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[00:00:05.300 – 00:00:05.900] Thank you, Ray.

[00:00:05.900 – 00:00:06.680] Hi, everybody.

[00:00:06.680 – 00:00:08.680] My name is David A., and I am an alcoholic.

[00:00:08.680 – 00:00:10.090] Hey, David.

[00:00:10.090 – 00:00:21.300] And only because of God’s grace through the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous, I’m sober this day, nor have I found it necessary to, nor have I taken a drink of an alcoholic nature since April the 20th, 1967,

[00:00:21.300 – 00:00:22.939] and for this I am so thankful.

[00:00:22.939 – 00:00:33.140] First of all, I want to thank the committee for asking me to be here this weekend, and it,

[00:00:33.140 – 00:00:35.760] I have just really thoroughly enjoyed myself.

[00:00:35.760 – 00:00:44.660] And allow this alcoholic the freedom to share this alcoholic with you and the freedom for you to share yourselves with this alcoholic.

[00:00:44.660 – 00:00:54.700] The only thing I know about being an alcoholic is how to drink alcohol, and when I tell anyone, anywhere, any place, in AA or out of AA,

[00:00:54.700 – 00:01:03.200] that means that I fit every word, every comma, every period, every line, every paragraph, every page, every chapter in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:01:03.200 – 00:01:07.920] And the only way I know how to live sober are the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:01:07.920 – 00:01:09.600] I know no other way to live sober.

[00:01:09.600 – 00:01:19.900] 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

[00:01:19.900 – 00:01:26.060] acceptable way to live sober, a more fun way to live sober, nor a more exciting way to live sober.

[00:01:26.060 – 00:01:34.000] Thank God I haven’t had to go to one of those action-reaction courses, concentration movement, related disorders institute.

[00:01:34.000 – 00:01:38.960] When I got to you people, my wife was a related disorder.

[00:01:38.960 – 00:01:42.960] Hang in there till your drawers fall off, baby.

[00:01:42.960 – 00:01:45.260] Sexual dysfunction seminars.

[00:01:45.260 – 00:01:54.960] I’ll tell you, if you get as old as I am and been able to stay sober as long as I have, only by the grace, today, I do not need a sexual dysfunction seminar.

[00:01:54.960 – 00:01:58.480] I need a memory course.

[00:01:58.480 – 00:02:03.240] Now, we hear a lot of things in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:02:03.240 – 00:02:09.380] You know, I’m an adult child of an alcoholic, dog, cat, snake, kangaroo, mynah bird, zebra, gorilla.

[00:02:09.380 – 00:02:14.380] Well, I’ll let you know right up front, I’m an adult spouse of an Al-Anon.

[00:02:14.380 – 00:02:24.460] It was, uh, on the last Sunday of August of 1950,

[00:02:24.460 – 00:02:34.500] this past August, that was, uh, 44 years ago, that a group of fine, sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous invited me to come to an open AA meeting

[00:02:34.500 – 00:02:36.520] at the Suburban Group in Dallas, Texas.

[00:02:36.520 – 00:02:45.860] The Wednesday before that Sunday, I stumbled into one of Dallas’ more affluent barbershops, and I fell in this chair at this manicurist table.

[00:02:45.860 – 00:02:47.920] Now, I was more at myself that morning.

[00:02:47.920 – 00:02:51.440] Now, being more at myself in those m- days meant that I was drinking.

[00:02:51.440 – 00:02:53.200] I really wasn’t too drunk.

[00:02:53.200 – 00:02:56.500] I could sit in the chair for about 10 minutes without falling out of it.

[00:02:56.500 – 00:03:01.340] I could navigate to and from the men’s room, go out and get me another bottle of whiskey.

[00:03:01.340 – 00:03:07.920] I sat down, and this old ugly gal looked at me, and she said, “David,” and right there and then, I should have known something’s wrong.

[00:03:07.920 – 00:03:09.080] She didn’t call me Doctor.

[00:03:09.080 – 00:03:19.140] She said, “David, I belong to a deal called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have not had a drink of alcohol in a year.” And I looked at Edith, and I said, “You are a

[00:03:19.140 – 00:03:19.739] liar.

[00:03:19.739 – 00:03:22.540] Nobody stays sober a year.

[00:03:22.540 – 00:03:30.980] A day, two days, not more than three days.” She said, “No, I haven’t had a drink of alcohol in a year.” Now, Edith looked like a drunk ought to look like.

[00:03:30.980 – 00:03:34.280] Sort of a female-looking Ray Klepper over here, you know.

[00:03:34.280 – 00:03:38.850] Her face wasn’t real pretty.

[00:03:38.850 – 00:03:40.660] It looked like a truck had run over it.

[00:03:40.660 – 00:03:44.120] And then backed back over it to see if it’d done a good job.

[00:03:44.120 – 00:03:53.690] She had big bug eyes and gaps in her teeth, and God bless her, her nose had been broken so many times drunk, it just sort of leaned on the left side of her face.

[00:03:53.690 – 00:03:57.760] And this is back in the days before the gals used to wear pantyhose.

[00:03:57.760 – 00:03:59.860] They used to wear garter belts, you know?

[00:03:59.860 – 00:04:02.280] To pull their drawers down and hold their socks up.

[00:04:02.280 – 00:04:07.240] And when she was drinking, hers always trailed behind her uniform.

[00:04:07.240 – 00:04:10.000] She’d trip and fall and drop all those manicuring bottles.

[00:04:10.000 – 00:04:14.760] And back in those days, the ladies used to wear hose with the seams up the back.

[00:04:14.760 – 00:04:17.240] You could always tell when Edith was drunk.

[00:04:17.240 – 00:04:19.420] The seams was in the front, and the front was in the back.

[00:04:19.420 – 00:04:29.550] And the best way I can describe Edith’s looks as a drunk, you know, in our part of the country and in some parts of California, if, uh, your car happens

[00:04:29.550 – 00:04:39.740] to be caught out in a hailstorm and it’s pretty badly beaten up, right when you get your insurance check, if you have insurance, some wise brother said, “Ah, don’t get it fixed.

[00:04:39.740 – 00:04:47.340] Let it sit out in the hot sun for about three or four weeks, and all the dents will pop back out.” Her dents never popped back out.

[00:04:47.340 – 00:04:56.800] But God, she was a great gal, and when Edith told me she had not had a drink of alcohol in a year, that got my attention, because I drank a lot of alcohol with Edith.

[00:04:56.800 – 00:05:04.720] And when Edith was drinking, Edith had the reputation of being an incorrigible, mean, nasty, fighting woman drunk.

[00:05:04.720 – 00:05:11.800] She could out-drink any man, any place, anywhere on the Earth, around the Moon, in the Moon, under the Moon.

[00:05:11.800 – 00:05:13.820] She always carried a big black purse.

[00:05:13.820 – 00:05:19.140] She always had two pints of whiskey in that purse, and she’d kill you if you got in her purse.

[00:05:19.140 – 00:05:20.940] And there she was.

[00:05:20.940 – 00:05:22.000] She was sober.

[00:05:22.000 – 00:05:32.060] And I noticed it, and I noticed the change, and I noticed when she started giving me my manicure that morning that she was buffing my nails instead of my knuckles and

[00:05:32.060 – 00:05:33.390] my ears and my shoulders.

[00:05:33.390 – 00:05:37.060] I looked up in her face, and it was amazing.

[00:05:37.060 – 00:05:40.360] Her lipstick was on her lips and not her eyebrows.

[00:05:40.360 – 00:05:45.940] And I sniffed her, and she didn’t smell halfway between an Avon woman and a whiskey bottle.

[00:05:45.940 – 00:05:51.680] She didn’t grab her purse and say, “Now, I’ll be back in 10 minutes,” and maybe show up 11 months later.

[00:05:51.680 – 00:05:55.800] But I noticed the real change, and the change was in her eyes.

[00:05:55.800 – 00:05:59.560] In Alcoholics Anonymous, we have two kinds of eyes.

[00:05:59.560 – 00:06:02.460] We have those sad, sad, sick eyes.

[00:06:02.460 – 00:06:07.328] And then we have those happy, dancing, laughing, living, sparkling sober eyes.

[00:06:07.328 – 00:06:10.648] Oh, yes, we got another kind of eyes, those glassy eyes.

[00:06:10.648 – 00:06:17.348] You know, they’ll get up behind one of these things and say, “I haven’t had a drink of alcohol,” you know, and then fall over.

[00:06:17.348 – 00:06:25.008] But her eyes were sparkling, and they were jumping, and she looked like she was having a lot of fun living sober.

[00:06:25.008 – 00:06:35.228] And then she turned to another manicurist in the shop by the name of Moena, and she said, “Moena here is my sponsor, and she has fifteen months sober in this deal

[00:06:35.228 – 00:06:45.468] called Alcoholics Anonymous.” Now, back in those days, and when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, any time we mentioned or talked about our sponsors, it was with reverence

[00:06:45.468 – 00:06:53.488] because we respected our sponsors, because we literally turned our lives over to the care of their experience and not their opinion.

[00:06:53.488 – 00:07:03.638] In Alcoholics Anonymous, we are asked to share our experiences and not our opinions because we find as a result of our experiences in Alcoholics Anonymous that opinions,

[00:07:03.638 – 00:07:11.268] in many, many, many instances, has a tendency to make sick people sicker, and in some instances, to physically kill people.

[00:07:11.268 – 00:07:20.608] The only thing any of us ever have to share and where the power of our society lies is one drunk talking about what it used to be like, what was happening, what it’s like now.

[00:07:20.608 – 00:07:24.088] But I had many, many years to go before I was to realize that.

[00:07:24.088 – 00:07:34.108] And I looked at Moena, and I said, “Moena, you’re bigger liar than Goofy over here.” I said, “Moena, we had a drink night.” She says, “No, David, I’ve not had a drink of alcohol

[00:07:34.108 – 00:07:39.168] with you or anyone else or myself in fifteen continuous months.

[00:07:39.168 – 00:07:49.248] Edith has not had a drink of alcohol in twelve continuous months.” And little did I realize that those precious words that that fine lady said to me that

[00:07:49.248 – 00:07:52.508] morning would stick with me for many, many years.

[00:07:52.508 – 00:07:55.468] She talked about continuous sobriety.

[00:07:55.468 – 00:08:02.208] At that time, I had no reason whatever to know that it was one day at a time.

[00:08:02.208 – 00:08:12.828] And then Moena said, “David,” she said, “at the end of, uh, uh, uh, on this Sunday, it being the last Sunday of the month, they have an open meeting,

[00:08:12.828 – 00:08:22.828] and it’s open so the public can come in and hear and see how an alcoholic lives the AA recovery program and how an alcoholic lives the AA way of life,

[00:08:22.828 – 00:08:32.908] but more important, to find out what Alcoholics Anonymous is not.” And believe it or not, the greatest challenge that we have in, within

[00:08:32.908 – 00:08:43.028] AA right this very second all over the world, that there are hundreds of thousands of our members who do not know what Alcoholics Anonymous is not, that we’re not all

[00:08:43.028 – 00:08:53.268] things for all people, that the singleness of purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous has made Alcoholics Anonymous the envy of every peer self-help group

[00:08:53.268 – 00:08:57.788] for every kind of a problem for human being, dog, animal, or bird.

[00:08:57.788 – 00:09:00.888] We are the envy of it because why?

[00:09:00.888 – 00:09:07.968] We have stuck to what we know best, and that is to carry our message to the alcoholic who still suffers.

[00:09:07.968 – 00:09:18.308] Now, we have to remember about members of Alcoholics Anonymous, that members of Alcoholics Anonymous were, are, and will always be alcoholics, even though we may have other problems,

[00:09:18.308 – 00:09:21.028] and that umbrella covers it all.

[00:09:21.028 – 00:09:27.328] And if it, if Alcoholics Anonymous will remove the number one problem in our life, what will it do with the rest of them?

[00:09:27.328 – 00:09:30.048] But our kind, we just can’t, we gotta be different.

[00:09:30.048 – 00:09:33.068] You know, I’m an alcoholic and a diesel mechanic, you know?

[00:09:33.068 – 00:09:36.388] I’m an alcoholic and a dog catcher.

[00:09:36.388 – 00:09:38.168] We just can’t be an alcoholic, you know?

[00:09:38.168 – 00:09:41.028] Uh, uh, that’s not dignified enough, you know?

[00:09:41.028 – 00:09:43.368] It’s kind of like degrees, you know?

[00:09:43.368 – 00:09:49.028] But in time, that changes if we’re willing to stay here because we have something that’s so precious.

[00:09:49.028 – 00:09:51.328] We have something that’s so fine.

[00:09:51.328 – 00:10:00.568] Just close, every one of us close our eyes right now and visualize where every one of us would be right this second if we were all drunk.

[00:10:00.568 – 00:10:05.348] The Alcoholics would’ve done killed us long ago.

[00:10:05.348 – 00:10:08.828] Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:08.828 – 00:10:11.988] We shudder to think about that.

[00:10:11.988 – 00:10:22.347] And so as a result, and sh- and then she said, “Being it’s the last Sunday of the month, they have a sort of little birthday anniversary party for those who have one or more years of continued sobriety.”

[00:10:22.347 – 00:10:32.528] And she said, “We would like for you and your wife to come to that open AA meeting and stay afterwards for that birthday party.” Well, I thought that the only reason that people

[00:10:32.528 – 00:10:42.648] such as you would invite someone such as me to come 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

[00:10:42.648 – 00:10:47.428] successful professional man come and upgrade you lepers in the community.

[00:10:47.428 – 00:10:50.428] And I was glad to come help you.

[00:10:50.428 – 00:10:58.367] 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.

[00:10:58.367 – 00:11:08.868] Grace used to ask me, “Why isn’t it we’re not asked to the outdoor barbecue, square dances, round dances, nightclub supper parties, swimming pool parties, domino

[00:11:08.868 – 00:11:11.768] parties, card parties?” I said, “It’s you.

[00:11:11.768 – 00:11:21.508] 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, ‘You’re not gonna drink.

[00:11:21.508 – 00:11:31.508] You’re not gonna get drunk, are you?’ You wake me up out of a sound sleep six thirty the next morning screaming, ‘Did you hear what I said?'” And you keep

[00:11:31.508 – 00:11:39.768] it up Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, and what a tremendous price society’s had to pay.

[00:11:39.768 – 00:11:45.328] Those who love us, those who hate us, those who do not even care that we exist on this earth.

[00:11:45.328 – 00:11:53.108] 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 gonna drink.

[00:11:53.108 – 00:11:59.748] I said, “Then 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.

[00:11:59.748 – 00:12:01.888] You run in, you grab the host, the hostess.

[00:12:01.888 – 00:12:11.894] You chase them out of the kitchen, through the den, in the backyard, in the alley, in the bushes, in the garbage, in the neighborhood screaming, ‘Don’t you give him a drink.'” Woman,

[00:12:11.894 – 00:12:12.504] you’re sick.

[00:12:12.504 – 00:12:13.624] That’s what’s wrong with you.

[00:12:13.624 – 00:12:23.824] But through tear-filled eyes, she said, “We’re going to the meeting.” And I said, “Yes.” And so that Sunday morning, I got up at 30 in the morning to get ready

[00:12:23.824 – 00:12:26.444] to go to an AA meeting 5:30 that afternoon.

[00:12:26.444 – 00:12:31.444] Well, now, what does a good self-respectful drinking drunk do when he gets up on Sunday morning?

[00:12:31.444 – 00:12:33.204] Drinks alcohol, that’s what he does.

[00:12:33.204 – 00:12:35.304] Let’s face it, it’s very, very simple.

[00:12:35.304 – 00:12:38.264] Golfers golf, fishermen fish, drunks drink.

[00:12:38.264 – 00:12:39.504] There’s no big mystery.

[00:12:39.504 – 00:12:42.824] And I started sucking on a brand-new bottle of juice.

[00:12:42.824 – 00:12:44.304] You know how you take that first drink?

[00:12:44.304 – 00:12:46.104] God, that gets your breathing started.

[00:12:46.104 – 00:12:49.044] Then that second drink regulates your breathing.

[00:12:49.044 – 00:12:53.164] Then that third drink goes down to both heels and just sets you there.

[00:12:53.164 – 00:12:56.484] Now you’re ready to do some real drinking, aren’t you?

[00:12:56.484 – 00:13:04.164] And I’m drinking and I’m looking up at the birds and the bees and the trees, and I’m hearing the neighbors screaming, “Johnny, get dressed.

[00:13:04.164 – 00:13:11.384] We’ll be late for church.” And I’m saying to myself, “All those sick people, they do not know what living really is.

[00:13:11.384 – 00:13:21.584] If they could just learn how to control it and enjoy it like I was doing, that they would find out that right after breathing in and out, alcohol is the second greatest gift God given

[00:13:21.584 – 00:13:22.104] mankind.

[00:13:22.104 – 00:13:23.644] Amen.” Took another drink.

[00:13:23.644 – 00:13:33.844] Drank about half of that fifth of that whiskey and put the other half the fifth in the trunk of my car because I knew at that time that I was going to be required to have another

[00:13:33.844 – 00:13:34.644] drink of alcohol.

[00:13:34.644 – 00:13:40.604] Maybe a second later, maybe a minute later, maybe an hour later, maybe six hours, but I knew I was going to have to.

[00:13:40.604 – 00:13:50.604] And I’m one of these kind that firmly believes that if and when our kind comes to us, until that alcoholic is willing to find out what’s wrong with that alcoholic, that

[00:13:50.604 – 00:13:54.484] alcoholic will never be able to find out what can get right with that alcoholic.

[00:13:54.484 – 00:14:02.004] And I went in there and I bathed and I shaved, and I put on everything rich and nice looking to impress those poor, sick people in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:14:02.004 – 00:14:10.804] Put on a beautiful brand-new tailor-made suit, white-on-white monogram shirt, monogram handkerchief, monogram tie, monogram drawers.

[00:14:10.804 – 00:14:20.704] Put on my diamond ring, my diamond watch, and the trademark of every good self-respectful, high-rolling drinking drunk, a brand-new pair of custom-made alligator shoes.

[00:14:20.704 – 00:14:24.384] I looked just like a used car salesman.

[00:14:24.384 – 00:14:27.744] Or a dope dealer.

[00:14:27.744 – 00:14:35.184] And at 10:30 in the morning, I’m, I’m out in my long Road Master Buick honking the horn.

[00:14:35.184 – 00:14:42.924] And out comes my wife with the rollers in her hair, and she has on, it’s that all your fault kimono that they just love to live in.

[00:14:42.924 – 00:14:50.424] And dwell in and cry in, to where she’s lost a string around the middle and it’s pinned together with a big baby diaper pin.

[00:14:50.424 – 00:14:55.604] And she’s pulled all the threading and the pattern and the fuzzing and the buttons off the front.

[00:14:55.604 – 00:14:59.283] And the front’s just covered with tear stains and cigarette burns.

[00:14:59.283 – 00:15:05.884] It’s what us drunks in Alcoholics Anonymous lovingly call the Al-Anon designer housecoat.

[00:15:05.884 – 00:15:15.944] And in a beautiful, calm, loving, wifely tone of voice, she screams out, “What do you

[00:15:15.944 – 00:15:22.384] want, you no-good sorry drunk?” And meanwhile, all the neighbors had gathered out.

[00:15:22.384 – 00:15:27.044] And her side is lined up over here, and my side is lined up over here.

[00:15:27.044 – 00:15:37.104] 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,

[00:15:37.104 – 00:15:44.864] married to such a sorry, no-good drunk like him?” And my bunch over here hollering out, “Let her have it, David.

[00:15:44.864 – 00:15:51.984] Let her have it.” And that used to be the weekend entertainment in every neighborhood we lived in.

[00:15:51.984 – 00:15:57.004] We moved 24 times before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:15:57.004 – 00:16:03.454] Sometimes at midnight, high noon, daybreak, ahead of the sheriff, a few times with the sheriff.

[00:16:03.454 – 00:16:05.284] Sometimes behind the sheriff.

[00:16:05.284 – 00:16:06.504] Just kept moving.

[00:16:06.504 – 00:16:16.204] I said, “Let’s go to the meeting.” She said, “It doesn’t get started for seven more hours, you no-good drunk.” And with that, she turned on her heels and went in the house.

[00:16:16.204 – 00:16:18.364] And that started seven tough hours.

[00:16:18.364 – 00:16:22.134] Here it was Sunday, and I’m sucking on the only bottle of juice that I had.

[00:16:22.134 – 00:16:23.904] Knew I was going to have to have me a drink.

[00:16:23.904 – 00:16:27.504] And I was one of those kind that when I drank, I rolled it all the way.

[00:16:27.504 – 00:16:36.604] And one of the biggest problems I had, with, with the exception of the last three years of my drinking, that they would find me and pull me off of my drunks and I was not through drinking.

[00:16:36.604 – 00:16:46.604] And I’d come in and I’d cry, and I’d pledge, and I’d put my hand on the Bible, in the Bible, around the Bible, underneath the cat’s belly, on

[00:16:46.604 – 00:16:48.384] the tail, the head, everywhere.

[00:16:48.384 – 00:16:58.484] “I’ll never do it again.” And I’d wait till they tuck another check or so more money in my shirt pocket, and as soon as they turned their backs, I’d run off to finish the drunk.

[00:16:58.484 – 00:17:02.304] Now, I was a stay-away-from-home kind of drunk, not on purpose.

[00:17:02.304 – 00:17:07.984] I’d get drunk, and I ended up in countries I never knew existed on this earth.

[00:17:07.984 – 00:17:12.284] I ended up with people sometimes I never saw before in my life.

[00:17:12.284 – 00:17:17.604] Sometimes with clothes on, sometimes the other way, sometimes with money, sometimes without money.

[00:17:17.604 – 00:17:20.504] I was gone one time, they tell me, 11 months.

[00:17:20.504 – 00:17:22.944] No one knew where I was.

[00:17:22.944 – 00:17:27.864] My mother, my father, my wife, our two sons, my patients, my enemies, my friends.

[00:17:27.864 – 00:17:29.584] No one knew where I was.

[00:17:29.584 – 00:17:31.744] And I come running in the house-

[00:17:31.915 – 00:17:34.975] The same clothes I guess I had been in for about four months.

[00:17:34.975 – 00:17:45.595] And I asked my wife this brilliant question, “Did anybody call?” And that does not make for good marriage relationships,

[00:17:45.595 – 00:17:46.395] I’ll tell you.

[00:17:46.395 – 00:17:54.615] So I knew that if I called a, went to a bootlegger or called a taxi driver to get me some whiskey, I’d blow the deal.

[00:17:54.615 – 00:18:02.975] Because 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.

[00:18:02.975 – 00:18:05.155] They tried to net me in ’48.

[00:18:05.155 – 00:18:06.915] They tried to net me in ’49.

[00:18:06.915 – 00:18:13.035] They tried to net me in January of ’50, and they thought to set the trap on the last Sunday of August in ’50.

[00:18:13.035 – 00:18:18.455] So I found just enough enough to nurse me along and keep that edge going.

[00:18:18.455 – 00:18:20.575] And finally at 4:30, I honked the horn.

[00:18:20.575 – 00:18:21.855] Here she came, and off went.

[00:18:21.855 – 00:18:25.315] And we drove up, and I went in that group, and I looked around.

[00:18:25.315 – 00:18:30.975] There must have been about 80 members of Alcoholics Anonymous, and their wives, and the kids, and a poodle or two jumping up and down.

[00:18:30.975 – 00:18:37.214] And it looked like to me they were all smoking, and laughing, and scratching, and kissing, and hugging, and rubbing up against.

[00:18:37.214 – 00:18:47.775] And I stepped back, and I looked at those idiots, and I said, “By gosh, if they’re alcoholic and they’re having that much fun, then they have to be on dope.” And

[00:18:47.775 – 00:18:49.735] then I saw all them signs in the A group.

[00:18:49.735 – 00:18:59.875] I said, “My God, I’m in a kindergarten.” Then I saw but for the grace of God, my head ducked because I knew that I was not living according to God’s dictates for a human

[00:18:59.875 – 00:19:00.595] being.

[00:19:00.595 – 00:19:11.295] And I’m one of these that firmly believes that even when an alcoholic comes to us, even though many of us come to Alcoholics Anonymous with a full string of lights in our head,

[00:19:11.295 – 00:19:13.975] that deep down inside, every one of us know this.

[00:19:13.975 – 00:19:23.975] If there is a principle that we seldom if never hear discussed in Alcoholics Anonymous, that every one of us are born human beings

[00:19:23.975 – 00:19:24.655] first.

[00:19:24.655 – 00:19:34.715] And when we’re given the most precious gift that a human being will ever, ever receive, and that’s life, and we begin to breathe in and out,

[00:19:34.715 – 00:19:39.895] right there and then is the creation, formation, and the development of selfish and self-centeredness.

[00:19:39.895 – 00:19:50.075] And from this selfishness and self-centeredness stems all those defects of character, those defects that we refuse to recognize as moral, those

[00:19:50.075 – 00:19:59.335] defects that made our lives unmanageable, resentment, selfishness, dishonesty, and fear, and not wanting to tell another human being how phony we are or what’s churning with inside of us.

[00:19:59.335 – 00:20:05.775] And you pour alcohol into someone like me with those defects of character.

[00:20:05.775 – 00:20:12.554] You see, when I was drinking, I tried to drown my defects of character, but the son of a guns learned how to swim.

[00:20:12.554 – 00:20:15.755] And they darn near killed me.

[00:20:15.755 – 00:20:17.135] They, they did.

[00:20:17.135 – 00:20:18.395] And I did not know this.

[00:20:18.395 – 00:20:19.395] I certainly didn’t.

[00:20:19.395 – 00:20:29.435] Because you see, Alcoholics Anonymous does something that organized religion will never have the success that Alcoholics Anonymous has with our kind of people.

[00:20:29.435 – 00:20:32.394] Medicine has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:32.394 – 00:20:35.435] Psychiatry has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:35.435 – 00:20:38.755] Government agencies has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:38.755 – 00:20:42.175] Social services has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:42.175 – 00:20:45.795] Human willpower has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:45.795 – 00:20:49.115] Acupuncture has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:49.115 – 00:20:52.445] Hypnosis has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:52.445 – 00:20:56.295] Biorhythm charts has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:56.295 – 00:20:59.575] Horoscopes has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:20:59.575 – 00:21:03.005] Witch doctors has not, is not, will ever be able to do it.

[00:21:03.005 – 00:21:13.235] Because Alcoholics Anonymous reaches down the innermost depths of a human being, that fine, precious thing that comes with each and every one of us at birth, that fine, precious thing

[00:21:13.235 – 00:21:23.295] that says to each and every one of us, if we’ll just listen and get ourselves out of the way after we get physically comfortable from the agent that forced us to come to Alcoholics Anonymous,

[00:21:23.295 – 00:21:28.635] that precious thing that says to us, “Thank you, little alcoholic, for not taking a drink of alcohol today.

[00:21:28.635 – 00:21:33.415] Thank you, little alcoholic, for finding a way to have a reasonably good night’s sleep.

[00:21:33.415 – 00:21:43.455] 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

[00:21:43.455 – 00:21:46.935] do.” And that is where the great power of our society lies.

[00:21:46.935 – 00:21:51.135] One drunk talking to another, and I had many, many years to go.

[00:21:51.135 – 00:21:56.435] And I don’t know, they opened the doors, blew a whistle, hollered, I don’t know, and I went on in.

[00:21:56.435 – 00:22:04.415] And I sat on the back row because I wanted to look those crazy people over to see what kind of help I could afford to give them.

[00:22:04.415 – 00:22:09.575] Now, the first talker got up, and my God, it was a, it was a, it was a woman.

[00:22:09.575 – 00:22:12.615] And that’s the liest, cheapest person I’d ever been around with.

[00:22:12.615 – 00:22:14.575] I thought somebody had killed her long ago.

[00:22:14.575 – 00:22:20.835] And there she stood, and she said she was sober, sane, in her right mind, and hadn’t had a drink of alcohol in a year.

[00:22:20.835 – 00:22:30.935] And I jumped up, and I screamed out, “You are a liar.” Somebody says, “Shut up.” You know how a wet drunk answers you when you tell them to shut

[00:22:30.935 – 00:22:31.175] up?

[00:22:31.175 – 00:22:35.455] “Make me.” They had enough in that meeting to make me.

[00:22:35.455 – 00:22:39.795] And then she started talking about everything in her world.

[00:22:39.795 – 00:22:46.435] She started talking about her Jesus, and she started talking about everything in this God’s world.

[00:22:46.435 – 00:22:50.955] And I said, “My God, this is a, a revival meeting.

[00:22:50.955 – 00:22:53.195] They got me here to convert me.

[00:22:53.195 – 00:23:03.275] And if this is what you people are, I needed a drink real bad.” But you see, I violated a very serious code in my drinking and my living

[00:23:03.275 – 00:23:08.975] because I started drinking with, working with, fighting with, cheating with the black and the white wino, which was then skid row.

[00:23:08.975 – 00:23:12.715] It’s skid row today, and I guess it’ll always be skid row in Dallas, Texas.

[00:23:12.715 – 00:23:20.375] And I’ve lived on three skid rows in my lifetime, one for over six years, one for over four years, but the last one for fourteen months was the toughest.

[00:23:20.375 – 00:23:23.935] And I’m not gonna stand up here tonight and share life on skid row with you.

[00:23:23.935 – 00:23:27.855] But the skid rows that I lived on, there was no day, and there was no night.

[00:23:27.855 – 00:23:32.615] And there was no sun, and there was no moon, and there were no stars, and there were no clouds.

[00:23:32.615 – 00:23:40.235] There were no seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, just total in and out of blackness and darkness.

[00:23:40.235 – 00:23:44.859] And the best way I can describe that kind of an existence, just bodies and feet.

[00:23:44.859 – 00:23:50.679] You don’t care if you live, you don’t care if you die, you don’t care if you work, you don’t care if you don’t work.

[00:23:50.679 – 00:23:55.879] You don’t care if you eat, you don’t care if you don’t eat, you don’t care if you bathe, you don’t care if you don’t bathe.

[00:23:55.879 – 00:23:59.639] You don’t care if you see your loved ones, you s- you don’t care if you see them.

[00:23:59.639 – 00:24:00.959] You just don’t care.

[00:24:00.959 – 00:24:04.019] But an alcoholic cannot stay on skid row.

[00:24:04.019 – 00:24:10.259] An alcoholic has got to get off of skid row because an alcoholic will lie about that alcoholic’s drinking.

[00:24:10.259 – 00:24:19.319] That alcoholic will hide that alcoholic’s bottle, and I’ll tell you right now, if you hide your bottle and you do not share it on the row, you’re not long for this earth.

[00:24:19.319 – 00:24:20.259] I don’t mind telling you.

[00:24:20.259 – 00:24:27.019] And I did not have to be down there because I came from one of the finest families that God ever put on this earth.

[00:24:27.019 – 00:24:33.279] A mother and father who dedicated their two lives to give to the two sons that were born of that marriage.

[00:24:33.279 – 00:24:39.319] And I being the oldest, everything that was denied them when they were growing up.

[00:24:39.319 – 00:24:49.379] And if one of the sons is gonna become an alcoholic, I don’t know of a better deal when you’ve got a mother and father that’s willing to go to any, every, any length to keep you from hurting and to keep you from

[00:24:49.379 – 00:24:57.199] suffering and to keep you from bringing shame and disgrace and dishonor on the family name and the family heritage and the family religion.

[00:24:57.199 – 00:25:05.899] Fourteen and a half years before I got sober, the religion that my mother and father were born in, lived in, died in, and very, very devout.

[00:25:05.899 – 00:25:11.639] They lit, lit the candles of the dead and said the prayers of the dead for seven consecutive days.

[00:25:11.639 – 00:25:21.859] And on the last day, they said the final prayer of death, blew out the flame in the candle, and as far as they were concerned in their minds, I was

[00:25:21.859 – 00:25:22.199] dead.

[00:25:22.199 – 00:25:31.759] No longer did they have a son in their minds alive on this earth, and that was the greatest thing in the world that they could have done for them about me.

[00:25:31.759 – 00:25:34.799] That was total, total release.

[00:25:34.799 – 00:25:44.899] And after I got sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I wrote my four-step inventory on resentment and how I resented and I hated

[00:25:44.899 – 00:25:55.079] my mother and father because h- the manner in which they treated me as opposite to my brother, and I didn’t have any communication with them at all four and a half years after

[00:25:55.079 – 00:25:57.379] I got sober for a total of nineteen years.

[00:25:57.379 – 00:25:59.979] And how I hated them.

[00:25:59.979 – 00:26:11.629] And in the middle of that inventory, I stopped and I looked and I said, “My God, for me, not for you.” Until

[00:26:11.629 – 00:26:22.839] my mother and father prayed me dead, they no longer could I go to them and cry and whine, and I’ll never do it again, and bail me out of every kind of problem in this God’s world and break their hearts.

[00:26:22.839 – 00:26:30.279] Until that time, for me, they were the worst parents I could have ever possibly had because they never allowed me to fall.

[00:26:30.279 – 00:26:39.519] They broke every fall, and yet I could not fault them because they were doing the best they knew how and the best way they knew.

[00:26:39.519 – 00:26:42.759] Unbeknownst to me, my mother had become an Al-Anon.

[00:26:42.759 – 00:26:50.599] And along with the newcomer’s packet came the book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:26:50.599 – 00:26:55.379] And she began to read about me, but that’s a little long in the story.

[00:26:55.379 – 00:27:05.399] And I, I did have a communication with her the last four and a half months that she was alive on this earth.

[00:27:05.399 – 00:27:11.379] And she thought Alcoholics Anonymous was the greatest thing in this God’s world.

[00:27:11.379 – 00:27:12.899] And I didn’t know it.

[00:27:12.899 – 00:27:14.299] I didn’t know it at all.

[00:27:14.299 – 00:27:15.739] I had no communication with them.

[00:27:15.739 – 00:27:18.199] And she asked that I be brought to her.

[00:27:18.199 – 00:27:24.239] But to go back to the story, and I’m, here I am, and I learned a lot of things down on skid row.

[00:27:24.239 – 00:27:28.659] I started drinking bay rum and wine at ten and a half years of age, and that was the standard fare.

[00:27:28.659 – 00:27:37.619] And later on, as I grew older physically and get more money in my pocket, I could go from that bay wi- rum and that wine to that good stuff and never miss a lick.

[00:27:37.619 – 00:27:42.499] Come back down from that good stuff down to Gypsy Rose and Thunderbird, never miss a lick.

[00:27:42.499 – 00:27:46.379] I learned a lot of things down on skid row.

[00:27:46.379 – 00:27:50.539] Never get your back up against a wall, didn’t have a backdoor window you could jump out of.

[00:27:50.539 – 00:27:57.558] If you smoke or anything, so, uh, uh, always be free so you can hit and run.

[00:27:57.558 – 00:28:00.558] I’ve always been five foot six.

[00:28:00.558 – 00:28:02.359] I was born five foot six.

[00:28:02.359 – 00:28:06.339] I’d drink that juice, and I’d be seven foot tall.

[00:28:06.339 – 00:28:09.319] I’ve had hundreds of fights, never one-on-one.

[00:28:09.319 – 00:28:12.219] My nose has been where my navel is.

[00:28:12.219 – 00:28:15.479] My navel’s been where my right ear, been all rearranged.

[00:28:15.479 – 00:28:21.419] When I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years of age, I run off and joined Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.

[00:28:21.419 – 00:28:31.479] And back in those days, the Ringling show was the finest and largest under canvas in the entire world, and would have been a thrill for a youngster to go with the circus in those days with all

[00:28:31.479 – 00:28:33.999] the wild animals and all the clowns.

[00:28:33.999 – 00:28:38.699] And I went with them when Tom Mix and his trick horse, Tony, they ran the Wild West show.

[00:28:38.699 – 00:28:42.239] And I was with them when Gargantua the gorilla come aboard.

[00:28:42.239 – 00:28:47.099] And, and, and, but you see, in those days, I’m trying to live co- three codes of living.

[00:28:47.099 – 00:28:53.499] I’m trying to live the code of living that society was demanding I live, to go to school and become a useful human being.

[00:28:53.499 – 00:29:03.819] And I end up later on in goony roost and in jails and in bar ditches and sleeping under bridge and steam grates and cardboard boxes.

[00:29:03.819 – 00:29:11.699] And to be of service to my God and my fellow man, and I’m trying to live the code of living my mother and father wanted me to live, and they had all the money.

[00:29:11.699 – 00:29:21.419] And if you had already been in all the trouble I had 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.

[00:29:21.419 – 00:29:27.399] And then I’m trying to live a code of living that alcohol was demanding all my life, and you’re way ahead of me.

[00:29:27.399 – 00:29:28.619] You know which one won out.

[00:29:28.619 – 00:29:38.639] And so as a result, when I went on to s- I learned in the circus to drink the most beautiful concoction that’s ever been devised by a man, and that’s Green Lizard

[00:29:38.639 – 00:29:39.639] Circus style.

[00:29:39.639 – 00:29:41.479] God, a tremendous drink.

[00:29:41.479 – 00:29:45.339] Elixir of sodium bromide and Lucky Tiger Hair Tonic.

[00:29:45.339 – 00:29:47.327] Now I’ll tell you something.

[00:29:47.327 – 00:29:54.127] I drank that stuff, and I seen Bambi and those animals in Technicolor long before Walt Disney, I pretty much did.

[00:29:54.127 – 00:30:03.567] And while I was in the circus, I drank with the most delightful drunks I ever drank in my life any place anywhere, and it’s the only bunch of drunks that I was taller than them.

[00:30:03.567 – 00:30:05.187] I drank with all the midgets.

[00:30:05.187 – 00:30:07.927] And let me tell you about those midgets.

[00:30:07.927 – 00:30:11.067] Those midgets are, first of all, they’re tremendous athletes.

[00:30:11.067 – 00:30:15.187] And the second thing is when they get drunk, they’re just meaner than me.

[00:30:15.187 – 00:30:17.787] I don’t mind getting in fights and everything else.

[00:30:17.787 – 00:30:23.887] And one day, John Ringling North called me in his trailer, and he said, “Boy, you’re gonna have to leave the circus.

[00:30:23.887 – 00:30:27.516] You’re ruining my midgets.” I said, “Ruining your midgets?

[00:30:27.516 – 00:30:31.927] They’re ruining me.” He says, “You gotta go.” I go back and tell the midgets.

[00:30:31.927 – 00:30:37.307] The midgets all go see John Ringling North, and they said, “If he goes, we go.

[00:30:37.307 – 00:30:46.127] He’s our leader.” Kinda like sponsoring, isn’t it?

[00:30:46.127 – 00:30:46.527] Yeah.

[00:30:46.527 – 00:30:54.066] “He’s our leader, and if he goes, we go.” And you can’t have a good circus without wild animals, and clowns, and midgets.

[00:30:54.066 – 00:31:02.667] But my mother and father would find me and, and, and, and they’d have someone come after me, and they’d drag me back, and I’d go back into the school.

[00:31:02.667 – 00:31:07.687] And my body would be in the, in the chair in the schoolroom, but my mind was way back out there.

[00:31:07.687 – 00:31:17.987] And I had to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous to realize because I’d experienced a lot of things down on Skid Row, uh, where human life doesn’t mean anything.

[00:31:17.987 – 00:31:22.127] Meek, throat cut from ear to ear, your throat, and all this.

[00:31:22.127 – 00:31:23.127] You step over ’em.

[00:31:23.127 – 00:31:28.727] It just kind of becomes a way of life, and you just hope you’re not the next one or you’re not the one that’s gonna do it.

[00:31:28.727 – 00:31:38.887] And the, I, and, and, and so I had to g- get sober to find out that the reason that, uh, my body was in the chair and my mind was back out

[00:31:38.887 – 00:31:42.767] there and I wanted to go out and get drunk, because I was not through drinking.

[00:31:42.767 – 00:31:47.847] I was not through drinking alcohol.

[00:31:47.847 – 00:31:50.107] And every chance I’d get, I’d leave.

[00:31:50.107 – 00:31:52.646] Every chance I’d get, I’d leave.

[00:31:52.646 – 00:32:00.667] And so they, a-and, and it was, it, it began to get to be rather fierce and, and that was when I was in my teens.

[00:32:00.667 – 00:32:06.467] And I went on, and, uh, and so as a result of it, I’m sitting in that AA meeting violating that code.

[00:32:06.467 – 00:32:07.807] I’m on the back row.

[00:32:07.807 – 00:32:08.847] There’s not a back door.

[00:32:08.847 – 00:32:10.427] There’s not a window to jump out of.

[00:32:10.427 – 00:32:14.207] That woman talking about Christ, and I wanted a drink real bad.

[00:32:14.207 – 00:32:24.267] And every time I stood up to walk through 80 people, it looked like 80 people stood up, turned around, pointed fingers at me, and said, “Shut up and sit here and listen, and this

[00:32:24.267 – 00:32:33.346] is for you.” And I hated every member of Alcoholics Anonymous that was in that meeting and the horse and wagons that brought ’em cross-country.

[00:32:33.346 – 00:32:37.727] And I made a deal with them folks in there.

[00:32:37.727 – 00:32:47.767] If they weren’t gonna pour me a good drink of alcohol right there in that meeting or let me go out to my car and get into that trunk, take a good drink, that I was not going

[00:32:47.767 – 00:32:50.867] to listen to anything that those fine people had to say.

[00:32:50.867 – 00:32:53.927] And that deal darn near killed me.

[00:32:53.927 – 00:33:01.147] And then as soon as that doggone meeting was over with, everybody goes for the ice cream and the cake.

[00:33:01.147 – 00:33:01.947] Not me.

[00:33:01.947 – 00:33:03.186] I ran out to my car.

[00:33:03.186 – 00:33:07.047] I got open that trunk, and I got that half fifth of whiskey out.

[00:33:07.047 – 00:33:13.527] I don’t know about anybody in this meeting or in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I drank that half fifth down in two swallows.

[00:33:13.527 – 00:33:15.427] Now that’s the way I drank alcohol.

[00:33:15.427 – 00:33:24.607] I never put it in a brandy glass and run around and sniff it for four or five hours and burn candles and incense and listen to Lawrence Welk.

[00:33:24.607 – 00:33:34.607] I never put an inch of whiskey in a glass, 12 ice cubes, nine and a half inches of soda water, a straw and a fruit and a cherry, and a half

[00:33:34.607 – 00:33:38.207] a Christmas tree on top of it and suck on it for about three hours.

[00:33:38.207 – 00:33:39.727] To me, that’s sick drinking.

[00:33:39.727 – 00:33:44.837] I drank her to drop her down into that hole where it’ll do the most good and then put another one down there.

[00:33:44.837 – 00:33:46.287] Let me tell you what happened to me.

[00:33:46.287 – 00:33:49.707] I dropped that juice in me, my hair laid back down.

[00:33:49.707 – 00:33:52.626] My underwear loosened up.

[00:33:52.626 – 00:34:02.627] My toes went back in those alligator shoes, and I ran up the steps to that group, got ahold of the oldest sober member of the group at that time, and got to arguing

[00:34:02.627 – 00:34:05.167] with him about the quality of y’all’s fellowship.

[00:34:05.167 – 00:34:07.887] And he said something to me, and I hit him.

[00:34:07.887 – 00:34:14.507] Now, when I was drinking, I was bad to hit people, taller than me, shorter than me, fatter than me, skinnier than me.

[00:34:14.507 – 00:34:18.307] And two of his A ba- AA babies joined in, and we started to fight.

[00:34:18.307 – 00:34:22.907] And as far as I was concerned, that fight was a lot better than that AA meeting.

[00:34:22.907 – 00:34:26.927] And I was just whipping the Dickens out of them two little wimps.

[00:34:26.927 – 00:34:30.227] And then they did an unfair thing.

[00:34:30.227 – 00:34:36.927] They ran in two more about the size of the outside linebackers on a, on any professional football team.

[00:34:36.927 – 00:34:45.327] And finally, four of them picked me up bodily, two on each side, went to the front door, kicked the front door open, and threw me right out of that group.

[00:34:45.327 – 00:34:55.827] As I’m flying through the air, one of them said, “We do not need your kind here.” And another one says, “And furthermore, you are too young to be an alcoholic.”

[00:34:55.827 – 00:34:59.127] And God, was I glad to hear that.

[00:34:59.127 – 00:35:03.497] And I stood on the yard, the lawn of that place that-

[00:35:03.690 – 00:35:13.710] Evening, drunk and belligerent with my fists clenched, screaming and hollering and cursing, that I would never come back to this Christ soul-saving organization as long as I

[00:35:13.710 – 00:35:14.110] lived.

[00:35:14.110 – 00:35:15.950] That I was not an alcoholic.

[00:35:15.950 – 00:35:17.670] I was too young to be an alcoholic.

[00:35:17.670 – 00:35:25.150] But for the next seventeen years, everything that could possibly happen to a human being happened to this human being.

[00:35:25.150 – 00:35:35.310] 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, is I never did willfully murder

[00:35:35.310 – 00:35:39.250] another human being, fall in love with another man, or die drunk.

[00:35:39.250 – 00:35:41.090] Other than that, it all happened.

[00:35:41.090 – 00:35:48.079] Of course, I guess blackouts don’t count, you know?

[00:35:48.079 – 00:35:53.270] We don’t want anybody leaving today meeting with resentments, you know?

[00:35:53.270 – 00:35:59.610] I married this wonderful gal, and when we got married, she didn’t realize that she had married an alcoholic.

[00:35:59.610 – 00:36:02.650] And so when we got married, we didn’t start to build a marriage.

[00:36:02.650 – 00:36:07.410] We started to build a booby trap, one that could go off any month, week, or year.

[00:36:07.410 – 00:36:16.710] I was recalled back into the service, and I went as a, a, as a naval officer and a, a dental, naval dental officer in a combat marine division.

[00:36:16.710 – 00:36:24.370] Uh, oh, the first time I was in the service when I got out of, uh, school, and, uh, and I, I didn’t get into too much trouble.

[00:36:24.370 – 00:36:26.470] I’d missed ship a couple times.

[00:36:26.470 – 00:36:36.510] You don’t know what it is to be extremely drunk and extremely unsteady off balance, and you fall off the fantail of a battleship, and that sucker is

[00:36:36.510 – 00:36:37.350] in dry dock.

[00:36:37.350 – 00:36:45.630] I fell off the New Jersey twice, once in dry dock in Bremerton and once off of Incheon later on.

[00:36:45.630 – 00:36:52.770] But when I got called back and I went into a combat marine division and I got into more trouble than there was trouble.

[00:36:52.770 – 00:36:59.510] I ended up in a maximum security penitentiary.

[00:36:59.510 – 00:37:03.810] They only had room for a hundred and thirty-eight.

[00:37:03.810 – 00:37:06.810] The word was when they…

[00:37:06.810 – 00:37:12.730] you arrive there, you never would leave.

[00:37:12.730 – 00:37:19.230] It was under a name for all the incorrigibles.

[00:37:19.230 – 00:37:24.810] I didn’t find out the reason I got, uh, the reason that I was put there until after I got there.

[00:37:24.810 – 00:37:32.350] I saw how some of them left, stiffer and deader than a ditches from the top of their head down to their toes.

[00:37:32.350 – 00:37:42.530] And you know when you’re thousands of miles away from your mama and your papa, and you talk about lonesomeness, and you talk about loneliness, and you talk about

[00:37:42.530 – 00:37:43.190] despair.

[00:37:43.190 – 00:37:48.500] Something else?

[00:37:48.500 – 00:37:58.650] And here it is, Christmas Day, nineteen fifty-four, and I, and I had a leg iron locked around my right leg and a chain welded to the leg iron and the other end of the chain welded to the steel cot

[00:37:58.650 – 00:38:01.090] and the four legs of the steel cot immersed in concrete.

[00:38:01.090 – 00:38:05.270] And there were armed gorillas around me twenty-four hours a day daring me to move.

[00:38:05.270 – 00:38:09.270] And here it is, Christmas Day, nineteen fifty-four.

[00:38:09.270 – 00:38:12.150] I’ve been laying like that for six months.

[00:38:12.150 – 00:38:14.530] I laid like that for one solid year.

[00:38:14.530 – 00:38:20.350] And in comes the, the Christmas dinner.

[00:38:20.350 – 00:38:23.470] It wasn’t any different than anything else.

[00:38:23.470 – 00:38:30.570] And one day, they fed us only one time a day, and that was nothing but just dishwater.

[00:38:30.570 – 00:38:32.950] Supposed to be soup.

[00:38:32.950 – 00:38:36.670] But on Christmas Day, they gave you something special.

[00:38:36.670 – 00:38:38.560] They put in two noodles in it.

[00:38:38.560 – 00:38:46.530] And he comes in, and he gives me this, this sewer water.

[00:38:46.530 – 00:38:56.890] And he says, “Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas.” And I’m so full of Christmas spirit and joy for my fellow man, I said, “Ho, ho, ho, you know what.”

[00:38:56.890 – 00:38:58.239] And he…

[00:38:58.239 – 00:39:00.070] And they stand there while they watch you.

[00:39:00.070 – 00:39:01.410] No knives, forks, spoons.

[00:39:01.410 – 00:39:02.080] With your fingers.

[00:39:02.080 – 00:39:08.809] And he hands it to me, and I’m so full of joy and gratitude, I hit him in the face with it.

[00:39:08.809 – 00:39:17.070] And my Christmas gift for doing that that Christmas Day was seventy-five more straight days on almost nothing.

[00:39:17.070 – 00:39:19.370] Now, that’s what you call a bad day.

[00:39:19.370 – 00:39:26.130] I have not had a day that bad since I’ve been sober at Alcoholics Anonymous, and neither have you.

[00:39:26.130 – 00:39:27.950] And we got out of that…

[00:39:27.950 – 00:39:29.060] Now, I’ll tell you something.

[00:39:29.060 – 00:39:32.490] There, it, some, some things in AA you don’t talk about.

[00:39:32.490 – 00:39:34.810] Sponsors know it.

[00:39:34.810 – 00:39:37.020] And we got out.

[00:39:37.020 – 00:39:40.500] We left some of them there.

[00:39:40.500 – 00:39:41.690] Not ours.

[00:39:41.690 – 00:39:44.170] I got out.

[00:39:44.170 – 00:39:46.1000] I was returned to the United States.

[00:39:46.1000 – 00:39:51.950] I got back with my wife, and I talked her into moving.

[00:39:51.950 – 00:39:58.270] And we decided to move to the panhandle of West Texas to raise our two little boys in a Christian environment.

[00:39:58.270 – 00:40:06.150] I don’t know how many of y’all have ever lived in a small town of thirty-five hundred folks in the panhandle of West Texas as a Christian environment.

[00:40:06.150 – 00:40:08.690] That’s a town that votes dry and drinks wet.

[00:40:08.690 – 00:40:12.930] And the two most popular people in the town is the undertaker and the bootlegger.

[00:40:12.930 – 00:40:22.990] And I’m drinking every day, and I get up to where I weigh about two hundred and forty pounds, and my blood pressure is so high that every time my pulse would beat, my hair would stand straight

[00:40:22.990 – 00:40:24.230] up, pump like an oil well.

[00:40:24.230 – 00:40:27.630] Had a fat doctor friend lived in the next town.

[00:40:27.630 – 00:40:28.570] Go to see George.

[00:40:28.570 – 00:40:29.830] George takes one look at me.

[00:40:29.830 – 00:40:32.430] He’s a good doctor to examine you when you’re drinking.

[00:40:32.430 – 00:40:42.450] He said, “Now, before I, before I examine you, let’s both take a drink.” Then he puts a cuff around my arm, ran the air up, and he says, “My God, David, it’s a miracle you’re alive.

[00:40:42.450 – 00:40:48.650] Your blood pressure is so high.” Then he looked at me with that professional look.

[00:40:48.650 – 00:40:58.530] And he says, “The reason your blood pressure is so high is because you’re so fat.” And he says, “The reason you’re so fat is ’cause you eat so much.” Well, that was not true.

[00:40:58.530 – 00:40:59.470] I was bloated.

[00:40:59.470 – 00:41:02.290] And he says, “You do not have any guts.

[00:41:02.290 – 00:41:05.582] You do not have any willpower.” And I- Give you some help.

[00:41:05.582 – 00:41:12.742] And he wrote me a prescription for 60 of the most beautiful capsules I have ever seen in my life called Nembutals.

[00:41:12.742 – 00:41:23.042] And he says, “Take them as directed.” I says, “Doctor, will it be all right if I drink a couple of beers while I swallow those things?”

[00:41:23.082 – 00:41:27.402] He says, “I do not believe it will hurt you.” He never should have told me that.

[00:41:27.402 – 00:41:30.282] So I went home and I had the prescription filled.

[00:41:30.282 – 00:41:31.942] I went home to lose weight and stay drunk.

[00:41:31.942 – 00:41:38.062] Well, uh, the prescription says take one, three times a day before meals, or after meals, rather.

[00:41:38.062 – 00:41:39.522] And so, well, who eats when you drink?

[00:41:39.522 – 00:41:45.002] And every good self-respectful drinking drunk knows if one’s good, two is better, three is terrific.

[00:41:45.002 – 00:41:49.422] So I just took three of them, drank some whiskey, didn’t feel like I was losing any weight.

[00:41:49.422 – 00:41:53.442] Come back out, took three more of them, drank some more whiskey.

[00:41:53.442 – 00:41:57.122] Went into the bathroom, turned sideways in the mirror, didn’t look like I was losing any weight.

[00:41:57.122 – 00:41:59.882] Come back out and took a handful of them.

[00:41:59.882 – 00:42:01.622] Drank some more whiskey.

[00:42:01.622 – 00:42:03.302] Looked like my stomach was getting bigger.

[00:42:03.302 – 00:42:13.342] Our co-founder, Bill, wrote some very prophetic lines when he said, “When a drunk is drinking, it’s time out of mind.” And the only thing, Uncle Bobby, I found that, i-

[00:42:13.342 – 00:42:18.682] i- in Alcohol synonymous is so true, that time passes f- so fast sober.

[00:42:18.682 – 00:42:19.702] Where does it go?

[00:42:19.702 – 00:42:29.952] And finally, I took all the pills and drank all the whiskey, and the next thing I knew, I was out in my backyard and I was picking peaches off of rose bushes,

[00:42:29.952 – 00:42:31.022] I don’t mind telling you.

[00:42:31.022 – 00:42:37.282] And they tell me I ran around that little town for two days talking in the unknown tongue.

[00:42:37.282 – 00:42:46.902] And being one of two Jewish families in five counties around, they gathered everybody in to see and hear the miracle.

[00:42:46.902 – 00:42:50.722] Because word had spread like wildfire.

[00:42:50.722 – 00:42:53.242] The Jew had caught the Holy Ghost.

[00:42:53.242 – 00:42:59.602] And when I come to and realized what happened, I says, “My gosh, those pills are messing up my drinking,” you know?

[00:42:59.602 – 00:43:03.312] Oh, I’ve been to the psychiatrist.

[00:43:03.312 – 00:43:06.302] All the questions he asked me, my wife used to ask me for nothing.

[00:43:06.302 – 00:43:12.942] The same questions bankers and sheriffs and jailers and everybody else used to ask me for nothing.

[00:43:12.942 – 00:43:15.102] But it was in that little town …

[00:43:15.102 – 00:43:16.862] Now, I don’t tell this very often.

[00:43:16.862 – 00:43:26.862] It was in that little town that the entire picture of active alcoholism, how it affects not only the problem drinker, but also the people who we love the most,

[00:43:26.862 – 00:43:27.922] who love us the most.

[00:43:27.922 – 00:43:34.202] The richest man in the entire area passed away.

[00:43:34.202 – 00:43:38.942] And they asked me to be one of the pallbearers.

[00:43:38.942 – 00:43:49.002] Now, that man loved me dearly because he had a daughter that was an active alcoholic, and she got so bad as far as the family was

[00:43:49.002 – 00:43:53.702] concerned, barefooted, they put her on a bus with a one-way ticket to Vancouver.

[00:43:53.702 – 00:44:01.782] And so it’s a cold, rainy day in the panhandle of West Texas, not quite cold enough to sleet, nasty day.

[00:44:01.782 – 00:44:04.682] And I’m home getting drunk to be a pallbearer.

[00:44:04.682 – 00:44:11.582] I put on my right boot, take a drink, left boot, take a drink, every button on my shirt, take a drink, put my tie on, take a drink.

[00:44:11.582 – 00:44:18.722] And drank about half of that fifth of whiskey, put the other half the fifth on the front seat of that old station wagon, and off I go to the church house.

[00:44:18.722 – 00:44:23.302] Now, i- i- in small country towns, why, they didn’t dig a basement.

[00:44:23.302 – 00:44:26.962] The, the ground floor is the basement, and they just build a church right over it.

[00:44:26.962 – 00:44:30.762] And you climb up those steps, it’s like climbing up Pikes Peak.

[00:44:30.762 – 00:44:34.562] And you open up those big oak doors, and you got all them curved pews.

[00:44:34.562 – 00:44:41.002] And to get down on front row, that’s hopeless row, sinners row, it’s like skinning, you know, skiing down Pikes Peak.

[00:44:41.002 – 00:44:45.682] And I’m down there, and all I’m thinking about taking a drink of alcohol.

[00:44:45.682 – 00:44:47.342] And that’s not sanity.

[00:44:47.342 – 00:44:50.962] And so the host minister, he gets up and he opens up the services.

[00:44:50.962 – 00:44:54.102] And I knew who all the eulogizers were.

[00:44:54.102 – 00:45:00.902] And when the last eulogizer got through, I said, “I’m gonna go and get me a good drink of whiskey.” But they tricked me.

[00:45:00.902 – 00:45:02.662] They had augmented the choir.

[00:45:02.662 – 00:45:05.462] And the choir started singing.

[00:45:05.462 – 00:45:11.202] And I believe they sang every hymn in the Methodist hymnal and half out of the Baptist hymnal.

[00:45:11.202 – 00:45:14.022] Wandering child, please come home.

[00:45:14.022 – 00:45:16.222] We’ll all gather down by the river.

[00:45:16.222 – 00:45:17.482] At the foot of cross.

[00:45:17.482 – 00:45:18.842] And Jesus loves you.

[00:45:18.842 – 00:45:21.082] And if you’re Methodist, old 99.

[00:45:21.082 – 00:45:24.221] And, and, and Amazing Grace, and I hate that hymn.

[00:45:24.221 – 00:45:32.002] Because I’m married to a gal and her name is Grace, and she ain’t amazing, I don’t mind saying.

[00:45:32.002 – 00:45:33.902] Finally, the choir gets through.

[00:45:33.902 – 00:45:39.082] Well, the pallbearer have to wield the deceased up while the congregation files by.

[00:45:39.082 – 00:45:45.142] Then the congregation leaves the church and f- forms on either side of the steps leading to the hearse.

[00:45:45.142 – 00:45:49.222] And I knew I could not hold the northeast corner of that coffin up without a drink.

[00:45:49.222 – 00:45:53.022] So when one of the funeral house assistants come by, I nailed it.

[00:45:53.022 – 00:45:54.402] I said, “I’m sick.

[00:45:54.402 – 00:46:04.562] Take my place.” And I scoot out the side door, and I get in that old station wagon, get about three blocks from the church house, and I get that fifth out and peel that sack down like a banana, knock that cap

[00:46:04.562 – 00:46:06.482] off and take me a drink and take another one.

[00:46:06.482 – 00:46:08.982] And I begin to smooth out and I begin to level out.

[00:46:08.982 – 00:46:11.122] And God, it feels real good, you know?

[00:46:11.122 – 00:46:12.782] And take another one, another one.

[00:46:12.782 – 00:46:22.921] And thank God I had just enough sanity not to try to crawl back in with the pallbearers drunk or to try to drive in their funeral procession 10 miles an hour

[00:46:22.922 – 00:46:23.862] drinking and drunk.

[00:46:23.862 – 00:46:27.421] So I said, “Well, the cemetery is five miles out in the country.

[00:46:27.421 – 00:46:35.242] I’ll meet them out there.” So I start gauging my speed, and I’m dri- drinking with one hand and driving.

[00:46:35.242 – 00:46:43.422] I love country western music more than anything else in the world, and my favorite radio station in those days was Del Rio, Texas.

[00:46:43.422 – 00:46:52.522] Where they sold Bibles and crosses and chains and rejuvenation powders and posters and lotions and post office boxes, and they sold everything in this world.

[00:46:52.522 – 00:46:54.342] Get your cupid doll of Jesus.

[00:46:54.342 – 00:46:56.582] You can love him, you can hug him, you can kiss him.

[00:46:56.582 – 00:47:01.322] He’s with you 365 days out of the year, and he glows in the dark, you know?

[00:47:01.322 – 00:47:04.502] And they sell everything in the world.

[00:47:04.502 – 00:47:06.512] And they play those fine western tunes.

[00:47:06.512 – 00:47:08.622] Don’t wink them bloodshot eyes at me.

[00:47:08.622 – 00:47:12.942] And here’s one that’s good for 11 months of drinking and 14 months of crying.

[00:47:12.942 – 00:47:16.122] Only God made honky tonk angels, you know.

[00:47:16.122 – 00:47:20.962] And I’m singing and I’m drink- and I get out to the cemetery, and I’m the only one there.

[00:47:20.962 – 00:47:25.682] Take a couple of honks on that juice and climb up that old wet hill.

[00:47:25.682 – 00:47:29.642] The false grass had been laid, chairs on top of it, tent on top of that.

[00:47:29.642 – 00:47:34.042] The grave had been dug, stanchions on each end of the grave, and a sling for the coffin.

[00:47:34.042 – 00:47:41.501] Being a good, smart-nosed drunk, I got to see all the arrangements are proper.

[00:47:41.501 – 00:47:46.622] I see a chair out of line, straighten it, get up behind that little lectern, make about a two-minute eulogy.

[00:47:46.622 – 00:47:48.322] Nobody shows up.

[00:47:48.322 – 00:47:56.222] So I slide back down the hill, take about eight more honks on that juice, start coming up, and I’m not seeing double, I’m seeing quadruple.

[00:47:56.222 – 00:48:00.002] I’m seeing four rows of chairs that are out of line.

[00:48:00.002 – 00:48:06.522] And if there’s anything our kind don’t want, we don’t want anybody to know we’ve been around and messed up.

[00:48:06.522 – 00:48:09.262] I’ve got to straighten those chairs up.

[00:48:09.262 – 00:48:13.102] And so I’m aiming for four rows of chairs that ain’t out of line.

[00:48:13.102 – 00:48:20.862] And I don’t know if you’re being extremely unsteady of balance and extremely drunk, and you hit that false grass, it’s like indoor-outdoor carpeting.

[00:48:20.862 – 00:48:22.662] When it gets slick, it gets wet.

[00:48:22.662 – 00:48:32.742] And my, one of the toes of my boots hits a seam in that false grass, and the next thing you know, I’m sliding, and the next thing you know, I’m grabbing two chairs, and the next thing you know, me and two

[00:48:32.742 – 00:48:35.302] chairs, we’re down in the bottom of that hole down there.

[00:48:35.302 – 00:48:44.302] And you know, when you’re extremely drunk and you’re flat on your back and you can’t get up, that’s the most helpless feeling in the world.

[00:48:44.302 – 00:48:47.462] And here comes the host preacher.

[00:48:47.462 – 00:48:49.742] Here comes my wife.

[00:48:49.742 – 00:48:52.842] Here comes the pallbearers with the deceased.

[00:48:52.842 – 00:48:59.782] And the son of the deceased, he hears all that scratching and that squealing down at the bottom of that hole.

[00:48:59.782 – 00:49:10.262] He sticks his long turkey neck down there and he sees me, and he asks me this brilliant question, “What are you doing down here?” And

[00:49:10.262 – 00:49:12.282] I gave him a drinking drunk’s best shot.

[00:49:12.282 – 00:49:13.722] I said, “I’m trying to get out.

[00:49:13.722 – 00:49:23.802] That’s what I’m doing.” And they haul me out, and I’m drunk and I’m muddy and I’m wet, and every eye is looking at me while they’re finishing the rites

[00:49:23.802 – 00:49:25.262] on that fine man.

[00:49:25.262 – 00:49:34.702] Now, if that should happen to a social drinker, they’re so embarrassed and ashamed, they stop drinking the rest of their life.

[00:49:34.702 – 00:49:36.442] But not me, I’m an alcoholic.

[00:49:36.442 – 00:49:41.882] I could see the looks in the eyes of the people who I love the most, who love me the most.

[00:49:41.882 – 00:49:43.022] I could see the shame.

[00:49:43.022 – 00:49:45.142] I could see the disgrace.

[00:49:45.142 – 00:49:46.622] I could see the tears.

[00:49:46.622 – 00:49:49.382] I could see the utter befuddlement.

[00:49:49.382 – 00:49:52.402] But I saw something else in those eyes.

[00:49:52.402 – 00:50:02.502] I saw this, that look in those eyes that every alcoholic has seen in the eyes of the people who we love the most, who love us the most, not

[00:50:02.502 – 00:50:05.782] only when, before we got here, but sometimes after we get here.

[00:50:05.782 – 00:50:16.582] Although those eyes did not audibly say these words, the look in their eyes was this, “Oh, no, not again.” And

[00:50:16.582 – 00:50:26.642] I said, “Let the services be over with so I can go out and take me a drink of alcohol to obliterate from my innermost consciousness the look on the eyes of the people who

[00:50:26.642 – 00:50:32.582] I love the most, who love me the most.” And when those services were over with, I did not go out and get me a drink of alcohol.

[00:50:32.582 – 00:50:37.562] I bought a box of alcohol, and I didn’t come back to that town for three and a half months.

[00:50:37.562 – 00:50:46.222] But the ridicule and the shame that my wife and our two little sons at that time had to endure was almost too much for their sanity.

[00:50:46.222 – 00:50:56.242] We moved away from that town, came back to Dallas to start anew again with a

[00:50:56.242 – 00:50:57.522] wonderful opportunity.

[00:50:57.522 – 00:51:10.122] But it wasn’t long before I’m back down on that last skid row, to a shave, walking

[00:51:10.122 – 00:51:19.592] the streets of a t- town where my father was a, and a partner, organized, which is now one of the largest banks in Dallas.

[00:51:19.592 – 00:51:24.902] Sleeping in 55 cent a night hotel rooms with your shoes tied around your neck.

[00:51:24.902 – 00:51:27.782] No textile, chicken wire.

[00:51:27.782 – 00:51:32.962] I went home once the last 11 months of drinking.

[00:51:32.962 – 00:51:43.022] I walked in and Grace looked at me and she said, “Do you have to drink and do the things that you’re doing?” And I said, “Grace, I can’t

[00:51:43.022 – 00:51:43.721] stop drinking.

[00:51:43.721 – 00:51:47.982] Why don’t you find another man that’ll marry you?

[00:51:47.982 – 00:51:53.302] You’re such a fine lady, and that’ll be a fine father to those two boys.

[00:51:53.302 – 00:51:54.862] I cannot function as a son.

[00:51:54.862 – 00:51:56.382] I cannot function as a husband.

[00:51:56.382 – 00:51:57.882] I cannot function as a father.

[00:51:57.882 – 00:52:00.242] I cannot function as a professional man.

[00:52:00.242 – 00:52:02.722] I have no desire to live.

[00:52:02.722 – 00:52:09.722] I’m gonna die drunk.” And I grabbed my bottle and I went out to proceed to kill myself.

[00:52:09.722 – 00:52:16.442] And I found myself laying on the county floor, the head running on the county floor.

[00:52:16.442 – 00:52:19.602] I’m in the county jail in Dallas, Texas.

[00:52:19.602 – 00:52:25.101] Somewhere along the line on, I don’t know, April the 19th, I really don’t know.

[00:52:25.101 – 00:52:28.282] I take my sobriety date, April the 20th of ’67.

[00:52:28.282 – 00:52:33.442] That’s when they let me out of jail, and they did not give me a drink of alcohol as a going away present.

[00:52:35.725 – 00:52:38.285] And here I am, almost forty-seven years old.

[00:52:38.285 – 00:52:42.245] Everything near and dear gone.

[00:52:42.245 – 00:52:52.245] No mother and father, no wife, no children, no sanity, no money,

[00:52:52.245 – 00:52:53.785] nothing, nothing.

[00:52:53.785 – 00:53:00.685] I didn’t plead, I didn’t cry, I didn’t promise, I didn’t scream.

[00:53:00.685 – 00:53:02.285] I didn’t even put a condition on it.

[00:53:02.285 – 00:53:03.645] I didn’t even say please.

[00:53:03.645 – 00:53:13.665] I just simply said, “God, help me.” And I know right this very second there’s not only a God for me then, there is right this second because I’m

[00:53:13.665 – 00:53:16.845] still here, and I’ve not had a drink of alcohol.

[00:53:16.845 – 00:53:28.055] But the minute I got me out of me, with no conditions on God’s help, something deep from within me kept saying, “Alcoholics

[00:53:28.055 – 00:53:29.805] Anonymous, continuous sobriety.

[00:53:29.805 – 00:53:30.905] Continuous sobriety.

[00:53:30.905 – 00:53:40.945] Alcoholics Anonymous, continuous sobriety.” And I said, “If I ever get out of this jail, I have got to find those people in Alcoholics Anonymous.” And how

[00:53:40.945 – 00:53:43.625] I got by that old sheriff, I don’t know.

[00:53:43.625 – 00:53:49.245] That next to the last time I was in his jail, he was a famous sheriff.

[00:53:49.245 – 00:53:50.565] His name was Bill Decker.

[00:53:50.565 – 00:53:56.305] And anybody that ever had any of Decker’s business knows exactly what I’m about to say.

[00:53:56.305 – 00:54:01.465] If Decker told you something, you could go to the bank and borrow money on it.

[00:54:01.465 – 00:54:02.865] He never carried a weapon.

[00:54:02.865 – 00:54:04.025] He didn’t have to.

[00:54:04.025 – 00:54:05.965] We trusted him.

[00:54:05.965 – 00:54:15.965] I was led before him, and he looked at me and he said, “Boy, if you show up in my jail again for drinking and drunk and doing the things you do, I will have you put away to where

[00:54:15.965 – 00:54:20.245] you’ll never bother another human being, bird, tree, dog, or rock.

[00:54:20.245 – 00:54:23.065] Do you understand that?” I said, “Yes, sir, Mr.

[00:54:23.065 – 00:54:26.345] Bill.” I’d promise anything when they gonna let you out of jail.

[00:54:26.345 – 00:54:35.965] I heard him so well, I went right out of his, out of his office, right across the street, went into a whiskey store, got me another bottle of El Carlo Muskatel.

[00:54:35.965 – 00:54:45.984] Went into the park with the rest of them winos and pigeons, and drinking, and I said, “I beat him again.” But this time, how I got

[00:54:45.984 – 00:54:46.825] by him, I don’t know.

[00:54:46.825 – 00:54:50.714] When I got out, I started looking for the people in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:54:50.714 – 00:54:58.045] I found out that Edith had passed away, but she was continuously sober when she passed away.

[00:54:58.045 – 00:55:01.645] Her sponsor, Melina, had moved to West Texas.

[00:55:01.645 – 00:55:05.865] After I was sober nine months, Melina moved back to Dallas.

[00:55:05.865 – 00:55:10.385] She became secretary of our group, and then six months later, she went back to manicuring.

[00:55:10.385 – 00:55:14.265] I used to see Melina every Wednesday morning at eight o’clock as my manicurer.

[00:55:14.265 – 00:55:24.415] And Melina passed away in March of nineteen hundred and eighty-six, and if she would’ve lived two more months, she would’ve been thirty-seven continuous years

[00:55:24.415 – 00:55:26.185] sober in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:55:26.185 – 00:55:31.605] There was a man at that meeting, he was sober eight years.

[00:55:31.605 – 00:55:32.705] He went back to drinking.

[00:55:32.705 – 00:55:33.965] He drank eight years.

[00:55:33.965 – 00:55:44.165] He passed away December a year ago, and he was twenty-nine sober, continuous years in Alcoholics

[00:55:44.165 – 00:55:45.205] Anonymous this stretch.

[00:55:45.205 – 00:55:48.005] It’s the only one that I knew.

[00:55:48.005 – 00:55:51.485] I called him up.

[00:55:51.485 – 00:55:59.765] Now, this particular gentleman, a, a member of AA, was a tremendous human being.

[00:55:59.765 – 00:56:07.025] A very affluent human being, not only in the Dallas, Texas area, but all over the world.

[00:56:07.025 – 00:56:14.605] The confidant of presidents and, and the pope and people of that nature and ilk.

[00:56:14.605 – 00:56:16.505] He’s a c- common drunk.

[00:56:16.505 – 00:56:17.865] I used to drink and fight with him.

[00:56:17.865 – 00:56:22.525] He was one of them ones I was trying to whip there at that meeting in 1950.

[00:56:22.525 – 00:56:33.805] And I called him up, and he said, “What do you want?” And that morning, his secretary says, “Just a minute.” And

[00:56:33.805 – 00:56:34.665] I told him who I was.

[00:56:34.665 – 00:56:38.865] He says, “What do you want?” I says, “W.O., are you still interested in Alcoholics Anonymous?” He says, “Yes.

[00:56:38.865 – 00:56:44.305] Who is it for?” And I said, “It’s for me.” He said, “Well, we have a meeting tomorrow night.

[00:56:44.305 – 00:56:54.425] Let’s just go and get it over with, and don’t you take a drink of alcohol today, and call me at seven-thirty in the morning.” Boom, and he hung up, and that’s

[00:56:54.425 – 00:56:55.045] all he told me.

[00:56:55.045 – 00:57:01.065] And after thirty-seven and a half years of giving it the best shot, it was cold turkey.

[00:57:01.065 – 00:57:04.525] Well, it was more like frozen buzzard, if you want to know the truth.

[00:57:04.525 – 00:57:07.125] But I started walking and shaking out of drunk.

[00:57:07.125 – 00:57:15.865] And when I come to the next morning, I was sober, and I didn’t have a belly full of tranquilizers, nor did I have a prescription for five hundred more, thank God.

[00:57:15.865 – 00:57:17.665] And at seven-thirty in the morning, I called him.

[00:57:17.665 – 00:57:27.245] A- and he said, “Are you drinking alcohol?” I says, “No, sir.” He says, “Don’t you take a drink of alcohol today, and call me at three-thirty this afternoon.” Boom, and he hung up again.

[00:57:27.245 – 00:57:31.845] Well, it started that walking and that shaking, and finally at three-thirty, I called him.

[00:57:31.845 – 00:57:41.985] He says, “Are you drinking alcohol?” I says, “No, sir.” He says, “Do you really want to come to Alcoholics Anonymous?” I says, “More than anything else in this world.”

[00:57:41.985 – 00:57:52.325] He said, “Do you want me to come get you?” And being about as humble as Hitler, I said, “I’ll get there under my own steam.” And he told me where it was,

[00:57:52.325 – 00:57:53.045] and he hung up.

[00:57:53.045 – 00:57:55.044] Well, I was in a terrible predicament.

[00:57:55.044 – 00:57:59.705] All the clothes and my possessions I had on and in my pocket.

[00:57:59.705 – 00:58:09.865] All I had was a pair of thermal underwear, an old gray sweater with the elbows out of the elbows, an old pair of worn out gray flannel

[00:58:09.865 – 00:58:12.285] pants with all my possessions in the pocket.

[00:58:12.285 – 00:58:15.605] No socks, but I still hadn’t quite lost everything yet.

[00:58:15.605 – 00:58:18.505] I had a pair of beat-up old alligator shoes.

[00:58:18.505 – 00:58:26.225] And the only money I had was thirty cents, and that was all that was left from the last blood I’d sold to blood bank to buy wine.

[00:58:26.225 – 00:58:32.865] And when one comes to Alcoholics Anonymous in that shape, one is not doing well, I don’t mind telling you.

[00:58:32.865 – 00:58:35.445] Well, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I looked.

[00:58:35.445 – 00:58:38.325] I said, “I can’t go to Alcoholics Anonymous looking like this.

[00:58:38.325 – 00:58:42.809] I’m a professional man.” And I heard that Grace had thrown out all my clothes.

[00:58:42.809 – 00:58:53.569] So I called her up, and she said, “Who is it?” I said, “Me.” She said, “What does me want?” I said, “Grace, do you happen to have one of my old suits?” She says, “Yes, I have one,

[00:58:53.569 – 00:59:00.669] and it is to bury you in.” I then asked that woman the most foolish question I ever asked in my life.

[00:59:00.669 – 00:59:10.669] I said, “Do you mind if I borrow it for a little while?” “I’m going to an AA meeting.” Said, “Another one of your lies.” And, uh, that suit’s a story in itself.

[00:59:10.669 – 00:59:13.349] And she let me back into her house.

[00:59:13.349 – 00:59:15.849] And I went in.

[00:59:15.849 – 00:59:21.058] And now there wasn’t instant joy in that household when I told them that I’m going to Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:59:21.058 – 00:59:21.449] Uh-uh.

[00:59:21.449 – 00:59:28.808] Everything I walked by, inhaled, breathed on, touched, rubbed up against, she ran behind me and sprayed.

[00:59:28.808 – 00:59:32.389] I put on that old suit.

[00:59:32.389 – 00:59:34.309] I bid she and the young’un goodbye.

[00:59:34.309 – 00:59:39.689] I got into a Mustang that the bank was looking to repossess and couldn’t recognize it.

[00:59:39.689 – 00:59:44.109] Looked like an accordion.

[00:59:44.109 – 00:59:47.309] And off I went to the meeting.

[00:59:47.309 – 00:59:52.569] And I walked in, looked like the same bunch that was there 17 years earlier.

[00:59:52.569 – 00:59:56.089] And one of the older members came over to me, a tall gentleman.

[00:59:56.089 – 01:00:06.129] He bent over, and he looked at me, and he grinned from ear to ear, and he said, “We knew you’d be back.” And I’m gonna tell

[01:00:06.129 – 01:00:08.509] you about the greatest AA talk I’ve ever heard in my life.

[01:00:08.509 – 01:00:14.069] Every member of Alcoholics Anonymous have heard it, and if your group has not given to it, to you, you’ve been cheated.

[01:00:14.069 – 01:00:16.629] This man then said to me, “Welcome.

[01:00:16.629 – 01:00:19.569] Come in and sit down and have a cup of coffee, and let’s talk about it.

[01:00:19.569 – 01:00:26.809] We understand exactly how you feel.” That is the greatest AA talk I’ve ever heard in my life.

[01:00:26.809 – 01:00:32.689] He didn’t say to me, “You never should have done those things.” He didn’t say, “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have done those things.” No.

[01:00:32.689 – 01:00:33.369] No.

[01:00:33.369 – 01:00:34.249] No.

[01:00:34.249 – 01:00:35.449] No.

[01:00:35.449 – 01:00:36.729] No.

[01:00:36.729 – 01:00:39.929] You see, ours is the language of the heart.

[01:00:39.929 – 01:00:43.469] And thank God it’s not the language of the gutter.

[01:00:43.469 – 01:00:53.809] It’s the first time in the last seventeen years of my drinking that anyone really shook my hand with sincerity, invited me in to

[01:00:53.809 – 01:01:04.109] have a cup of coffee, and look at me and say, “We understand exactly how you feel.” And it started a way of life that is absolutely

[01:01:04.109 – 01:01:06.289] indescribably wonderful.

[01:01:06.289 – 01:01:08.069] Absolutely.

[01:01:08.069 – 01:01:18.049] Little did I realize that Grace and our two sons, that we would ever be under one roof again.

[01:01:18.049 – 01:01:25.589] Because that marriage had been written off by everything and everybody, and it had no right to be.

[01:01:25.589 – 01:01:35.589] 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 in Grace’s life, this past June

[01:01:35.589 – 01:01:44.789] the tenth, which is also AA’s birthday, this past June the tenth, Grace and I celebrated fifty-one years, and that’s pretty good for a drunk.

[01:01:44.789 – 01:01:53.329] Although I was not there for many, many years.

[01:01:53.329 – 01:02:03.589] Now, I’m not gonna stand up here and tell you that our marriage is just perfect, that the butterflies are tranquil, that the bluebirds

[01:02:03.589 – 01:02:05.269] are hugging and kissing and cooing.

[01:02:05.269 – 01:02:05.969] Heck, no.

[01:02:05.969 – 01:02:08.789] We have a few short rounds every now and then.

[01:02:08.789 – 01:02:11.429] We have a few long rounds every now and then.

[01:02:11.429 – 01:02:14.769] That’s what you call clearing the air, communication.

[01:02:14.769 – 01:02:20.889] The best way I can describe our marriage today, it’s built on solid, constructive imperfections.

[01:02:20.889 – 01:02:24.929] Because it’s by our imperfections that we grow.

[01:02:24.929 – 01:02:30.989] Anyway, Grace goes to a hand– She goes to four, five Al-Anon meetings a week, day, evening.

[01:02:30.989 – 01:02:33.439] I go to some six, seven, eight meetings a week.

[01:02:33.439 – 01:02:37.909] We don’t see each other enough to have all that nitpicking, arguing, fighting, and fussing.

[01:02:37.909 – 01:02:42.169] No, Alcoholics Anonymous did not save my marriage.

[01:02:42.169 – 01:02:43.289] No.

[01:02:43.289 – 01:02:52.609] Alcoholics Anonymous has given us a set of principles to live.

[01:02:52.609 – 01:03:02.929] It has given me a set of principles to live to be the kind of son I’ve always wanted to be, the kind of father I’ve always wanted to be, the

[01:03:02.929 – 01:03:10.609] kind of husband I’ve always wanted to be, and today, the kind of a grandfather I’ve always wanted to be.

[01:03:10.609 – 01:03:20.389] Our oldest son, when he was fifteen years of age, he was gonna kill me for what I was doing to their mother.

[01:03:20.389 – 01:03:29.409] You see, their mother was their mother, their mother was their Santa Claus, their mother was their father, their mother took them to Little League, and their mother took them to Scouts.

[01:03:29.409 – 01:03:31.369] Their mother took them on vacation.

[01:03:31.369 – 01:03:32.289] I wanted to.

[01:03:32.289 – 01:03:33.429] I wanted to.

[01:03:33.429 – 01:03:37.089] One time, Grace asked me to go get some shoelaces.

[01:03:37.089 – 01:03:41.309] The little boy, the oldest son, was gonna start Little League baseball in the spring.

[01:03:41.309 – 01:03:43.829] I went to go get shoelaces.

[01:03:43.829 – 01:03:47.129] When I come back, I had the shoelaces, but they were playing football.

[01:03:47.129 – 01:03:49.369] I didn’t want to be that way.

[01:03:49.369 – 01:03:51.689] I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

[01:03:51.689 – 01:03:58.729] I didn’t know that I was suffering from mental obsession so powerful that it was condemning me to drink against my own will.

[01:03:58.729 – 01:04:03.009] And the physical nature of the illness was condemning me to die if I continued to drink.

[01:04:03.009 – 01:04:03.889] I didn’t know this.

[01:04:03.889 – 01:04:05.429] I didn’t know it.

[01:04:05.429 – 01:04:06.809] I was doing the best I knew how.

[01:04:06.809 – 01:04:15.029] And as a result, you know, uh, and, and, and he was gonna– And finally, the wildness left his eyes.

[01:04:15.029 – 01:04:19.849] He had a, a knife in his hand, and he had me on the floor.

[01:04:19.849 – 01:04:29.989] And the wildness left his eyes, and he dropped that knife, and he spat in my face, and he said, “You’re no longer my father, and I’m no longer your son,” and he walked out of my life,

[01:04:29.989 – 01:04:30.909] and that hurts.

[01:04:30.909 – 01:04:40.909] And I had no communication with him for a number of years, but only because of God’s grace through the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous in my life, and only because of

[01:04:40.909 – 01:04:50.789] the principles of Al-Anon in the family life, today- And I don’t have a tremendous father and son relationship with the oldest son, but son number two.

[01:04:50.789 – 01:04:55.649] And they both think that their father is the greatest thing in the world.

[01:04:55.649 – 01:04:58.969] You know why?

[01:04:58.969 – 01:05:02.149] One of them told me that the other day.

[01:05:02.149 – 01:05:10.489] He says, “Daddy, we love you so much because you are being so good to Mother.” Payback time.

[01:05:10.489 – 01:05:12.348] Payback time.

[01:05:12.348 – 01:05:13.109] Yeah.

[01:05:13.109 – 01:05:23.109] When I got sober, I had to go see the regulatory agency that, uh, regulates my license to practice

[01:05:23.109 – 01:05:23.769] the profession.

[01:05:23.769 – 01:05:32.389] And I had to go down and tell them the truth, what I had done.

[01:05:32.389 – 01:05:34.139] Not make promises.

[01:05:34.139 – 01:05:35.249] Promises kill drunks.

[01:05:35.249 – 01:05:37.589] They knew it.

[01:05:37.589 – 01:05:39.929] They wanted to hear it from me.

[01:05:39.929 – 01:05:49.269] They kept me down there a week, and they said, “All right, we’re gonna let you go back to work, but we’ll be watching you one day at a time.” And I’ve been back ever since.

[01:05:49.269 – 01:05:53.949] Now, you’ve heard only bl- the nicer parts of my story.

[01:05:53.949 – 01:06:01.389] And I’m asked by many members of Alcoholics Anonymous and those who know me, said, “David, you have been gone.

[01:06:01.389 – 01:06:02.329] You’ve been locked up.

[01:06:02.329 – 01:06:08.469] How did you ever get through school?” Well, I, I was my class valedictorian in high school.

[01:06:08.469 – 01:06:13.129] I finished second of a class of four hundred and fifty at Southern Methodist University.

[01:06:13.129 – 01:06:18.869] I’m a graduate of Baylor University College of Dentistry, and they said, “How’d you do it?” It’s real simple.

[01:06:18.869 – 01:06:20.249] You’re cheap.

[01:06:20.249 – 01:06:30.569] It doesn’t take our kind long to find another human being who will do for us what we cannot possibly do for ourselves.

[01:06:30.569 – 01:06:40.589] You see, what

[01:06:40.589 – 01:06:43.589] I’ve been telling you with the family and going back to work, this is not me.

[01:06:43.589 – 01:06:53.589] This is all Alcoholics Anonymous because ours is not a personal success story but one of colossal human failure converted into great strength by

[01:06:53.589 – 01:06:59.929] the alchemy of the living grace of God, as is expressed through the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous and their fellowship therein.

[01:06:59.929 – 01:07:03.049] Y’all been so nice, I’m gonna leave you with something.

[01:07:03.049 – 01:07:13.049] I pray and hope that one day our General Service Conference, through the proper mechanism of the Trustees Literature Committee and the Conference

[01:07:13.049 – 01:07:23.309] Delegates Literature Committee, that the conference reprint a portion of a letter and give it free as a service piece to every

[01:07:23.309 – 01:07:28.429] member of Alcoholics Anonymous currently and every member and everyone that’s coming to us.

[01:07:28.429 – 01:07:35.829] And this letter was written to our co-founder, Bill, on December the thirtieth, nineteen forty-six.

[01:07:35.829 – 01:07:46.169] And the letter was written to Bill by a non-alcoholic who loved AA more than life itself, a non-alcoholic whose family name is perhaps

[01:07:46.169 – 01:07:55.209] the most famous name that the world, family name the world has ever known as far as banking and money and energy and foundations and grants.

[01:07:55.209 – 01:08:03.729] If it hadn’t been for that particular non-alcoholic and his non-alcoholic friends, Bill and Bob never would have gone on.

[01:08:03.729 – 01:08:06.569] Our Big Book never would have been printed.

[01:08:06.569 – 01:08:08.909] It’s from our Big Book that we got our name.

[01:08:08.909 – 01:08:12.129] He loved AA more than anything else in the world.

[01:08:12.129 – 01:08:22.169] And he wrote Bill this letter, thanking Bill for a War World II, a World War II printing of the book of Alcoholics Anonymous that due

[01:08:22.169 – 01:08:28.289] to the paper shortage, they had to cut the size of the book down, but they never dropped anything out of the book.

[01:08:28.289 – 01:08:35.789] And the first part of the letter is thanking Bill for the book and the inscription on the flyleaf of that book, but this is the part of the letter I want to leave with you.

[01:08:35.789 – 01:08:46.029] Quote to Bill, “It must be of great satisfaction for you to realize that the helping hand that you extended to a needy brother many years ago has resulted

[01:08:46.029 – 01:08:48.409] in the widespread extension of that brotherly act.

[01:08:48.409 – 01:08:57.609] The regenerating power of the spirit of that helping hand has been the means by which countless lives have been saved that otherwise would have been wrecked.

[01:08:57.609 – 01:09:07.659] May God continue to bless you and use you ever increasingly as His chosen instrument in the rebuilding of broken lives.” Every one of us in here, whether we be AA,

[01:09:07.659 – 01:09:17.709] Al-Anon, or Alateen, we’re here as a result of the extension of that friendly hand from Bill to Doctor Bob to Bill D., and here

[01:09:17.709 – 01:09:18.449] we are now.

[01:09:18.449 – 01:09:28.989] The regenerating of the power of the spirit to live in this world of reality and walk with dignity and to have the freedom, the most wonderful

[01:09:28.989 – 01:09:39.389] gift, to have a God of our own understanding and to live comfortably in sobriety and all that there’s no situation too difficult, no unhappiness

[01:09:39.389 – 01:09:44.069] too great that cannot be overcome, and a drink of alcohol will never make it any better.

[01:09:44.069 – 01:09:45.129] It’ll make it worse.

[01:09:45.129 – 01:09:55.369] If I have a prayer, if I have a desire, if I have a hope for each and every one of us, may we continue to let God bless us and use us ever increasingly as His chosen instrument

[01:09:55.369 – 01:09:57.069] in the rebuilding of broken lives.

[01:09:57.069 – 01:09:59.069] And how will God continue to do this?

[01:09:59.069 – 01:10:02.969] And that is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

[01:10:02.969 – 01:10:05.409] God bless each and every one, and thank you, and I love you so much.

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