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Source: 1955 St. Louis International Convention – 1955 St. Louis Open Meeting chair Pete, Margaret M., Charlie S., Carl W. Augie.mp3 File: 1955-st-louis-international-convention-1955-st-louis-open-meeting-chair-pete-margaret-m-charlie-s-carl-w-augie.mp3 Duration: 01:21:14
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We're in this meeting in our usual manner, with a moment of silent meditation, then we will repeat the serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference. Ladies and gentlemen, I was standing on a street corner last night, and somebody came by and asked me if I wanted to make a speech, and I said yes, so here I am.
In typical alcoholic confusion, I don't know exactly what I'm doing, and when I get through, I will not be certain as to what I have done. Nevertheless, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to be here with you. I am Pete from Mississippi. It is my duty and privilege to make a few announcements here to get this thing underway, which I will do. Those members of the press who are here no doubt are aware of our traditions of anonymity, our Eleven and Twelve traditions, and we of course ask you to respect our anonymity.
The opinions of these speakers, as in all AA meetings, are strictly their own and do not represent Alcoholics Anonymous necessarily. This little button right here, this Third Legacy button, denotes that there are 76 of us here who are your servants or your area delegates. Any question that we are able to answer pertaining to or concerning our Third Legacy, we will be more than happy to try to answer that question.
Now we get on to something important. Lunches and dinners will be served in cafeterias downstairs, and the meals will be hot and moderately priced. Lunch counters and snack bars are in the promenade. We call those alleys down in Philadelphia, Mississippi. They will open at 9 a.m. for juices and sweet rolls, and will close one hour after the last meeting at night. The lunch counters have a choice of ten sandwiches, and the snack bars serve hot dogs and cold drinks.
Now, tape recordings are being made of all meetings. Please leave your orders for copies at the convention headquarters, room B. We are sorry that we could not arrange for individuals to use their own tape recorders in the auditorium. That needs no explanation, I'm sure. There will be a five-minute break at the end of the presentation to enable those who do not wish to stay for the question-and-answer period. I just wanted to get that in. It isn't necessary at all. This ain't even a workshop.
Now, it tells me also how to flash these little buzzers and these lights here, so you know this thing's going off right on schedule. I believe I have tended to my little duties. The main thing I've got to do now is stop Augie on time. It's a great pleasure for me to present to you my friend Augie from Milwaukee. It's a wonderful opportunity to be here with you today, and I am extremely thankful that AA came along for me. I have been designated as the chairman of this meeting.
Shortly before the meeting, I met Margaret M. of Toronto, Ontario, who will be the first speaker. She had her last drink on October 27, 1946. I know that you will gain and have as much pleasure from getting to know her as I did.
[00:05:02]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everybody. I imagine that all of you out there are just as happy and as grateful to be here as I am myself. This is definitely one of the highlights in our AA membership, the privilege of being at this 20th anniversary AA convention. I hope God will bless us all and send us away better AA members than when we came. I'm never just too sure when I'm at a meeting like this how interested you may or may not be in my particular drinking story, but I guess this is just another typical AA meeting, and of course, at any typical AA meeting, we do qualify as an alcoholic.
I can remember when I came along as a newcomer, I wanted so much to know if these very happy, sober people I was meeting in AA had really put themselves through the wringer the way I had, had they really said and done the insane things that I had said and done. And it was by the qualifying part of their talk at these meetings that I was able so thoroughly to identify myself as being one who not only needed but could be helped through the suggestive program of Alcoholics Anonymous if I would only try to use it. And so I qualify.
I was an only child brought up in a good, kind home. I had many educational advantages and advantages right through my life as a growing youngster and as a young girl. The first drinks I ever had were at home with my family somewhere late in my 19th year. I think that's the proper place to have our first drinks. And after drinking a few times there, I then began to drink socially with my own friends, most of whom I might say had started a little earlier than I had. There was no trouble. I'm a pretty big person physically, and I guess I had a good capacity.
I had the long limbs and the long neck and the long arms, but I didn't get the long head. I don't know whether that would have saved me or not. No use worrying about that one. And there was no trouble in the many, many years of social drinking. Looking back, I know that I was probably quite a heavy drinker, but was able to hold it for a good many years. I was engaged to be married rather a long time, four and a half years, a little better than that.
And when my own marriage came along, my drinking by that time had increased in the number of evenings per week that I would drink, but it was still social drinking. Looking back on the years of my marriage, I realized that quite a pattern was beginning to show. Not so much in drinking, no, but a pattern of thinking. The inside of me was beginning to be very unsure. A feeling of insecurity was growing within me.
I realize now that I wanted to keep very, very busy. I had, since I was 16 years of age, done a great deal of voluntary social service work. And by the time I was married, I was holding fairly responsible positions in these fields of voluntary social service work. They kept me busy, those positions. I had learned about how to keep house properly from my own dear mother. I said, I kept house as well as she. No. So that kept me busy. And why was it that in the evening I wasn't content, some of the evenings at any rate, to stay at home with my husband and listen to the radio or read? No, I wasn't content to do that.
I either wanted to have somebody in or go to somebody's home for a party. I know now that I was trying to run away from myself, even then. I didn't want time to think about me too much because, you see, this feeling of insecurity was welling up within me. I realized that I was not at all the kind of person that my friends thought I was.
[00:10:09]
They thought I was capable. They thought I was a good person to put on committees because I was a good worker. Now, I tell you that I completed the committee jobs or whatever it may have been, but all for the wrong motive. I didn't do it for a worthy cause or because it was good to be a member of a committee and work hard. No. I did it strictly so that others would think well of me. Just feeding my ego. Wrong motive for so many things I said and did that ultimately looked all right at that time anyway. Incidentally, I still have to watch my motive in the things I say and the things I do.
It is true I'm a better person than when I came into AA, but I am still very human and I can be very alcoholically human at times, and my motives can still be those of building up the great I. I must watch that very, very carefully if I'm going to remain not only sober but contentedly so. I began to wonder at this period in my marriage how long I could present this front of the world. When would something happen in my life that would show my true colors? It was right that I should begin to wonder because something did happen in my life that was to show the kind of person I really was.
And that happened in 1941 when after seven years of married life, happy years I might say, life moved along very rapidly for my husband and me. We were forced to separate and in that year I found myself living back home with my parents and with me was an infant son a few months old. If anybody had asked me at that time what I thought about the turn of events in life, I would have said, well, surely I'm a very lucky girl to have two good parents who make us so welcome back in their home, not only this daughter of theirs but their grandson.
And indeed my parents did make us very, very welcome indeed. However, inside the real alcoholic thinking was going on, the mixed up perspective, the wrong attitude toward my life. And inside myself I was thinking something like this, life, you can't do this to the great Mars. Remember me, I've had the breaks all my life. Oh no, life, you can't force me to leave my husband, sell the beautiful home we built, send me home to be under my parents' thumb and tied down to a squalling rat of a baby.
Isn't that pitiful? No wonder I was unhappy and frustrated and all at odds with myself and the world. Typically alcoholic, I shook my fist at life and said, I'll show you life, but you can't do this to me, I'll just show you. And so from 1941 to 1946, I proceeded to pretty nearly drink myself into the grave. I started having drinks first thing in the morning before I would feed my baby his breakfast. And gradually, and before too long too, I was drinking all day long.
I started out on good scotch whiskey, that is what my parents drank in their home, that is what my husband and I served. But I ended up on what we in Canada call bingo, for aces by name, at 47 cents a copy. It did the trick. And from that I'm fairly convinced that all alcoholics drink strictly according to what is available or how much money we have. I don't turn up my nose at anybody who drinks rubbies or who strains shoe polish. I would have done just that if I'd kept on drinking and hadn't had money for anything else. Anything to quiet the shake.
Incidentally, my mother became an invalid during those heavy years of my drinking, and there was always rubbing alcohol in the bathroom cupboard for her nurse to give her the body rub. The bottle said poison, and I believed it. It was only when I came to AA that I found out how many times I could have quieted my shake with the rubbing. So you learn all sorts of things in AA, good things and bad things too. However, the drinking pattern, as I say, started early morning and continued in the afternoon. The evenings were spent alone at home in my bedroom. My own dear friends of many years standing had finally done the only thing that it was possible for them to do. They had quit.
The only thing that it was possible for them to do, they had closed their doors to me.
[00:15:02]
They were not inviting me to their dinner table or to their evening parties. I found out after I came in AA that those people didn't stop loving me, my old friends, but they were so confused about me and my behavior that, as I say, they did the only possible thing, they stopped inviting me. But they were the first ones, after I joined AA, and very quickly too, I mean, they must have had an awful lot of faith in me and in AA.
They were the first people who phoned me or dropped into the house to say how glad they were that I had joined AA and that they knew I would try to become the kind of person they had first known. It was kind of comforting. My family wouldn't let me out with my newfound drinking friends, the girls and sometimes men that I would drink with in the pubs. And so it was, as I suggest, that my evenings in those last of my drinking years were very miserable, lonely ones spent drinking in my bedroom, my baby in bed asleep and I drinking to the point of passing myself out.
There was a pattern, and of course you can readily understand from that drinking pattern, that I was drunk many times when I wanted to be sober, times of serious family illness, the time of my mother-in-law's funeral when I was so drunk I nearly fell into her grave. And there was a woman that I loved, my mother-in-law. We had a very fine relationship, yet I was drunk. Because, you see, I had reached the stage of compulsive drinking, and I didn't know that any time I took that first drink of anything with alcohol in it that the bottle was in control and that I had no say, as I never will have in my life, whether I have had three drinks, 30 drinks, or 300 drinks.
Compulsive, obsessive drinking. I could tell you that I never stole to drink, but I did steal. Not the type of stealing that took me into somebody's pants pocket or somebody's purse, not that kind of stealing, but a more intangible, harmful, and insidious type of stealing. These years when I moved back home with my mother and father, they were getting older. They loved me dearly. They should have been able during those years to enjoy a mature, helpful adult daughter.
But they weren't able to. When I would get out, they never knew what time I would come home or whom I might bring with me. I'm afraid they knew what condition I would arrive home in by then, I'm sorry to say. So actually I robbed my parents of their peace of mind. What a dreadful thing, especially for an only child, to do to parents who had given that child everything that was good in life that was possible for them to give her.
My boy, well, he was a little baby growing into a little boy during those heavy five, six years of my drinking. When my friends used to bother chatting me about the way I was drinking, I would say, oh well, maybe I drank too much. But I'm certainly a good mother to that little son of mine. Why, I cook special meals for him. He's a celiac baby on a diet. I wash his clothing daily. I dress him properly for the heat and the cold of the weather.
I take him to the dentist, I take him to Sunday school, I take him to the Santa Claus parade. Yes, I did all those things. But there was no love. Everything I did to the child was strictly from a sense of duty. There was no real heart, no real love. And I was either too hungover or too drunk to read him little stories when he'd ask me or look at the snow fort or the leaf fort that he'd built in the backyard.
You who are parents will know the kind of things that I robbed that child of in those years. I really robbed him of that steady and serene bond of affection that should exist between every child and his parent or parents. I robbed myself of what is the most essential thing for the human being to have if he is to really live rather than exist. I robbed myself of my self-respect. We lose a great many things, most of us, before we come to AA, but possibly human dignity, self-respect, is the greatest thing that any of us loses.
I would just like to end the qualifying part of my talk by making mention of the nights,
[00:20:06]
the times of so-called rest and peace, the times when I was lying so wakeful and miserable, the times when I thought everybody else in the world is asleep but I. You see, I didn't know about other alcoholics who were going through those same hours of horror that I was going through. The thinking had reached the stage where passing out was only giving me a sleep of maybe two or three hours. I would come to, have a couple of quick plugs out of the bottle, sleep, repeat the performance, until the bottle was gone, and that is when it got really grim.
Maybe it was only two o'clock in the morning, nothing left to drink, all the night hours to put in. Physically, it was pretty uncomfortable. Hot flashes, cold sweats, shaky hands, pounding head, butterflies in my stomach, yes. That was pretty uncomfortable. But it wasn't one, two, three with what was going on in my head, in my heart. Remorse cutting through me like a red-hot knife. Shame, sorrow, what I was doing to those near and dear to me.
Shame for the way I was ruining my life, tossing it out the window as I could see it. I really was desperately ashamed of myself and horribly afraid of that day that was dawning. Because you see, I recognized that of myself, I was helpless and hopeless to do anything about this place in which I found myself. That embrace is somewhat of a picture of me when Alcoholics Anonymous came into my life to give me back real life.
One of the first wonderful things that was made known to me was that I had an illness. I hadn't known that my drinking was classed as an illness. I had it in the field of a moral or a social stigma. But apparently, it was an illness. And that, coupled with my own inner misery and desperation, enabled me to put the problem at arm's length and take a good look at it. And it was most helpful. The next big thing the boys began to talk to me about, and incidentally it was to the boys I went, because there were very, very few women members in Toronto AA at that time, and those there were were almost as new as I.
And so it was to the boys I went with my hundreds of questions. And I'll never cease to be grateful to all those many, many men in AA who were so kind and helpful to me. As a woman, they treated me with all the social courtesies. Yes, I mean, I had the comfort of a chair. They lighted my cigarettes and so on. But as an alcoholic, they put me right up on the front line trenches with them. They knew that I was just as ill as they were or had been.
And they treated me as an equal. They answered my questions with sincere and honest suggestions. I'll never forget how good they were to me, and still are, I might add. The boys told me about something called the 24-hour plan. I had never even thought of trying to make one single day of my life good. Typically big shot, when I'd be in a real mess through my drinking. Well, you know the familiar last words, I'll never drink again.
We've all used them, and we mean them. But never is too long a time. It's no good for us. And so here in AA, they began to explain to me that after all, what a silly thing for me to say that I wasn't going to drink for any day but the present day. The day that was here, the day that I am alive. That is the day I'm going to ask for guidance to stay sober. They suggested to me that it was futile and very dangerous to think back over all the yesterdays and the things that I wish I could say and do so differently.
I couldn't say or do those things differently. Even yesterday, Thursday in St. Louis, is gone forever. So it left with what I only had today to really consider because that was the only period of time that I could hope to do something about my life. And then they gave me a catchphrase, which kind of suited me right down to the ground. They said, you know Marge, if you keep one eye on yesterday and the other eye on tomorrow,
[00:25:06]
you're going to be cockeyed today. It made sense. It was a catchphrase. It stuck with me. Sometimes when I'm a little off the 24-hour plan, I repeat it to myself and give myself a mental boop. That was the plan, the 24-hour plan that made it possible for me to attempt AA. Am I going too long? Then they talked about something called the 12 steps. And as I read through the 12 steps, I remember looking up and saying, why those are magnificent and they're so easy.
Well, as time was to go along, I changed one part of my wording in expressing what I thought of the 12 steps. I still think they're magnificent. I think they are the most challenging thing that will ever come into the life of an alcoholic. They're ready and made for us. They contain the answer for any and every problem that life could ever present to us. They are truly magnificent. But easy? I changed that one.
I think they are simple, but I don't think they're easy, not for me anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the 12 steps will be a lifetime job. I'm glad they will be that way because it will keep me, I hope, from getting complacent, from ever thinking that I have graduated from the 12 steps or from the fellowship of AA. The steps revived again for me some thinking about a power greater than myself. I had always believed in a power greater than myself, whom I called God.
I had tried to use Him in my drinking days. But the way I tried to use Him was to bargain with Him. And I never upheld my part of the bargain. God did His part so many, many times. And I think I had never thought of a power greater than myself as being quite as personal a help as I am taught to seek in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that has been very comforting to find that my conception of God is a personal God who is ever with me, right here now, for goodness sakes, because I wouldn't be able to open my mouth.
I wouldn't even be sober if that were not so. And then I found something that startled me quite a bit. I found out that even though I should stop drinking, that the big job was still to be done. And I didn't know there was anything wrong with me other than that I drank too much and got drunk. And on the contrary, I was to discover that it was because there was so much wrong with me that I did seek to run away from myself.
I was emotionally immature. I was riddled with character defects. And these things I found out in step four, where it suggests we take a searching and fearless moral inventory. It was an awful shock what I found out in that step, but it was most necessary because there was the problem. There was the job that I had to tackle. Well, the way we started on the steps, the 24-hour plan to help us along, I've tried to do the best I can on the steps.
It hasn't always been very successful. I haven't even always tried my best, but I've tried some each 24 hours. It has taken quite a bit of self-discipline. Starting with getting the meetings on time, believe it or not, that's one of the first things I've grabbed onto. All of the self-discipline that I have tried to practice has been good for me. I have not been successful every time I've tried. I have found so much more in AA than I came for.
To me now, just physical sobriety wouldn't be enough. To me, the word sobriety means sobriety of the whole man or woman. Physical sobriety, of course, yes. But sobriety of the head and the heart and the soul. And that is what is waiting for each of us in AA. A way of life which includes physical sobriety. I thank all of you this morning for contributing to my personal sobriety. Those of you who were here so loud in the fellowship before I came along and who kept the light on,
[00:30:01]
Those of you who have come since I myself came, for helping us keep AA alive, for the thousands who are still to come to us, and most of all, this morning, I am most grateful to Almighty God for His grace in allowing me to participate in this wonderful adventure of the spirit, Alcoholics Anonymous. Thank you. And now I want to introduce to you Charles S. of Baltimore, Maryland, who had his last drink on January 9th, 1949. Charlie?
Thank you. My name is Charlie Stork, and I'm an alcoholic. And that's why I'm here, because I want to be comfortably sober. And that's an expression that just doesn't make sense to we who drank liquor compulsively for so long. To be comfortably sober, that didn't add up. Well, we may have had long periods of sobriety, such as two or three days, but it was miserable. You know, that time from Monday to Wednesday when you're trying to get yourself in shape again to run the universe?
And then when Thursday comes around, you know you have run it correctly, and you are entitled to drink come Friday night. So when I say I'm here because I want to be comfortably sober, boy, I mean every word of it. And I am comfortably sober this morning, and I'm glad I know that I made a very small contribution to the success of my sobriety. There are so many contributing factors, starting with my wife, down to the very people that are in this room this morning who have made it possible for me to continue my sobriety and share in the dividend that you've given me the opportunity to talk to you this morning.
I have a number of friends in Baltimore who are out in the audience this morning. I'm going to ask if they'll assist me to be a little bit more comfortable. And starting from a red shirt out there down to a jewel on my right, who we have adopted in Baltimore. Will you, Baltimore, stand and be recognized, please? I needed that to swallow the second time. Thank you so much. You know, this open meeting is something that I'm grateful to share in.
There are several types of meetings in Alcoholics Anonymous, the closed meeting for the alcoholic only, and the meeting that we share with the general public who have made it possible to be accepted the way we are. And I'd like to quote you from an opinion of Baltimore area, what Alcoholics Anonymous really is to us, or most of us. AA stands for Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's a group of people for whom alcohol has become a major problem and who have banded together in sincere effort to help themselves and other problem wreckers recover their health and maintain sobriety.
There are many definitions of alcoholic. So for brevity, we think of an alcoholic as one whose life has become unmanageable to any degree due to the use of alcohol. We at Alcoholics Anonymous believe the alcoholic is suffering from a disease for which no cure has yet been found. Now, we don't profess any curative powers, but our fellowship has formulated a plan to arrest this disease known as alcoholism.
The membership doesn't require any dues or fees. But we believe a sincere desire on the part of the individual to maintain total abstinence is necessary. Alcoholics Anonymous does not perform miracles. We believe that that power rests only in God. And we don't have any particular creed or religion in AA. We do believe, however, that an appeal for help to one's own interpretation of God is indispensable to a satisfactory adjustment of our problems.
Alcoholics Anonymous is not a prohibition or a temperance movement in any sense of the word. Neither are we concerned with the controlled liquor. We at AA primarily strive to help the alcoholics. And from the vast experience of our many members, we have learned through their experiences that attempts for us to control our drinking will inevitably fail when we take that first drink.
[00:35:06]
We attempt to follow a very comfortable program. And we attempt to apply the chief objective, sobriety for ourselves and help for the other alcoholics who desire it. Make amends for past wrongs. Pray for humility, honesty, tolerance, and spiritual growth. And most of all, like this meeting this morning, we welcome and appreciate the cooperation of the medical profession, the clergy, but the public in general.
That's why I am grateful to you non-alcoholics who have been tolerant of our intolerance. I started drinking liquor in my 21st year. The reason for that is because God designed it that way. I was raised around a home that was liquorless to boo in all of its forms. But even as a little child, when Christmas time came around and I'd go around the other houses, the boys' houses where they had wine on the table and eggnog in the bowl, it intrigued me.
The odor fascinated me. The nutmeg on the top of the milk drew me. And I picked up many, many wine glasses and smelled them. I wanted to drink liquor in my early teens. But because I had been given a little white pin in Sunday school that I wouldn't take a drink of liquor or alcoholic beverage of any type until I was 21, I was determined to live up to that. But like all alcoholics, I believe I failed in my first sincere attempt to show this world I could do something alone.
I remember as vividly as if it were this moment my first drink. The little town called Westminster in the western part of Maryland. It was in the Roaring Twenties when it was smart to know Joe because John sent you. Prohibition era was there. So I pitched in with a group of fellows without any resistance at all one night, and we got ten gallons of Apple Jacks. And when we divvied it up and I got my share, I couldn't wait until I took my first drink.
And when I took my first drink, I loved every tingling sensation of it. I loved the odor, I loved the taste, but I loved the effect. And from that first drink, I drank three before anyone took their second. And when the rest of the fellows went to bed that night, I had to sit on the edge of the bed and drink and drink and drink until I got drunk. And the next morning I was so amazed that I had been drunk and had gotten over it so quickly that I cursed the world for making me the timid individual I had been for 21 years, or almost 21 years.
And I couldn't wait until I got back that night to try it all over again. And believe me, I did. And my drinking was that way from beginning to end. There were a few years of happiness, happy drunk. Because I never controlled my drinking, I controlled my drunks. Useless with me, the physical stamina to accept the tearing down processes of this disease stayed by me for a few years. But sooner or later, like all of us, that morning drink came by.
And it happened on a weekend party in Philadelphia. When I was shaking so bad, I didn't want anybody to see how bad I was shaking. But when it revealed itself, the host said, Storky, what you need is another drink. And I thought, oh no, not that, because that would be giving away my weakness. But believe me, I submitted, and what a revelation that was. So 1933 until 1949, I helped to open the gin mills in Baltimore.
I was born and raised in Baltimore, but as fate would have it, I transferred to the eastern shore of Maryland. Maryland is a state separated by the Chesapeake Bay, and those who live on the eastern shore refer to it as the garden spot of the world. And on my father's side, they were born and raised in Kent County, on the eastern shore of Maryland. And I migrated over to Kent County in the 30s, and I stayed there until 1941 when I came back to Baltimore.
[00:40:01]
And why I mention that is because you hear the remarks, high-bottom drunk and low-bottom drunk. I'm glad I experienced both sensations. To me, the difference is just the resistance against standing up and falling down. And over in Kent County, long before I got married, it made no difference where I got drunk or how I got drunk or who saw me drunk, because I had no incentive to hide my drunk. And invariably on Saturday nights when the boat from Baltimore would arrive at Betterton and all of the excursionists would be dressed up and coming down the wharf to their respective cottages, Storky would be plastered in the town square.
The closest lockup to Betterton is in Chestertown, about 19 miles away. There was a consistent weekend border in Chestertown. And I resented the fact that Sheriff Vickers would have one of his deputies take me in long before I got out of control, and then on a Sunday morning not have me charged with anything at all. I would demand my rights as a citizen to know why they locked me up, and all they'd say, Storky, go home.
That's why today I'm grateful to you non-alcoholics who have accepted us as we really are. Fortunately, I met my wife on the eastern shore of Maryland, and we were married in 1941. I was successfully in keeping from her the type of a drunk that I was. She knew I drank too much too often and got out of control entirely too many times, but I could always blame it on the work, the responsibilities that were being piled upon me.
So I married a girl who had been born and raised on a farm. I brought her to Baltimore. I put her in an apartment and then left her so I could be in the gin mill every night and every morning. Now, I like to refer to my drinking in my eight years of married life as high-bottom drinking, because I was a filthy drunk before I got married, and I just cleaned the outside after I got married. I don't think there's anything more disgusting than to be plastered sitting in a comfortable chair and everybody around you thinks that you've just had one or two drinks, and you're too drunk to walk across the room to serve another drink to somebody else.
And if you don't think that's worse than falling down, try it sometime. Believe me, when you have to put on an act and you're not capable of setting the stage, it's remorse in itself that tops any granite curb you may have your head on. I wouldn't want to live through another eight years of torment in comparison to the 12 years of gutter bum that I was. On January the 9th of 1949, I had reached a point where I couldn't go any farther alone.
I was scared. I was a baby, and I knew it. And I could see what little left was rapidly leaving me. That morning I opened the gin mill in Hamilton, and I couldn't get to work because the pick-me-ups weren't coming fast enough. They were letting me down. I couldn't get drunk, and I couldn't get sober. So I commuted from the gin mill that morning to the movies all day long. Two shots and then sleep it off, and then back to the gin mill.
But here's where I think God stepped in at that very moment. Because the eight years that I drank liquor while I was married, my wife never came after me or inquired about where I was. But this one morning she knew I was sicker than usual, even though I was dressed up on my way to work. And she came down to that gin mill trying to find me. And I was on one of my commuting trips, as I said, to the movies, and she waited until I got back.
But in the process I had gone up to my car to go to sleep, trying to sleep it off. And when I heard the tap on the window, my wife was at the door. Now here is the second miracle, or coincidence upon coincidence. Ordinarily I would have heard something like this, Storky, what are you doing? Are you losing your mind completely? Are you losing your mind completely? What in the world are you thinking of? Why do you do things like this to me? Why do you do things like this to yourself? Not a word like that.
[00:45:08]
No, on her face was an expression of pity, and also of defeat. She looked at me just as much as to say, I have helped you all I can, and I don't know what to do about you or me, but I'll go down as deep as you want to go. You know, things and expressions like that dig into us drunks who have told our wives many, many times, why don't you leave me and go back with your people where you belong? You know I'm no good. Let me drink the way I want to. I can't stop it. How many of us have cringingly cried like that? That's the expression I saw.
And the other thing that I saw was, the many times I have told her to go home, I suddenly realized that the home she wants is still with me. So we waited in the car until I was capable of driving a block and a half home. Now my wife had seen a movie, A March of Time, talking about depicting an AA meeting. She had read AA literature and had it in the house. I had never heard the expression Alcoholics Anonymous to my knowledge until that Monday of January the 9th, 1949.
And while I sat in my living room, Lib said to me, would you like to try Alcoholics Anonymous? And I said, Lib, I'd like to try anything. And I meant it. And right here and now, folks, I'd like to say that is when I had my spiritual awakening. It's best for me. You can use it as you please. How could I have drunk liquor for so many years and suddenly got smart by myself so quick? It don't happen that way. I wasn't that clever. I was made to be what I am, and I said what I was told to say. Yes, I'll try anything.
And while I sat there waiting for another Charlie to come, I didn't know his name was Charlie, I went through a thousand mixed emotions. What are you going to do? Who are you going to talk to? How are you going to fill up the time that you've been spending in these gin mills? What are you going to do about that last drink that's in the icebox? And when my sponsor came and told me his story, I felt like a piper. Weaker and weaker I became, and more considerate I became of the man who was talking to me. And the more considerate I became of me as I am, I suddenly could see myself as I really was.
But again, mixed emotions was tearing me apart. And as he talked into the second hour, I said, Charlie, could I get you a Coca-Cola? I need a drink of nerve medicine. He said, you certainly can get me a Coca-Cola and you can take a drink of liquor if you want it. And I did. I know when my last drink was. I know what it was. I'm not bragging or confessing, it was car stares and a hopeless feel still stay up in Greenland.
That was my last drink, thank God. I came into AA wonderfully sponsored, and I was carried around by a group of people who gave me the activity I really needed. Meetings upon meetings, a program of action would take it easy. And I blended in to a way of life I hope I may never leave. All of our troubles over when we sober up? No. But most of them we manufacture ourselves and we develop the small ones into large ones.
I came into a group in Baltimore known as the Hamilton Group, and they favored me with office upon office, emptying the ashtrays, from being the chairman to being the secretary. I don't know what particular cycle it was, whether I was the chairman then or the secretary, but I was running things, I'll assure you. And things were not going to suit me. I brought one fellow there one Friday night, and I knew the speakers that had talked that night were not good for him. And I couldn't wait until that meeting was over to tell him about it. And as the meeting progressed into its conclusion, I couldn't get nerve enough to tell these people off.
[00:50:08]
So I picked up ashtrays and I made myself generally annoying. And on the way home I was firmly convinced I wasn't going to speak to my wife, and I didn't. I don't know what happened there that night to upset me so, but it was so trivial that I can't remember. But at the time it was the most important thing in my life, and that group was going to pieces because they weren't listening to me. And they were going to drive a new man away if they allowed these people to talk like that without being first screened. See? I had all the rules and regulations in the book. I had set a set of standards that even I couldn't live up to. And I was mad about it too.
So I went home, and I didn't speak to my wife. And we went to bed. I slept on another bed. I wouldn't say goodnight to her. Come Saturday morning I can get my own breakfast. I don't need any help from you at all. So I got up and I went out to the icebox, and I only wanted a three-minute soft-boiled egg, and any stew-bum can do that. So I dropped it in the water and I heated it. And when I opened it, it was hard. So I didn't say anything about that. I threw it away. She can't hear me anyhow. I'll get another one.
And this time I made sure the water was hot before I put the egg in it. And then I got the little sand glass and I turned it over. And just as the sand started down, I dropped the egg in real quick. And when it got down to three minutes, I turned it up and picked the egg out and took it out. It was hard again. Twice. So I went into it a third time, but this time I was going to do it scientifically. Maybe I was using the wrong kind of a pan, aluminum. So I'll get one of these earthenwares. And I got an earthenware pan and I put the proper amount of water in it, and this time I let the water and the egg come to the proper boil. And I took them out. And it was hard. And so was I.
So I went into this woman and I buried my pride and humility and talked to her. I said, Liv, what in the world are you doing and where are you buying these eggs that upset me this way? And she says, what eggs? I said, I have been trying for three times to soft boil an egg that you've had on the top tray there that I know you've placed there for me. She says, I did not. I hard boiled those eggs for salad.
Folks, I'd like to leave you this humorous note. If you don't get anything else out of this meeting, remember, you can't soft boil a hard boiled egg. And now I want to introduce your third speaker, Carl W. of Texas City, Texas, who had his last drink on September 12, 1942. Carl? Thank you, Augie. My name is Carl Wright. I'm an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the help from the AA Way of Life and the people in it, I've been sober for 12 years and 9 months and 18 days.
I don't introduce myself in that manner to brag on that period of sobriety because I was drunk longer than that. I don't do it to impress people because I found out a long time ago that I'm not too impressive. But I learned how to introduce myself that way when I came into AA and I managed to stay sober, so I keep doing it. Some people will hear my story and get mad and say, if that joker can do it, I can.
Some of them will admire me for it. Some of them don't give a damn, but if it helps them to stay sober, I don't care. I read one time how to be a successful speaker, and I always try to use what I read. The first thing that they stipulated in that instruction was that you should know your subject. So I stick strictly to alcoholism and alcoholics and Carl Wright in particular because I know that subject better than anyone.
[00:55:04]
The second stipulation was that you should tell a funny story to get your audience in the proper mood. This is not George Washington's birthday, but I heard a good one on his birthday. It seems that this family was living out in the country, and they had this farm on the bank of the river, and they had the outhouse right on the edge of this river. The boy of the family was quite playful, and he didn't have anything else to do, so he pushed that off in the river. That afternoon, his father called him and said, son, did you push the outhouse off the bank this morning?
He said, father, it's George Washington's birthday. I won't tell a lie. Yes, I did. So he took him in the woodshed and beat hell out of him. The boy said, father, George Washington told the truth about chopping the cherry tree down, and his father didn't whip him. He said, son, George Washington wasn't in that cherry tree. The last stipulation was very emphatic that you should not tell your audience that you wasn't an accomplished speaker, because they'd soon find that out soon enough.
About the only thing that I can set myself up as being an alcoholic synonymous is as an example for those people who feel absolutely useless. I started drinking when I was quite young, and I never did amass anything. I'm not one of these people that drank up a fortune because I always got drunk before I accumulated anything. I saw the train coming up here this morning. Incidentally, the reason that I'm late is because the train was late. I just got off the train and came over here immediately. I should have known better than to trust them passenger trains anyway. I never did like to ride a passenger train. If that would have been a freight, I'd have known when it was going to get here.
It was, I think, the second time that I'd ever paid fare on a train. I rode a train during the war because that was the only way I could get to where I wanted to go. I paid fare then in 1944, and I did again last night. I hope that if there's a car dealer in the audience, if you'll contact me after this meeting, I'll try to buy my transportation back if I'm in the car business. To get back to the utter futility of my life before I found AA, I came from a broken home. I can find innumerable excuses for turning out as sorry as I did, but alcohol was the main one, it seemed like.
It seemed like I was always getting messed up. I even got kicked out of high school just before graduation because I got drunk. It was just one thing after another. I've been in on the ground floor more organizations than anybody but a janitor. I just never did work off the ground floor. I always got messed up and got run off. Just here recently, I figured out that the reason I went into construction work was because I was an alcoholic. I didn't drink because I was an iron worker and a hard rock miner. I did those jobs because I could do them and drink. I was sort of expected to drink.
By the time I was 21 years old, I had made my quota of the jails and I had messed up in several different states. I had lied to so many people and lost track of them that I had to move. I used to have a bad habit of telling people how tough I was. I'd get drunk and go to jail. Tough I was, and I'd get drunk and try to prove it, and I never did win that way either. And I got married when I was 21, and my wife put up with it for four years, I don't know how, but she did, and she gave up, told me that she didn't ever want to see me again, and so I moved again to accommodate her.
[01:00:13]
And on my way between jobs, the Jack Alexander article in the Saturday Evening Post was brought to my attention, and in there it mentioned that there was a group of alcoholics anonymous in Houston. And it didn't make too much difference to me which way I went because the freight trains went all directions, and so I caught one and went to Houston. That was the first of February of 1941, and after I got there I got to thinking about it, and maybe that AA would sober me up, so I didn't look him up.
I dodged AA for 18 months very successfully. I couldn't imagine a life without alcohol. I had had no experience outside of a few enforced periods of sobriety where I had lived without alcohol. And as soon as I got out of those places, the first thing I did was get drunk. But it was getting worse and worse, and I had reached the point where my immediate family wouldn't let me around the place, and all of those other kinfolks that were willing to call on for help, the ones that saw me, they told me they didn't want me to come back, and the ones that didn't see me, they said word they didn't want me to come back.
And so I was just out of places to go and out of things to do, and I was getting a little worse as time progressed. And so I started winding up in the emergency ward at Jeff Davis Hospital there in Houston, and they had a young doctor in charge of that ward who prided himself on his knowledge, and he looked me over and examined me pretty thoroughly, and he told me I was too young to be an alcoholic.
At that time I was about 27 years old, so I thought I'd go ahead and drink a while. And on my next drunk, I wound up where they have a pea farm down there in Harris County where they send these drunks, and they go out and they gather these vegetables up and they plant them, just depending on what time of the year you get out there, what phase of the farming operation you participate in. I had helped them make a few crops prior to that time, and the captain was pretty good to me, letting me get around pretty freely.
And on this pea farm there were a couple, I think it still happens, every once in a while one of them gets drunk and gets picked up, but at that time there was two of them out on this pea farm for being drunk. So I told them how I drank, and we got to talking. Of course, they were sober. They'd been there longer than I had, and they agreed with me that maybe I did need to do something about my drinking, and they provided me with an address.
Any of you who were sober that long ago and there was only one group in your town can remember that that anonymous meant a whole lot then. They were so damn anonymous that you couldn't find them very easily. But while I was out there, I was only pulling ten days, and one of these boys had been out there quite frequently, and he had sixty days to do them. He had pulled twenty-four of them, and one of the members, I think his sponsor and the fellow who eventually became my sponsor, came out and got him off of that pea farm.
And it was getting to the point where I was getting out there so often, I figured if I could get in an organization that had people in it that would come out there and get you off before you pulled half your time, that I might better join it. Of course, when I got back to town, I was thoroughly sober, and I didn't need any aid at that time, so I had to get drunk again. But as the speaker before me said there, that drunk didn't work right. I didn't get the relief from this remorse that I had been having all these years.
For some reason or other, I couldn't convince that conscience of mine that I was a hopeless case because I had seen other people and talked to people who had stayed sober voluntarily for varying periods of time, and so I had to give it a try.
[01:05:16]
The thing that I say that this higher power of God watches over me, it happened to be on the 4th of July, a holiday, and it was Saturday, and the places of business were all closed. When I went to look up these addresses, I run into the fellow who was my sponsor. He had gone up to his office after some papers, and just for a few minutes, if I had been there at any other time during that day, he wouldn't have been there, and God knows where I'd be.
But when I told him I wanted to talk to him, he asked me what it was about, and he could tell what it was about because I was a wino and I think, and I am sure that he could spell me because I could, and I was used to it. He asked me if I wanted to quit drinking, and I said yes, which was, I think, a lie. And he asked me if I believed that a higher power would help me quit drinking, and I said yes, which I believe was a lie.
But I would have answered anything that he asked me in whatever manner I thought he wanted me to ask, because a lie never did bother me very much, and I had reached the stage where I had nothing left but an animal instinct to live. I didn't have any power of coherent thought. I didn't have sense enough to know what I wanted or how to go about getting it. I just knew that I was dying and it was too painful a process, and I wanted to change it.
So he took me to this group in Houston. Unfortunately, there was a bed available, and they put me in that bed. We didn't have hospitalization facilities, and there was only one doctor in town who would prescribe sedation to help us get over these drunks, and he was on a vacation, so I had to shake it out. One of the members, I don't remember which one, I've always wondered who it was, went out and got me a bottle of Dr. Miles Nervine, and I took that. It said take a tablespoon full every three hours, but that didn't work. I had a pretty good-sized bottle, and I drank it during that night and lived.
And they offered me a drink because I was a sick individual. I didn't do my drinking periodically, and I didn't do it in moderation. I drank all I could get, when I could get it, because it was hard for a guy in my shape to get very much of it, and whenever it was available, I drank it before somebody else could get it. So, I had quite a bit of supervision there. We only had about twelve or fifteen members in that group, and about six, eight, maybe ten of them lived in that hotel. We had our club room downstairs, and at that time, I was, of course, the newest member in the group, and as such, merited quite a bit of attention.
And also, I was the youngest person who had come into AA in Houston up to that time, so I was doubly important to that group. I still remember the resentment I felt when a new member came in who was about a month younger than I was. I wasn't quite big enough yet to withstand all that withdrawal of attention, so I got drunk. I can remember yet, not with pride, but I do remember that I was hoping he'd get drunk so I'd be the most important again. Instead, I got drunk.
Again, I didn't do any different than I had done before. I got drunk and I stayed drunk, just as long as the money held out and the credit held out, which wasn't very long because my credit never did go very far. And all those people in that group didn't fuss at me. They didn't hog-tie me and pour raw eggs down my throat or anything. The only thing that they did was ask me if I was ready to quit, and I'd say no, and they'd say, well, when you get ready, call me.
[01:10:19]
Well, to make a long story short, I got ready in about six weeks, and I called them. I came back into AA still without much hope that God was going to help me or that the spiritual angle was going to be for me, but I knew that I had to stay sober, so I made up my mind I was going to stay sober anyhow, whether God had anything to do with it or not. And about 75 days after I sobered up, they elected me to the steering committee. That was against group traditions. We had a tradition of 90 days to Bridey before you could serve on that committee, and they waived that and set me up for 75 days, I think primarily because there wasn't anybody else sober who hadn't already served on it.
And I served on that committee faithfully for 90 days, and we haven't had a meeting yet, but the sense of importance that I got from that in some way pulled me over the hill. I went for a longer period than I like to think about or like to talk about before I had anything like a spiritual awakening. The only thing that I learned was that by attending AA meetings and doing all that I could, I used that AA as being always available, and I still work it on that basis.
And that, in some manner, and of course because God had chosen me to stay sober, I stayed sober until I went in the service, and I spent 17 months stateside and 16 months over in the Highlands without very much serenity, but the higher power was with me. I talked to him every night. I asked him to make me a corporal and to do this and do that. I was talking to him all the time, and I guess he just knew that I meant well and let it go at that before I wasn't doing very good.
I didn't have any serenity, and the people that I worked with said that I was about the most capable craftsman that they knew and about the hardest one to get along with, about the meanest one to work with, but I did stay sober and come back and again got very active in AA, and that is about all I learned. I don't know yet what it is that I seek at these meetings or what it is that I get. I don't know too much about what to say to a person except to tell them how it's affected me, and that the only way I know to stay sober is just keep going to meetings and have a little faith after you get sense enough to have faith, and until you do get that sense to have faith in your sponsor.
And that is all that I know of that keeps you sober. It's all that I have had to fall back on. I haven't had any resurgence in wanting to go to church or anything. I did get bothered here about six, eight months ago. Somebody told me I ought to go to church and supplement my AA work, and I felt like that I had turned my will and my life over to the care of God, and if he wanted me in church, he'd tell me about it.
But anyway, I figured maybe these people were delegates of his, so I went to church this Sunday, and the first thing the preacher said was that each one of us should stick to the thing that we can do best to carry God's work forward, and I think that was my answer because I am eminently qualified to talk to an alcoholic. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. Shortly after I came into AA, I discovered that the most unexplored region in the world was right under my hat.
I was one of those fellows who, when I came to AA, I didn't know what I was doing. And at the end of that time, I began to get real serious about everything.
[01:15:01]
And, uh, one night, uh, having dinner with my sponsor and, uh, a few other AA's in Chicago, he gave me a little card, uh, with a folder, uh, looked like a little pamphlet. And I opened it up and on the inside, in big bold letters, uh, was just one sentence. Don't take yourself too damn seriously. And he smiled and I smiled and I, he said some of the fellows in AA had gotten the card out. And I immediately thought of about ten guys who, uh, ought to have this card.
Uh, so I asked him, could I keep it? And I can remember mulling over in my mind which of the ten or so fellows that I was going to give this card to and which one needed it the most. As was my habit, I put it in my pocket and then in the evening, uh, before going to bed, I sorted out different notes I had collected during the day and out came this card. And belatedly, it had dawned on me that my sponsor had given the card to me.
I also had the habit, uh, of going down to, uh, after I came home, uh, my home being in Milwaukee, for which I can never really, when I think about it, feel grateful enough to AA because before I came to AA, I didn't belong anywhere. I didn't belong to my family. I really had no home. Uh, I had no purpose and I was disorganized in every possible conceivable way as I look back at it. I've learned since I've come into AA that of and by myself, my life means nothing.
And that my life gained meaning only in its relatedness to others. But I had gone down to the Chicago meeting, uh, because it was where I had come in, and the following morning, my wife said, well, uh, we were having breakfast and she said, how was the meeting? I said, it was wonderful. She said, well, what'd they say? Well, I said, uh, one speaker, uh, said that there were, uh, 4,000 AAs in the group in Chicago and, uh, um, about 85,000 AAs around the world.
And she said, well, I don't get it. Well, I said, uh, it's simple. I said, when I came in, there were 2,000 in Chicago and 40,000 all over the world. Uh, you see, I said, now I'm in the upper half. Oh, she said, and she came over and she tapped me on the head. She said, uh, just so you don't go up to becoming an alumnus. And, uh, I found my wife has been, uh, unusually useful in, uh, little things like that when I'm well off the track.
I can say that my only hope is to continue to live in grateful contemplation of a loving God who presides over us all. And now I'll turn the meeting back to Pete. This has been a most unusual meeting. I thought, oh, he was going to make a speech. Uh, we started out here with a handful of people. Nobody knew what the dickens we were doing. Carl's train was late. We didn't know whether he'd get here or not.
Now we've, uh, got a swell crowd. We've had a mighty fine meeting. Charlie seemed to have gotten considerable inspiration from his Baltimore buddy standing up and supporting him. I wonder how many members of the 13th Tradition Committee and the Fourth Legacy Panel are present. Would you stand up? That's it. Thank you, my friends. All gave it whispered to me. Now you're going to have to say a few words, and you're going to have to sum up what the speaker said.
Don't get worried. This meeting's fixed and comes to an end. I was sitting right here on dead center, and I couldn't hear a word. If you, one reason I look so blank and dumb, I'll tell you one reason. Because I couldn't understand anybody.
[01:20:01]
I regret this thing. I didn't get to hear these fine talks. But I could hear Carl Wright very well, but for one reason. He's got such a damn drawl that I couldn't understand it. I believe we read the announcements. It's been a pleasure, and it's been an honor for me to be here, I can assure you. If there's nothing further, I suppose we all stand. Our next meeting is 2.30. Our next meeting hour. Suppose we all stand and dismiss in our usual manner.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.