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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Multi Speakers – Hearing Impaired I Am Responsible I AM RESPONSIBLE HEARING IMPAIRED – RS 06345.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-multi-speakers-hearing-impaired-i-am-responsible-i-am-responsible-hearing-impaired-rs-06345.mp3 Duration: 01:25:54
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I am an alcoholic. Hi. This is going to be a real orthodox AA meeting. In other words, there's no schedule, nobody knows what's supposed to be done, and we're going to do it. One of the things that amazes me when I come here and see the tremendous number of people, how in the hell they ever kept the world running while they were all drunk? I have worked a little bit with people with impaired hearing, but I am not familiar with the sign language. I can't interpret it one way or the other. So I would appreciate questions from the audience, and please don't hesitate to participate.
In Rochester, we have at least three facilities that translate for the deaf. John L. Norris Clinic is a rehab clinic, and they interpret for the deaf. They, in turn, are quite close to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, NTID, and it is very helpful to be able to run a rehab program for people who have hearing impaired. Does anyone have any questions to get the discussion started here? Yes. Hi, Karen. Could you speak up just a little?
I'm trying to start a deaf AA group in Texas and Florida. I live in Trenton, Michigan, and I work a lot from there. I find that the contact that I have in the deaf community with deaf people and hearing people, what they're telling me is that there are deaf people out there, but they don't know who they are. How do you communicate with the people out there? Hi. You are from New York? My name is Jeff Gray. I am an alcoholic. I am from Long Beach, Kansas, which is very close to the Kansas State School for the Deaf, which is at the Lake of Kansas.
My name is Jeff Gray. I am from Long Beach, Kansas, which is very close to the Kansas State School for the Deaf, which is at the Lake of Kansas. My name is Jeff Gray. I am from Long Beach, Kansas, which is very close to the Kansas State School for the Deaf, which is at the Lake of Kansas. Do you know Art Berman at RIT? No, I don't. This is very unexpected, and I can assure you it is very much a pleasure to me.
My name is Chuck Graves. I am an alcoholic. I live in Shawnee, Kansas, which is close to Olathe, Kansas, which is the location of the Kansas State School for the Deaf.
[00:05:13]
I became sober, well, not really overnight, and I didn't really start very early. In 1960, I decided I was either truly mentally insane, and then it occurred to me there was an outside possibility that I might also be alcoholic. The only reason or excuse I had for thinking like that was that I got to thinking back, and it had been since at least 1940 since I had not had at least a drink, but never one, every day.
This made me just a little bit suspicious that it might be working on my mind. Some folks that I called at AA heartily agreed and asked me if I would like to go to a meeting, and I said yes. I went to the meeting, and this is not a drunkologue, but there is some background that is very important to say because I am hearing and I do not sign, and there must be reasons for this. I went to a meeting, and I really couldn't identify with what was going on.
I decided that if I was an alcoholic, I was a kind of intellectual alcoholic, and I mentioned this. Nobody really said very much in response to that, but there were some wonderful people there who were saying the things that I have since heard for years. I could hear everything that they said, but I didn't really know what they meant. I didn't get the context. I didn't get the picture. Later, in taking deaf people with competent, qualified interpreters to hearing AA meetings, a man quoted those very words to me.
He said, Chuck, I will not be coming back. I know everything these people are saying, but I do not know what they mean. I do not understand why the same people or different people are saying the same things over and over again. I tried to explain that that's what it was all about, that you go and you hear people say how they were, and you hear them say what happened that changed that. Then they tell you how life is for them now, but he didn't understand it, and he's still out there.
I didn't understand it for two years. I didn't mind going to AA meetings because I always had a cold six-pack in the car and a bottle of whiskey. Middle grade, not Johnny Walker or not Rock Gut, but middle grade, and it seemed to get the job done all right. In 1977, I was 62, and a compulsion came over me to become sober. Immediately, within hours, I was in the presence of a man who had got thrown out of an airplane, not in the air, but on the ground, thank heaven, as a pilot.
He lost a $60,000 or $70,000 a year job. He was young enough that he wanted to do some counseling. So he became an approved counselor, and I was fortunate enough to be guided to him. He made more sense in five minutes than anything else had made up to this time. Number one, he said, this is a totally side story, but because of your wife's attitude and her reluctance to have you become an identifiable alcoholic,
[00:10:11]
what would we tell the people at the club that you're not drinking anymore and so on? He said, with that, plus the fact that I can feel vibrations from you that you wish to become sober, I would recommend that you go to a different AA group. He specifically mentioned the AA group that he would like to see me go to, and I did. When I walked up that long flight of stairs, I had stayed sober one day by myself. Don't ask me why. I owed somebody something, maybe me.
I can stay sober for one day by myself, but it was the longest damn day that there ever was on this earth. I was glad when Tuesday morning came and I could go over to the new group, the new to me. I walked up those stairs and I let the door close behind me and I looked around. It was the type of group who maintained some chairs. There was a room over here where they played some cards. There was a lot of conversation. There was a lot of people that said a lot of things.
I told them that I had been drinking until the day before yesterday and I wished to drink no more. This obviously came to the right place. There was a great personal interest by some people. The result of that was that I became sober in AA meetings. This time I had no trouble understanding what the meaning of this is the way we used to be, this is what happened, and this is how we are now. It made all kinds of sense and I wished to join them.
It turned out, I didn't know for a long time, but then my ex-pilot friend, totally on his own, made a recommendation to me that I go out to Johnson County Community College and that I talk to a young lady out there who was the job person who also ran a course on career and life planning. I was so screwed up that it didn't even seem ridiculous to me that a drunk at 62 years old was going to go learn life planning, but it was a good move.
She took a personal interest in me and she guided me and she directed me and I trusted her. As it turned out, she was Al-Anon and she was the ex-wife of the CWA pilot, so I was truly in good hands. She took me to her course, which is very, very select. She told me a thing that I stood tall for the first time probably in my life. She said, Chuck, you are a special person and I want to help you all I can.
I said, I have very undefinable yearnings and leanings, but I know that I will not be satisfied unless I am in some type of service to less fortunate people than I, having no idea what this was going to mean. What it meant was that I took the life planning course, fine. I took a public speaking course in which there was a young lady, beautiful girl, who spoke so well and read lips so well that I did not realize until her interpreter showed up that she was totally deaf.
And had learned lip reading and had learned speech to the point of well beyond minimal speaking tones and so on with hearing people. I was deeply impressed by the fact that Robin was there. I was also deeply impressed by the fact that the college through various grants provided interpreters for each one of the deaf students who came to them. The Johnson County Community College also is a campus, it is an extension campus of Gallaudet University.
Which, as I understand it, all the undergraduates are deaf. All the undergraduates are deaf, and I fell in with that bunch of people who operated that.
[00:15:11]
And before anything else had happened, I don't know why. Maybe I know why now. And then the interpreter for this deaf girl said, we have a deaf organization out here that's in deep and serious trouble, and they need a service done for them, which I think you're capable of doing. And I said, I'll give it a shot. It was purely commercial, purely for money, and purely put my neck on the block, more than it had ever been before, to provide some advertising specialties and fundraising items within days, which had a schedule of weeks and even a month or two or more.
They were truly in a bind because they had need for quick action. They had inherited a slow-pitch softball tournament for the deaf, which another city had not been able to fulfill its contract. They were having a meeting in a specific hotel room in a specific hotel in New York on a specific date at a specific time, and all they did was ask me if I could get some material ready for them and have it delivered there for that meeting.
This did happen. And I think more than just the pressmen and the printers and the transporters of goods were involved in that. No AA was involved, nothing having anything to do with alcoholism, except at that meeting, I was thrilled at how they conducted their meeting, and I was very understanding of they had a wet bar, and the longer the meeting went on, the wetter it got, and I felt no pains whatsoever.
But to me, they were normal people who enjoyed sociability, conduct a meeting, and have a good, okay, so much for that. Then the first term was over, and I had no desire to register for any courses in the second term. I also had no desire to do anything specifically. So I would go out to the college, and I would… Yes? Yes, ma'am. I'm at your service. You know, some of the people who are at the health college, you know, here today, they do deserve that.
Okay. One thing of importance. I will say one thing of importance. There is now a silent, serenity, official, registered, alcoholics, anonymous, deaf group which meets regularly in Olathe, Kansas. We have deaf people, we have deaf sobriety, and they run their own meeting. They provide interpreters for outside hearing people who do not sign. I'll be glad at any time to go into more detail as to how this came about.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I understand. I understand. Now, as Lois said, we would like very much to hear from deaf people who have successfully… Would you please come up and use the microphone? Because this is all taped. We have a lady here. Yeah, would you stand in front of the microphone?
[00:20:00]
Oh, if somebody would like to tell me what is in there. You have another interpreter? Is that what you want? We have another… We have another interpreter. This is the first time I've ever been up this far. My name is Jean. I am an alcoholic. Hi, Jean. My hometown is Albany, New York. I do partially hear, but as time goes on, I'm losing my hearing. My occupation, basically, is I work with engineers around motors quite a bit.
And I've always had the hearing problem. And with people that don't have the hearing problem, that becomes a difficulty. But first of all, as far as my AA is concerned, as this depletes, I go to AA meetings, and it's very hard for me to hear. I've been fitted for the hearing aid. I'm uptight a little bit. So consequently, in my district, there is no place for me, an alcoholic, to go where I can learn and understand the sign language.
So I have to do it my way. And it is with the good people in Alcoholics Anonymous that I have stayed contact with, that I have a good sponsor, and I have been able to stay in this program and want the sobriety. And with the help of people like yourself, and it's the only thing in my whole life that I've ever stuck to, that through you, and many of you once again, that this August I will have 18 years in Alcoholics Anonymous.
Thank you. I will say this much. I don't want to go into drunk logs, but my hearing is slowly going, and I know this. And the first day that I got fitted for the hearing aid at the outpatient of the hospital, I screamed, I can hear. And the fact that I know that I want the sobriety, and I'm going to have to find a place for, once again, for me, because I didn't know who I was or I was an alcoholic when I came, because I came in through Al-Anon.
And very quickly, and with your patience and your love, the fact that I don't have the time because of my three shifts that I work on my job that there is anywhere that I can go in an AA meeting in the capital district to find for the deaf. I want to learn the sign language because of the condition. And they had one in Kingston, New York, and it depleted because they said nobody was interested. I wouldn't want to come in, basically, and I'm a periodic alcoholic.
I didn't get to the full-time job. But it didn't make any difference. I go to meetings, and thank God that I have the hearing aid. Thank God that I have the will and the desire to want to stay sober. And that people, I was told in the hospital to have people look straight at me when they talk because when they turn their heads, they take away their voices from me. So I'm fortunate, one of the fortunate ones, that I came in this program 18 years ago and was able to get sober.
But when we were taught about the emotional part of this thing, and I came in because I wanted to get sober, but coming in and trying to do this if I had stopped drinking. You come in here with a lot of different kinds of emotions.
[00:25:00]
And one of my biggest things was depressions, loneliness, and wanting to get something out of life and trying to understand a lot about it. But I hope somewhere that you can take back with you wherever you go because this goes with age as we get older and become recycled. They call us here in Canada senior citizens. But that's it. I don't think, I even remember going through in 1976, 76 or 79, I stayed in AA.
I lost my home or I gave it up. I slept in my clothes because I couldn't afford heat in this $14,000 home. Broken marriages and the whole gauntlet. But that's a little bit very quickly of how I wanted to stay sober, even with this handicap. But I say this once in closing. In fact, if you can take a message back where there's districts like mine where the hearing is needed and a meeting for the deaf can be established or where I can go to an AA meeting that I don't have to travel maybe 50, 60, 70 miles and get up early in the morning, it's very important to me because I know what's going to happen to me in time.
My father's side, the whole family is totally deaf, and my father will not accept that he too now, at 80-some years old, has got a hearing problem. We've both been in the engineering field, and you men know and possibly your girls, if you work around where there's a lot of noise, this would get affected. But I say God was good to me and brought me into Alcoholics Anonymous, no matter how I got here, the fact that why I still had my hearing, and the fact that even up to today, I'm able to have this gift of golden year for me, the sobriety that I got, and still been able to hear, to hear, to help me get sober.
And then I know now there's people like you that when I go deaf that will take a message out and bring it back when I'm suffering from this physical, emotional, and spiritual. When I think God isn't listening, there's another alcoholic, but for the grace of God, is out there willing to hug me, willing to tell me, one day at a time, Jean, and we'll make it. Without, we don't have to say a word, but it's here.
With sign language, with the hearing, wherever you've got some place to share it with, and when I get so I can do this, I can share it back with a newcomer. This is the purpose why I'm glad we've got this. I need you because I am going deaf one day at a time, and I want to stay sober more than anything else in the world that I've ever had in my life. And without you, I could be nothing. I could be drunk, and I want to say this in closing, and thank you to my interpreter and my monitor and to our staff workers that have done a marvelous job.
I love you one and all. God loves you, and may they all take a good liking to you because we do mean you. Thank you. You know that this is humility. I'm going to fall on my face. This is true humility. Okay. My name is A.R. Oh. My name is Art. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Art. I can tell. And a drug addict. Slow down. Slow down. I'm in A.A. for four years, but… AA for four years, but I've been sober two years, anyway, that's beside the point.
[00:30:02]
I have been so frustrated, really frustrated with AA meetings because AA meetings have no interpreters, none. I'm so frustrated, but I found my friend, a sponsor, my sponsor, who can sign. We relate, we communicate, we go to a lot of meetings. And I became bored, I felt all alone. All these people are talking, talking, talking, talking, talking, and there I am, one person, I was bored. My sponsor still kept contact with me, and he said, come on, come to my house, I'll go to your house.
Then I was thinking, I'm not going to the meetings, no, I'm not going to the AA meetings. He said, come on, come on, for coffee. Yeah, I'll go to your house for coffee. He said, what time is it? He said, it's time to go to the meetings. I said, oh! He said, again? And then I decided to establish an AA group for the deaf. The two of us, there were two deaf, two deaf, we set it up, the group, and it grew, it was slow.
But then we moved, I moved to New York, and then I lived near, what, what, what, oh, Rochester. I lived in Rochester, New York. I lived near Rochester, New York, and I tried to set up there, but it fell through. And then I was confused, wait a minute, wait a minute, repeat? I was trying to, oh, collapse, yeah, okay, yeah, it collapsed, and then the group, I tried myself, but the group collapsed, but, not, wait a minute, not, not, oh, it didn't work, okay, okay, it didn't succeed, yeah, it didn't work, it collapsed.
And another deaf person, another deaf alcoholic showed up, and he kept it open, and it started to grow. So, I moved to Falmouth, Mass., and I had a hard time in Falmouth. You know that. I was one, there was one interpreter there, once a week, I need, I need, seven, seven times a week. Oh, you need seven meetings a week, a meeting every day. Not once a week, seven times a week, I'd like to go to meetings.
Marie, Marie and I, we're discussing this, and we decided to set up an AA group for the deaf, but, and it really grew, it really grew, there was a lot of contact between people, and they spread the word, and it grew, and interpreters were there, and hearing people were, you know, there, and it just really grew. And I realized that when I set up the AA group for the deaf, on that, there was more deaf in the town than I knew of, so, there was a group there themselves, deaf, and, you know, they had contact with AA more, and then they spread the news to an interpreter, and interpreters were invited, and they came, and I really don't need money from grants, I don't need money from grants from outside people, I don't need that, I've brushed it away, because I'll, we want, we want to follow the Twelve Traditions, but, but, but, most AA groups really, really don't understand about, about Twelve Traditions, so I need to explain about the Twelve Traditions to them, so we can, you know, earn, earn the money, and the profits, and everything to keep it going, and, yeah, thank you, and, you know, pay an interpreter, and not bad, and, so, working, working, so it's working, I'm happy here, I'm happy now to be, all these friends of ours, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank
[00:35:05]
you, thank you. Hi, I'm Lois Fisher, I'm an alcoholic, and I work at the General Service Office, and I just simply want to announce, before I have to leave to go to another workshop, that there will be signing for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired Alcoholics at the big meeting at Olympic Park Stadium tonight, there will also be signing at the big meeting Sunday morning at Olympic Park Stadium, and the section that has been reserved for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Alcoholics is Expo Club Level 500. It's kind of a VIP section. Now, the other thing that I just want to say before I leave is, I, there are not words for me to express my gratitude to the interpreters who have shown up, volunteering their services to make these meetings possible.
I can't begin to thank them by name, because they just keep showing up. I know there's Sam, and there's Sandy, and there's Maureen, and there's, there's Pat, but then other people show up, and everyone's just helping as best they can to carry the message. Thank you very much. Oh, one more thing. Just because we have an interest at the General Service Office in knowing, may I see a show of hands of all of the Deaf and Hearing Impaired people who are at this meeting this morning? Well, 14 out of 42,000. I think we can do better next time, but thank you for coming.
Wait a minute, I wasn't trying to interpret here. Hi, I'm Jim, and I'm an alcoholic from Evanston, Illinois. I, I'm a veteran of World War II. I emerged as a 25-year-old ex-second lieutenant with the hearing curve of a 70-year-old man, and the prediction was that it would get worse. I got a hearing aid from the Veterans Administration in 1946, and it was an early type. I carried it in a one-pocket brassiere on my neck, and it amplified everything across the board, and as I sat in a conference and someone would make a point and slam a pencil, it was like a rifle shot. Someone would close the door, it would click, another rifle shot. And at the end of the day, I thought my brain was turning to jello. So I said, the hell with this, and I put the hearing aid in my bureau where it rested. Along with that problem, my drinking increased. I am also a lawyer, and had a lot of phone calls coming in. At the end of the day, my ear would be sore from pressing the phone into my ear, thinking I could do by force what hearing people do with no energy at all. And I would have a headache from that, and I would alleviate the headache with my liquid sedative. In 1973, my wife got tired of having me say, what did you say? And I'd go to a movie, couldn't hear most of it. What did he say?
What did she say? The whole thing was a mystery. And she stopped going to movies with me, to plays, and so on. Finally, what are you going to do about your hearing problem? And I went to Northwestern Clinic, and there they did a diagnostic test,
[00:40:03]
and then fitted me with a hearing aid. And it was entering a new world. With the hearing aid, my hearing went from about 55% to 90% of normal. I also got one with a telephone switch, meaning that I can hear the induced sound in a telephone of very high quality. I've forgotten the name of our little friend here, but I hit my bottom six months after I got my hearing aid. And I think I'm alive today, because when I got to the AA meetings, I could hear what was going on.
And it occurred to me not too long ago that perhaps there were others in the same condition. So what we did was, in a club in Evanston, buy something called an audio loop. An audio loop is like an amplifier. We have a very high, highly sensitive microphone, which picks up everything that is said. And that sound is induced in a coil that goes all around the chairs. The people with a T-switch can hear the induced sound of very high quality. And if you don't have a T-switch in the hearing aid, but you do have a hearing impairment, we have a mini amplifier, which has a little cord that goes over the coil, and it does the same thing.
And it's regulatable by volume, etc. Maybe a solution for my little friend in the red blouse there. The audio loop is expensive. And our club very generously paid out around 800 bucks for the equipment. They come in individual models, which you can take with you into an office conference or whatever. But the quality of the sound is superb. I'd like to close on a note that I think we have many things in common.
But I think it's essential that we stop using the word hearing impaired for our brothers who are deaf and who have no ability to hear at all, because we have problems that need different solutions. I use the word hearing impaired to describe me. I have some hearing. I am not deaf. The person who is deaf very often has no hearing ability and also has an impaired speech ability. And those two conditions are different, and I think they respond to different treatments.
However, I have the same problem that the deaf have, in that I would like to see a lot of people like me with a hearing aid in each ear come to benefit from the enhanced quality of sound. I've seen people who first had an experience with an audio loop, and their eyes light up. The sun comes on in their face. It's really something. I recommend that you look into this wherever you are for people like me, hearing impaired, with or without hearing aids, who can be reached with the proper equipment.
And if you will do that, you can carry the message to still others who live in a silent world. Thank you. If I can, I'll answer your question. And I'm hearing a lot of problems. Okay, I don't know, I don't know the law of Illinois very well, so I can't answer the law in Michigan.
[00:45:02]
In Illinois, we do have a provision that persons who are accused of crime can make a request for an interpreter to be present at all of their hearings. That's also available in the civil court, civil and criminal. I think it would be well if you would contact the equivalent of the division of handicapped in the state of Michigan, close to you or at the state capitol, explain the problem and see whether or not through what is available to you, you might appeal, register an appeal from that conviction.
Could we stick to AA questions here? Yeah, how about you? I'd like to share something. Okay. You'd like to share something? I've had questions before. Alright, Chuck, what? Okay. Pardon? I didn't hear that. Can you hear me now? I'll repeat the question. Okay. Alright, Chuck. How bad a hearing impairment will your youth bring a response from? How bad can they be and still have a whole response to your youth?
The question is, how bad a hearing impairment does a person have who will be aided by the youth of an audio loop? Got it? Got it? I can't answer that. That's a technical question, and I think it has to do with the variations of hearing loss. In my own case, my hearing curve is, I'm 62, and I guess I have a hearing curve that's probably appropriate for 75 or 80. The hearing that I have diminishes very quickly at the midpoint of the sound range and just drops off abruptly, so that if ladies whisper sweet nothings into my ear in their usual delicate voices, I don't hear them.
I think that the amplification that I get is through two things. The quality of the sound in the loop is enhanced because it's very direct, and the device that I have in each ear amplifies the high tones, so that I would say working from a 50% loss, which is in the upper sound range, the audio loop is very effective. However, I think that it probably would be across the board because the audio loop seems somehow, I can't explain this, enhance the quality of the sound that the person hears.
Have you had experience with cochlear implants? No, no experience. If we can find these, yeah. Lois has asked me to announce that the General Service Office has several pamphlets concerning deaf alcoholics. Please write to GSO for this information. If you need GSO address, it's on all of the AA literature. My name is Bob. I'm an alcoholic. This is irresistible. I'll be able to tell my grandchildren when I have them that I talked at the International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'm very grateful. Believe me. I'm a hearing-impaired person. I began to get deaf in my mid-20s. It's nerve deafness, and the treatment is two hearing aids. I'm very grateful for the limited hearing I have. I believe that my alcoholism and my deafness played into each other. I felt isolated in my deafness, and I took care of that in part by drinking. The drinking increased my feelings of isolation.
[00:50:00]
And after 35 years of drinking, about 20 or 25 of which were with some amount of deafness or hearing impairment, I got into Alcoholics Anonymous by the grace of God. I was a very sick person. My blood pressure was extremely high. I was mentally ill. I couldn't hear normal conversation, but I could hear voices, people having conversations in my home when there was nobody there except me. By the grace of God, I remembered that one of my daughter's former boyfriends, his father, had some sort of a drinking problem, and he was doing better.
I called this man, and he took me to an AA meeting. I can't remember anything that was said at that meeting, except I felt a quality of love there. It was expressed when I was introduced as a new person, and people held out their hands and applauded me. I understood this sign. They were reaching out to me as they applauded. This was a very noisy meeting hall. It had noisy smoke eaters, a noisy fan, and it interfered with my hearing aids.
I couldn't hear anything, but I could understand this, reaching out. I kept going back to that meeting hall. I was absolutely certain that I had to hear every word that was said in order to get well. I was so excited with this idea of sobriety, and what I felt there, that I would move around the room while people were talking, and sit close to them so I could hear. Now, in some of the bars that I used to go to, this behavior probably wouldn't have been accepted, but it was accepted at this AA meeting hall.
A few days later, the manager of the hall built a box insulated with an old carpet around one of the noisiest fans, so I could hear better. They were aware of my hearing problem, and they wanted me to keep coming back. They did this beautiful gesture so that I could participate better in meetings. I just want to say that the acceptance, which can be translated as love, I guess, is what is making me well.
I felt that in AA as a hearing-impaired person, and I'm so grateful for that. I hope that I can give acceptance as I found it. I hope that I can pass it on, give it back in some little tiny measure, so that other people who can't hear in all sorts of ways, maybe are cut off from love as well as cut off from hearing, are isolated in all the other ways that people can be isolated. I hope that I can reach out in love and acceptance, so that they can have the same thing that's been given to me through AA.
What an experience. Thank you so much. Goodbye. Excuse me. Could I have a minute? I didn't come up here to interpret, but I'm happy to. I wanted to tell you that I'm from Arizona, and I can sign if anyone needed some help or wanted to communicate or needed someone to help with interpreting with my limited skills. I was going to another meeting, and I just wanted to introduce myself. I don't know how I got up here.
I don't know how I got up here. My name is Natalie. I'm an alcoholic, and I'm happy you're all here. I'll be going off to my meeting, but if you need anyone to help or the deaf that you can see me, I will be happy to help. Thanks. Bye.
[00:55:04]
It never fails. If you really want to stay sober, AA will work it out somehow. Hi, everyone. My name is John. I'm an alcoholic. Can everyone hear me? I'd just like to say one thing about… Are you going to voice for me? Yeah. I'll voice for you. Okay. I'm happy to be here. I think I wouldn't make it here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. I'm happy to be here. I didn't think I was going to make it, but my car kept breaking down, and then I got lost in the city, and I was wandering all over.
But anyway, I guess I wanted to say I've been in AA for about two years. Now I'm sober about nine months. Anyway, I just wanted to say one thing about deaf people and hearing people. They're basically the same people, except for me as a deaf person. I often use my deafness as an excuse. I became deaf when I was three years old. Can you understand him? Yeah. He's very understandable. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Anyway, I was saying I became deaf… Okay. I became deaf… Okay. You guys can hear me now? But I've got to sign, too, so it's not… Okay. I became… Okay. Okay. Everybody's fine now. Okay. I became deaf when I was three years old, and I hung around a lot of hearing people when I grew up, and I didn't like hearing people, and I didn't like deaf people, so I think I must have been an alcoholic for a long time.
But I was too proud to hang around deaf people, and I really didn't understand what hearing people were saying most of the time. I didn't know if I was an introvert until I was about 18, 19 years old, and then I got to New York. I was from Washington State. I moved to New York to go to college, and I did a lot of drinking and partying, and then I got really scared. I'd been drinking for a long time, but I started getting scared because I thought…
I was reaching that point when I thought the next step was either a person or something. I didn't know where my money for my next drink was going to come from, and I didn't think I really could live if I didn't have a drink. If I had a girlfriend more than one or two days without a drink, I thought I would die. So I got really scared. I went to a drug and alcoholics in counseling, and they tried to help me for a while, and they asked me if I wanted to stop drinking.
I cut down, and I said, of course, and I wanted to cut down. I didn't want to stop. But anyway, I kept on drinking, and they told me to go to AIDS. So I went. I remember the first meeting I went to. Even though I'm deaf and everybody was hearing, I felt the same. You know, I could relate to what people were saying. And that's what's neat about this program. about this program, and you can relate to people that didn't matter, you know, how old you are, how young you are, or, you know, what nationality you are, or anything, I used to have a strong bond, but, that one, that last time I drank, I came in and out, in and out, and, every, I see I had a big drip on my jersey to work on, and, I used to be sober
[01:00:18]
for a while, and then things would go wrong, and, you know, still a lot of people know about, just thinking, but I used to go in and out, in and out, but anyway, I guess I'm running out of words, but I'm happy to be here, happy to see some old friends, and new friends, uh, uh, yeah, and what's this, we have, like, I think, the last time I counted, 8 or 9, Interpreted Meetings a Week for the Deaf, so, we're really aggressive out there, I guess, but also, people help out a lot, that would be neat, if that could happen all over the world, now, I know in New York City, there's a lot of deaf alcoholics out there, and they have, like, one or two Interpreted Meetings a Week, out of 3,500 Meetings a Week, you know, it would be great, you know, we have a lot of, a lot of, what do you call it, um, unity in Rochester, a lot of people have helped for many years, it took a lot of patience, but it's going good now, so maybe you people can help, you know, through it, you know, and help, uh, you know, help deaf, yeah, yeah, maybe the fellowship of, the fellowship of AA will help, I don't know how to say what I'm trying to say, but I just hope that someday I can go anywhere in America and find an interpreter for AA, but I'm sure that, I'm sure that there's a lot of people from other countries, too, who would like, you know, people to speak different languages, maybe that'd be possible, so thank you.
Um, I feel like I want, I want, I want to say many things, you know, we've heard a lot this morning, and I think, can't hear? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, um, my name is Maureen, I'm from Massachusetts, and I am an alcoholic. Hi, Maureen. Sorry about that. Um, one thing that we've heard is that there are many, many different needs of different kinds of hearing impaired people, you know, some people can't hear from the microphone, um, deaf people can't hear anyway, many of them, so the microphone doesn't matter, um, many of us came to this convention, and we can sign, yes, but we're not interpreters, really.
Um, we've been asked to interpret, I'm not sure that's fair to the deaf people, um, I think that for tomorrow, they will, or tonight, I hope, they will try to hire professional interpreters, and I think we have to do that. Um, it would be nice to have members that are skilled interpreters, that, that would be perfect, um, and if there are some, that's wonderful, if they volunteer, but the interpreters come to the convention for themselves, too, so, um, anyway, um, I think listening to many, many different people and different needs, I'm thinking of just different ideas, and maybe we have to give them to Lois, or to the general service board, like, I know in Massachusetts, there are a lot of deaf people that can't read the big book, and they, they just get frustrated, because they've tried to read it, and, and the words are too big, or they don't know the words, and they give up, and they really need that, you know, and maybe, maybe we can ask to put the big book on videotape, or something like that.
Deaf people have to ask for that, too. Um, I think deaf, I think that deaf and hearing people have to work together, and, and really try to think of ways that can improve situations. There are many people, hearing people in AA that can communicate with deaf people, but the deaf people don't know where they are. So, I'm just kind of throwing out those ideas, and I guess that I'm saying that, that we all need to let the right people know what we need, I guess, and I'm not sure what to do about the interpreting situation. I think that we've learned something from, from this convention, and I'm sure in 1990, it will be better, but I want to say thank you to Lois, not here, but she really worked hard, um, and, and we've learned a lot.
[01:05:09]
We've learned, too, mistakes, or whatever, and I hope it will be alright, um, and, and I'm, I'm happy to help in any way that I can. Thank you. Thank you. The question is, most deaf alcoholics write, can't read the big book. Oh, I have to sign, too. Most deaf alcoholics can't read the big book. I, I work, I'm a counselor. For deaf alcoholism. In West Thelma. Oh, in a, in a halfway house. For the deaf.
For men, deaf men. I tried to explain to deaf alcoholics, oh, to deaf alcoholics, about the twelve steps. Most of them don't understand, so now, Marie, Marie and I, we're translating the language from the twelve steps. We're finished with step one. Takes a long time. It is not approved yet, because we want to show to GSO first. So, what do you think about workshops? Question for me? I think that's a great idea, and I, I can only speak for Massachusetts, but I think it's probably true for other parts of the country, too, that there are a lot of people that would be really happy to work on that.
And if we could just even get a small group of people together to start, that would be wonderful. GSO already has that, she said. They have it already. I saw it. But he's saying it's not approved yet from GSO. There's a lady with a question back there. Very quickly. My hearing aid was broken. I'm frustrated right now, because there's no place in my area to go. Do you mean to meetings? Do you mean that there's no place to go for meetings for you, because your hearing aid is being fixed?
I don't want to wait later. I need it now. I can understand why that's a really frustrating situation, and I don't, you know, I don't know where you live, and I don't know what to tell you about that. I have impaired hearing myself, and I subconsciously learn to read lips, and I have to keep dodging, look past people's heads to see what the speaker is saying. I lost my hearing aid the day before we came to the convention.
You lost your hearing aid before you came to the convention? The man in the blue. No. If you are patient with me, it's fine with me.
[01:10:03]
My name is Joe, and I'm an alcoholic. And I am a member of the Sign of Hope group in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And about nine or ten years ago, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical Audit Program said that I had lost about 70% of my hearing, and I'd never get it back, 70%. I'd never get it back, and it would only get worse. About four years ago, I had a little problem with an individual that came to a meeting.
He was deaf, and he sat through the meeting, and two nights later, he committed suicide, and I went looking for deaf people. And I have been in the program 24 years, and I had a hard time finding what I needed. I am acquainted with Arthur and Johnny and George and Marie, and through the association. The Sign of Hope group is a regular closed discussion speakers meeting, and we go to any extreme to communicate with the deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing impaired.
We have a computer printout for those that don't sign but read. We also have an interpreter, non-alcoholic, at the meeting. And we do hand sign to blind deaf individuals. We have one woman who is sober through that medium. We have several sober through signing, and we have another one that's sober today through the computer. So you have to go to other means other than just American Sign Language. An awful lot of deaf people do not understand American Sign Language either.
I noticed that one of the interpreters here, I believe it was the first young lady, signed in English, which is a little bit different than the American Sign Language. So you're dealing with a community that has as many different dialects as we have when we talk French and Spanish and German and so forth and so on. I have found, I have been studying American Sign Language myself for a little over three years, and I can communicate one-on-one a little bit.
I wouldn't try this. I wouldn't try to sign to a person at a meeting either. But you've got to stop and understand, if you don't understand English, and American Sign Language is not English, there's no way in hell for you to understand the big book of alcoholic anomalous or the 12 steps. Believe me. Now, we have been four years trying to interpret, or rather, trying to translate the 12 steps from English to American Sign Language.
And we have gotten through the fifth step, and we have gotten discouraged, and we have set it aside, I'm sorry to say. But the minute you start talking 12 steps to some of my friends here in the hall, they tell me they don't need it. All they're going to do is they don't want to drink today. Period. He's laughing at me now, but it's all right. But you're going to run it, and the young lady from Florida, you do not open an AA meeting for the deaf.
You open an AA meeting and provide for the deaf. That's what we had to do in Cambridge. We provide the services for the deaf. We don't know where the alcoholic deaf person is out there, so now we have got to make ourselves known to them. In the eastern part of Massachusetts, with over 12,000 meetings, 1,200 meetings a week in the area, we only have about 22 interpreters. We only have about 22 interpreted meetings a month for them to go to.
And then they have to travel from one extreme of Massachusetts to almost the other extreme of the area.
[01:15:01]
It's a very discouraging project, believe me. The only reason I'm here this day is because I wanted to be here with this community. I was at 65, I was at 70, I got sick on my way—no, I got sick going to the 80, but I was 65, 70, and 75. I got sick in North Carolina on my way to New Orleans. And I came here alone, for one reason, one reason alone. I didn't want to be obligated to anybody, and I didn't want nobody to be obligated to me.
A very good friend of mine is sitting right there. I wouldn't drive him up here. I rode up alone. And I'm not apologizing to him for it, but I didn't want to be obligated to anyone. Because if I get sick up here, I'm on my own. And I'm very grateful to be here and glad to see so many here. And I'm going to say something else, a suggestion to the hearing person that's not interested in the hearing impaired.
If you see a program for the hearing impaired and you have a free time for the meeting, go to it and attend it. Don't come to it, sit through half of it, and walk out simply because it doesn't interest you. They need our support greatly, believe me. They need it. Thank you. Our time is going short. My name is Clady and I am an alcoholic. I am also a deaf alcoholic. I came to AA because a pastor had said, they're starting a meeting down there tonight and you're going.
My constant excuse was, but I won't hear. My nature and personality was that I was a dependent person, a passive individual with spurts of anger, violence, drunkenness, all of my life. At the age of two years, I had contracted measles, a high fever. I and my parents thought I was just lazy after that. But I got well. They used to call me to come to eat and I would waddle over very fast. After the illness, I sat.
They finally took me to other specialists because they thought, and the doctor thought, something was wrong with my hearing. About 50% of it had disappeared then. Today I have heard a man ask the question, how much hearing do you have to have to make it in an AA program? I don't know the answer either. I know I need my higher power. I know I need to stay away from a drink one day at a time. I know it is a day-by-day program.
I know I am learning, I am growing, and I am changing at my own pace, not my sponsors, not my friends, not my people in the group, but the way my higher power is giving it to me. How I got this far is a long, long story. I can't tell you all of that today, except believe me, I am not looking for the first liquor store that is open in the morning. I am waking up sober. I am still deaf. I have 5% left on the ear which I wear the hearing aid in.
I hear noises, but the nerve endings are sharp. The discrimination of sounds do not come through. I do more lip reading than sign language reading,
[01:20:01]
and the girl who volunteered and is still signing gave me the first message I heard at this convention. Thank you. God provides a way. I know that there are meetings I have gone to. I have not heard a word that I understood of the speaker. I know that I have not understood half of what those sitting across from me have said, or side of me, yet I am here and I am sober. I know I will always be dependent on hearing people, and I know working with some deaf people, they feel they want to do it themselves.
And I just want to cry because I know I need hearing people. For years I was taught, grow up, be dependent, independent, you know. Learn to do it yourself. And then a light snaps on someplace, you know, you're going to get this can of beans from the grocery store. The damn thing has a dent in it because that's what you can afford. It's 10 cents off on the can. Somebody had to plant those beans. Somebody had to can those beans.
Somebody had to put a label on it. Who the hell isn't dependent on something or someone? So why feel so guilty about that? Oh, my God, the guilt. I will always be dependent, but I can enjoy things. I have friends, and when I go to these meetings today, I'll get what this person said and what that person said. And when I miss what's in between, I ask my friends. I sometimes like to think that maybe they have to become better listeners because I am there, and in that way I am helping them.
Another point I want to make is even if I hear nothing, if the person next to me can't fill it in, this is a program for me. If I get off my desk, make the effort to go to the meeting, I am reminding myself of what my problem is. And by that, I will grow. I am very happy to see this many people here. I said to Joyce, I'm with three other girls, women. There won't be many there. It will be too confusing for most deaf people to get out and to find this place, to find this room, to find your way around.
The telephones don't ring for us to get us out of bed. Our light switches with the flashing lights are home. Our TTY is home. There won't be many here. But I'm happy to see this many. Very happy. I'm grateful for a chance to say something. I am still working to this. I am a graduate nurse. I am an RN. I'm also an alternate delegate in our district. And I am deaf. Yes, you can make it with five percent if you keep on asking enough questions.
Thank you. That's a perfect introduction to something I would like to read to close this meeting. Someone read it in one of our meetings at the finish. God has a perfect plan for our lives, but he cannot put the next step into effect until we accept ourselves just as we are. The next step is to accept ourselves as we are. And I think that fits perfectly into what you were saying. It's been a marvelous experience for everyone.
Did you have a question? I think it's a beautiful expression. There is no need to talk. There is no need to talk, too, because as long as you have compassion, there is a professional job that every member can perform. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
[01:25:01]
Thank you. Thank you. I can endorse that 100 percent. I would be completely lost without them. Even this fellow with the little dog here that listens for him. I think that's a tremendous thing. He's got a dog that will tell him when the doorbell's ringing and the phone's ringing. It's tremendous. There is usually some way to work your way out of it. That's the thing that strikes me about AA. We're not running from problems.
We're looking for answers. It makes a big difference. It's a hell of a lot more fun to be part of the answer than it is to be part of the problem. I certainly appreciate your attention and help and thanks a lot. Thank you.