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[00:00:00.080 – 00:00:02.279] My name is Buford Llewellyn and I’m an alcoholic.

[00:00:02.279 – 00:00:04.660] Hi, everybody.

[00:00:04.660 – 00:00:08.119] Now, what a crowd.

[00:00:08.119 – 00:00:11.980] I wish you could see what I see.

[00:00:11.980 – 00:00:19.160] I wonder if you’d humor me just a little bit tonight.

[00:00:19.160 – 00:00:22.660] I want to do something a little different.

[00:00:22.660 – 00:00:32.340] Would all of you who have never attended one of these little dos before hold up your hand?

[00:00:32.340 – 00:00:33.200] I’d like to see.

[00:00:33.200 – 00:00:34.479] Look at that.

[00:00:34.479 – 00:00:38.640] Look at that.

[00:00:38.640 – 00:00:48.820] Well, you’re the ones we’re holding this thing for.

[00:00:48.820 – 00:00:54.799] Some of these old dingies around here, Lysol wouldn’t help them.

[00:00:54.799 – 00:01:02.890] And you’re all important.

[00:01:02.890 – 00:01:13.079] I stand in awe when I stand before a group like this and see the miracles that God

[00:01:13.079 – 00:01:13.620] can do.

[00:01:13.620 – 00:01:23.640] Ladies and gentlemen, I know you’re miracles if you’re miracles, if you’re a, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and you’re here and you’re

[00:01:23.640 – 00:01:24.420] sober tonight.

[00:01:24.420 – 00:01:34.719] But the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous to me is this: that I’m 700 miles

[00:01:34.719 – 00:01:45.060] from home, it’s Saturday night, I’m on a beautiful beach, I’m away where very few people know me, and I’m sober,

[00:01:45.060 – 00:01:47.640] and that’s the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous to me.

[00:01:47.640 – 00:01:58.099] I don’t want to complain

[00:01:58.099 – 00:02:05.719] about the school system up in this part of the country, but there’s something a little short up here.

[00:02:05.719 – 00:02:13.539] I’ve been here now for four or five days, and I know that at least 50 people have asked me where Clinton, Tennessee is.

[00:02:13.539 – 00:02:23.840] Now, when I went to school, they taught reading and writing and arithmetic and geography, and I thought everybody knew where Clinton was.

[00:02:23.840 – 00:02:28.400] Now, if you don’t know where Clinton, Tennessee is, I’m going to tell you.

[00:02:28.400 – 00:02:37.300] Clinton is about 245 miles due north of Atlanta, Georgia.

[00:02:37.300 – 00:02:45.819] It’s 345 miles almost due south of Chicago, Illinois.

[00:02:45.819 – 00:02:51.719] It’s 14 miles from Marlow and 12 miles from Blowing Springs.

[00:02:51.719 – 00:02:53.549] Now, if you can’t find it, you’re sick.

[00:02:53.549 – 00:03:04.699] And I grew up in that little town, uh, and

[00:03:04.699 – 00:03:05.580] had a happy life.

[00:03:05.580 – 00:03:15.879] My father was a merchant in that little town, and my wife, who’s here on my right today, Selyn, who talked this morning at the Al-Anon meeting,

[00:03:15.879 – 00:03:17.659] and I lived across the street from each other.

[00:03:17.659 – 00:03:27.759] And we started in the first grade of school together and, and we stayed together in, in, in, in school until we parted to go to college.

[00:03:27.759 – 00:03:31.800] And I had a happy life in that town.

[00:03:31.800 – 00:03:41.879] Now, I had my first drink of alcoholic beverage the same year that the Prohibition amendment to the Constitution of the United States was

[00:03:41.879 – 00:03:42.639] repealed.

[00:03:42.639 – 00:03:47.319] And if you don’t know when that was, that’s December 1933.

[00:03:47.319 – 00:03:55.460] And I was 13 years of age, and you don’t have to get your computer out, I’ll be 65 the 20th day of September.

[00:03:55.460 – 00:04:06.919] My father and a group of men went up across the border in Kentucky, we don’t live too far from the Kentucky border, and

[00:04:06.919 – 00:04:09.819] came back from up there with some things in pretty bottles.

[00:04:09.819 – 00:04:13.319] I’ll never forget it.

[00:04:13.319 – 00:04:17.019] Some of you fellas out there I know will remember what I’m about to say.

[00:04:17.019 – 00:04:20.939] They had something in a bottle, it was a square bottle, and it had a lot of…

[00:04:20.939 – 00:04:27.660] I know now that, uh, they, they call it crystal or something in the glass of some kind, called Seagram’s Seven Crown.

[00:04:27.660 – 00:04:36.339] And a kid and I caught the family away from home one day, and we got into some of that and cracked it and took a slug of it.

[00:04:36.339 – 00:04:42.220] And that was my first experience with alcoholic beverages.

[00:04:42.220 – 00:04:48.339] A couple of weeks later, we caught them completely out of town, and we got into it, and you know what happened.

[00:04:48.339 – 00:04:53.800] Two 13-year-old youngsters fooling around with alcohol.

[00:04:53.800 – 00:05:00.579] Well, I didn’t have a lot of problems with alcohol after that.

[00:05:00.579 – 00:05:04.019] This is a very small town.

[00:05:04.019 – 00:05:07.379] Now, I want you to know that this town is famous for a number of things.

[00:05:07.379 – 00:05:16.430] It’s famous for the fact that the Clinton group of Alcoholics Anonymous had the longest slip in history.

[00:05:16.430 – 00:05:21.819] I was just telling this good Baptist minister over here about that.

[00:05:21.819 – 00:05:31.480] In our little town, our group, we had a fella who got over to the city of Knoxville, and that’s only about 15 miles away, and had gotten sober in AA and came back to Clinton to save all the drunks.

[00:05:31.480 – 00:05:33.920] And I heard about this.

[00:05:33.920 – 00:05:37.259] Certainly wanted nothing to do with that outfit.

[00:05:37.259 – 00:05:39.759] And they had a group there.

[00:05:39.759 – 00:05:49.819] And, and, and one Sunday morning, the Methodist minister or the pastor of his church, uh, uh, sort of intimated that this fella was doing

[00:05:49.819 – 00:05:55.319] some good work trying to help some alcoholics, and he rose in church and preached a long sermon on Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:05:55.319 – 00:05:58.120] Well, he left town.

[00:05:58.120 – 00:06:02.920] Went off to Florida or somewhere, and the group fell apart.

[00:06:02.920 – 00:06:04.819] And for 24 years, they didn’t have one.

[00:06:04.819 – 00:06:12.504] And I live in the county where Oak Ridge, the atomic industry, is located, just six miles away from my home.

[00:06:12.504 – 00:06:15.504] Oak Ridge had lots of AA.

[00:06:15.504 – 00:06:20.064] I knew that, but I didn’t do anything about it.

[00:06:20.064 – 00:06:23.343] Came high school.

[00:06:23.343 – 00:06:29.723] Now, we were in this little town, in this high school, and I wanted to be a football player.

[00:06:29.723 – 00:06:30.783] Him.

[00:06:30.783 – 00:06:38.584] And, and we played football there in a cow pasture.

[00:06:38.584 – 00:06:44.324] We’d go out and cut some saplings on the, uh, in, in the fall and then put up some goalposts, and we’d play…

[00:06:44.324 – 00:06:45.884] Well, it was a big team.

[00:06:45.884 – 00:06:47.163] I want you to know this now.

[00:06:47.163 – 00:06:50.764] Uh, we played some big, big teams, big games.

[00:06:50.764 – 00:06:52.863] Uh, you know, Coal Field and Oliver.

[00:06:52.863 – 00:06:57.463] You’ve heard of these schools, Oliver Springs and, and the big schools like that.

[00:06:57.463 – 00:07:01.303] Already I had some of those alcoholic personalities.

[00:07:01.303 – 00:07:02.124] I can see it now.

[00:07:02.124 – 00:07:05.723] Now, they didn’t have many plays.

[00:07:05.723 – 00:07:12.244] They just ran around the end with it or through the middle, or they passed it or punted it, or let the air out of it, or unlaced it, or did something with it.

[00:07:12.244 – 00:07:13.064] They, whatever they did.

[00:07:13.064 – 00:07:24.024] But they had a one rule, and they gave the ball to the biggest boy, and I was the biggest boy, and they called him a fullback, and after they’d get it down close to the goalpost, they

[00:07:24.024 – 00:07:25.963] let me have it, and I’d fall over with it.

[00:07:25.963 – 00:07:35.963] And then I’d do something that I say that already I had some of those alcoholic personality traits because I’d run to the newspaper then as soon as the game

[00:07:35.963 – 00:07:45.384] was over, or run to the telephone, and I’d call the two Knoxville local daily newspapers and tell them about this big fullback they had out at Clinton.

[00:07:45.384 – 00:07:55.744] And all about all these scores he’d made and, and his wonderful ability to play football, anonymously,

[00:07:55.744 – 00:07:56.324] of course.

[00:07:56.324 – 00:08:01.084] Well, I graduated from that little school and went over to University of Tennessee.

[00:08:01.084 – 00:08:03.103] Now, that was a mistake.

[00:08:03.103 – 00:08:13.343] I don’t know how many of you remember this or not, but Tennessee had something way back there in the Dark Ages called the Flaming Sophomores,

[00:08:13.343 – 00:08:20.684] and for three years they were undefeated and untied, and one year even unscored on.

[00:08:20.684 – 00:08:27.303] And that was 1938, and I went over to play football, I thought, at the University of Tennessee.

[00:08:27.303 – 00:08:31.043] The coach over there was Major Neyland, later General Neyland.

[00:08:31.043 – 00:08:34.663] I stayed three days.

[00:08:34.663 – 00:08:44.823] I told the major I was getting ready to leave, and he said, “Why?” And I don’t know why I told him the truth, but I told him I was going to get

[00:08:44.823 – 00:08:45.224] killed.

[00:08:45.224 – 00:08:46.203] That’s why I was leaving.

[00:08:46.203 – 00:08:53.504] Hell, they had some boys over there that were shaving twice a day, and I didn’t even own a razor.

[00:08:53.504 – 00:08:57.803] All-Americans sitting on the bench.

[00:08:57.803 – 00:09:00.604] They could do anything with a football except autograph it.

[00:09:00.604 – 00:09:10.644] So I left, and

[00:09:10.644 – 00:09:20.683] I went up, I went up to a Baptist college up the road a piece where a lot of my relatives and my father had attended school, and I

[00:09:20.683 – 00:09:22.844] went to school up there, and I went up there for one reason.

[00:09:22.844 – 00:09:28.604] They talk about ego in this, this, this organization and fellowship and, and I know I had a lot of it.

[00:09:28.604 – 00:09:40.754] When I came in, one of my sponsors was telling me just before he died, he’s gone on to the big meeting in the sky, he said, “You know, we talk about them sometimes when they come in new,” and we talked about you, and

[00:09:40.754 – 00:09:49.923] one of them said, “You know, he, there’s no way under God’s Heaven he can ever get himself sober.” And he said, one of them said, “And you know what?

[00:09:49.923 – 00:09:57.982] I think it’s too big a, a job for God.” Well, you see, ladies and gentlemen, they were right about me, but they were wrong about God.

[00:09:57.982 – 00:10:07.004] Well, I went up to that little college to go to school.

[00:10:07.004 – 00:10:12.303] Now, they trained, among other things, it’s a pre, pre-training school for ministers in the Baptist faith.

[00:10:12.303 – 00:10:22.504] A- and the word got around back in my hometown that I was up there studying for the ministry, and I did nothing to dispel that rumor.

[00:10:22.504 – 00:10:24.543] I needed all the help I could get by that time.

[00:10:24.543 – 00:10:34.604] But I assure you it wasn’t true, ’cause I think they would have long hence disbanded the School of Divinity at that college if, if that had been

[00:10:34.604 – 00:10:34.964] true.

[00:10:34.964 – 00:10:36.443] They, they wouldn’t have worn that out.

[00:10:36.443 – 00:10:38.403] I don’t know how I stayed in that school.

[00:10:38.403 – 00:10:41.244] I did a lot of drinking.

[00:10:41.244 – 00:10:43.943] They had a lot of rules up there at that time.

[00:10:43.943 – 00:10:50.344] This good minister and his wife over here have a daughter who’s graduated from that college, I’ve just learned.

[00:10:50.344 – 00:10:54.224] They had, but back in those days, they had a lot of rules.

[00:10:54.224 – 00:10:55.144] They didn’t dance.

[00:10:55.144 – 00:11:00.043] And if I don’t shut up here tonight, there’ll be some of us Baptists dancing on Sunday if we’re not careful.

[00:11:00.043 – 00:11:02.624] I understand they’re gonna have a dance here somewhere.

[00:11:02.624 – 00:11:12.923] And they didn’t hold hands with girls and boys up on the campus and all that sort of thing, and it was a, it was a, it was a beautiful school, a beautiful college.

[00:11:12.923 – 00:11:15.203] Now, and, and I had to…

[00:11:15.203 – 00:11:19.903] I went up there to be a big shot in a, in a little pond, or a big duck, I guess you’d call it.

[00:11:19.903 – 00:11:21.024] And I, and I was.

[00:11:21.024 – 00:11:30.183] I got to be president of my class, and I got to be chairman of the, of the student body, and I, I got to be, uh, captain of the football team.

[00:11:30.183 – 00:11:31.764] If I sound like I’m bragging, I am.

[00:11:31.764 – 00:11:34.764] And I got out to be all these things.

[00:11:34.764 – 00:11:36.004] I don’t know how all this happened.

[00:11:36.004 – 00:11:41.443] They had all these rules up there, and I was always in the dean’s office about something.

[00:11:41.443 – 00:11:44.583] I had to get elected president of the student body to keep from getting thrown out of the place.

[00:11:44.583 – 00:11:49.423] Now, it says you’re a diamond in the rough.

[00:11:49.423 – 00:11:50.783] I didn’t know who was gonna polish me.

[00:11:50.783 – 00:12:00.244] Well, along came World War II, and at this point I’d like to tell you what a hero I was, but that wouldn’t be telling it like it is.

[00:12:00.244 – 00:12:07.504] The fact is, if I want to be real candid about it, I’m too lazy to walk, and I joined the Air Force.

[00:12:07.504 – 00:12:10.813] I wanted to fly airplanes and be a pilot.

[00:12:10.813 – 00:12:20.960] Now, the problem that we had involved here was that at the time I wanted to get into

[00:12:20.960 – 00:12:23.759] the Air Force, uh, they wouldn’t let married men in there.

[00:12:23.759 – 00:12:28.679] And my wife and I had slipped off between our freshman and our sophomore years.

[00:12:28.679 – 00:12:32.259] She was in a college, a girls school down at Nashville, and I was up in this Baptist school.

[00:12:32.259 – 00:12:42.299] And, and we’d slipped off between our freshman and our sophomore year and gotten married, and we didn’t tell anybody

[00:12:42.299 – 00:12:43.720] about it for two years.

[00:12:43.720 – 00:12:46.960] Well, we didn’t tell many people about it.

[00:12:46.960 – 00:12:53.799] I told my brother, and one or two others, a- and, and, and I see some smiles back there.

[00:12:53.799 – 00:12:55.360] That wasn’t the reason we told it either.

[00:12:55.360 – 00:13:06.240] But the reason, main reason for that was that she was in a girls college where she couldn’t have graduated, and her mother, one

[00:13:06.240 – 00:13:13.889] of the dearest ladies I’ve ever known, and I loved her greatly, had graduated from that school herself, and she wanted her daughter.

[00:13:13.889 – 00:13:15.879] Her father had died in 1929.

[00:13:15.879 – 00:13:18.799] She wanted her daughter to graduate from that college.

[00:13:18.799 – 00:13:22.059] If they’d have known she’d been married, she couldn’t have been…

[00:13:22.059 – 00:13:23.309] she couldn’t have stayed in there.

[00:13:23.309 – 00:13:27.879] She transferred to the University of Tennessee to complete her education.

[00:13:27.879 – 00:13:31.039] I stayed in Carson-Newman, that’s 25 or 30 miles up the road.

[00:13:31.039 – 00:13:40.580] My brother was in the University of Tennessee, and I used to get him to take her to dances and, and, and, and to the social functions.

[00:13:40.580 – 00:13:42.299] He was, he squired her around for me.

[00:13:42.299 – 00:13:44.279] I had to take him into my confidence.

[00:13:44.279 – 00:13:50.940] But the war came along, and I, I went off finally to the Air Force, and I got to flying airplanes.

[00:13:50.940 – 00:13:58.679] Now, I don’t know about you, but there’s probably plenty of members of the old Army Air Force in here.

[00:13:58.679 – 00:14:08.960] Uh, but, you know, to get that slouch hat down over your ears and, and fly airplanes was the greatest ambition

[00:14:08.960 – 00:14:10.179] I ever had at that time.

[00:14:10.179 – 00:14:20.559] The only problem was that on December the 28th, 1943, flying out of an airfield called Douglas, Arizona,

[00:14:20.559 – 00:14:25.600] right down on the Mexican border, I was severely injured in a plane crash up in the Chiricahua Mountains.

[00:14:25.600 – 00:14:30.298] Now, drinking had nothing to do with this that I know of.

[00:14:30.298 – 00:14:37.259] But I laid out on a mountainside for three days and three nights in the subzero temperature, and I got an old boy…

[00:14:37.259 – 00:14:44.899] By the way, I ought to tell you this story, but I got an old boy down in my, my, uh, group that says, “Buford, don’t tell them that story.

[00:14:44.899 – 00:14:52.980] Every time you, you tell it to them, you, you add something to it.” You see, I don’t have to lie anymore in this outfit.

[00:14:52.980 – 00:14:55.419] I do, but I don’t have to.

[00:14:55.419 – 00:15:05.429] But anyway, I laid out on the

[00:15:05.429 – 00:15:07.559] mountainside out there, and I thought I was gonna die.

[00:15:07.559 – 00:15:09.820] I was broken up and busted up.

[00:15:09.820 – 00:15:13.879] It took two years in military and private hospitals for me to get over that plane crash.

[00:15:13.879 – 00:15:20.700] And I thought I was gonna die, and here’s where I tried to make my first deal with God.

[00:15:20.700 – 00:15:23.659] Now, I didn’t know anything about God.

[00:15:23.659 – 00:15:33.379] I’d been a little boy who’d been sent to Sunday school when he was a youngster, and I’d gone to the Baptist college, and I was in a perpetual sort of a cuss anyway, and I’d already found out about alcohol.

[00:15:33.379 – 00:15:39.700] It wasn’t causing me a lot of trouble, but at least it was sort of, uh, considered my friend at that time.

[00:15:39.700 – 00:15:49.840] But I thought I was going to die out there in that subzero temperature on that mountainside, and

[00:15:49.840 – 00:16:00.039] I said to, to the only God that I knew anything about, “If you’ll help me get off of this mountain…” And I’m gonna stop here and tell you something.

[00:16:00.039 – 00:16:08.019] The only child we had, had been born in a hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, 22 days before that, of course, and I’d never seen her.

[00:16:08.019 – 00:16:18.059] And I said, “God, if you’ll let me get off of this mountain and see my child, our child, you’ll never have any more problems

[00:16:18.059 – 00:16:20.259] with me.” And that’s about the way it went.

[00:16:20.259 – 00:16:23.340] It never occurred to me to tell him I wouldn’t take another drink of booze.

[00:16:23.340 – 00:16:25.740] Already I’d had some problems with it.

[00:16:25.740 – 00:16:30.220] But as you can see, obviously, I got off of the mountain.

[00:16:30.220 – 00:16:33.119] I spent a lot of time in hospitals.

[00:16:33.119 – 00:16:35.759] I was in a hospital in El Paso, Texas.

[00:16:35.759 – 00:16:40.919] I had been flat on my back with a body cast and leg cast and all sorts of casts.

[00:16:40.919 – 00:16:43.039] I’d broken about everything you could break, I think.

[00:16:43.039 – 00:16:47.519] And finally, I became ambulatory.

[00:16:47.519 – 00:16:51.120] Got up on one foot, had been up 24 hours.

[00:16:51.120 – 00:16:59.820] Somebody said, “Let’s go over to Juarez.” I said, “What’s that?” They said, “It’s across the river over in Mexico.” Now, Mexico was neutral in that war.

[00:16:59.820 – 00:17:09.539] And I said, “Well, what would you want to go over there?” “Oh, the nightlife they have over there.” I said, “Let’s go.” We went down to the border.

[00:17:09.539 – 00:17:14.200] They wouldn’t let automobiles from the United States or taxi cabs from the United States go across the border.

[00:17:14.200 – 00:17:15.200] Some of you remember that.

[00:17:15.200 – 00:17:25.839] So I got out, having been flat on my back for more than eight and a half months, and hobbled across the international bridge on crutches and one foot,

[00:17:25.839 – 00:17:28.619] and I made it to a place on the right called The Long Bar.

[00:17:28.619 – 00:17:30.180] And it was.

[00:17:30.180 – 00:17:31.720] I hear some smiles and giggles.

[00:17:31.720 – 00:17:34.079] Somebody been over once?

[00:17:34.079 – 00:17:36.500] On the right there.

[00:17:36.500 – 00:17:38.240] I made it to the first bar stool.

[00:17:38.240 – 00:17:45.980] Thank God for the fact that they’d let Mexican cabs come back into the United States.

[00:17:45.980 – 00:17:47.400] I might still be over there.

[00:17:47.400 – 00:17:52.859] And that’s the way I tried to keep my first deal I tried to make with God.

[00:17:52.859 – 00:17:55.299] We don’t make deals with God.

[00:17:55.299 – 00:17:58.960] He’s not in the business of making deals.

[00:17:58.960 – 00:18:05.680] Well, I came back and got out of the service, and I’d always wanted to be a lawyer.

[00:18:05.680 – 00:18:15.269] Came back home, and I, I enrolled in the University of Tennessee, College of Law.

[00:18:15.269 – 00:18:18.940] Now, I never was much of a student.

[00:18:18.940 – 00:18:21.279] I probably got plenty of lawyers and barristers out there.

[00:18:21.279 – 00:18:29.380] I never was much of a student, and I think they un- they’d let you in the University of Tennessee College of Law when I got in if you could read and write and were warm.

[00:18:29.380 – 00:18:31.599] They were trying to keep them open.

[00:18:31.599 – 00:18:41.599] And I don’t know how I stayed in that law school either, because in 1946, I was sitting

[00:18:41.599 – 00:18:51.720] around the ballroom in the, in, in the law school, and one of the fellows said, “You know, I wonder who’s, uh, who’s going to be elected governor of the state, and who’s going to be elected this,

[00:18:51.720 – 00:19:01.799] that, and the other.” I said, “What’s going on?” “Oh, they’re having the elections for the General Assembly of Tennessee.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “It’s the legislature.” And one of them said, “Who’s gonna run from

[00:19:01.799 – 00:19:03.859] out in your county, Beaufort?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.

[00:19:03.859 – 00:19:12.299] I suppose I am.” And with that happy preparation, I announced and got elected to the legislature.

[00:19:12.299 – 00:19:20.200] Nothing was too good for the wounded war veteran, you understand.

[00:19:20.200 – 00:19:25.759] I had a cane, campaigned all over the county with it.

[00:19:25.759 – 00:19:29.460] Long leg brace down one leg.

[00:19:29.460 – 00:19:32.579] Hell, I hadn’t been out of the country.

[00:19:32.579 – 00:19:42.720] Back in law school the next day after the elections, somebody said, “Wonder who’s

[00:19:42.720 – 00:19:53.799] going to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives.” I said, “What’s that?” Said, “Oh, he presides over the House.” I said, “Well, I suppose I will.” And

[00:19:53.799 – 00:19:55.539] I announced for that and got elected.

[00:19:55.539 – 00:20:05.750] And there I was, 26 years of age, had the number three license plate of the State of Tennessee on my automobile,

[00:20:05.750 – 00:20:15.839] was a sophomore in law school, and everything was free, and I

[00:20:15.839 – 00:20:16.519] mean everything.

[00:20:16.519 – 00:20:19.039] Anybody here from Watergate?

[00:20:19.039 – 00:20:23.940] Statute of limitations already run on it.

[00:20:23.940 – 00:20:26.700] Everything was free.

[00:20:26.700 – 00:20:28.619] Yeah.

[00:20:28.619 – 00:20:39.079] Number three in line of succession to the governor’s chair, and I wasn’t too concerned about the health and welfare of those first two either.

[00:20:39.079 – 00:20:49.119] It never occurred to me that the Constitution of Tennessee requires that the governor be 30 years of age, but I

[00:20:49.119 – 00:20:57.480] can tell you this, if they’d, uh, had a vacancy in that first two lines up there, if the governor had been gone, the Speaker of the Senate had been gone, they’d had a hell of a lawsuit, I can tell you that.

[00:20:57.480 – 00:21:01.640] And there I was.

[00:21:01.640 – 00:21:04.039] Everything was free.

[00:21:04.039 – 00:21:14.240] One of the men who owned, uh, uh, original grandsons of the, of the founder of the Jack Daniel’s Distillery

[00:21:14.240 – 00:21:17.740] w- was a state senator and a member of that august body.

[00:21:17.740 – 00:21:28.059] Now, it may come as a shock to some of you people to find out, but it, it, it’s true, that there is a little drinking that goes along with being in the legislature.

[00:21:28.059 – 00:21:31.439] Some of your, some of you may have seen that.

[00:21:31.439 – 00:21:36.819] And I understand that in the halls of Congress, there’s a little that goes on.

[00:21:36.819 – 00:21:42.920] Well, there I was with all that ego and all, everything free.

[00:21:42.920 – 00:21:47.440] The hotel was complimenting my room and, a- and, and oh, I just had everything.

[00:21:47.440 – 00:21:48.049] I wasn’t nine and…

[00:21:48.234 – 00:21:55.414] I forget, I went in and turned on the light, or tried to turn on the light in the room, and stumbled over three cases of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and almost broke my leg.

[00:21:55.414 – 00:21:57.714] Three, all of it.

[00:21:57.714 – 00:22:00.994] I don’t know whether any of you have ever been in Nashville, Tennessee.

[00:22:00.994 – 00:22:03.554] I didn’t know where the legislature met when I was elected to it.

[00:22:03.554 – 00:22:05.334] I knew it met in Nashville, that’s the capital.

[00:22:05.334 – 00:22:07.414] In what building, I knew not.

[00:22:07.414 – 00:22:13.154] But there’s a place in Nashville called Predators Alley, a very famous place.

[00:22:13.154 – 00:22:17.274] You find the country and western stars down there.

[00:22:17.274 – 00:22:19.554] Boots Randolph’s got a carousel down there now.

[00:22:19.554 – 00:22:22.714] Uh, oh, there are lots of places down there.

[00:22:22.714 – 00:22:30.794] I drove through there not long ago, and they’d had an urban renewal, cleaned up about half that alley, and I thought they’d burned my home or something.

[00:22:30.794 – 00:22:31.034] I’d…

[00:22:31.034 – 00:22:33.274] We stayed down in that alley all the time.

[00:22:33.274 – 00:22:38.354] I think the legislature met in the alley instead of in the capital building.

[00:22:38.354 – 00:22:40.973] Predators Alley.

[00:22:40.973 – 00:22:46.474] Well, as a result of this business of being on the Speaker of the House, I, I got to…

[00:22:46.474 – 00:22:49.054] We didn’t, I didn’t know anything about the Speaker of the House business.

[00:22:49.054 – 00:22:50.854] Uh, you’re supposed to preside up there.

[00:22:50.854 – 00:22:58.694] I ran out and bought me a Robert’s Rules of Order, one of them little 25 cent ones with tabs on the side of it, what you do next type thing, you know.

[00:22:58.694 – 00:23:07.914] And I got to be on a lot of boards, and commissions, and hospital commissions, and funding boards, and I didn’t know anything about them.

[00:23:07.914 – 00:23:15.394] But I loved Nashville, and I’m not trying to tell you that Nashville was the reason I’m an alcoholic or anything else that I’ve told you about.

[00:23:15.394 – 00:23:20.734] And I want to say right here that I’m not a spokesman for AA.

[00:23:20.734 – 00:23:22.414] We don’t have any, as far as I know.

[00:23:22.414 – 00:23:29.994] But I got to staying around Nashville and, and, and things began to happen, and I didn’t really understand them.

[00:23:29.994 – 00:23:35.174] Back in those days, we were flying, this is 1900, right after the war.

[00:23:35.174 – 00:23:41.714] We were still flying the old DC-3, American Airlines was, from Knoxville to Nashville, and bad things began to happen to me.

[00:23:41.714 – 00:23:43.874] I’d go down to get on the airlines and I’d get lost.

[00:23:43.874 – 00:23:47.174] I went down one time to get…

[00:23:47.174 – 00:23:50.154] Well, I’d, I’d, I’d, I’d end up in places like Kansas.

[00:23:50.154 – 00:23:53.334] Trying to get from Nashville to Knoxville is a 22-minute flight.

[00:23:53.334 – 00:24:01.274] And I’d end up in Kansas City, and New Orleans, and Mobile, Alabama, and, you know, all sorts of places.

[00:24:01.274 – 00:24:04.954] And these things just kept on happening.

[00:24:04.954 – 00:24:10.914] And one time I went, and I never will forget this, I went down to get on the airplane, hadn’t been drinking.

[00:24:10.914 – 00:24:17.034] And we got over to the Knoxville Airport and the pilot announced that they couldn’t land there.

[00:24:17.034 – 00:24:20.154] There’s too much, uh, too much fog or something, socked in, couldn’t land.

[00:24:20.154 – 00:24:22.574] Couldn’t go to Atlanta, had to go to Cincinnati.

[00:24:22.574 – 00:24:27.254] Took us to Cincinnati, and you know, the airlines take you out where it’s someplace you’re not supposed to be or something.

[00:24:27.254 – 00:24:30.694] They got to put you up, and they put us up in the old Netherland Plaza Hotel, Cincinnati.

[00:24:30.694 – 00:24:37.194] And being the beautiful husband that I was, and always had been, I picked up the phone, called my wife.

[00:24:37.194 – 00:24:40.234] That dear soul answered the phone.

[00:24:40.234 – 00:24:45.594] She said, “Where are you?” And I said, “We’re in Cincinnati,” and I told her the story I’ve just told you, and do you know she didn’t believe me?

[00:24:45.594 – 00:24:50.374] Made me mad as hell.

[00:24:50.374 – 00:24:52.554] I just hung up the phone, stayed three more days.

[00:24:52.554 – 00:24:55.304] Yeah.

[00:24:55.304 – 00:24:59.114] I wonder why.

[00:24:59.114 – 00:25:03.474] Those things just kept on happening, and I didn’t really know what was happening to me.

[00:25:03.474 – 00:25:13.014] Well, I finally got out of that law school, and I went back out home to practice law with a fellow who had an established practice.

[00:25:13.014 – 00:25:14.034] And thank God for that.

[00:25:14.034 – 00:25:17.354] Uh, uh, he made a lot of money, and I got half of his.

[00:25:17.354 – 00:25:25.274] And we set up a law practice out there together, and I, and, and I had a pretty good time, but my drinking was getting bad.

[00:25:25.274 – 00:25:27.954] A lot of things were happening to me.

[00:25:27.954 – 00:25:33.774] And 12 years later, there was a judgeship open in that county.

[00:25:33.774 – 00:25:38.854] And the governor that appointed me to that judgeship knew me well.

[00:25:38.854 – 00:25:46.834] And I know that with fear and trepidation in his heart, he appointed me.

[00:25:46.834 – 00:25:49.534] I hope I never embarrassed him too much.

[00:25:49.534 – 00:25:59.534] And I wanted to be a judge, and I was for 20 years until I retired

[00:25:59.534 – 00:26:03.634] in 1977 from that bench.

[00:26:03.634 – 00:26:09.834] I was reelected to the job three times, and when I quit, I still had six years to go.

[00:26:09.834 – 00:26:15.614] Well, you know, if you’re the judge, you’re sort of like the referee.

[00:26:15.614 – 00:26:18.074] They just can’t hold the game unless the official’s there.

[00:26:18.074 – 00:26:22.714] And, you know, in our state, you elect judges for eight years.

[00:26:22.714 – 00:26:29.054] And I sometimes just couldn’t go.

[00:26:29.054 – 00:26:32.634] And the other judges would cover for me.

[00:26:32.634 – 00:26:38.354] And sometimes, uh, there just didn’t hold court.

[00:26:38.354 – 00:26:45.574] I had a bailiff one time, uh, in, in an old courthouse that was un-air conditioned, sort of like this room, I think.

[00:26:45.574 – 00:26:49.754] I don’t mean that.

[00:26:49.754 – 00:26:56.314] The manager’s sitting right down front here.

[00:26:56.314 – 00:27:06.654] In a, in an un-air conditioned courthouse, this bailiff got up one day in the hottest day of July and announced to a full courtroom

[00:27:06.654 – 00:27:11.814] that there’d be no court that day because the judge had slipped on the ice and hurt his back.

[00:27:11.814 – 00:27:15.504] I fired him.

[00:27:15.504 – 00:27:19.174] I hired him back the next day.

[00:27:19.174 – 00:27:22.274] He was trying to help me, too.

[00:27:22.274 – 00:27:30.794] Up in that little town where this college is, where the minister’s daughter went to school and where I went to school, my aunt lived.

[00:27:30.794 – 00:27:40.014] And she was president of the local WCTU organization, the Women’s Christians Temperance Organization.

[00:27:40.014 – 00:27:46.934] And I made the mistake of falling in the front door of her house one day in the midst of one of those meetings.

[00:27:46.934 – 00:27:54.614] In those little old ladies and shuffling shoes, that ain’t no place for a drunk to be, and I can tell you that.

[00:27:54.614 – 00:28:00.570] They were trying to help me too, but I wouldn’t let anybody help me.

[00:28:00.570 – 00:28:06.950] Trying to teach me anything along about that time was like playing piano to a cow.

[00:28:06.950 – 00:28:09.090] You’d get about as much reaction.

[00:28:09.090 – 00:28:15.530] Things were going from bad to worse, and I didn’t really know what was wrong with it.

[00:28:15.530 – 00:28:21.830] And I, I want to tell you, this little town that I live in was, when I was a boy growing up there, it had about 2,500 people.

[00:28:21.830 – 00:28:22.990] It’s about 10,000 now.

[00:28:22.990 – 00:28:31.010] There was a main arterial highway that ran through that town from north to south, and tourists came down through there.

[00:28:31.010 – 00:28:32.790] And we had a one-man police force then.

[00:28:32.790 – 00:28:34.110] We’ve got 15 or 20 or 30.

[00:28:34.110 – 00:28:34.930] I don’t know how many now.

[00:28:34.930 – 00:28:36.950] They had one red light.

[00:28:36.950 – 00:28:44.130] And I want to tell you one thing, we had one of the most efficient police forces in the United States.

[00:28:44.130 – 00:28:47.010] Well-trained.

[00:28:47.010 – 00:28:51.250] There was hardly a tourist passed through there in 30 years that didn’t pay some kind of a fine.

[00:28:51.250 – 00:28:55.650] I wish the- I wish the mayor’d have stayed.

[00:28:55.650 – 00:29:05.670] And that little town was not big enough for me, I didn’t think, and with an ego like mine, I had to get out of there.

[00:29:05.670 – 00:29:14.510] So I’d go over to the city of Knoxville, 185,000 people, and I did a lot of my drinking over there.

[00:29:14.510 – 00:29:24.770] One afternoon, I was over in the city of Knoxville at one of my favorite drinking spots,

[00:29:24.770 – 00:29:25.650] and I got a call.

[00:29:25.650 – 00:29:30.650] I was out at the American Legion club out close to the airport.

[00:29:30.650 – 00:29:33.570] It was, uh, late in the afternoon.

[00:29:33.570 – 00:29:36.750] I don’t know how people find out about our habits, do you?

[00:29:36.750 – 00:29:46.890] But it came from a sister of a, of a lady whom I’d, uh, represented she and her sister many years before that in a automobile accident

[00:29:46.890 – 00:29:47.290] case.

[00:29:47.290 – 00:29:51.650] And I’d been going by these people’s homes.

[00:29:51.650 – 00:29:58.310] They were both married, and these people were drinking people, and I used to go to their home and, and do a lot of drinking.

[00:29:58.310 – 00:30:04.490] My wife mentioned something about that a little bit this morning, but not too much.

[00:30:04.490 – 00:30:07.270] I’d go to these people’s home and stay.

[00:30:07.270 – 00:30:10.870] I was like the man who came to dinner, except I’d come and I, I didn’t come to dinner.

[00:30:10.870 – 00:30:12.910] I came to have a drink and stay two or three days.

[00:30:12.910 – 00:30:15.970] I’d get lost over there.

[00:30:15.970 – 00:30:26.250] I got this call, said, “They want you on the phone here, Buford.” And I, I went to the phone at the American Legion club, and it was one of these ladies.

[00:30:26.250 – 00:30:37.630] And she said, “Would you help take my older sister to a hospital up in Jamestown, Ken- uh, Tennessee, where

[00:30:37.630 – 00:30:48.310] there is a doctor who knows a lot about the disease of alcoholism?” And I said, “Jamestown, Tennessee is the boondocks of the world.” Now,

[00:30:48.310 – 00:30:51.270] that’s the hometown of Sergeant Alvin C.

[00:30:51.270 – 00:30:53.990] York, World War I fame.

[00:30:53.990 – 00:31:00.230] They said she was dying of alcoholism and, and she needed to be taken up there.

[00:31:00.230 – 00:31:10.670] And I said to them, “I’d be…” Or her, “I’d be delighted to take your sister up there, provided you have someone that can drive, because I cannot.” And

[00:31:10.670 – 00:31:11.350] they did.

[00:31:11.350 – 00:31:21.850] And we left Knoxville along about dusk to go about 80 miles up toward the Kentucky border to Jamestown, Tennessee.

[00:31:21.850 – 00:31:31.370] Now, I stopped at the only place that I know to stop when you’re gonna make a long, snaky trip like that, the last chance liquor store- …

[00:31:31.370 – 00:31:39.710] and got an abundant supply of what it takes to make a trip like that in a long, you know, snaky, outlying, flat outlands like that was.

[00:31:39.710 – 00:31:42.790] We left about dusk.

[00:31:42.790 – 00:31:50.250] We arrived up there about 2:00 in the morning at the hospital, and they didn’t know which one to keep.

[00:31:50.250 – 00:31:54.070] I got away.

[00:31:54.070 – 00:31:57.650] I later ended up in that same hospital.

[00:31:57.650 – 00:32:00.310] Some of you may know Dr.

[00:32:00.310 – 00:32:00.850] Jack.

[00:32:00.850 – 00:32:11.050] The lady stayed up there for some four or five weeks, or however long it was, I don’t know, and she came home, and I stopped by the home again

[00:32:11.050 – 00:32:13.970] to have a drink, and she wasn’t drinking.

[00:32:13.970 – 00:32:17.810] I asked her something about it and why she wasn’t drinking.

[00:32:17.810 – 00:32:20.670] She said she had joined something called Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:32:20.670 – 00:32:21.750] I said, “Well, fine.

[00:32:21.750 – 00:32:31.350] Somebody that drinks the way you do ought to join something.” She didn’t say anything else about it.

[00:32:31.350 – 00:32:39.250] I continued to go back there and to her sister’s home, to her husband’s home.

[00:32:39.250 – 00:32:45.590] One day, I noticed her husband wasn’t drinking, and I said something to him about it.

[00:32:45.590 – 00:32:55.730] He said, “I’ve joined Alcoholics Anonymous.” I said, “Fine.” I continued to go, and lo and behold, it turned up that I was the only one doing

[00:32:55.730 – 00:32:57.050] any drinking around there.

[00:32:57.050 – 00:33:01.890] And things were getting pretty bad.

[00:33:01.890 – 00:33:06.010] Now, there wasn’t much communication in our household.

[00:33:06.010 – 00:33:11.329] And I don’t know how you communicate, but, uh, my wife wasn’t speaking to me.

[00:33:11.329 – 00:33:15.690] I never…

[00:33:15.690 – 00:33:19.570] Yeah, sort of like the, the elderly couple sitting on a front porch.

[00:33:19.570 – 00:33:29.850] And he turned to his wife and he, he said, “Ma, whatever happened to our sex relations?”

[00:33:29.850 – 00:33:41.650] She said, “You know, Pa, I don’t think we even got a Christmas card from them last year.” Wasn’t

[00:33:41.650 – 00:33:43.470] any communication in our house.

[00:33:43.470 – 00:33:52.330] Weren’t communicating.

[00:33:52.330 – 00:34:02.322] Well, I had a friend who was a doctor at a place called Hazard, Kentucky.

[00:34:02.322 – 00:34:03.922] Does anybody here know where Hazard is?

[00:34:03.922 – 00:34:07.742] Now, that ain’t Boss Hogg’s Hazard that you see on TV.

[00:34:07.742 – 00:34:09.482] This is up here in the hills of Kentucky.

[00:34:09.482 – 00:34:11.922] Had a doctor friend up there.

[00:34:11.922 – 00:34:13.622] Been in business with him one time.

[00:34:13.622 – 00:34:15.592] Called him up, told him I had a drinking problem.

[00:34:15.592 – 00:34:17.182] Wasn’t anything new to him, he knew that.

[00:34:17.182 – 00:34:19.222] I’d been his business partner.

[00:34:19.222 – 00:34:23.242] Told him I wanted to come up and see him about my drinking problem.

[00:34:23.242 – 00:34:25.722] I think I called him on Saturday night.

[00:34:25.722 – 00:34:30.282] We went up on Sunday morning, drove up there to his home, spent the night with him.

[00:34:30.282 – 00:34:32.322] He got out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

[00:34:32.322 – 00:34:33.881] I got the most of it, I understand.

[00:34:33.881 – 00:34:36.022] He didn’t have my problem.

[00:34:36.022 – 00:34:46.682] Next morning he said to me, “Buford, I want you to come down at 1:00 this afternoon to the clinic, and we’re gonna talk about this problem you, you’ve called me about.” I

[00:34:46.682 – 00:34:48.752] went down, he sat me down in his business office.

[00:34:48.752 – 00:34:54.442] I thought, “This is a heck of a place to examine a patient.” You know, I’m sitting across a business desk from him.

[00:34:54.442 – 00:34:57.962] He said, “I want to know how much liquor you’re drinking,” and I told him.

[00:34:57.962 – 00:35:02.661] He said, “You’re going into DTs.” I said, “Oh, no, doctor, you don’t understand the game.

[00:35:02.661 – 00:35:04.342] I know what to do about that.

[00:35:04.342 – 00:35:09.172] I’ll just take another drink.” Well, that didn’t, the way he practiced medicine, and- …

[00:35:09.172 – 00:35:10.782] he put me in a hospital up there.

[00:35:10.782 – 00:35:15.222] And after about three days, I got so I could see.

[00:35:15.222 – 00:35:25.302] And he came into my room one afternoon, and, and he had one of those little aluminum clipboard things you put

[00:35:25.302 – 00:35:35.342] your record on, and, and he got up, got a call to the emergency room or something, and he put that down on the bed, and, and I picked it up, of course, the minute he

[00:35:35.342 – 00:35:37.972] got out, and looked at it, and it said, “Reason for admission to this hospital” …

[00:35:37.972 – 00:35:47.622] And by the way, at that time I’m less than six feet tall and I weighed almost 300 pounds, and was suffering from malnutrition.

[00:35:47.622 – 00:35:49.642] You can do it.

[00:35:49.642 – 00:35:53.002] Any doctor in this room can tell you you can.

[00:35:53.002 – 00:36:01.002] He had on there, reason for admission, obesity and acute alcoholism.

[00:36:01.002 – 00:36:03.042] It made me madder than hell.

[00:36:03.042 – 00:36:06.802] And when he came back, I told him so.

[00:36:06.802 – 00:36:08.362] I said, “Doc, what’s the matter with you?

[00:36:08.362 – 00:36:09.122] You crazy?

[00:36:09.122 – 00:36:11.362] Look what you put on here.

[00:36:11.362 – 00:36:16.922] You put on here that I’m a, an alcoholic or something.

[00:36:16.922 – 00:36:23.962] Now, why, that’ll go down through the courthouse at Clinton in the state of Tennessee’s records, and somebody’ll see some quack up here in Kentucky.

[00:36:23.962 – 00:36:25.542] Change that thing.

[00:36:25.542 – 00:36:31.062] Put on there a different disease.” I got all my medicine out of the Reader’s Digest at that time.

[00:36:31.062 – 00:36:34.082] I, every time they’d have a new disease, I’d have it.

[00:36:34.082 – 00:36:40.262] I said, “Put on there upper respiratory pro- problem,” and he did.

[00:36:40.262 – 00:36:43.282] We’ve all got some friendly doctors, too, haven’t we?

[00:36:43.282 – 00:36:44.662] Yeah.

[00:36:44.662 – 00:36:51.602] It hurts me sometimes to, to hear somebody say, “A doctor did this, a doctor did…” I don’t know about your doctors.

[00:36:51.602 – 00:36:54.982] My doctor kept me alive till I could get to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:36:54.982 – 00:37:02.082] Right before he left that afternoon, he said one of the strangest things to me.

[00:37:02.082 – 00:37:12.362] He said, “Buford, would you talk to somebody from Alcoholics Anonymous?” And I said, by that time I was so desperate, I said, “Doc, I’ll talk to anybody.” In

[00:37:12.362 – 00:37:22.582] just a few minutes, there was a fella came in the door, and he was about that tall, and had his collar turned around backwards, and I said to myself,

[00:37:22.582 – 00:37:32.942] “Now he’s sent the preachers after me.” “And I’ve already worn all the carpets out of the First Baptist Church going down to, to re- commit myself, and,

[00:37:32.942 – 00:37:38.622] and that ain’t working.” And I thought, “Oh, boy, you just sit down here.

[00:37:38.622 – 00:37:41.002] I’ll give you an earful,” but it didn’t happen that way.

[00:37:41.002 – 00:37:48.442] He was an Episcopal priest, and he sat down, and he told me what alcohol had done in his life.

[00:37:48.442 – 00:37:54.582] And we talked for about an hour, or he talked and I listened.

[00:37:54.582 – 00:38:04.682] And he said to me as he started to leave, “Would you go to an AA meeting with me tonight?” And I said, “I will

[00:38:04.682 – 00:38:08.062] if you can get me out of here.” Well, he did, and he came back and got me.

[00:38:08.062 – 00:38:18.602] And we went into a lawyer’s office there in Hazard, Kentucky that night, and there were five people there, the minister, myself, the lawyer, a

[00:38:18.602 – 00:38:25.342] little fella who had just been released from the penitentiary for killing a person in a blackout, and his bedraggled wife.

[00:38:25.342 – 00:38:32.622] They opened that meeting much like you opened this one here, and closed it much like I imagine you’re going to close this one.

[00:38:32.622 – 00:38:35.402] I didn’t understand what they were talking about.

[00:38:35.402 – 00:38:39.642] The minister and I went out to an all-night restaurant, drank coffee, and talked about it.

[00:38:39.642 – 00:38:48.722] He never tried to get a commitment out of me that I would go to find Alcoholics Anonymous in my hometown or in my area.

[00:38:48.722 – 00:38:53.862] I think he knew that I maybe was not ready.

[00:38:53.862 – 00:39:03.882] But I called my wife, and she came up in a few days and got me, and if you’re an alcoholic, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

[00:39:03.882 – 00:39:11.942] I made up my mind that I would never again take a drink of alcohol as long as I lived.

[00:39:11.942 – 00:39:16.242] It’ll come as no shock to you to find out that I was drunk in less than two weeks.

[00:39:16.242 – 00:39:21.682] And that’s the way it went on and on.

[00:39:21.682 – 00:39:30.002] As I left there, this doctor said to me, “Buford, you’ve got something called myocarditis.” I haven’t got the remotest idea of what that is.

[00:39:30.002 – 00:39:32.842] It has something to do with the lining of the heart or the muscles or something.

[00:39:32.842 – 00:39:42.862] Whatever it is, he said, “What you should do is lie down about a half a day each day.” Well,

[00:39:42.862 – 00:39:47.202] in Tennessee, a judge can write the governor and tell him he’s sick, and I was, I’ll tell you then.

[00:39:47.202 – 00:39:57.202] And I did, and I asked the governor to appoint somebody to fill my vacancy on the bench, and, and I set out to cure myself of this drinking problem I

[00:39:57.202 – 00:39:57.542] had.

[00:39:57.542 – 00:40:01.032] Now, I was practicing medicine, but, and I didn’t have a license.

[00:40:01.032 – 00:40:01.942] But I didn’t need one.

[00:40:01.942 – 00:40:03.282] I didn’t have but one patient.

[00:40:03.282 – 00:40:07.490] And I was going to cure myself of this myocarditis too.

[00:40:07.490 – 00:40:09.510] I was going to lie down a half a day each day.

[00:40:09.510 – 00:40:16.150] The only problem with that was that that’s the period when Watergate hearings were going on.

[00:40:16.150 – 00:40:24.430] And I’d get up every morning and I’d, I’d go into the, uh, to the kitchen and, and do whatever I could, was able to do in there.

[00:40:24.430 – 00:40:31.950] And, and, and I’d come back and flip on the TV and see Senator Sam Ervin and Senator Baker from Tennessee and, and all that bit.

[00:40:31.950 – 00:40:34.310] And, you know, I got worried about the country.

[00:40:34.310 – 00:40:39.990] And it’ll make you nervous to see all that sort of thing, and I’d have to take a little nerve medicine.

[00:40:39.990 – 00:40:42.930] And this went on for 10 months.

[00:40:42.930 – 00:40:46.670] Now, I don’t want you to think that I was dead drunk for 10 months.

[00:40:46.670 – 00:40:47.350] I was not.

[00:40:47.350 – 00:40:48.610] I’d be dead.

[00:40:48.610 – 00:40:54.770] During that period of time, I took two or three geographical tours down to Florida.

[00:40:54.770 – 00:40:56.690] I even decided I ought to go to Spain.

[00:40:56.690 – 00:40:58.390] I didn’t go.

[00:40:58.390 – 00:41:02.820] My wife, I think, had the passbook or the passports or something, but I…

[00:41:02.820 – 00:41:07.190] And a lot of places I thought I ought to be so I could get away from these people causing me all this problem.

[00:41:07.190 – 00:41:11.710] Things were going from bad to worse.

[00:41:11.710 – 00:41:15.170] I ended up back over in that hospital.

[00:41:15.170 – 00:41:15.830] I called one…

[00:41:15.830 – 00:41:19.230] You know, judges are…

[00:41:19.230 – 00:41:22.910] I don’t know about any of the judges that might be in the audience, and there may be some here.

[00:41:22.910 – 00:41:26.110] Judges are pretty well-protected.

[00:41:26.110 – 00:41:32.170] Highway Patrol, the sheriff, the police, the city police, that sort of thing, they bring you home.

[00:41:32.170 – 00:41:35.550] I think they call them enablers now.

[00:41:35.550 – 00:41:39.630] Whatever they were, they, they took care of me.

[00:41:39.630 – 00:41:44.430] I called the Highway Patrol, one friend of mine one night, and told him I wanted to go to that hospital over at Jamestown.

[00:41:44.430 – 00:41:47.870] And he took me over there.

[00:41:47.870 – 00:41:54.990] And this big doctor came in and sat by my bed and talked to me about what al- alcohol had done in his life.

[00:41:54.990 – 00:42:00.070] And I made up my mind again I’d never take another drink of liquor.

[00:42:00.070 – 00:42:08.110] Come as no shock to you again to find out that I was drunk a week after I left that hospital.

[00:42:08.110 – 00:42:10.670] I got so I couldn’t get home from the hospital sober.

[00:42:10.670 – 00:42:13.960] I’d get drunk on the way home from treatment.

[00:42:13.960 – 00:42:19.110] Now, you wonder how you get reelected.

[00:42:19.110 – 00:42:24.170] I don’t want you to think that the electorate down in my county in, uh, in Tennessee are a bunch of dummies.

[00:42:24.170 – 00:42:24.510] They’re not.

[00:42:24.510 – 00:42:26.210] They just make a mistake now and then.

[00:42:26.210 – 00:42:28.610] And I kept getting elected.

[00:42:28.610 – 00:42:33.450] And I could not make a commitment to anything.

[00:42:33.450 – 00:42:39.570] And I had slowly withdrawn from everything in that town.

[00:42:39.570 – 00:42:40.490] I want to tell you this.

[00:42:40.490 – 00:42:41.430] I was a joiner.

[00:42:41.430 – 00:42:42.430] I joined everything.

[00:42:42.430 – 00:42:48.110] I, I joined the civic clubs and the library board and the PTA, and you name it, I joined.

[00:42:48.110 – 00:42:51.850] If it had a communist cell in that county, I’d have probably joined it.

[00:42:51.850 – 00:42:52.310] I don’t know.

[00:42:52.310 – 00:42:55.530] But I slowly withdrew from everything.

[00:42:55.530 – 00:42:58.680] We had no people in our home.

[00:42:58.680 – 00:43:04.170] My wife didn’t know what I was liable to do, and I didn’t know myself.

[00:43:04.170 – 00:43:08.530] I just talked to this good minister over here.

[00:43:08.530 – 00:43:10.590] He likes AAs.

[00:43:10.590 – 00:43:14.770] You know why people like us?

[00:43:14.770 – 00:43:22.790] It’s not from some goof standing out here on the corner shouting this stuff to the high heavens.

[00:43:22.790 – 00:43:31.690] They like us because most of them have seen the town drunk get sober and stay sober in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:43:31.690 – 00:43:33.090] That’s why they like us.

[00:43:39.929 – 00:43:49.669] I’ve lived in that little town all my life, and my membership in Alcoholics Anonymous has never shut a door in my face, in that town or anywhere else.

[00:43:49.669 – 00:43:51.249] Never.

[00:43:51.249 – 00:43:58.809] Finally, one morning, I said to my wife, and I wasn’t able to do it.

[00:43:58.809 – 00:44:00.349] I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t sober.

[00:44:00.349 – 00:44:03.769] I said, “Would you pack me a bag?

[00:44:03.769 – 00:44:12.389] I’m going over to Knoxville to do some thinking.” And she did, and I drove off, and I drove right back to these people’s home that I’ve told you about.

[00:44:12.389 – 00:44:20.829] And late in the afternoon, I asked them about Alcoholics Anonymous and asked them if there was a meeting of this outfit in town that night.

[00:44:20.829 – 00:44:25.868] And I’m a coward, and I had to get liquored up to come to you.

[00:44:25.868 – 00:44:29.029] And they took me to a meeting that night.

[00:44:29.029 – 00:44:30.789] Sat me in the back of the room, I understand.

[00:44:30.789 – 00:44:32.369] I don’t know whether it was a discussion meeting.

[00:44:32.369 – 00:44:34.629] I don’t know whether it was a speaker meeting.

[00:44:34.629 – 00:44:36.069] I don’t know what kind of a meeting it was.

[00:44:36.069 – 00:44:41.629] And the sad part about it is that neither my wife or I know what day it was.

[00:44:41.629 – 00:44:51.849] But that night, they took me back to their home, and in my drunken condition, this

[00:44:51.849 – 00:44:57.569] lady reached in her purse and pulled out something called a gold chip and showed it to me.

[00:44:57.569 – 00:45:07.669] And I said, “What’s that for?” And she said, “AA, in my group, will give you one of these.” And I immediately wa- I could straighten

[00:45:07.669 – 00:45:12.389] out some of the syntax, but you know it has promise.

[00:45:12.389 – 00:45:22.629] And I got up on Saturday morning not too well and said to my wife, “I’m going

[00:45:22.629 – 00:45:27.149] to Knoxville this morning to an AA meeting.” They didn’t have an AA group in my little town.

[00:45:27.149 – 00:45:29.969] They had one at Oak Ridge, and I knew it.

[00:45:29.969 – 00:45:32.489] They had two or three of them six miles away.

[00:45:32.489 – 00:45:33.969] I couldn’t go down there.

[00:45:33.969 – 00:45:38.649] I didn’t want them to know they had a drunken judge in that county.

[00:45:38.649 – 00:45:41.789] I’d only been the judge about, uh, 15 years by that time.

[00:45:41.789 – 00:45:54.629] And I don’t know, ladies and gentlemen, how I knew there was a morning meeting at the old Flatiron building in Knoxville, but

[00:45:54.629 – 00:45:55.129] I did.

[00:45:55.129 – 00:46:01.049] And I drove off, and I think she thought probably that AA meetings were all at night.

[00:46:01.049 – 00:46:07.569] And I waited, and I got there, and I pulled up in the back parking lot, and I waited until…

[00:46:07.569 – 00:46:09.769] I thought that meeting began at 10 o’clock in the morning.

[00:46:09.769 – 00:46:18.369] I, I waited until after it had already started, and I slipped in and slipped back in the back and hung my head and looked up.

[00:46:18.369 – 00:46:25.349] And there was an old boy leading the meeting, sitting up there, that I had had many a drink with down at the old Elks Club on State Street in Knoxville.

[00:46:25.349 – 00:46:35.269] And I thought, “Well, he had one terrible drinking problem,” and I knew he’d have to do something about it.

[00:46:35.269 – 00:46:39.209] And then it occurred to me why I was there.

[00:46:39.209 – 00:46:45.149] And I was going to get out of that place as soon as they ended the meeting.

[00:46:45.149 – 00:46:50.669] But I think they had some of those members of that flaming sophomore football team.

[00:46:50.669 – 00:46:51.509] Well, they had one of them.

[00:46:51.509 – 00:46:52.949] I know that, uh, him.

[00:46:52.949 – 00:46:54.969] And they blocked the door.

[00:46:54.969 – 00:46:57.289] Didn’t have but one door.

[00:46:57.289 – 00:46:59.209] And I shook hands with everybody in there.

[00:46:59.209 – 00:47:01.349] I’ll never forget this, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:47:01.349 – 00:47:09.169] A little gray, gray-haired lady, who’s become a very close personal friend of mine, walked over to me and looked up into my eyes and took me by the hand.

[00:47:09.169 – 00:47:10.929] It w- wasn’t one of those wishy-washy things.

[00:47:10.929 – 00:47:11.989] She really got a hold of it.

[00:47:11.989 – 00:47:22.369] And she said, “We need you.” And I thought, “Old gal, you ain’t been off of the grape long enough.” “You

[00:47:22.369 – 00:47:27.389] don’t need me.” But I know now what she meant, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:47:27.389 – 00:47:32.869] Alcoholics Anonymous needs every person who needs Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:47:32.869 – 00:47:35.869] That’s our purpose.

[00:47:35.869 – 00:47:40.049] Well, I got active in the, in the program.

[00:47:40.049 – 00:47:43.549] I, I, I had some sponsors that, that really took care of me.

[00:47:43.549 – 00:47:44.369] They just grabbed me.

[00:47:44.369 – 00:47:46.329] And one old boy had been a professional gambler.

[00:47:46.329 – 00:47:53.409] And he and I used to make these 12-step calls and, and we’ve had some funny questions asked to us.

[00:47:53.409 – 00:47:58.109] How a gambler and a judge could get together and make, go out and try to help a drunk.

[00:47:58.109 – 00:48:01.729] Well, I wasn’t certain myself, but I was having a hell of a good time.

[00:48:01.729 – 00:48:08.789] And I had a, I had a number of, of, of sponsors.

[00:48:08.789 – 00:48:12.609] In that group, they, they, they didn’t assign you sponsors.

[00:48:12.609 – 00:48:13.889] They just sort of adopted you.

[00:48:13.889 – 00:48:19.869] And I think they had a meeting and said, “Well, we better subdivide this one,” or something, because I had a lot of sponsors.

[00:48:19.869 – 00:48:23.709] And I began to go to AA.

[00:48:23.709 – 00:48:29.429] And they began to talk about things that I didn’t understand, like honesty.

[00:48:29.429 – 00:48:34.849] One of you speakers said something about honesty here today or yesterday.

[00:48:34.849 – 00:48:37.209] Honesty, self-honesty.

[00:48:37.209 – 00:48:38.689] I said, “I’m not stealing this booze.

[00:48:38.689 – 00:48:43.629] I’m paying for it.” One old boy told me, he said, “That’s not what we’re talking about, dummy.

[00:48:43.629 – 00:48:46.449] We’re talking about being honest with yourself.

[00:48:46.449 – 00:48:54.109] Doing something for somebody else.” I said, “I don’t want to do anything for anybody else.

[00:48:54.109 – 00:49:00.869] They might do something to me.” Then I began to read that book.

[00:49:00.869 – 00:49:01.649] One of them told me.

[00:49:01.649 – 00:49:02.509] He said, “Read the book.

[00:49:02.509 – 00:49:08.289] It’s in the book.” One of my sponsors, I thought he was the smartest fellow I’d ever, I’d ever heard.

[00:49:08.289 – 00:49:10.449] He kept telling me all these little gems of wisdom.

[00:49:10.449 – 00:49:13.829] After I started reading this book, I found out it’s all in that book.

[00:49:13.829 – 00:49:14.729] He wasn’t that smart.

[00:49:14.729 – 00:49:15.689] He got it out the book.

[00:49:15.689 – 00:49:19.529] I read the little doctor’s opinion.

[00:49:19.529 – 00:49:20.949] I wondered why I was an alcoholic.

[00:49:20.949 – 00:49:23.889] It was very simple.

[00:49:23.889 – 00:49:30.229] Says right in there, “Men and women drink essentially because they like the effects produced by alcohol,” and that was me.

[00:49:30.229 – 00:49:32.089] I liked the effects of it.

[00:49:32.089 – 00:49:36.589] And then it says something else.

[00:49:36.589 – 00:49:42.269] “After a while, they cannot differentiate the truth and the false,” and that was me, too.

[00:49:42.269 – 00:49:46.733] And I began to read this literature.

[00:49:46.733 – 00:49:48.573] I began to have fun in this program.

[00:49:48.573 – 00:49:55.353] And I kept hearing them say something about fear and faith.

[00:49:55.353 – 00:50:03.253] And I realized that I had suffered for many years from a lot of fear, unknown fear.

[00:50:03.253 – 00:50:11.633] Fear of what’s liable to happen, what’s going to happen, or what may happen, or what did happen and I didn’t know about it.

[00:50:11.633 – 00:50:13.753] Unknown fears.

[00:50:13.753 – 00:50:17.433] And I wish Johnny was here tonight.

[00:50:17.433 – 00:50:24.112] I think he can describe it better than anybody I’ve ever known, the fear that the alcoholic has.

[00:50:24.112 – 00:50:27.603] Ladies and gentlemen, you taught me something.

[00:50:27.603 – 00:50:32.413] You taught me that courage was not the answer to fear.

[00:50:32.413 – 00:50:37.253] Faith is the answer to fear, not courage.

[00:50:37.253 – 00:50:40.813] That’s the first thing you taught me.

[00:50:40.813 – 00:50:52.073] And I said, “How do you get faith?” And a little fella with a fourth-grade education, a house painter that I’ve learned to love well in this program, said,

[00:50:52.073 – 00:50:53.713] “Judge, you ought to try a little prayer.

[00:50:53.713 – 00:51:00.613] You might find out what faith is.” And that’s the way it’s been in my life in this program.

[00:51:00.613 – 00:51:04.653] Well, I got to tell you something.

[00:51:04.653 – 00:51:12.353] I’d been in the program about two weeks, and I found one of those order blanks from the general service office with all those things that you can order from up there.

[00:51:12.353 – 00:51:17.213] And I ordered one of everything, and they sent it to me.

[00:51:17.213 – 00:51:20.153] Every pamphlet, every booklet, everything.

[00:51:20.153 – 00:51:27.513] And I sat down and read it, and was going to get a master’s degree in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:51:27.513 – 00:51:30.913] I memorized the steps.

[00:51:30.913 – 00:51:32.373] I memorized the traditions.

[00:51:32.373 – 00:51:37.533] I memorized a lot of the books and a lot of the pamphlets, and, and I could quote you about anything.

[00:51:37.533 – 00:51:38.393] I can’t do it today.

[00:51:38.393 – 00:51:39.133] I’ve forgotten it all.

[00:51:39.133 – 00:51:47.773] I can tell you what the results will be if you follow them, and I can also tell you what the results will be if you don’t, if you’re an alcoholic.

[00:51:47.773 – 00:51:52.893] But I got all knowledgeable in this thing, and it said something about 12 steps.

[00:51:52.893 – 00:51:55.433] And the first time I heard that, I thought it was some kind of a dance.

[00:51:55.433 – 00:51:59.173] 12 steps and go out and help some drunk.

[00:51:59.173 – 00:52:02.133] And that’s what I wanted to do.

[00:52:02.133 – 00:52:04.393] I’d been in this program about three months.

[00:52:04.393 – 00:52:07.373] Preacher, I’ll have to tell you something.

[00:52:07.373 – 00:52:13.343] I was down in Atlanta, Georgia one time talking about crowds and joining things and all that business.

[00:52:13.343 – 00:52:17.313] And I was down in Atlanta, Georgia many, many years before what I’m telling now, the card.

[00:52:17.313 – 00:52:25.713] And I was walking down on old Courtland Street or wherever that old auditorium was, and there was a big crowd going in there about 10:00 in the morning.

[00:52:25.713 – 00:52:35.713] And I thought, “Well, I’ll just go in here and see what’s going on.” And I walked smack dab into the middle of the Southern Baptist Convention, and that ain’t no place

[00:52:35.713 – 00:52:37.733] for a drunk to be at 10:00 in the morning.

[00:52:37.733 – 00:52:44.213] And the first man I ran into was the president of that little college that I’d attended, and I got out of there.

[00:52:44.213 – 00:52:51.833] But things were beginning to happen there in that, in, in, in my, my life, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

[00:52:51.833 – 00:52:54.153] Nobody was calling on…

[00:52:54.153 – 00:52:57.053] I had this vast reservoir of knowledge and, and ability.

[00:52:57.053 – 00:52:59.093] I’d read all this literature.

[00:52:59.093 – 00:53:02.053] Nobody was calling on me for 12 step calls.

[00:53:02.053 – 00:53:05.733] And this had gone on for about three months.

[00:53:05.733 – 00:53:08.293] I had been, by that time, I was a convention drunk, too.

[00:53:08.293 – 00:53:09.973] I’d go to all sorts of conventions.

[00:53:09.973 – 00:53:15.923] You know, the, the PTA or the Bar Association or the Feed, Seed, and Grain Merchants.

[00:53:15.923 – 00:53:17.253] It didn’t make any difference what it was.

[00:53:17.253 – 00:53:19.333] Had a happy hour.

[00:53:19.333 – 00:53:21.973] I’d went drunk from all that, too.

[00:53:21.973 – 00:53:29.053] But I wanted to go, I wanted to do some of this 12 step work ’cause I’d had all this information, knowledge.

[00:53:29.053 – 00:53:31.213] Nobody was calling on me.

[00:53:31.213 – 00:53:39.993] One afternoon, I had just sat down to dinner and the phone rang in my little town.

[00:53:39.993 – 00:53:47.053] And this man said, “My wife is an alcoholic, and she wants you to come up here and see her.

[00:53:47.053 – 00:53:52.193] We understand you’re a member.” I said, “My gracious alive.

[00:53:52.193 – 00:53:54.253] Where do you live?” And he just lived about a mile from me.

[00:53:54.253 – 00:53:57.833] He was a new man in the insurance business that had just moved into my town.

[00:53:57.833 – 00:54:02.593] I told you some of us Baptists are going to be dancing on Sunday here pretty soon.

[00:54:02.593 – 00:54:03.393] What time is it?

[00:54:03.393 – 00:54:08.313] Anyway, he wanted me, wanted me to come.

[00:54:08.313 – 00:54:12.433] And I just passed my wife in the kitchen, ran out and jumped in the car, and made a mad dash.

[00:54:12.433 – 00:54:12.833] I looked up.

[00:54:12.833 – 00:54:13.813] I said, “Thank you, God.

[00:54:13.813 – 00:54:23.473] You’ve sent me a drunk.” Went up there, slid my tires, ran up over the lawn and then knocked on the front door.

[00:54:23.473 – 00:54:27.713] He opened the front door, and she fell right out in the front yard drunk.

[00:54:27.713 – 00:54:30.973] Didn’t bother us in the least.

[00:54:30.973 – 00:54:32.633] I had come to carry the message.

[00:54:32.633 – 00:54:34.733] We carried her in.

[00:54:34.733 – 00:54:40.513] Her son-in-law and daughter were there and, and they, she, they looked scared to death.

[00:54:40.513 – 00:54:43.713] Looked like they, she might have been holding a shotgun or something on them.

[00:54:43.713 – 00:54:46.793] But it didn’t bother us.

[00:54:46.793 – 00:54:51.573] And I sat down and did what I thought I ought to do.

[00:54:51.573 – 00:54:57.033] I gave her a three-hour lecture on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:54:57.033 – 00:55:02.613] She kept getting up and going to the bathroom and the kitchen and getting drunker.

[00:55:02.613 – 00:55:04.833] And I didn’t notice it.

[00:55:04.833 – 00:55:09.653] And all she wanted was another drink, and all he wanted was out.

[00:55:09.653 – 00:55:16.553] And right before I left, I said to her, “Now, young lady, I want to tell you something.

[00:55:16.553 – 00:55:18.993] I’m a very important man in this community.

[00:55:18.993 – 00:55:21.693] Hold a very responsible position.

[00:55:21.693 – 00:55:30.593] Tomorrow, I’m going to take off from my elective position and I’ll be up here at your house.” And I, now, you know, I’d heard about taking a lady with you.

[00:55:30.593 – 00:55:31.773] Somebody said something about it.

[00:55:31.773 – 00:55:32.533] I think Jim.

[00:55:32.533 – 00:55:33.613] Taking a…

[00:55:33.613 – 00:55:36.433] Well, we didn’t have any lady drunks that I knew about in my town.

[00:55:36.433 – 00:55:41.453] Well, I found out that, uh, that I was incorrect about that, but I just didn’t know.

[00:55:41.453 – 00:55:44.973] But anyway, I said, “You be ready at 9:00 in the morning.

[00:55:44.973 – 00:55:51.449] I’m going to take you to Knoxville to the old Flatiron Building to an AA club, and you be sober.” Said she would.

[00:55:51.449 – 00:55:53.929] I went off up there the next morning, knocked on the door.

[00:55:53.929 – 00:55:57.729] She opened the door, fell right out in the front yard, drunk.

[00:55:57.729 – 00:56:00.529] We got her back in.

[00:56:00.529 – 00:56:02.769] I gave her another hour lecture.

[00:56:02.769 – 00:56:04.829] Disappointed.

[00:56:04.829 – 00:56:08.389] And this began to happen.

[00:56:08.389 – 00:56:14.109] By that time, I’d been up to Kentucky to one of those conventions, got me some of those funny tapes.

[00:56:14.109 – 00:56:20.109] And, and I, I, I, and I took over the Al-Anon program, too, while I was at it.

[00:56:20.109 – 00:56:28.169] I, I, I, I’d make a pot of coffee, and I’d go up and get she and her husband, bring them down to the house, you know, and, and have them listen to these tapes.

[00:56:28.169 – 00:56:31.149] And this just went on, and on, and on.

[00:56:31.149 – 00:56:34.229] Sometimes she’d be sober and sometimes she’d be drunk.

[00:56:34.229 – 00:56:43.509] Well, one day, I went to get her, and we went over to Knoxville on Saturday morning to the…

[00:56:43.509 – 00:56:47.169] I think it was Saturday morning, Fourth of July, Palm Sunday or something.

[00:56:47.169 – 00:56:48.009] I don’t know what it was.

[00:56:48.009 – 00:56:53.129] But went over to the meeting, and she sat in the back of the room that morning.

[00:56:53.129 – 00:56:57.369] And I looked up when the meeting was over, and she wasn’t there, and I thought she was out at the ladies room or somewhere.

[00:56:57.369 – 00:56:58.509] She didn’t come back.

[00:56:58.509 – 00:56:59.249] She didn’t come back.

[00:56:59.249 – 00:57:09.269] Finally, the phone rang there in the club, and I was called to the phone, and I could hear the sound of soft music and the tinkle of ice in the glasses, and I said, “Where are

[00:57:09.269 – 00:57:18.349] you?” And she said, “I’m uptown on Market Square in the Full Moon or The Total Eclipse or something cafe,” and, and it made me mad.

[00:57:18.349 – 00:57:22.489] And I jumped in my car, and I went up there, parked on the sidewalk.

[00:57:22.489 – 00:57:32.489] She was a little, tiny woman, weighed about 100 pounds and mean as a tiger, and literally drug her out of that place physically,

[00:57:32.489 – 00:57:36.439] slammed her in the car, and drove her home, and gave her a lecture all the way home.

[00:57:36.439 – 00:57:46.469] That night, about 3:30 in the morning, I got a call from the jailer at the county jail, which is on

[00:57:46.469 – 00:57:49.289] the third floor of the courthouse in the Courthouse Square.

[00:57:49.289 – 00:57:59.388] And he said, “Judge, there’s a lady down here that says you’re her sponsor.” Now, you got to be careful who who you tell

[00:57:59.388 – 00:58:02.129] you’re their sponsor, especially when you’re self-appointed.

[00:58:02.129 – 00:58:12.269] “And she wants you to come down here and get her.” And I said, “Well, what has she done?” And he said, “Well, her husband’s office is on the second story there of a building on the Courthouse Square.” He said,

[00:58:12.269 – 00:58:16.309] “She went into his office, and she shot into his adding machine.

[00:58:16.309 – 00:58:17.749] She shot up his calculator.

[00:58:17.749 – 00:58:22.789] She shot up his files, and then she went down to where his car was parked in the parking lot.

[00:58:22.789 – 00:58:25.109] She proceeded to try to shoot all the windows out of it.

[00:58:25.109 – 00:58:38.009] One of the bullets has ricocheted and knocked the window out of the jail, and we had to arrest her.” I said, “You keep her.” Shortly

[00:58:38.009 – 00:58:44.609] after that, that family moved away from my town and moved across the border up into Kentucky.

[00:58:44.609 – 00:58:45.729] I kept up with her.

[00:58:45.729 – 00:58:52.449] And a week or two after they had moved there, she went out and got on for her what was her last drunk.

[00:58:52.449 – 00:59:02.909] And she called a guy and a gal that I know up there, and neither one of them are half as smart as me, and she ain’t had a damn drink since.

[00:59:02.909 – 00:59:08.209] Now, that will ruin your story.

[00:59:08.209 – 00:59:18.229] But ladies and gentlemen, if I know one thing about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the treasures that God has given us in this program,

[00:59:18.229 – 00:59:23.629] I know this: I owe her more than she can ever owe me.

[00:59:23.629 – 00:59:28.409] She kept me sober for four and one half months.

[00:59:28.409 – 00:59:36.029] Intensive work with other alcoholics, it tells us in our book, is the surest immunity from drinking.

[00:59:36.029 – 00:59:40.009] She kept me sober for four and one half months.

[00:59:40.009 – 00:59:44.929] That’s the treasures that we find ourselves with.

[00:59:44.929 – 00:59:50.069] Well, I tried to go along in this book, and I found some paradoxes.

[00:59:50.069 – 00:59:54.009] I thought I was going to have to sweep away all my past life.

[00:59:54.009 – 00:59:55.569] Forget it.

[00:59:55.569 – 01:00:02.929] And I came on something in this book of ours that I treasure very much, and I think it’s an absolute necessity.

[01:00:02.929 – 01:00:13.329] And it says, “Cling to the thought that in God’s hands, the greatest power you may have is your dark past because

[01:00:13.329 – 01:00:23.449] through it, you may be able to pre- avert pain, and suffering, and death for others.” Ladies and gentlemen,

[01:00:23.449 – 01:00:32.829] what greater gift can the alcoholic be given that he give that gift away, gift away in order to keep it?

[01:00:32.829 – 01:00:39.009] You said to me when I came in here, “You have one obligation.

[01:00:39.009 – 01:00:45.789] Give away that which you have.” I want to say this to you, ladies and gentlemen.

[01:00:45.789 – 01:00:47.509] I’ve found this out in this program.

[01:00:47.509 – 01:00:57.509] Anyone can support a success, but it takes a rare and wonderful person to continue to have faith in

[01:00:57.509 – 01:01:01.149] failure, and that’s what we do in 12-step work.

[01:01:01.149 – 01:01:06.769] I want to thank you for allowing me to come over here and be a part of your program.

[01:01:06.769 – 01:01:10.069] I’d like to come back someday.

[01:01:10.069 – 01:01:14.849] And before I leave, I have one story.

[01:01:14.849 – 01:01:20.269] I swapped it from a guy from Canada, and he swapped it from somebody else.

[01:01:20.269 – 01:01:24.049] And somebody swapped it from him and wrote a song about it.

[01:01:24.049 – 01:01:28.889] And it was taken from a book called Prisoners or People.

[01:01:28.889 – 01:01:30.849] It was written by a fellow by the name of Ken Scudder.

[01:01:30.849 – 01:01:37.249] Ken was the deputy warden at San Quentin under Clinton Duffy, one of AA’s early friends.

[01:01:37.249 – 01:01:44.549] And you know, back in those days, when they wrote poems or wrote letters out of those places, they read them.

[01:01:44.549 – 01:01:48.429] They censored them, and they censored everything that came in.

[01:01:48.429 – 01:01:53.189] And this story in this book is called Prisoners or People.

[01:01:53.189 – 01:01:56.109] I later got the book and read it.

[01:01:56.109 – 01:02:03.349] It’s the story of a little boy who was in the penitentiary, and it wasn’t his first bit.

[01:02:03.349 – 01:02:05.269] He’d been there before.

[01:02:05.269 – 01:02:13.289] And he was writing home to his parents who lived down in the San Joaquin Valley somewhere there in California.

[01:02:13.289 – 01:02:19.009] And he began to read these letters, and he’d write them and he’d tell them that he was back in this, this place again.

[01:02:19.009 – 01:02:21.929] And I know how hard it is, and they wouldn’t write back to him.

[01:02:21.929 – 01:02:23.629] And he knew that, and he understood it.

[01:02:23.629 – 01:02:26.549] And he’d tell them so.

[01:02:26.549 – 01:02:30.689] But it was getting close for him to get out, time for him to get out.

[01:02:30.689 – 01:02:38.889] And he wrote him a letter, and it went something like this, “Dear Mom and Dad, as you know, I’m still back in this place again.

[01:02:38.889 – 01:02:43.629] And I’ve written you, and you’ve not written back, and I understand.

[01:02:43.629 – 01:02:48.109] I know how hard it is for you to write me here.

[01:02:48.109 – 01:02:51.649] I know I’ve torn your heart out by the strings.

[01:02:51.649 – 01:02:54.649] I’ve done everything I shouldn’t have done.

[01:02:54.649 – 01:02:57.649] I’ve humiliated you, and I’ve hurt you.

[01:02:57.649 – 01:03:07.109] But I’ll be getting out of here in a few days, and, and I wonder if you could find it in your heart to forgive me and let me come home.

[01:03:07.109 – 01:03:10.889] And if you can, don’t write back.

[01:03:10.889 – 01:03:12.069] I know you can’t do that.

[01:03:12.069 – 01:03:17.989] But I’ll be taking the train out of the old station in San Francisco on such and such a day.

[01:03:17.989 – 01:03:24.469] And if you can find it in your heart to forgive me and let me come home, don’t write back.

[01:03:24.469 – 01:03:33.229] Just go out to the old cherry tree there in the outer field that pass where the tracks pass, and tie a white ribbon around the tree.

[01:03:33.229 – 01:03:36.349] And if I see it, I’ll get off.

[01:03:36.349 – 01:03:40.169] And if I don’t, I’ll go on, and you’ll never hear from me again.

[01:03:40.169 – 01:03:50.369] Your son, Jim.” Scudder said they read that letter, and, and, and Duffy said to him, “Scudder, I’ve been watching this little boy, and he’s getting so uptight,

[01:03:50.369 – 01:03:52.649] I’m afraid he’s going to jump off the Bay Bridge.

[01:03:52.649 – 01:03:56.049] You better go with him.” And the day came for him to be released.

[01:03:56.049 – 01:03:57.149] They went down to the old station.

[01:03:57.149 – 01:03:58.109] They got on the train.

[01:03:58.109 – 01:04:08.169] And he climbed up and pressed his nose right against the window, and he stayed there, except to leave to go to the men’s room to be physically sick from the sheer

[01:04:08.169 – 01:04:09.429] blackness in his heart.

[01:04:09.429 – 01:04:13.709] And they had five hours to run.

[01:04:13.709 – 01:04:20.049] And they finally arrived at the outer field, and there was the cherry tree.

[01:04:20.049 – 01:04:24.449] And there wasn’t one white ribbon on it.

[01:04:24.449 – 01:04:28.809] There were 10,000 white ribbons on it.

[01:04:28.809 – 01:04:31.789] It looked like it had literally been snowed on.

[01:04:31.789 – 01:04:41.849] And Scudder said this little fellow looked like somebody just pulled a stopper out of his tummy by the simple act of forgiveness, dear God, in his life, as it

[01:04:41.849 – 01:04:46.489] was in mine, and as it was in yours, if you’re an alcoholic and sober in this program.

[01:04:46.489 – 01:04:53.309] Because through you, my wife flowed back into my life.

[01:04:53.309 – 01:04:56.109] My daughter flowed back into my life.

[01:04:56.109 – 01:04:59.069] My business flowed back into my life.

[01:04:59.069 – 01:05:04.549] And most important of all, God flowed into my life.

[01:05:04.549 – 01:05:06.869] And I love every one of you.

[01:05:06.869 – 01:05:07.309] Thank you.

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