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Source: 1975 Denver International Convention – 1975 Denver Int. Young People in AA with Ron F, Matt H, Donielly M, and Jerry S.mp3 File: 1975-denver-international-convention-1975-denver-int-young-people-in-aa-with-ron-f-matt-h-donielly-m-and-jerry-s.mp3 Duration: 01:27:20
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I'd like to have Rafael come up and read the preamble to us in Spanish. Rafael is from El Paso, Texas. Gracias. Yo soy Rafael y soy alcohólico. Esto es lo que somos y lo que hacemos. Alcohólicos Anonymous es una comunidad de hombres y mujeres que comparten su mutua experiencia, fortaleza y esperanza para resolver su problema común y ayudar a otros a recuperarse del alcoholismo. El único requisito para ser miembro de AA es el deseo de dejar la bebida.
Para ser miembro de AA no se pagan honorarios ni cuotas. Nos mantenemos con nuestras propias contribuciones. AA no está afiliada a ninguna secta religiosa, partido político, organización o institución alguna. No desea intervenir en controversias, no respalda ni se opone a ninguna causa. Nuestro objetivo primordial es mantenernos sobrios y ayudar a otros alcohólicos a alcanzar el estado de sobriedad.
Gracias. We're now going to read from the big book. But before we do, I'd like to read an inscription that's on the inside cover. This book was just handed to me right before the meeting. It was given by Bill Wilson to the Toronto Young People's Conference, and I'd like to read what it says here. To AA young people, with my affectionate regard and best wishes for a great meeting. Ever yours, Bill Wilson.
And there's another inscription here. God bless you, the young people. I was one myself when I started. In fact, I was the first young one in the fellowship. Forty-five years ago. 2-11-38, my dry date, and this is from Clarence. I would like to have Trudy L. from Philadelphia read the fifth chapter. Trudy? Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. People who do not recover.
Very nervous. Are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average.
There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders. But many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked.
We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, and powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power.
That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We embraced his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we are powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asking to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
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Nine, make direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of the steps, we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaim what an order. I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas.
A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. C, that God could and would if he were sought. Thank you, Trudy. As you know, the Twelve Traditions are a very important part of our program. I might say the foundation of our program. And they're particularly important to young people in the program. Bill Wilson once said that the Twelve Traditions, that the young people should be the guardians of the Twelve Traditions.
So I'd like to have Dave Peay from Hays, Kansas, read the Twelve Traditions. Dave. An awful small print here. Ah, fantastic. I'm David Peay. And I'm a happy alcoholic. I sold it up in Kansas City and we respond like that there. And I've been out in Hays and they don't do that, so that's fantastic. I'm David Peeples and I'm an alcoholic. Okay. Traditions. Number one, our common welfare should come first.
Personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity. Two, for our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority. A loving God as we may express, as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. Three, the only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. Four, each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole.
Five, each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Six, an A.A. group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. Seven, every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Eight, alcoholics anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
Nine, A.A. as such are never be organized. We don't have to worry about that. But we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. Ten, alcoholics anonymous has no opinion on outside issues. Hence, the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy. Eleven, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Twelve, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. I forgot something. I'd like to read the anonymity tradition. I'd like to read the anonymity tradition. There may be some who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. If so, we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker or member be identified by full name or picture
[00:10:01]
in published or broadcast reports of our meeting. The assurance of anonymity is essential to our efforts to help other alcoholics, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before personalities. I guess I'm too close to this, I don't know. Oh, alrighty. There's a gentleman in the room by the name of John M., who is from Stateborough, Georgia, and today is John's 16th anniversary in the program.
You know, in the program, young people have mostly been considered as 40 and under. And I'm just about under, not quite. When I was born, there was no A.A. program. In a matter of months after I was born, Bill Wilson became sober. And, of course, in the following year, the A.A. program began. And the 40th anniversary means a lot of things to me. And I think it also means something to the program that A.A. is now in its last year as a young person.
And it's sort of something to ponder. Well, I won't take up any more time. We have some real great speakers here this afternoon. And I'm going to have Matt come up here. I met Matt two years ago. He was a speaker. Well, I met him two years ago, but he was a speaker last year at the Indianapolis Young People's Conference. And we've spent some real great times together. So I'd like you to meet Matt from Macon, Georgia.
My name is Matt, and I'm an alcoholic. I think you can tell by my stutter that I'm an alcoholic, all right. But it's really great to be here today. And I'm beginning to see a number of people that I've met over the years since being in the A.A. And it really makes me feel great. I've tried over a number of times to tell myself all the great things I should try and say, or to try and thank all of the people for all of the various things that they have done for me.
But I know that it would be impossible. But I do want each and every one of you here to realize and know that I love you, and that I am deeply grateful for all that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has done for me. Thank you. Most of my life, I lived in a shell. I never trusted anyone. I never let people get close to me. I was afraid for people to love me. And I certainly did not want anybody to feel like that I loved them.
Therefore, today, when I look out and I see all of the various people that I know help me when I could not help myself, and are continuing to help me today, I really feel great. I was born in Newport News, Virginia. My father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister. And we sort of had a little A group of our own. But it was more of a heritage thing within the church. If that wasn't bad enough, my father's father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister.
Within the church, if that wasn't bad enough, my father's father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister. And my mother's father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister. I come from a family of non-drinkers, non-divorces, non-everything. And, naturally, I never did anything wrong. But, on the other hand, I never did anything.
[00:15:19]
So, at an early age, naturally, I made a lot of mistakes. And, rather than to speak out and so forth, I just went into my shell, I'm sure. I've always been rather hazy on what happened to me, and today I realize it's not all that important. But it is important for me to realize that I turned people off. I turned my family off, even though they tried desperately to get through to me. I ruined a quartet. I have three brothers. We're all a year apart. And, if you're in the church, and the church is the center of your life, and everybody said, they'd make a wonderful quartet. But I couldn't sing. Not a lick.
I was barred from the junior choir at an early age, and things were rather rough for me. To add insult to that, we used to have Easter pageants. And I can remember back, you know, they'd give us a piece, what they call a piece, to say. And, even though they would try to make mine rather short, I would get up, my knees would wobble, big balls of sweat would fall out on my head, I would get all choked up, lose my wind, and I might would rush through it so fast that nobody heard what I said.
Such was my upbringing. And, because of time, I won't be able to tell you about how I felt, and how I was considered around my home. But I'm commonly thought of as the white sheep of my family. I somehow managed to struggle a day at a time, to live a normal life of a teenager, full of fear, and went on to school, high school and college, never got in any trouble. Boy Scout, nominated to the Air Force Academy, everything went just beautiful. I never did anything. Went to the Air Force, was sent to Germany, always got promoted, stayed out of trouble.
Never did anything. And, after about two years over in Germany, it occurred to me that something was rather different about me. That when I'd go to eat, I was still saying my grace, and everybody, you know, they were very respectful. But I knew it was something a little wrong. I couldn't figure out what it was, but I knew I was off. I was not on the beam. If you see a hundred people, all moving in one direction, and you're moving in another, you might say to yourself over a period of time that I'm different.
So, I did go on, and I tried to take a drink. I wasn't very good at drinking. I had to get a Coca-Cola to mix it with my beer.
[00:20:14]
You drink your beer your way, and I'll drink it mine. But, anyway, that was my social drinking. I returned home from the service. Nothing really the matter with me. I'd done something. I'd had a drink. I knew what it was like, and I liked it, and it hadn't caused me any trouble. When I returned home, never having done a great deal at home, and having been away for three and a half years, I was now truly out of it.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I can look at it now and say that I didn't know what to do or how to live, but I felt like I should have known at my age, and so I was determined to make a go of it on my own, and I did. I was fortunate in coming out and landing a pretty good engineering position with a New York firm. We had a branch office in Baltimore, Maryland, and I began my career, so to speak, and also my life.
I was out of touch with everybody. I was totally alone. I didn't feel comfortable talking with anybody. Most of the jokes that people told were based on the experiences of a few years before or things they'd seen on TV, and I was out of touch with them. I couldn't relate to the clichés and the various things, the jokes that people would tell, and I just couldn't seem to communicate. Now, this was nothing really new. I had never been able to really relate a great deal with people. I didn't have social skills. I didn't have a conversation, and as a result of fear and loss of self-esteem, I tried to find myself acceptable by association.
I tried to, you know, always mention and talk about what my brothers were doing or what my sister was doing or what the family was doing or who my friends were. This was the only life I had. It was the only identity I had, and you know how this turns people off. When I would run out of this, I would talk about what I had, my great success. You imagine it, 23 years old, my great success, and I just felt like I didn't belong anywhere.
I didn't belong at home. I wasn't intending to become a minister. I had no inkling toward it, so no reason to try and adopt their way of life. I sought out to try and find a life of my own. I was unfortunate in that I accepted the ideals of people who were extremely materialistic, who had sacrificed all in order to make a dollar. I learned most of this from the people of Baltimore in one club, a club called the Spinks Club. It's a private club there in Baltimore, and I did almost all of my drinking there.
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I learned how to be ugly, how to take care of myself, and I changed from the motto that I had lived by with my family, which was basically one of service to others and community work, to one of always do what's best for you. And I moved out in that spirit. I tried to take care of myself, just purely out of fear. I was afraid for people to see how weak I was. And you know what happens when a person bases his life in this way.
I did move out economically. I moved from engineering into management, but I lost my soul. All of the things that I had hated about other people, all of the things that I had hated about the people who had worked at the corporations that I didn't like, that I accused of selling the drugs on the streets or permitting it, that handled the lottery, and this type thing, all of them that I hated, I grew to be worse than any of them.
I tried to get away, and I did after about three years on the excuse that I was getting mad, which I did, and I moved to Atlanta, Georgia. My idea then was to change the way I was living, to try to be a better person, to try and go to church, to raise my kids. I almost said my family, because that's true, because I ruled my family like I was a sergeant. And I believe that if I could just get them to go to church and live right, and if I would, things would be better. I went back into engineering, but things, over a period of time, I fell in with the same kind of a group.
No longer did engineering hold any great weight for me, and I went back into industrial management, and I began to value a dollar and get involved in the nightclub business and everything else that I could get into that I thought I could make a dollar. Things got progressively worse for me. Materially, they got good, but my life became very ugly. To make it very short, I had a home that I didn't want to go to.
I was constantly getting involved in scrapes and battles that I had no business being involved in. I couldn't live without a pistol. As a result of my alcoholism, I've hurt an awful lot of people, and a year before I came into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was shot up and left for dead in the streets of Atlanta. But none of this stopped me from drinking or trying to do the things that I was trying to do. I only felt like I had to be stronger, but I didn't realize at that time that you cannot get strength from strength, that you can only get strength from weakness.
But I tried to get strength from strength, and I failed. On my last drunk, I left my office about 3.30 or 4 o'clock on a Monday.
[00:30:03]
and I stopped to get one scotch on the rocks. The afternoon crowd came in, and I was still getting my one scotch on the rocks. The evening crowd came in, I was still getting it. The night crowd, finally the pimps, the hustlers came in, and I was still getting my one scotch on the rocks. I went into a blackout, a lot of ugly things happened, and I was very sick. I was so sick that the next day at about three or four o'clock, that even though I had a car in downtown Atlanta, I could not drive, and I had to get a cab out to my home.
I laid around on the floor, and it wasn't very comfortable. I tried to bed, it was worse yet. I tried sitting on the steps, and that didn't work. Tried walking around the house, and it didn't work. I had called my wife and said a lot of very ugly things to her, and I was full of remorse. I hated the face of my kids. I didn't know what to do. I knew I couldn't continue to do this sort of thing. It was one of the first things I'd ever done that I really had no excuse for, and I know that I'd released from the company a number of people for drinking and not showing up for work, and I'd always said that anybody can show up for work, and this was one day that I hadn't been able to do it.
I laid up there, and I called AA, and I'd like to tell you that I waited for them to come and get me, and I went to my first meeting, but it took them about a week to catch me. I was a running drunk, and it was hard to keep up with me, but I was afraid to drink. I was full of so much fear and confusion, I was truly afraid to drink, and I was afraid not to. I couldn't see life without alcohol, and I couldn't see life with it.
It was a time of my life when I had to take the bullets out of my pistol before, after I would lock the doors, to make certain I would not kill myself. Finally, after several of the AA members had gotten in touch with my wife, she took down the number, and I think they were tired of fooling with me. They left the number and said, well, when he's ready to call us. Well, I'd been doing a lot of soul-searching under duress, and I called that number, and I talked with a fellow by the name of Han, from Glenhaven Group, out in Decatur, Georgia, and he told me he had about eleven years he hadn't had a drink, and man, I couldn't believe that.
Everybody I knew drank liquor, and if they didn't, I had serious doubts about them. And I really felt like, that unless you were a minister, or something else was wrong with you, that you drank liquor.
[00:35:00]
And so, when he told me this, he seemed to have understood, and he wanted to come and get me, and take me to a meeting. But you know what I said, I didn't want him to come and get me. For one thing, you know, I could rationalize so well, and I was afraid, always afraid of being found out. I didn't want anybody to know who I was, or what I did. Never wanted people to know the truth. I read, or led rather, about three different lives, and one of my biggest fears was all of them coming together at one time, and they were coming, and they were coming quickly.
So I made my meeting. It was a Monday night meeting. Monday was always a good day for me, having been reared in the church. It was the first day of the week, and I went to that meeting, and I heard a lot of very good things there, but the most important one of all was, you don't have to be alone anymore. They told me I didn't have to be alone. I lived a sheltered life. I was so very much alone, and when they said to me, you don't have to be alone anymore, I felt like they meant it.
I felt like I was loved. I felt like they were trying to help me, and they did. And today, when I come to an AA meeting, it's for the same reason I came the first time. It is to get help. I need you to get help from you. I never thought I'd be able to say that to people, that I need you, that I need help, and that I have to rely on you for it. I'm very grateful to each and every one of you for giving me that help.
Thank you, Matt. That was just fantastic. I'd like to share an experience with you. I don't think the people involved will mind. Some years ago, when I was still bending my elbow, I was in a bar with a friend, a non-alcoholic friend, however, both of us had tied on one arm pretty good, and a gal came in the bar, we got talking, and next thing you know, we got in a real verbal fight. Now, we were regulars at this bar, and she was just sort of passing through, so she got thrown out.
So after I came in the program, my non-alcoholic friend said to me, hey, he said, is the drunken school teacher in the program yet? And I said, no, I haven't seen her. And this went on, it was sort of a little thing between the two of us, and one day I went to a meeting over in Lambertville, New Jersey, and this gal got up and she started telling her story, and the more she told, the more I realized that this drunken school teacher wasn't a drunk anymore.
And I got a beautiful experience, just minutes before this meeting opened, the three of us met right here in the front, right in front of this podium. We're all three of us in this room. I'd like you all to meet Donnie M., from New Jersey, our second speaker. Donnie was the speaker at the San Francisco Young People's Meeting. Donnie. Hi, my name's Donnie, and I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholic. It feels really good to be here.
We got to Denver about, I guess it was Wednesday afternoon, when we drove up to the front of this building and saw all the people. It's really amazing, it's such a good feeling, you know, to know that there are people here who are in the same place that I am, and, you know, who are coming for the same reason. And I guess, you know, a real strong feeling of love I get.
[00:40:05]
I'm very nervous. Before, like Matt said, I can remember before I even drank, I used to be really afraid of people, and I also lived in a shell. There's another part, too. I always wanted my own way, always. And if whatever it was, I had to be president, or boss, or director, and if it didn't go my way, it'd make it so bad for you. The next time it'd be my way. And things didn't go my way, and so I wasn't very happy all the time.
And when I found alcohol, it was like I created my own world, where I had control, and things appeared to go my way, and so the more outside events in my life, you know, came around me, the more I drank, so I could escape. I couldn't deal with life as it was. I didn't like reality. I didn't like the way people treated me. I thought they weren't nice to me, or they didn't come up and talk to me, or whatever.
It was, you know, ego problem. You know, I thought everything should be coming to me, instead of me trying to go out. And it started, you know, mostly as, you know, just weekend. It was for excitement, mostly. I couldn't find excitement in my life, so I looked for it in alcohol, and it's like I got myself in a trap. The more that life demanded of me, you know, at school, friends, family, whatever it was, I couldn't deal with it, and so I drank more to hide from that, and so I wouldn't have to look at it.
And I think, you know, I heard a lot of times that when I started drinking, that's where I stopped growing, and for me, I believe that, because when I started drinking, I stopped dealing with my life, and just ran away into the bottle. I can remember being in school and, you know, having the same feelings Matt had, not being able to talk to people. I didn't know what people talked about. I used to wonder, you know, what people said to each other.
I never knew. Then I started getting into things where I was different. Uh, I could do things that other people couldn't do. I could not eat, not sleep, and go on for days and stay healthy. I could… I still do that sometimes. I can't say I'm… It's getting better, though. Uh, I could not go to school, not do my homework, and pass, you know? I could be nasty and mean around the house, and they'd love me.
That was crazy. I used to think my parents didn't love me, and I used to lock myself up in my room at night, or during the day, or whenever I wanted to be alone, which is most of the time, and wonder why they didn't like me, or why they didn't want to be around me. But I found that, as I look back, it was me closing myself off from people, and that was a very hard thing for me to, uh, get out of when I came into the program, because I was so used to being alone, and closing myself off, that it was hard for me to ask for help, especially when I needed it.
Um, I had many excuses for drinking. You know, first the excitement, then it was because I'm an artist, and so that was because I'm a crazy artist, and all artists drinking are crazy. There was another excuse. That was because I was lonely, and people didn't understand me, and so I'd go off in a corner and drink by myself, and that was because I had to. You know, there's, it got to a point where I wasn't drunk every day, but every day I had alcohol in me, and I'd periodically get drunk.
I was uncomfortable if I wasn't around it, and anything that interfered with it had to go, you know. The last two years of my drinking, I started getting involved with mood changers, and I didn't talk about that because I shoved it so far in the back of my mind that I didn't look at it, and didn't see it as a part of me. My values changed. Things that were once important to me were no longer important.
The most important thing to me was how to get my next home. was how to get my next high, where was I going to get it, you know, whether I was going to steal it or, you know, whatever.
[00:45:02]
And most of my friends were either drinkers or had a big closet or a good supply of something. And even if it was theirs, you know, if they started taking more than I thought they should, I'd start getting a resentment. You can tell I thought it was wrong. It got to a point for me, physically I really wasn't sick. I was very, very skinny. But it's probably because I didn't eat. Eating and drinking never mixed.
But it got to a point where mentally and spiritually, I didn't realize it then, but my mind was so sick. Because the last time I took a mood changer, it was like, or a drink, I could feel my mind was leaving me. And I felt like I was going to be crazy, you know, really crazy, and it scared me. And I knew that if I didn't stop, that I was going to die. I was, I guess, 17 at the time, and I thought, I'm too young, you know, I'm too young.
I really couldn't have a problem. But it was like I could see, you know, just looking at the way, you know, my life was going, it was, um, it scared me. And so my father, he had been in the program for a number of years, and I called him. He lived in New York, and asked him, you know, I said, I think I have a problem. And at that time, I didn't want to stop drinking. I just wanted to stop hurting, and stop the sickness, and the trouble.
But I went and I talked to him, and I went to a meeting. And I got the same feeling, that, you know, people were friendly, and they put out their hand, even when I couldn't put mine out. They talked to me, even when I couldn't talk to them. I felt more comfortable. I wasn't at ease. I was very scared, but I felt more comfortable than I'd felt in many, many years. I stuck around, and I tried drinking again, I guess, six months after that.
And I tried mood changers once, once again after that. And they didn't work. They didn't work. My way, the easy way that I was looking for, didn't work for me. You know, escaping didn't work, because all it led me to was, you know, just down. A feeling that I was so tired of, and, you know, I just didn't want to feel that way anymore. And so I surrendered, and I accepted the fact that I couldn't drink.
I tried it for, I guess it was, you know, since I was 11. Seven years, I tried it. It never worked, and I finally got through my head that I couldn't drink, and I couldn't take mood changers. And that's, I guess, where I started to grow. For the first time in my life, I started to grow up. After, I guess, surrendering, I heard around meetings where I go, will you do anything if it'll keep you sober?
You know, if you push a peanut across all the way to the other end of the room, would you do that if it kept you sober? I'd say, yeah, and I'd never do it. And this time, if somebody told me to do it, I'd do it. If I thought it'd get me sober, I'd do it. And that's, I guess, where the change came. You know, I had faith, you know, in the people and what they were telling me. And then I started taking the action.
You know, I started doing what I was told. You know, when I felt uncomfortable, I'd say, you know, this too will pass, or easy does it to myself. And I also had to start using my higher power. You know, I wasn't it anymore. I always used to, you know, I had this thing about controlling my life and controlling people, and I found out, you know, my way never worked for me. And so I started using the way the AA program suggested.
Uh, I'm able to talk to people now, which is something I've never been able to do. I've always been inside myself, frightened. Uh, I can feel emotions. You know, I used to be, I used to just cut them off. You know, feel dead inside and exist for so long that, you know, when any little emotion came out, it was so much that I almost couldn't handle it. You know, it was so powerful. My whole family's in AA.
My mother, my stepmother, my father, my brother just joined. And myself. And I'll tell you, it's not always beautiful. We really have some rough spots. Four alcoholics and one roof is, you know, something sometimes.
[00:50:03]
I'm starting to enjoy little things that, you know, everyday things. I thought everyday was, ugh, who wants to be everyday? I wanted excitement and, you know, doing scary things and dangerous stuff and, you know, anything that might get me in trouble is exciting. But now I'm starting to enjoy little things that I must do. You know, like going to work in the morning. I could never picture myself going to work.
I was going to be a bum, really. I just, I don't want to play. But I like getting up for work most of the time. I like cleaning my room. It got to a point where if I laid a shirt down on my floor and picked it up and it was dirty, it was time to clean my room. I'm starting to do those things, you know, before. Just like working on myself, trying to work on my defects before they get so out of hand.
And one of them was my will. I thought I didn't have any defects when I came in here. So maybe I felt sorry for myself once in a while. But, you know, now I look at them and I say, boy, the only way I can handle them is like a little piece at a time, just like the program, one day at a time. And if I just start, you know, taking one step and asking for help and then using the help that I got. I had a sponsor and he got tired, you know.
I guess he was in like 15 years as sort of a beautiful person. And he'd try and help me and tell me, and he finally just got tired because at this time, you know, I'd listen to the advice, but I'd never do it. I'd never work on myself. And now that I've started to change my attitudes and change the way I think and the ruts that I get myself into and try to lift myself out of them, you know, I'm starting to feel like a human being and starting not to be, I guess, so self-centered, you know, not as afraid, more free.
And that's something I was looking for in alcohol, is freedom. I thought it would make me free and happy, but this is where I found it and this is where it's real for me. You know, everything that I found in alcohol has disappeared into a hangover or sickness or trouble, and this stays with you. You know, it doesn't go away. And it's ten times more beautiful. This is coming out here into Colorado with a bunch of people, you know, like this.
It's better than any I have ever gotten. All I want to say is thank you for being here and having the handout when I needed it. Hopefully I can do the same for someone who needs it too. Thank you. Thank you, Donnie. When I came out here, I came out about a week ago, and I'd been traveling through the mountains. I was up on the Trail Ridge Road with my traveling companion, and we were up about 12,000 feet on the Trail Ridge Road, and he turned to me and he said, you know, this is about the highest you've been since you got sober.
I had to agree, it was the right kind of high. Loved every minute of it. It sure is beautiful out here. For our third and final speaker, we have Jerry S. from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Jerry. Good afternoon, everyone. I am an alcoholic, and my name is Jerry. Hi, Jerry. I want to thank all you beautiful people for allowing me the privilege to speak here today. Because from age nine, when I took my first drink, it's so easy to relate to the previous two speakers and to practically every speaker I've heard in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I, too, drank to escape from the reality of living, from the pressures of life. I could never cope, or it seemed that I wasn't capable of coping without the use of alcohol or drugs throughout the greater part of my life. I never looked at it as ruining my life. When I felt like drinking, I did. When I took drugs, it was for the same reason. I wanted to be long, but I didn't know how to bring that about with any group of people.
[00:55:00]
I always ran with older people that drank, took drugs, and lived the so-called hard, fast, and die young life. At the age of 13, when I got into drugs, it was the soft type, goofball, tranquilizer type, but I ate those like peanuts, and I usually washed them down with wine, beer, or anything that was available. I remember the first time I drank Bay Rum, and I never knew that it was an aftershave lotion, but it done the trick.
I was one of those barfing drunks at all the time. I was trouble keeping drinks down. I never had a drinking problem. I had a problem drinking. There is a difference. But my life on the street where I took my education, because I was in grade 9 when I left school at age 13, and I went to the street that I learned to know so well, and at times I really loved it, because if there was a love in my life, it was the street, but it was a kinky, sick type of life, and a love that was as kinky.
I ended up in a federal penitentiary prior to my 16th birthday, and that was nothing new really, because I had tried on a few of the smaller provincial jails and reformatory types, and they never scared me. If there was fear in my life, I masked it that well that I could never see it, and I suppose that's about the only thing I was successful at for the first 32 years of my life, and that was in deceiving myself.
I came out of prison a very bitter, hateful, resentful, envious type of individual, and indeed mentally sick, because being in an all-man's world, there are many things that are demanded, and there's only one way to protect it, and I'm speaking of my body. And there were times that I hurt that bad that I said I would get even, and I'd end up in the cooler for 30 days on bread and water, one meal every seven days and a shower every seven days, and that was getting even to me.
And I had that attitude, and it was to last for up until the point until I got sober. I became a nomad in that my relationship with my family, which incidentally was a broken family from my age seven onward, I hated my father, I wasn't too sure of my mother, and I couldn't communicate with my brothers and sisters. There was never enough of anything, and I too was very materialistic, because I used to work after school in a pastry shop.
In fact, by the time I was 13, I was a fairly accomplished pastry chef. Also, I was being looked at to go over to the Queen's Coronation. As a sea cadet, I was a chief petty officer by the time I was 13. So had I stuck with it, things might have been different, but God didn't have them planned that way, not with my will in the way. So I came out of penitentiary the first time, and I drifted a boat.
I wasn't out of penitentiary a half an hour, and I was drinking, and when I arrived back in my hometown, my own family didn't even know me because I'd grown that much physically, and I'd changed, that now I thought indeed I was a man, and if a man were to try to attempt to walk the life that I walked, it is little wonder that we fail. I damn near killed a man who I thought was responsible for my first penitentiary term.
He still bears the marks today, but thank God he too has forgiven me. I won't try to attempt to go through my life other than that. As a drinking alcoholic, I tried the geographical cure that took me from one end of Canada to the other in about 38 different states, and like Donnie, I too detested work, but there were periods in my life when I did work. I liked working with a gun in my hand. I liked working by night because I could get more money.
I used to make a yearly pilgrimage to the city of Toronto and oft times New York to pickpockets, and even my drinking when I could state to myself and rationalize that booze was not interfering with my life. If any of you are pickpockets, try to do it when you're shaking and vibrating. But as a result of my work, But as a result of my drinking, I had many common law dunes with gals. I also hustled my own body on the streets for drinks when I couldn't get them no other way. I was a
[01:00:02]
very sick type of alcoholic. Many times, you know, I couldn't accept the fact that I couldn't drink. And I suppose, like most of us that come to the program, that I was on step three when I did come here. I went through a few small fortunes that I made, honestly, by working. I worked as bartender, waiter, truck driver, you name it. There were times that I was pearl diving in some hash joint for a meal to get enough dollars together to get my clothes clean and a bottle of wine to hit the road. The loneliness that was like a cancer that was eating away at what heart there was left demanded that I should take my own life and those suicidal thoughts were to be a fairly constant companion until I got sober. And as a result of my drinking, I spent approximately twelve years of my life in federal institutions and provincial jails. I went through a relationship that I was emotionally involved in that produced a fine son who is now twelve years of age. I tried hard at times to keep that together, but I look back now and know that I didn't really want it because I wasn't ready for it. It was my will at all times run rampant because when a mortgage bill would be due, the telephone with the long distance calls would be overdoing the light bills and the fuel bills. I would be working by May, doing janitorial work in the tavern also to make extra money, and then going out robbing again. That resulted in another drunk and further in debt. And then the credit companies, God only knows how much I owe them. Then I gave up. I threw in that towel on life and I went, if there was to be any depth left to the bottom that I had reached then, I was to go further down. I became such a decrepit type individual that I detested the ground that I even walked on. I could only live on hate and fear and I never knew why. I tried AA on as far back as 1963, and then after two more penitentiary terms, and it was one that I was out one time forty-five minutes, another time I was out twenty-five days, I got hit with a three-year term, and I knew then that I was not arrested rather that I was rescued because it was ten days later before I could stand up in front of a man and get my time. I decided then and there that I'd not drink ever again. And like the program suggests, we should never use that word, never. I went to prison and I didn't drink any brew. I didn't take any goofballs or play the doctors or the psychiatrist for more drugs. But I came out twenty-three months later, just dry, and I drank that night at nine o'clock, feeling once again very, very alone and very sick. I knew then that the answer lied in the taking of my life if somehow I could get up the courage, whether it be in a bottle or in drugs, to accomplish that feat. But God had it intended another way and he showed me to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and I got sober. And it lasted for a brief while, maybe seven or nine months. And then if there was ever to be a grand finale to a person's drinking, I was to drink for five more days and take drugs like they were going out of style and wind up clinically dead in the hospital in my hometown, twice in a matter of five days. Waking up to being in a mental institution once again and that made four trips there, only to be released a short month later to go out and cause more hell and pain. And there was a brief thought throughout the latter part of my drinking that I was becoming sick and tired of being sick. I ended up with a total of thirteen years in prison to serve but an aggregate sentence of four years and twenty-six days.
In a small little county jail I had made up my mind that, God willing, I'd try to stay sober the rest of my life. And that's just the way it has been since that last decision.
[01:05:04]
This program had taught me in the last nine months that I was around it that if I were to make a decision and attempt to stick by it that I could have success and that great things would happen to me. The first eighteen months of my sobriety were in a prison cell and I searched for the God that they spoke of who I denied from age thirteen onward. And it was a very confusing type thing because I'd ran to the church and I'd changed from being baptized a Protestant to the RC faith. And it was through a little polio victim priest that I gained some understanding but that was from the theologian's approach. And again it was far too baffling that the mind and the state of mind that I was in I could not comprehend. And then it was people that told me that simply make it G.O.D., you know, good orderly direction. I took advantage of that and through our institutional sponsor who is a very dear beloved friend of mine today I was able to rise above my weaknesses as Matt had stated that it was only through my weaknesses that I've been able to gain strength.
I was released on parole and that's just a short three years ago. I've had no serious problems staying sober but I search within my mind for the reservation that I know is there. I have fleeting thoughts of maybe someday I might return. Only in sober, rational, God-given thought I know I can't. And like so many alcoholics that I've heard speak, I know today that God willing I'll never make that mistake because there's no recoveries left in this body or this mind. I've watched love come into my life and love to me used to happen in the backseat of a car or a cheap motel room or a park bench. And even in the end there was none of that.
I was a self-centered, egotistical, babbling idiot. But there was to me in my life through people in the program the ability to learn to love first myself and that started out with trickles of liking. I worked in a very humble position scrubbing floors at a buck fifty-five an hour for my sponsor, another one not the first sponsor. And he used to drive me crazy of saying how are you about sixty times a day. But he taught me so many beautiful priceless gems that I use in my sobriety today. He taught me to keep myself successfully broke and I do. I have to be comfortable as an alcoholic trying to live a sober way of life and that's very important that I make it a way of life because sobriety to me and I've had it on occasion throughout my life is valueless if it's not a way of life. The God that I come to understand I pray to each and every morning and give thanks throughout the day and throughout every evening. I've been blessed with so many things in life since becoming sober that I couldn't begin to name them. They cannot be bought nor purchased in any store or any catalog. And it's because of people like you that allow me to live.
There's a small little line that I've read and I get so much out of reading today and through people. And it's stated that wherever anyone is against his will, that to him is a prisoner. And it was in my last prison term, although I was physically a prisoner, I was no longer a mental prisoner of myself. I had found freedom from the type of life that I'd once lived. And I knew that God willing, and that I being willing also, I could rise above it all. I never knew what respect was. I didn't know what love was. I did not know any of the social skills that are needed to be at peace with oneself in any given setting.
I always thought that it took booze or drugs to put one at ease. But in my attempts to
[01:10:02]
live right, as my conscience would dictate, I've been successful to date, if success can be measured by that yardstick. I've a tremendous peace of mind that today my mind is not confused nor do I run in circles. I get into the big book on occasions when I want real answers it's so easy though to be humble and humility to me is simply the state of being teachable. When I have to be that humble that I'll go to another AA member and say, I'm hurting.
I need an answer, will you help me? And I've never been steered wrong from that point. But I'm a strong headed, pig headed, persevering individual. I want to do things my way, not that it's not God intended, I don't believe. But I want to drive myself to the point that I have to reach out. Because I can make this way of life in sobriety far too easy by running to other people. I've had to learn to stand on my own two feet. I've had to go as the steps suggest and I don't know about the written list but I've certainly made a mental list of the people I have harmed. And I know what great benefit and reward there is in having an amend received by the people that I've harmed. I know the respect that I have in my home community could not be purchased with the dollar. Just to be at peace and not bothered by the police in my hometown is one thing. They have the strongest admiration for me. There have been many firsts in my life in sobriety. I was the first parolee in Canada to be a parole supervisor. I work in an aftercare agency today and I don't say these things to be boastful, rather that to give you hope that you too, if that is your inclination, can move towards that goal in the service of mankind. And more in particular to the service of my fellow brothers and sisters who are alcoholic. I've been blessed indeed with so many things that I just could never begin to list them. But the greatest gift that perhaps I've been allowed to receive and blessed with is that of being able to forgive myself. Because I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a gun and not know, have any certainty as to whether the person means business. My life was threatened just a couple of years ago and the person that had made the threat had been a lifelong associate. But he was a pretty sick individual as I once was and I became just as sick because I went and I got a gun. And I was going to take his life and I was in a better position to be successful. But I would have hurt again to go back to prison and knew that I'd never come out. Because the attitude that I'd developed was I had become sick and tired of being sick and with that I grew and continue to grow in this program. I admit freely as I've had in the past that indeed I am an alcoholic. I'm powerless over alcohol whether it be in my system, in a bottle or in your system. I have no control over whatever and certainly and without reservation my life was certainly unmanageable and continues to be so to a certain degree today. I came to believe simply through faith that if you people could do it, I too could. And with that, that belief has grown to a profound understanding of God. And each and every day I make that decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of this God that I've come to understand. Now the concept I have might be totally different from anyone in this room, but for me it works and that's very important for me. I've taken stock of myself and I've seen many distasteful things and I know that I can go back to being a person that I once was, but I don't want to, I don't have to and I don't need to.
I don't want to, I don't have to, and I don't need to, and the only drink I'll ever need in my life is the drink after I take the first one, because there were periods in my life that I drank and I didn't have to drink upon wakening up, but there was many times, too, that the drink was a necessary part of my life in order that I might exist.
[01:15:09]
Step five, I've attempted, through the vehicle of talking at meetings, and thank God my sponsor, when I came out of prison, kept me busy speaking, because I lost the fear, then, of people. I knew that someone out there liked me, in fact, someone out there loved me, and that God willing they'd not hurt me or cause me to feel pain. I sat down on two different occasions with clergy trying to acquire the liberation that step five gives each and every alcoholic who takes it. But you know, I was so befuddled that I could not understand the truth in what he was relaying to me after he'd heard me out.
And it was simply, forgive myself and sin no more. I ran to the church for a year, and I found that I was beginning to close my mind off to the teachings of the particular clergyman for the morning, therefore I stopped it because it was getting to me. I find, rather, that I'm at home and at peace with myself in any A room in any community that I visit. I find, too, that I ask God to remove the defects of character that I can identify in my own life the more that I become sober and further away from my last drink.
I'm able to walk back mentally through the years that I'd lived and know why I acted in a particular manner. I know in the list that I'd made mentally, and it took me a long while to place myself at the top of that list because I was that masochist, I beat myself and I was my own worst enemy. And as a result, I'd caused so much pain, grief, and shame into other people's lives that it, too, became unbearable for them, and they shut me out. And they had every reason for that, but I could not understand that.
Today, the relationship that I have with my immediate family and with my immediate friends and co-workers is astounding, really. My mother, bless her heart, you know, she's 68 years of age and she's a truly happy woman today because none of us children give her problems. And, in fact, I'm the only problem child in my family. I pray not only when I'm in need. I give thanks for a simple hamburger. And I reflect in times of meditation just how insignificant it really is. I don't have to be apologetic nor debate nor defend my belief. I don't feel any of us have to.
I feel that through our preamble in AA that teaches us to share our experiences, our strengths, and our hopes, that we can arise above the shame and degradation of active alcoholism. I know that in Step 9, when I attempted that while still in a prison cell, I had relief from the tormented soul and mind of how I could overcome and face these people again. I came out of prison with the attitude of fighting that community that I'd grown up in and caused so much pain.
But I found that when I did hit the street, I never had to fight anything. And I come to understand that it's a simple act of allowing things to happen rather than making them happen. And that was one of my greater character defects of making things happen. Evaluable things that we learn in the program, such as in Step 10 of continue to take a personal inventory. And I do this as often as possible as the book suggests that I do spot check inventories throughout a day.
And my 24-hour period of living simply begins the moment I fall away from the program. The moment that I become angry with another human being and cause that person to be uncomfortable, I know I've done wrong. And perhaps one might view that in not as serious a light as I do. But I know if it were to continue to grow in that same attitude that I'd not be that far away from a drink. I have to safeguard my sobriety because I don't want to lose it.
[01:20:13]
I know that I could never get sober again. And I know that the only way of life is in the maintenance steps as they are referred to. There was a friend of ours from Florence, Kentucky, Dave P. And I have him on tape at home when he laid out the 12 steps for me. Because when he spoke that night, I felt that he was speaking to me. That here once again was an angel of God sent to guide Jerry in his sobriety that he might grow. And I remember listening to Virgil from Decatur, Georgia a few years ago in Halifax. And I knew then that I was in tune with the rest of the world, that at last I did belong.
And that no, I was not out of whack anymore with the rest of the world. But I know that my efforts should be confined perhaps to the community in which I live if I'm to attempt to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. I do a lot of school programs today, but God willing, someone will receive the message and come to our program and find a new way of life. Thank you and God bless you all. Thank you, Jerry.
As some of you may know, the International Conference of Young People will be held this year on Labor Day weekend in Memphis, Tennessee. Is Harold D. in the audience? Is Harold in the audience? Okay, well, Dale. Dale, come up please. I'd like you to just take a minute or two and tell us a little bit about that conference. Hi, I'm Dale and I'm an alcoholic. And I thought Harold would be here by now because I don't do too well at speaking for groups like this. But we are having the 18th International Conference of Young People and Alcoholics Anonymous in Memphis, Tennessee this year.
We chose for our theme this year, coming of age, because this was the 18th Young People's. And for a lot of us, 18 was a very big year, mostly because we were finally old enough to drink legally. Young People's, coming to a meeting like this, Young People's means a lot to me. Young People's did not get me sober originally because there were no Young People's where I was. And after being sober for a year and a half, I finally ran into a place that had a Young People's group. And I finally found the one thing that I had been missing all the time that I had been in AA up to that time.
That was finally people that I was willing to let help me. Because I had this thing about my age, I did not look like an alcoholic and I didn't want to be. I don't think probably any of us do. But because of the fact that I was 21 at the time, I would not let people in Alcoholics Anonymous help me. And therefore, AA did not work for me. I'll send you the drunk log. We're having a conference August 29th, 30th, and 31st. That's the Labor Day weekend and it's at Holiday Inn Rivermont in Memphis.
If you want any information, I know that, how many people have registered here so far? Any? There's a few. One thing, if you've had any troubles getting hotel confirmations, come over and talk to us. And if you want to register and just want to shoot the breeze about the conference, we're in the hospitality room at the Executive Tower Inn across the street. I think it's on the third floor by where the dance was last night.
And we'd be more than glad to, we'd love to have you come over and talk to us. There's no way we can cover everyone just walking around here. Another thing, Dick and Bonnie C. from Havelock, North Carolina here. Does anyone know them? I'm going to any lengths to find these people at this conference.
[01:25:00]
I'm not having very good luck. Okay, so we realize that money is tight this year and a lot of us have forked out money to come to the World Conference here in Denver. Don't let that stop you. Come over and talk to us about that also and we'll see what we can do. Because we want to make this the biggest summer in AA that AA's had in the last five years at least. We want to make this a big event for young people and I'll call it synonymous. Thank you, Ron.
Thank you, Dale. As Dale said, the International Conference of Young People in AA does have a hospitality room. It's on the third floor in the Beethoven Room over in the Executive Tower Inn, which is just one block over from the Convention Center. So we'd love to see you all, meet you over there. We'll have some coffee and we'll grab some iced tea. Donations will be accepted. And that about is it, folks. I'd like to leave you with one little message as we close.
The theme for the World Conference is Let It Begin With Me. And I remember when I first came in the program, I was told not to wait for someone to come up to me to say hello. It was my job to extend my hand. And I hope you all do that at this conference. And thank you very much. May we close with a Lord's Prayer. Join hands, please. 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, forever and ever. Amen. Great.