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[00:00:00.300 – 00:00:01.180] Good evening, everybody.

[00:00:01.180 – 00:00:02.520] My name is Paul Austin.

[00:00:02.520 – 00:00:04.260] I’m a skid row bum alcoholic.

[00:00:04.260 – 00:00:05.980] Alcoholics.

[00:00:05.980 – 00:00:07.960] Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:00:07.960 – 00:00:12.460] Being a skid row bum has nothing to do with AA.

[00:00:12.460 – 00:00:20.960] But you know, I’ve learned since I’ve been here, if we follow directions, we can return sober.

[00:00:20.960 – 00:00:30.960] We will know that we’ve kept it a single list of purpose, and we have stayed the course, so we return

[00:00:30.960 – 00:00:31.480] sober.

[00:00:31.480 – 00:00:35.540] I’m just following what I’ve been told.

[00:00:35.540 – 00:00:43.200] My sobriety date is, uh, June 8, 1972.

[00:00:43.200 – 00:00:51.560] My home group is a primary purpose group in Forestville, Maryland, and we in good standings.

[00:00:51.560 – 00:00:55.540] We in good standing.

[00:00:55.540 – 00:00:59.080] I see Olivia sitting there, and I like Olivia.

[00:00:59.080 – 00:01:09.520] She says, “If you’re not getting along in your own home group, don’t come to mine and mess up mine.” “Stay

[00:01:09.520 – 00:01:19.880] over there and fix yours.” I see so many people here tonight that I love, I’m close to, and they’ve been around me, uh, and

[00:01:19.880 – 00:01:20.840] thank God for that.

[00:01:20.840 – 00:01:31.180] I know lately I’ve been a little tight, but you know, the minute I got here today, I just, I started to feel loose, and I started seeing faces, and

[00:01:31.180 – 00:01:32.640] I started to identify.

[00:01:32.640 – 00:01:35.980] Without even opening my mouth, I could identify.

[00:01:35.980 – 00:01:37.380] There’s something about us drunks.

[00:01:37.380 – 00:01:41.740] There’s an, there’s an instinctive hookup, you know.

[00:01:41.740 – 00:01:44.600] I can just walk into presence, and I know I’m all right.

[00:01:44.600 – 00:01:49.000] You know, we want to thank you for asking us.

[00:01:49.000 – 00:01:54.920] My wife is here with me, asking us to come up to the thirty-third, uh, state’s convention.

[00:01:54.920 – 00:02:04.920] Uh, I remember the last time I was here at the podium was nineteen ninety-two, and I was scared to death, and I’m still nervous like all of us when we get

[00:02:04.920 – 00:02:05.340] here.

[00:02:05.340 – 00:02:08.140] It’s just a thing that we have to do.

[00:02:08.140 – 00:02:18.980] If we have received the gift of sobriety, we have to find our way to pass it on, and we will do whatever we have to do that’s necessary

[00:02:18.980 – 00:02:19.920] to stay sober.

[00:02:19.920 – 00:02:26.940] You know, this thing is, it’s a gift, but it’s not like, here you take this card, it belongs to you.

[00:02:26.940 – 00:02:30.960] This thing is a gift based on certain conditions.

[00:02:30.960 – 00:02:37.940] You see, this thing can be turned right back over the same way we got it if we don’t follow certain conditions.

[00:02:37.940 – 00:02:43.980] I think the, uh, theme is a full and thankful heart.

[00:02:43.980 – 00:02:48.280] It’s always good to have a full and thankful heart.

[00:02:48.280 – 00:02:57.860] I think it has a lot to do with faith and belief, and a lot of times our faith seem to dwindle a little bit and the door seem like it’s going to close.

[00:02:57.860 – 00:03:08.360] But if we can see a light, if we can spot just so much as a small light and the willingness to take the key and turn that lock again,

[00:03:08.360 – 00:03:09.620] the light will flow through.

[00:03:09.620 – 00:03:11.720] We’ll stand up.

[00:03:11.720 – 00:03:13.640] We got to do our own walk.

[00:03:13.640 – 00:03:20.080] My wife is here tonight and, uh, I want to– first of all, I want to thank, uh, Wendell.

[00:03:20.080 – 00:03:25.340] Wendell have been on my back every week, every month.

[00:03:25.340 – 00:03:28.640] He remind me, “Now, you know you got to come,” and Nancy.

[00:03:28.640 – 00:03:31.660] The committee have been great.

[00:03:31.660 – 00:03:33.600] Uh, they, they’ve really been great.

[00:03:33.600 – 00:03:44.380] They kept me, uh, aware of everything that was going on, so I’d be prepared when I got here, and I certainly appreciate that because there’s no difficulty in understanding

[00:03:44.380 – 00:03:49.359] what’s going on when, uh, when people, uh, let you know what’s going on.

[00:03:49.359 – 00:03:51.900] My wife is here tonight with me.

[00:03:51.900 – 00:03:53.480] A lot of my friends are here.

[00:03:53.480 – 00:03:54.880] I got some pigeons here.

[00:03:54.880 – 00:03:58.440] Uh, they might be my sponsors, I don’t know, but they here.

[00:03:58.440 – 00:04:05.820] I’m not going to call names because there’s a whole lot of people here that I could call names, and that’s not what we’re really about tonight.

[00:04:05.820 – 00:04:14.300] But I do always ask my wife at a meeting like this when she’s with me to stand up, and I want y’all to see her.

[00:04:14.300 – 00:04:15.880] Stand up, Nina.

[00:04:15.880 – 00:04:26.100] This is the woman that have put up with me for over

[00:04:26.100 – 00:04:29.160] forty-five years, and don’t ask me how it happened.

[00:04:29.160 – 00:04:32.560] Uh, toughest woman I ever seen.

[00:04:32.560 – 00:04:42.880] I don’t believe that there’s another woman that would have put up with me and who I have been and who I am that long unless

[00:04:42.880 – 00:04:45.480] it was either in love or crazy woman.

[00:04:45.480 – 00:04:47.460] It’d be one of the two.

[00:04:47.460 – 00:04:49.800] So I, I would rather think that she love me.

[00:04:49.800 – 00:04:53.630] Me too.

[00:04:53.630 – 00:05:04.140] You know, our program tells us when we get here that there’s no need to try to fabricate– uh, try to impress you with fabricated falsehoods,

[00:05:04.140 – 00:05:11.180] because we’ve gotten here but for the grace of God, and now is the time for us to be honest with ourselves and another human being.

[00:05:11.180 – 00:05:15.120] I thank God for this program.

[00:05:15.120 – 00:05:17.320] I said thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:05:17.320 – 00:05:27.400] I still address it the way that I did when I first started, with a jacket, suit, and a tie, and don’t y’all worry, I’m gonna be out from up here

[00:05:27.400 – 00:05:29.960] before long ’cause I got to get this people suit back.

[00:05:29.960 – 00:05:35.180] I’m glad that I wasn’t out there in that storm.

[00:05:35.180 – 00:05:39.220] You know, get the wrinkles in it ’cause they, they’ll charge me for it, see.

[00:05:39.220 – 00:05:46.720] But you know, my sponsor told me when I came, he said, “Don’t you ever,” and I know he’s around.

[00:05:46.720 – 00:05:48.060] You see me looking a while ago?

[00:05:48.060 – 00:05:54.260] I said, “Lord, we on now.” That’s what he told me.

[00:05:54.260 – 00:05:57.740] He’s floating around here someplace.

[00:05:57.740 – 00:06:03.312] He said, “Don’t you ever get up to the podium-” I sat down to lead a meeting.

[00:06:03.312 – 00:06:13.992] If you have some awareness, forehead without a jacket and a tie, ’cause this is the program that led you out of the wilderness,

[00:06:13.992 – 00:06:24.031] the program that led you out of darkness, the program that allowed you to stand up in human dignity one more time with self-respect and walk upright like God had intended for us to

[00:06:24.032 – 00:06:33.712] walk in the first place, and you representing this program in a dignifying way because you’re an example for the new person who walked through the door.

[00:06:33.712 – 00:06:35.512] We’re not at a pool party, y’all.

[00:06:35.512 – 00:06:37.792] This is not a pool party.

[00:06:37.792 – 00:06:42.992] We don’t want to pass it on like we’re at a pool party.

[00:06:42.992 – 00:06:48.412] You know, when I came here, there was no place else for me to go.

[00:06:48.412 – 00:06:51.432] I came here out of desperations.

[00:06:51.432 – 00:06:54.932] I came here when all other hope had been abandoned.

[00:06:54.932 – 00:07:00.872] I had certain to face the dilemma when I came here, and the dilemma is strange.

[00:07:00.872 – 00:07:04.172] I heard a fellow talk one time, and I heard it on tape.

[00:07:04.172 – 00:07:14.282] He says, “The dilemma is when you have the opposite answers for the same question, and they both are valid.” Now, how can you have opposite answers for the same

[00:07:14.282 – 00:07:16.272] question, and they both be valid?

[00:07:16.272 – 00:07:17.952] And he went on to talk.

[00:07:17.952 – 00:07:19.872] He says, “Let me tell you how that happens.

[00:07:19.872 – 00:07:29.872] When you reach a point in your drinking that you know if I take another drink, I’m going to die, and if I don’t take a drink, I’m going to die, you just faced a

[00:07:29.872 – 00:07:38.512] dilemma.” You’re ready to come in here and sit down and take your rightful place among us and let this thing unfold.

[00:07:38.512 – 00:07:45.832] My sponsor was a little fellow, and I’ll talk a little more about him a little later, but he was about this big.

[00:07:45.832 – 00:07:54.132] And a lot of you know my sponsor, and my sponsor was Irish, and I’m not Irish.

[00:07:54.132 – 00:07:59.732] And I didn’t ask him to be my sponsor either.

[00:07:59.732 – 00:08:02.672] Now, I said that for one reason.

[00:08:02.672 – 00:08:11.212] If we’re in here this evening, and you’re a drunk like me, and you don’t have a sponsor, we start off in second place and work further to the back.

[00:08:11.212 – 00:08:21.332] And for God’s sake, please don’t sit and choose a sponsor because his head is shaped like yours or he got a nice car like I would like

[00:08:21.332 – 00:08:21.802] to have.

[00:08:21.802 – 00:08:23.092] Those are bad reasons.

[00:08:23.092 – 00:08:27.552] My sponsor understood me because I’m a skid row bum.

[00:08:27.552 – 00:08:28.752] He was one too.

[00:08:28.752 – 00:08:33.052] He understood me, and he understood what I would need.

[00:08:33.052 – 00:08:37.252] It’s God’s will that we get here whichever way he choose.

[00:08:37.252 – 00:08:39.532] Some of our friends didn’t make it.

[00:08:39.532 – 00:08:48.832] I have three brothers that I would love to see sitting down there like you this evening, but they didn’t make it.

[00:08:48.832 – 00:08:57.372] I have three brothers who died from this illness, two of them on the street, one in the hospital who hadn’t drank in ten years, but it had eat him up.

[00:08:57.372 – 00:09:05.612] Alcoholism will eat you up without a drink unless we following what you’ve heard read and what you see on the wall.

[00:09:05.612 – 00:09:13.692] I believe over here, here’s the di-directions for sobriety, and on this side is the foundation in which we set.

[00:09:13.692 – 00:09:16.132] Not like the Washingtonians.

[00:09:16.132 – 00:09:19.631] We always have a place to come back to if we slide off.

[00:09:19.631 – 00:09:24.052] The foundation have been set, and thank God for that.

[00:09:24.052 – 00:09:28.352] My sponsor walked up to me in a mental institution.

[00:09:28.352 – 00:09:34.052] I call it the House of Higher Learnings, better known as St.

[00:09:34.052 – 00:09:38.612] Elizabeth’s Hospital, where I met my friend Olivia.

[00:09:38.612 – 00:09:41.012] You don’t mind me saying that, do you, Olivia?

[00:09:41.012 – 00:09:47.182] And I was over there in an institution, and I’ll tell you how I got there.

[00:09:47.182 – 00:09:48.872] I’m gonna work to that.

[00:09:48.872 – 00:09:51.712] I was in the institution for twenty-one months.

[00:09:51.712 – 00:09:55.172] Chronic locked ward with people that couldn’t talk.

[00:09:55.172 – 00:09:56.872] Everybody had their own agenda.

[00:09:56.872 – 00:10:06.912] When I got there, I got to notice these people, and I knew something wasn’t right.

[00:10:06.912 – 00:10:10.232] They locked me up in there, too.

[00:10:10.232 – 00:10:13.152] Now, I weighed in, and they were keeping records of those times.

[00:10:13.152 – 00:10:16.952] I weighed in at a hundred and forty-nine pounds.

[00:10:16.952 – 00:10:18.032] I’m six foot two.

[00:10:18.032 – 00:10:19.112] Wow.

[00:10:19.112 – 00:10:21.092] And one foot was broke twice.

[00:10:21.092 – 00:10:23.452] I’d taken three casts off of that, so they say.

[00:10:23.452 – 00:10:26.652] And they put two men on me to give me baths.

[00:10:26.652 – 00:10:33.652] I was thirty-five years old, not able to take a bath, and I was there, and this is where I met my sponsor.

[00:10:33.652 – 00:10:39.392] I had a cane, and I would back myself up into a corner where I could see down both sides.

[00:10:39.392 – 00:10:44.532] And y’all know those facial expressions that we can come up with when we want to ward people off, you know.

[00:10:44.532 – 00:10:48.252] Scared to death, and I backed up in the corner.

[00:10:48.252 – 00:10:53.912] And Frank– There had been other people that came there, and they would walk up and see, and they’d turn around and go.

[00:10:53.912 – 00:11:03.912] But Frank, the little Irishman, walked right through that facade that I was wearing and went right in my chest, and he told me, he said,

[00:11:03.912 – 00:11:14.042] “I’ll be your sponsor ’cause you ain’t got sense enough to get one.” And with that, he says, “When I pick my– choose my pigeons,

[00:11:14.042 – 00:11:21.092] I require two things: that they don’t drink, number one, and they do what I say.” And I knew I didn’t like this guy.

[00:11:21.092 – 00:11:28.252] You know those inner projective thoughts that we can have, you know, that we reminisce over, you know.

[00:11:28.252 – 00:11:38.412] I said, “Well,” I ain’t gonna talk it out loud to him, “but one of these days when my foot get well and I get my strength back like Samson, I’m gonna drive him in the ground.”

[00:11:38.412 – 00:11:44.192] “Because this guy don’t know me.” That’s what I was thinking.

[00:11:44.192 – 00:11:45.592] I was giving him the eye, too.

[00:11:45.592 – 00:11:46.112] And you know what?

[00:11:46.112 – 00:11:48.352] He didn’t care a bit more about that than a thing.

[00:11:48.352 – 00:11:50.892] But you know something strange happened.

[00:11:50.892 – 00:11:55.352] When he walked off, you know how Frank walk, he kind of twisted on…

[00:11:55.352 – 00:12:02.772] When he walked off, the thought came to me, and as sick as I was, he’s not afraid of you.

[00:12:02.772 – 00:12:06.072] He ain’t scared of me.

[00:12:06.072 – 00:12:06.812] He loved me.

[00:12:06.812 – 00:12:11.868] And that’s the way it was for the next fifteen years.

[00:12:11.868 – 00:12:15.748] Frank told me when I had fifteen years, and that’s when he died.

[00:12:15.748 – 00:12:25.988] He says, “Now you can start making some decisions.” “As long, as long as they’re not

[00:12:25.988 – 00:12:29.708] too great, you know, small decisions.

[00:12:29.708 – 00:12:35.928] Shake people’s hands at the door.” “Put the chairs up.” People were smoking back then, you know.

[00:12:35.928 – 00:12:41.048] “Look, clean the ashtrays.” That’s what he was doing with me.

[00:12:41.048 – 00:12:42.388] Thank God for that.

[00:12:42.388 – 00:12:52.568] Those old people, not unlike you, whose faces had smoothed up, and eyes had cleared up, texture of their skin and hair had returned,

[00:12:52.568 – 00:12:54.568] and you could see sobriety.

[00:12:54.568 – 00:12:57.348] That’s what they were talking, sobriety.

[00:12:57.348 – 00:13:06.887] Harold, I listen to Harold all the time, he talks sobriety, and the way this thing is set up on those foundations, and it all started.

[00:13:06.887 – 00:13:09.268] I drank for twenty-seven years.

[00:13:09.268 – 00:13:17.368] That maybe wouldn’t have a thing to do with your life at all, but I have to say that I drank twenty-seven years.

[00:13:17.368 – 00:13:27.408] And the last four of those years, I was on skid row where I took up permanent resident wherever I could

[00:13:27.408 – 00:13:30.288] stay: empty cars, houses in the woods, wherever.

[00:13:30.288 – 00:13:36.868] I come from North Carolina, and like I said, it was six boys, six girls, twelve of us.

[00:13:36.868 – 00:13:42.488] Never seen a doctor, birth– I mean, everybody was born at home, the whole bit.

[00:13:42.488 – 00:13:46.308] And my mother used to say I was the best child she had.

[00:13:46.308 – 00:13:48.208] She probably told the rest of them that too.

[00:13:48.208 – 00:13:51.728] But you know something?

[00:13:51.728 – 00:13:57.148] When I finish, you can decide yourself what the rest of them was like if I was the best one.

[00:13:57.148 – 00:14:01.728] We would go to church down there.

[00:14:01.728 – 00:14:02.928] She would carry me to church.

[00:14:02.928 – 00:14:04.028] I was raised that way.

[00:14:04.028 – 00:14:07.308] Would carry me to church, and I’d sit in the back of the congregation.

[00:14:07.308 – 00:14:16.188] And I’m talking a little bit about my personality and my makeup because I don’t believe that just drinking alcohol causes people to be alcoholics.

[00:14:16.188 – 00:14:19.127] I know a lot of people that drink that’s not alcoholics.

[00:14:19.127 – 00:14:21.438] But you know something?

[00:14:21.438 – 00:14:23.208] It was kind of like an incubator for me.

[00:14:23.208 – 00:14:24.488] Everything was just waiting.

[00:14:24.488 – 00:14:34.808] Sensitive guy, real sensitive, bigger than everybody, neck long, ears big, and I know everybody noticed that because I had noticed it,

[00:14:34.808 – 00:14:35.928] and there was something wrong with it.

[00:14:35.928 – 00:14:38.208] And I think that’s a lack of an acceptance.

[00:14:38.208 – 00:14:43.768] God made me the way that he wanted me to be made, and I couldn’t accept it.

[00:14:43.768 – 00:14:44.968] Maybe I didn’t know how.

[00:14:44.968 – 00:14:50.088] But I’d sat in the back of the church, and the preacher would stand at the podium like this and preach.

[00:14:50.088 – 00:15:00.148] And the signal– You know, they had a bench in the front called a mourner’s bench, and the signal would be my– when my mo– when they finished, my mother would

[00:15:00.148 – 00:15:00.538] stand up.

[00:15:00.538 – 00:15:07.508] I’d have to come to the front, get on the bench, and they would pray and sing and shout and stomp and spit and scare me to death.

[00:15:07.508 – 00:15:15.048] And my heart, you could, you could almost hear my heart beating through my chest, and there was a vein that stood upside my head like a pencil.

[00:15:15.048 – 00:15:19.268] The blood, you could feel it running through, and I was always grinning.

[00:15:19.268 – 00:15:24.548] Somebody say, uh, “Hi, Paul.

[00:15:24.548 – 00:15:27.898] You all right?” “Yeah, I’m fine.” That’s why I got to St.

[00:15:27.898 – 00:15:28.348] Eans.

[00:15:28.348 – 00:15:30.768] This is an honest program, you know.

[00:15:30.768 – 00:15:38.368] We come here, and we had to take an honest appraisal of ourselves so that we could come out behind that wall, and that’s what carried me to St.

[00:15:38.368 – 00:15:39.868] Eans, grinning and lying.

[00:15:39.868 – 00:15:44.908] Every Sunday, sometime Wednesdays, I would go there.

[00:15:44.908 – 00:15:47.548] Same thing, same results.

[00:15:47.548 – 00:15:50.028] Mondays, school days, I’d go to school.

[00:15:50.028 – 00:15:54.408] I’d sit with my peers, little fella, and they’d look at me like I was something strange.

[00:15:54.408 – 00:15:59.188] And my heart was pumping, sweating, and that vein standing out, and I was grinning.

[00:15:59.188 – 00:16:02.468] And they would chase me after school.

[00:16:02.468 – 00:16:03.868] They knew I had no heart.

[00:16:03.868 – 00:16:10.468] My father was a bootlegger, one of the finest men you’d ever want to know.

[00:16:10.468 – 00:16:14.078] You name it, they made it.

[00:16:14.078 – 00:16:18.428] Where I come from, North Carolina, booze was like a money crop.

[00:16:18.428 – 00:16:24.928] They made their corn liquor, the home brew, mill beer, all kind of wines.

[00:16:24.928 – 00:16:27.188] You name it, they had every kind of wine you could name.

[00:16:27.188 – 00:16:30.827] I remember drinking that home brew, and I’m just kind of jumping ahead just a little bit.

[00:16:30.827 – 00:16:32.848] Drinking that home brew and puking.

[00:16:32.848 – 00:16:35.288] You know a lot of drunks puke after they drink, you know.

[00:16:35.288 – 00:16:38.688] It looked like coffee anyway with cream in it.

[00:16:38.688 – 00:16:41.218] When you puke, it’d come up.

[00:16:41.218 – 00:16:44.428] It looked like it had coffee grounds in it and stuff, you know.

[00:16:44.428 – 00:16:49.998] And you get that out the way and go back and get another quart and drink that down, you know.

[00:16:49.998 – 00:16:52.928] But my father was bootlegging on Friday nights.

[00:16:52.928 – 00:16:57.028] All of his friends and everybody else’s friends would show up at my dad’s house.

[00:16:57.028 – 00:17:06.168] We were living in them old country houses because we were farmers, and you could literally look through the walls sometime because of the cracks and see the stars and the moon.

[00:17:06.168 – 00:17:10.008] I’m not exaggerating.

[00:17:10.008 – 00:17:13.328] We had no inside plumbing, and some of you know that.

[00:17:13.328 – 00:17:18.408] They had, uh, their little lighted fire on the ground where they would gamble.

[00:17:18.408 – 00:17:20.288] They had their dice.

[00:17:20.288 – 00:17:25.328] They had knives, all of them, or some kind of old gun with a jar of rubber tied around it.

[00:17:25.328 – 00:17:31.808] And they would have a jar of moonshine, Ball mason jar of moonshine.

[00:17:31.808 – 00:17:35.888] M-a lot of y’all don’t even know about that stuff, but let me tell you about it.

[00:17:35.888 – 00:17:42.468] They would come over to sample that stuff to see if it was good or not.

[00:17:42.468 – 00:17:46.258] And they would turn it up on the end in the jar like this.

[00:17:46.258 – 00:17:48.108] When they turn it up– You don’t turn it fast.

[00:17:48.108 – 00:17:49.228] You kind of turn it slow.

[00:17:49.228 – 00:17:52.388] Beads would come on it, and they would start, “Look.

[00:17:52.388 – 00:17:53.568] Look at the beads break.

[00:17:53.568 – 00:17:59.878] Look.” If the beads were big beads, then i-it worked too fast.

[00:17:59.878 – 00:18:01.068] It had too much lead in there.

[00:18:01.068 – 00:18:01.808] Sure would kill you.

[00:18:01.808 – 00:18:03.288] They didn’t tell you about that other part.

[00:18:03.288 – 00:18:10.468] They would tell you what that stuff would do for you, and they forgot to tell you what it would do to you.

[00:18:10.468 – 00:18:15.008] And I’m not gonna name what they said some of the things they named it would do for you because this is AA.

[00:18:15.008 – 00:18:17.548] We’re gonna keep this clean.

[00:18:17.548 – 00:18:27.588] But you know, they would take a jar, one of them pint fruit jars, and pour some in or drink right out the jar, and you

[00:18:27.588 – 00:18:31.588] could see them frowning up before it hit their mouth, and they’d pour it down.

[00:18:31.588 – 00:18:32.248] Ah.

[00:18:32.248 – 00:18:35.548] And light a Prince Albert, a pack of cigarette, and start smoking and spitting.

[00:18:35.548 – 00:18:45.068] Their voi-voices would get loud, and they’d start rolling dice, and somebody would catch a die with their foot, and somebody get their head cut halfway off.

[00:18:45.068 – 00:18:49.388] I used to see that on Friday evenings, and blood and running.

[00:18:49.388 – 00:18:52.048] So Sunday, I was scared to go to church.

[00:18:52.048 – 00:18:54.608] Monday, I was scared to go to school.

[00:18:54.608 – 00:18:56.508] Friday nights, I was scared-

[00:18:56.659 – 00:19:00.939] To come, ’cause I knew my dad was gonna get killed, and I was real close to him.

[00:19:00.939 – 00:19:02.339] Really.

[00:19:02.339 – 00:19:09.139] He died when I was eighteen, and my world come all to pieces, and this is where it started.

[00:19:09.139 – 00:19:12.479] I would stand and watch those things.

[00:19:12.479 – 00:19:16.939] Sometimes they would take that corn liquor and throw it in that fire, and it’d blaze up blue.

[00:19:16.939 – 00:19:23.959] Anything you see blaze up blue in the fire, and you drink it for twenty-seven years, something is bound to happen.

[00:19:23.959 – 00:19:34.039] We come in here, start looking at the steps, and we reluctantly, and debate as to whether

[00:19:34.039 – 00:19:36.799] or not I’m going to accept this in my life.

[00:19:36.799 – 00:19:39.379] Pouring all that stuff down, man.

[00:19:39.379 – 00:19:43.059] But you know, we alcoholics are, are great dreamers.

[00:19:43.059 – 00:19:44.659] Now, I can sing.

[00:19:44.659 – 00:19:49.339] I did sing, and I came from a singing background.

[00:19:49.339 – 00:19:50.819] My family, a lot of them could sing.

[00:19:50.819 – 00:19:55.019] But, you know, we just sat around the woodpile on the– in the tobacco field, singing.

[00:19:55.019 – 00:20:04.919] And the dream started about me becoming a professional gospel singer in my mind, so that I could come out of Tramp City and become somebody.

[00:20:04.919 – 00:20:12.799] I wanted to go to the top, and I have never seen a drunk yet didn’t want to go to the top, and I’ve never met a drunk yet that couldn’t go to the top.

[00:20:12.799 – 00:20:15.939] The problem was we couldn’t stay when we got there.

[00:20:15.939 – 00:20:21.279] And I began to dream about singing, and things started.

[00:20:21.279 – 00:20:24.719] I wasn’t that good in school.

[00:20:24.719 – 00:20:28.759] Now, y’all noticed I, I’m not gonna bore you with my college days.

[00:20:28.759 – 00:20:35.678] I’m not gonna bore you with my military career and stuff like that, ’cause I ain’t been there.

[00:20:35.678 – 00:20:38.109] You know that.

[00:20:38.109 – 00:20:48.219] But you know, I was a kid that was raised well, and I believe there’s a difference

[00:20:48.219 – 00:20:54.619] between being raised well and the discipline we find here among ourselves.

[00:20:54.619 – 00:20:56.799] Oh, I could say, “Yes, ma’am.

[00:20:56.799 – 00:20:57.519] No, ma’am.

[00:20:57.519 – 00:20:57.999] Yes, sir.

[00:20:57.999 – 00:20:59.699] No, sir,” when I really didn’t mean it.

[00:20:59.699 – 00:21:03.479] When we come in here, we learn something disc– uh, different.

[00:21:03.479 – 00:21:08.159] The discipline of life and the discipline of oneself.

[00:21:08.159 – 00:21:14.739] I’d go to school, and I’d mess around there, and I, I got out of school on senorita bases.

[00:21:14.739 – 00:21:15.899] I was staying too long.

[00:21:15.899 – 00:21:19.679] That’s where I met my wife.

[00:21:19.679 – 00:21:22.399] One of those long-distant lovers.

[00:21:22.399 – 00:21:23.419] Never had the courage.

[00:21:23.419 – 00:21:31.279] You know, there was something in my guts that was always turning up and shaking and just trembling, and I was sweating and grinning and choking and backing up.

[00:21:31.279 – 00:21:40.469] But I’d look over at her, and I’d smile, and long distance now, and I’d look back at the fellas with that tight eye, you know, and they’d, they’d back off.

[00:21:40.469 – 00:21:42.299] They were my news carriers.

[00:21:42.299 – 00:21:52.359] They would carry it to the other fellas, “Leave her alone, ’cause she belong to Paul.” We, if you’re like me, we’re not people that grow into relationships and the

[00:21:52.359 – 00:21:56.699] discipline there and the s– the pace, whatever it is, the patience and the tolerance.

[00:21:56.699 – 00:21:57.859] We take hostages.

[00:21:57.859 – 00:22:01.459] And I believe that’s exactly what happened.

[00:22:01.459 – 00:22:08.239] In nineteen fifty-seven, you know, I’d already done some strange things down around North Carolina, where we come from.

[00:22:08.239 – 00:22:12.379] I’d shot in a car with some people that came to see my wife.

[00:22:12.379 – 00:22:22.419] Uh, three guys came to see her, and I shot in the car up at her house, and they left home, and, and people were saying, “Paul just having extra

[00:22:22.419 – 00:22:25.019] fun.” You know, and stuff like that, and I thought it was fun.

[00:22:25.019 – 00:22:27.719] Laugh, you know, to see them go.

[00:22:27.719 – 00:22:30.709] And that’s kind of the way it was.

[00:22:30.709 – 00:22:32.379] Booze, I was drinking booze.

[00:22:32.379 – 00:22:42.399] Uh, I learned when I was sixteen years old that a man was judged according to the man– uh, uh, according to the amount of booze he could drink and walk with it, and if you could drink a half a pint,

[00:22:42.399 – 00:22:43.299] then you were a man.

[00:22:43.299 – 00:22:49.279] Sixteen years old, I could drink a half pint of moonshine and walk with it, and I knew I had arrived.

[00:22:49.279 – 00:22:51.959] I was wearing high-bill overalls and was shaven.

[00:22:51.959 – 00:22:53.999] Bumps all over my face.

[00:22:53.999 – 00:22:58.279] I done got one of them conkolines down there I had hair to then.

[00:22:58.279 – 00:23:06.279] And I was dreaming strongly about the singing, because in school we developed a high school quartet called the NFA Quartet.

[00:23:06.279 – 00:23:07.849] That was New Farmers of America.

[00:23:07.849 – 00:23:13.299] And I got to go to A&T College, and now, now I, I wasn’t in there for academic stuff.

[00:23:13.299 – 00:23:15.359] We just went there participating in agriculture.

[00:23:15.359 – 00:23:25.409] Four years in a row where that there was fourteen quartets each year, and three of those years, the group I sang with won, and people got to hear me sing bass, and

[00:23:25.409 – 00:23:27.819] that got to kind of moving around.

[00:23:27.819 – 00:23:37.319] And I got up in New York, where there was some groups up there that heard about it and heard about the young fella in North Carolina singing bass, and they wanted me around up there.

[00:23:37.319 – 00:23:47.619] But anyway, nineteen fifty-seven, August tenth, my wife and I, we were married in the courthouse in Carthage, North Carolina, ten thirty in the morning.

[00:23:47.619 – 00:23:56.079] The same place that they chained me up in nineteen seventy-one and moved me out and made me sign my rights away my– from North Carolina.

[00:23:56.079 – 00:24:00.999] And three days later– it cost us three dollars to get married.

[00:24:00.999 – 00:24:11.019] I had five dollars, and I had two dollars left, and I went and chipped that two dollars in a quart of moonshine after the wedding, which was just some few words from the justice

[00:24:11.019 – 00:24:11.579] of the peace.

[00:24:11.579 – 00:24:16.479] I went and chipped in on a, a quart of moonshine and got drunk and stayed drunk two days.

[00:24:16.479 – 00:24:25.259] And the third day, I was on my way to New York to meet these people that I’d be around for the next few years.

[00:24:25.259 – 00:24:29.799] Now, the guys that I was gonna sing with when I got there, I didn’t know them.

[00:24:29.799 – 00:24:30.839] They didn’t know me.

[00:24:30.839 – 00:24:34.519] I had never made a healthy relationship no place.

[00:24:34.519 – 00:24:38.299] I had never been fifty-mile radius away from where I was born.

[00:24:38.299 – 00:24:48.379] I didn’t mix well, and y’all know that, and I was leaving where I was born and raised, going to a place where they burned lights all night and whistles was blowing

[00:24:48.379 – 00:24:53.359] and horns was blowing, and I was going there to make a life for myself.

[00:24:53.359 – 00:24:55.999] Now, you know that’s taking the fish out the water.

[00:24:55.999 – 00:25:03.267] One day these fellas asked me, said, “You know,” I guess they, they knew I’m, I, I’m sensitive.

[00:25:03.267 – 00:25:04.787] You know, they kind of picked up on that.

[00:25:04.787 – 00:25:05.067] Said…

[00:25:05.067 – 00:25:07.497] I don’t know why they asked me if you drink or not, but they finally did.

[00:25:07.497 – 00:25:10.287] “Do you drink?” “Certain I drink.” I thought they’d never ask.

[00:25:10.287 – 00:25:20.327] We went into a place, a lounge, and this lounge had all those fancy — the, the, the, the

[00:25:20.327 – 00:25:24.706] bar part, the fancy cushions around, leather with brass buttons.

[00:25:24.706 – 00:25:28.527] And the seats had brass buttons around them, and they spin around.

[00:25:28.527 – 00:25:33.207] And in the back they had all kind of bottles, square bottles, big ones and little ones.

[00:25:33.207 – 00:25:39.207] And, and they had knobs on the end of them, and they would turn them up in a glass and would pour up some and stop.

[00:25:39.207 – 00:25:40.807] Man, that was fascinating.

[00:25:40.807 – 00:25:42.837] I looked and heart was pumping- …

[00:25:42.837 – 00:25:44.307] and sweating, and the vein was up.

[00:25:44.307 – 00:25:54.427] And these guys were talking about a screwdriver, and the only screwdriver I ever heard about was in North Carolina on the farm, and I knew that wouldn’t work for me from now from what I was feeling.

[00:25:54.427 – 00:26:03.327] But I did know I could drink a half a pint, and I knew I had drank some Four Roses out of a brown bottle one time.

[00:26:03.327 – 00:26:10.507] And I sat there and I told that bartender, “I’d like to have a half a pint.” And everybody looked at me.

[00:26:10.507 – 00:26:15.347] And the sweat and the heart, and my mouth got cocked open.

[00:26:15.347 – 00:26:16.767] I couldn’t get it closed.

[00:26:16.767 – 00:26:19.607] They didn’t know what to do or what to say.

[00:26:19.607 – 00:26:24.387] Finally, the bartender leaned over and he says, “Slim,” I’d never been called Slim before.

[00:26:24.387 – 00:26:31.887] He said, “We don’t sell half of pints, but we sell singles and doubles.” Have you ever known an alcoholic that want anything single?

[00:26:31.887 – 00:26:41.867] I started ordering doubles, and I guess by the time I got eight or 10, then the inhibitions, you know, they started, and I settled down, started running my mouth.

[00:26:41.867 – 00:26:48.367] And I guess they wondered, “How we gonna shut him up?” And that was my introductory to the folks in New York.

[00:26:48.367 – 00:26:50.367] I brought my wife up shortly after.

[00:26:50.367 – 00:26:52.807] We started to sing.

[00:26:52.807 – 00:26:56.027] We got on television, and that’s a bad place for a drunk.

[00:26:56.027 – 00:27:02.147] Got on television, and got me one of them processes up there with my hair laying back pretty.

[00:27:02.147 – 00:27:09.407] And started taking some pictures and sending them home to my mother, letting her know that, “I am the best child you got.

[00:27:09.407 – 00:27:15.187] Carry these pictures and show them to your friends.” And a family began.

[00:27:15.187 – 00:27:18.407] My wife began to have babies.

[00:27:18.407 – 00:27:19.527] We have five children.

[00:27:19.527 – 00:27:21.927] My baby’s 37 years old.

[00:27:21.927 – 00:27:25.427] I was there with the first baby.

[00:27:25.427 – 00:27:29.687] She was in labor for 12 hours.

[00:27:29.687 – 00:27:32.507] I could hear her hollering, but I was scared to death.

[00:27:32.507 – 00:27:33.247] I couldn’t go.

[00:27:33.247 – 00:27:43.387] Finally, I went and got my suit and put it on, and put a red tie on, and bought a pint of Four Roses, bought a box of cigars, and said, “It’s a boy.” And drank all the pint and come back, passed

[00:27:43.387 – 00:27:44.267] the cigars out.

[00:27:44.267 – 00:27:47.127] And people were congratulating me, and she was in labor.

[00:27:47.127 – 00:27:49.347] Now, if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is.

[00:27:49.347 – 00:27:53.167] The rest of my children, I weren’t there.

[00:27:53.167 – 00:28:03.487] I was out somewhere singing, running up and down the road, flaunting, big-shotism, waving two $20 bills stacked

[00:28:03.487 – 00:28:06.367] behind 100 $1 bill with rubber bands around them.

[00:28:06.367 – 00:28:09.627] Ego and big-shotitis.

[00:28:09.627 – 00:28:11.807] And people were talking about me.

[00:28:11.807 – 00:28:13.467] I’m talking about they were saying great things.

[00:28:13.467 – 00:28:18.607] “Man, this guy got a fistful of mitch.” And I went and bought a pink Lincoln with a beige top on it.

[00:28:18.607 – 00:28:23.587] A button on the side would raise up and turn you around and let you out.

[00:28:23.587 – 00:28:25.147] I had pictures made of that.

[00:28:25.147 – 00:28:26.087] We were doing good.

[00:28:26.087 – 00:28:27.707] Now, I tell you, that part of it.

[00:28:27.707 – 00:28:31.447] But I was pro- You know, alcoholism is progressively…

[00:28:31.447 – 00:28:36.427] It, it’s a thing that progressively gets worse over a period of time.

[00:28:36.427 – 00:28:37.247] It gets worse.

[00:28:37.247 – 00:28:43.027] And a lot of people could see where some serious things was happening to me, but I couldn’t see.

[00:28:43.027 – 00:28:45.887] I even got a chance to meet Ed Sullivan up there.

[00:28:45.887 – 00:28:50.687] They were talking about putting me on the Ed Sullivan Show if I could not drink.

[00:28:50.687 – 00:28:57.367] And I had to have a drink and then two and three and four, and they got me out of there quick.

[00:28:57.367 – 00:29:02.127] By the time we was in New York eight years, they asked us to leave.

[00:29:02.127 – 00:29:08.647] They, well, they came up and took my family out, and my five babies, I had five babies by now, and my wife, and I stayed there.

[00:29:08.647 – 00:29:13.517] I had got them set out in the street now two times, and they were gonna set us out the third time.

[00:29:13.517 – 00:29:14.447] I burned the house down.

[00:29:14.447 – 00:29:24.527] My wife was in the hospital, birthed with the fi- fifth child, and my wife’s sister and her brother came, got them, moved them down to Maryland, left me

[00:29:24.527 – 00:29:25.107] up there.

[00:29:25.107 – 00:29:33.547] A month later, they asked me to leave the state of New York or they was gonna put me in a place in White Plains called Valhalla Hospital.

[00:29:33.547 – 00:29:37.767] I drank a pint, and it was easy to make a decision.

[00:29:37.767 – 00:29:41.267] I left because I wasn’t going to a nuthouse, not at that time.

[00:29:41.267 – 00:29:42.947] I didn’t know there was one waiting.

[00:29:42.947 – 00:29:49.547] And I came on down here around Forestville, around Capitol Heights.

[00:29:49.547 – 00:29:52.687] And you know the drunkard’s prayer.

[00:29:52.687 – 00:29:57.087] Now we’re beginning to be moved around against our will.

[00:29:57.087 – 00:30:04.087] “Lord, when I get where I’m going, this will not happen.” I’m — and not, not knowing now that I precedes myself.

[00:30:04.087 – 00:30:08.467] Everybody around Maryland, my wife’s family knew about me now.

[00:30:08.467 – 00:30:12.447] I think the only thing that they were missing was I was sick.

[00:30:12.447 – 00:30:15.127] I didn’t know it, and they didn’t know it either.

[00:30:15.127 – 00:30:25.647] Two weeks in Maryland, I was in Upper Marlboro Jail, and the judge in Upper Marlboro told me to, “Get out of Maryland and don’t bring that stuff in Maryland.” I

[00:30:25.647 – 00:30:33.607] went into the District, and I thought I could go in the District and lay in the parks with the guys that I seen drinking around there, and I was drinking hard now.

[00:30:33.607 – 00:30:35.447] They were drinking their wine.

[00:30:35.447 – 00:30:37.887] When the police come, they’d hide their bottle.

[00:30:37.887 – 00:30:38.927] I’d shake mine at them.

[00:30:38.927 – 00:30:39.866] They’d lock me up.

[00:30:39.866 – 00:30:45.087] Go down to Occoquan’s workhouse for drunks down in Lorton.

[00:30:45.087 – 00:30:53.447] I’d go down there 15, 30 days, 60 days, physically get myself together, skin clear up a little bit, come out, eyes shining again.

[00:30:53.447 – 00:30:58.907] My friends would say, “Paul, where you been?” I’d say, “Well, I’ve been on vacation.” I didn’t know better now.

[00:30:58.907 – 00:31:00.567] You know what they’d say?

[00:31:00.567 – 00:31:02.627] “You need a drink.” And I’d agree.

[00:31:02.627 – 00:31:05.467] And I was offered this stuff again.

[00:31:05.467 – 00:31:07.527] Life was getting bad.

[00:31:07.527 – 00:31:08.466] It was getting tough.

[00:31:08.466 – 00:31:10.167] A progressive thing.

[00:31:10.167 – 00:31:13.267] Now people were saying, “Maybe you should drink this.

[00:31:13.267 – 00:31:14.607] Maybe you should drink that.

[00:31:14.607 – 00:31:16.807] Maybe you should just drink beer.

[00:31:16.807 – 00:31:21.147] Maybe you should just drink wine.” Our program tell us about those things.

[00:31:21.147 – 00:31:30.327] We get to the point in our drinking to where that we start changing up to try to compensate for the troubles and all that’s caused now.

[00:31:30.327 – 00:31:31.547] You know, maybe I can lighten up.

[00:31:31.547 – 00:31:39.307] I think that Big Book says, uh, it looked like at times our drinking was coming under control.

[00:31:39.307 – 00:31:49.347] Looked just like it was under control, but such intervals, usually brief, would be inevitably followed by still less control, which in time would

[00:31:49.347 – 00:31:53.007] lead us to pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.

[00:31:53.007 – 00:31:55.007] I was on my way there.

[00:31:55.007 – 00:32:02.567] Looked a nice guy that was raised well, sensitive, sweating, trembling all the time.

[00:32:02.567 – 00:32:06.007] Now something have got a hold of me that I don’t know what it is.

[00:32:06.007 – 00:32:07.147] I can’t explain it.

[00:32:07.147 – 00:32:15.207] All I know is people is moving back, and polices is moving in, and this thing got bad.

[00:32:15.207 – 00:32:23.847] In nineteen sixty-six, I went in a house with one of them knives that I was raised up watching people hurt other people with.

[00:32:23.847 – 00:32:34.497] I went in a house with a knife and did some damage to some folks in there, and I went to jail in Washington, DC, and Judge Halleck was there, Alexander,

[00:32:34.497 – 00:32:35.287] all them guys.

[00:32:35.287 – 00:32:36.447] Murphy was down there.

[00:32:36.447 – 00:32:40.087] But that Halleck told me that, that that was worth four years.

[00:32:40.087 – 00:32:50.167] And some good people from North Carolina started writing letters to tell them about my character, how good and how disciplined I was, and, and the nice little farm boy that

[00:32:50.167 – 00:32:54.767] grew up and would do whatever– in other words, they put it on the other people.

[00:32:54.767 – 00:33:05.047] I got out of jail, and the judge told me, said, “Get rid of the knife and your drinking.” I didn’t drink from sixty-six to sixty-eight.

[00:33:05.047 – 00:33:06.567] I kept the knife.

[00:33:06.567 – 00:33:08.747] I didn’t know I had a problem.

[00:33:08.747 – 00:33:15.247] All I know, I was sensitive, and if somebody hemmed me up, I would need that knife, so I kept it in my pocket.

[00:33:15.247 – 00:33:18.207] I don’t carry knives now.

[00:33:18.207 – 00:33:22.427] And haven’t carried a knife in thirty years.

[00:33:22.427 – 00:33:26.407] Thank God I got the– that part of the defense down.

[00:33:26.407 – 00:33:30.407] I either gotta talk to you now or run one, don’t make no difference.

[00:33:30.407 – 00:33:32.427] I ain’t defending myself.

[00:33:32.427 – 00:33:33.687] I ain’t hurt nobody that way.

[00:33:33.687 – 00:33:42.387] But anyway, I went to work at a bus company, WMA Transit, Coral Hills, and it was just like going to school.

[00:33:42.387 – 00:33:47.187] Oh, I can work not drinking, and I can learn things if you show me not drinking.

[00:33:47.187 – 00:33:56.947] And I watched those fellows drink up there for two years while I was becoming training supervisor, sightseer for the District of Columbia.

[00:33:56.947 – 00:34:04.227] I had to have somebody on the bus when I was sightseeing ’cause I had felonies now, and I couldn’t get no license, but they would let me do that.

[00:34:04.227 – 00:34:08.787] And you know what I saw these fellows doing that was drinking around the bus company?

[00:34:08.787 – 00:34:11.207] They were drinking out of lily cups.

[00:34:11.207 – 00:34:14.047] They were taking their booze and pouring it in lily cups.

[00:34:14.047 – 00:34:15.347] They were drinking it.

[00:34:15.347 – 00:34:24.527] They were chasing it with something, and they were talking to one another, reading their manifest, going to work, and you know what our heads is like.

[00:34:24.527 – 00:34:25.487] That’s my problem.

[00:34:25.487 – 00:34:28.227] If I ever drink again, I’m gonna drink out of lily cups.

[00:34:28.227 – 00:34:31.267] Chase it with something, and I’ll be all right.

[00:34:31.267 – 00:34:41.487] And two years later, behind Plane and Fancy Donut Shop, a fearful lick and some lily cups and some unsweetened Donald Duck grapefruit juice,

[00:34:41.487 – 00:34:44.837] I took a drink, and that was the last four years.

[00:34:44.837 – 00:34:48.947] I went on a drunk that I’ll never forget as long as I live.

[00:34:48.947 – 00:34:53.227] It’s progressive, and it was just like I had never stopped.

[00:34:53.227 – 00:34:56.987] And you know, we alcoholics are like men that have lost their legs.

[00:34:56.987 – 00:34:58.507] They never grow new ones.

[00:34:58.507 – 00:35:01.007] I didn’t know that.

[00:35:01.007 – 00:35:04.507] And that thing took me right down, right straight.

[00:35:04.507 – 00:35:11.347] And in that four years, I got to see some things that I hope if you haven’t seen them, that you don’t get to see them.

[00:35:11.347 – 00:35:15.227] DTs, seizures.

[00:35:15.227 – 00:35:22.586] I u- used to watch my two dogs, a big brown one and a big black one, walk out the wall, and they would talk to me.

[00:35:22.586 – 00:35:23.887] They’d talk bad to me.

[00:35:23.887 – 00:35:28.747] And they didn’t hurt me, but I almost hurt myself trying to stay away from them at times.

[00:35:28.747 – 00:35:31.987] And then I went on to the seizure thing.

[00:35:31.987 – 00:35:36.947] Nineteen sixty-nine, June tenth, I was shot by police in Washington, DC.

[00:35:36.947 – 00:35:41.207] I got thirteen pieces of lead in me now around my pelvis bone.

[00:35:41.207 – 00:35:42.087] Police’s gun.

[00:35:42.087 – 00:35:44.987] It was God’s will that I lived.

[00:35:44.987 – 00:35:47.427] Police had three heart attacks and died.

[00:35:47.427 – 00:35:52.007] God’s will would be done.

[00:35:52.007 – 00:36:02.226] I used to lay in the backseat of those old cars, trembling and shaking, the loneliness that nobody will ever know, the pain around my heart

[00:36:02.227 – 00:36:08.087] and the projected thoughts in my mind that I couldn’t shut down unle- unless I was totally in oblivion.

[00:36:08.087 – 00:36:14.967] And I’d lay back there wishing those days could come back when I could talk to my family, my wife and the children.

[00:36:14.967 – 00:36:19.287] When my mother would see me as her best child again, whether she meant it or not.

[00:36:19.287 – 00:36:24.327] If I could just crawl in the house and lay in the corner under the table.

[00:36:24.327 – 00:36:27.367] I guess I know something about Lazarus.

[00:36:27.367 – 00:36:35.527] And eat the crumbs that fall down because now I was eating out of dumpsters and trash cans on the street.

[00:36:35.527 – 00:36:38.687] I’m not a dummy.

[00:36:38.687 – 00:36:41.287] I have a illness.

[00:36:41.287 – 00:36:51.307] Used to stand around them fire barrels, and I ain’t never seen a drunk drunk that didn’t think he knew everything, or a sober drunk either.

[00:36:51.307 – 00:36:52.827] We all think we know everything.

[00:36:52.827 – 00:37:02.827] Stand around the fire barrel looking like Lazarus with all that swaddling cloth and strings tied around and fire running out with a bowl of soup or stew

[00:37:02.827 – 00:37:05.267] on a, uh, in a can over some fire.

[00:37:05.267 – 00:37:14.767] Well, we’ve been down to Florida Avenue and picked up old meats and greens that they couldn’t sell and throw them in there and cook them and eat that stuff to survive.

[00:37:14.767 – 00:37:16.467] Don’t tell me a drunk can’t survive either.

[00:37:16.467 – 00:37:17.847] People think we’re not tough.

[00:37:17.847 – 00:37:20.707] Some of the toughest people walking God’s green earth.

[00:37:20.707 – 00:37:27.726] ‘Cause you get somebody not unlike us and tell them to live the life we did, man, they’d go straight up like a rocket.

[00:37:27.726 – 00:37:30.007] And there we was.

[00:37:30.007 – 00:37:33.887] We’d stand around the fire barrel, and you’d have one drunk telling you how to stay sober.

[00:37:33.887 – 00:37:36.107] If you just eat some butter.

[00:37:36.107 – 00:37:40.507] Eat some butter and grease your stomach.

[00:37:40.507 – 00:37:41.627] Where am I getting the butter from?

[00:37:41.627 – 00:37:47.527] Then you got another one that’s smarter than that one.

[00:37:47.527 – 00:37:52.757] Well, the best way to do it is get some raw eggs and get you a-

[00:37:53.162 – 00:37:55.582] All in the top, and everybody waving around this fire.

[00:37:55.582 – 00:37:57.502] Don’t turn around ’cause you might get burned up.

[00:37:57.502 – 00:38:02.102] You eat the egg and suck the yolk down without breaking it.

[00:38:02.102 – 00:38:03.102] I’m a trembling drunk.

[00:38:03.102 – 00:38:04.582] I’m one of them shaking kind.

[00:38:04.582 – 00:38:06.942] I’m the DT kind.

[00:38:06.942 – 00:38:15.362] And then you got another one standing around talking about clams on the half shell, and what he had to add in, I won’t add that in either.

[00:38:15.362 – 00:38:18.802] Say, hey, but let me tell you something, it won’t work.

[00:38:18.802 – 00:38:21.942] If you like me, it won’t work.

[00:38:21.942 – 00:38:32.022] The only thing that will work is to surrender, come in, take your rightful place among us,

[00:38:32.022 – 00:38:36.582] and use these tools that was laid at our feet.

[00:38:36.582 – 00:38:38.781] Pick them up, put them in place.

[00:38:38.781 – 00:38:42.642] I used to have seizures.

[00:38:42.642 – 00:38:46.562] Ambulances would pick me up and carry me to different hospitals, and they would want to know who you got in there.

[00:38:46.562 – 00:38:47.462] I’d hear them sometime.

[00:38:47.462 – 00:38:51.642] “Get him out of here.” What a way to live.

[00:38:51.642 – 00:38:54.102] No baths.

[00:38:54.102 – 00:38:59.482] I hear people say, “You know, I hadn’t had a bath in a week.” I wish it had been only a week for me.

[00:38:59.482 – 00:39:02.712] And you know something?

[00:39:02.712 – 00:39:12.862] On June eighth, nineteen seventy-two, right up until now, has been– I hope it’s my last drink, because if I take

[00:39:12.862 – 00:39:14.182] a drink, I’m a dead man.

[00:39:14.182 – 00:39:15.442] I don’t want to die like that.

[00:39:15.442 – 00:39:25.492] Nature– God and nature abhor suicide, and that’s exactly what I was doing, is committing suicide on installment plans

[00:39:25.492 – 00:39:29.502] and pulling lifetime in jail on installment plans.

[00:39:29.502 – 00:39:39.962] I’ve been in eight different states in jail many times, and I was runned out of three states and chained up in my hometown in seventy-one

[00:39:39.962 – 00:39:40.882] with a broke leg.

[00:39:40.882 – 00:39:42.502] Always had something broke.

[00:39:42.502 – 00:39:44.572] Chained up.

[00:39:44.572 – 00:39:49.662] I couldn’t even wave at my mother goodbye, and they ordered me never to come to North Carolina, my home state, again.

[00:39:49.662 – 00:39:51.222] And I didn’t know they meant drunk.

[00:39:51.222 – 00:39:53.302] I just thought they meant never come.

[00:39:53.302 – 00:39:57.262] So my, my– all of my avenues had shut down.

[00:39:57.262 – 00:40:07.302] And on June eighth, nineteen seventy-two, the angel that Frank used to tell me about, the little angel that God have

[00:40:07.302 – 00:40:17.302] chosen to put over the heads of all of us, individuals and groups, little angel that had watched over me for years, I guess he had made his report

[00:40:17.302 – 00:40:18.642] back, or she.

[00:40:18.642 – 00:40:20.652] “He’s had enough.

[00:40:20.652 – 00:40:29.242] He’s ready to come in now.” I didn’t know that, because if I had had my own wishes and my own thoughts, I’d have had somebody blow my brains out.

[00:40:29.242 – 00:40:31.682] Victor talked about that today.

[00:40:31.682 – 00:40:33.662] There’s no– I’m at the end.

[00:40:33.662 – 00:40:34.362] Where am I going?

[00:40:34.362 – 00:40:35.722] Tomorrow it’s going to be the same.

[00:40:35.722 – 00:40:36.842] It’s going to be worse.

[00:40:36.842 – 00:40:38.882] I got no friends.

[00:40:38.882 – 00:40:40.342] Nobody want me around.

[00:40:40.342 – 00:40:50.362] I was found on the second floor in a government subsidy house that was abandoned with ply board on

[00:40:50.362 – 00:40:54.902] it, and we still don’t know how I got behind those ply boards, but it was on the second floor.

[00:40:54.902 – 00:41:03.122] When the sun had come up on the eighth, they say way up here about nine o’clock or so, I don’t know what records back then they kept.

[00:41:03.122 – 00:41:13.462] And the police would get involved and one more trip to old DC Detox, where they really didn’t want me to come anymore

[00:41:13.462 – 00:41:15.602] because I’d worn my welcome out at the detox.

[00:41:15.602 – 00:41:19.662] And this was for skid row bums, where they would drag you in sometime by the neck.

[00:41:19.662 – 00:41:29.762] They had a ramp to go down into the detox ’cause it was like a rambler house, half on top, half underneath, where they had army cots down with seventy-five beds and people down

[00:41:29.762 – 00:41:34.622] there having DTs and seizures and strapped down to the floor in beds, and that’s where they had me down in there.

[00:41:34.622 – 00:41:37.282] But this time, they wouldn’t let me come in.

[00:41:37.282 – 00:41:41.002] And this is their words and their right.

[00:41:41.002 – 00:41:47.342] But they said that I sat at the mouth of that ramp to go down fourteen hours with a broke foot.

[00:41:47.342 – 00:41:48.722] One foot broke twice.

[00:41:48.722 – 00:41:53.602] And I sat there for fourteen hours, long enough for two shifts to change.

[00:41:53.602 – 00:41:56.162] One was about ready to change, and the next morning, one changed.

[00:41:56.162 – 00:41:59.542] And somebody came up, Ellis Payne, God rest his soul.

[00:41:59.542 – 00:42:00.821] He’s one of us.

[00:42:00.821 – 00:42:05.822] He said, “Something is different about him.” ‘Cause I know him, he would have been gone.

[00:42:05.822 – 00:42:17.382] But the little angel that had reported that I had enough was sitting there watching, had to sit there and watch me, ’cause I’m a compulsive human being and I can’t stay put unless

[00:42:17.382 – 00:42:18.622] I got some guidance.

[00:42:18.622 – 00:42:22.442] I’ve learned a little bit about settling down since I’ve been with y’all.

[00:42:22.442 – 00:42:26.622] But the angel stayed there, and that’s the way God works.

[00:42:26.622 – 00:42:28.262] He works between us.

[00:42:28.262 – 00:42:29.282] He works through us.

[00:42:29.282 – 00:42:33.802] Every man, woman, and child, the fundamental idea of God exists.

[00:42:33.802 – 00:42:44.692] And the way was being made, and I didn’t even know it, but they was on the way to Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital with me three days later, where they carried me over and

[00:42:44.692 – 00:42:50.782] they said, “We’ll put him on the east side,” and that’s where the chronic brain damaged folks were, where I stayed twenty-one months.

[00:42:50.782 – 00:42:55.082] And this is where I met Frank, the way I started off.

[00:42:55.082 – 00:42:57.482] I didn’t know I had a illness.

[00:42:57.482 – 00:42:59.582] I didn’t know anything about AA.

[00:42:59.582 – 00:43:03.482] All I know was that man looked good.

[00:43:03.482 – 00:43:05.422] I mean, he looked so– he made sense.

[00:43:05.422 – 00:43:07.262] He dressed well.

[00:43:07.262 – 00:43:10.362] And I was in a nuthouse with a broke foot.

[00:43:10.362 – 00:43:13.102] And might not ever get out.

[00:43:13.102 – 00:43:19.762] And the time came when they started kind of taking us out, you know, after we was there for a while.

[00:43:19.762 – 00:43:27.142] I got a card in my pocket right now, uh, that was given to me, uh, February sixteenth, nineteen seventy-three.

[00:43:27.142 – 00:43:37.362] I was admitted there June twelfth, seventy-two, where I had privileges to make an unavi– uh, unaccompanied visit to the city, see if I could go down

[00:43:37.362 – 00:43:42.382] around my old friends and all and then come back to the nuthouse and check in.

[00:43:42.382 – 00:43:49.762] And they began to carry us out to meetings, AA meetings, and they talked about recovery.

[00:43:49.762 – 00:43:56.182] We, we have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

[00:43:56.182 – 00:43:57.842] That didn’t make no sense to me.

[00:43:57.842 – 00:44:02.474] But they begin to walk through these steps over here.

[00:44:02.474 – 00:44:09.894] I’ve heard Harold talk about it so many times when he does the traditions at our group, and the steps.

[00:44:09.894 – 00:44:19.614] He said the first step is the problem, and we know that, and the second step is the solution, and the twelfth step is the results.

[00:44:19.614 – 00:44:26.794] And if we follow one through eleven, we’re bound to arrive at the solution one day, step twelve.

[00:44:26.794 – 00:44:28.954] That’s, uh, that’s the results.

[00:44:28.954 – 00:44:30.914] But you know what I like?

[00:44:30.914 – 00:44:32.774] I like the second step.

[00:44:32.774 – 00:44:34.143] Uh, we know we got a problem.

[00:44:34.143 – 00:44:38.394] I like the second step because it’s the rallying point for all of us.

[00:44:38.394 – 00:44:44.834] John Barleycorn brought us here, brought me here, and this is the rallying point for all of us.

[00:44:44.834 – 00:44:46.714] We can stand on this step together.

[00:44:46.714 – 00:44:52.234] There’s no need when we get here to look down our noses at each other and judge.

[00:44:52.234 – 00:45:02.894] Let God do our judging, because we are not capable of making the right decision when we judging one another, whether we atheist, agnostic,

[00:45:02.894 – 00:45:05.054] once believers or non-believers.

[00:45:05.054 – 00:45:15.614] Every meeting that we attend would be an assurance that God would restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to His will, and then we can start

[00:45:15.614 – 00:45:19.574] to complete the foundation, which is the third step.

[00:45:19.574 – 00:45:24.094] And you know something?

[00:45:24.094 – 00:45:28.174] We’re gonna have to take a good look at ourselves.

[00:45:28.174 – 00:45:30.774] What was wrong with my life?

[00:45:30.774 – 00:45:34.374] Any life ran based on self-will can hardly be a success.

[00:45:34.374 – 00:45:38.354] What do you do when you get to a point like that?

[00:45:38.354 – 00:45:48.394] Well, the first thing we have to recognize is any life ran based on self-will can hardly be a success with step three, where we made a decision

[00:45:48.394 – 00:45:51.394] to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

[00:45:51.394 – 00:45:56.754] Here’s the key to faith, willingness, and belief.

[00:45:56.754 – 00:45:59.474] We’re gonna have to take a picture now.

[00:45:59.474 – 00:46:04.314] In taking that picture, we’re gonna have to roll some stones and look in some crevices.

[00:46:04.314 – 00:46:14.634] We’re gonna have to look at the things that we had planned to carry to the graveyard with us, because if we gonna be free of the monkey that’s been on our back, we’re gonna have to sit down with another

[00:46:14.634 – 00:46:16.114] human being and look them in the face.

[00:46:16.114 – 00:46:17.534] I did this with Frank.

[00:46:17.534 – 00:46:20.794] Five hours sitting around that long table.

[00:46:20.794 – 00:46:30.814] Look him in the face and talk about it, and that step says if we do it like that, leaving out nothing, a lot of times

[00:46:30.814 – 00:46:33.334] we’ll feel the presence of God right there.

[00:46:33.334 – 00:46:40.374] If we lay it all out, we’re gonna leave there with straight thinking, solid honesty, and genuine humility.

[00:46:40.374 – 00:46:41.633] That’s what the program said.

[00:46:41.633 – 00:46:51.824] And when we leave, if you’re like me, we’ll be so glad to be free, we’ll begin to rest on our laurels, and we only done only one thing.

[00:46:51.824 – 00:46:55.094] That’s identified and isolated the problem.

[00:46:55.094 – 00:46:56.744] We still got it.

[00:46:56.744 – 00:47:01.694] Frank used to say to me, “Now, the sixth step, you’re gonna have to work with God some here.

[00:47:01.694 – 00:47:06.534] I can’t take them from you.” And I found some too.

[00:47:06.534 – 00:47:07.834] I found some that I love.

[00:47:07.834 – 00:47:18.014] I say, “I’m gonna hold on to these.” But we should always remember not to say never, because

[00:47:18.014 – 00:47:21.954] the seventh one said we humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

[00:47:21.954 – 00:47:22.834] See, I’m hurting now.

[00:47:22.834 – 00:47:24.094] I’m self-humiliating.

[00:47:24.094 – 00:47:29.774] And then Frank came back with the list.

[00:47:29.774 – 00:47:38.063] And he would want to know, are you willing now to go and clean up the past?

[00:47:38.063 – 00:47:39.274] We’re like tornadoes.

[00:47:39.274 – 00:47:41.414] Gonna need some help here.

[00:47:41.414 – 00:47:44.914] Don’t do it alone.

[00:47:44.914 – 00:47:47.014] And he helped me.

[00:47:47.014 – 00:47:51.354] And then we arrived at the acid test.

[00:47:51.354 – 00:47:58.094] Can I stay sober now under any and all conditions, whether weather’s foul, whether it’s good?

[00:47:58.094 – 00:48:03.654] And don’t forget, any time I’m disturbed, there’s something wrong with me.

[00:48:03.654 – 00:48:05.634] That’s what the program says.

[00:48:05.634 – 00:48:07.114] I learned how to pray.

[00:48:07.114 – 00:48:12.874] It wasn’t for Lincoln no more, fancy cars and clothes.

[00:48:12.874 – 00:48:22.574] Was praying for God’s will for us, for me, and the power to carry it out, and then to pass this gift on to another human being.

[00:48:22.574 – 00:48:30.994] You know, if you receive this gift, the gift of this program, one of these days you’re gonna ask to come forth.

[00:48:30.994 – 00:48:37.574] You’re gonna have to come to the center and pass on what it was that you received.

[00:48:37.574 – 00:48:41.414] And a lot of times, you know how we drunks are, we wanna get there so bad.

[00:48:41.414 – 00:48:45.074] But the minute we get there, that thing touches in the gut.

[00:48:45.074 – 00:48:45.374] Look.

[00:48:45.374 – 00:48:47.894] Start trembling and shaking and sweating.

[00:48:47.894 – 00:48:51.274] You know, I say, “Lord, I can’t go through with this.” You, you– But you got to.

[00:48:51.274 – 00:48:53.574] There’s one who has all power.

[00:48:53.574 – 00:48:56.094] May you find him now.

[00:48:56.094 – 00:48:57.714] You gotta step up to this podium.

[00:48:57.714 – 00:49:05.594] Regardless to how small you think your part might be, it’s gonna benefit others if you let it be known.

[00:49:05.594 – 00:49:15.814] And when you stand here, don’t worry about it, because there are gonna be times when you’re gonna be criticized if you stand for this program, its intentions,

[00:49:15.814 – 00:49:18.074] its meant, and the way it’s supposed to be.

[00:49:18.074 – 00:49:22.354] And you know, a lot of times what we do is gonna go unappreciated.

[00:49:22.354 – 00:49:27.334] You know, a lot of times we AAs is scared to say what this program stand for.

[00:49:27.334 – 00:49:30.634] I, I, I like Harold.

[00:49:30.634 – 00:49:40.674] Harold sometime when he’s in our group talking about the, uh, uh, traditions and all, he say, “You know, you, you can’t deny Elephant if he walks in here and sit down around the table

[00:49:40.674 – 00:49:42.314] and say, ‘I’m an alcoholic.'” That’s fine.

[00:49:42.314 – 00:49:44.894] Let him sit down.

[00:49:44.894 – 00:49:46.294] I mean, you know, he’s the Elephant.

[00:49:46.294 – 00:49:49.294] Let him sit down and keep talking.

[00:49:49.294 – 00:49:51.454] All you gotta do is keep it straight down the middle.

[00:49:51.454 – 00:49:53.434] Straight down the middle.

[00:49:53.434 – 00:49:57.534] If he’s an alcoholic, he’ll conform.

[00:49:57.534 – 00:49:59.714] If he’s not, sooner or later he gotta go.

[00:49:59.714 – 00:50:03.614] And these are the things that I was told.

[00:50:03.614 – 00:50:12.534] I said, “Lord, I can’t say this.” They said, “Look, all you gotta do is just talk about AA, that’s, that’s all.” And you know something?

[00:50:12.534 – 00:50:16.834] Our motives at times will be misjudged.

[00:50:16.834 – 00:50:24.354] Lamar, I see I saw him, he says, “A gem cannot be polished without friction and abrasion.

[00:50:24.354 – 00:50:34.634] Neither can man’s life be perfected without adversity.” And adversity, as man understand adversity, will be a ladder

[00:50:34.634 – 00:50:39.884] that we must climb as we ascend the ruins toward spiritual perfection.

[00:50:39.884 – 00:50:42.074] We gotta keep pulling.

[00:50:42.074 – 00:50:50.694] My sponsor used to say the river that we swim when we get here is deep and wide, and the undercurrent is strong, and it will take you away.

[00:50:50.694 – 00:51:00.774] And a lot of times when we’re sinking, seem like, there might be a piece of debris that floats by that you can hang on to until

[00:51:00.774 – 00:51:03.834] one of us arrive and get you back into stroking.

[00:51:03.834 – 00:51:10.054] And soon as you start stroking, we turn you loose again because you gotta walk this one for yourself.

[00:51:10.054 – 00:51:20.474] This time, God went direct because we had passed mothers and fathers who loved us to death, who almost killed us through love.

[00:51:20.474 – 00:51:25.734] And what I brought in here, they were no benefit.

[00:51:25.734 – 00:51:30.794] Scientists and doctors are still researching what’s wrong with them folks.

[00:51:30.794 – 00:51:36.514] Ministers and priests, they had no handle on what we have.

[00:51:36.514 – 00:51:39.394] But he went direct.

[00:51:39.394 – 00:51:43.634] He went directly to the drunk, the so-called outcast of all mankind.

[00:51:43.634 – 00:51:50.774] And I believe the reason that we were chosen is because of our experiences, our long time suffering.

[00:51:50.774 – 00:51:54.354] You take this gift, and you pass it on.

[00:51:54.354 – 00:51:54.984] You understand?

[00:51:54.984 – 00:51:57.394] You pass it on.

[00:51:57.394 – 00:51:59.954] And in order for you to keep it, this is your demand.

[00:51:59.954 – 00:52:00.934] You pass it on.

[00:52:00.934 – 00:52:10.973] And if success should attain us along the way, we lay no claims for personal superiority because what I have this evening

[00:52:10.973 – 00:52:12.874] came from God Almighty Himself.

[00:52:12.874 – 00:52:15.554] It didn’t come from us.

[00:52:15.554 – 00:52:18.094] We’re not the judges.

[00:52:18.094 – 00:52:21.814] We should never forget either.

[00:52:21.814 – 00:52:32.814] I don’t care how long we been, how short we been, or how sober we think we are, we should never forget that

[00:52:32.814 – 00:52:42.814] it was not until the day that we walked through the doors ourselves and openly admitted our own powerlessness over alcohol and turned our will and our lives over to the care

[00:52:42.814 – 00:52:46.594] of God that relief came to us.

[00:52:46.594 – 00:52:51.254] That’s what this program is about.

[00:52:51.254 – 00:52:54.014] Can we keep it simple?

[00:52:54.014 – 00:52:57.834] Frank used to say he ain’t never seen a drunk could keep it simple.

[00:52:57.834 – 00:53:01.554] One drunk will mess up a two-car funeral.

[00:53:01.554 – 00:53:09.854] Go in the room with three drunks, try to come out, everybody with the same thought.

[00:53:09.854 – 00:53:10.654] It ain’t gonna work.

[00:53:10.654 – 00:53:16.974] But if we can keep it simple, you know, on the other side, we’ll be free.

[00:53:16.974 – 00:53:23.954] Free men and women walking up like God had intended for us to walk in the first place.

[00:53:23.954 – 00:53:34.154] Thank God for this program and what it has meant for me because, you know, I’m still a little nuts, and I need my friends

[00:53:34.154 – 00:53:36.354] every once in a while to remind me of that.

[00:53:36.354 – 00:53:41.054] And you know, I don’t– I haven’t seen perfection since I’ve been here.

[00:53:41.054 – 00:53:44.394] We’ve become willing to grow along spiritual lines.

[00:53:44.394 – 00:53:49.274] I haven’t gotten so far off till I can be pulled back.

[00:53:49.274 – 00:53:53.094] And I, I call Harold sometime when I’m feeling self-pity.

[00:53:53.094 – 00:54:00.754] He tell me, “Get over it.” “Get over it.” Sonny’s sitting there.

[00:54:00.754 – 00:54:04.434] When I’m going through some real crazy stuff, I call Sonny.

[00:54:04.434 – 00:54:05.174] You know what he’ll say?

[00:54:05.174 – 00:54:07.974] I think he gonna tell me something to do to get rid of it.

[00:54:07.974 – 00:54:16.454] He said, “Me too.” Know what that said?

[00:54:16.454 – 00:54:22.574] In essence, they said, “You’re not alone.” That’s what they said.

[00:54:22.574 – 00:54:23.394] You’re not alone.

[00:54:23.394 – 00:54:25.824] Harold talk about the wounds.

[00:54:25.824 – 00:54:35.094] You know, we, we don’t help people by our beauty, and I mean, I know we gonna look at the nice things that we build, the money, and the fine car.

[00:54:35.094 – 00:54:38.474] That ain’t the way to help folks unless you giving them a ride somewhere.

[00:54:38.474 – 00:54:43.154] The way to help folks for real is to show them your wounds.

[00:54:43.154 – 00:54:46.154] Let them know about your shortcomings.

[00:54:46.154 – 00:54:47.433] Show them your wounds.

[00:54:47.433 – 00:54:49.754] Show them how bad you’ve been hurting.

[00:54:49.754 – 00:54:51.914] Show them where you are now.

[00:54:51.914 – 00:54:53.634] Show them your acceptance level.

[00:54:53.634 – 00:54:58.274] This is how we help each other.

[00:54:58.274 – 00:55:07.054] And for God’s sakes, if you don’t have a sponsor, a sober sponsor, get one.

[00:55:07.054 – 00:55:08.934] I’m gonna say this, and I’m gonna shut up.

[00:55:08.934 – 00:55:19.014] You know, over in the nuthouse where they had me for twenty-one months, they had a big room crossed like this,

[00:55:19.014 – 00:55:26.334] you know, big open space like this, and there was a guy coming through the door over here.

[00:55:26.334 – 00:55:33.154] He had to pass through here, and he, he looked as he come through the door, seen a nut standing beside the wall, grinning.

[00:55:33.154 – 00:55:38.414] Had his head laying upside the wall.

[00:55:38.414 – 00:55:43.294] And he started to turn around and go back and say, “I gotta go through there.

[00:55:43.294 – 00:55:47.914] I don’t know who’s…” When he got close to him, the nut told him, said, “Come here.

[00:55:47.914 – 00:55:52.394] Come here.” He walked on over to him, you know, scared to death.

[00:55:52.394 – 00:55:54.124] Says, “What is it?

[00:55:54.124 – 00:56:01.954] What is it?” He said, “Put your head up your side of the wall.” So he went on, put his head upside the wall and pretended to listen.

[00:56:01.954 – 00:56:04.554] He looked at him, turns, “I don’t hear a thing.

[00:56:04.554 – 00:56:13.354] What are you do-” He said, “It’s been like that all day.” Listen.

[00:56:13.354 – 00:56:23.174] I want to thank y’all really for staying here to see me.

[00:56:23.174 – 00:56:27.634] You know the way that you– I don’t know if I helped you, but you know the way you helped me?

[00:56:27.634 – 00:56:30.254] You stayed.

[00:56:30.254 – 00:56:32.774] You stayed.

[00:56:32.774 – 00:56:40.474] When we come in a room, regardless of what it sound like and all, we try to stay.

[00:56:40.474 – 00:56:43.634] Maybe we pass something on that way.

[00:56:43.634 – 00:56:46.154] Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous and you.

[00:56:46.154 – 00:56:46.774] Thank you.

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