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Source: 1975 Denver International Convention – 1975 Denver Int., with John W, Duncan M., Joy N and Harvey K Part 2 of 2.mp3 File: 1975-denver-international-convention-1975-denver-int-with-john-w-duncan-m-joy-n-and-harvey-k-part-2-of-2.mp3 Duration: 00:38:57
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Our next speaker comes from a very long distance from this country. I have never met him before, but he is not a stranger because he is a brother alcoholic. And it gives me great pleasure to introduce Mike. You're not nearly as frightening as I thought you were going to be. Because I listen to Joy and I listen to Duncan, and I sat there realizing that the only difference between Joy, Duncan and me is that they drank Jack Daniels and I drank White Horse Scotch in South Africa.
And really that's it. The more I travel and the more I move around and the more I meet people from Alcoholics Anonymous, I find that we all have the same thing basically. And it was great for me sitting here and I was terrified before I came into the room. I've spoken once before to this number of people and I was terrified. Before I start I'd like to tell Duncan that I'm Irish and a recovering Catholic.
My name is Mike, I'm an alcoholic. And I'm a member of the Rosebank Group in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am very emotional tonight for a number of reasons. I never believed five years ago, four and a half years ago, that A. I would want to come to a world convention, B. I would want to get associated with the people in Alcoholics Anonymous. When I came to AA I thought, right, I'll meet these bastards on a Tuesday night, I'll take what these bastards have to give me, and dare one of these bastards come to my house.
But I'll change, because the name of the game is change, I believe. And so when I started meeting people from New Zealand, Canada, America, England, Wales, Ireland, and I've met them all in the last few days, I became very emotional about all this. Now over and above that I have a brother in this room who's sober on this program a lot longer than I am, and living in Los Angeles. If somebody had said to me five years ago that I would be proud, because I have contradictions going tonight, that I would be proud to be standing speaking at a meeting here in Denver, and at the same time humble, and at the same time full of gratitude that my brother is here, I would have said they were insane.
I would have said I was too tough for that kind of thing. I would have said I was made of sterner stuff. And I'm glad to say I'm not. I'm glad to say that that's me. And I'm glad to say that at last I know me. And this is the benefit, I believe, that I've got from Alcoholics Anonymous. I am at last starting to know who I am, what makes me tick. I live to my standards now, not to other people's standards.
And I was living to other people's standards that got me screwed up all my life. I had a father who was a perfectionist and a living bastard. He was an Irish Catholic perfectionist, that's worse. I had a mother who competed with him for perfection, and I was educated by the Jesuits. You can't win. Not with that combination you can't win. And so by the time I was expelled from my first school, I was well on the road to being a screwed up young man.
And the strange thing about it all is that I knew it. And they kept telling me I was no good, and why couldn't I be as good as the guy up the road. If I once heard my mother say, his name was Larry Whelan, If I once heard my mother, we tried to hang him by the way, I still have the mark to prove it right here. He bit me. Where was I? My mother used to always say, why can't you be like Larry Whelan?
[00:05:01]
So I said to Patrick one day, you know he's got to go. Whelan's got to go, that's all there is to it. And as God is my witness, we got a football, and we went bouncing the ball up the road, and I don't know whether he remembers this because we haven't discussed it from that day to this, there was a bit too much guilt going. And we got up to, as I sent him up to the house, and I waited behind the wall, around the house, and as he came out, I grabbed him, and I was the eldest of them, and the tallest, and we had a barn at the back of the house, and there was a trap door, one here, and one here.
And this is premeditated murder, because I got up in the roof an hour before, and put the rope up through this side, down through this side, put a noose around it, and had the whole gallows prepared. That's insane. When I got up step to two, I had no problems. And we dragged this guy down, and we proceeded to hang him, and we had him this far off the ground when we were caught, thank God, because I really wouldn't have liked to go to jail at that age.
But that all came back to me tonight while I was sitting here, and I met that young man afterwards in South Africa, and he's also screwed up. But I think the difference between he and I is that, thanks to this God-given program, I know Michael Hogan today, and I don't believe this guy knows himself. Now let me qualify myself, because none of you know me other than the South African contingent who've come to hear the balls up I'm going to make in this talk.
That's what we do in South Africa. I know he's taken my inventory, I know him too well. I went to an alcoholic clinic in Johannesburg called North Lee, and I stayed there for some time, and I came out, and 48 hours later I was drunk. I attended a man called Sarah Brough, a qualified doctor, who told me that I had to stop drinking for three years, and that after three years I would be able to drink, and that he would have to give me intensive therapy for six months of these three years, and I would have to go on anti-booze, and he phoned my wife and called her down from her office, and he told her the whole scene, and I thought that was a bit unfair.
And I went from the anti-booze, and I was dead dry. And I said, miserable, of course. And I was jumping, and unhappy, and afraid. And then the great day came when I thought to hell with Sarah Brough, so instead of going for my anti-booze, I went to the pub. And I got drunk, because that's what an alcoholic does. If I could drink two drinks and stop, I wouldn't be standing here. I wouldn't need to be an alcoholic, none of us.
So Dr. Sarah Brough didn't work. The third time I decided I would do this like a gentleman, and I would let my company pay for it. So I went to a psychiatrist, who told me that there was very little he could do for me till he got me sober, and he suggested that I go into a hospital. Now, I don't know what it's like in the United States, but you can't get into hospitals in South Africa, and this is a problem that we have.
You can't get into hospitals in South Africa under the term alcoholic. So the doctor said, don't worry about it, you're not really an alcoholic anyway, so we'll admit you for endoreactive depression. But he said, what I want you to do is go home and pack a bag, and I want you to get a bottle on the way. Because you've got to be tapered off. If you don't taper off, you're going to go into the DTs. And I said, I found a life psychiatrist.
And I phoned my wife, and I told her I was dying, and that I had to go into a hospital. Have you ever met an alcoholic who just gets sick like anyone else? I haven't met one. We all die when we get the flu. I know when I was drunk and I wasn't coming home at night, and I had to phone the wife, I was never out with one of my colleagues, I was always out with the general manager of one of my customers, you know.
And it was always big deal. And I believe that's the part and parcel of the pattern of my alcoholism, it was always big deal all the time. Anyway, I phoned this wife of mine,
[00:10:00]
who was on the verge of leaving me at the stage. Don't sing about that. And… I told her my problem, you know, and I said, I have to go into a hospital, I'm dying. Didn't know I had to buy the bottle. And I went home and I packed, and I went and bought the bottle. And right opposite the Rosebank Hospital, there is a pub called the Rosebank Hotel. So what did I do? I went into the Rosebank Hotel. And I went in, and of course there were friends of mine there, and they said, what the hell are you doing here?
And I said, I'm dying. I've got to go to the hospital, and I'm going into the Rosebank Hospital over here, and I've got endoreactive depression of all things. Now, none of them knew what endoreactive depression was, and they said, Jesus, Michael, that sounds terrible, have a drink. So I had the drink. What would you do, refuse it? And then I went. And there I reached my rock bottom. And it was no dramatic rock bottoms.
An awful lot of more dramatic things have happened to me in my life, both sober and drunk, than this particular incident. But for me, it was the one that made me… I was to drink after this, by the way. But for me, looking back on it all now in hindsight, for me, this is where the turning point came. And I came into a room with four other people, and they were there for genuine complaints. We alcoholics don't have genuine complaints.
They don't believe in South Africa that you've got a disease. Most of them. And a sister would come along with my bottle, and she would pull the curtains around the bed, and she'd say, drink this. And I had the first couple, and then I decided that I'd had enough. There was no way I needed another drink, because by now I was full of guilt, and by now I was full of shame. And it was a shame that got to me.
And the next time she came around, I don't know, somewhere around 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the following day, she came around with my shot, and I said, well, I don't want it. And I'll never forget it. She said, are you refusing treatment? And I said, well, no, I'm not refusing treatment, but I don't need another drink, and I don't want another drink, and for God's sake, don't give me another drink.
And she said, well, you're going to have to take it, but that's the way it is. That's what you came in here for. That's the instructions I've had from your psychiatrist, whom I now hadn't seen, by the way, for the last two days. I don't know if he wanted to see me in the DTs, because I don't think he knew how to handle it. And that was it. That, for me, was the turning point. I will never forget lying there with that dirty, dirty feeling.
I'll never forget. And it wasn't a feeling of black. It's a worse feeling of black. It's a feeling of grey. It's that awful, dirty, smoggy, grey, inside feeling. But I came out of there, and I had to go to the United States. I did various jobs for an alcoholic. I had to take 14 people to the United States. This was my job, huh? And my job was to take them there, and everything was laid down for me.
And what I really had to do was take them around on tours, get them drunk, take them to the movies, to the shows, the live shows. And I had a hospitality suite that I had to keep open day and night. And, of course, the hospitality suite was nothing but the bar down one side, well stopped. And I was off the booze. And when I got on the aeroplane, I announced to these 14 people that I knew, they were all South Africans, I'm in the travel business, and they were all my travel agents that I called on.
And I announced that I was now, uh, had ulcers. And I'd just come out of the hospital with these ulcers. I was interested, and I heard Joy talking about the ulcers. And, uh, but therefore, I wouldn't drink, but they could drink as much as they liked. And believe it or not, they drank champagne and orange juice all the way to the United States. You know, I thought, that was insane. Even I didn't drink champagne and orange juice, for God's sake.
I stayed off the booze in the United States until the night before I came home. And they had a very big dinner for these people. And the South African trade commissioner was invited to this, amongst other people. And, you know, they said that we drink… Most of the people, and you know, they say that we drink at the wrong time, huh?
[00:15:02]
I had, uh, the managing director of the organization I worked for, for North America, was there. The marketing manager for North America was there. All the top brass of the organization I worked for, together with the bloody embassy people, were all there. And guess what? And you know, uh, the first wine course came around and I refused it. And the second wine course, the red wine stage had come by now that we were on to the meat course.
And the South African trade commissioner said to me, uh, I brought this wine, uh, you know, for you all. I thought it would be a nice gesture. Have some wine before you go home. So I said to him, uh, I haven't been drinking, I'm not very well. So I never forget it, he said to me, well, have a glass of South African wine, one drink won't, won't kill you. And the little leprechaun back here said, that's right, one drink won't kill you.
For solemnly of honor, that is the last drink I remember taking. And I woke up so, uh, woke up still drunk in London, England. I remember going into bars, I remember coming out of them in New York on East 42nd Street, because, you know, you have to see East 42nd Street in New York. But I do not remember lifting a glass, I do not remember taking a drink. But when they awoke me the next morning and we had to catch the plane to London, they had to put me under a shower to try and sober me up.
So, you know, I must have consumed a lot of big booze. And I lay on the back of that plane and another guy took over the tour for me, fellow countryman of mine, took over the tour for me and I lay on the back of the plane and I cried all the way from New York to London. And I might as well tell you here and now that I ended up a crying drunk. I used to sit in a bar called the Commissioner Bar in Commissioner Street in Johannesburg.
And I would get there and people, I, you know, I was okay for the first few hours. It takes a while to start crying, it did for me. And at about eleven I would sit in the corner of the bar, it had a turn on it, I'll never forget this. I used to sit in the corner of the bar and full of self-pity and full of all this guilt and this fear. And what remorse do I have to tell you, you know what it's like.
And I used to sit in the corner of that bar and cry. And my friends would come in and they'd say, in the name of God, what's wrong with you? And I used to say, I don't know, I'm going insane. I will end up in the lunatic asylum. I must tell you at this stage that I was really afraid of ending up in the lunatic asylum because my brother had been there in Trinidad. And I didn't want to go the way he went.
While we're on that subject I remember when he was living in Montreal I had a letter from my sister who was very concerned about my brother and she thought that maybe I could sober him up. So they wrote to me and said that he's in Montreal and that's his address and for us to go out and do something about him. So off I get to Montreal, I get to the airport, this is about fourteen years ago now, it must be more I suppose because Patrick's over twelve years sober, and I get to Montreal airport and I know Patrick.
And two hours later the phone goes, I hear on this tannoy system, well Mr. Hogan please go to the red telephones, I'll never forget this. And I found the red telephone, picked it up, and Mr. Bonner's at the other end of the line. And he says to me, where the hell are you? Where the hell am I? I don't even know Montreal, I'm out at the airport. So he said to me, I'm in the Belmont Hotel, I can remember it so clearly, I'm in the Belmont Hotel, jump in a cab and come in and I'll wait for you here.
I was earning five pounds a week at this stage and he wanted me to jump in a cab in the United States at I don't know how many dollars a minute. Very alcoholic. Anyway I got to the Belmont Hotel and no sign of Patrick. So I'm standing there wondering what the hell to do now, I'm very tempted to catch the next plane home, when out of the gents toilets, staggers this apparition, walks straight past me, and I touch him on the shoulder and said hey remember me, because I hadn't seen him now I remember for I don't know eight years, nine years.
And I said to him hey remember me? And when I saw him I remember he never said hello, how are you, kiss my ass, nothing. He straightened the case and said Christ you got old.
[00:20:03]
So we both went and got drunk. I took the thing that drove me to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm one of the people who was driven to Alcoholics Anonymous. I couldn't live with me anymore, I couldn't live with the fears, I couldn't live with the insecurities, I couldn't live with the guilt, I couldn't live with the remorse, I couldn't live with the terror, I had had an unbelievably bad upbringing that I told you about.
My father seriously attempted murder on me at the age of 18, very nearly succeeded. I had all the guilt going about that at the age of 40, that's not bad. I had all these Catholic guilts to go with it and I had all the Jesuits to cope with and cover that. So by the time I got to Alcoholics Anonymous I was one mess, I really was. And the reason I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I think I was driven to Alcoholics Anonymous was because I couldn't stand me any longer.
I hated Mike Hogan. I couldn't look him in the eyes to shave that way. I really couldn't, I couldn't look at me any longer. And let me go back to that journey back from New York, I had to hold a cocktail party for these people in London when I got to London that night and I couldn't get the booze down, I just couldn't get those drinks down, I kept throwing them up and that had never happened to me before.
And I got into the hotel room and ordered more booze down from the bar and I remember that terrible panic that set in and I thought I've got to get two of these drinks down to stop me disintegrating. I've just got to get some booze into me to put me together again so that I can function for the next four hours. And I did, I eventually got the last drink down and then everybody went home and there I was at that lonely hour that we all know and they talk about the loneliness of the long distance runner and as far as I'm concerned it's got nothing on the loneliness of the long distance alcoholic at two, three, four and five o'clock in the morning.
And there I was and I couldn't stop drinking because I couldn't get to sleep and you know the way it feels, one more drink will get me to sleep, it'll knock me out and this time it didn't. And the people started jumping off the wall in the bloody room and they started banging me on the nut and they hit me nowhere else but on the nut, isn't that strange? And I called a friend of mine, Dave Moran was his name and I said and I said Dave, for God's sake get down here quickly, I don't know what's happening because remember I didn't know what DTs were.
I was an innocent little Irish Catholic boy. And I got home to South Africa and I thought the next day and then I began to think again about my brother who was very involved in my story obviously and I began to think about these things that they have and this way of life that he had told me about and I thought it was a lot of crap anyway and for some reason I began to think about it and I picked my wife up that night from work and I drove home and you know the way you have to when you're like this with your nose shot to bits and you're driving with your foot in the brake and if anybody blows a horn beside you that's the end of it.
And I drove home that way and I was terrified that she would see the condition I was in and she saw and as we drove the car into the driveway she said to me Mike why don't you follow my Alcoholics Anonymous? Well I don't want to tell you what I said but the second word was off and she did and she went into the kitchen and I sat in the lounge and it's only in the last year and I'm nearly five years sober it's only in the last year that I have stopped saying and I don't know and I've stopped saying quote and I don't know what happened but the next thing was I said to her what's this bloody Alcoholics Anonymous number then?
Now I don't say it that way anymore I know what happened then and I know that the story is something like this that this power that's greater than me must have looked down that night and said that poor bastard's had enough let him have what the others have or let's give him the opportunity to have what the others have and when I said what's this Alcoholics Anonymous number she walked in and took the number out of her handbag
[00:25:02]
and burst into tears and I learnt later that she'd had that number for one year in her handbag so I phoned and went to my first meeting and I heard people talking about love and understanding and I thought what a lot of crap and I heard people talking about God and I thought what a lot of crap but I saw these happy people I saw these happy faces I saw these people who had something inside that I didn't have I saw this peace and I hadn't had happiness or peace of mind for twenty years or more and I knew instinctively I knew that if I mixed around with these dreadful people that I might get this peace now I didn't want to get anything else I just wanted to get this happiness that they had and when I went home that night I wouldn't let my wife come by the way and when I came home that night she said to me how did it go?
and I said well I don't know they're unbelievable they're the most happy people I've ever seen and I'm going to go back and so I went back I lived in the first and the twelfth step for a long long time because dare anybody mention the word God I remember I went out to a small little group one night in a place called Santon and a guy called Chris C made the awful mistake of mentioning God and that was the end of that meeting I wrecked it but they tolerated me and I remember a woman who was a kind of sponsor of mine kind of sponsor I said I remember her saying to me at two o'clock in the morning because we were still arguing I remember her saying to me I said to her this is all coincidence and she said to me Michael the day will come when you'll stop calling it coincidence if you stick around and the day did come but it took a long long time and I fought this program all the way all the way I fought the God business but of course I couldn't go on living in the first and the twelfth step I tried to sober up the whole of Johannesburg and I couldn't understand how they couldn't get sober and of course as I look back today I know I had nothing to give them absolutely nothing I couldn't give away anything in those days I had nothing to give away all I was doing was sticking around AA I couldn't even say I was an alcoholic I used to go to the meetings and they couldn't stop me talking I gave up drinking, compulsively drinking and became a compulsive talker and I used to go to the meetings and I'd sit there and I would say my name is Mike I'm sticking around AA and that's all I'd say but the day came when I couldn't go on like this because I got uncomfortable and I believe for me and my type of alcoholism I believe that the name of the game for me is comfortability I've got to have comfortability or the best kind of comfortability that I can have and so I knew something was missing out of my life and I began to look at this thing differently and then I began to listen again with different ears to these people talking about their higher power and I thought I don't know I've got to find it so in my immaturity and in my naivety I was lying at home one day I had the flu, the genuine flu this time, you know and I was lying at home, my wife was at work the house was empty and I decided today is the day I am going to find God very alcoholic and I jumped out of the bed, got on my knees and said here I am, show yourself because I thought what was good enough for Bill Wilson was good enough for me and I knelt there and I said show yourself to me let that flash come in the window and of course nothing happened and that was the loneliest period of my existence that was a lonelier period I am convinced than the loneliest days of my active alcoholism and I got back into the bed and now I had nothing I had no higher power I had obviously no program and once again I was back in the tear states and this went on all afternoon and I kept crying I was getting down on my knees and getting back in the bed and I was shivering with the flu and I was getting all uptight and now I got all this self-pity going, you know God's looking after all the rest of them in my group and while he's looking after them he hasn't time for me
[00:30:01]
And I remember my wife came home, and I was crying, and she said to me, in the name of God, what's wrong? And I said to her, Jackie, I tried to find God today, and I can't, and I'm going to drink, and I'm terrified. And I'll never forget what she said to me. I often think my wife has more of this program than I have. And she said to me, you're sober, aren't you? And I said, yes. And she said, Michael, have you stopped to think why you're sober?
And I said, no. And she said, you're sober, you fool, because you're trying. And that's all you have to do. That's all they told you you had to do. They didn't tell you, when you came to Alcoholics Anonymous, that you had to succeed. They told you that these were twelve suggested steps for recovery, and that if you could practice them one day at a time, that you would grow, and that you would be able to stop drinking.
And you're doing just this, and you're staying sober, and you're not drinking. And that was my first big breakthrough in Alcoholics Anonymous. That was my first big breakthrough on the twelve steps to recovery. The twelve steps to recovery for me is a method, or a mode, or a philosophy, or whatever the hell you like to call it, of living, that allows me to live comfortably out there. I have no problems living comfortably in here.
I have no problem living comfortably with the people of Alcoholics Anonymous. You are my people. But I have great problems, even to this day, living comfortably with these people outside. And so my program is the program that I use for me to be able to live with comfortability. I told you the day came when I did stop calling this coincidence. And I applied the method with which I found my higher power in exactly the same method with which I stopped drinking.
It says in the big book that repetition confirms and strengthens habit, and faith becomes natural. And I realized after these three years of living like this, so I only found this eighteen months ago, I realized that by associating with the people in Alcoholics Anonymous, and as Duncan so rightly said for me, getting involved in service and with the people in Alcoholics Anonymous, that this system had worked, and that I had remained dry, if not sober, for these three years.
And I said this came to me by association. And so if I open my mind just that little bit more, and I start listening to what they say about this higher power, and by now I could realize that the group was a power greater than me, that if I could take the number of people in the group and put that power together, I mean even I could see that was greater than me. And I started with that simple concept.
And the repetition did confirm and strengthen habit. And I don't pray formally, I don't say these formal prayers. My higher power is something that I got from you. And therefore my higher power, to get connection with that higher power, to be able to communicate with that higher power, I seem to have to do it through you. So when I'm driving in the car, which is where I pray, or in the toilet, they're the two places I pray, because they're the two places I'm alone.
But they're the two places I don't pray, that I communicate with God, of this power greater than me. I always seem to have to do it by thinking about the people in Alcoholics Anonymous, or a group in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it seems to turn my mind on to the right kind of thinking, and put me at peace in here. And then I'm able to communicate with this power greater than myself. And so I would like to close with the words that I heard on a tape from the United States, and God love you, don't ever stop me from those tapes, we live on them in South Africa.
And I heard a man say, I sought my soul, my soul I could not see. I sought my God, and God eluded me. I sought my brothers, and I found all three.
[00:35:02]
Thank you for listening. Thank you Mike. It's wonderful to have you here sharing with us. In listening to our speakers tonight, I'm reminded of many things about my early AA days. And one of the things that bothered me, was what was going to happen when I got into a situation, as I had to do business wise. And the drinks were there, and people would be urging me to have one, or why aren't you drinking, and so on.
What would I say? How would I handle it? And a smart old timer told me how to do it. Someone would get on me and keep after me, you know, to have a drink. And finally I would say, I can't drink, I'm allergic to alcohol. And then he would say, what form does the allergy take? And I would say, it makes me drunk. That's the allergy that I have. That's the allergy that I have. I cannot drink alcohol and be sane.
I am very grateful to have the privilege of leading this meeting tonight. And you know, usually when we are asked to have meetings with our speakers, tonight the speakers were picked for me, I was told who they were going to be, and it's been one of the greatest meetings I've ever had the privilege of chairing. Now I understand Gene has an announcement before we close. Hey John, Gene Anderson, alcoholic.
If there's anyone here from the outlying areas that doesn't have a right back, and there are people here who are going back, would you kind of get together over here? This town is miserable to get out of at this time of morning. There's no transportation. Remember, I am responsible, not for you, but to you. Have a happy trip home. There's nothing that says that we can't close early. If you're as sleepy as I am.
And so I'd simply like to say that Joy, Duncan, Mike, and I thank you very much for sharing this meeting with us. We will close with the Lord's Prayer. 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, the power, and the glory. Amen.