, but on August the 4th, 1972, I came to AA, stopped drinking, stopped taking Bennies, and I listened. And immediately, I started hearing things. Tommy Omora, O'Meara, Tommy O'Meara said, "If you make one mistake and brood about that mistake, you've made two mistakes." Ski from San Diego said he was 36 years in learning that all the people that he hated didn't feel it. Archie Johnson, a wonderful guy to me, and a character actor who we would all know, said, at the Palisades meeting, "I was so busy today wanting what I was getting that I didn't have time to worry about getting what I wanted." And he said, "In AA, we try to learn in the now, right now. We, we, we try to live in the now, right now, and whatever's happening right now, including me talking a little long." Love that. Because that's what's gonna happen anyway. And the biggest source of our difficulty is not liking what's gonna happen anyway. And I thought to myself, "Let's stick him in the eye with a sharp stick." "Let's put this theory to test." I did that because that was the kind of guy I was. I always popped off in my head. And, uh, I went outside, and it has never rained harder in Pacific Palisades than it was that night. And, uh, I got to the car. I was soaked, but I sat there and thought, that… I'd hated the rain ever since I'd wiped out the wheat crop. And- And I thought, that's what Archie meant to love the rain, 'cause it's gonna rain anyway. And I'm telling you, it was that easy. It's amazing to me how easy it is to just be willing and try to love something. And, uh, and, uh, and that worked. And I've been, I've been doing those… See, those things are foundations to my new way of life, and they've been there for, for over 30 years, and I'm getting better at them, and those are strengthening things. Uh, my life was getting better. I, uh, I, I was pushing the lawnmower one day, and it hit a tree root, and there's a bolt on it. You know, we, all our stuff was old. And there was a bolt on it that hit my chest, and it hurt. And I immediately said, "Goddamn her anyway." That was my wife. She wasn't even there. But if something happened to me, it was always somebody else's fault, and generally, it was hers. And then I said, "Damn AA, too. AA don't work. I'm not gonna go to those meetings and grin like a baboon and say, 'Isn't this wonderful?' It's not wonderful. It's never gonna be wonderful. I'm not gonna drink, but I'm not going to that meeting." That night, Clarence came and got me and took me to Malibu because I'd forgot I wasn't going. Halfway to Malibu, I'm grinning like a baboon saying, "Isn't this wonderful?" 'Cause it was wonderful. Jack Daly greeted me, and he always had wonderful, nice things to say to me. And he said to me, and, and that… A lot of you might not know Jack, but Jack was a celebrity. He was a, uh, the, the, the MC on Queen for a Day, and, and he was Carl's, uh, sponsor. But anyway, Jack was nice to me. Jack come in. He told me that. And that, that made me feel good. And, uh- A guy named Don Gates was the speaker that night, and he said, "If you're new in AA and you are not working the steps, AA will stop being fun, and AA, you'll think, isn't gonna work for you. And you'll think, 'Well, I'm not going to those meetings anymore. I'm not gonna drink, but I'm not going to meetings.'" And he said, "If you don't go to the meetings, pretty soon you'll go to the bar and order a drink. And if you do that, and the bartender says, 'What's the matter? I thought you was going to AA. Don't AA work?'" He says, "If you're not working the steps, be honest with the bartender and tell him you don't know if AA would work or not, 'cause you wouldn't try." There was nothing in my head to pop off at that. And I knew that night that I can never come to believe that this thing won't work if I won't work the steps. And I made a decision to do a fourth step, and I did a fourth step. An amazing thing happened at that fourth step, and that was I discovered that my dad had died in 1951 when I was at his funeral, right? You know. But my dad had never died. He was my pro- he was my problem. And I discovered that he's not my problem. Gotta be something else. Dad passed away. He cannot be the problem. That was an amazing thing for me. I'd paid a psychiatrist big time money- … to help me understand that it was my dad's problem. And, uh, I didn't know what I was gonna do, but did a fifth step, a sixth step, seventh step thing, you know, and I, I, I went through that. My, I told my sponsor about the equipment I stole. He tracked it down. I got the equipment back. They let me off the hook. And the next morning, they, now my boss said, "I don't think this was stolen, 'cause if it was stolen, I wouldn't have it." But he said, "We don't have provisions for bringing stuff back, so if I was you, I wouldn't tell anybody about it," and, and I haven't. Of course, I mentioned it in every talk. I will tell you this. One night, I mentioned it in a talk in Redlands, California, and the FBI agent that was assigned to Santa Monica- … when, uh, uh, and was covering Hughes as a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he came up, and he identified himself by having me describe my relationship with the people that he knew. And then he said, when he gave me his identification, "I'm glad you took it back, because when you were drunk in the Tattletail, my partner and I were drunk in Dear John's, and I don't think we woulda caught you." That's a true story. It's an amazing thing. I woke up, this is to the new, the new people, I woke up the morning after they let me off the hook, and I felt good. And it was a great, good feeling, and I had not drank. And I, I hadn't taken anything to feel good except the equipment back. That made a big impression on me. The good feeling may not have lasted long, but it lasted long enough so that embedded itself in my memory. And I started meditating. On the 1st of October, 1974, I started meditating 30 minutes a day, every day, to bring into my consciousness the truth of the goodness that Alcoholics Anonymous has brought into my life so that I would feel grateful. And, uh, uh, and, and it turns out to have a feeling of optimism. This worked very good. Pat's going to Al-Anon. And, uh, I get invited, I'm starting to get invited to go out and talk, and I was invited to go to Fresno. Pat went with me. We had a great time in Fresno. And then I, a couple years later, I got invited to go back, and, and Pat said, uh, I said, "Pat, we're going to Fresno again." And she said, "I'm not going to Fresno." Now, I heard that, but what that means is I got to negotiate a deal here- … where I'm gonna owe her. Now, I didn't know I knew this, but this was a baby elephant belief that I knew I had, uh, that I didn't know I had, but was true. I don't mind owing her 'cause I ain't paying. You know, I'm just gonna make a deal, make a promise, and, and then I'm gonna go ahead and forget it. Uh, so that week we were going, I said, "Don't forget, we're going to the, uh, to, to, uh, Fresno this week." And she said, "I, I told you I wasn't going to Fresno." And I gave her my sales pitch. Knew I had her. Then she said, "You know when you come home and I'm crying, and you ask me what's wrong, and I say, 'I don't know?'" She said, "I know." And said, "All my life, I've had to cave in and do things that I didn't want to do because I thought I had to do it to help the other person or to please the other person." And she said, "It's a lot of fun sometimes when things are good, but, but boy, sooner or later, I'm gonna feel bad about it, and I cry. And when you come home and I'm mad, and you say, 'What's wrong?' and I say, 'Nothing'" She said, "It's the same thing, only now I'm mad." Now, between when we got sober and then, she and I had promised that we would never even think, when we get mad at each other, that we're gonna split. We'd been together for over 20 years, married for over 20 years, and, and divorce wasn't gonna be an option. We were gonna stay and fight it out. And, uh- Well, if, if you're gonna leave, you never work on a problem. You know, you're just, you're g- you're, you know, and then if you don't leave, you got the problem. And, uh, we decided not to leave and just fight it out. And, uh, and she said, "You know I love you, and you know we're going to be together forever. And if it causes you pain for me not to go to Fresno with you, I want you to know I love you enough to help you go through the pain." "But you're going through the pain, Howard, 'cause I am not going to Fresno." Now, she says in her Al-Anon talk that was a problem for her. That was not a problem for me. I got Bud Proctor, and he and I went to the damn Fresno, and I talked to him all the way up, and I talked to him when we were there and talked to him all the way back. And it was a great time for the talker. Uh, but the problem was that she has now changed, and I can't talk her into anything that she don't wanna do. And how this ended up was I went to my sponsor and said, "She won't listen to reason." He said, "It sounds like it's time for another inventory." I said, "You know, I've thought that, but I don't think she's ever taken one yet." Now, I'm five years sober, and I do another inventory, and it's amazing. I just tell you, it's amazing the things I saw about myself that were baby elephant beliefs. My dad and, and my whole family were German. And in a German family, somehow the father and the husband gets to be the authority over stuff. Pat wasn't raised in our family, however. And so I became devious about how I was gonna be the authority over her, and I did not know I was doing it. And she says, "You know, you always have reasons, and I don't have…" Hell, I would make the reasons up right on the spot. It wasn't… You know, and I was good at it. The, the day she was going to Al-Anon, my sponsor came home to talk her into going to Al-Anon, and after he left, I said, "Pat," I had 30 days. I said, "Pat, I want you to go to Al-Anon. They use our steps. And if you, uh, use our steps, it'll enrich your life like it does ours." But it's my understanding that in early AA, the alcoholic's recovery was so exciting for the members of the family and the friends of the alcoholic that they were becoming intrusive into AA, and Bill had Lois start Al-Anon just to keep them the hell out of our meetings. Now, I just made that up. You know? So that I could be supportive and say, "Go to Al-Anon," but then I would say something to invalidate it. And I had a whole bunch of those things. And I went in kind of a fifth step or a ninth step. I, I went over them with Pat, and, uh, it changed our lives. You know, I said, "You don't think you have reasons. Here are some reasons for doing what you're doing." And, and she, she's never punished me with it, but, but we, w- we know that I don't wanna be that way. Whenever she caves in and does what she doesn't want to do, it has always caused a hole in my soul. I, I never felt good about it. I felt empty about it. And, and, uh, we don't do that anymore, and we don't do it 'cause she went to Al-Anon. And then I did the steps again. Now our life is good. We have a great life. I've got… We've got everything. It's… I'm nine years sober, and we have everything that I believe if I had, I would be happy. And I got a promotion to, uh, be the technical section manager. Great job. And then two days later, my boss comes in with an assignment of great responsibility, and it seemed to me technically way beyond my capability, and said, "I… Sign… These are assignments that technical section managers get." So I've either got to give up being a technical section manager, you know, I mean, this… And, and I meditate every day, except the next day I just obsessed on the terribleness of this thing. And the next day I just obsessed on it. But the third day, about the back half of the meditation was meditation, and when that ended, I felt good. And my head… You know, there's a, there's a committee in everybody's head, but if you meditate and pay attention, those guys get sorted out. And I said, "And there's somebody in there that's wiser, somebody in there that knows a lot more than I am ever aware of me learning." But I… And it don't always talk to me in words. It didn't talk to me in words this time, but my head said, "Why can't I feel this good when I wake up?" And then I had what we could say was a vision. But because you have newcomers, I had this fantasy. And the fantasy was of a frozen lake. And I didn't know why I was seeing a frozen lake, but I all at once knew for certain that the ice on the lake was as thick as the laws of physics will allow ice to get. And I think you could put a Sherman tank on that ice, and it would hold it. And then it occurred to me that living my life a day at a time would be a good metaphor for walking across the lake a step at a time. Be careful, because there's always something going on, and it may be slippery. And if you don't know that you're supported, you'll dread every step of the way. Now, it took me two or three days to decide that this was a strong spiritual message of truth, and I started believing that at the end of my meditation. And just let me tell you, that presentation come together like magic. I gave the presentation like some grown-up guy would do. It was amazing. And my life has been amazing. It has always been amazing, but I didn't know it until I came to be convinced that the big book is literally true. And I hated literal interpretation of the Bible, but now you got a guy that's interpreting the big book as literal truth, and that is on page 49. Bottom of page 48, top of page 49. "The prosaic steel girders are made up of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speeds. Science tells us so, and there's no reason to doubt it. These precise laws hold true in the material world, and the perfectly logical assumption is," and this is out of context, "that there is an all-powerful, guiding, creative intelligence underlying the material world and life as we see it, a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things." You know, there's no separation. There is no separation. This power underlies the totality of things, and everything unfolds into goodness as required by the constant and pervasive presence and power of God. I'm convinced that that true, and since I'm convinced it's true, I have a richness in my life, a sense of wellbeing that enables me to fight better with Pat. For me to work on business problems better than I could. And these things don't go away, but my sense of wellbeing is not contingent upon those things. My sense of wellbeing is contingent upon my conviction that my life is supported, and it is supported. And I could never have found this wonderful thing. And I have had so many… Anyway, it's a magic life I have, a magic life, and it could have never happened except for Alcoholics Anonymous. In the meditation book, it says, "Whatever way you find God, that is the right way for you. But remember, wherever you see God pass, mark that spot and go sit in that window again." Alcoholics Anonymous, that's my spot. That's my window. That's where I have come, and I see God pass. And I love you for that, and I thank you for letting me share it. I love you. Thank you. Keep it short. I rambled on. I started believing that at the end of my meditation. And just let me tell you, that presentation come together like magic. I gave the presentation like some grown-up guy would do. It was amazing. And my life has been amazing. It has always been amazing, but I didn't know it until I came to be convinced that the big book is literally true. And I hated literal interpretation of the Bible, but now you got a guy that's interpreting the big book as literal truth, and that is on page 49. Bottom of page 48, top of page 49. "The prosaic steel girders are made up of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speeds. Science tells us so, and there's no reason to doubt it. These precise laws hold true in the material world, and the perfectly logical assumption is," and this is out of context, "that there is an all-powerful, guiding, creative intelligence underlying the material world and life as we see it, a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things." You know, there's no separation. There is no separation. This power underlies the totality of things, and everything unfolds into goodness as required by the constant and pervasive presence and power of God. I'm convinced that that true, and since I'm convinced it's true, I have a richness in my life, a sense of wellbeing that enables me to fight better with Pat. For me to work on business problems better than I could. And these things don't go away, but my sense of wellbeing is not contingent upon those things. My sense of wellbeing is contingent upon my conviction that my life is supported, and it is supported. And I could never have found this wonderful thing. And I have had so many… Anyway, it's a magic life I have, a magic life, and it could have never happened except for Alcoholics Anonymous. In the meditation book, it says, "Whatever way you find God, that is the right way for you. But remember, wherever you see God pass, mark that spot and go sit in that window again." Alcoholics Anonymous, that's my spot. That's my window. That's where I have come, and I see God pass. And I love you for that, and I thank you for letting me share it. I love you. Thank you. Keep it short. I rambled on.