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[00:00:00.520 – 00:00:06.600] And, and, uh, with our speaker this morning, I, I didn’t know David very well.

[00:00:06.600 – 00:00:14.920] I knew, I knew that David was in the program, and I’ve attended several meetings that David spoke at, but I didn’t know David that well other than what he had shared.

[00:00:14.920 – 00:00:25.220] So I had gone to people that I had observed David speaking with or sharing with, uh, you know, like Wayne and Heather

[00:00:25.220 – 00:00:35.340] and, and even got Gracie off to the side, uh, compiling at least a, a four or five-page report of what I could, I could share

[00:00:35.340 – 00:00:38.400] with you in hi- in int- introduction of this man.

[00:00:38.400 – 00:00:43.840] But one of the old-timers of the group said, “Wilma,” said, “Just shut up.

[00:00:43.840 – 00:00:53.640] Let them know that David is here, and he will tell you his story.” Would you help me welcome, please, David A.

[00:00:53.640 – 00:00:54.500] from Dallas, Texas.

[00:00:54.500 – 00:01:03.180] Thank you, Bill.

[00:01:03.180 – 00:01:03.840] Hi, everybody.

[00:01:03.840 – 00:01:05.839] My name is David A., and I am an alcoholic.

[00:01:05.839 – 00:01:06.670] Hi.

[00:01:06.670 – 00:01:12.640] And only because of God’s grace through the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous am I sober this day, and for this I am so thankful.

[00:01:12.640 – 00:01:19.060] And first of all, let me thank the committee for inviting both Grace and myself to be here this weekend.

[00:01:19.060 – 00:01:21.480] And hasn’t it been a wonderful, wonderful weekend?

[00:01:21.480 – 00:01:22.539] It’s been.

[00:01:22.539 – 00:01:32.620] And allow this alcoholic the freedom to share this alcoholic with you and your, the freedom for you to share yourselves with

[00:01:32.620 – 00:01:33.560] this alcoholic.

[00:01:33.560 – 00:01:38.740] The only thing I know about being an alcoholic is how I drink alcohol.

[00:01:38.740 – 00:01:42.340] And when I tell anyone, any place, anywhere that in A.A.

[00:01:42.340 – 00:01:51.600] or out of A.A., that means I fit every word, every line, every comma, every period, every paragraph, every page in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:01:51.600 – 00:01:58.280] I know no other way to live sober, only by the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:01:58.280 – 00:02:08.420] And since April the 20th of 1967, I have not found any reason whatever to leave Alcoholics Anonymous, to find an easier way to live sober, a more sociably

[00:02:08.420 – 00:02:14.040] acceptable way to live sober, a more fun way to live sober, nor a more exciting way to live sober.

[00:02:14.040 – 00:02:21.520] Thank God I haven’t had to go to one of those action-reaction courses, concentration movement, related disorders institute.

[00:02:21.520 – 00:02:22.600] Wow.

[00:02:22.600 – 00:02:31.260] When I got to you people, my wife was a related disorder.

[00:02:31.260 – 00:02:35.460] Hang in there till your drawers fall off, baby.

[00:02:35.460 – 00:02:37.420] Sexual dysfunction seminars.

[00:02:37.420 – 00:02:47.260] I’ll tell you, if you get as old as I am and been able to stay sober only as long as I have, only by the grace, today I do not need a sexual dysfunction seminar.

[00:02:47.260 – 00:02:50.280] I need a memory course.

[00:02:50.280 – 00:02:54.280] Now, we hear a lot of things today.

[00:02:54.280 – 00:03:04.180] You know, I’m an adult child of an alcoholic dog, cat, snake, kangaroo, gorilla, zebra, glue bottle, et cetera, et cetera, and, you know, an inner child.

[00:03:04.180 – 00:03:12.120] The only human being that I’ve ever known that knows one hundred percent about a human child, a inner child, is a pregnant woman.

[00:03:12.120 – 00:03:20.080] But I’ll let you know right up front, I’m an adult spouse of an Al-Anon.

[00:03:20.080 – 00:03:27.580] Our story is disclosed in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened, what we’re like now.

[00:03:27.580 – 00:03:35.540] I found myself laying in the county jail once again.

[00:03:35.540 – 00:03:40.780] Maybe not a county, maybe a state, but once again in this county jail.

[00:03:40.780 – 00:03:44.780] Everything near and dear what I thought had been gone.

[00:03:44.780 – 00:03:49.400] And I found out something laying in that jail.

[00:03:49.400 – 00:03:52.980] Until God calls you home, you ain’t going nowhere.

[00:03:52.980 – 00:03:55.030] You hear it all the time in A.A.

[00:03:55.030 – 00:03:57.120] after these meetings, keep coming back.

[00:03:57.120 – 00:04:00.720] Well, why don’t we just stay, and then we don’t have to keep coming back?

[00:04:00.720 – 00:04:10.820] And I’m laying there, and my entire life flashed before me to where I could

[00:04:10.820 – 00:04:12.760] constantly remember as a youngster.

[00:04:12.760 – 00:04:18.959] And I was born and raised in, in one of the finest families that God ever put on this earth.

[00:04:18.959 – 00:04:26.060] A mother and father who dedicated their two lives to give to the two sons that were born into that marriage.

[00:04:26.060 – 00:04:30.820] And I being the oldest, everything that was denied them when they were growing up.

[00:04:30.820 – 00:04:41.120] And if one of the sons is going to become an alcoholic, I do not know of a better deal when you’ve got a mother and father that’s willing to go to every and any length to keep you from hurting and to keep you from suffering

[00:04:41.120 – 00:04:47.680] and from, keep you from bringing shame and disgrace on the family name and the family religion and the family heritage.

[00:04:47.680 – 00:04:53.480] And, uh, alcohol was always in the home that I was born and raised in.

[00:04:53.480 – 00:04:55.980] It was on the dining room table.

[00:04:55.980 – 00:04:57.280] It was on the sideboards.

[00:04:57.280 – 00:04:58.520] It was in the closet.

[00:04:58.520 – 00:05:01.140] My mother did not drink alcohol.

[00:05:01.140 – 00:05:05.110] My father would come home every night at six o’clock.

[00:05:05.110 – 00:05:07.600] Right there and then you knew he was an alcoholic.

[00:05:07.600 – 00:05:17.640] And he’d take his bottle out, and he’d pour exactly one ounce of alcohol in a glass of whiskey, fill it up with a little water and drink it, put the

[00:05:17.640 – 00:05:25.300] cap back on the bottle, and say, “Mama, let’s eat supper.” When we were just little youngsters, my father would allow us to taste it.

[00:05:25.300 – 00:05:35.440] And he would always tell us that alcohol was good for the system, good for the appetite, but drunkenness was a sin,

[00:05:35.440 – 00:05:36.400] was a disgrace.

[00:05:36.400 – 00:05:44.460] And I don’t know, my brother, he is a, was the most stupidest drinker of alcohol than anyone ever been around in your life.

[00:05:44.460 – 00:05:49.880] But I don’t know what it was, whether I was different or whether it doesn’t make a bit of difference.

[00:05:49.880 – 00:05:59.840] All I know is that when he gave me that teaspoonful first and then later a tablespoon and later a shot glass, and then I stole everything from then on.

[00:05:59.840 – 00:06:02.876] I liked what it, I liked it.

[00:06:02.876 – 00:06:03.836] I liked it.

[00:06:03.836 – 00:06:05.316] I liked it.

[00:06:05.316 – 00:06:15.316] And little did I realize that it planted something in my head that, David, every chance you’re going to get, you’re going to take a drink of alcohol to

[00:06:15.316 – 00:06:18.975] reproduce what that effect was when you were just a youngster.

[00:06:18.975 – 00:06:22.896] And I didn’t know where I was in that time, but I knew that alcohol did.

[00:06:22.896 – 00:06:28.356] And then, uh, I re- and then I would, I did something and I was injured.

[00:06:28.356 – 00:06:38.516] And I lied to my mother with a very, very serious bone ailment in those days called osteomyelitis, before all the modern therapies that we have.

[00:06:38.516 – 00:06:41.756] And I was condemned to be a cripple in my life.

[00:06:41.756 – 00:06:50.895] They were going to remove my right leg, and I’m laying in the hospital with all these, in a Catholic hospital, with all these nuns running around looking like penguins, you know?

[00:06:50.895 – 00:06:57.816] And, and, and I was the only one on the orthopedic ward that was a child, and I was their pet.

[00:06:57.816 – 00:07:01.696] And I found out long ago that you could fake pain and everything else.

[00:07:01.696 – 00:07:06.296] Then they’d give you these elixirs for pain, and it all had alcohol in it.

[00:07:06.296 – 00:07:13.566] And I left that hospital on crutches, condemned to be a cripple the rest of my life, and I couldn’t run and play with the rest of the youngsters.

[00:07:13.566 – 00:07:19.836] And so my mother and father decided that I was going to be a concert pianist, and I didn’t want to be a concert pianist.

[00:07:19.836 – 00:07:24.976] And my father bought the first baby grand piano that South Dallas had ever seen.

[00:07:24.976 – 00:07:29.816] And I’m sitting there with my little Buster Brown haircut on, you know, and all that.

[00:07:29.816 – 00:07:32.716] And they’re out there playing and doing all those things.

[00:07:32.716 – 00:07:39.176] And God Almighty, and then I said, “Well, the heck with this.” And I’d get into daddy’s whiskey, and that leg looked like it was getting better.

[00:07:39.176 – 00:07:43.256] And I had a boyfriend whose father had a business down on Skid Row.

[00:07:43.256 – 00:07:47.136] And Jack said to me one day, he said, “You know, you are so miserable.

[00:07:47.136 – 00:07:48.466] Why don’t you come down?

[00:07:48.466 – 00:07:56.596] We’ll park you on top of an apple crate, and you can help count the trucks as they’re being loaded and unloaded.” And off I went.

[00:07:56.596 – 00:07:59.456] And I went down at, I was ten and a half years of age.

[00:07:59.456 – 00:08:06.916] And I went down to the first Skid Row that I was to live in and out on, and I’ve lived on three of them, lived in and out on in my lifetime.

[00:08:06.916 – 00:08:11.876] One for over six years, one for over four years, and one, the last one, for fourteen months was the toughest.

[00:08:11.876 – 00:08:17.336] And I’m not going to stand up here this morning and share life on Skid Row with you.

[00:08:17.336 – 00:08:25.156] The Skid Rows that I lived on, there was no day and there was no night and there was no sun and there was no moon and there were no stars and there were no clouds.

[00:08:25.156 – 00:08:30.276] Just no days and weeks and months and seconds and minutes and hours.

[00:08:30.276 – 00:08:32.716] Just in and out of blackness and darkness.

[00:08:32.716 – 00:08:36.756] And the best way I can describe that kind of an existence, just bodies and feet.

[00:08:36.756 – 00:08:38.596] You don’t care if you live.

[00:08:38.596 – 00:08:39.636] You don’t care if you die.

[00:08:39.636 – 00:08:40.776] You don’t care if you bathe.

[00:08:40.776 – 00:08:42.016] You don’t care if you don’t bathe.

[00:08:42.016 – 00:08:43.056] You don’t care if you eat.

[00:08:43.056 – 00:08:44.556] You don’t care if you don’t eat.

[00:08:44.556 – 00:08:46.176] You don’t care if you see your loved ones.

[00:08:46.176 – 00:08:47.736] You don’t care if you see them.

[00:08:47.736 – 00:08:48.916] You just don’t care.

[00:08:48.916 – 00:08:51.776] And an alcoholic cannot stay on Skid Row.

[00:08:51.776 – 00:08:59.516] An alcoholic has got to get off of Skid Row because an alcoholic will lie about that alcoholic’s drinking, and that alcoholic will hide that alcoholic’s bottle.

[00:08:59.516 – 00:09:05.276] And I’ll tell you right now, if you hide your wine bottle down on the Row, you’re not long for this earth, I don’t mind telling you.

[00:09:05.276 – 00:09:12.476] As I said, I didn’t have to be down there, and I went down the first day and I got in with eleven Blacks and me, and we started drinking Bay Rum and wine.

[00:09:12.476 – 00:09:14.615] And that was the standard fare.

[00:09:14.615 – 00:09:24.676] And later on, as I grew older physically and get more money in my pocket, I could go from that Bay Rum and that wine to that good stuff and never miss a lick and come back down from that good stuff down to

[00:09:24.676 – 00:09:27.156] Gypsy Rose and Thunderbird and never miss a lick.

[00:09:27.156 – 00:09:29.686] I don’t know about anybody in AA.

[00:09:29.686 – 00:09:31.396] I don’t know about anybody in this meeting.

[00:09:31.396 – 00:09:33.436] I don’t know about any alcoholic anyplace anyway.

[00:09:33.436 – 00:09:43.516] I drank it because I liked what it did to me and with me and for me and I, when it got in and down and through me, and I liked what it allowed me to do to you or against you

[00:09:43.516 – 00:09:45.156] when it got in and down and through me.

[00:09:45.156 – 00:09:48.036] And I learned a lot of things down on Skid Row.

[00:09:48.036 – 00:09:54.696] Little did I ever realize the way I drank and the way I lived would ever be worth a tinker’s darn to another human being.

[00:09:54.696 – 00:09:57.876] I learned a lot of things down on Skid Row.

[00:09:57.876 – 00:09:59.516] Never get your back up against the wall.

[00:09:59.516 – 00:10:01.776] Didn’t have a back door or window you could jump out of.

[00:10:01.776 – 00:10:05.996] If you smoke or eat anything, keep both hands free so you can hit and run.

[00:10:05.996 – 00:10:08.336] And I’ve always been five foot six.

[00:10:08.336 – 00:10:10.056] I was born five foot six.

[00:10:10.056 – 00:10:13.236] When I drink that juice and I’d be seven foot tall.

[00:10:13.236 – 00:10:15.716] I’ve had hundreds of fights, never one-on-one.

[00:10:15.716 – 00:10:18.736] My nose has been where my navel is.

[00:10:18.736 – 00:10:20.166] My navel has been where my right ear is.

[00:10:20.166 – 00:10:21.576] I’ve been all rearranged.

[00:10:21.576 – 00:10:28.336] When I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years of age, I run off and joined Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.

[00:10:28.336 – 00:10:31.976] And, God, what a wonderful weekend it’s been to be shared with Millie.

[00:10:31.976 – 00:10:36.016] Millie came on the show after they run me off.

[00:10:36.016 – 00:10:42.936] And, and, and, and I went in the days, oh, God, when the Ringling show was the finest and largest under canvas in the entire world.

[00:10:42.936 – 00:10:50.916] And it come to a town, and all the elephants and all them, you know, they’d drag the wagons downtown with the calliope going and good God almighty.

[00:10:50.916 – 00:10:55.756] And, and, and I went with them, and, and I went because you could drink and you could fight.

[00:10:55.756 – 00:11:00.796] And I look around here, and I don’t see any circus-looking drinkers.

[00:11:00.796 – 00:11:01.956] Maybe old Millie was.

[00:11:01.956 – 00:11:02.596] I don’t know.

[00:11:02.596 – 00:11:12.296] And I learned to drink the most beautiful concoction in the circus that’s ever been devised by a man called Green Lizard Circus Style, a tremendous drink.

[00:11:12.296 – 00:11:15.816] Elixir, soda, bromide, and Lucky Tiger hair tonic.

[00:11:15.816 – 00:11:23.975] And I’ll tell you, I used to drink those, that stuff, and I’d see Bambi and those animals in Technicolor long before Walt Disney put them on screen.

[00:11:23.975 – 00:11:29.116] But I’m trying to live three codes of living.

[00:11:29.116 – 00:11:39.276] I’m trying to live the code of living that society was demanding that I live, and that’s go to school and become a useful human being and to be of service

[00:11:39.276 – 00:11:44.036] to whatever God I believed in or didn’t believe in and to my fellow man.

[00:11:44.036 – 00:11:54.176] And I’d end up later on in alleys and in coverts and sleeping on steam grates and cardboard boxes, jails,

[00:11:54.176 – 00:11:56.296] goody roosts, you name them.

[00:11:56.296 – 00:12:00.976] And then I’m trying to live the code of living my mother and father wanted me to live, and they had all the money.

[00:12:00.976 – 00:12:10.068] And if you had already been in all the trouble I’d been in, was in, and getting ready to get into, it takes a lot of money to get you out so you can get back in it again.

[00:12:10.068 – 00:12:15.768] And then I’m trying to live the code of living that alcohol was demanding all my life, and you’re way ahead of me.

[00:12:15.768 – 00:12:17.388] You know which one won out.

[00:12:17.388 – 00:12:18.607] You certainly did.

[00:12:18.607 – 00:12:20.758] Oh, the circus, it was wonderful.

[00:12:20.758 – 00:12:27.688] In those days, Tom Mix and his trick horse, Tony, uh, they ran the Wild West show, you know, and, and all those things.

[00:12:27.688 – 00:12:37.708] And, and I drank with the most delightful drunks that I have ever drunk in my life, and it’s the only ones that, that were shorter than me, and I was taller than all of

[00:12:37.708 – 00:12:37.788] them.

[00:12:37.788 – 00:12:39.188] I drank with all the midgets.

[00:12:39.188 – 00:12:45.288] And let me tell you, that is the wildest bunch in this God’s world.

[00:12:45.288 – 00:12:48.168] First of all, they are tremendous athletes.

[00:12:48.168 – 00:12:49.908] And they’d get into every…

[00:12:49.908 – 00:12:54.948] We’d get into every kind of trouble that was imaginable under, that man could possibly do.

[00:12:54.948 – 00:12:59.588] And one day, John Ringling North called me up before me and he said, “Boy, you got to leave.

[00:12:59.588 – 00:13:09.588] You’re running my midgets.” I said, “They’re running me.” And I went back to the midgets, and I said, “He’s making me go.” And they all went to see him

[00:13:09.588 – 00:13:19.588] and said, “If he goes, we go, and you can’t have a good circus without wild animals, clowns, and midgets.” And my mother and father would find me, and they’d jerk me back and put me back in school.

[00:13:19.588 – 00:13:29.648] But my body would be in the school chair, but my mind would be way out there because I had already experienced and seen some things in life, particularly down on Skid Row,

[00:13:29.648 – 00:13:30.968] to where life meant nothing.

[00:13:30.968 – 00:13:37.268] Cut people’s throats and to walk over them, and that was it, and just disregard them just like human garbage.

[00:13:37.268 – 00:13:40.528] And, you know, and, and, and but my mind was out there.

[00:13:40.528 – 00:13:50.708] But I had to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous to find out that the reason my mind was out there, the reason that I wanted to go back

[00:13:50.708 – 00:13:53.908] out there and drink, because I wasn’t through drinking.

[00:13:53.908 – 00:14:04.288] If you’re new in Alcoholics Anonymous or if you’re still wondering around about our remarkable recovery program,

[00:14:04.288 – 00:14:11.568] and I’ll tell you, it is the most precious recovery program for an alcoholic that the world has seen, is seeing, or ever will see.

[00:14:11.568 – 00:14:21.748] For God’s sakes, fit in with our

[00:14:21.748 – 00:14:23.228] description of an alcoholic.

[00:14:23.228 – 00:14:33.948] Our description of an alcoholic, not the National Council, not treatment modality’s description, not

[00:14:33.948 – 00:14:38.028] society’s description, but our description of an alcoholic.

[00:14:38.028 – 00:14:41.128] We have three descriptions of an alcoholic.

[00:14:41.128 – 00:14:51.368] Thank God AA has never been the final authority because it’s designed for freedom, for let us our own selves determine

[00:14:51.368 – 00:14:52.548] who we are and what we are.

[00:14:52.548 – 00:14:57.268] As a result of coming and, and believing and then come to see.

[00:14:57.268 – 00:14:58.868] Come to see.

[00:14:58.868 – 00:15:02.088] We have three descriptions of an alcoholic.

[00:15:02.088 – 00:15:07.548] The first one, they were men and women who have lost the ability to control their drinking.

[00:15:07.548 – 00:15:14.508] It doesn’t say you’re an alcoholic because you got drunk and wrote hot checks, you run the old lady off, shot the policeman, or did this or that.

[00:15:14.508 – 00:15:17.928] No, we’re men and women who’ve lost the ability to control their drinking.

[00:15:17.928 – 00:15:26.048] And that the obsession of every gra- ab- abnormal drinker is to somehow, someday be able to control his drinking.

[00:15:26.048 – 00:15:34.228] A normal drinker doesn’t have to control it to enjoy it, but an abnormal drinker has to control it in order to enjoy it.

[00:15:34.228 – 00:15:43.988] The second description, and we are agnostic, that if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount that you take.

[00:15:43.988 – 00:15:46.028] AA is very gentle.

[00:15:46.028 – 00:15:47.788] It says that you are probably alcoholic.

[00:15:47.788 – 00:15:58.808] But it also says, if this be the case, then we’re going to have to have this spiritual experience in order to begin to survive.

[00:15:58.808 – 00:16:01.728] And then the third description of an alcoholic is our first step.

[00:16:01.728 – 00:16:05.568] We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.

[00:16:05.568 – 00:16:12.278] Suffering from a twofold illness of mind and body, a mental obsession so powerful.

[00:16:12.278 – 00:16:17.108] And, and Johnny last night just brought so many memories back when he talked about Papa.

[00:16:17.108 – 00:16:19.558] And Papa liked you.

[00:16:19.558 – 00:16:20.368] He called you son.

[00:16:20.368 – 00:16:23.157] But he won’t have any dude with you.

[00:16:23.157 – 00:16:24.128] He’d look the other way.

[00:16:24.128 – 00:16:25.408] Yeah.

[00:16:25.408 – 00:16:28.848] From the old school.

[00:16:28.848 – 00:16:38.848] Papa used to talk about this twofold illness of mind and body, the mental obsession so powerful it was condemning me to drink against my own will, and the physical

[00:16:38.848 – 00:16:42.328] nature of the illness was condemning me to die if I continued to drink.

[00:16:42.328 – 00:16:45.028] Continue to drink.

[00:16:45.028 – 00:16:47.268] And I did not know this.

[00:16:47.268 – 00:16:49.248] I did not know this.

[00:16:49.248 – 00:16:51.108] I thought I was having fun.

[00:16:51.108 – 00:17:00.908] I thought I was changing this little weakling with this bad leg and this little thing that was a coward on the inside into some human being that was becoming macho.

[00:17:00.908 – 00:17:08.168] This human being, and then little did I realize what the purpose was and the reason for it until I come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:17:08.168 – 00:17:18.208] And somebody sat down with me, another human being, an alcoholic, a member of AA, who could see in me what I couldn’t see in myself and began to

[00:17:18.208 – 00:17:19.088] tell me their story.

[00:17:19.088 – 00:17:20.908] But that was many, many years later.

[00:17:20.908 – 00:17:22.668] Many, many years later.

[00:17:22.668 – 00:17:32.968] I finally graduated, and I was laid there in that jail cell, and, and I realized that, that I, I still stayed down on Skid Row but went on to school, went to Southern Methodist University

[00:17:32.968 – 00:17:34.968] and graduated Southern Methodist University.

[00:17:34.968 – 00:17:40.928] And, and, and World War II was coming on, and if you’re about half hot, they’d give you deferment.

[00:17:40.928 – 00:17:47.788] They allowed me to go to professional school and, and at the first year, my, my, at the end of the first year of my professional school, I flunked out.

[00:17:47.788 – 00:17:50.228] Still living down on Skid Row.

[00:17:50.228 – 00:17:53.188] I didn’t flunk out because of my laziness.

[00:17:53.188 – 00:17:54.108] I didn’t flunk out…

[00:17:54.108 – 00:17:56.968] I couldn’t stay sober.

[00:17:56.968 – 00:17:59.028] I couldn’t concentrate.

[00:17:59.028 – 00:18:04.488] And in order to survive, you have to learn how to do a lot of illegal things.

[00:18:04.488 – 00:18:07.828] And finally, I met this wonderful gal.

[00:18:07.828 – 00:18:15.536] And we, and, and, and we started kind of communicating.

[00:18:15.536 – 00:18:18.956] And finally, we decided we were going to get married.

[00:18:18.956 – 00:18:22.276] And I told Grace, I said, “Well, if we’re going to marry, we’re going to have to marry…

[00:18:22.276 – 00:18:28.796] There’s going to be some conditions on this thing.” She said, “What’s that?” I said, “Your parents are going to have to pay half our living expenses.

[00:18:28.796 – 00:18:31.656] My parents are going to have to pay half our living expenses.

[00:18:31.656 – 00:18:40.156] And you go to work, and I’ll go back to school.” And we were married under those conditions, and that’s ideal for a practicing alcoholic.

[00:18:40.156 – 00:18:43.156] You don’t have to do anything.

[00:18:43.156 – 00:18:50.256] Somebody feeds you, somebody clothes you, somebody bathes you, somebody gives you money, somebody bails you out all the time.

[00:18:50.256 – 00:18:58.236] And then I finally got through professor school by hook or crook, and the United States Navy made a very tremendous mistake.

[00:18:58.236 – 00:19:01.056] They declared me an officer and a gentleman.

[00:19:01.056 – 00:19:09.116] And I s- I went sailing forth in the service with my wife, and the first time I didn’t get in too many troubles, I was on Jeep carriers.

[00:19:09.116 – 00:19:12.436] Oh, I’d for- get mi-miss ship a couple of times.

[00:19:12.436 – 00:19:19.216] You don’t know what it is to be extremely drunk and s- unsteady of balance, and you fall off the fantail of a battleship.

[00:19:19.216 – 00:19:22.536] And that thing is in dry dock.

[00:19:22.536 – 00:19:29.636] And I’ve fallen off the New Jersey two times, once in dry dock in Bremerton and once off of Inchon.

[00:19:29.636 – 00:19:38.056] And I finally come back and come back to Dallas, and, and, and I opened up a dental practice, and I began to make more money than there’s money.

[00:19:38.056 – 00:19:43.036] And I put the money in my right hand pocket, steal it with my left hand, didn’t pay taxes.

[00:19:43.036 – 00:19:49.816] You know, a drunk when he’s moving and he’s busy and he thinks he’s a high roller, he ain’t got time for all them things, you know.

[00:19:49.816 – 00:19:50.156] No.

[00:19:50.156 – 00:19:52.776] One of these days, I’ll straighten out, you know.

[00:19:52.776 – 00:19:56.156] And, and, and, and beginning to get in a lot of trouble.

[00:19:56.156 – 00:19:59.776] And it was on the last Sunday in August of nineteen fifty.

[00:19:59.776 – 00:20:07.396] This Sunday in August, fifty years ago today.

[00:20:07.396 – 00:20:12.316] I mean forty, uh, nineteen fifty, forty-four years ago.

[00:20:12.316 – 00:20:21.316] A group of fine, sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous invited me to come to an open AA meeting at the Suburban Group in Dallas, Texas.

[00:20:21.316 – 00:20:27.416] The Wednesday before that Sunday, I stumbled into one of Dallas’ more affluent barbershops.

[00:20:27.416 – 00:20:37.556] And I sat down at this manicurist table, and I was reasonably more at myself that morning, and that means that, you know, I could sit in the chair for about ten minutes without

[00:20:37.556 – 00:20:38.356] falling out of it.

[00:20:38.356 – 00:20:43.756] I could navigate to and fro from the men’s room and go out and get me another bottle of whiskey.

[00:20:43.756 – 00:20:50.816] I sat down, and this old, ugly gal looked at me, and, and she said, “David,” and right there and then I should have known something’s wrong.

[00:20:50.816 – 00:20:51.996] She didn’t call me doctor.

[00:20:51.996 – 00:21:02.116] She said, “David, I belong to a deal called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have not had a drink of alcohol in one year.” And I looked at Edith, and I said, “You’re a

[00:21:02.116 – 00:21:05.616] liar.” “Nobody stays sober a year.

[00:21:05.616 – 00:21:14.746] Maybe a day, maybe two days, three days at the most, but not, not a year.” Now, Edith looked like a drunk ought to look like, sort of a female-looking Bill over here, you know.

[00:21:14.746 – 00:21:18.756] Her face wasn’t real pretty.

[00:21:18.756 – 00:21:22.496] It looked like a truck had run over it and then backed over it to see if it’s done a good job.

[00:21:22.496 – 00:21:28.016] Her nose had been broken so many times, it’s largely leaned on the left side of her face.

[00:21:28.016 – 00:21:29.916] You know.

[00:21:29.916 – 00:21:33.576] And the best way to describe Edith’s looks is a drunk, you know.

[00:21:33.576 – 00:21:40.076] In our part of the country and in this part of the country, if your car is caught out in a hailstorm, it’s pretty badly beaten up.

[00:21:40.076 – 00:21:45.136] Right when you get your insurance check, some wise buzzard said, “Ah, don’t get it fixed.

[00:21:45.136 – 00:21:50.496] Let it sit out in the hot sun for about three or four weeks, and all the dents will pop back up,” huh?

[00:21:50.496 – 00:21:52.676] Her dents never popped back out.

[00:21:52.676 – 00:21:56.896] But God, she was a great gal.

[00:21:56.896 – 00:22:06.896] Now, when Edith was drinking, and I drunk alcohol with Edith, she had the reputation of being the meanest, ugliest, fightingest, nastiest woman drunk

[00:22:06.896 – 00:22:08.236] that God walked on this earth.

[00:22:08.236 – 00:22:13.676] She could outdrink any man, any place, anywhere, on the moon, off the moon, around the moon, on the Earth.

[00:22:13.676 – 00:22:19.796] She carried a big, black purse, always had two pints of whiskey in that purse, and she’d kill you if you got in that purse.

[00:22:19.796 – 00:22:24.876] And here I looked up at her.

[00:22:24.876 – 00:22:27.556] Here I looked up at her.

[00:22:27.556 – 00:22:37.756] I didn’t realize at that time and that moment that she was planting the seed of attraction in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:22:37.756 – 00:22:45.675] I looked up at Edith, and God, her lipstick was on her lips and not her eyebrows.

[00:22:45.675 – 00:22:55.756] And back in those days, you know, before pantyhose, the gals used to wear hose with the

[00:22:55.756 – 00:22:56.736] seams up the back.

[00:22:56.736 – 00:23:02.016] And they used to hold them with garter belts, you know, to pull their drawers down and their socks up, you know.

[00:23:02.016 – 00:23:05.076] And I looked, and hers weren’t drooping.

[00:23:05.076 – 00:23:12.076] And I sniffed her, and she didn’t smell halfway between an Avon bottle, an Avon woman and a whiskey bottle.

[00:23:12.076 – 00:23:16.096] But more important, and I noticed that she changed.

[00:23:16.096 – 00:23:21.216] When she was giving my manicure that morning, she was buffing my nails instead of my knuckles and my ears.

[00:23:21.216 – 00:23:26.256] But I noticed the real change, and the change was in her eyes.

[00:23:26.256 – 00:23:29.836] In Alcoholics Anonymous, we have two kinds of eyes.

[00:23:29.836 – 00:23:32.156] We have those sad, sad, sick eyes.

[00:23:32.156 – 00:23:36.536] And then we have those happy, dancing, laughing, sparkling, living, sober eyes.

[00:23:36.536 – 00:23:39.616] Oh, yes, we’ve got another kind of looking eyes, those glassy eyes.

[00:23:39.616 – 00:23:44.956] You know, they’ll get up behind one of these things and say, “I ain’t had a drink of alcohol,” you know, and then fall over.

[00:23:44.956 – 00:23:53.826] But her eyes were sparkling, and they were jumping, and they were laughing, and she looked like she was having a lot of fun living sober.

[00:23:53.826 – 00:23:58.276] And then she turned to another manicurist in the shop by the m- name of Moena.

[00:23:58.276 – 00:24:08.276] And she says, “Moena here is my sponsor, and she has fifteen months sober in this deal called Alcoholics Anonymous.” And back in those days in Alcoholics Anonymous and when

[00:24:08.276 – 00:24:18.396] I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, any time we mentioned or talked about our sponsors, it was with reverence because we respected our

[00:24:18.396 – 00:24:26.266] sponsors, because we literally turned our lives over to the care of their experience and not their opinion.

[00:24:27.688 – 00:24:37.777] Because we find as a result of our experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous that opinions, in many, many instances, have a tendency to make sick people sicker, and in some instances,

[00:24:37.777 – 00:24:39.147] physically kill people.

[00:24:39.147 – 00:24:45.657] All we have to share is our own experiences of what it used to be like, what happened, what we’re like now.

[00:24:45.657 – 00:24:51.507] And I did not know this, and I drunk far more alcohol with Moena than I ever did with Edith.

[00:24:51.507 – 00:25:01.557] And I looked at Moena and I said, “Moena, you’re a bigger liar than Goofy over here.” I said, “Moena, we had a drink.” She says, “No, David, I’ve not had a drink of alcohol with

[00:25:01.557 – 00:25:05.427] you or anyone else or myself in 15 continuous months.

[00:25:05.427 – 00:25:15.667] Edith has not had a drink of alcohol in 12 continuous months.” Little did I realize that those precious words that fine lady said to me that morning

[00:25:15.667 – 00:25:17.767] would stick with me for many, many years.

[00:25:17.767 – 00:25:20.787] She talked about continuous sobriety.

[00:25:20.787 – 00:25:31.147] At that time, I had no reason whatsoever to know that it was one day at a time because I knew

[00:25:31.147 – 00:25:31.907] of nothing.

[00:25:31.907 – 00:25:34.467] I didn’t know the nature of my problem.

[00:25:34.467 – 00:25:39.727] I thought that it was just natural for me to do what I was doing.

[00:25:39.727 – 00:25:42.747] This is what Dr.

[00:25:42.747 – 00:25:44.147] Silkworth talks about.

[00:25:44.147 – 00:25:45.807] If we’re real, it’s real.

[00:25:45.807 – 00:25:47.267] It’s real.

[00:25:47.267 – 00:25:49.387] And I didn’t know this.

[00:25:49.387 – 00:25:52.167] I certainly didn’t.

[00:25:52.167 – 00:26:02.188] And then Moena says, “David,” she says, “this Sunday, we have an open AA meeting, and it’s open so the public can come in and hear and see

[00:26:02.188 – 00:26:10.347] how an alcoholic lives the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous and how an alcoholic lives the AA way of life.

[00:26:10.347 – 00:26:18.247] Only members of Alcoholics Anonymous will participate in the meeting because, uh, because it’s an AA meeting.

[00:26:18.247 – 00:26:28.287] Just because it’s open doesn’t mean it’s open for every idiot to come in and talk.” That’s exactly the words she said, because they don’t know nothing.

[00:26:28.287 – 00:26:31.147] We’re going to share our experiences.

[00:26:31.147 – 00:26:41.168] “And being it’s the last Sunday of the month, it’s a tradition of the group to have a sort of little birthday party for those who have one or more years of continued sobriety.” And she said,

[00:26:41.168 – 00:26:51.188] “We would like for you and your wife to come to that open meeting and stay afterwards for that birthday party.” And I thought that the only reason that people such as you would invite someone such as me to come

[00:26:51.188 – 00:27:01.367] to one of your AA meetings and stay to one of your AA functions is that you needed to have some good-looking, outstanding, and successful professional man come and upgrade you uglies

[00:27:01.367 – 00:27:02.247] in community.

[00:27:02.247 – 00:27:05.688] And I was glad to come help you.

[00:27:05.688 – 00:27:12.007] So I went home and I told my wife, Grace, and God, she was thrilled because people had long since quit asking us to come around.

[00:27:12.007 – 00:27:22.168] Grace used to ask me, “Why then we’re not asked to the outdoor barbecue, square dances, round dances, nightclubs, supper parties, swimming pool parties, card parties, domino parties?”

[00:27:22.168 – 00:27:23.688] I said, “It’s you.

[00:27:23.688 – 00:27:33.767] It’s you.” I said, “Every time we’re asked to go out on Saturday night, you start on me on the Monday before, and you start screaming and you start hollering, ‘Don’t, you’re not

[00:27:33.767 – 00:27:34.327] going to drink.

[00:27:34.327 – 00:27:44.467] You’re not going to get drunk, are you?’ You wake me up out of a sound sleep, 5:30 the next morning, screaming, ‘Did you hear what I said?'” “And you keep it up Tuesday,

[00:27:44.467 – 00:27:54.647] Tuesday night, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night.” And what a tremendous price society has had to pay, is paying, I guess will always

[00:27:54.647 – 00:27:55.007] pay.

[00:27:55.007 – 00:28:00.007] Those who love us, those who hate us, those who do not even care that we exist on this earth.

[00:28:00.007 – 00:28:08.587] What a tremendous price those people are paying to find out that the more you scream at our kind about our drinking, the more we’re going to drink.

[00:28:08.587 – 00:28:18.627] I said, “And furthermore, when we get to where we’re supposed to get to, before I can even park the car, you’re out of the car, you run in, you grab the host and the hostess, you

[00:28:18.627 – 00:28:29.207] chase them through the kitchen and the den and the backyard and the alley and the bushes and the garbage and the neighbor screaming, ‘Don’t you give him a drink.'” “Woman,

[00:28:29.207 – 00:28:29.757] you’re sick.

[00:28:29.757 – 00:28:39.827] That’s what’s wrong with you.” But she said through tear-filled eyes, “We go to the meeting.” And I said, “Yes.” And so that Sunday morning, I got up at 5:30 in the

[00:28:39.827 – 00:28:43.927] morning to get ready to go to an AA meeting, 5:30 in the afternoon.

[00:28:43.927 – 00:28:50.668] When I was a good self-respecting drinking drunk dude, when he gets up 5:30 on Sunday morning, drinks alcohol.

[00:28:50.668 – 00:28:51.447] That’s what it is.

[00:28:51.447 – 00:28:52.947] Just, let’s face it, very simple.

[00:28:52.947 – 00:28:55.987] Golfers golf, fishermen fish, drunks drink.

[00:28:55.987 – 00:28:56.776] There’s no missing.

[00:28:56.776 – 00:29:00.207] I started sucking on a brand-new bottle of juice.

[00:29:00.207 – 00:29:00.797] You know how it is.

[00:29:00.797 – 00:29:02.127] That gets your breathing started.

[00:29:02.127 – 00:29:05.087] Then that second drink regulates your breathing.

[00:29:05.087 – 00:29:08.947] Then that third drink goes down to both heels and just sets you there.

[00:29:08.947 – 00:29:11.607] Now you’re ready to do some real drinking, aren’t you?

[00:29:11.607 – 00:29:18.377] And I’m drinking and I’m looking up at the birds and the bees and the trees, and I’m hearing the neighbor screaming, “Johnny, get dressed.

[00:29:18.377 – 00:29:21.287] We’ll be late for church.” And I said, “Oh, those sick people.

[00:29:21.287 – 00:29:23.727] They do not know what living really is.

[00:29:23.727 – 00:29:33.967] If they could just learn how to control it and enjoy it like I was doing, they would find out that right after breathing in and out, alcohol is the second greatest gift God’s given mankind.

[00:29:33.967 – 00:29:35.127] Amen.” Took another drink.

[00:29:35.127 – 00:29:44.226] Drank half of that fifth, put the other half the fifth in the trunk of my car because I knew I was going to be required to have another drink of alcohol.

[00:29:44.226 – 00:29:47.276] Maybe a minute later, maybe an hour later, maybe six hour later.

[00:29:47.276 – 00:29:52.447] I knew it, not, and I didn’t know the exact reason until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:29:52.447 – 00:30:02.487] And I’m one of these that firmly believes that if and when an alcohol, alcoholic comes to us, then until and unless that alcoholic is willing to find out what’s wrong with

[00:30:02.487 – 00:30:07.827] that alcoholic, that alcoholic will never be able to find out what can get right with that alcoholic.

[00:30:07.827 – 00:30:15.007] And I went into the bath and I shaved and I put on everything nice and rich looking to impress those poor, sick people at Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:30:15.007 – 00:30:23.347] Put on a beautiful brand-new tailor-made suit, white-on-white monogram shirt, monogram handkerchief, monogram tie, monogram drawers.

[00:30:23.347 – 00:30:32.967] Put on my diamond ring, my diamond watch, and a trademark of every good self-respectful high-rolling drinking drunk, a brand-new pair of custom-made alligator shoes.

[00:30:32.967 – 00:30:35.839] I looked just like a used car salesman.

[00:30:35.839 – 00:30:38.799] Or a dope dealer.

[00:30:38.799 – 00:30:49.159] And at 10:30 in the morning, I’m out in my long Roadmaster Buick honking the horn, and out comes Grace with the rollers in her hair,

[00:30:49.159 – 00:30:53.429] and she has on, it’s that all your fault kimono that they just love- …

[00:30:53.429 – 00:31:00.919] to live in and dwell in and dying and crying, to where she lost the string around the middle and it’s pinned together with a big baby diaper pin.

[00:31:00.919 – 00:31:08.899] And she’s pulled all the threading and the pattern and the fuzzing and the buttons off the front, and the front’s just covered with tear stains and cigarette burns.

[00:31:08.899 – 00:31:15.579] It’s what us drunks in Alcoholics Anonymous lovingly call the Al-Anon designer housecoat.

[00:31:15.579 – 00:31:24.759] And meanwhile, all the neighbors had gathered out.

[00:31:24.759 – 00:31:28.959] And her side is lined up over here, and my side is lined up over here.

[00:31:28.959 – 00:31:39.239] And I can still hear the fine ladies of the neighborhood saying, “Isn’t it a shame?” “That such a beautiful and fine lady and the mother of two beautiful little boys

[00:31:39.239 – 00:31:45.019] married to such a sorry, no good drunk like him.” And my bunch over here are hollering out, “Let her have it, David.

[00:31:45.019 – 00:31:52.959] Let her have it.” And that used to be the weekend entertainment in every n- every neighborhood we lived in.

[00:31:52.959 – 00:31:56.139] We moved 24 times before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:31:56.139 – 00:32:04.519] Sometimes at midnight, high noon, daybreak, ahead of the sheriff sometimes, with the sheriff sometimes, behind the sheriff, just kept moving.

[00:32:04.519 – 00:32:14.639] I said, “Let’s go to the meeting.” She said, “Doesn’t get started for seven more hours, you no good drunk.” And at that, she turned on her heels and went back in the house, and that started

[00:32:14.639 – 00:32:15.819] seven tough hours.

[00:32:15.819 – 00:32:22.299] Here it was Sunday, and I’m sucking on the only bottle of juice that I got and knowing I was going to have to have me a drink.

[00:32:22.299 – 00:32:32.599] And when I was drinking, I rolled it all the way, and one of the biggest problems I had, before I got sober, uh, with the exception of the last three years of my drinking, is people would pull me off my drunks

[00:32:32.599 – 00:32:33.779] and I wasn’t through drinking.

[00:32:33.779 – 00:32:43.139] And I’d come in and I’d pledge and I’d cry and I’d get on my knees and I’d put my hand on the Bible, in the Bible, around the Bible, on the cat’s back, under the belly.

[00:32:43.139 – 00:32:44.259] It didn’t make a difference.

[00:32:44.259 – 00:32:45.999] I’ll never do it again.

[00:32:45.999 – 00:32:54.839] And, and I’d wait till they wrote me a check and some money and tuck it in my shirt pocket, and as soon as they turned their back, I’d run off to finish the drunk.

[00:32:54.839 – 00:32:58.039] Now, I was a stay away from home kind of drunk, not on purpose.

[00:32:58.039 – 00:33:02.360] I’d get drunk, and I ended up in countries I never knew existed on this earth.

[00:33:02.360 – 00:33:06.599] I ended up in institutions I never knew they ever had on this earth.

[00:33:06.599 – 00:33:14.919] I ended up with people many times I never even saw before in my life, sometime with money, sometime without, sometime with clothes on, sometimes the other way.

[00:33:14.919 – 00:33:17.739] I was gone one time, they tell me 11 months.

[00:33:17.739 – 00:33:18.639] I really don’t know.

[00:33:18.639 – 00:33:26.319] And I come in the house, uh, wearing the same clothes I guess I’d been in for about five months, and no one knew where I was.

[00:33:26.319 – 00:33:31.819] My mother, my father, my wife, my children, my enemies, my patients, my friends, no one knew where I was.

[00:33:31.819 – 00:33:42.119] I’m running in the house and I, I ask my wife this brilliant question, “Did anybody call me?” That does not make for good marriage relationships,

[00:33:42.119 – 00:33:42.799] I’ll tell you.

[00:33:42.799 – 00:33:44.459] It certainly didn’t.

[00:33:44.459 – 00:33:50.899] So I knew that if I drank, I’d either have to call a bootlegger taxicab, and I knew that I’d blow the deal.

[00:33:50.899 – 00:33:59.699] Because you see, when I got out of the service the first time in 1947, the sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous in Dallas, Texas, tried to net me.

[00:33:59.699 – 00:34:01.779] They tried to net me in ’48.

[00:34:01.779 – 00:34:03.419] They tried to net me in ’49.

[00:34:03.419 – 00:34:09.788] They tried to net me in January 1950, and they thought to set the trap on the last Sunday of August in 1950.

[00:34:09.788 – 00:34:14.439] I finally found enough just to nurse me along and keep the edge going.

[00:34:14.439 – 00:34:17.800] God, every, that’s the hardest drinking that there is when you’re drinking.

[00:34:17.800 – 00:34:21.899] And I honk the horn and, and out comes Grace and off we go to the meeting.

[00:34:21.899 – 00:34:29.579] And we go in, and it must have been about 50 members of Alcoholics Anonymous and their wives and the kids and a poodle or two jumping up and down.

[00:34:29.579 – 00:34:36.019] It looked like to me they were all smoking cigarettes, and they were hugging and they were kissing, and they were laughing and they were scratching.

[00:34:36.019 – 00:34:46.340] And I stepped back and looked at those people and I said, “By gosh, if they’re alcoholic and they’re not drinking alcohol and they’re that happy, then they have to be on dope.” Then

[00:34:46.340 – 00:34:56.459] I looked around, I saw them signs and an A group, and I said, “My God, I’m in a kindergarten.” And then I saw but for the grace of God my head duck because I knew at that time that I was not

[00:34:56.459 – 00:35:00.260] living according to dictates of God’s will for, for me.

[00:35:00.260 – 00:35:10.699] And I wanted you to firmly believe that if and when an alcoholic comes to us, that even though many of us come to Alcoholics Anonymous without a full string of lights in our head,

[00:35:10.699 – 00:35:13.959] that deep down inside, every one of us know this.

[00:35:13.959 – 00:35:24.899] If there is a principle that we very seldom, if never hear discussed in Alcoholics Anonymous, that

[00:35:24.899 – 00:35:26.559] we’re born human beings first.

[00:35:26.559 – 00:35:37.880] Not all, but so many get carried away, and they’re brainwashed before they get to us about this syndrome, born

[00:35:37.880 – 00:35:38.800] an alcoholic.

[00:35:38.800 – 00:35:39.760] A.A.

[00:35:39.760 – 00:35:46.599] interested, and if you’re born an alcoholic, if you want, let’s get the idiot out of the ditch and go about living.

[00:35:46.599 – 00:35:50.279] We get so carried away when we cross the invisible line.

[00:35:50.279 – 00:35:54.079] How the can you know when you crossed an invisible line when it’s invisible?

[00:35:54.079 – 00:35:59.979] And they get on all these syndromes and all these other things.

[00:35:59.979 – 00:36:00.880] No, no.

[00:36:00.880 – 00:36:01.239] A.A.

[00:36:01.239 – 00:36:02.059] ain’t interested in that.

[00:36:02.059 – 00:36:03.769] That’s the reason why definit- A.A.

[00:36:03.769 – 00:36:05.678] doesn’t have a definition of alcoholism.

[00:36:05.678 – 00:36:15.919] It has descriptions of an alcoholic, and allows us the freedom to come in and begin to live under what is one of God’s great gifts

[00:36:15.919 – 00:36:18.599] and of this most precious program that we have.

[00:36:18.599 – 00:36:23.399] You see, every one of us are born human individuals first, human beings.

[00:36:23.399 – 00:36:33.439] And when we’re born human beings and given the most precious gift that a human being will ever have, being allowed to be- begin to breathe in and out.

[00:36:33.439 – 00:36:38.679] Right there and then is the creation, formation, and development of selfishness and self-centeredness.

[00:36:38.679 – 00:36:43.663] And from this selfishness and self-centeredness stems all of our defects of character.

[00:36:43.663 – 00:36:50.224] Those defects that we refuse to recognize that made our lives unmanageable.

[00:36:50.224 – 00:36:59.823] Resentment, selfishness, dishonesty and fear, and not wanting to tell another human being how darn phony we are or what’s really churning on with inside of us.

[00:36:59.823 – 00:37:06.083] Because you see, Alcoholics Anonymous does something that formalized, organized religion will never have the success AA has.

[00:37:06.083 – 00:37:09.043] Medicine has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:09.043 – 00:37:12.104] Psychiatry has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:12.104 – 00:37:15.264] Government agencies has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:15.264 – 00:37:18.604] Social services has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:18.604 – 00:37:21.943] Human willpower has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:21.943 – 00:37:25.213] Treatment modalities has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:25.213 – 00:37:28.684] Correctional facilities has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:28.684 – 00:37:31.803] Horoscopes has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:31.803 – 00:37:35.443] Biorhythm charts has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:35.443 – 00:37:38.943] Acupuncture has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:38.943 – 00:37:41.883] Hypnosis has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:37:41.883 – 00:37:43.663] Witch doctors has not, is not.

[00:37:43.663 – 00:37:48.523] Alcoholics Anonymous reaches down in innermost depths of a human being.

[00:37:48.523 – 00:37:56.604] This fine, precious thing that only God gives a human deep within us when we’re born.

[00:37:56.604 – 00:38:06.764] And after we come and get physically comfortable with the agent that forced us to come to Alcoholics Anonymous, that fine, precious thing that says, that fine,

[00:38:06.764 – 00:38:14.503] still, quiet voice, “Thank you, little alcoholic, for not drinking alcohol today.

[00:38:14.503 – 00:38:20.423] Thank you, little alcoholic, for finding a way to have a reasonably good night’s sleep.

[00:38:20.423 – 00:38:30.483] But more important, thank you, little alcoholic, for finding a group of people who love you no matter what you have done, what you are doing, or what you ever will do.” And that

[00:38:30.483 – 00:38:33.043] is where the power of our society lies.

[00:38:33.043 – 00:38:36.233] One drunk talking to another.

[00:38:36.233 – 00:38:39.523] That’s what’s made Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:38:39.523 – 00:38:50.023] That’s the reason that every self-help group in this God’s world, and there are over a hundred and fifty some, that they want what we have, but they haven’t gone through the frustrations

[00:38:50.023 – 00:38:59.803] of hewing to the line, of keeping Alcoholics Anonymous directed and zeroed into one thing, the singleness of purpose.

[00:38:59.803 – 00:39:02.742] That’s what’s made Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:39:02.742 – 00:39:12.144] Because, and, and God will allow us to have it as long as we remain singleness of purpose, and until after that, I don’t know what God will do.

[00:39:12.144 – 00:39:22.144] In every AA group, with no exception, the ones that are in constant turmoil, the ones that are always scratching for money, the always whether this

[00:39:22.144 – 00:39:26.784] or that, have all hewed away from the singleness of purpose.

[00:39:26.784 – 00:39:37.303] When that drunk comes through the door that’s looking to live once again under the canopy

[00:39:37.303 – 00:39:47.403] of God’s love and grace, and we’re derelict when we get involved in everything except the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous when that alcoholic

[00:39:47.403 – 00:39:57.684] comes, and sharing one-on-one, and giving opinions, and letting them read books that, God almighty, I read those books before I got here, and I’ll tell you right now, I, I darn

[00:39:57.684 – 00:39:58.883] near went crazy.

[00:39:58.883 – 00:40:06.163] And, but when I’m reading a book of Alcoholics, the only book I ever read for serious is that book, Matthew twelve-twelve.

[00:40:06.163 – 00:40:12.983] The second book that I read for serious is the most second precious book I have, and that’s AA Comes of Age.

[00:40:12.983 – 00:40:23.083] Because there is where I found where the alcoholics and the frustrations and everything they did to come right back to the, well, the reason that our traditions are all about, that each

[00:40:23.083 – 00:40:31.363] group has the one primary purpose to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers, and it’s its message, an AA message, or is it some other message?

[00:40:31.363 – 00:40:38.193] And every, all we, we’re derelict if we don’t look at ourselves when an alcoholic comes and leaves AA and goes back to drinking.

[00:40:38.193 – 00:40:41.843] It’s so easy to say, “Well, they’d rather be drunk than sober.

[00:40:41.843 – 00:40:51.923] They’re not ready yet.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in AA groups over half of this world, and I’ve never been in an AA group where they got an instrument where they stick in,

[00:40:51.923 – 00:40:54.523] up, down, into an alcoholic to see if they’re ready or not.

[00:40:54.523 – 00:40:56.503] Or see if they’re gonna get ready.

[00:40:56.503 – 00:40:56.923] No.

[00:40:56.923 – 00:40:57.423] Uh-uh.

[00:40:57.423 – 00:40:57.983] No.

[00:40:57.983 – 00:40:58.503] No.

[00:40:58.503 – 00:41:00.583] But what do we do this for?

[00:41:00.583 – 00:41:02.023] It’s for our sobriety.

[00:41:02.023 – 00:41:12.023] If we are to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, then we have to live the message, no matter what our limited experiences are, and that’s all we

[00:41:12.023 – 00:41:12.284] can share.

[00:41:12.284 – 00:41:14.963] And I had many, many years ago before I realized this.

[00:41:14.963 – 00:41:15.823] I certainly did.

[00:41:15.823 – 00:41:17.443] I certainly did.

[00:41:17.443 – 00:41:20.803] And I went in that meeting, and I sat on the back row.

[00:41:20.803 – 00:41:28.423] And the first one got up, and God almighty, she was a, a woman and as lying and cheatingest woman I’d ever been around in my life.

[00:41:28.423 – 00:41:29.644] And there she was.

[00:41:29.644 – 00:41:31.523] She was saying, sober in her right mind.

[00:41:31.523 – 00:41:33.923] And she said she hadn’t had a drink of alcohol in a year.

[00:41:33.923 – 00:41:36.203] And I jumped up and I hollered out, “You’re a liar,” you know?

[00:41:36.203 – 00:41:37.104] Yeah.

[00:41:37.104 – 00:41:41.144] “You’re a liar.” And, you know, I went drunk after you.

[00:41:41.144 – 00:41:43.564] You know, when you told me to shut up, make me.

[00:41:43.564 – 00:41:45.264] They had enough in there to make me.

[00:41:45.264 – 00:41:49.303] She got to talking about her Jesus.

[00:41:49.303 – 00:41:53.264] And she got to talking about everything in this God’s world.

[00:41:53.264 – 00:41:57.003] And my mind closed, and I said, “This is a revival meeting?

[00:41:57.003 – 00:41:59.064] They’ve got me here to convert me?

[00:41:59.064 – 00:42:04.043] And if this is what you were, I needed a drink real bad.” You know?

[00:42:04.043 – 00:42:14.104] And I said, and, and I made it every time I stood up to walk to my car, to go to my car to get what’s left in that half fifth, it looked like eighty people stood up, turned around, looked at me,

[00:42:14.104 – 00:42:15.003] and pointed fingers.

[00:42:15.003 – 00:42:24.823] Said, “Shut up and sit here, and this is for you.” And I hated every member of Alcoholics Anonymous that was in that meeting, and the horse and wagons that brought them cross-country.

[00:42:24.823 – 00:42:34.903] And as soon as that meeting was over with, and I, and, and I had to get sober, incidentally, later on to find out, no, it wasn’t what

[00:42:34.903 – 00:42:38.104] that woman talked about, her Christ and everything else in that meeting.

[00:42:38.104 – 00:42:41.443] And they talked about the God’s grace, and they talked the Lord’s Prayer.

[00:42:41.443 – 00:42:41.784] Uh-uh.

[00:42:41.784 – 00:42:44.703] Remember I told you I got up at five-thirty in the morning?

[00:42:44.703 – 00:42:46.631] Started drinking.

[00:42:46.631 – 00:42:52.191] Remember I told you that when I put that fifth in the trunk of the car, I knew I was going to have to have me a drink?

[00:42:52.191 – 00:42:55.651] I didn’t find out the reason until I come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:42:55.651 – 00:43:05.731] And I found it in the doctor’s opinion, that once we succumb to the desire again, it sets up this phenomenon

[00:43:05.731 – 00:43:07.431] of craving for alcohol.

[00:43:07.431 – 00:43:10.631] My God, how my body craved alcohol.

[00:43:10.631 – 00:43:12.311] And that’s what it was.

[00:43:12.311 – 00:43:14.851] My body was craving that, that alcohol.

[00:43:14.851 – 00:43:24.872] And, and as soon as that meeting was over with, that birthday party, I ran through those eighty people like a tornado, right out to the trunk of my car, opened up that, got that

[00:43:24.872 – 00:43:25.452] half fifth.

[00:43:25.452 – 00:43:31.412] Now, I don’t know about anybody in here, in AA, I’d drink that half fifth down in two swallows, and that’s the way I drank alcohol.

[00:43:31.412 – 00:43:38.111] Never put it in a brandy glass, run around, sniff it for five hours, burn candles and incense, and listen to Lawrence Welk.

[00:43:38.111 – 00:43:42.591] I dropped it down that hole where it’d do the most good.

[00:43:42.591 – 00:43:44.511] And let me tell you what happened to me.

[00:43:44.511 – 00:43:46.731] It got down there and my hair laid back down.

[00:43:46.731 – 00:43:49.711] My toes went back in those alligator shoes.

[00:43:49.711 – 00:43:51.631] I ran up the steps, got a…

[00:43:51.631 – 00:43:59.651] Got to arguing with the, about the quality of y’all’s fellowship, and he said something to me, and I hit him.

[00:43:59.651 – 00:44:01.891] And when I was drinking, I was bad to hit folks.

[00:44:01.891 – 00:44:03.591] I was too scared when I wasn’t drinking.

[00:44:03.591 – 00:44:08.431] I was bad to hit folks, didn’t make bigger than me, shorter than me, fatter than me, skinnier than me.

[00:44:08.431 – 00:44:10.311] And two of his AA babies joined in.

[00:44:10.311 – 00:44:11.511] We started a fight.

[00:44:11.511 – 00:44:15.931] And as far as I was concerned, that fight was a lot better than that AA meeting.

[00:44:15.931 – 00:44:21.912] And I just whipping the Dickens out them two little wimps.

[00:44:21.912 – 00:44:24.191] And then they did an unfair thing.

[00:44:24.191 – 00:44:31.872] They ran in two more sober members of the group about the size of outside linebackers on any pro- any professional football team.

[00:44:31.872 – 00:44:40.311] And finally, four of them picked me bodily up, two on each side, took me to the door, kicked the door open, threw me right out of that AA group.

[00:44:40.311 – 00:44:50.471] As I’m flying through the air, one of them said, “We do not need your kind here.” And another one said, “And furthermore, you are too young to be an alcoholic.” And

[00:44:50.471 – 00:44:52.572] God, was I glad to hear that.

[00:44:52.572 – 00:45:02.591] And I stood on that grass that Sunday evening, drunk with my fists clenched, screaming and hollering and cursing to anybody that would listen to me,

[00:45:02.591 – 00:45:09.111] I would never come back to this Christ soul-saving organization as long as I lived.

[00:45:09.111 – 00:45:18.471] But the next seventeen years, everything that could possibly happen to a human being happened to this human being.

[00:45:18.471 – 00:45:25.251] And the only three things never did happen to me, getting ready to get on a drunk, on a drunk, coming off a drunk, right to this very second.

[00:45:25.251 – 00:45:31.771] I never did willfully murder another human being, fall in love with another man, or die drunk.

[00:45:31.771 – 00:45:33.492] Other than that, it all happened.

[00:45:33.492 – 00:45:42.471] Of course, I guess blackouts don’t count, you know?

[00:45:42.471 – 00:45:48.211] We don’t want anybody leaving an AA meeting with resentment, you know?

[00:45:48.211 – 00:45:55.591] I married this wonderful gal, and when we got married, uh, she didn’t realize she was marrying a practicing alcoholic.

[00:45:55.591 – 00:45:57.242] I didn’t know I was a practicing alcoholic.

[00:45:57.242 – 00:45:58.971] And when we got mar- and we got…

[00:45:58.971 – 00:46:03.711] We didn’t start to build a marriage, started to build a booby trap, one that could go off any week, month, year.

[00:46:03.711 – 00:46:11.831] I was recalled back into service as a naval dental officer and went with a combat marine division, and I got into more trouble than there was trouble.

[00:46:11.831 – 00:46:12.751] Oh, my God.

[00:46:12.751 – 00:46:15.431] And I ended up in a maximum security prison.

[00:46:15.431 – 00:46:16.931] They had a code name on it.

[00:46:16.931 – 00:46:18.811] It only had room for a hundred and thirty-eight.

[00:46:18.811 – 00:46:22.051] And when the word was when you got there, you never would leave.

[00:46:22.051 – 00:46:26.831] And I saw how some of them left with sheets from the top of their head down to their toes.

[00:46:26.831 – 00:46:29.131] And I was chained like an animal.

[00:46:29.131 – 00:46:36.532] Chained like an animal under the most horrible of living conditions.

[00:46:36.532 – 00:46:39.412] This is before the military code was changed.

[00:46:39.412 – 00:46:43.452] This is before the Supreme Court got involved with locked up folks.

[00:46:43.452 – 00:46:44.532] Yeah.

[00:46:44.532 – 00:46:46.731] And no one knew where I was.

[00:46:46.731 – 00:46:48.171] No one.

[00:46:48.171 – 00:46:51.872] That’s the period of grace when you hear talk, talks about total desertion.

[00:46:51.872 – 00:46:54.811] We managed to get out of there.

[00:46:54.811 – 00:46:58.631] There were fourteen of us.

[00:46:58.631 – 00:47:01.631] Twelve of us are in AA today.

[00:47:01.631 – 00:47:03.791] Two are out there drinking.

[00:47:03.791 – 00:47:14.072] We don’t talk too much about it, only among ourselves, because if they’re drinking and they should ever hear, we

[00:47:14.072 – 00:47:15.211] don’t want to run anyone off.

[00:47:15.211 – 00:47:19.511] There’s a tremendous line in the last line of the ninth step.

[00:47:19.511 – 00:47:29.511] One of the most powerful lines and principles in our recovery program, except when to do so would injure them

[00:47:29.511 – 00:47:30.111] or others.

[00:47:30.111 – 00:47:34.111] In AA, we don’t stay sober at the expense of another human being.

[00:47:34.111 – 00:47:39.331] We don’t justify, rationalize.

[00:47:39.331 – 00:47:44.171] We just admit the truth about our own selves.

[00:47:44.171 – 00:47:46.171] A powerful line.

[00:47:46.171 – 00:47:47.831] Powerful line.

[00:47:47.831 – 00:47:53.151] I got out of that, talked Grayson into taking me back.

[00:47:53.151 – 00:48:01.851] Came back full of shame and guilt, branded as an undesirable, incorrigible.

[00:48:01.851 – 00:48:07.311] No human being likes to be called that deep down inside.

[00:48:07.311 – 00:48:17.331] Being with the toughest and the meanest people in the world and locked up and screaming all night long and calling for their mother.

[00:48:17.331 – 00:48:20.591] Yeah.

[00:48:20.591 – 00:48:23.912] The human being within each and every one of us.

[00:48:23.912 – 00:48:25.751] Human being.

[00:48:25.751 – 00:48:30.872] And I needed that alcohol to anesthetize, to drown all that stuff.

[00:48:30.872 – 00:48:37.872] You see, when I was drinking, I tried to drown my defects of character, but the son of a gun’s learned how to swim.

[00:48:37.872 – 00:48:40.851] And they darn near killed me.

[00:48:40.851 – 00:48:42.572] They darn near killed me.

[00:48:42.572 – 00:48:50.191] I talked Grayson back, and so we decided to take our little boys out to Panhandle West Texas to raise them in a Christian environment.

[00:48:50.191 – 00:48:52.532] And I don’t know how many of y’all ever lived in the town of

[00:48:52.715 – 00:48:55.615] Thirty-four hundred folks in a Christian environment.

[00:48:55.615 – 00:49:00.135] That’s where they drink wet and vote dry, you know, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:49:00.135 – 00:49:04.665] And the most pop– two most popular people in the town is the undertaker and the bootlegger.

[00:49:04.665 – 00:49:14.795] And I was drinking to where I got up, and I weighed about two hundred and forty-five pounds, and my blood pressure was so high that every time my pulse would beat, my hair would stand up and pump like

[00:49:14.795 – 00:49:15.395] a officer.

[00:49:15.395 – 00:49:19.325] Had a fat doctor friend lived ne-next town, and I went to see him.

[00:49:19.325 – 00:49:29.325] He said, “My God, you look sick.” And he put the cuff around my arm, ran up the blood pressure, and he said, “My God, David, it’s a miracle you’re alive, your blood pressure so high.” And he said, “The reason it’s so high

[00:49:29.325 – 00:49:30.415] is because you’re so fat.

[00:49:30.415 – 00:49:34.055] And the reason that you’re so fat is because you eat so much.” That was not true.

[00:49:34.055 – 00:49:34.975] I was bloated.

[00:49:34.975 – 00:49:45.055] And he said, “You do not have any guts or willpower, and I’m gonna have to give you some help.” And he wrote me a prescription for sixty of the most beautiful capsules I’ve ever seen in my life,

[00:49:45.055 – 00:49:45.995] called Amydons.

[00:49:45.995 – 00:49:54.335] He says, “Take them as directed.” Now, that is one word, as directed, a practicing alcoholic will never hear.

[00:49:54.335 – 00:50:04.395] I said, “Doctor, is it all right if I drink a couple of beers while I take these things?” He says, “I do not believe it will hurt you.” He never should have told

[00:50:04.395 – 00:50:04.975] me that.

[00:50:04.975 – 00:50:09.795] I went home, got the prescription filled, went home, you know, to lose weight and stay drunk.

[00:50:09.795 – 00:50:16.235] Well, it said on the print, “Take one three times a day after meals.” Well, who eats when you drink?

[00:50:16.235 – 00:50:22.225] And every good, self-respecting drink and drunk knows if one’s good, two’s better, three’s terrific.

[00:50:22.225 – 00:50:26.335] So I just took three of them, drank some whiskey, didn’t feel like I was losing any weight.

[00:50:26.335 – 00:50:30.535] Come back out and took three more of them, drank some more whiskey.

[00:50:30.535 – 00:50:34.495] Went to the bathroom, looked sideways in the mirror, didn’t look like I was losing any weight.

[00:50:34.495 – 00:50:37.885] Come back out and took a handful of them, drank some more whiskey.

[00:50:37.885 – 00:50:39.455] Looked like my stomach’s getting bigger.

[00:50:39.455 – 00:50:46.675] You know, our co-founder, Bill, wrote some, uh, very powerful lines, and one of them was, you know, “When we’re drinking, it’s time out of mind.

[00:50:46.675 – 00:50:56.135] Time passes so slow.” In Geneva, the only sad thing I found about Alcoholics Anonymous is time passes so fast sober.

[00:50:56.135 – 00:50:57.115] Where does it go?

[00:50:57.115 – 00:51:00.535] And finally, I took all the pills and drank all the whiskey.

[00:51:00.535 – 00:51:04.215] There’s a good friend of mine, he’s passed on now, old Jack T.

[00:51:04.215 – 00:51:05.155] out in California.

[00:51:05.155 – 00:51:09.215] I like to quote him when I say this, and, and of course, I quote it so much it’s mine, really.

[00:51:09.215 – 00:51:18.215] And, and, and, and next thing I knew, I was out in my backyard, and I was picking peaches off of rose bushes, I don’t mind telling you.

[00:51:18.215 – 00:51:28.435] And being one of, one of the two Jewish families in five counties around, they gathered everybody in to see and hear the miracle.

[00:51:28.435 – 00:51:33.134] They say I ran around that town for two days talking in unknown tongue.

[00:51:33.134 – 00:51:36.635] And they gathered everybody to see the miracle.

[00:51:36.635 – 00:51:38.395] The Jew had caught the Holy Ghost.

[00:51:38.395 – 00:51:48.415] And I, when I come to and realized what happened, I said, “My God, those pills are messing up my drinking.” I’d been to psychiatrists, and all the questions

[00:51:48.415 – 00:51:51.785] he asked me, Grace used to ask me n- for nothing, and everybody else.

[00:51:51.785 – 00:51:54.235] Had to leave that town in disgrace.

[00:51:54.235 – 00:51:57.475] Come back to Dallas with a wonderful opportunity.

[00:51:57.475 – 00:51:59.635] Wonderful opportunity.

[00:51:59.635 – 00:52:07.415] But it wasn’t long before I was on that last skid row, emptying wine bottles and sleeping in fifty-five cent a night hotel rooms, you know.

[00:52:07.415 – 00:52:12.075] I went home once the last eleven months I drank.

[00:52:12.075 – 00:52:17.815] I walked in, and Grace looked at me.

[00:52:17.815 – 00:52:24.275] She said, “Do you have to drink and do the things that you do?” I said, “Grace, why don’t you find another man that’ll marry you?

[00:52:24.275 – 00:52:30.655] You’re such a fine lady, that not only he’ll be a good husband to you, but a good father to those fine little boys.

[00:52:30.655 – 00:52:34.415] I cannot function as a son.

[00:52:34.415 – 00:52:39.475] I cannot function as a husband or a father, professional man, or human being.

[00:52:39.475 – 00:52:41.895] I’m gonna die drunk.

[00:52:41.895 – 00:52:45.155] I can’t stay sober.

[00:52:45.155 – 00:52:54.235] I can’t stay sober.” And I walked out and got my bottle and went out, proceeded to kill myself.

[00:52:54.235 – 00:53:02.775] And now I brought you up to where everything flashed back in my life, and here I am in this jail once again.

[00:53:02.775 – 00:53:09.465] And I’ve been in lots of jails, and being in jail is not a requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:53:09.465 – 00:53:14.735] By this time, I run out of everything and everybody.

[00:53:14.735 – 00:53:21.675] And I got down to me, and me couldn’t stay sober, and me couldn’t stay drunk, and me couldn’t kill myself, and me couldn’t stay alive.

[00:53:21.675 – 00:53:27.255] And me didn’t want me as me was, but me was going with me every place me went.

[00:53:27.255 – 00:53:35.855] And I found out something on that jail floor, that until God calls you home, you’re not going anywhere.

[00:53:35.855 – 00:53:38.695] Yeah, because that’s it.

[00:53:38.695 – 00:53:42.135] I didn’t scream.

[00:53:42.135 – 00:53:43.895] I didn’t holler.

[00:53:43.895 – 00:53:46.035] I wasn’t crying.

[00:53:46.035 – 00:53:48.195] I wasn’t begging.

[00:53:48.195 – 00:53:57.955] I just simply said the only thing that a human being can say when a human being gets down only to the human being.

[00:53:57.955 – 00:54:01.535] I didn’t even put a condition on it.

[00:54:01.535 – 00:54:11.535] I just simply said, “God, help me.” And I know right this very second there was not only a God for me then, there is right this second because

[00:54:11.535 – 00:54:14.995] I’m still here, and I have not had a drink of alcohol.

[00:54:14.995 – 00:54:21.255] The minute I got me out of me and didn’t say, “God, get me out of this jam.

[00:54:21.255 – 00:54:28.695] I’ll never do it again,” I just simply said, “Help.” Deep down inside, I don’t know.

[00:54:28.695 – 00:54:31.455] I wasn’t hallucinating.

[00:54:31.455 – 00:54:41.855] Deep down inside, something kept saying, “Alcoholics Anonymous, continuous sobriety, continuous sobriety, continuous sobriety.” And

[00:54:41.855 – 00:54:51.555] I said, “If I ever get out of this jail, I have to find those people in Alcoholics Anonymous.” How I got by that old sheriff, I don’t know.

[00:54:51.555 – 00:54:52.665] That’s a story in itself.

[00:54:52.665 – 00:54:57.171] And I started looking for the members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:54:57.171 – 00:55:06.871] I found out that Edith, the gal who asked me to come to her first year birthday, she had passed away, but she was continuously sober when she passed away.

[00:55:06.871 – 00:55:10.291] Her sponsor, Moena, had moved to West Texas.

[00:55:10.291 – 00:55:17.271] And after I was sober nine months, Moena moved back to Dallas and was secretary of our group and then went back to manicuring.

[00:55:17.271 – 00:55:21.871] And I used to see her every Wednesday morning at eight o’clock as my manicurist.

[00:55:21.871 – 00:55:25.371] And in March of 1986, Moena passed away.

[00:55:25.371 – 00:55:32.091] And if she would have lived two more months, she would have been 37 continuous years sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:55:32.091 – 00:55:34.031] There was a man at that meeting.

[00:55:34.031 – 00:55:34.831] He was sober.

[00:55:34.831 – 00:55:36.751] He was sober eight years.

[00:55:36.751 – 00:55:38.351] He went back to drinking.

[00:55:38.351 – 00:55:39.551] He drank eight years.

[00:55:39.551 – 00:55:45.051] And May a year ago, he celebrated his 28th continuous sobriety.

[00:55:45.051 – 00:55:50.851] And he passed away this first week in December of last year.

[00:55:50.851 – 00:55:52.831] The only one I knew.

[00:55:52.831 – 00:55:55.951] I called him up.

[00:55:55.951 – 00:56:01.091] And I said, W.O., are you still interested in Alcoholics Anonymous?

[00:56:01.091 – 00:56:03.231] He said to me, who is it for?

[00:56:03.231 – 00:56:05.131] I said, it is for me.

[00:56:05.131 – 00:56:07.691] He said, well, we have a meeting tomorrow night.

[00:56:07.691 – 00:56:09.391] Let’s just go and get it over with.

[00:56:09.391 – 00:56:11.551] And don’t you take a drink of alcohol today.

[00:56:11.551 – 00:56:14.171] And call me in the morning at 7.30.

[00:56:14.171 – 00:56:14.871] Boom.

[00:56:14.871 – 00:56:15.431] And he hung up.

[00:56:15.431 – 00:56:16.251] That’s all he told me.

[00:56:16.251 – 00:56:24.651] And after 37 and a half years of giving it the best shot that a human being could, it was cold turkey.

[00:56:24.651 – 00:56:27.691] Well, it’s more like frozen buzzard out of my tongue.

[00:56:27.691 – 00:56:30.691] I started walking and shaking out and drunk.

[00:56:30.691 – 00:56:39.211] And when I come to the next morning, I did was pray of alcohol and I didn’t have a belly full of tranquilizers nor a prescription for 500 more.

[00:56:39.211 – 00:56:41.411] And for that, I’m so thankful.

[00:56:41.411 – 00:56:45.111] And at 7.30, I called him up and he says, are you drinking alcohol?

[00:56:45.111 – 00:56:46.271] I says, no, sir.

[00:56:46.271 – 00:56:51.711] He said, don’t you take a drink of alcohol today and call me at 3.30 this afternoon.

[00:56:51.711 – 00:56:52.071] Boom.

[00:56:52.071 – 00:56:52.771] And he hung up.

[00:56:52.771 – 00:56:53.851] That’s all he told me.

[00:56:53.851 – 00:56:56.331] And I started walking and that shaking.

[00:56:56.331 – 00:56:57.991] And at 3.30, I called him up.

[00:56:57.991 – 00:56:59.971] He said, are you drinking alcohol?

[00:56:59.971 – 00:57:00.711] I says, no, sir.

[00:57:00.711 – 00:57:03.411] He said, do you really want to come to an AA meeting?

[00:57:03.411 – 00:57:07.431] And I said, more than anything else in this God’s world.

[00:57:07.431 – 00:57:11.251] He said, are you willing for me to, you want me to come get you?

[00:57:11.251 – 00:57:12.551] That’s the first time.

[00:57:12.551 – 00:57:16.611] And being about as humble as Hitler, I said, I’ll get there under my own steam.

[00:57:16.611 – 00:57:18.371] And he told me where to go.

[00:57:18.371 – 00:57:20.931] And he hung up.

[00:57:20.931 – 00:57:24.511] Well, that’s, I was in a terrible predicament.

[00:57:24.511 – 00:57:28.971] The only clothes and possessions that I owned, I had on.

[00:57:28.971 – 00:57:39.011] An old pair of thermal underwear, an old pair of flannel pants, an old gray sweater with the elbows out of the elbows, no socks, but I still

[00:57:39.011 – 00:57:40.231] hadn’t quite lost everything.

[00:57:40.231 – 00:57:41.531] I had my alligator shoes.

[00:57:41.531 – 00:57:50.211] And I had 30 cents and that was all left that I sold the last blood bank by the horse trough down there in Dallas and 30 cents.

[00:57:50.211 – 00:57:51.571] And that’s all to buy wine.

[00:57:51.571 – 00:57:55.831] And when one comes to AA in that shape, one is not doing well, I’ll tell you.

[00:57:55.831 – 00:57:58.771] And I looked in an old dirty mirror and I looked at me.

[00:57:58.771 – 00:58:01.791] I can’t go to Alcoholics Anonymous looking like this.

[00:58:01.791 – 00:58:03.571] I’m a professional man.

[00:58:03.571 – 00:58:09.071] And I heard Grace had thrown out all my clothes, but I took a chance to call her up.

[00:58:09.071 – 00:58:11.281] I said, Grace.

[00:58:11.281 – 00:58:12.071] She said, who is it?

[00:58:12.071 – 00:58:12.671] I said, me.

[00:58:12.671 – 00:58:13.891] She said, what does me want?

[00:58:13.891 – 00:58:16.871] I said, Grace, do you happen to have one of my old suits?

[00:58:16.871 – 00:58:19.691] She says, yes, I have one and it’s to bury it.

[00:58:19.691 – 00:58:22.911] That’s what she even come down on.

[00:58:22.911 – 00:58:31.060] Then I asked her the most foolish question I’ve ever asked in my life besides married her.

[00:58:31.060 – 00:58:33.631] I said, do you mind if I borrow it for a little while?

[00:58:33.631 – 00:58:35.661] I’m going to AA.

[00:58:35.661 – 00:58:38.431] She said, another one of your lies and hung up.

[00:58:38.431 – 00:58:40.011] And the suit’s the story itself.

[00:58:40.011 – 00:58:44.481] Now, there wasn’t instant joy when I come in there to get that suit to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:58:44.481 – 00:58:47.371] Oh, God, everything’s going to be beautiful and level.

[00:58:47.371 – 00:58:48.311] Uh-uh.

[00:58:48.311 – 00:58:49.491] No, sirree.

[00:58:49.491 – 00:58:53.831] I walked in there and everything I touched, I looked at, I breathed on, inhaled.

[00:58:53.831 – 00:58:56.030] She ran behind me and sprayed.

[00:58:56.030 – 00:58:59.831] And I got in that old suit.

[00:58:59.831 – 00:59:01.031] That’s the story itself.

[00:59:01.031 – 00:59:14.870] Climbed into a Mustang that the bank was looking to repossess it but couldn’t recognize it looked like an accordion that she and the young’un could buy and off I went to the meeting.

[00:59:14.870 – 00:59:18.611] And I walked in and it looked like the same people that were there 17 years earlier.

[00:59:18.611 – 00:59:22.331] One of those older members came up to me.

[00:59:22.331 – 00:59:24.091] He’s long since gone.

[00:59:24.091 – 00:59:25.031] Old Emmett.

[00:59:25.031 – 00:59:30.111] He bent over and looked at me and he grinned from ear to ear and he said, we knew you’d be back.

[00:59:30.111 – 00:59:36.151] Now, I’m going to tell you about the greatest AA talk I’ve ever heard in my life.

[00:59:36.151 – 00:59:41.631] In AA, we don’t have a bunch of speakers.

[00:59:41.631 – 00:59:43.691] Nah, we’re just a bunch of talkers.

[00:59:43.691 – 00:59:47.671] Ours is the language of the heart and thank God it’s not the language of the gutter.

[00:59:47.671 – 00:59:51.711] This man then said to me, he stuck his hand out.

[00:59:51.711 – 00:59:55.551] His was dry, mine was wet and I had to slip it away and I had to grab it again.

[00:59:55.551 – 00:59:57.011] He said, welcome.

[00:59:57.011 – 01:00:00.071] Come in and sit down and have a cup of coffee and let’s talk about it.

[01:00:00.071 – 01:00:03.911] We understand exactly how you feel.

[01:00:03.911 – 01:00:08.231] How you feel.

[01:00:08.231 – 01:00:16.271] It’s the first time in the last 17 years of my drinking anyone really shook my hand with sincerity.

[01:00:16.271 – 01:00:22.101] First time in the last 17 years of my drinking anyone welcomed me in with sincerity.

[01:00:22.101 – 01:00:29.811] First time in the last 17 years of my drinking anyone asked me to sit down and share a cup of coffee with them with sincerity.

[01:00:29.811 – 01:00:31.951] Wine, all that other stuff.

[01:00:31.951 – 01:00:40.851] And it certainly was the first time in the last 17 years of my drinking that anyone said to me, we understand exactly how you feel.

[01:00:40.851 – 01:00:48.211] And when the meeting started, the first time in the last 17 years of my drinking, they invited me to come in and sit.

[01:00:48.211 – 01:00:58.551] And I’m still shaking and jumping and the drunks are on either side of me and they got their hands on my knees and my shoulders and elbows and they’re saying, first things first, easy

[01:00:58.551 – 01:01:00.131] does it, this too will pass.

[01:01:00.131 – 01:01:10.191] And then when the meeting was over with and they passed the basket, it’s the first time that money in a long time had been

[01:01:10.191 – 01:01:12.931] passed in front of me that I didn’t reach in and take some.

[01:01:12.931 – 01:01:23.151] And then when that was over with, it was the first time in the last seventeen years of my meeting, uh, of, of my drinking,

[01:01:23.151 – 01:01:24.831] when they said the Lord’s Prayer.

[01:01:24.831 – 01:01:29.651] Now, when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, we did not hold hands.

[01:01:29.651 – 01:01:33.211] Everyone had that pri- precious moment.

[01:01:33.211 – 01:01:36.811] We fail to forget it’s God as they understand Him.

[01:01:36.811 – 01:01:40.191] You know, we have atheists that are sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[01:01:40.191 – 01:01:41.671] That’s God as they understand Him.

[01:01:41.671 – 01:01:44.371] We have agnostics that are sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[01:01:44.371 – 01:01:46.371] That’s God as they understand Him.

[01:01:46.371 – 01:01:49.691] They have tr- we have true believers that are sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[01:01:49.691 – 01:01:51.111] That’s God as they understand Him.

[01:01:51.111 – 01:01:54.351] And if you don’t understand God, that’s how you understand Him.

[01:01:54.351 – 01:01:56.051] Now, wiggle out of that one.

[01:01:56.051 – 01:01:58.531] Yeah.

[01:01:58.531 – 01:02:07.891] And I did not know the Lord’s Prayer, and no one called me an agnostic or an atheist or an idiot or a dummy.

[01:02:07.891 – 01:02:17.931] And when that meeting was over with, people, human beings, walked up to me, and they hugged me, and they kissed me, and they

[01:02:17.931 – 01:02:24.511] told me they loved me for what I was, what I had been doing and what I had become and what I was right there and then.

[01:02:24.511 – 01:02:32.831] And then when I got ready to leave, those fine people said, “David, please come back.

[01:02:32.831 – 01:02:39.991] We need you, and you need us.” Folks, that is Alcoholics Anonymous.

[01:02:39.991 – 01:02:42.691] Nothing more, nothing less.

[01:02:42.691 – 01:02:52.211] Just God’s love and grace working through the sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous through this miraculous program and fellowship.

[01:02:52.211 – 01:03:02.631] Hugging and loving a stinking, dirty drunk that

[01:03:02.631 – 01:03:05.111] it wasn’t a few hours he wanted to kill himself.

[01:03:05.111 – 01:03:07.511] Couldn’t face life.

[01:03:07.511 – 01:03:12.131] And here’s where the hope and the spark.

[01:03:12.131 – 01:03:18.791] And I’d like to tell you just a little bit what’s happened.

[01:03:18.791 – 01:03:28.811] When I got to you people, little did I realize that Grace and our two sons would ever be under one roof again because that marriage

[01:03:28.811 – 01:03:32.071] had been written off by everything and everybody and had no right to be.

[01:03:32.071 – 01:03:42.171] But only because of God’s grace through the miracle of my life and only because of God’s grace through the miracle of Alcoholics Ano- A- Al-Anon, rather, and Grace’s life, that beautiful and wonderful lady,

[01:03:42.171 – 01:03:50.760] this past June the tenth, which is also AA’s birthday, Grace and I celebrated fifty-one years, and that’s pretty good for a drunk.

[01:03:50.760 – 01:04:00.771] Now, I’m not gonna stand up here and tell you ’cause I’m in AA and Grace is in Al-Anon that our

[01:04:00.771 – 01:04:09.691] marriage is just absolutely beautiful and just absolutely perfect and that the butterflies are tranquil and the bluebirds are hugging and kissing.

[01:04:09.691 – 01:04:10.611] Heck no.

[01:04:10.611 – 01:04:13.331] We have a few short rounds every now and then.

[01:04:13.331 – 01:04:16.031] We have a few long rounds every now and then.

[01:04:16.031 – 01:04:18.671] That’s what you call clearing the air, communicating.

[01:04:18.671 – 01:04:22.671] And I go to five, six, sometimes seven AA meetings a week.

[01:04:22.671 – 01:04:24.731] She goes four, five Al-Anon meetings a week.

[01:04:24.731 – 01:04:29.171] We don’t see each other enough to have all that nitpicking, arguing, fighting and fussing.

[01:04:29.171 – 01:04:32.631] No, AA did not save my marriage.

[01:04:32.631 – 01:04:41.311] AA has given me principles to live in a marriage or without a marriage.

[01:04:41.311 – 01:04:51.630] It’s given me the principles to be the kind of son that I’ve always wanted to be, the kind of husband that I’ve wanted to be,

[01:04:51.631 – 01:04:58.971] the kind of father that I’ve wanted to be, and the kind of a professional man that I’ve always wanted to be.

[01:04:58.971 – 01:05:02.731] But that’s just nothing.

[01:05:02.731 – 01:05:12.731] To be the kind of AA member today that I want to

[01:05:12.731 – 01:05:19.230] be, love to be, that’s it, and to grow.

[01:05:19.230 – 01:05:27.191] And the only way that I can is to get me a wet drunk or get one that’s confused.

[01:05:27.191 – 01:05:29.751] Spend a little time.

[01:05:29.751 – 01:05:33.371] Please, if you haven’t read it, read Dr.

[01:05:33.371 – 01:05:43.851] Bob’s talk when he made in Cleveland shortly before his death in nineteen fifty, when he says, “We’re all here as a result of

[01:05:43.851 – 01:05:50.951] a friendly pat on the back, a word of encouragement, but mainly love.” Love.

[01:05:50.951 – 01:05:54.751] Our two sons are grown today.

[01:05:54.751 – 01:06:03.711] The oldest one, when he was fifteen years of age, was going to kill me for what I was doing to their mother because you see, their mother was their mother.

[01:06:03.711 – 01:06:05.071] Their mother was their Santa Claus.

[01:06:05.071 – 01:06:06.211] Their mother was their father.

[01:06:06.211 – 01:06:12.271] Their mother took them on vacations and to picnics and to Little League and to Scouts.

[01:06:12.271 – 01:06:13.591] I wanted to.

[01:06:13.591 – 01:06:14.691] I wanted to.

[01:06:14.691 – 01:06:24.471] I’d take them to the Little League game, and, and I’d say, “Well, I gotta go use the phone down here at the fast food market.” And I’d come back, and they’re playing football.

[01:06:24.471 – 01:06:27.271] I didn’t want to be that way.

[01:06:27.271 – 01:06:29.011] I didn’t want to be that way.

[01:06:29.011 – 01:06:31.371] I didn’t want to be that way.

[01:06:31.371 – 01:06:42.621] And he was going to kill me because their mother was the only link to sanity that those two boys had, and they couldn’t stand to see what was happening to their mother, and

[01:06:42.621 – 01:06:45.631] they were willing to kill me to protect that only link.

[01:06:45.631 – 01:06:51.291] And I had no communication with that youngster for many, many years.

[01:06:51.291 – 01:07:01.631] But only because of God’s grace through the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life and only because of God’s grace through the miracle of Al-Anon and the principles, which is Al-Anon’s

[01:07:01.631 – 01:07:07.431] principles are AA’s principles, but it is their singleness of purpose that makes theirs.

[01:07:07.431 – 01:07:08.491] That’s all.

[01:07:08.491 – 01:07:09.451] To others.

[01:07:09.451 – 01:07:19.481] Today, not only have a wonderful father and son relationship with son number one and son number two and two beautiful

[01:07:19.481 – 01:07:25.541] granddaughters and two beautiful daughter-in-laws, and I darn near missed it.

[01:07:25.541 – 01:07:33.741] When I got sober, I had to go before the regulatory agency that regulates my profession to make a living.

[01:07:33.741 – 01:07:37.561] And I wasn’t that smart.

[01:07:37.561 – 01:07:39.501] If it had been up to me, I’d have messed it up.

[01:07:39.501 – 01:07:49.421] My sponsor and several other members of AA, they’ve been sober a long time, said, “Now, when you go down there,” they start telling me what to tell them.

[01:07:49.421 – 01:07:52.401] “You go down there and you tell them the truth.

[01:07:52.401 – 01:07:54.261] You tell them what you did.

[01:07:54.261 – 01:07:56.521] Don’t you make any promises.

[01:07:56.521 – 01:07:58.361] Promises will kill you, David.

[01:07:58.361 – 01:08:05.261] You tell them what you did.” I said, “But, but they know it.” Yeah.

[01:08:05.261 – 01:08:09.881] And they said, “Yeah, but they want to hear it from you.” And I went down and told them what I did.

[01:08:09.881 – 01:08:13.821] And they said, “Well,” they kept me down there for a week.

[01:08:13.821 – 01:08:16.621] And they said, “Well, we’re going to let you go back.

[01:08:16.621 – 01:08:20.921] We’re going to be watching you one day at a time.” And I’ve been back ever since.

[01:08:20.921 – 01:08:29.501] Still working very productively today with a huge gift, only as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[01:08:29.501 – 01:08:39.501] And you’ve heard just the nicer parts of my story because some of the things I’ve done are none

[01:08:39.501 – 01:08:40.240] of your business.

[01:08:40.240 – 01:08:47.541] Statute of limitations going to run out on certain things.

[01:08:47.541 – 01:08:57.721] And I’m asked by many people in AA and out of AA that happen to somebody

[01:08:57.721 – 01:09:00.381] passes the tape on, I guess, or I don’t know, you know.

[01:09:00.381 – 01:09:03.241] Got a lot of loose mouth folks in AA, you know.

[01:09:03.241 – 01:09:08.471] And I’m asked by many of men in AA, “How’d you ever get through school?

[01:09:08.471 – 01:09:11.021] You’ve been locked up, you’ve been gone,” and all this and all that.

[01:09:11.021 – 01:09:21.121] Well, I tell them I was my class valedictorian in high school, and I finished, finished second of a class of four hundred and fifty at Southern Methodist University, and I’m a graduate of Baylor

[01:09:21.121 – 01:09:22.681] University College of Dentistry.

[01:09:22.681 – 01:09:24.301] And they say, “How’d you do it?” Real simple.

[01:09:24.301 – 01:09:25.101] You cheat.

[01:09:25.101 – 01:09:34.541] It doesn’t take our kind long to find another human being who will do for us what we cannot possibly do for ourselves.

[01:09:34.541 – 01:09:38.141] And all of this is what I’m trying to tell you.

[01:09:38.141 – 01:09:48.181] You know, it’s not me, it’s all Alcoholics Anonymous because ours is not a personal success story, to quote our co-founder, Bill, but one of colossal human failure

[01:09:48.181 – 01:09:55.181] converted into great strength by the alchemy of the living grace of God, as expressed through the recovery program of fellowship therein.

[01:09:55.181 – 01:09:58.921] And I’d like to leave you with something.

[01:09:58.921 – 01:10:00.341] Y’all have been so wonderful.

[01:10:00.341 – 01:10:03.121] There’s a little youngster.

[01:10:03.121 – 01:10:04.441] He was an orphan.

[01:10:04.441 – 01:10:11.801] And living in the orphanage, and he had a terrible stuttering impediment.

[01:10:11.801 – 01:10:20.101] And the harder he tried not to stutter, the worse it got, and the worse it got, the harder he tried.

[01:10:20.101 – 01:10:23.141] And he used to react, and he’d cry.

[01:10:23.141 – 01:10:24.361] He didn’t want to be that way.

[01:10:24.361 – 01:10:29.031] And other kids used to make fun of him, and they’d purposely get him to talk, so he’d start stuttering.

[01:10:29.031 – 01:10:31.321] They’d make folks jokes at him and laugh at him.

[01:10:31.321 – 01:10:37.081] And he felt so different to the point that he didn’t want to live.

[01:10:37.081 – 01:10:39.721] He even tried to hang himself in a chinaberry tree.

[01:10:39.721 – 01:10:43.621] But then something happened to that little youngster.

[01:10:43.621 – 01:10:48.941] All of a sudden, he was walking around with a beautiful smile on his face.

[01:10:48.941 – 01:10:55.641] See, he had found the principle.

[01:10:55.641 – 01:11:03.461] As long as he didn’t utter the first syllable, there was no way in the world he would stutter.

[01:11:03.461 – 01:11:13.571] And he was a source of amazement, and no one could figure him out, no matter how hard the other youngsters tempted him to talking and taunting

[01:11:13.571 – 01:11:14.541] him and teasing him.

[01:11:14.541 – 01:11:18.061] He had some inner power.

[01:11:18.061 – 01:11:25.941] And one Sunday morning, the visiting preacher didn’t come, and so they didn’t have anyone to read the devotional prayers.

[01:11:25.941 – 01:11:28.361] And so the superintendent called for volunteers.

[01:11:28.361 – 01:11:31.801] And little stuttering Johnny held his hand up.

[01:11:31.801 – 01:11:41.821] Superintendent looked at him and said, “Johnny, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Johnny just nodded and said, “Well, come on.” And little Johnny got behind the lectern,

[01:11:41.821 – 01:11:44.141] and he opened up the prayer book, and he began to read.

[01:11:44.141 – 01:11:49.401] As he began to read, each letter was perfectly enunciated.

[01:11:49.401 – 01:11:52.321] Each word was perfectly pronunciated.

[01:11:52.321 – 01:12:03.441] And as he began to read, there came from within him through his eyes a look, the kind of look that I saw in Edith’s eyes in that barbershop forty-four

[01:12:03.441 – 01:12:13.721] years ago, the kind of look that I saw in those members’ eyes when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, the same look that I’m seeing

[01:12:13.721 – 01:12:15.921] in your eyes right this very second.

[01:12:15.921 – 01:12:25.801] And I know what that eye look is, that God is doing for us what we could not, can not, or possibly do for ourselves.

[01:12:25.801 – 01:12:30.221] And as Johnny continued to read, the look became more beautiful.

[01:12:30.221 – 01:12:33.561] And when he finished, there was a deathly silence when he said amen.

[01:12:33.561 – 01:12:43.731] And after the services were over with, the superintendent ran up to little Johnny, and he hugged him, and he kissed him on his forehead, and he says, “Johnny, you read those

[01:12:43.731 – 01:12:45.401] prayers perfectly.

[01:12:45.401 – 01:12:55.061] You didn’t stutter even once.” And little Johnny stood on his tiptoes and looked up at the superintendent, and he’s beaming from ear to ear.

[01:12:55.061 – 01:12:55.541] He says, “Mr.

[01:12:55.541 – 01:13:06.381] Superintendent, when I read to and I talk with the God of my understanding, I do not stutter because

[01:13:06.381 – 01:13:13.301] I know He loves me so much.” God bless each and every one, and thank you, and I love you so much.

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