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Source: 1955 St. Louis International Convention – 1955 St. Louis open meeting Joe D. of Brooklyn.mp3 File: 1955-st-louis-international-convention-1955-st-louis-open-meeting-joe-d-of-brooklyn.mp3 Duration: 00:31:41
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Now we come to the last speaker this morning at the AA Open Meeting. I'm very pleased to tell you that Joe is here from a comparatively unknown city in the east. I think they call it Brooklyn, and I think he has a few of his fans here this morning. Joe has been a member of AA for a long, long time. He told me as we came in this big hall this morning, Joe looked at this big stage, this sea of faces, the balconies.
He says, you know, this is a big place, all right, but there's just one redeeming feature that we're not in that convention hall next door. It's a real pleasure to introduce Joe Duffy of Brooklyn. Thank you, Joe. My name is Joe Duffy, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm from the Brooklyn group of Brooklyn, New York. Our leader said I was a member of AA a long, long time, and I was surprised after listening to the speakers.
For seven and a half years, I am the baby of this group, but I can assure you that I'm a better baby than I was a man. I, too, like Dolly, have my sponsor in the audience and also the man that I consider my daddy in AA. I never had the pleasure of speaking before an audience such as this, and I can remember my first talk in AA simply because I didn't want to talk. I was president of our Russian society of our church in our parish, and through the excessive use of alcohol, I withdrew from people, and I never called a meeting for a whole year because I didn't want to face people.
And lastly, that was with me when I came into AA. So my speakers kept asking me to talk, so finally I said, what have I got to talk about, John? Outside all my drinking was around my business. I happened to be a funeral director, and that's some business, the drinking. So I used to talk about one of myself, about my business, about an old Irishman in the neighborhood by the cemetery who the two sons couldn't get to stop drinking, so they thought that they would scare him and throw him into an open grave.
So they tried it on a Sunday night, and when he woke up Monday morning at this hangover, he looked around, and he'd seen these familiar headstones, and he about knew where he was. So he looked into the open grave, and he said, if I'm alive, what am I doing here? And if I'm dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom? I came from a family who had my brother, Jim, raised south in the neighborhood. We're still in this neighborhood.
We've been in it in the voting district over a hundred years. He raised himself in it, did a nice business in it, but he lost it and died an alcoholic.
[00:05:01]
And at the age of 17, he was then very active. At my age of 17, Jim was very active. And I had to go in the business, and they put a high hat on me at 17, directing funerals. And it's needless to say that the business ran down. It ran down for six calls in one year. He lost everything. I think that I had a good father, and I took a hold of it. At the age of 20, I had my own shop. Being that my brother was a drinker, I thought it was necessary to drink in my business.
And that I continued to do. And I'd done a pretty good job with it. I drank around the clock at any hour, but I always managed never to go on a call with drink, nor with the sign of drink. And my drinking I did after services. And I raised that business up from six calls to 317 in one year. I joined everything and anything that I could meet people. In fact, I was the only Irishman in a German singing society.
I was my drinking until it came the day that things that I took pride in started to happen to me. I started to show on call drinking. I started to meet families with the sign of drink on me. And it's needless to say that I didn't like it. They say that this is a progressive and an insidious disease. Our case histories prove it. Some of us don't have to go all the way down. I know I, for one, didn't financially.
But this thing had such a hold on me, I didn't realize it. And at the age of about 33, it had taken over of where I put it first. I put it before the business that I liked. I put it before my family and my children. And I went through three years of without keeping a record. And that's when I like to think when I cross this so-called imaginary line that we speak of in AA. I was a fortunate alcoholic in this respect that I had a phobia against owing money.
When I got paid for the work that I did, I would pay my bill. But what was left, I would spend. And I like to say now that we as alcoholics don't spend money. We throw it away. After this three years, by now my wife had left me. And I stopped drinking. She could not put up with me. And the help that I had, the older help, the same thing prevailed. They couldn't put up with me. My daddy tells me I was a cutie.
[00:10:02]
I hired young help, real young, that could go two and three and four days with me without going to bed while I drank. But the very thing that I built up, I now seem starting to fall down. People were saying, Joe is a nice fellow, but I'd like to have Joe, but he's no longer reliable. Joe needs to take people out of their difficulty. But now you are putting them into it. Why don't you go away? I didn't want to go away.
I was afraid that I was crazy. I settled that I was nuts. Because I could run a business, I could make a dollar, but I couldn't drink. There must be something wrong with me. So going away to me wasn't the answer, I was afraid. All the things that we alcoholics get had already been in to me. These fears that we speak of, I was full of. So I wouldn't go. So finally, I gave in to Father Riley, and I went away to a health farm.
And that's why we're so fortunate in A.A. to know through our stories from this platform that we can't lick it. Because if ever a guy tried to lick it, I did. Nobody was going to take that right away from me. After going to Brown, I enjoyed three months period for sobriety. I could get up to Brown, and I could get through that walking exercises and the rub downs and the massages and all this business, and I felt like a million dollars.
When I come out of there, I felt, well, I don't want to bother drinking now, later on. But that three months, I couldn't get over it. I had to drink. After two years of going to Brown, one of the things set into my mind again was that my drinking was caused by the cost of my lack of education. Because up at Brown, you met nothing but college graduates, all the big money people of the country, and I was just plain Joe.
And I said, I guess that's the reason I couldn't drink, I lacked education. And I settled that in my mind, and it took A.A. to get it out. Because I accepted this thing as a school. And I'll never forget the night I sat at the meeting when I said that to myself. I said, you blame your lack of education on your drinking. Accept this thing as a school if it's so confusing to you. And go eight years to grammar school, go four years to high school, go four years to college, take a post-graduate course, and by then you'll be dead.
And at least you'll die sober. See, that's the funny thing is they die sober. You know, we won't convince ourselves we're an alcoholic. No. Me, I handle more debt certificates. I wasn't that. Chronic alcoholism. Acute alcoholism. Dementia, peacocks, pseudo-alcoholism. But that wasn't me. That was the poor guy. It could not penetrate this brain that I had trouble with liquor. So I went five years to Bill Brown.
And I made 25th there. And in these three months here at the sobriety, was the first time I learned that I was making money.
[00:15:07]
Because I was saving money when I was sober. We kind of tightened up after we got sober. And I was catching this money away, you know. And when a few months had come up, I'd have it in a safe deposit box. Getting drunk, I'd go up and I'd get it. And as I said before, we don't spend it, we throw it away. Whatever was there, went. I got wise to that after a while, and when I was drunk, it should come on me.
So I'd go down in the cellar, and I'd take the key to the safe deposit box. I'd be half drunk, knowing that I'd go up to that safe deposit box. And knowing I didn't want to, that I'd get rid of that cell, I just stood down in the cellar, and I'd pass drunk, trying to chew around and turning it around and emptying it. And I couldn't find it then, until I got sober. And that cellar never got such a nice cleaning, I can assure you that.
So after these five years at Bill Brown, I kind of sensed that I did have a problem. Here I was on the way back, doing nice, and in these times of sobriety, it was, good morning, Mr. Duffy. You look good, Mr. Duffy. I liked that, you know. The other way, he looked a bit bummed. He wanted to go to get sober, you know. He didn't like that kind of stuff, but that's what was happening. So finally our medical examiner came in, to the city of Brooklyn, and he said, Joe, why don't you try God?
I said, what do you mean? I'm a fairly good Catholic. Oh, I don't mean it that way, he said. Give of yourself to me. Go down to the church and talk to God. It doesn't make sense to me. And I did tell the priest that worked with me seven years, who, by the way, one night put me in the hospital, and thanks to God I punched him in the nose. Those are the things we do. So he said to me, well, Joe, maybe he has something.
Get on your knees and make a promise to the fleshly mother, drop the sober, that you'll go to communion once a month. So that I did. And the third month again I went drinking. I couldn't get over that third month. Just like a lot of the guys with slips can't get over the third month, I know. So anyway, I went to confession, and he said to me, knowing you as I know you, I know that you'll go to the altar early in the morning.
I did. And from that point on, I got nine months period for sobriety. And after the ninth month, being that I hung out with drinking people, and liked drinking people, and associated with drinking people, I wanted to be with them. So the only way I could get with them was drink with them. So back again I'd go and I'd drink. After nine months. And now I had reached the stage in my drinking, in this progression, of where I was a common lucid.
I wasn't wanted. So I used to have to pay for my company. So I should accumulate a little dough in these nine months, you know. And I'd just go down on all the dives and pick up the unfortunate. Six of them, five of them, anybody would listen to my bull. Drive with me for a day, two days, three days, take them up to the country. Needless to say, when I went up, the wife had to go out. They were going to resist the drinking bar.
And I got that I didn't like that. I didn't like that. And just three years prior to coming into AA, I decided that the first drink threw me. I'm one of the ones that knew the first drink threw me. Now I said if I could stay away from the first drink, I'm married. I won't drink anymore because I want it to stop taking. So I got it into my head if I could get a year, if I could get a year, I'd be married.
[00:20:02]
And I tried awfully hard, but I couldn't get over the ninth month. I was now in the hospital stage. I was making the hospital. I was sick. I got into begging for whiskey. And I needed medication. So I seen my sponsor, who I thought would dry 18 months. He said it out of the spring. But he didn't tell me at the time because I didn't dare. But I thought he was 18. And I said, Jack, what's keeping you sober?
He's in our neighborhood. He said, Joe, I've joined AA. I said, not for me. Knowing nothing about it. But I said to him, just the fact that I can't drink there's no reason why the other fellow can't drink. He said, Joe, that's exactly how AA works. Oh, I said, they're not reforming. He said, no. I said, all right, the next time I get drunk, I'll look you up. Knowing that I was going to get drunk again.
Always afraid of that next drunk. Always afraid of it. So thank God I did. He had one awful job getting me into the hospital. And when I come out of the hospital, the day that I come out, Dr. Silkworth, who I've referred to, I've had a talk with him. And he convinced me that there was no religion in AA. That I liked. I was fighting with him. But I understood it was worse than the people I've visited in Nicobarca Hospital.
So when I went out, I said, are you sure, doctor, there's no religion in it? I don't want to get mixed up in any religion. I'm satisfied with my own religion. You can rest assured of that for the rest of your life. So in my confused mind, that night they closed the meeting which we in our business think it was the Protestant part of the Lord's Prayer. The Virginity, the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory.
And I thought, oh, a Protestant outfit. I don't belong here. So, I again closed my mind. I said, I don't belong here, but I'm going to sue us keeping these guys sober. So I went to my daddy and I said to him, how long are you sober? He said, four years. I said, no kidding, without a drink? He said, yes, without a drink. I said, how long are you sober? He said, a little over three years. I said, no kidding, without a drink?
He said, yes. How long are you sober? Three months. I said, I don't want you. I don't want you. I wanted these guys that were a year. So I stuck for a while and for 11 months, I might tell you one little part again, we don't have too much time here, but I was in five months and I got a terrific case that's what I did. I was one of, I cut off my business, I didn't want people at all as an alcoholic phenomenon.
So I respected the anonymity part. I couldn't pronounce that word, would I? Men. I respected the anonymity part of the program and I just wanted to go to my meetings and that's all, period. Although we have 17 in Brooklyn. So I get this terrific case that's what I did. And Helen said to me, Lord of Louisiana, she said, Joe, why don't you call up to sponsor what they say at these meetings? That's what I did to take the non-alcoholics to meetings.
And I said, oh, shut up, leave me alone. I'll be all right. But it didn't work that way, okay? I was still nervous. So I called up Jack and he took me to a meeting that night. But for some unknown reason, I come home feeling good. So I said, what the hell with the anonymity? If it works that way, I want it. Okay? But I did, here's what I found out. Why I drank when I didn't want to drink. It took me a little time.
It took me to go constantly to meetings. But this concrete opened up.
[00:25:00]
And finally, after taking the steps, I found out. The thing that was within me that I didn't want to admit was to look in the mirror at myself and say, Joe, is there any jealousy in you? Yes, there is. Is there any hatred in you? Yes, there is. Is there any envy in you? Yes, there is. Dishonesty? Yes. I had to tell myself. After I told myself, I told it to other people. Because I disgusted them. I brought them out into the light.
And then I was aware of them myself. And instead of them throwing me, I used them constructively. Where before they threw me, those four. Today I still have them and still the same Joe Dustin. But I know us today because I found out the meaning of shortcomings, which I didn't know, which was in our seventh step. And I heard at a meeting one night a man say the meaning of shortcomings was lack of. And I said, what do you lack, Dusty?
I lack the very teachings of my church. I lack patience. I lack charity. I always thought charity was putting your hand in your pocket and handing out some dough, getting your name on a civic list for a hundred or two hundred. That was ego. Charity is in giving of yourself. And AA offered me that opportunity without any angle. Humility, humility was simply to become teachable, to listen, to learn, not know at all, meekness and mindless.
Those are the things that I lack. AA has brought me back that today I enjoy life. The fears that I had, the greatest part of them are gone. And for one thing today, time has. I know what I'm doing. I'm not too much interested in the material things of life. I'm interested in living as they taught me, live and let live. And the feeling that I have is beautiful. I used to say when they'd say in AA, this is a beautiful life, I'd say, what's so beautiful about sitting on your chair and here for an hour?
That's what I used to say. But it opened up. And I can say to you that an alcoholic without AA is like a man without a country. Thank you. Thank you. Joe, I could, it was beautiful to sit on my can for half an hour and hear that. Lib, do you have any announcements to make? Oh, yes, I do. Do you want to, do you want to take over here? Good thing. Thank you, Oscar. I should have made these announcements at the beginning, and I'm sorry.
But perhaps there are some people here today who didn't hear them made yesterday, and we learn in AA that repetition is a good thing. So if there are any members of the press here present, we ask that they respect the anonymity of our AA speakers and do not print their name. The opinions expressed here are those of the members of the press. The opinions expressed here are, of course, the opinions of the individual and not of AA as a whole.
[00:30:02]
Luncheons and dinners will be served in cafeterias downstairs. The meals will be hot and modestly priced. Lunch counters and snack bars are open around the promenade. I'm sure you've all seen them. Tape recordings are being made of all meetings. And if any of you wish a tape recording of a meeting, will you leave your order at room, committee room B. It's marked Convention Headquarters. We want to have some idea of how many people want them before we're able to fix the price.
And now I want to thank Oscar and Neely and Ollie and Joe for this wonderful AA meeting. And will those who care to join, and we will say the Lord's Prayer together. 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. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.