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Source: 1960 Long Beach International Convention – 1960 Long Beach Int., Frank L.mp3 File: 1960-long-beach-international-convention-1960-long-beach-int-frank-l.mp3 Duration: 00:43:00
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Well, my name is Doris, and my job tonight is to introduce your very fine speakers that are to come and simply to very briefly identify myself as a number one lush. I was a sort of a playgirl drunk, and I thought I was having fun until I couldn't remember what I was doing, and then I would have told you I was still having fun. Now, I'm only going to tell you about three drinks that I remember in my life, and that'll give you a little idea. The first one was a glass of port wine urged on me by my mother, who said, a little glass of wine won't hurt you, Doris, it's cold, and I up to that time was a teetotaler, and I said, Mother, you know I don't drink, you know, she said, well, just take a little glass of port, and the poor darling would have rather cut off her right arm, I'm sure, if she'd known what was going to happen to me from that little glass of port.
It went right from my head down to the tip of my toes, and I simply loved it, and I wanted another little glass of port, and I was awfully cold the next night too, so it went on like that, and gradually from the glass of port naturally to the highballs and other type of drinks until I was getting in a little bit of trouble, but only a little bit. But then along came that night that I had that little extra slug of Canadian club, by this time I was a whiskey drinker, and a nice tall, dark, handsome man came along and said, let's run away and get married, and I said, why sure, you know, just like that. I didn't know him, it was like, have a cigarette, have a drink, let's get married, all the same.
So we do it, and it lasted all of three weeks. I dashed down to Florida to get a divorce, and I had more fun on the honeymoon than I had on the marriage, you know. I thought everybody should have a divorce, they were lots of fun. And then the last drink that I had, or rather the one that I didn't take, was toward the end when I was getting sick, getting demoted from jobs, more husbands and more messes, and this time I'd gotten terribly ill and I'd gone over to my mother's apartment to try to taper myself off, and you know what it is to taper off, you usually taper on again.
But I had my bottle with me, and mother had called a doctor, and he came in and took my bottle, and I said, oh you can't do that, you can't take that, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything, and he said, now just a minute, you're trying to use this for medicine, he said, I'm going to give you medicine to use for medicine, and he gave me some sort of a shot, having taken my bottle away from me, and I still was very doubtful about it, but he poured one great big slug of liquor in a glass for me, and he said, now if you have to take that one, take it, but try not to.
Well that did make a little bit of sense to me, put it over on the table, and I could see it there, and you know that comfortable feeling you get when you can see that there's one at least within reach if you have to have it, so I kept looking at that, and of course the medication quieted me, and I looked at it, and I thought, well I can wait a little longer, and that was it, I didn't take it. And for your own information, in case anyone's interested in statistics, I put it in a little bottle, and at the end of seven and a half years, it evaporated.
Well, I'm surrounded by Irishmen tonight, so I better not take any more of their time. I want you to meet our very first one from Alexandria, Virginia, and I just met him tonight, but he seems like a fine lush, Frank L. Hello? Well, if nothing else is different here tonight, I assure you the Irish are praying for the Irish, because Walter follows me. And as a matter of fact, I know Walter, and I've heard him speak, and we've had him in Washington, and you really don't need me here.
I'm also grateful to the committee that invited me to come here. My name is Frank. I'm a member of the Mount Vernon group of Virginia. I'm powerless over alcohol, and I've been so today. My wife, who is also an alcoholic, is with me. She was a 12-step call of mine. And she's a real cute thing, and quite a lady for a hooligan like me. But she wasn't always too cute. She was rather dirty when I met her first. And she was awful skinny. She weighed 72 pounds. But we Irish are visionaries.
[00:05:04]
And I could look with about 25 pounds on there, and a good bath, and maybe the eternal search of Frank was over. We don't have any children. God hasn't given us any. And if I did, they'd thank you. But instead, we have borrowed from St. Francis that Bill speaks about. He's a patron of mine. Three of his. Two are terriers, and one is an English bulldog. And so Slowpoke thanks you, Cricket thanks you, and Littlefella, the bulldog, he thanks you. And I thank you deeply, and I am grateful. And I hope that I'll always be more grateful than gratified when I'm asked to speak at something like this in AA.
As I said, my name was Frank, and that's all that's important. For I was taught in a group by some very old-timers what you heard tonight, that we deal here in a program of principles and not personalities. I say I'm powerless over alcohol because that's the only thing I know. I don't know what an alcoholic is. But I know it's an immutable fact in my life that I'm powerless over alcohol. And I knew it for many years before I came to AA.
And I've been sober today. And when I came, that was all I was asked to do, to stay sober one day. And so I could sit down right now, and you've heard all my life and all my future. But you know I'm not going to do that and give this other Irishman a crack at my time. And so instead I've got to speak of something. And what do you speak about at a 25th anniversary? And you think and you wonder. And if you're a drunk like I was a drunk, and if you're Irish like I'm Irish, you'll want to speak authoritatively on something. All we drunks are authorities.
And I thought that maybe I'd speak authoritatively on alcoholism. But I don't know anything about alcoholism. And as a matter of fact, I'm not too interested in it. Because my sponsor, and I'm only one drunk removed from Dr. Bob, the guy who sat down and taught me for month in and month out. Clarence S., you know him, some of you. He taught me, and he must have taught me well. Because I've been sober ever since. And he taught me only one thing, really. He taught me a program of sobriety and a program of living.
And then I thought maybe I'd talk authoritatively on the AA program and alcoholic synonyms. And if I did that before you, you'd have a fraud. But most certainly I can't do that. The only real authority I know is far above me. And then I thought maybe we'll talk authoritatively on matters of a spiritual nature. And again, I'd be a fraud. There are men trained and dedicated and educated in that field. And I know nothing about it.
And so here's all these people, and they've been good enough to invite you, Frank, across the country. And what can you talk about? There are many people who can talk authoritatively about many things. I can't.
[00:10:00]
And then a thought comes. A thought comes as God always gives you a thought to come. And I'm going to speak to you authoritatively. And I am the only authority on the face of God's green earth on this subject. No man walks the face of the earth who can speak with the authority that I have. And all I can really tell you and speak about is Frank. For you see, I'm the only one who knows me. I had an Irish grandfather, and he taught me something I've kept all my life, and it's held me in good stead in AA even. And as I was introduced, surely the good lady knows little about me.
And some other people know something about me. And my Irish grandfather told me, remember what the world knows of you is your reputation. It is not important. What God knows of you is your character. It is the only important thing. And so if I ramble, or if I sound like a dreamer, I've taken the liberty here tonight to use a gift God gave me, a gift of imagination. That wonderful thing that children retain, and we who become intellectual and grown up, we cast it aside.
I finished my drinking on the skid rows of the nation's capital. I finished in the streets of Washington. I was not born there. It took me 11 years to wind up there. As a matter of fact, I started out in life with pretty good ideals as a very young man. I started out with a purpose, and I started out with a dream, and I started after that dream. And the dream was an intangible thing I had seen as a very, very young man. I had seen it in the face, in the faces of the priests in the church in which I belonged. I have since found out this thing is true of all men of the clergy, and it's also true of many men in the world.
And it's mostly true of people here in AA. And the thing I saw was later told to me and described to me by an old Irish priest I had asked once to describe this intangible thing they seemed to possess. And he said it would take 20 volumes, Frank, and you wouldn't understand it. So to simplify it, why don't you go through life making friends with these kind of people you want to? And let's just say they're the kind of people that have the look of a man who knows where he's going.
And then I took a drink, and then I lost a dream, and then I won. I'll not bore you with my story. I've been to your jails, and I've been to your prisons, and I've been to your hospitals, and I've been to your institutions. I'll not bore you with detail. I'll not tell you a blow-by-blow description, for I think it serves no purpose for me, and I feel rather ashamed when I attempt it. For I know that out there, you too, you know my story. I don't have to tell it to you.
And I can take this imagination I told you about, and I can go back 5,000 years in history, and I know the drunk who lived then, and I know the drunk yet unborn, and so do you. And I know his story, and so do you. So do you. It's the story of the anguish. It's the story of the hopelessness. It's the
[00:15:05]
story of the trying so hard, so hard to find a phantom. It's the story of promises made, meant to be kept, but incapable of. It's the story of loneliness and aloneness. It's the story of the tragedy, the tragedy of men. And as I think back, I know what the drunk was thinking. I know that an ancient, a great leader, history records him by name as Moses. I know he came down from a mountain with a tablets of stone. And I know at the foot of that mountain a drunk stood. And he wanted so much to understand what this great patriarch was trying to teach. But he couldn't, you know that. You know the nature of his disease wouldn't permit him to. And so he wandered off aimlessly, aimlessly and hopelessly, to death or insanity or perhaps for no man knows, perhaps in the compassionate heart of God to find some sort of peace. And history rolls by and three thousand years they walk aimlessly and hopeless. And another man, a young one, and sometimes they criticize we the young.
But little do they remember that the man who hung on a cross, the man with the golden hair, was only thirty-three. And he stood on a mountain before he hung on a cross. And he too tried to teach something, a little better way of living, a little more decency. And a drunk stood at the foot of that mountain and wanted so much to know what this wonderful man has teaching. But he can't. He's too sick. And the nature of his disease condemns him to walk away, to walk to madness or death or maybe the compassionate heart. And history rolls on and on. And twenty-five years ago, God in his divine wisdom or perhaps his humor, I don't know, he looks down at a world sick with itself and he picks out a drunk, the one you know who spoke tonight. And he gives him something that the drunk won't have to wander aimlessly and hopelessly anymore. And he passes it to one guy and then it's passed to me. I heard of AA in a jail. And I came to your meeting for one purpose, to mock, for I always mocked. I always ridiculed. It's the weapon of the ignorant.
And as I sat in that jail, after eleven years of losing everything a man can lose, I heard a drunk say that you need never take another drink unless you choose to. And I'd like to say I came out of that jail and I got sober and I didn't. I came out of that jail and pitched the less drunk I've ever pitched. Three solid months on the streets. And I didn't get sober for any profound reason. I'll tell you why I got sober. I sat one November night in 1950, stripped as clean as a man can be stripped naked before the world. And I got sober because I was just sick and tired. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Sick and tired of humiliation. Sick and tired of thinking and moving and living like an animal. When in my heart and in yours I knew God created me a little higher than the pet dogs I love so well. And I sat there. And perhaps for the first time in a lifetime, and I prayed in
[00:20:09]
Latin once, I said a sincere prayer, perhaps the only sincere prayer I've ever said. And it wasn't very ecclesiastical and it wasn't very fancy. It was a very simple prayer of a frightened and hurt human being. And all the arrogance and the prideful arrogance, it was all gone now. And my simple prayer was God help me find a guy I once knew lived. And you know my imagination again. If you check the day I got sober, in the temples of God throughout the world where men will tell you he was there. But as I sat in that street, alone as a man can be, I know he was in no temple. Because he came down to Skid Row. He came down and he came to me. And he picked me up and he stood me up.
And I'd been down so long, so very long. And he put on my shoulders a mantle of sobriety. For I came to Alcoholics Anonymous sober. And it was a very beautiful garment. And it was the first time I had stood erect in so many years. And he told me then, for he must have you see, I thought of the drunk in the jail. And I was wanted no place else would they have me. And so in essence he told me to take the mantle. To take it and to go to his people who could help me. And I wanted so much to keep that clean. And up until tonight I've done that. For you see if I go back in the gutter, it'll get all dirty again. And I made a very simple vow. I have not got a profound sobriety. I have a very simple sobriety. And a very simple contract with God. And that night my simple contract was that I'll try to bring this coat home clean. Not too profound is it? And I walked off as I had never walked before. And he sent me to you. And the guy that called on me is sitting right over there. A very little guy. But he throws a big shadow. And little boat came. He took one look at me. He had literature. And I had a jug. He said you'll not read it will you? I said no. What is the answer? He said it's S-T-O-P. Stop. I said fine you can take my jug. I had made my decision and I knew it that night. And then the story of Frank and I think all the Franks of the world ends. And was to begin the greatest story I'll ever encounter and the greatest adventure too perhaps. For it was the beginning of the story of you. You the people of Alcoholics Anonymous. The society of people the world chooses to call rehabilitated drunks. And as I came to you I came as a stranger from a foreign land. And you took me in and you nurtured me and you nourished me. And the food you gave me was the food of life since God created man. It was the warmth and the courage and the faith you had that kept me sober. For I had neither the ability nor the mind to stay sober myself. I was too sick. But the goodness that was God was in you. And it was more than you needed. And it rolled over on me and I stayed sober. And men can write theories and
[00:25:08]
thesis. They can propound and they can talk. But I am sober because people like you took the time and the trouble to love a guy they said so many times. He is the hopeless one. And I stayed around and you tolerated me. And I asked my questions and I changed your book. And I had little respect for Bill W. I thought he was too damned old. He should have gotten sober anyway. He was getting close to meeting his maker. And so you know what a disturbing influence I was in the group. But I stayed around and you tolerated me. And you shook your head and even some of your God bless you bleeding deacons you said leave him alone he'll be drunk in a month anyway. But I was Irish and I was still mean. And I'll be damned you tell a drunk he can't stay sober and watch him roll. And so as Augustine had written centuries before the vice was to become the virtue. And I stayed sober. And then I looked around and they said they had a program. And I looked at the program and it's a good program. It's a simple program. It's a workable program. And it's an infallible program. If God forbid you ever hear I'm drunk, do not listen to my excuses or reasons. Believe in your heart as you believe tonight. Alcoholics Anonymous will not have failed. I will have failed again that's all. For your program is infallible to me. And as I looked it over in all the steps. Remember I started after a dream a long time ago. And I thought how wonderful it was because you see all Irishmen want to be in the vanguard of history.
And here I was within the first 15 years of it then. And I was in something new I thought. And then I got a little more sober. And I looked at the program as it is. And I speak only as you know for myself. I'm a man who's always unashamedly believed in God drunk or sober. At times my arrogance would not permit me to ask God's help. But I was taught well by good teachers. And always I knew all I had to do was ask for help. And he'd give it to me. Some of you may speak of arrogance. I knew arrogance and I knew it when I was at the gates of hell. And so I looked a little closer. And I'd like to say that I am a part of something new to the world. Perhaps the greatest movement, spiritual movement that mankind has known. But if I did that again I'd be a fraud for you see I looked real close for me. And the things I saw were the things that another man drew and many men had taught. It was taught by a carpenter who came out of the hill country of Galilee. And his program was simple like ours. And he tried to teach a little better and more decent way for a man to live. For you see each man knew and I knew that the only valuable things I possessed was my human dignity and my self-respect. And tonight I know that. And I know it so well that in the course of time I no longer have 38 cents in the clothes on my back. God has been good to both of us. But tonight if he must exact his price I can walk back with 38 cents in my pocket.
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And the things and the way he taught, surprisingly I found here. He taught by two methods. One was precept, and the other example. And the precepts of AA were the twelve steps that we have here. And for me, this was my program. These were my moral principles. And like the carpenter, he taught by example. He taught men to live a decent life, and to try to give a little more than they took, and that's exactly what he did.
And he gave far more perhaps than any other man. And I came here, and you said, stay sober, one day at a time. Will you try? And I argued with your theories, and I argued with your program, and I argued with a lot of things. But as Almighty God made me to see, I could not argue with your sobriety. And then perhaps I learned another thing. I learned because I was taught well, for man is the product of his teacher.
And I was being taught by the finest teachers the world had produced in all its history. I was being taught by the drunks, the drunks like myself. And evidently you taught me pretty well. I know you loved me an awful lot. That measure I can never return. One man does not have that capacity. And I learned also another significant thing. And it too wasn't too new to me, and I don't think it was too new to you.
I learned that instead of taking, I'd have to start giving. And the most valuable thing man possesses, of the material things in a way, is his time. And that's the valuable thing that you gave me. And it would have to be the thing that I would have to return. I'd have to take the time and the effort. For you see, I could not repay you by any means. For you would not accept repayment. And so you told me I'd have to pay my debt to the guy still coming down the pike.
I'll have to pay that debt to a lot of guys a little later on. And then I'll never get even. Now that is not a profound way of staying sober, is it? But it's the way I did, it's the way you taught me, and it's the way you helped me. And then lastly, why do I want to stay sober? For this is important to me. You see, I was 28 years old when I came to AA. And at that time, even then, they were saying they're not staying sober.
But I wanted to be sober more than I wanted to anything else in the world. And I still do tonight, more so perhaps. And so at the age of 38 now, I've got a hell of a lot of mileage left in me. I've got a long way to go by the normal standards of man. And in the reasoning and the intelligence that God gave me, I'd not have subscribed to a program that could not guarantee this. And so if at times you doubt the efficacy of this program, remember that a young Irish kid had enough faith at the age of 28 to believe you could teach me well enough and it was strong enough and it was good and godly enough to carry me as far as I have to go.
And as far as I have to go, only God knows.
[00:35:04]
And then I'll tell you why I stay sober. Perhaps for no other reason than the fact of the early dream. And perhaps there is no one else in all of Alcoholics Anonymous stays sober for the same reason. But you must grant me the privilege of that. For you see, I've always believed I had an eternal destiny. And I want to stay sober because there is another immutable fact in my life. The first one is that I can never take a drink and behave as a sane and a rational human being.
And the second immutable fact is one that we have in common, you and I, and it is the only unarguable thing in the world. And that fact is that each man created by God who walks the face of the earth someday must die. And you remember I told you I got a coat and it was very clean. And I made a simple contract with God to try to get it back home that way. And so you must teach me this program so well that it can take me not only as far as I have to go in a lifetime, but perhaps as far as I've got to go in an eternity.
I think this program can do that. Perhaps no other man does. But I know that with this program a man can build a pigsty or he can build a palace. And I'm still drunk enough to go for the big bundle. And so as it must and it will, in God's good time as it was in his good time, I got sober. In his good time perhaps I don't know. Perhaps he sends an angel, an angel to walk, to walk a strange and a distant journey.
And when that angel comes to me and tells me my master wants to see me, I want to be able to step off as a man should step. I want to be able to stand erect in the human dignity God created me with, with the respect of the fellow man I've lived with behind me and perhaps the respect of myself in my heart and my soul. And I'll walk unafraid. For you've taught me faith and where there is faith there can be no fear.
And so the journey for me will not be too long. And whenever or wherever it is we stop. Perhaps at that time the angel, who I'll know quite well by now, perhaps he will say, wait, I shall tell him you're here. And he will say he is here. And from within shall come a booming voice and say, who is it? And he'll reply, it's Frank, the drunk, the one they said was hopeless. And he'll bellow out, tell him to come on in.
And ask perhaps, is he sober? And I'll bellow back with all the lungs God gave an Irishman. Yes, I'm sober. I am home. And I've got something to return to you. It's a coat you gave me a long time ago. I didn't get it dirty. Send it down for somebody else. I'll not thank you for a day or a year or a lifetime of sobriety. If you teach me well enough and teach me good enough and don't let me make no fatal errors,
[00:40:01]
I'll be thanking you for an eternity of sobriety. And I won't much care what the world thinks of me, good or bad. For as I stand there with the carpenter, perhaps his arm around me, another little angel will say, how shall we record him? And the carpenter, a young man, you know, a big man and a good man, he'll say, record him as Frank, the drunk, the hopeless one. Right after his name that he arrived sober, through the grace of Almighty God expressed, through the love of the people of Alcoholics Anonymous, his destination, eternal happiness.
Thank you for doing that for me. APPLAUSE Thank you, Frank. This is really fantastic that so many of you have showed up and I see many are standing in the rear. There are some seats still left in the balcony. One of the keynotes of this wonderful convention has been gratitude and I certainly want to take just a second here to express my gratitude. I'm just so thrilled to be here. It's just one marvelous experience after another.
And it's just so great to see so many of my friends from all over and I just want to greet all of you and thank you so much for being here and making this what it is. Just before I left New York, I heard a little catchphrase. The attitude of gratitude is what we should cultivate and I think it might be helpful for us to sort of remember that. The attitude of gratitude. Sometimes I find myself beefing about some silly little thing and I have so many things to be grateful for.
So I'm going to try to remember for me anyway. The attitude of gratitude. Now, another thing I have to be grateful for is to have come here to be on the same program with my grandfriend Walter O. from New York and I know you're going to love him. I guess he was originally from here, but I knew him in New York. He did wonderful, wonderful work in AA there. I'm going to give you now Walter O. Thank you all.
applause