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[00:00:00.560 – 00:00:03.140] Welcome to our Saturday night speakers meeting.

[00:00:03.140 – 00:00:10.020] Uh, both John and Greta, who have weathered the cold and blustery gorge to be here with us.

[00:00:10.020 – 00:00:15.580] Uh, our speaker is from the Dalles, formerly from Portland.

[00:00:15.580 – 00:00:19.400] I think many people in the audience tonight know him.

[00:00:19.400 – 00:00:20.940] I do.

[00:00:20.940 – 00:00:22.560] I appreciate him very much.

[00:00:22.560 – 00:00:25.960] I’d like to introduce to you at this time Doc John.

[00:00:25.960 – 00:00:36.080] I’m John, an alcoholic.

[00:00:36.080 – 00:00:42.500] I understand the pizza that’s sent from here on, however long it takes, that it’s mine.

[00:00:42.500 – 00:00:44.780] That never happened to me before.

[00:00:44.780 – 00:00:54.480] I would appreciate very much if you would go along with me with something because I saw this done once, and I got a point to make.

[00:00:54.480 – 00:01:00.160] I’m going to count, and then I want people to go like this, like entertainers do.

[00:01:00.160 – 00:01:02.560] Then when I go like this, I want everybody to stand.

[00:01:02.560 – 00:01:04.879] Then when I go like this, everybody sit.

[00:01:04.879 – 00:01:06.660] And I go like this, knock it off.

[00:01:06.660 – 00:01:08.600] Then I’ll make my point.

[00:01:08.600 – 00:01:09.800] No, I’m very serious.

[00:01:09.800 – 00:01:11.339] Means a lot to me.

[00:01:11.339 – 00:01:14.120] I’m just a country boy now, so put up with it.

[00:01:14.120 – 00:01:19.080] I would like to quote a line from the Big Book to the Al-Anon people here.

[00:01:19.080 – 00:01:19.680] It’s in Dr.

[00:01:19.680 – 00:01:20.759] Bill’s story.

[00:01:20.759 – 00:01:30.820] It says, “We alcoholics have an uncanny way of picking the world’s finest women.” Hand

[00:01:30.820 – 00:01:31.539] for Al-Anon.

[00:01:31.539 – 00:01:37.250] That’s enough.

[00:01:37.250 – 00:01:38.000] That’s enough of that shit.

[00:01:38.000 – 00:01:47.240] About 25%, maybe 25 people here tonight are going to, uh, agree with what I say.

[00:01:47.240 – 00:01:51.860] About 50% won’t give a crap one way or the other.

[00:01:51.860 – 00:01:57.280] And 25% will walk out of here with a resentment, I hope.

[00:01:57.280 – 00:02:00.000] That’ll give them something to do.

[00:02:00.000 – 00:02:09.640] I want to welcome with my very deepest heart you 25 intelligent people that are gonna agree with me.

[00:02:09.640 – 00:02:18.220] I can always tell an intelligent man the moment he begins to agree with me.

[00:02:18.220 – 00:02:20.580] Dr.

[00:02:20.580 – 00:02:21.580] John’s Law.

[00:02:21.580 – 00:02:27.080] If anybody’s taking notes, I’ll speak slowly.

[00:02:27.080 – 00:02:32.960] If you don’t drink booze, you won’t get drunk.

[00:02:32.960 – 00:02:35.680] Are there any questions?

[00:02:35.680 – 00:02:41.460] And with that in mind, I pass.

[00:02:41.460 – 00:02:47.200] I’ve got some notes here, but for only one reason.

[00:02:47.200 – 00:02:57.679] The reason is that I dare not put out to you what I can’t back up with a Big Book or a related AA

[00:02:57.679 – 00:02:58.380] literature.

[00:02:58.380 – 00:03:05.340] Because if I do, it ceases to be AA and becomes conversation.

[00:03:05.340 – 00:03:15.860] I want to dispel or to point out one of the biggest contradictions I’ve ever heard in Alcoholics

[00:03:15.860 – 00:03:16.500] Anonymous.

[00:03:16.500 – 00:03:18.980] Maybe you’ve heard it.

[00:03:18.980 – 00:03:25.880] I am glad I’m in AA, but I don’t like being an alcoholic.

[00:03:25.880 – 00:03:29.940] Does that make any sense?

[00:03:29.940 – 00:03:38.400] Have you ever heard a guy get up and say, “I used to drink half the day, and then I found my higher power, and now I feel swell”?

[00:03:38.400 – 00:03:40.060] Well, it’s a little longer than that.

[00:03:40.060 – 00:03:42.020] Says, “I’ve lost my family.

[00:03:42.020 – 00:03:42.980] I lost my kids.

[00:03:42.980 – 00:03:43.940] I lost my job.

[00:03:43.940 – 00:03:45.280] I lost my self-respect.

[00:03:45.280 – 00:03:46.300] I lost my home.

[00:03:46.300 – 00:03:47.940] I lost my shoes.

[00:03:47.940 – 00:03:54.120] And I went down to the dip, the depth of hell, and then I found Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:03:54.120 – 00:03:58.340] And when I found Alcoholics Anonymous, I got my family back.

[00:03:58.340 – 00:03:59.600] I got a better job.

[00:03:59.600 – 00:04:01.860] I got my self-respect back.

[00:04:01.860 – 00:04:06.060] Next week, I am going to spend 30 days on the company in Hawaii.

[00:04:06.060 – 00:04:07.859] But don’t misunderstand.

[00:04:07.859 – 00:04:13.920] I don’t like being an alcoholic.” Does that make any sense to you?

[00:04:13.920 – 00:04:24.040] Everything the man is, or woman, or hopes to be, or ever will be, he owes to this program, and he couldn’t have got here without booze.

[00:04:24.040 – 00:04:28.000] So I say hooray for booze.

[00:04:28.000 – 00:04:37.100] Some of the finest people that you will ever know are boozers or ex-boozers.

[00:04:37.100 – 00:04:45.200] As a matter of fact, the first alcoholic, I’m not trying to get academic here, but what the hell?

[00:04:45.200 – 00:04:51.240] First alcoholic was probably the first caveman that didn’t eat all he picked that day.

[00:04:51.240 – 00:04:59.460] Then he comes back in a few days with the sun beating on his goat bag, and he empties the contents and goes on one hell of a trip.

[00:04:59.460 – 00:05:03.580] That’s probably the way it happened.

[00:05:03.580 – 00:05:07.900] Adam had to be an alcoholic.

[00:05:07.900 – 00:05:08.880] Now, dig this.

[00:05:08.880 – 00:05:16.320] God says, “Why did you eat of the fruit?” And what was his answer?

[00:05:16.320 – 00:05:21.300] “The woman thou hast sent me made me eat of the fruit.” Does that sound like an alkie?

[00:05:21.300 – 00:05:31.440] They probably had some hard

[00:05:31.440 – 00:05:32.700] cider, you know, from…

[00:05:32.700 – 00:05:36.020] They say the oldest profession is prostitution.

[00:05:36.020 – 00:05:36.440] Bull.

[00:05:36.440 – 00:05:37.360] It’s picking apples.

[00:05:37.360 – 00:05:47.780] About 385 BC, Plato wrote, uh, somewhere in the book of the Republics

[00:05:47.780 – 00:05:55.680] that Crito could not attend the trial of Socrates because he had been poisoned by the acid of the grape.

[00:05:55.680 – 00:05:57.860] Bullshit.

[00:05:57.860 – 00:05:59.300] That guy was a wino.

[00:05:59.300 – 00:06:09.388] Julius Caesar lost the Battle of Beth because he was too snockered to get– he must have got a drunk driving ticket on the way.

[00:06:09.388 – 00:06:13.008] Fell out of the chariot, his pet general.

[00:06:13.008 – 00:06:23.108] The first Christian miracle, as I remember, had to do with a wedding at Cana, and I see it nowhere written that that man,

[00:06:23.108 – 00:06:26.388] that great, great man, turned that water into Kool-Aid.

[00:06:26.388 – 00:06:29.508] Wine.

[00:06:29.508 – 00:06:32.788] In vinos et veritas.

[00:06:32.788 – 00:06:35.648] In wine there is truth of bullshit.

[00:06:35.648 – 00:06:41.028] Christopher Columbus, he took off, he didn’t know where he was going.

[00:06:41.028 – 00:06:44.648] He got there, he didn’t know where he was.

[00:06:44.648 – 00:06:51.128] And a woman financed the whole trip.

[00:06:51.128 – 00:07:00.348] George Washington had to be an alky.

[00:07:00.348 – 00:07:04.268] Who else is dumb enough to stand up in a rowboat?

[00:07:04.268 – 00:07:14.268] Along the less humorous lines, I remember seeing a television

[00:07:14.268 – 00:07:23.568] commercial by Sears and Roebuck that they’re going to redo Stephen Foster’s old Kentucky home with weather beater paint.

[00:07:23.568 – 00:07:26.048] We’ve all seen that, right?

[00:07:26.048 – 00:07:35.228] As though Stephen Foster’s home smacked of plush grandeur and integrity and all of the things of the South.

[00:07:35.228 – 00:07:37.008] What’s the truth?

[00:07:37.008 – 00:07:45.728] One day, an intern was going back to Bell- Bellevue in New York City from lunch or reporting to work or something.

[00:07:45.728 – 00:07:55.488] He saw a form in the alley, and walking up to the form, he found it to be a man, a wino, a derelict, bleeding from a cut throat.

[00:07:55.488 – 00:08:05.608] He dragged him up in a room in a hotel or a flop, as we call it on the streets, sewed his throat up with a needle and thread,

[00:08:05.608 – 00:08:13.228] a darning needle to be exact, and had him shipped to Bellevue, where the man expired.

[00:08:13.228 – 00:08:23.608] And when they took his clothes off, in his shirt pocket was a yellow piece of paper upon which were written

[00:08:23.608 – 00:08:26.708] the lyrics of My Old Kentucky Home.

[00:08:26.708 – 00:08:31.188] And that is the truth of Stephen Foster.

[00:08:31.188 – 00:08:37.448] But he contributed a hell of a lot of good stuff on the way, and he was a boozer.

[00:08:37.448 – 00:08:45.128] Well, I’m not going through all the animals at the time, but there are a couple of more I got to mention, and one is W.C.

[00:08:45.128 – 00:08:45.678] Fields.

[00:08:45.678 – 00:08:46.948] Now, there’s my hero.

[00:08:46.948 – 00:08:49.808] That sucker’s okay.

[00:08:49.808 – 00:08:53.068] They ask him, “What’s the first thing you do in the morning?” He says, “Vomit.

[00:08:53.068 – 00:09:03.108] Don’t everybody?” And one time when he was trying to kick things and he was getting close to death because of his age and

[00:09:03.108 – 00:09:07.928] booze, they found him reading a Bible in his dressing room.

[00:09:07.928 – 00:09:09.928] And again, they asked him what he was doing.

[00:09:09.928 – 00:09:17.128] He says, “Looking for loopholes.” Don’t do that to the big buck.

[00:09:17.128 – 00:09:27.158] Well, anyhow, we can mention others like Harold Hughes, who went from a drunk tank to governor in four years, and on to

[00:09:27.158 – 00:09:29.688] the senator, say, thirteen years of quite extinct.

[00:09:29.688 – 00:09:31.028] We all know about those people.

[00:09:31.028 – 00:09:37.408] But the point is, we never have to bury our heads with the people we work and walk with that are boozers.

[00:09:37.408 – 00:09:47.608] Now, I’m always been, and I have been for a long time now, very, very careful that I don’t talk about anything

[00:09:47.608 – 00:09:54.668] that I can’t back, this is repetition, back up by the book that’s in the book or related AA literature.

[00:09:54.668 – 00:10:04.968] And so I’m going to be putting something on the board, which I don’t think these people are going to be able to see too well, but that’s the way it goes,

[00:10:04.968 – 00:10:08.888] because this is what I come prepared to do, and there’s for one reason.

[00:10:08.888 – 00:10:17.508] It is a pamphlet that came out of New York City that, oh, I saw it in about 1960.

[00:10:17.508 – 00:10:19.688] I had never seen it before.

[00:10:19.688 – 00:10:21.628] I have never seen it since.

[00:10:21.628 – 00:10:25.688] It had impressed me then somewhat because it was well academically done.

[00:10:25.688 – 00:10:36.108] But it impresses me more now that I think about it, because the basic theme behind it was that the primary purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous

[00:10:36.108 – 00:10:43.608] over the long run was not to make you a narrow, sober AA person, and that is all.

[00:10:43.608 – 00:10:54.148] Where we take Alcoholics Anonymous into a little teeny world and set it over here and call the other 200 million people in this country people whom

[00:10:54.148 – 00:10:56.948] we can’t understand because they are an alky.

[00:10:56.948 – 00:11:07.288] It is a thing that was pointing towards the fact that the ultimate purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to put each and every one of us

[00:11:07.288 – 00:11:17.128] back into the swim of life so that we could love and help all people that were not just alcoholics.

[00:11:17.128 – 00:11:25.388] And I think now that I’ve been around a while, that is the reason, the ultimate goal of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:11:25.388 – 00:11:32.068] But the reason I mention this is because when I put it on the board, do not think it’s my idea.

[00:11:32.068 – 00:11:33.028] It is not.

[00:11:33.028 – 00:11:40.728] It is a past approved New York document.

[00:11:40.728 – 00:11:45.648] I suppose I might as well go with it.

[00:11:45.648 – 00:11:48.308] I’m too far committed.

[00:11:48.308 – 00:11:55.468] According to this pamphlet, I know damn well they’re not going to have any trouble hearing me.

[00:11:55.468 – 00:12:02.188] According to this pamphlet, every person that ever lived or ever will live is pretty much made up of four ingredients.

[00:12:02.188 – 00:12:08.408] Now, if you can’t see this.

[00:12:08.408 – 00:12:15.208] The first of which, that man is a social animal.

[00:12:15.208 – 00:12:21.888] And that is that he communicates with one another, has his fun on Saturday night, and all that stuff.

[00:12:21.888 – 00:12:27.428] That’s the stuff we do for our avocation, to include hobbies and every other god darn thing.

[00:12:27.428 – 00:12:30.968] Socially, we know about that.

[00:12:30.968 – 00:12:34.888] We have not, all of us, always been alcoholic.

[00:12:34.888 – 00:12:40.448] Secondly, security.

[00:12:40.448 – 00:12:42.208] That’s what we do for a living.

[00:12:42.208 – 00:12:44.928] Some of us are dentists.

[00:12:44.928 – 00:12:47.588] Some of us are homemakers, housewives.

[00:12:47.588 – 00:12:49.788] Hey, you guys, I’m going to tell you something.

[00:12:49.788 – 00:12:51.148] You think about it a minute.

[00:12:51.148 – 00:13:00.608] You pl- pay in your head the basic wage of a housewife and what she’s done for all these years, and let me see you come up with the bread to pay her.

[00:13:00.608 – 00:13:09.148] The next one…

[00:13:09.148 – 00:13:13.668] Of course, that security also is, uh, kind of split up, you know, like our health.

[00:13:13.668 – 00:13:15.868] Physiological security.

[00:13:15.868 – 00:13:17.048] We want to be healthy.

[00:13:17.048 – 00:13:21.108] We want to have enough money to at least to buy food and a roof and all that.

[00:13:21.108 – 00:13:22.148] So that’s what that means.

[00:13:22.148 – 00:13:29.228] Next comes, and let’s not knock its importance, sexuality.

[00:13:29.228 – 00:13:36.048] I can never remember whether to put that sucker on top or the bottom.

[00:13:36.048 – 00:13:46.068] It all depends, I guess, if or not

[00:13:46.068 – 00:13:47.628] you’re a member of Weight Watchers.

[00:13:47.628 – 00:13:58.368] I’m not referring to that amicable process that we all know about that you do in a four-posted bed necessarily,

[00:13:58.368 – 00:14:00.848] although that’s damned important, too.

[00:14:00.848 – 00:14:11.388] I’m referring to our relationships one to the other, man to woman, man to girl child, boy child, and all of the other intersexual relationships

[00:14:11.388 – 00:14:15.568] we have in this life, which many of us, uh, don’t have.

[00:14:15.568 – 00:14:22.108] How many here have been woman-haters when you’re a man or woman-haters when you’re a woman or man-haters when you’re a man?

[00:14:22.108 – 00:14:26.868] There’s people here that have been that way and still are.

[00:14:26.868 – 00:14:32.008] And this is all held together by some sort of a thing.

[00:14:32.008 – 00:14:34.788] I don’t know what to name it right now.

[00:14:34.788 – 00:14:35.588] Values.

[00:14:35.588 – 00:14:37.828] I forgot the most important of all.

[00:14:37.828 – 00:14:40.508] Spiritual.

[00:14:40.508 – 00:14:42.148] Early on, we had churches.

[00:14:42.148 – 00:14:43.408] We had this, we had that.

[00:14:43.408 – 00:14:46.288] If you didn’t have churches, you had something, whole family.

[00:14:46.288 – 00:14:51.208] But something set the morality for why you were what you were.

[00:14:51.208 – 00:14:53.168] And this kind of held it together.

[00:14:53.168 – 00:14:57.108] Okay, so that’s what an individual is.

[00:14:57.108 – 00:15:03.588] Now let me tell you how I, or any other alchie that’s worth his salt, gets this thing screwed up.

[00:15:03.588 – 00:15:08.408] Let’s go to the top.

[00:15:08.408 – 00:15:09.088] Spiritual.

[00:15:09.088 – 00:15:19.128] When I first came around, many years ago, my idea of spirituality, being a, a, a Catholic, a Roman Catholic Irish kid,

[00:15:19.128 – 00:15:25.648] was that, uh, the only prayer that I could ever utter was one I could memorize.

[00:15:25.648 – 00:15:26.948] Agnus Dei, absolve a, you know?

[00:15:26.948 – 00:15:30.528] Qua est deus dei, a quarter two mayo, and I can beat you at dominoes.

[00:15:30.528 – 00:15:32.128] I, I am not be…

[00:15:32.128 – 00:15:37.867] If I could not me- memorize it, I could not pray it.

[00:15:37.867 – 00:15:45.668] It was only after I came to Alcoholics Anonymous that I knew anything about what prayer was.

[00:15:45.668 – 00:15:53.998] Perhaps you’ve heard that story about the priest that was walking by one day, and he sees a guy fixing a tire, and the guy is yelling and cursing.

[00:15:53.998 – 00:15:58.288] Alchie, no doubt, going back to his native tongue, profanity.

[00:15:58.288 – 00:16:02.768] And, uh, he couldn’t get the tire on, and the priest says, “Hold it, hold it.

[00:16:02.768 – 00:16:03.808] Why all the swearing?

[00:16:03.808 – 00:16:05.368] Why all the nasty language?

[00:16:05.368 – 00:16:15.488] Why don’t you say a little prayer, and maybe it’ll help?” The wino says, “Great.” Bowed his head, said the Serenity Prayer, or something equal,

[00:16:15.488 – 00:16:17.508] grabbed the tire, went right on the wheel.

[00:16:17.508 – 00:16:27.908] Priest says, “I’ll be damned.” Socially,

[00:16:27.908 – 00:16:28.508] I don’t know.

[00:16:28.508 – 00:16:31.068] I don’t think I was any different than anybody else.

[00:16:31.068 – 00:16:32.968] Didn’t have a lot of social habits.

[00:16:32.968 – 00:16:34.708] Didn’t have, at that time, drinking habits.

[00:16:34.708 – 00:16:40.888] I was too busy after I got back to service becoming a very important man in the university.

[00:16:40.888 – 00:16:44.388] Still searching grades.

[00:16:44.388 – 00:16:45.108] Didn’t even drink.

[00:16:45.108 – 00:16:47.048] That’s true.

[00:16:47.048 – 00:16:50.408] Boggles my own mind when I come to think about it.

[00:16:50.408 – 00:16:54.468] Sexually, I don’t know.

[00:16:54.468 – 00:16:58.108] I guess I’m as biological as any other guy that walks up the street.

[00:16:58.108 – 00:16:58.488] Hell.

[00:16:58.488 – 00:17:01.048] Not too good, but I was quick.

[00:17:01.048 – 00:17:09.448] When I drank, I thought I was a real, the greatest lover in all of Paris.

[00:17:09.448 – 00:17:13.528] If anybody ever tried making love to a pickle barrel.

[00:17:13.528 – 00:17:23.728] And then, of course, my advocate, my vocation turned from student to dentist, and that’s the way it was.

[00:17:23.728 – 00:17:28.768] Now, in the middle, we put the jug.

[00:17:28.768 – 00:17:35.568] And I drank, I suppose, as normally as the next guy for quite a while.

[00:17:35.568 – 00:17:39.788] I don’t know, because I don’t remember what normal drinking is.

[00:17:39.788 – 00:17:43.768] But I didn’t get in trouble with booze.

[00:17:43.768 – 00:17:44.888] I got hangovers.

[00:17:44.888 – 00:17:46.268] I got this, I got that.

[00:17:46.268 – 00:17:49.808] But I didn’t get in all that much trouble.

[00:17:49.808 – 00:17:51.528] Conviviality, it’s called.

[00:17:51.528 – 00:17:52.888] Shit.

[00:17:52.888 – 00:18:00.788] Booze.

[00:18:00.788 – 00:18:02.658] Ah, to hell with it.

[00:18:02.658 – 00:18:04.608] Booze.

[00:18:04.608 – 00:18:11.188] Now, all of a sudden, things started to happen.

[00:18:11.188 – 00:18:17.772] There came a point whenever I drank, I got drunk.

[00:18:17.772 – 00:18:20.472] That’s the antithesis of Dr.

[00:18:20.472 – 00:18:21.952] John’s law.

[00:18:21.952 – 00:18:23.732] If you drink, you get drunk.

[00:18:23.732 – 00:18:32.192] And when I got drunk, having to put it somewhere, I became a little more social.

[00:18:32.192 – 00:18:36.932] Told you I need a lot of chalk, didn’t I?

[00:18:36.932 – 00:18:43.251] And a little less somewhere.

[00:18:43.251 – 00:18:46.032] Missed mass a lot.

[00:18:46.032 – 00:18:54.802] Sexually wild.

[00:18:54.802 – 00:19:04.232] Now I look like this.

[00:19:04.232 – 00:19:07.852] And I drank some more.

[00:19:07.852 – 00:19:13.892] I started going through all of the things every alkie will go through, blackouts.

[00:19:13.892 – 00:19:19.852] Doing first ha-ha funny things, you know?

[00:19:19.852 – 00:19:21.972] Real ha-ha funny things.

[00:19:21.972 – 00:19:32.392] Like the time I drove to Seattle, parked my car, went with the boys, got drunk, woke up the next day, brought the plane

[00:19:32.392 – 00:19:32.832] back.

[00:19:32.832 – 00:19:38.312] Sharp kid.

[00:19:38.312 – 00:19:41.692] Now I gotta take the plane back to the car, which means you gotta get drunk again.

[00:19:41.692 – 00:19:45.932] Now I got drunk again, and I didn’t know whether I came in the plane or the car.

[00:19:45.932 – 00:19:51.472] I finally figured out I came in the car, and I couldn’t remember where I put the car.

[00:19:51.472 – 00:19:52.992] And the plane didn’t know.

[00:19:52.992 – 00:19:59.332] They started getting less and less ha-ha funny.

[00:19:59.332 – 00:20:04.992] I missed a lot of work.

[00:20:04.992 – 00:20:15.212] My

[00:20:15.212 – 00:20:16.132] wife had cut me off.

[00:20:16.132 – 00:20:25.012] That was Maisie.

[00:20:25.012 – 00:20:25.982] She lived in Prangville.

[00:20:25.982 – 00:20:28.672] No, I don’t know Maisie in Prangville.

[00:20:28.672 – 00:20:33.912] Now, the figure ain’t looking too sharp, is it?

[00:20:33.912 – 00:20:37.752] The family hadn’t gone yet, but they were ready to split.

[00:20:37.752 – 00:20:47.972] Maybe the turning point in my alcoholic drinking was that day in Madras, Oregon, where I was sitting with mucho hangover, and a gal walked in to have a tooth pulled,

[00:20:47.972 – 00:20:50.932] and I sat her in a chair and injected her with Novocaine.

[00:20:50.932 – 00:20:54.952] And her brother came and said, “Doc, do you feel as bad as I do?” I said, “You got it.”

[00:20:55.331 – 00:21:02.531] He said, “Let’s go down to Shangri-La’s and have a cup of coffee and straighten this thing up.” I says, “You got it.” And we went down.

[00:21:02.531 – 00:21:03.851] I numbed her.

[00:21:03.851 – 00:21:09.391] I waited for her to get numb by going down to Shangri-La to have a cup of coffee, and I ain’t been back since.

[00:21:09.391 – 00:21:20.431] That was 21 years ago this August, and as far as I know, that broad’s still sitting there.

[00:21:20.431 – 00:21:30.471] I lost

[00:21:30.471 – 00:21:35.031] all interest in dentistry and got out of it and started on a geographical change.

[00:21:35.031 – 00:21:44.331] Now, let me point out here that, uh, there’s, the, uh, she, my partner said there’s a lot of reasons for coming to this program.

[00:21:44.331 – 00:21:53.411] And God Almighty, I’ve skipped a hell of a lot of stuff, and there were a lot of places from there to here that I could have wanted to stop drinking.

[00:21:53.411 – 00:21:59.170] But up to this point, I did not connect booze with the problems I was having.

[00:21:59.170 – 00:22:09.591] And I finally, though, said to myself, “Maybe, just maybe, booze has got something

[00:22:09.591 – 00:22:17.731] to do with this.” Now, I wasn’t convinced of it, and the Big Book tells us we better be convinced.

[00:22:17.731 – 00:22:21.671] So I went to the only source I knew.

[00:22:21.671 – 00:22:25.111] I connected booze, for crying out loud, with a morality problem, huh?

[00:22:25.111 – 00:22:32.331] And I went to the priest in John Day, Oregon, a good Irish lad.

[00:22:32.331 – 00:22:34.951] I’m born in Ireland, so that fit.

[00:22:34.951 – 00:22:45.231] I said to him, “Father, I think I have a drinking problem.” He said to me, and get this.

[00:22:45.231 – 00:22:48.441] Huh, why didn’t I think of it?

[00:22:48.441 – 00:22:56.311] “L- laddie, you know we Irish have a tendency to be having a problem with the booze.” Are you ready?

[00:22:56.311 – 00:23:04.571] “I suggest you quit.” Goddamn, never even occurred to me.

[00:23:04.571 – 00:23:14.941] And it was at that point that I found out that I could not quit, and

[00:23:14.941 – 00:23:16.751] often dared not.

[00:23:16.751 – 00:23:26.811] So I prayed on the bo- on the altars of every border, or every, uh, uh, altar from the Idaho border

[00:23:26.811 – 00:23:34.351] to the Pacific Ocean, praying that I could quit drinking, and I did not quit drinking.

[00:23:34.351 – 00:23:44.451] So the religious, if you’ll excuse the expression, fri- uh, uh, approach to having to quit alco- to quit alcohol did not

[00:23:44.451 – 00:23:47.311] seem to work too very well.

[00:23:47.311 – 00:23:57.531] Then, because I now had no job and no

[00:23:57.531 – 00:24:00.271] family, and certainly…

[00:24:00.271 – 00:24:06.071] Well, here’s the way it looked.

[00:24:06.071 – 00:24:10.431] Now, this is going pretty fast over a lot of years.

[00:24:10.431 – 00:24:10.911] There’s God.

[00:24:10.911 – 00:24:11.551] He never leaves.

[00:24:11.551 – 00:24:13.711] It’s so funny with that guy.

[00:24:13.711 – 00:24:14.571] He never leaves.

[00:24:14.571 – 00:24:20.371] But there we are, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

[00:24:20.371 – 00:24:25.131] I never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, not up to that point.

[00:24:25.131 – 00:24:27.271] Not up to that point.

[00:24:27.271 – 00:24:28.991] Tried the medical profession.

[00:24:28.991 – 00:24:30.031] That seemed to make sense.

[00:24:30.031 – 00:24:31.371] Go to the doctors.

[00:24:31.371 – 00:24:32.071] That’s what they’re for.

[00:24:32.071 – 00:24:35.891] After all, I’m associated certain d- to a certain degree with medicine.

[00:24:35.891 – 00:24:41.351] And to the doctors I went, and one of them said I had a drinking problem.

[00:24:41.351 – 00:24:43.511] I changed doctors.

[00:24:43.511 – 00:24:53.551] I finally found a doctor who told me that my problem was that I was too nervous and too tense, that I ought to have a drink, but

[00:24:53.551 – 00:24:56.291] just one or two, to relax me.

[00:24:56.291 – 00:24:59.511] And I stayed with that son of a bitch for a long time.

[00:24:59.511 – 00:25:06.991] It was at this point that I started to obey.

[00:25:06.991 – 00:25:10.271] Hadn’t hit Murphy’s Law yet, but it was getting there.

[00:25:10.271 – 00:25:11.451] You know Murphy’s Law.

[00:25:11.451 – 00:25:14.271] If anything can go wrong, it will.

[00:25:14.271 – 00:25:19.251] That’s followed by O’Toole’s Law, which says Murphy was an optimist.

[00:25:19.251 – 00:25:30.171] But Ginsburg’s Law, you can’t win, you

[00:25:30.171 – 00:25:34.631] can’t even break even, and you can’t quit the game.

[00:25:34.631 – 00:25:37.071] So what do you do?

[00:25:37.071 – 00:25:42.651] I went to shrinks, a shrink.

[00:25:42.651 – 00:25:47.511] I sound like I’m defaming or running these good people down.

[00:25:47.511 – 00:25:48.311] Not at all.

[00:25:48.311 – 00:25:58.311] They all would have helped me if they could have, but I did not want help, apparently, because I never told any of them

[00:25:58.311 – 00:25:58.631] the truth.

[00:25:58.631 – 00:26:00.471] And what good alkie would?

[00:26:00.471 – 00:26:03.451] Beer once in a while don’t bother me, you know, routine.

[00:26:03.451 – 00:26:14.391] The, uh, the psychiatrist, well, as I’ve often said, like a good alkie I am,

[00:26:14.391 – 00:26:20.230] in 40 minutes I found out who he was sleeping with, and he never did find out who I was sleeping with.

[00:26:20.230 – 00:26:28.531] People are quitting before they get this far.

[00:26:28.531 – 00:26:31.631] Well, that’s cool.

[00:26:31.631 – 00:26:34.291] Man, is that cool.

[00:26:34.291 – 00:26:37.411] But I didn’t.

[00:26:37.411 – 00:26:39.831] Lots of reasons for coming here.

[00:26:39.831 – 00:26:48.971] The, the, the, the one, the, the least, uh, uh, the least noxious reason I ever heard of for anybody coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have his permission to tell this.

[00:26:48.971 – 00:26:59.261] Incidentally, just in passing, I will never tell another man’s story at a meeting as long as I live, praise God, I hope I don’t, without his permission,

[00:26:59.261 – 00:27:01.331] and I hope you don’t.

[00:27:01.331 – 00:27:02.091] Read the book.

[00:27:02.091 – 00:27:06.075] We think we should stick to our own story.

[00:27:06.075 – 00:27:14.235] We have no right to tell another, and especially the guy that is out there drinking.

[00:27:14.235 – 00:27:18.055] He has the right to the anonymity of his drinking.

[00:27:18.055 – 00:27:19.395] That is my opinion.

[00:27:19.395 – 00:27:20.755] No need to read the books.

[00:27:20.755 – 00:27:27.695] And he does not have the right to have to be the subject of a meeting.

[00:27:27.695 – 00:27:30.574] Well, that’ll piss someone off.

[00:27:30.574 – 00:27:40.715] The guy I’m talking about was brought into this program by telephone, Danny, and he came into AA because of the fact that he didn’t like whiskey, because

[00:27:40.715 – 00:27:43.375] when he drank whiskey, it made him sneeze.

[00:27:43.375 – 00:27:53.415] Now, that cracked me up because I, uh, remembered in my mind back when I was at 3rd and Howard in skid row, and I had this,

[00:27:53.415 – 00:27:56.315] uh, little malady called the wino trots.

[00:27:56.315 – 00:28:03.935] And I just imagined what would happen if I was there and I sneezed.

[00:28:03.935 – 00:28:08.475] No way.

[00:28:08.475 – 00:28:11.975] Blew a drive.

[00:28:11.975 – 00:28:22.515] On the other end of the scale, I have the personal acquaintance of a man who was so prideful that he would not sleep in a flophouse.

[00:28:22.515 – 00:28:30.975] He absolutely refused to use the room he was in, uh, the sink or the window or anything else for his bathroom habits.

[00:28:30.975 – 00:28:33.355] Please don’t call this vulgarity.

[00:28:33.355 – 00:28:34.775] Damn it, this is the truth.

[00:28:34.775 – 00:28:39.075] This is reality, and sometimes reality is vulgar.

[00:28:39.075 – 00:28:45.435] And he used to go and find an empty wine bottle after he had scammed up en- enough money for a big one.

[00:28:45.435 – 00:28:49.235] 56 cents in those days.

[00:28:49.235 – 00:28:55.115] And he would take the wine to stay asleep and the empty wine bottle for his toilet.

[00:28:55.115 – 00:29:00.215] And he’d sleep for an hour, take a slug, get up, and you know what.

[00:29:00.215 – 00:29:06.435] Sleep, drink, you know what, sleep, drink, vicious circle, just to make it through the night.

[00:29:06.435 – 00:29:11.655] Until that one day he got up and both bottles were empty.

[00:29:11.655 – 00:29:17.955] He got to AA in a hurry.

[00:29:17.955 – 00:29:23.975] And he’s been here ever since, that I know of.

[00:29:23.975 – 00:29:35.135] Along the way, though, I finally made it to Alcoholics Anonymous in

[00:29:35.135 – 00:29:40.495] about this condition, and I stayed for one year.

[00:29:40.495 – 00:29:46.775] Things were starting to shape up.

[00:29:46.775 – 00:29:47.495] Where did it go?

[00:29:47.495 – 00:29:57.495] Maybe I didn’t know much about God, but I knew he was

[00:29:57.495 – 00:30:07.735] around, and I was starting to learn about God through listening to people because my AA in those days consisted of meetings, meetings, meetings,

[00:30:07.735 – 00:30:08.575] meetings.

[00:30:08.575 – 00:30:18.675] My family

[00:30:18.675 – 00:30:24.355] disappeared long ago, but at least I had a little bit of AA family.

[00:30:24.355 – 00:30:33.015] I got a job peddling and did earn my own way.

[00:30:33.015 – 00:30:39.675] I don’t remember where I had social, but that was it, and it was also AA.

[00:30:39.675 – 00:30:42.545] But it was better.

[00:30:42.545 – 00:30:49.995] I went to meetings, I went to meetings, I went to meetings, and bes- and in spite of myself, I learned something.

[00:30:49.995 – 00:30:51.975] But then something happened.

[00:30:51.975 – 00:30:54.535] I didn’t do anything more than go to meetings.

[00:30:54.535 – 00:30:56.775] I never read the book.

[00:30:56.775 – 00:30:59.375] I sure as hell didn’t practice the steps.

[00:30:59.375 – 00:31:09.425] The only thing I know of that I did that was worth a crap, I got on the speakers tour, and I taught all you great people how to stay sober

[00:31:09.425 – 00:31:10.835] .

[00:31:10.835 – 00:31:21.015] And then a guy told me, not even on AA, “You don’t drink anymore, do you, John?” I says, “No, I haven’t had a drink for a year.” Skippy,

[00:31:21.015 – 00:31:21.495] skippy.

[00:31:21.495 – 00:31:22.515] Big deal.

[00:31:22.515 – 00:31:27.495] He says, “You’re a hell of a man.” And I agreed.

[00:31:27.495 – 00:31:31.635] And I went out and celebrated my manhood.

[00:31:31.635 – 00:31:39.895] You, and I don’t have to tell you how long this thing got this way again, do I?

[00:31:39.895 – 00:31:42.955] And I’m not going to keep erasing this goddamn thing.

[00:31:42.955 – 00:31:46.715] But it went right, right back like that.

[00:31:46.715 – 00:31:50.175] Now, remember, now, I’ve already gone to 300 meetings.

[00:31:50.175 – 00:31:54.045] I stayed sober another year, went to another 300 meetings.

[00:31:54.045 – 00:31:57.015] Something happened, my shoelace broke, a banana fell in my ear.

[00:31:57.015 – 00:31:57.695] Who knows?

[00:31:57.695 – 00:31:59.575] Something happened.

[00:31:59.575 – 00:32:00.535] I got drunk.

[00:32:00.535 – 00:32:01.755] I left.

[00:32:01.755 – 00:32:05.335] Came back pretty soon, just like this, on and on and on.

[00:32:05.335 – 00:32:07.795] But finally, let’s get to the low line.

[00:32:07.795 – 00:32:17.955] And the low line is that after, uh, five years around here apparently not learning a goddamn thing except meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings,

[00:32:17.955 – 00:32:28.135] meetings, meetings, I wound up going on the goddamndest run I ever went on in my life, which led me to the filth and rot of every skid row in

[00:32:28.135 – 00:32:29.935] five Western states.

[00:32:29.935 – 00:32:33.915] And I thought you could go no further than this.

[00:32:33.915 – 00:32:35.435] I hadn’t seen that pamphlet yet.

[00:32:35.435 – 00:32:39.335] Goddamn, I’d just begun.

[00:32:39.335 – 00:32:44.695] Pretty soon, I got more than the whips and jangles.

[00:32:44.695 – 00:32:46.435] I got funny people.

[00:32:46.435 – 00:32:48.695] You know the kind, or if anybody here does.

[00:32:48.695 – 00:32:50.615] You know?

[00:32:50.615 – 00:32:52.555] Pink elephants, hell.

[00:32:52.555 – 00:32:56.795] I, I, I, I catered to turkeys on bicycles or any other weird shit.

[00:32:56.795 – 00:33:03.295] And then my jerks got jerks.

[00:33:03.295 – 00:33:07.925] Man, anything I did, I had to catch between quivers.

[00:33:07.925 – 00:33:12.055] And finally, this is what I look like.

[00:33:12.055 – 00:33:19.355] That’s it.

[00:33:19.355 – 00:33:21.775] That’s what I look like.

[00:33:21.775 – 00:33:27.655] Now, I had gone to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings in the five years.

[00:33:27.655 – 00:33:28.935] This is a lot more years than that.

[00:33:28.935 – 00:33:39.175] And when I first came here, I had a guy tell me right down here at the Allendale Club, his name was, uh, oh, Josh Higgins.

[00:33:39.175 – 00:33:51.595] He said, “Doc,” he says, “if you think there’s any way that you can get sober without AA, maybe you ought to try it first.” I,

[00:33:51.595 – 00:33:57.735] uh, I had already tried everything: medicine, psychiatry, uh, organized religion.

[00:33:57.735 – 00:33:58.645] What else is there?

[00:33:58.645 – 00:34:08.715] He said, “The only reason I tell you that is because if you come here and you mess

[00:34:08.715 – 00:34:15.354] around with AA, and you play games with AA, you’re going to lose.

[00:34:15.354 – 00:34:22.775] Because you’re going to maybe have to go back out there, and you’re going to have to drink again.

[00:34:22.775 – 00:34:27.515] And finally, you’ll drink into the filth and rot of God knows what.

[00:34:27.515 – 00:34:37.755] And then somebody will come along after you reach out your hands and say, ‘Help me,’ and they’ll say, ‘Why don’t you go

[00:34:37.755 – 00:34:47.855] to AA?’ And you will say, ‘I tried AA five years ago, and it didn’t

[00:34:47.855 – 00:34:57.155] work for me.'” Is there anybody here that would please tell me where you send them now?

[00:34:57.155 – 00:35:00.855] Where do you send them now?

[00:35:00.855 – 00:35:04.155] Come on, I want to know.

[00:35:04.155 – 00:35:06.775] That’s right.

[00:35:06.775 – 00:35:09.415] There ain’t no place.

[00:35:09.415 – 00:35:16.355] So while you’re here, stay here.

[00:35:16.355 – 00:35:22.774] I’m going to take a three-minute break for the cause because I got to wee-wee.

[00:35:22.774 – 00:35:32.775] If I said I am sorry

[00:35:32.775 – 00:35:36.795] to have taken this long, I would be lying.

[00:35:36.795 – 00:35:46.295] Uh, I feel it’s got to be said.

[00:35:46.295 – 00:35:54.875] I got a word for the young people coming in whom fell into the category…

[00:35:54.875 – 00:35:56.655] Now, don’t get me wrong.

[00:35:56.655 – 00:36:06.895] I am so delightful that you did come in this way, but you were categorized by such loving stalwarts of this

[00:36:06.895 – 00:36:16.475] AA community in the past, such as Oaky Bob and some of those other very gentle people, as being half wounded.

[00:36:16.475 – 00:36:23.635] Now that is a term of, of love, not of derision.

[00:36:23.635 – 00:36:33.735] You never had to go this far, but I admonish you now, don’t you

[00:36:33.735 – 00:36:39.135] dare ever not have time for the guy that has gone that far.

[00:36:39.135 – 00:36:43.015] Don’t do it.

[00:36:43.015 – 00:36:52.335] If you ever turn your back on a wino of Third and Burnside, you owe AA a drunk.

[00:36:52.335 – 00:37:02.385] And besides, there’s the

[00:37:02.385 – 00:37:07.635] only way I know of for you to learn what you missed.

[00:37:07.635 – 00:37:17.675] You can’t tell me that you can see me at Third and Howard in a doorway with

[00:37:17.675 – 00:37:24.915] this Mickey Mouse suit on, but you can if you see him in the doorway.

[00:37:24.915 – 00:37:26.874] You want me to embarrass you?

[00:37:26.874 – 00:37:37.175] How many people here on the program less than two years are signed up with the central office for their AA

[00:37:37.175 – 00:37:38.375] 12-step list?

[00:37:38.375 – 00:37:42.755] Strange.

[00:37:42.755 – 00:37:49.435] If you don’t give it, baby, you ain’t always going to be able to get it.

[00:37:49.435 – 00:37:53.995] And that reminds me of a myth.

[00:37:53.995 – 00:38:01.635] I haven’t got enough experience to make a 12-step call.

[00:38:01.635 – 00:38:03.955] Anybody ever heard that?

[00:38:03.955 – 00:38:07.495] Look in the book.

[00:38:07.495 – 00:38:17.975] Even the newest of newcomers are of value to the person that’s had as much

[00:38:17.975 – 00:38:21.735] as one less minute sobriety than you.

[00:38:21.735 – 00:38:29.275] So if you’re reading that somewhere, it must be in the Popular Mechanics.

[00:38:29.275 – 00:38:40.595] Furthermore, there are a bunch of old coots that have been dry so goddamn long they’re fire hazards- …

[00:38:40.595 – 00:38:46.755] that are just as guilty because they’re getting the attitude, “I got mine, damn it.

[00:38:46.755 – 00:38:49.815] Now you get yours,” and you don’t see them in meetings.

[00:38:49.815 – 00:38:55.215] What you do see them, though, is drunk.

[00:38:55.215 – 00:39:00.235] Point, 13 years sobriety.

[00:39:00.235 – 00:39:10.375] Went back to drinking, drank for five years, stuck a hose in the back window of his car, and committed suicide one

[00:39:10.375 – 00:39:10.955] year ago.

[00:39:10.955 – 00:39:14.055] Point, 18 years of sobriety.

[00:39:14.055 – 00:39:19.115] Decided he did not like nor need Alcoholics Anonymous, nor their people.

[00:39:19.115 – 00:39:27.264] Went back to drinking, and in six months was dead with a .45 slug in his gut with a jealous husband.

[00:39:27.264 – 00:39:37.365] Point, this week, 20 years sobriety, decided he did not need nor want Alcoholics Anonymous, and he went

[00:39:37.365 – 00:39:39.425] back to drinking, and he died.

[00:39:39.425 – 00:39:44.145] I rest my case.

[00:39:44.145 – 00:39:50.665] When I got back to Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn’t have any opinions about anything.

[00:39:50.665 – 00:39:56.425] I’ll never forget the time that I was after my third slip, and I had three first birthdays in the first five years.

[00:39:56.425 – 00:40:06.705] I decided that I knew exactly what I had did wrong, and I spent 15 or 20 minutes explaining to Okie Bob what I had did wrong, and that I would not have to slip anymore

[00:40:06.705 – 00:40:09.125] because now I had it all whipped.

[00:40:09.125 – 00:40:13.985] I knew exactly what I did wrong, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then I made a mistake.

[00:40:13.985 – 00:40:16.185] I asked him what he thought.

[00:40:16.185 – 00:40:26.185] And he backed up, and he said, “That is probably the most wonderful, well-spoken piece of bullshit I have

[00:40:26.185 – 00:40:36.225] ever heard.” He says, “Buddy, boy, you got drunk, and you got drunk for one reason only, and it’s the only reason you’ll ever get drunk, and it’s

[00:40:36.225 – 00:40:46.285] the only reason you’ll get drunk when you’ll get drunk again, which you will,” which I did, “and that is because you wanted to.” Then he

[00:40:46.285 – 00:40:49.425] walked away, and he hurt my feelings.

[00:40:49.425 – 00:40:59.485] After having been told hundreds and hundreds of times, apparently without listening, about this disease, I finally

[00:40:59.485 – 00:41:01.585] got through my head what we were talking about.

[00:41:01.585 – 00:41:11.725] I heard many, many, many times the fact that alcoholism in alcoholism, booze is only the symptom, and I believe now that booze

[00:41:11.725 – 00:41:17.485] don’t have a hell of a lot to do with Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:41:17.485 – 00:41:19.405] Not very much.

[00:41:19.405 – 00:41:22.825] Not very much.

[00:41:22.825 – 00:41:23.625] Think about it.

[00:41:23.625 – 00:41:28.245] You don’t read very much about booze in the AA Big Book, do you?

[00:41:28.245 – 00:41:30.745] No, you don’t.

[00:41:30.745 – 00:41:32.085] Oh, in the stories, of course.

[00:41:32.085 – 00:41:38.005] I learned about this business of allergy and compulsion years before, but now I knew what it meant.

[00:41:38.005 – 00:41:43.585] It meant that if I took one drink, I could not, subject to willpower, guarantee not taking another.

[00:41:43.585 – 00:41:46.365] I realized what compulsion meant.

[00:41:46.365 – 00:41:50.055] I realized that it was obs- an obsession which became a com-

[00:41:50.222 – 00:41:50.662] Compulsion.

[00:41:50.662 – 00:41:56.621] I realize this too, and this is going to sound a little intellectual, but it’s not really.

[00:41:56.621 – 00:42:04.862] Every obsession, or compulsion if you want it that way, serves a need.

[00:42:04.862 – 00:42:12.042] What’s the quickest way that we could al- answer our alcoholic problem?

[00:42:12.042 – 00:42:17.842] The quickest way was to deny there was a problem, right?

[00:42:17.842 – 00:42:21.262] And how do you best deny it?

[00:42:21.262 – 00:42:23.502] You get drunk.

[00:42:23.502 – 00:42:33.622] So in other words, the best definition I can think of for an alcoholic is a guy who drinks to forget about the

[00:42:33.622 – 00:42:35.302] problems caused by drinking.

[00:42:35.302 – 00:42:38.362] That don’t make any sense either, does it?

[00:42:38.362 – 00:42:40.662] We’re real sharp people, we alkies.

[00:42:40.662 – 00:42:45.522] And I believe now that every obsession, and I believe they…

[00:42:45.522 – 00:42:52.562] whether that’s an obsession to go to the movies, an obsession for sex, an obsession for this, an obsession for that.

[00:42:52.562 – 00:42:53.462] You know about it.

[00:42:53.462 – 00:42:55.021] You’re obsessed to go fishing.

[00:42:55.021 – 00:42:57.502] You play golf, you can’t do nothing but play golf.

[00:42:57.502 – 00:42:59.622] There’s more bottles than booze.

[00:42:59.622 – 00:43:01.542] Many, many more.

[00:43:01.542 – 00:43:11.862] And that you will never overcome an obsession until you satisfy the needs it serves

[00:43:11.862 – 00:43:13.102] some other way.

[00:43:13.102 – 00:43:23.222] In other words, put something back that you take away, and that’s what AA is all about.

[00:43:23.222 – 00:43:25.542] I believe that.

[00:43:25.542 – 00:43:35.621] AA serves the needs that the obsession serves, freeing you up from not having to drink, or freeing you up from drinking I should

[00:43:35.622 – 00:43:35.962] say.

[00:43:35.962 – 00:43:39.082] I learned about resentness.

[00:43:39.082 – 00:43:41.632] Let me tell you something.

[00:43:41.632 – 00:43:49.862] Do you think I don’t know of the many, many people who don’t resent Doc John?

[00:43:49.862 – 00:43:54.662] What in the hell do you think Doc John’s for?

[00:43:54.662 – 00:43:59.162] You’ve got to have someone around to hate.

[00:43:59.162 – 00:44:08.262] And I tell you this, and it came from Bill Scully, and it’s not in the book, but I believe it anyhow.

[00:44:08.262 – 00:44:16.522] There is not one SOB in this world worth resenting.

[00:44:16.522 – 00:44:18.582] Not one.

[00:44:18.582 – 00:44:25.542] Not your wife, your children, not your boss, and sure as hell not Doc John.

[00:44:25.542 – 00:44:28.242] But I ain’t going to know it anyhow.

[00:44:28.242 – 00:44:29.742] Oh, yes I will.

[00:44:29.742 – 00:44:35.922] They learned about self-pity and all that stuff.

[00:44:35.922 – 00:44:38.622] This was side effect.

[00:44:38.622 – 00:44:40.262] Anger.

[00:44:40.262 – 00:44:44.482] Clue on anger.

[00:44:44.482 – 00:44:54.712] I don’t think anybody can avoid anger, but I’ll tell you one thing, if it happens, maybe you ought to just walk away because if you hang around, you’re going to get…

[00:44:54.712 – 00:44:56.652] you’re going to re-feel it, and that’s the resentment.

[00:44:56.652 – 00:45:00.522] Let the other guy get mad.

[00:45:00.522 – 00:45:05.482] The real truth of the matter, I’m either a son of a bitch or I’m not.

[00:45:05.482 – 00:45:08.442] If I am, so what?

[00:45:08.442 – 00:45:15.122] And if I’m not, why should I make myself one by getting mad about it?

[00:45:15.122 – 00:45:18.262] Simple.

[00:45:18.262 – 00:45:20.022] Let the other guy get mad.

[00:45:20.022 – 00:45:21.442] You can’t afford it.

[00:45:21.442 – 00:45:26.221] At least you can’t afford to re-feel the anger.

[00:45:26.221 – 00:45:34.922] But anyhow, when I got back here, I didn’t have any ideas about anything, and I didn’t have any explanations on slip, and I didn’t have nothing.

[00:45:34.922 – 00:45:39.762] I’d already been halfway to the joint and back again, did some time in the county jail.

[00:45:39.762 – 00:45:40.602] I’d missed all that.

[00:45:40.602 – 00:45:41.382] It’s not important.

[00:45:41.382 – 00:45:42.802] It was just part of the drunk-a-log.

[00:45:42.802 – 00:45:47.262] I’m not real thrilled with drunk-a-logs anyhow, but you name it, I was there.

[00:45:47.262 – 00:45:55.162] And then I decided somewhere along the line, I knew that there was a thing called a sponsor.

[00:45:55.162 – 00:46:01.102] Now, up to that time, I had a whole lot of sponsors.

[00:46:01.102 – 00:46:02.302] Let me tell you why.

[00:46:02.302 – 00:46:12.482] If you got a whole lot of sponsors, and you got a problem, and you go to a sponsor

[00:46:12.482 – 00:46:22.862] and he tells you what the answer to your problem is, and you don’t like that method, you go to another one until you finally hit one

[00:46:22.862 – 00:46:23.742] that you agree with.

[00:46:23.742 – 00:46:33.882] Remember, it says in this program to stick with the winners, and I think what that means is

[00:46:33.882 – 00:46:42.502] this: if you’re going to have a winning track team, go find a guy that can jump seven feet.

[00:46:42.502 – 00:46:45.282] Don’t go to seven guys that can jump one foot.

[00:46:45.282 – 00:46:56.272] Now, if you have it very hard and

[00:46:56.272 – 00:47:02.042] difficult to practice this program, don’t worry about it.

[00:47:02.042 – 00:47:04.542] It only means you’re alive.

[00:47:04.542 – 00:47:07.302] The book says you’re not perfect.

[00:47:07.302 – 00:47:11.722] It does not mean that you’re weak or a failure.

[00:47:11.722 – 00:47:19.142] The only failure on Alcoholics Anonymous is the guy or gal who quits trying.

[00:47:19.142 – 00:47:22.122] There ain’t no other kind.

[00:47:22.122 – 00:47:24.842] So I don’t care.

[00:47:24.842 – 00:47:26.262] I care, of course.

[00:47:26.262 – 00:47:29.722] Maybe it’s kind of justification here.

[00:47:29.722 – 00:47:35.212] I don’t care if you’ve slipped a dozen times, if you keep trying.

[00:47:35.212 – 00:47:38.862] They say if you slip once, it’s a tragedy.

[00:47:38.862 – 00:47:41.062] If you slip more than once, it’s stupidity.

[00:47:41.062 – 00:47:45.022] I kind of got to agree with that, but it’s a little difficult for me to say.

[00:47:45.022 – 00:47:46.362] I just told you my story.

[00:47:46.362 – 00:47:49.782] Another myth.

[00:47:49.782 – 00:47:53.582] He hasn’t drunk enough.

[00:47:53.582 – 00:47:55.462] Ever heard that?

[00:47:55.462 – 00:48:00.202] How in the damn hell much is enough?

[00:48:00.202 – 00:48:09.842] We have excessive attitudes early on in this program, and I think they become less excessive as we get a track record.

[00:48:09.842 – 00:48:19.902] We say you can’t lead a horse to water and you can’t make him drink,

[00:48:19.902 – 00:48:21.442] but you can make him thirsty.

[00:48:21.442 – 00:48:28.222] But the alky expects the goddamn horse to dive in and do the backstroke.

[00:48:28.222 – 00:48:38.422] Be very slow to turn on your heel and walk away from a drunk that is doing a lot of yes-butting and

[00:48:38.422 – 00:48:39.122] all of that.

[00:48:39.122 – 00:48:41.262] He’s learning.

[00:48:41.262 – 00:48:43.662] You yes-butted too.

[00:48:43.662 – 00:48:44.602] I know I did.

[00:48:44.602 – 00:48:49.862] I forgot about the sponsor.

[00:48:49.862 – 00:48:58.882] Well, I decided to get one, and I picked a guy, and a lot of you have heard this, but remember a movie is first run until you’ve seen it.

[00:48:58.882 – 00:49:04.822] I picked the meanest, rottenest bastard I could find.

[00:49:04.822 – 00:49:06.782] Self-image, I guess.

[00:49:06.782 – 00:49:15.442] And I used to have problems like all of us, and this is after I’d gone to hundreds and hundreds of meetings, you know.

[00:49:15.442 – 00:49:21.142] And I go to him with a problem, and he’d say, “Tee, hee, hee.” He would laugh in a vulgar way.

[00:49:21.142 – 00:49:22.182] I hated that laugh.

[00:49:22.182 – 00:49:29.182] And he says, “John, I won’t tell you, but I’ll read it to you.” And he’d give the big book, and he’d thumb through it, and he’d read it to me.

[00:49:29.182 – 00:49:31.582] And I’d say, “Thank you very much,” and I’d leave.

[00:49:31.582 – 00:49:35.942] And I’d be back in about three hours with another problem, like any good alcoholic.

[00:49:35.942 – 00:49:42.882] And then I would say, “I won’t ha, ha, ha tell you, but I’ll read it to you.” He’d grab the book, and he’d read the problem.

[00:49:42.882 – 00:49:45.242] Tell me the problem, read the answer.

[00:49:45.242 – 00:49:48.442] Now, I’m going about once a day.

[00:49:48.442 – 00:49:49.712] He says, “I won’t tell you.

[00:49:49.712 – 00:49:50.482] I’ll read it to you.

[00:49:50.482 – 00:49:53.602] Tee, hee, hee, hee.” And then this goes on and on and on.

[00:49:53.602 – 00:49:54.502] I don’t drink.

[00:49:54.502 – 00:49:55.361] He keeps reading.

[00:49:55.361 – 00:49:58.122] Five years this crap goes on.

[00:49:58.122 – 00:49:59.922] I’m going less and less.

[00:49:59.922 – 00:50:04.342] But finally, I went to him with a very serious problem.

[00:50:04.342 – 00:50:11.142] I said, “Ed, here’s my problem.” He says, “I won’t tell you, but I’ll read it to you.” I stopped him in midair.

[00:50:11.142 – 00:50:13.752] I said, “God damn, Ed.

[00:50:13.752 – 00:50:23.782] For five years I’ve been asking you questions, and for five years you’ve been telling me, ‘I won’t tell you, but I will read it to you.’ Christ,

[00:50:23.782 – 00:50:37.342] man, I can do that.” And he said, “Now you’re getting the idea.” But

[00:50:37.342 – 00:50:47.362] anyhow, very quickly, I…

[00:50:47.362 – 00:50:50.442] very quickly on the board, not very quickly this happened.

[00:50:50.442 – 00:50:54.442] I found out about God.

[00:50:54.442 – 00:50:58.842] I don’t even believe God speaks Latin.

[00:50:58.842 – 00:51:03.442] Cancel that.

[00:51:03.442 – 00:51:13.542] I learned that I could say, “Hey, God, what do you think about this?”

[00:51:13.542 – 00:51:16.242] and get an answer through the 11th step.

[00:51:16.242 – 00:51:22.842] I learned he going to be up all night anyhow.

[00:51:22.842 – 00:51:33.022] I got, after 12 years of trying, I lost my dental license

[00:51:33.022 – 00:51:34.002] in ’63.

[00:51:34.002 – 00:51:38.162] I got it back in ’65 or six.

[00:51:38.162 – 00:51:38.722] I don’t know.

[00:51:38.722 – 00:51:42.462] I finally got my dental license back.

[00:51:42.462 – 00:51:46.862] Goddamn, takes a long time to convince these people you ain’t going to drink.

[00:51:46.862 – 00:51:55.642] So I was once again a dentist.

[00:51:55.642 – 00:51:59.722] I run into an alky broad in a doorway down on Bird- no.

[00:51:59.722 – 00:52:09.562] I got an Alcoholics Anonymous partner, and we are partners, and we’re friends most of the time.

[00:52:09.562 – 00:52:17.932] There are times when she dares not agree with me, but then she, like most, are not all perfect.

[00:52:17.932 – 00:52:22.832] Sexually, none of your business.

[00:52:22.832 – 00:52:35.822] And

[00:52:35.822 – 00:52:36.702] what do you know?

[00:52:36.702 – 00:52:46.732] We are staying in a home in Portland with a head of Blue Cross who don’t give a shit whether we drink or whether we don’t and has never been to

[00:52:46.732 – 00:52:48.982] an AA meeting in his entire life.

[00:52:48.982 – 00:52:52.722] Can you imagine me being so daring as to try that?

[00:52:52.722 – 00:52:56.222] We’re back in the world.

[00:52:56.222 – 00:53:03.802] I’m looking at a broad, and she knows who I’m talking about and does anything she wants to because she feels free, within limits.

[00:53:03.802 – 00:53:13.122] And now I’m going to quit by hopefully erasing some myths.

[00:53:13.122 – 00:53:26.282] I believe once more that it’s the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous to put you from

[00:53:26.282 – 00:53:32.642] that condition back to the where you started from, a fairly normal human being.

[00:53:32.642 – 00:53:42.782] Now, God only knows there’s a hell of a lot of times when this gets into a big mess again, but there’s enough glue in the middle, which means AA and God, that it don’t stay that way

[00:53:42.782 – 00:53:46.822] long, and it’ll snap back, and I will be able to be okay again.

[00:53:46.822 – 00:53:56.842] And I can walk and talk in lumber mills, in bars, in hotels, but it hasn’t always been that way, and don’t rush it.

[00:53:56.842 – 00:53:59.402] I see a lot of rushing going on.

[00:53:59.402 – 00:54:04.002] There are people that are worried about their 11th step, and they’ve been around for six weeks.

[00:54:04.002 – 00:54:05.082] Good Christ.

[00:54:05.082 – 00:54:08.562] I couldn’t even read the 11th step in six weeks.

[00:54:08.562 – 00:54:14.822] I think if you’re in that big a hurry, you perhaps ought to have started sooner.

[00:54:14.822 – 00:54:24.330] I see also a lot of this business of getting to know yourself.

[00:54:24.330 – 00:54:28.890] I am going to– I’m in AA because I want to learn to know myself.

[00:54:28.890 – 00:54:35.890] You’re putting the cart or the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse or whatever the hell.

[00:54:35.890 – 00:54:41.490] Getting to know yourself is the byproduct of AA.

[00:54:41.490 – 00:54:47.470] You don’t get to know yourself and then practice the program, or you’ll never practice it.

[00:54:47.470 – 00:54:50.110] Ever heard of the fourth step?

[00:54:50.110 – 00:54:53.330] That sucker will show you who you are.

[00:54:53.330 – 00:55:01.170] And if you don’t, there’s someone like Sam or Doc John or Greg or Peter on the will.

[00:55:01.170 – 00:55:09.470] Another myth: sometimes we think action means, uh, movement.

[00:55:09.470 – 00:55:16.090] You ever heard the story about the priest that went in to lock up a church, and there’s a guy in there praying, and he’s three feet off the ground?

[00:55:16.090 – 00:55:18.309] Praying up a storm.

[00:55:18.309 – 00:55:20.529] And the pastor couldn’t handle that.

[00:55:20.529 – 00:55:25.510] So he went to the rectory, and he said– or told the bishop to get over there.

[00:55:25.510 – 00:55:31.730] Now, the bishop got over there, and by now that guy’s ten feet in the air, and there’s a big white light around him.

[00:55:31.730 – 00:55:34.550] Still praying.

[00:55:34.550 – 00:55:36.329] Uh-oh, we’re in trouble.

[00:55:36.329 – 00:55:37.770] He got on the phone.

[00:55:37.770 – 00:55:38.650] He called Rome.

[00:55:38.650 – 00:55:45.790] He says, “Your Highness,” or whatever you call the Pope, “Your Excellency, Your Holiness, get your little butt over here.

[00:55:45.790 – 00:55:49.670] We got a problem.” He gets on the first jet, comes over here.

[00:55:49.670 – 00:55:52.090] Now the guy’s way up in the, uh, air.

[00:55:52.090 – 00:55:56.570] There’s a white light around him, and the church is full of music, and nobody’s at the organ.

[00:55:56.570 – 00:55:58.790] Still praying up a storm.

[00:55:58.790 – 00:56:01.090] He says, “You see, Your Holiness, what do we do?

[00:56:01.090 – 00:56:11.130] What do we do?” The Pope says, “Look busy, boys.” Action is

[00:56:11.130 – 00:56:13.350] not of necessity motion.

[00:56:13.350 – 00:56:19.030] Here is the attitude I often see: I’m going to get serene.

[00:56:19.030 – 00:56:20.910] Run around like crazy.

[00:56:20.910 – 00:56:22.710] Goddamn it, I’m going to go get calm.

[00:56:22.710 – 00:56:23.010] What?

[00:56:23.010 – 00:56:28.930] Or here’s another one, if you keep that up: hello.

[00:56:28.930 – 00:56:30.570] Say what?

[00:56:30.570 – 00:56:32.310] Crazy.

[00:56:32.310 – 00:56:36.490] Chinese proverb about serenity.

[00:56:36.490 – 00:56:41.810] Seems that one dog, a young dog, and an old dog.

[00:56:41.810 – 00:56:48.110] The young dog says, “I know that serenity and happiness is in my tail.

[00:56:48.110 – 00:56:58.130] And for that reason, I continue to chase my tail.” The older and wiser dog

[00:56:58.130 – 00:57:01.110] said, “Yes, youngster, you’re right.

[00:57:01.110 – 00:57:05.110] Serenity and happiness is in your tail.

[00:57:05.110 – 00:57:20.010] And I have found if I just keep on putting one foot ahead of the other, my tail comes right along.” About

[00:57:20.010 – 00:57:20.490] the book.

[00:57:20.490 – 00:57:31.150] Any statement here that I would make about sobriety would be exactly

[00:57:31.150 – 00:57:35.230] that, a statement about sobriety.

[00:57:35.230 – 00:57:38.170] It wouldn’t be sobriety.

[00:57:38.170 – 00:57:48.410] Sobriety only happens as a result and byproduct of

[00:57:48.410 – 00:57:49.430] the 12 steps.

[00:57:49.430 – 00:57:52.830] I do not, for instance…

[00:57:52.830 – 00:57:59.970] Well, my idea of sobriety is not, it’s a far cry from this thing called dryness.

[00:57:59.970 – 00:58:05.550] I am quite amazed when I find people on this program says, “I’ve been sober for two weeks.

[00:58:05.550 – 00:58:08.430] Came here two weeks ago, and I’ve been sober for two weeks.” I know what they mean.

[00:58:08.430 – 00:58:10.810] They’ve been, they’ve been without alcohol for two weeks.

[00:58:10.810 – 00:58:12.490] And that’s cool.

[00:58:12.490 – 00:58:14.310] Goddamn, that’s where it starts, isn’t it?

[00:58:14.310 – 00:58:16.730] That’s sure where it starts.

[00:58:16.730 – 00:58:23.690] But I’ve seen people on this program for twenty years that aren’t any soberer than the day they came on.

[00:58:23.690 – 00:58:27.710] And one of them they will be burying next Monday.

[00:58:27.710 – 00:58:30.830] But the book.

[00:58:30.830 – 00:58:41.090] I got worried about some extra material we had to store and built one of those Mickey

[00:58:41.090 – 00:58:46.450] Mouse sheds so that– the local supermarket.

[00:58:46.450 – 00:58:52.950] Only it was so simple to put together that only a child could do it.

[00:58:52.950 – 00:58:58.720] Of course, it thinks that it was so simple a child could do it.

[00:58:58.720 – 00:59:00.810] I didn’t believe me, only a child could do it.

[00:59:00.810 – 00:59:06.010] And it had some directions that long, damn near as big as the big book, I swear.

[00:59:06.010 – 00:59:12.630] And I read the directions very carefully, and I read them again.

[00:59:12.630 – 00:59:20.830] And I looked down, and lo and behold, the shed was still in the box.

[00:59:20.830 – 00:59:27.510] And even when I read the directions again, it was still in the box.

[00:59:27.510 – 00:59:30.190] Am I getting through?

[00:59:30.190 – 00:59:40.250] It was only when I took step A and grabbed piece A and glued it to piece B and piece B to clea- piece C and C to D

[00:59:40.250 – 00:59:44.890] and D to E and E to F and all that, and I had a shed.

[00:59:44.890 – 00:59:47.470] And I didn’t do it in five minutes.

[00:59:47.470 – 00:59:51.810] How much greater it is to be if you don’t…

[00:59:51.810 – 00:59:53.840] Go ahead, read the directions, read the directions, read the directions.

[00:59:53.840 – 00:59:55.930] But one of these days, do yourself a break.

[00:59:55.930 – 00:59:57.840] Put them to use.

[00:59:57.840 – 00:59:59.810] Put them to use.

[00:59:59.810 – 01:00:06.810] Any statement I make about step four is exactly that, a statement about step four.

[01:00:06.810 – 01:00:09.470] It is not taking step four.

[01:00:09.470 – 01:00:16.090] I’m going to quit now because people are getting edgy, and I can understand that.

[01:00:16.090 – 01:00:18.990] But just two more comments.

[01:00:18.990 – 01:00:24.866] Each one of which takes about an hour.

[01:00:24.866 – 01:00:35.286] The only one of, you know, this is not a mutual aid society,

[01:00:35.286 – 01:00:41.866] nor is it a mutual admiration society, thank God.

[01:00:41.866 – 01:00:48.126] But it damn sure is a mutual need society.

[01:00:48.126 – 01:00:59.206] And nobody here needs me only insofar

[01:00:59.206 – 01:01:01.406] as I need you.

[01:01:01.406 – 01:01:08.006] If I do not need you, you don’t need me.

[01:01:08.006 – 01:01:13.066] If you don’t need him, he don’t need you.

[01:01:13.066 – 01:01:20.546] But when he needs you and you need him, right head on in the middle is a thing called sobriety.

[01:01:20.546 – 01:01:26.246] A mutual aid society, no.

[01:01:26.246 – 01:01:29.826] A mutual need society, yes.

[01:01:29.826 – 01:01:36.746] I have heard from young people that the old-timers are remiss in not coming to meetings.

[01:01:36.746 – 01:01:38.906] I have a tendency to agree with them.

[01:01:38.906 – 01:01:44.086] But you are in remiss for not doing something about it.

[01:01:44.086 – 01:01:48.306] Because if you young people don’t teach me, I’m a dead man.

[01:01:48.306 – 01:01:58.426] If I can’t learn from you who are only sober, quote, quote, six weeks, I ain’t going to learn

[01:01:58.426 – 01:01:59.176] from anybody.

[01:01:59.176 – 01:02:04.206] If you get what I’m trying to say.

[01:02:04.206 – 01:02:12.286] There is a separation between you and the old-timer that I see on AA.

[01:02:12.286 – 01:02:19.786] I don’t know whether anybody else does, but it took me two years in the douse to come back and notice it.

[01:02:19.786 – 01:02:27.026] You know what they say, bug and ye shall be bugged.

[01:02:27.026 – 01:02:37.956] In this, another thing that I’ve learned, I’ve

[01:02:37.956 – 01:02:42.906] learned to listen between the lines when people talk because that’s where you’ll find the truth.

[01:02:48.173 – 01:02:56.433] I learned to listen to people what don’t say, what they don’t say, in order to know what to say to them if I have a chance.

[01:02:56.433 – 01:03:04.053] I’m going to drop that because I don’t really know how to make it clear.

[01:03:04.053 – 01:03:07.773] What I’m talking about is helping one another.

[01:03:07.773 – 01:03:17.793] How many did you say that have been sober less than two years that are

[01:03:17.793 – 01:03:20.293] on the 12-step list in central office?

[01:03:20.293 – 01:03:22.413] Can I have a show of hands?

[01:03:22.413 – 01:03:26.413] Three out of a hundred.

[01:03:26.413 – 01:03:30.123] Not too good, is it?

[01:03:30.123 – 01:03:31.633] Not too good.

[01:03:31.633 – 01:03:35.333] What would you have done if someone would have helped you?

[01:03:35.333 – 01:03:42.433] I’m pooped.

[01:03:42.433 – 01:03:44.173] I ain’t got no more I should say.

[01:03:44.173 – 01:03:47.053] I love each and every one of you.

[01:03:47.053 – 01:03:51.133] Whether you like it or not, I love you.

[01:03:51.133 – 01:03:54.973] I care what happens to you, and there ain’t one damn thing you can do about it.

[01:03:54.973 – 01:04:02.253] I think this.

[01:04:02.253 – 01:04:11.273] I think that every time we overcome, to quote King, that’s not in the book either, is it?

[01:04:11.273 – 01:04:20.233] Every time that we overcome an adversity, in my opinion, we will be rewarded.

[01:04:20.233 – 01:04:30.833] Each and everything that we do, not only the steps, but each thing that we do within the steps eventually

[01:04:30.833 – 01:04:32.593] becomes its own reward.

[01:04:32.593 – 01:04:37.053] I believe this.

[01:04:37.053 – 01:04:47.213] Now, if there are people here who are of the persuasion that after you leave this earth, as we

[01:04:47.213 – 01:04:57.453] Irish believe, it’s only a start to another one of some kind, then it looks to me that the faithful Alcoholics Anonymous member

[01:04:57.453 – 01:05:00.453] is not in a whole hell of a lot of difficulty.

[01:05:00.453 – 01:05:10.693] Maybe this is rather rude, but I feel kind of sorry for the people who go to church for 90 minutes

[01:05:10.693 – 01:05:16.113] on Sunday to get on their Sunday best and be holier than thou.

[01:05:16.113 – 01:05:21.353] And I, I don’t– well, I guess this is wrong to say, but I will say I do feel sorry for them.

[01:05:21.353 – 01:05:28.653] They go there, and they really put on their good look, and their halos are on fairly crooked.

[01:05:28.653 – 01:05:35.693] And the reason I worry about these people is because they may not die on Sunday.

[01:05:35.693 – 01:05:45.953] We trying our best day in and day out to practice the AA program, good or bad, but keeping

[01:05:45.953 – 01:05:49.413] trying cannot be far off the track.

[01:05:49.413 – 01:05:59.512] And if we are successful, and the only time we will know that is when they pat dirt in our face, and it’s in a sober face, then

[01:05:59.513 – 01:06:09.973] I believe that we got a pretty good chance of marching with Him hand in hand from now to all eternity.

[01:06:09.973 – 01:06:16.673] H from the Flanders Al-Anon group.

[01:06:16.673 – 01:06:18.333] She’s going to be our legal speaker.

[01:06:18.333 – 01:06:20.413] Levon?

[01:06:20.413 – 01:06:33.933] Well,

[01:06:33.933 – 01:06:34.873] this is scary.

[01:06:34.873 – 01:06:37.353] I don’t think you’re having trouble hearing me.

[01:06:37.353 – 01:06:38.993] I talk loud enough without a mic.

[01:06:38.993 – 01:06:45.993] Um, when I first came around Al-Anon, I thought, gee, it would be great to get that many alcoholics to sit still and listen to me.

[01:06:45.993 – 01:06:53.273] Because we’d have company in, and, um, I never got a word in edgewise.

[01:06:53.273 – 01:06:59.853] My husband would take them off in the other room, and even if I looked like I was going to say something, they shook his head at me.

[01:06:59.853 – 01:07:01.093] How many gals?

[01:07:01.093 – 01:07:08.093] Um, I’ve been around Al-Anon a long time and been around AA even longer.

[01:07:08.093 – 01:07:17.073] And, uh, there’s some here that’s heard my talk from way back, and I’m so glad there’s so many new faces, so I won’t have to repeat.

[01:07:17.073 – 01:07:26.833] Uh, we came into AA way back in nineteen fifty-one, and, um, I was introduced to it.

[01:07:26.833 – 01:07:31.843] And the gal that told me that her husband was going to it said that she didn’t think my husband was ready for it yet.

[01:07:31.843 – 01:07:33.053] He hadn’t had enough problems.

[01:07:33.053 – 01:07:41.993] I told her if she had a week to visit me, I would, uh, inform her what he’d done and the things he’d done, and perhaps she would, uh, help us get him to a meeting.

[01:07:41.993 – 01:07:43.633] So we waited.

[01:07:43.633 – 01:07:52.633] He was a periodic, and we waited until he was on one of his, um, times that he was coming off his drunk.

[01:07:52.633 – 01:07:56.813] I don’t know if there’s very many periodics in here, but there is a time that you can talk to them.

[01:07:56.813 – 01:08:02.813] They’re feeling sorry for themselves and sorry for everything else they’ve done, so you can just about get them to do anything.

[01:08:02.813 – 01:08:12.633] So I waited for one of these, and, um, it happened to be on a Saturday night, and he was feeling real sorry for what he’d done over the weekend.

[01:08:12.633 – 01:08:16.473] So he asked me what I’d like to do, and I said, go to a bingo party.

[01:08:16.473 – 01:08:17.893] Well, it wasn’t a bingo party.

[01:08:17.893 – 01:08:19.193] It was an AA meeting.

[01:08:19.193 – 01:08:26.453] They claim that you’re not supposed to do it that way, but it worked, at least for a while.

[01:08:26.453 – 01:08:36.463] He, um– I tried to get in ahead to tell the people he was just a guest, and, uh, I got waylaid outside, and people come up and said it was nice to see him.

[01:08:36.463 – 01:08:39.453] And, uh, it didn’t really take.

[01:08:39.453 – 01:08:43.433] He, um, never went to a meeting unless somebody called him up.

[01:08:43.433 – 01:08:46.713] And for about a year, he played around with it.

[01:08:46.713 – 01:08:56.373] And so I’m kind of getting off on his, but I want you to know that in those days we didn’t have Al-Anon, and so I went to as many AA meetings as I could.

[01:08:56.373 – 01:09:05.373] And when we came down to Portland, this was in Washington, um, we looked AA up down here, and he went to meetings, and I went with him for about 11 months.

[01:09:05.373 – 01:09:11.953] And in three and a half years, we attended two or three meetings a week.

[01:09:11.953 – 01:09:18.312] Um, I attended lots of AA meetings, but no Al-Anon.

[01:09:18.312 – 01:09:26.113] We only had two Al-Anon meetings in Portland, and one was on the east side, and one was on the west side, and it was like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

[01:09:26.113 – 01:09:27.033] They weren’t talking.

[01:09:27.033 – 01:09:34.513] And so after attending both sides and not liking either one of them, I started my own meeting.

[01:09:34.513 – 01:09:42.353] And, uh, they said, “All you need is a resentment and a big book,” so I wrote New York for a big book and some literature.

[01:09:42.353 – 01:09:52.453] Found a church that would give me a basement, called Doc, who was on the central committee, and asked him to send me some sick ones, and I had a meeting going in about

[01:09:52.453 – 01:09:52.873] a week.

[01:09:52.873 – 01:10:00.553] Um, most women, we didn’t have any men on the AA during those days, and it was all women.

[01:10:00.553 – 01:10:09.193] And everybody that called me had babysitting problems, and so I’d have to leave the house at 5:00 if I was gonna get a meeting together at 8:00.

[01:10:09.193 – 01:10:14.833] And I don’t think I did them people any good, but in a year’s time, I certainly did me some good.

[01:10:14.833 – 01:10:21.813] I decided that AA was for me and Al-Anon was for me at any meeting I wanted to go to, any place.

[01:10:21.813 – 01:10:23.213] I was sick.

[01:10:23.213 – 01:10:33.293] I don’t think that, I don’t think that we change any more than an alcoholic does until we get sick and tired of being sick

[01:10:33.293 – 01:10:33.833] and tired.

[01:10:33.833 – 01:10:42.113] I attended AA meetings for eight years with my husband, and I didn’t think I had any problems.

[01:10:42.113 – 01:10:49.913] I figured if he’d just straighten up and behave at home like he did, like he told those people at the meeting he did, we wouldn’t have any problems.

[01:10:49.913 – 01:10:56.592] And he would talk almost every night.

[01:10:56.592 – 01:11:02.353] Uh, the meetings were small, and everybody got to say something, and we’d be very quiet going home.

[01:11:02.353 – 01:11:12.493] We had a certain spot on the road that we had to turn, and it seemed like on every one of those spots he’d say, “What’d you make of the meeting tonight?” I’d say, “It was fine.” And I’d think, “Oh,

[01:11:12.493 – 01:11:22.553] God, I hope he don’t ask me what I thought of his talk.” And another block or two, and he’d say, “What did you think of my talk?” And I’d say, “Well, um, it was, it was okay.

[01:11:22.553 – 01:11:28.953] It was fine.” He’d say, “What did you really think of it?” And I said, “I don’t believe any- anything you said.

[01:11:28.953 – 01:11:38.833] Everything you say, you don’t do at home, and, uh, you know, I just think it’s the shits.” And, um, then he wouldn’t talk to me all the way home.

[01:11:38.833 – 01:11:45.313] And, uh, take three, four more days for him to get over that, and we were back to another meeting.

[01:11:45.313 – 01:11:53.373] And I’d think, “My, if he’d just don’t ask me, I won’t have to tell him.” And so I didn’t go to Al-Anon during those, those times.

[01:11:53.373 – 01:12:03.433] I thought, “If he changes, if he does something about himself, then I’ve got lots of time for me to change.” And about eight

[01:12:03.433 – 01:12:07.313] years, I decided that he had all– he had changed and gone right past me.

[01:12:07.313 – 01:12:09.873] I was unhappy.

[01:12:09.873 – 01:12:11.613] I didn’t like the program.

[01:12:11.613 – 01:12:12.933] I didn’t like the people in it.

[01:12:12.933 – 01:12:15.733] I went to meetings.

[01:12:15.733 – 01:12:17.653] I wouldn’t speak.

[01:12:17.653 – 01:12:18.993] I criticized.

[01:12:18.993 – 01:12:20.393] I came home.

[01:12:20.393 – 01:12:21.533] I was unhappy with me.

[01:12:21.533 – 01:12:25.053] I took all the steps but the second one.

[01:12:25.053 – 01:12:29.433] I don’t know how many new people are here, but the second one I was not going to take.

[01:12:29.433 – 01:12:32.833] Somebody else hasn’t taken it.

[01:12:32.833 – 01:12:36.553] Um, there wasn’t anything wrong with me.

[01:12:36.553 – 01:12:44.733] Um, insanity meant that you had to be locked up, and I certainly– The only thing crazy I was, was living with an alcoholic.

[01:12:44.733 – 01:12:45.873] Other than that, I was fine.

[01:12:45.873 – 01:12:52.653] And I know there’s been some in the room that know that it took me a long time to take the second step.

[01:12:52.653 – 01:13:00.653] I was, um, almost ashamed to tell people what I had to do and what I had to be in order to take it.

[01:13:00.653 – 01:13:01.673] Can you hear me?

[01:13:01.673 – 01:13:02.713] Yes.

[01:13:02.713 – 01:13:04.993] I guess I’ll have to have it up here then.

[01:13:04.993 – 01:13:15.123] Uh, my husband had been going to meetings for eight, nine years, and all of a sudden, he decided that he should have a meeting every

[01:13:15.123 – 01:13:15.553] night.

[01:13:15.553 – 01:13:19.753] Every night of the week, and twice on Saturday, and twice on Sunday.

[01:13:19.753 – 01:13:26.653] And his meetings started at 8:00 and never ended till 12:00, 1:00, 2:00.

[01:13:26.653 – 01:13:34.153] I don’t know if they’ve, um, the meetings today aren’t quite that long, but they did an awful lot of parking lot meetings in those days.

[01:13:34.153 – 01:13:44.153] Um, the meeting would be over, and they’d get kicked out of the meeting place, and they’d stand beside the car for two hours talking after the meet– I know ’cause I went along and got tired waiting in

[01:13:44.153 – 01:13:44.933] the car for him.

[01:13:44.933 – 01:13:49.293] But those were necessary for him, but I resented every bit of it.

[01:13:49.293 – 01:13:53.913] I thought that sobriety was nice, but we still didn’t have a home life.

[01:13:53.913 – 01:13:57.273] And I know there’s a lot of gals that have gone through the same thing.

[01:13:57.273 – 01:14:00.612] And I’d like to just tell them that it does change.

[01:14:00.612 – 01:14:02.133] It really does change.

[01:14:02.133 – 01:14:02.393] Oh.

[01:14:02.393 – 01:14:08.633] It seemed like this was a thing that he had to do, and I’m sure that there’s gals that have to do it.

[01:14:08.633 – 01:14:10.993] And we do not understand it.

[01:14:10.993 – 01:14:13.813] We do not know why they have to go to so many meetings.

[01:14:13.813 – 01:14:19.293] I couldn’t understand why he had to go every night of the week, why he had to go twice on Sunday.

[01:14:19.293 – 01:14:24.873] Um, I do understand it now, and I, I hated it then.

[01:14:24.873 – 01:14:32.913] But I was a clock watcher, and I had four children at home, and I couldn’t go with him every night, and he didn’t want me to go with him every night.

[01:14:32.913 – 01:14:43.593] And he would get dressed and hit the back door about a quarter to 8:00 and then turn around very nicely and say, “You didn’t want to go with me tonight, did you?” And

[01:14:43.593 – 01:14:48.193] of course, if he had have, he would have asked me an hour ahead of time, so I could have got a babysitter and gone with him.

[01:14:48.193 – 01:14:51.333] And so I built up a real resentment and a real hate.

[01:14:51.333 – 01:14:57.205] And for one solid year, I just didn’t like anybody.

[01:14:57.205 – 01:15:02.125] And one night I was ironing, and um, I had set a timetable.

[01:15:02.125 – 01:15:03.525] I’d be happy till midnight.

[01:15:03.525 – 01:15:13.525] Um, I watched the clock, and I had the children all in bed, and I was ironing, and I was

[01:15:13.525 – 01:15:17.385] watching TV, and everything was rosy, and I was feeling good.

[01:15:17.385 – 01:15:20.265] But by God, he better be home at midnight.

[01:15:20.265 – 01:15:28.944] And at 12 o’clock, he wasn’t in, and so I quit ironing right in the middle of a piece of garment, put the ironing board away, and now I’m mad.

[01:15:28.944 – 01:15:40.105] Um, he walked in about 10 after 12, and I said, “Why in the hell couldn’t you been home 10 minutes sooner?” And

[01:15:40.105 – 01:15:44.305] he looked at me like I’d lost my mind, and I began to think I had too.

[01:15:44.305 – 01:15:52.905] And just saying it and realizing how sick I was, I just turned and walked into the bathroom and stayed there for about 20 minutes.

[01:15:52.905 – 01:16:02.905] Taking the second step, um, I just couldn’t believe that, that 10 minutes could make

[01:16:02.905 – 01:16:10.345] the difference between me being happy and sad, or that one person could be so in control of my happiness.

[01:16:10.345 – 01:16:16.445] And I vowed then that nobody, including him, was going to make me happy.

[01:16:16.445 – 01:16:23.025] If I was gonna be happy, I was gonna have to do something about it, that nobody was going to fill that big issues in my life.

[01:16:23.025 – 01:16:28.505] I came back out after about 20 minutes, and he said, “Are you all right?” And I said, “I’m fine.

[01:16:28.505 – 01:16:35.945] I’m fine.” And that was when I made the step and called to, uh, doc the next day and said, “Send me some Sick Ones.

[01:16:35.945 – 01:16:44.705] I need them.” But I’ve often thought when gals come into the program or guys come into the program, and they’re there for many reasons.

[01:16:44.705 – 01:16:47.125] Some come in because they’ve got no place else to go.

[01:16:47.125 – 01:16:55.455] Um, their husband’s on the program or at least coming to a meeting, and they think, “Well, they used to wouldn’t let me sit in their meetings.

[01:16:55.455 – 01:16:58.205] I would prefer that,” but they wouldn’t let me do that.

[01:16:58.205 – 01:17:01.965] They said that those were closed meetings, and I’d have to sit someplace else.

[01:17:01.965 – 01:17:07.705] And about the only place they had in those days was another room, and push you in it, and said, “You need Al-Anon,” you know, whether you wanted it or not.

[01:17:07.705 – 01:17:11.835] And so I see gals come in today, and I think, you know, are they really hurting?

[01:17:11.835 – 01:17:18.904] You know, are they really wanting it, or are they just wanting their husband to get sober, and if he changes, they aren’t gonna have to change?

[01:17:18.904 – 01:17:28.565] And when Pat first asked me to talk, I don’t– I usually– this is just, um, it doesn’t make a difference how long you’re around.

[01:17:28.565 – 01:17:31.395] I don’t think anybody feels comfortable about getting up and talking.

[01:17:31.395 – 01:17:40.585] But I was so glad to have somebody ahead of me that could say, “Hey, I’ve been there,” you know, and, uh, “Stick around.

[01:17:40.585 – 01:17:45.605] Things get easier.” Uh, it’s not easy being the other half of an alcoholic.

[01:17:45.605 – 01:17:53.525] Uh, my husband, um, used to get up and say, um, to tell about his blackouts.

[01:17:53.525 – 01:17:58.465] He’d say, “I didn’t know what I did.” And I’d sit in the room, and I’d say, “Well, by God, I know.” You know?

[01:17:58.465 – 01:18:01.955] And I could hardly keep quiet, you know?

[01:18:01.955 – 01:18:05.845] I thought, “Hell, he don’t remember half the things he did,” you know?

[01:18:05.845 – 01:18:12.425] And he, he says he’s sick, you know, and he’s– everybody’s patting him on the back ’cause he ain’t drinking.

[01:18:12.425 – 01:18:14.645] I coulda told him everything he did.

[01:18:14.645 – 01:18:16.385] You know, I had it recorded right up here.

[01:18:16.385 – 01:18:21.745] I thought that I, um, had a mind like a tape recorder.

[01:18:21.745 – 01:18:23.765] I put in tapes of every one of his drunks.

[01:18:23.765 – 01:18:28.125] He was a periodic, and he gave me enough time in between to just tape him good.

[01:18:28.125 – 01:18:32.485] I not only taped him, I added a little bit to him.

[01:18:32.485 – 01:18:40.465] If he wrecked one car, he wrecked two, or if he, you know, got in jail one day, he spent three.

[01:18:40.465 – 01:18:42.035] He had about blackouts.

[01:18:42.035 – 01:18:44.645] He didn’t know the difference, so I might as well really make it good for him.

[01:18:44.645 – 01:18:54.745] And it took me a long time to get over that, to listen to him talk and not to criticize him, not to take

[01:18:54.745 – 01:19:01.745] the third step for him, not to think that if he’d work number four or if he’d work number six, you know, we’d get along good at home.

[01:19:01.745 – 01:19:06.725] It just took a real long time to realize that that was his program, not mine.

[01:19:06.725 – 01:19:17.745] If it took him 10 years to get it, at least he was working on it, and that I was not responsible for his sobriety, nor was I responsible for him getting drunk.

[01:19:17.745 – 01:19:19.445] And I think it’s an everyday program.

[01:19:19.445 – 01:19:21.145] I don’t think we ever graduate.

[01:19:21.145 – 01:19:24.485] We get up in the morning, and we’ve got the same problems.

[01:19:24.485 – 01:19:25.604] We got the same people.

[01:19:25.604 – 01:19:34.065] The only thing is we get a little older, and we’ve tried these things a few more times, and we found out they don’t work and so we have to do something about it.

[01:19:34.065 – 01:19:41.205] But I don’t think any of us change, whether we’re– It didn’t want to stay up.

[01:19:41.205 – 01:19:47.205] Yeah, we’re having trouble with that thing.

[01:19:47.205 – 01:19:48.065] Why don’t you talk?

[01:19:48.065 – 01:19:49.044] Right here.

[01:19:49.044 – 01:19:57.485] I don’t think any of us change unless we really want to, and I don’t think we want to till we hurt.

[01:19:57.485 – 01:20:02.945] I just think you’ve gotta be sick, sick, sick.

[01:20:02.945 – 01:20:13.245] Whether you’re alcoholic or whether you’re Al-Anon, whether you’re, uh, any part of this family, I don’t think anybody does anything

[01:20:13.245 – 01:20:15.825] about anything unless you really hurt.

[01:20:15.825 – 01:20:22.645] And if you were where I was, where you really hurt, you’ve gotta do something about it.

[01:20:22.645 – 01:20:27.005] And once you start to do something about it and change takes place, you can’t stop.

[01:20:27.005 – 01:20:29.984] The Al-Anon program wasn’t enough.

[01:20:29.984 – 01:20:36.025] I had to search lots of other ways, lots of other avenues, read lots of books.

[01:20:36.025 – 01:20:38.745] Uh, I had to find more.

[01:20:38.745 – 01:20:41.945] Uh, Al-Anon was just a way of me getting started.

[01:20:41.945 – 01:20:49.044] I had quit reading anything that was, um, anything for me to grow.

[01:20:49.044 – 01:20:54.485] I figured I’d already growed and I was way above him anyway, so why in the hell should I grow anymore, you know?

[01:20:54.485 – 01:20:58.725] I figured if he had to get caught up, there was no sense in me getting any better.

[01:20:58.725 – 01:21:01.665] And so I didn’t read anything constructive.

[01:21:01.665 – 01:21:11.295] But when I realized that he had his program, and he was going to keep it whether I grew or not, then I read anything I could.

[01:21:11.295 – 01:21:20.415] And when I first really wanted to start, I pinned things all over: behind the doors, in the bathroom, in shelves, in drawers.

[01:21:20.415 – 01:21:23.775] He said, “My God, you got this stuff all over the house.

[01:21:23.775 – 01:21:27.705] What are you trying to do to me?” And I said, “If it fits the shoe, wear it.

[01:21:27.705 – 01:21:30.615] If it don’t, leave it alone.” They’re my, they’re my little slogans.

[01:21:30.615 – 01:21:31.815] Sometimes it takes me…

[01:21:31.815 – 01:21:41.935] I ask for just 10 minutes to get through the day without blowing up, or, “Just give me 15 minutes to listen and not say anything.” And I don’t think that there’s

[01:21:41.935 – 01:21:44.675] too many of the gals coming in today as quite as sick as I was.

[01:21:44.675 – 01:21:47.415] I see a lot of new gals coming in.

[01:21:47.415 – 01:21:52.435] It seems like they’re around a couple months, and their skin changes, and their eyes sparkle.

[01:21:52.435 – 01:21:53.915] And I think, “Gee, isn’t that great?

[01:21:53.915 – 01:21:58.875] I hope they can hang on to that.” Um, I didn’t come in that way.

[01:21:58.875 – 01:22:03.835] I was glad he was sober, but he wasn’t the person that I wanted him to be.

[01:22:03.835 – 01:22:08.114] He was a periodic, and during those periods in between, he was a great guy.

[01:22:08.114 – 01:22:12.415] He really was fantastic, and that’s when I knew I didn’t know anybody else.

[01:22:12.415 – 01:22:17.335] He could stay sober for a month or two months, and those were great days.

[01:22:17.335 – 01:22:18.195] He was a great guy.

[01:22:18.195 – 01:22:19.505] He was a good father, a good husband.

[01:22:19.505 – 01:22:23.815] But when he got on the program, he d- he wasn’t that in between.

[01:22:23.815 – 01:22:25.175] He wasn’t anything.

[01:22:25.175 – 01:22:25.975] I didn’t know him.

[01:22:25.975 – 01:22:30.315] He wasn’t remorseful because he hadn’t done anything.

[01:22:30.315 – 01:22:34.075] And I’ve heard gals say, “Well, who wants him remorseful?” Hell, I did.

[01:22:34.075 – 01:22:35.995] I wanted him that way.

[01:22:35.995 – 01:22:38.435] I got anything I wanted during those remorseful periods.

[01:22:38.435 – 01:22:39.815] I wanted him remorseful.

[01:22:39.815 – 01:22:41.735] Damn right I wanted him to feel bad.

[01:22:41.735 – 01:22:44.735] We got to go places we hadn’t got to go before.

[01:22:44.735 – 01:22:46.615] We got to do things we didn’t get to do before.

[01:22:46.615 – 01:22:49.055] Took him to a bingo game for the first time.

[01:22:49.055 – 01:22:51.155] If he hadn’t been remorseful, we wouldn’t have got there.

[01:22:51.155 – 01:22:59.395] So I see nothing wrong with those, except that I wanted that guy in between those drunks, and I try to tell new gals they’re not that way.

[01:22:59.395 – 01:23:05.175] But if you just hang in and give them a chance, they’ll level out, and you might get that guy back.

[01:23:05.175 – 01:23:11.575] It’s gonna take some time, and it takes some understanding, and he might never be that same person.

[01:23:11.575 – 01:23:21.715] But after some time, and if you’re both working the program, at least you can come to some leveling of understanding that both of you work your program without the other one

[01:23:21.715 – 01:23:22.455] interfering.

[01:23:22.455 – 01:23:30.635] And Doc John says, “Well, I was told I’m supposed to speak an hour, and then John’s supposed to speak.

[01:23:30.635 – 01:23:32.135] Now I’m gonna let him have it right now.”

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