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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – COINCIDENCE – RS 06390.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-coincidence-rs-06390.mp3 Duration: 01:23:21
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Thank you. Would you join me in the Serenity Prayer? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and film. Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us, and our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personalities.
The topic this afternoon is coincidence. One coincidence that always boggles my mind is the fact that I've never been to New England, and I really don't know much about Vermont, but it has always seemed highly unlikely to me that two drunks from Vermont would meet in Akron, Ohio, and start an organization like the one that we're all members of. It blows me away. If they were from New York or some large metropolitan area, I would understand it, but Vermont? Anyway, we have speakers. Our first speaker this afternoon is Frank H. from Vancouver, British Columbia.
My name is Frank Hogg. I am an alcoholic. I am very happy and privileged to be speaking with you today. Special greetings from the sobriety capital of the world, Vancouver, by the way. I notice Don is flaunting a Chicago 90s slogan on his badge. I'm not sure what that means, Don, but we are definitely going to get the international conference in the 1990s. It is coincidental that I am privileged to share with you today.
I am nominated the person most likely to slip, and I have been privileged to twice lose the compulsion to drink. I was supposed to lose it on January 1st, 1981, and I, at that particular time, joined the fellowship to satisfy a lady with whom I wanted to share a nice life with. I went to my first meeting. In fact, I went to meetings for three solid months. I did not have a sponsor. I did not have a home group. I did not have much of an idea of what I was doing. I just know that I wanted to share my life with this woman, and this would be the way to do it. Coincidentally, I did not get sobriety. In fact, if I thought in 1981 I had a bottom, it took me another two and a half years to discover how far the bottom could really stretch. The great economic theories of elasticity and inelasticity did not have anything to do with me. I really bottomed out. I had to hurt so bad, and I had to do a whole bunch more damage to a lot of people before I could finally see my way clear to be blessed and to be part of this program.
It is a blessing. It is a privilege. Coincidence is an interesting topic. I shared with some of my group members that I was going to speak on coincidence, and they said, God, that is a great topic. That is fantastic. You are a lucky guy. You are getting the easiest topic in the world to talk about. I went, I have? It is? So I went to the dictionary. I mean, this is a bright boy, and I will just read you what coincidence is, and then I will sit down because it is all very clear to me now. It is a notable concurrence of events without apparent causal connection.
I also had to look up concurrence, apparent causal connection. I asked my daughter from an ex-marriage, so maybe she is my ex-daughter. I will talk about the ex in a minute. I said, sweetheart, I got to speak on coincidence. What does that mean? She said, something that falls into place so well that it seemed it was preplanned, and I could live with
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that. If I had problems with that, I then went on to look in the big book and look at the words acceptance. They are so beautiful, I would just like to read it and then just start to wing it. This is on page 449 of the big book. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, or thing, or situation, some fact of my life unacceptable to me. I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation has been exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment, and that to me is coincidence. I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this particular time, at this particular moment. For an agnostic or an atheist who first came into this program and was very unsuccessful, it was very difficult for me to grasp the import of being at peace with exactly where I was supposed to be.
It was very hard for me to work that out. Coincidence has taken us all along very interesting routes. We have heard coincidence described as, gee, a funny thing happened just the other day, how human, how touching. Coincidence in my first marriage at a huge, because I am a gregarious drunk, I was at a huge reception for then a very famous Indian chief, Chief Dan George, star of Little Big Man, etc., etc., and I took it upon myself as the gregarious, fun-loving drunk to fall into a plate of hot mashed potatoes. I don't know whether you've ever fallen into mashed potatoes. I had a rash, because there were hot mashed potatoes for weeks, and coincidentally my then wife didn't want to be with a man that continued to fall into mashed potatoes, and I didn't blame her. But that's exactly what should have happened to me.
That was a sign, but could I read the sign? No. I didn't have a clue. I asked the next morning, did anybody notice, and laughed. This is a sick person. I lost the wife. I lost the house. I lost the dog. I lost, I lost, I lost. I did not stop drinking. I continued on to drink. I have heard many, many times people talk about how they were asked to leave a home, or they were never invited to a home because they were misbehaving, and maybe that's happened to some of you. As the gregarious drunk, I had to be asked by the Hyatt and the Mercedes Benz Corporation to leave the hotel, because as a practicing, aggressive, gregarious, fun-loving drunk, I had to go to the Mercedes car shows. And if you've ever been to the Mercedes car shows, it is wonderful. There are bars at every corner of the room. There are drinks being served on trays.
This is not unlike giving the Avon route to the Boston Strangler. I died and went to heaven every time I could possibly go to a Mercedes car show. I would go to a Volvo car show. I guess I'm a yuppie. I don't know. But at this particular Mercedes car show, a lovely couple from Hong Kong were buying a his-and-hers Mercedes right off the floor. And El Lurcho had to drop in, understand that this huge transaction was being taken place of some $120,000, etc. And I said to the Hong Kong couple, would you like to adopt not me? And we can have three.
Well, the guy from Hogan's Heroes, Combinant, Klink, or whatever, asked me to leave, and that was the end of it. And it was coincidental that I was never invited back to that wonderful hotel, and it's coincidental I never had the privilege of owning a Mercedes. And was it that enough of a sign? Is that exactly what was supposed to happen to me? And was it that enough of a sign? Is that exactly what was supposed to happen to me?
Yeah, it was, because I was drinking, the bottom line. I had no right to be drinking, but I didn't know that. I had to hate myself. I had to have a low self-esteem.
[00:10:02]
I had to do a lot of awful things before I could get into the fellowship legitimately. October 28th, 1984. I'm a young person in this program, very young. I had to really bottom out. And it was coincidence that a man who became my sponsor gently said, hey, there is a better way. He had clarity. He'd cleaned up his act. He was looking wonderful. He had clarity. He'd cleaned up his act. He was looking wonderful.
And I finally joined the fellowship of AA that particular time, and I was so thankful because I wanted to kill myself. I remember the gratitude of coming to that first meeting, and the friendship, and the clarity, and the warmth that you had. You have a gift. I remember that. And I got better really fine, and I decided to share my sobriety and my newfound wisdom at Christmas time. So I flew back from Vancouver to Toronto, and I got on the plane, and I heard a little voice when the stew said, would you like a drink?
And the voice was really great. The voice said, no one will know. You ever heard that voice? It's brilliant. I'll know, but that won't matter, will it? So my official sobriety date is January 18th, 1984. I should have said 83 on the other day. I'm screwed up. I'm an alcoholic. I'm sorry. Anyway, I have a year and change in the program, and I am really thankful. And it's exactly today the way it is supposed to be.
It feels wonderful. That's coincidence. There is a blessing. I just know that if I stop trying to be the chief executive officer of the world, the sun still gets up sometimes when I don't. It's amazing. If I just relax, if we adopt some of the principles that we talked about, humility, it works beautifully. But when I try to do hands-on management, hands-on sobriety, really, I start to blow it, and it hurts. And I really wreck a lot of good progress.
And it's coincidental today that we're all able to be here. I heard a beautiful story, and it really just takes away from some rambling thoughts that one is tempted to put down on paper to hopefully get some coherence of the privilege of speaking to you and sharing with you. I met a couple from Seattle in the airport this Thursday, and they were getting on our plane. And the lady said, you know, it's coincidental. There's that word again.
But we're coming down with some people. And about two months ago, we said, can we come to the international convention in Montreal? And at 7 o'clock in the evening, these people with pen and paper, with calculators, with all the travel maps, et cetera, et cetera, worked out that they could not be here. I mean, it was a fact. They could not be here. And coincidentally, by 9 o'clock that very same evening, they said, what if we were to say we are going to be here? What if we start planning and getting the thing going like we are going to be here? Coincidentally, they are here today. They let go. They let God. They put some faith in the program, in the process of life.
They are here today. There's no financial embarrassment. They are sharing and caring and doing the wonderful things that we're all doing. I think it's sensational. I think it's a blessing of the program. The greatest, to my way of thinking, and Don mentioned it, coincidence really centers around a phrase I heard going to a meeting one time. And the phrase was, and I know many of us have heard it, but AA is God's gift to the 20th century.
And I thought, you sons of bitches, isn't that great egotistical talk? You're God-given. You're blessed. This is terrific. Self-fulfilling prophecy. It took me a lot of stumbling, slipping, and everything else to find out and reach a conclusion that this indeed is God's gift to the 20th century. There are some very exciting pages in the new book, which you may have read, called Heaven and Hell. The new book, which you may have read, called, has everybody looked at Pass It On?
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The story of AA and how it works and so on and so forth. And there's about, I think there's about two or three pages, and it talks about the coincidental meeting of Bill W. and Bob S. in Akron. It talks, well, it does give you the background, as Don was referencing, where these boys were coming from. Puritanical don't drink kind of part of the United States. And it talks about Bill having five months of sobriety, a collapsed business deal, on a Saturday in Akron.
I wouldn't want to be there on a Monday. I hope I'm not offending anyone from Akron. And I speak with great authority because I've never been there. This is a sick person you're listening to. A very sick person. Anyway, Billy's got a collapsed business deal. And he's at the Mayflower. And I don't know what the Mayflower's like, but Billy is cognizant that there's a bar. At one end of the lobby. And Bill says to himself, hey, I think I'll go in and have a few ginger ales in the bar.
What harm could that possibly be? That's about as brilliant as me going to a bordello looking at 19th century architecture. Coincidentally, Bill doesn't go to the bar. He goes to the other end of the lobby. And what does he see? This is what we've all seen. I saw it as soon as I went into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel the very first day I landed here. He sees a church directory. Coincidentally, there are, according to the story, 30 to 50 names.
And who does Bill call on? He calls on a Reverend Tunks. Now, what kind of a dumbass name is that? Reverend Tunks. Would you call up a Tunks? I'd be frightened for my life. But coincidentally, he calls on… I mean, look at the odds. One out of 30, one out of 50. He calls on the strongest supporter of the Oxford group. Coincidentally. And Tunks doesn't bat an eyebrow. And I don't know about your ministry, but mine.
He said, hey, can you give me a list of 10 drunks? Good luck. Tunks gives them 10 names. And our friend Bill calls all 10. And nobody can talk to Bill, because Bill has decided that if he is going to truly remain sober, he's got to work with a drunk, because a drunk will help a drunk. The fundaments of the program, as I understand it, the service side. But Tunks gives him a name of Henrietta Sieberling.
And Bill was nervous, because the Sieberlings were one of the founders of Goodyear, and Bill was a stockbroker, and he knew that, and he was intimidated. Maybe this is the wife of the founder of the thing. And then he got out of Goodyear, and he formed the Sieberling Tire Company. And he talks to Henrietta, and he's nervous. Because he's really got to say, I'm a drunk, and I'd like to find a drunk.
And Henrietta, who the book says has got unbelievable faith in the Almighty, says this is an answer from heaven, because I know of a man who's struggling with alcohol today. His name is Bob, Dr. Bob F. And eventually, the rest is history. We get together on Mother's Day, by the way, Bob F. and Bill W. And to me, that coincidental meeting with all the variables thrown in is not by chance. It's by cause.
And that had more impact on my personal understanding of recovery, as I see it. The coincidence. It's not just coincidence. There is a meaning, there is a plan, there is an opportunity, and I am exactly where I am supposed to be today. And I feel peaceful about that. And I am not going to slip. I'm not going to let you down. More importantly, I'm not going to let myself down. I'm not going to let the god of my understanding down.
Coincidence. One of the greatest local opportunities of coincidence, one of the most immediate opportunities of coincidence today, is right in this room.
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I'm about to turn over the microphone to Betty S. Betty S. was the very first sponsor of a lovely lady that's in our group in Vancouver today. And she is in the back room, Betty S., and this is your life. I was always looking for the spectacular, I was looking for the gregarious, I was always looking for the nice Hong Kong couple to give me the Mercedes and the easy way out. That's not going to happen.
What I have today is the gift of sobriety. I have the gift of your love. I return it to you in kind. I am so thankful for this program. I think it is definitely God's gift to the 20th century. Thank you one and all. I love you. He definitely belongs with us, I can tell. If there's anybody here from Montreal, I would just like to extend my personal thanks. This is a beautiful city, a beautiful, clean city, and I have really enjoyed my stay and so has everybody else.
It's really a nice place. And they've even made it difficult to get lost on the subways, which is amazing. Our next speaker from Belvedere, California, is Betty S. Hi everybody. My name is Betty, and I am an ever grateful alcoholic. And speaking of coincidence, I don't think we're here by chance. I don't think we're here in this 20th century by chance. You know, how come I was born when I was born?
And how come I was searching all my life for a relationship with a higher power, that even as a kid I chose to call God, but had no idea in the world what that power, what that God was. So I went from church to church to church to church when I was a girl. And neither of my parents were religious or spiritually minded. But I had a thirst. And I didn't know that when I was going to be a teenager, that that thirst would turn to alcohol.
And that alcohol would become my higher power. So here we are. And this higher power, this God as I today sort of, occasionally, understand, I always look to, and I can remember as that kid, you know, saying the Lord's Prayer, and saying, now I lay me down to sleep, and I love that. Today, I still pick up that little, now I lay me, because I've learned to trust this power that flows through these rooms of alcoholics and onlookers.
I had a very difficult time getting this over. I was in and out of the program like a yo-yo for two and a half years in the city of San Francisco. And my husband at the time recognized my problem with alcohol. Coincidence? Because I was so out of it emotionally that I didn't have the capacity to know what was really wrong with it. So he made the first call to AA in San Francisco for me. And a lovely gal came and talked to me in my home and took me to a meeting.
And I went to this meeting, and it was a room maybe twice the size of this, and sat in the back of the room with her and heard a woman share, who had been in and out of a good many psychiatric wards. And, of course, that hadn't happened to Betty. So with my pride and with my pills that I was full of, I had no identification at all. Well, I have a very loving, wonderful God. And so I was going to be given lots of rope.
And so I left the meeting that night thinking, Oh, isn't it wonderful those lovely, poor people have each other? And isn't it wonderful that I'm not like that? That word yet? Okay. So I went back the next week to that same meeting with this lovely gal and heard a man talk. And he'd been in and out of a good many jails. And that hadn't happened to me either. So again, I left the meeting thinking, Oh, it's nice they have each other.
And I am not like that at all. So I was a good girl and didn't drink for a couple of months maybe. We call that dry. And because I was so afraid of this husband of mine leaving me.
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One higher power was booze, and the other one was the husband. So an alcoholic, when anything is going to come up that's going to shake the tree, is going to drink again. So of course I drank again, and again, and again. He left me three or four times in the next two and a half years. And I just had to keep on going back out and trying. And I had so much false pride. I didn't know what the word humility meant.
I could say it, and I could talk about it. But I had never experienced just not knowing. Betty always had to know everything. To do for other people, to run other people's lives. Oh, well, meaning. But I had no way to live one day at a time. And to make my commitment, my first commitment to this God as I didn't and oftentimes still don't understand. Just this day, to turn my life and my will over to God.
My life is already God's life. So it's just a matter of my will today. And I still have difficulty. But the coincidences in my life. That lovely woman who 12 skipped, I'll never forget her. My first sponsor was the kindest, most patient, most loving woman. And I hated to call her. Because I hated to say, I don't know what AA is all about. I don't understand the big book. I don't understand what you're talking about.
All I know is, I don't want to drink. So I still had to go back out and do some more drinking. The process for me of getting to my knees. To get any teachability was really something. I was terrified. And fear ruled my life from the time I was a kid. I was afraid of my mother and how she reacted to me. I was afraid of my father not coming home. He was a businessman who traveled. And I was afraid of his leaving my mother.
Because I had the intuition that someday that would happen. So all the people that I placed this dependency on were to leave me. After I was sober a year, the husband was to leave me. But no coincidence, I already had a wonderful sponsor. A wonderful minister. A wonderful psychiatrist. And I was working for the central office in San Francisco. Doing volunteer work. So I had every bit of help that I ever needed.
To go through whatever experience was seemingly difficult for me. Because I was afraid somehow, some way, I'd be annihilated. In the experience of being rejected. Of people leaving me. Because that had been the story of my life. So it took me heaven knows how long to begin to truly rely on this higher power. That got me to AA. That put me in the arms of all of you. In all of the rooms that I've ever been in.
That would just love me well. And accept me just as I was. Just as frightened. Just as arrogant. Just as whatever it was that I was feeling. And you know, that wonderful sobriety is progressive. And to see the growth in my area of Marin County, California. In the last years that I've been sober. It's astounding. I was lucky enough to start the first meeting on the Tiburon Peninsula. That's where the town of Belvidere is.
And to see the first handful of comrades. Oh God, did I love those first friends in AA. And we had a ball. And we'd laugh at the most inane things. And as Frank said, I think it was you or was it in the last meeting? That laughter is the most healing thing in the world. To laugh with our buddies. And to look into their eyes. And to know the love that's there. And the acceptance. So it was slow for me to begin to accept myself.
And as my husband couldn't tolerate a sober wife. I went to the beach to try to figure it all out. Or try to get away. Well, that was coincidental too. Incidental too, because he was going to file for divorce, and the day before he did it,
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I was walking down the beach one night and had the first, for me, most vivid spiritual experience. And I knew that this power was there, that it was love, and that I would be carried through whatever experiences of difficulty or of happiness and joy that I was to have. And of course it came just in the right time, because the next day I was given the papers for divorce. That's not what I wanted. You know, I wanted to be a married lady, and I already was a mother of three darling sons, but my picture was being torn apart, and I thought, I won't be able to make it, that old reaction of, I'm alone, I can't reach for a drink, so what do you do?
You get on your phone to your sponsor, to your psychiatrist, to your minister, whoever that I needed at that time was there for me. I have to tell you a funny story. I've had four sponsors in my sobriety, and I knew my current sponsor, although he was not my sponsor at that time, and my second sponsor was also a very good friend of his. And she had moved and left the area, and had said to me when she came out to visit, I really think you need an in-house sponsor, someone that you can see eyeball to eyeball, and that you can talk with.
And she said, I think Bud C. would be the sponsor for you. And I said, because of being very fond of Bud, and trusting him, and loving his program, oh, okay, that'd be wonderful. So Bud and she, Lorraine, and another person and I had dinner together one night, and I was afraid to ask Bud to be my sponsor, you know, he's a man, and you know that thing, you learn to trust women through the sponsorship, and love the women that are your sponsors.
But now here's a man, and I was having this long time love affair with a man. So I thought, it's like being at the top of a roller coaster, okay, here I go, but I couldn't ask him. So we had parked my car in his garage, and went to dinner, and came back, walked down the hill to dinner, and Lorraine said, did you recognize him? So we go to get in the car, the car won't back out of his garage. So he takes me in the elevator back up to the apartment to call AAA, and you know, Bud will you be my sponsor?
And he says, I'd be delighted to be your sponsor. I call AAA, they come, he backs the car right out of the garage. That car wouldn't move, we all tried it, so you know, coincidence. I love sponsoring gals, I guess because I'm a gal. I never had any daughters, I had three sons. And I guess I took to sponsoring kind of like a duck to water because of having been a mother. But Frank mentioned Val, and I don't see her, where are you Valerie, there you are.
You know, you meet, coincidence, the people that come into your life that are going to bring you love, or that you're going to have the opportunity to give love in the program too. So I remember how many years ago it was that Val and I met, I'm guessing eight or nine, and she lived in Marin County. And she liked what I had, I guess, so she came and asked if she'd be my sponsor, and we had a wonderful time together, a wonderful time together.
And you know, seemingly the difficulty that I had because of the two and a half years it took me to finally bottom out and to be teachable, to want this more than anything else in my life, she got it like that. And it was so wonderful for me to be a witness to that light that turned on in her. And then she returned to Vancouver, where she was from, and is now married to a wonderful young man who's sitting next to her that I happened to meet four or five years ago.
And we went on the train to an AA convention in Banff, and I'd never been to your beautiful Canada. And Valerie went back to Vancouver, and because Betty was losing her fear of being alone, I went on the bus up to Jasper Park in Jasper, and spent, I think, three or four days there, all by myself, hiking through the mountains, and just having a ball. And I'd get back to my room, and the sun had been out with the clouds going by in April, and the downpour would come, and I'd say, thank you, because it could have rained like crazy while I was out there, and I never would have found my way back to the Park Lodge.
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We went on the bus the other day up to the Laurentians, and went on one of the beautiful little lakes on a boat, and it poured like crazy while we were out on the boat. And all the raindrops looked like crystals out there, it was just beautiful. And we get back in to leave the boat to get back on the bus, the rain stopped. We can call it whatever we want, but the eleventh step, and of course all the steps are my favorite steps, but the early part of my day is prayer and meditation, and the maintenance steps, as we call them, or the polishing, I love that, the polishing steps, to put me in that space where I can be open to these beautiful coincidences, God's miracles, God being anonymous and His miracles, and we're all miracles.
I know had I not stopped drinking when I did, the husband would have left anyway, and I never could have raised my three boys if I was able to do, and to me today, life is a wonder, meeting Frank out in the hall, and his knowing Val, having Dale with me, sharing my room. I'm not very good at sharing my room with people, I guess we're all room full of loners, I don't know, but I'm being given an opportunity to share and to love somebody who I think, you know, I think is different than I am, but is no different than I am.
The same wonderous power that's working in my life is working in her life, and Carolyn, and Russ, and Connie, you know, so I feel that this fellowship, I choose to call it a fellowship, because I don't like the word organization, but fellowship is a fellowship of the spirit, and it's the most precious gift, having this new life in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, to steer me, and I make lots of mistakes still, and it's okay, you know, admit to my fellows that I'm wrong, or that I'm not doing so hot, and they just, that's okay, keep coming back, thank you.
Thank you very much, Betty, she was talking about ego, and I know I've never had an ego problem, but I don't call my sponsor anywhere as near as often as I used to, because he tells me the same thing every time I do call, your ego is acting up again, and I don't know, I think ego translates into everything, something. Our next speaker is from Durban, South Africa, and would you please help me welcome Mike M.
Good afternoon everyone, my name is Mike, and I'm an alcoholic. I bring you greetings from all the drunks down in Southern Africa, and like everywhere else, we haven't touched the tip of the iceberg, there's still a lot of them still suffering out there. Now my story is a little bit different. The reason for the difference is that I took longer than most people to get sober. In fact, it took 20 years for me to get sober.
And the reason for this is that I'm of Irish extraction, and I had a mother and a father who were Irish redheads, my mother had an artistic temperament, and I had red hair, and I was born on the wrong side of the track. In my case, I was born on the wrong side of the mine dump, because they'd never heard of environmental control, and where I lived, when the mine dump blew, the house was covered in three inches of dust.
So from a very early age, I was a misfit, and I felt it.
[00:40:04]
My mother was a Christian scientist. Together with being artistic, it was some combination. So from the very beginning, I had a most warped idea of what religion and spirituality was all about. And as soon as I was able to, I wanted nothing to do with anything related to God or religion. My father, because of the trouble, two Irish temperaments, don't go on. He wasn't a young man. He joined the forces for the Second World War and went off, and I was left at a relatively young age to bring up two younger sisters, because my mother was totally incapable of doing this sort of job.
So I was thrust into a position of responsibility, and I resented it bitterly. I got away from religion because my young sister was burnt in a fire very badly and my mother wouldn't call for medical assistance and so on, and I blamed God for this. Now I didn't have any trouble with booze until I left school, and when I left school, I found this wonderful power. It turned me into the person I wanted to be.
I could now relate to other people. I could now dance with all the girls. I could be charming and witty. I could even be tough, because I think, with you Canadians, I think we've got the same sort of thing in our country, where you're English-speaking and you're brought up in a French part of the country, life can get pretty tough, and vice versa. In our case, I was an English-speaking South African in an Afrikaans part of the world, and you had to be tough to survive.
Now I was never a social drinker. There was no going down the hill slowly over many years and enjoying drinking. I started to drink, and very soon I recognised that nobody drank like I did, because I didn't get drunk, but nobody wanted to drink like I did, because I could never get enough of the stuff. I loved it, to make me into a person. Not to make me feel for the party side of it, but because it gave me life, I could now cope.
And I became a secret drinker. And to the rest of the world, I was very abstemious. I used to do my drinking before we went to the parties. I always had my bottle. In fact, I drank always, preferably with the brown paper round the bottle. I never believed in adding any water or anything else to it. That was just diluting the stuff. I needed to have the punch. Within a very short few years, I was a full-blown alcoholic.
The age of 22, I had been courting my wife at that stage for a number of years. She'd been nursing training, trained as a sister, and she thought she was going to marry a very abstemious man. I'd hidden it very, very well indeed. Well, she found out on the day we got back from honeymoon, because I'd tried to cut down on my drinking. You know, I'm going to get married now, I must cut this down. I'd tried everything.
And we, as a young couple, started going through hell. We tried psychiatrists, we tried everything. And nothing worked. And here I come to the point that it took me such a long time to get sober, because I came into AA, and, this is over 28 years ago, yes, I could take the first step. I was powerless over alcohol, my life was unmanageable. But that's where it stopped. I could not accept the spiritual side of a program.
I was a godless man. I could not accept that I could mix with the people. Except that I could mix with people who had been on the park benches, because at that stage AA in South Africa was a low-bottom drunk.
[00:45:04]
But I did take its first dip, and I went out of AA, and with the help of anti-booze and my wife, I stayed dry for 18 years. Now for most people staying dry for six months or a year is rough, but let me tell you, staying dry for that length of time, and without putting anything else into your life, is hard. I put materialistic demands into my life, because I'd got myself into an enormous amount of trouble, and I couldn't look back, and for 17 years I put a shutter on the past, and no one, not even me, looked back.
My wife and I never mentioned alcohol. I wanted nothing to do with it. I was the most difficult, obnoxious and ridiculous person you can possibly hope to have met. Anyway, I did very successfully in my chosen career. I got thrown out of a profession that I started in, because I couldn't qualify. Drinking and qualifying at college don't go together. Then I became successful, but success of what sort of kind?
And slowly but surely, I started, instead of drinking booze, I started chewing it. I was on blood pressure pills, tranquilizers, you name it, I was on it. And my business started taking me all over the world, doing a lot of international travel. Now I didn't have a trouble with booze. Booze had gone out of my life, excepting I had a terrible resentment against anybody who couldn't do what I'd done.
I, the big man. All these people who needed AA or religion or anything like that, I looked down upon. I could never relate to people, in the sense of being either equal. I was always superior or inferior. Now the most amazing thing, and this is a coincidence, was that one evening in London, I had just completed and successfully completed a very successful business deal, and at the table somebody poured out a glass of wine.
Now up until that time I'd always turned my glass over, but this night I didn't. I picked up the glass of wine and I drank it. And the world didn't fall in, not that night, I didn't get drunk. But the next day, at Heathrow Airport, I bought a litre of Shiva's Regal. And as I was privileged to travel first class in the British Airways lounge, I started drinking. And by the following morning in Zurich, I'd killed a bottle of Shiva's Regal.
So for anyone who wants to experiment about the progressiveness of this disease, I've done all the experimentation that is necessary. I stepped straight off from where I left off. For nine horrific months, I tried to maintain a life of normality, and I hid it very well. Being the secret drinker, I had a cocktail bar in my office. But no, I didn't drink from a cocktail bar, I used to go and buy the bottle with the brown paper around it and keep it in my drawer.
That was the way I drank. I also ensured that I did a lot of overseas travel again, because the more drinking I could do overseas, the better. And this is where, in my case, the feeling of insanity was something that bothered me terribly, because I was having back aches. It gets a bit hairy when you wake up in a hotel room, and you're not sure which city of the world you're in, and whether you're getting up or you're going to bed.
Now one morning, I woke up at home, and my wife said to me, I've asked those people from
[00:50:10]
AA to come round to see you tonight. Now I know absolutely nothing about this. And I can say that you would have been the last bunch of people I would ever have thought of going to for help at that stage. And the most amazing coincidence was that I didn't tell her to get lost. And that night, Nigel and Peter, incidentally Peter is one of our delegates to the, not to the Convention, but to the World GSO Committee, came round to see me.
And I then went to my first meeting again of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had, for the first time, reached the point of my rock bottom. I had to surrender, and I think this is what every one of us has to do, is to do that, make that commitment of surrender. I knew that there was no possible chance of me ever being able to stomp on my own again, and that this was the last throw of the dice. The physical effects weren't catching up with me, but I knew that I would land up in a mental asylum if I continued to go on the way I was.
I got involved from day one, and slowly but surely things started happening. I must relate this, it didn't happen immediately, because I was still a very difficult individual. And I mean, I read these steps, and number two, number three, so I said to my wife, well, I think we'd better get hold of a Minister of Religion and get him to come round. I'd better have a chat to him. So we called the local Methodist Minister, and he came round, and the arrogant alcoholic that I was, started telling this bloke, look, I don't believe in anything, all right?
I'm willing to accept there's a God, now do you mind if I come to your church? If you don't want me under those circumstances, I won't come, all right? Now that was, that was me. And slowly but surely my life started changing. Slowly but surely, I could live with Mike, the alcoholic. Slowly but surely, I started to know what love was all about. Slowly but surely, I began to know what acceptance was all about.
Slowly but surely, I knew that there was a wonderful organisation called Alcoholics Anonymous, which to me, wasn't a coincidence, it was something God given. Indeed, I think, words were spoken last night, defining coincidence as an act of God in the winds of time. I am terribly, terribly grateful to have gone through the misery, the suffering, the hell, to have reached this point, where I can stand up today, with an apprenticeship, where I can pass on the message of hope, and of love, and where I can say that I know that every single human being can find their God, if they wish to do so.
Thank you very much. Boy, could I relate to that, that the first time I saw Step 2, I figured that was all
[00:55:15]
she wrote. I guess I have very strong feelings for, I think his name was Bill D, Alcoholic No. 3, the one that put the words, as I understand him, into the steps referring to God. I think he opened it up for a lot of us, even though he became a church member, the fact that he recognized how many of us were coming in spiritually bankrupt, not believing, afraid to believe, afraid not to believe. We have time to throw it open to the audience, would somebody care to say a few words, show of hands?
Would you come down here, please, so everybody can hear you? My name's Jim, and I am an alcoholic. I come from a very little place, it's called Jersey. It's the original one in the Channel Islands, just off the coast of France. And I chose, that's something I have today, the choice. I chose to come to this meeting this afternoon because coincidence, as I put it, has played a great part in my life since I first came to AA just over four years ago, at the age of about 54.
And I was putting everything down to coincidence. I had another problem apart from being alcoholic, which I didn't know I was, of course, everybody else knew, but not me. And this bothered me, because in Jersey it's an island about nine miles by five, population of about 75,000. In fact, it's known as the island of 75,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock. Not quite true, but booze there is very cheap, it's a holidaymaker's paradise.
And this is why a lot of people come there, because they can get their duty-free goods to take back home. I don't know the currency here, but I think a bottle of gin or whiskey there is about three pounds sixty. I don't know what that relates to in Canadian dollars or whatever. This, incidentally, is my first trip to Canada, and I think it's marvellous, and I've got another ten days yet to see the rest of it right through to Vancouver.
And I'm looking forward to it very much indeed. But back to the coincidences. I say this other problem of mine worried me very much within a matter of weeks of being in AA, because there's twelve meetings a week of AA, three of Al-Anon, one of Al-Ateen in Jersey. And in the AA meetings, they were mostly men. And apart from being an alcoholic, I also happen to be what is commonly called gay. And this bothered me.
It didn't bother anybody else, because they didn't seem to know it. I was not one of the broken-wristed type. I hope I never have been and never will be. But I had to talk to somebody about it, but I couldn't then pick on anybody to talk about it, because there was nobody else I knew of that was the same as me, apart from being an alcoholic, which is my primary purpose for being in AA. And I used to throw out leading questions, sort of thing, at the meetings.
And without fail, somebody would come up to me after the meeting and say, What do you want to know is so-and-so? And this particular night, I just… So is so and so, and this particular night I desperately wanted to get across, I wanted to talk to somebody about this other side of my nature, and this person did, and he is straight, married, and he said, what you want to talk about is the fact that you're a homosexual, as well as an alcoholic, I said yes, he said well come back with me and we'll have a talk about it,
[01:00:18]
and he was a man that I couldn't expect to understand that side of my life at all, but he did understand the fact that our emotions, everything else was basic, our alcoholism was the same, he could identify with that, he could identify with hatred, jealousy, anger, love, the lot, and that, whether I'm homosexual, straight, or whatever, all those are part of being a human being, and that's what I am, and then something else happened, he said that this man said to me, we talked for quite a while in the small hours of the morning, and he said you can tell me a perfect stranger, these very intimate, in fact I was doing step 5 before I'd done step 1 properly really, and he said you can tell me a perfect stranger, these very intimate details of your life, why can't you go back to the people that you've just told me about, and tell them what you think about them, it's a rather complicated story actually, and I can't go into it here and now, but it gave me the strength and it gave me the courage to do just that, and I have to say that of the two people that meant most to me in my life at that time, I was able to go to them, talk to them, tell them exactly how I felt about the jealousy which was the biggest cancer defect I had at the time, and I'm really glad to say that the bond between us now is greater than it ever was before I came to AA, because I went, I spoke openly, I spoke honestly, I told them exactly what was in my P-like brain, and I was told that that's what it was, a P-like brain, and it was purely in my head, in fact through one of them I'm here today, I couldn't have made it on my own financially anyway, and through one of them I'm on here, I'm here today, and then another thing, coincidence, I was working in a store and I left, and I went to another store, and I hated it, and I went through six months of hell, by this time I'd joined the fellowship, and I was bending everybody's ear left, right and centre, every minute of the waking day and night, I was phoning up, I was going to see people, talk to people, my sponsor, anybody, anybody that would listen, and if they wouldn't listen, I'd make them, but I went through hell, I took six months of this, and then I could not take any more, and one morning I suddenly said, I'm not having any more of this, I discovered I got the choice, you see, I'm giving you my notice, now at my age that wasn't, the situation is in England at the moment, or even in Jersey, it's not very good to give your notice in and look for another job, but I gave my notice in, and I said definitely I wanted to finish on that Friday, which they said yes, OK, we're about to get rid of you, and I looked at the paper that night, and there was a notice wanted, so, so, so, so, that advert could have been written for me, in actual fact it was, because the people who had put that advert in the paper knew I was working at this particular store, and they'd been looking for me, and they couldn't find me for the simple reason that this job had got me so screwed up, I was physically ill, and that's why they couldn't find me, because I was at home in bed, and I walked into the shop the next morning, and I said about the job, they said where the hell have you been, we've been looking all over the place for you, that's why we put the advert in, because we couldn't find you, coincidence, or the higher power, and that's when I first mentioned it to my sponsor, and he said to me, just think back, all the good things in your life that have happened, is it coincidence, or is it something else, the fact that one night, I ran out of martini at home, and I poured the only thing in the house that was alcoholic, and that was whiskey, and I hated it,
[01:05:18]
and I took one mouthful, and I suddenly thought to myself, what the hell am I drinking this stuff for, and it suddenly came to me, because it's alcohol, and it will give me the effect I want, and that was all I drank for, was effect, not for pleasure, not socially, as I heard somebody else say just now, and I rang AA, and a man answered the phone, and I heard him say, I've got some mad woman on the phone here, she's hysterical, I can't understand what she's saying, so, as is usual in Jersey, the same sex, 12 step each other, and sponsor each other, usual, but it can be changed, as I've heard it mentioned today, that a lady sponsors a man, and vice versa, and anyway, a woman did come on to the phone, and offered to come straight out to see me there, but I was so ashamed, I was hysterical, I was crying, I was in a hell of a state, but I did promise to meet them the next day, and oddly enough, I never drank during the day, my tolerance to alcohol was very, very low, and so I never drank during the day, but when we got home, my mate says, coffee? I said, no, I'll have a martini, and so I used to drink from then on, 2, 3, 4 martinis, not the pub size martini, my size, and eventually, it was the physical side that got me to AA, I developed pancreatitis, it took them about 2 years to discover that, and that was caused simply through drink, now I have a lot of yets, but I've discovered that I've done a lot of those yets already, I said I've never yet been into a hospital for drink, but I had when I went for my pancreas, I had when I went to be pumped out when I tried suicide once, I haven't yet been picked up by the police for being drunk and disorderly, because oddly enough, I did prison visiting for a period while I was in jail, about 2 years after I came into the fellowship, and one night, they wouldn't let me pass the gate, because they rang through and said, anybody for AA?
through the PA system in the prison, nobody came forward, so they wouldn't let me through the gate, said nobody wants you tonight, so I went straight back to the meeting, and for the first time, in front of the group, I said, can you believe that an alcoholic homosexual cannot get into prison? because oddly enough, to be an alcoholic is not a criminal offence, to be drunk and disorderly is, to be drunk and incapable is an offence, and in Jersey, legally, to be a homosexual, it is illegal, it's not the same as England, it's illegal, no matter what age you are, but they could have got me for that one, that night, but you see, they knew I was an alcoholic, they didn't know the rest, so coincidence, or the guidance from above, I too had trouble with this higher power, because the only church sort of thing I had was, as a kid, my mother sent us to church, just to get rid of us, so she could get the dinner ready and everything like that in the morning, we didn't go to church, we used to go to the local cemetery and change the flowers around, but that was the only thing, and I got to hate the idea of religion, because I was forced to go as a kid, when I left home at 14, because she didn't know what to do with me, she couldn't make head nor tail of me, I'm afraid I'm the seventh, I wasn't the only boy, and she knew she got six girls, but she didn't know whether I was Arthur or Martha, and so, it was difficult, but coincidence, I say, it isn't that, not for me any longer, it is guidance from above, it was guidance that made me pick up that phone that night to get somebody from AA, it was guidance from above that put that advert in the paper that got me that particular job,
[01:10:11]
and recently, from the same firm, back in the end of February, they made me redundant, at the age of 57, and I thought, what the hell am I going to get a job now, and somebody came up with a proposal, which enables me now to devote my time, not only to AA, I devote one particular day a week to AA, but when I do telephone duty, but also to help other people in less fortunate circumstances than I now find myself, without any loss of income, was that coincidence, or was that guidance from above, no, coincidence for me now always comes from somebody who knows what is good for me, much better than I do, thank you very much for listening.
Applause. My name is Alice, I'm an alcoholic, I'm from Oakland, California, but I only recently moved there, I got sober in New York City, I can't believe I'm doing this, I'm always nervous, but I've had so many coincidences in my life, I mean, I had it when I was drinking, things would happen, like I fell down once in the street in New York, and must have dropped my purse, and I get this phone call, and I'm an artist, right, and I get this phone call from Paolo Picasso's youngest son, Paolo, he found my purse in the street, you know, it's like my higher power kind of laughing at me, and I used to think this was all luck and things like that, but then, I mean, I've had so many coincidences, I can't even begin to tell you, I mean, I never even related it to a guy because I was an atheist, and then I got in this program, and it was just like, bing, bing, bing, one thing after another, and the most incredible time that had ever happened to me was, I was in a, I was in India at a little meditation center 50 miles north of Bombay, and I had been there four months, and I really wanted to go, there was an all India AA convention in Bangalore, and I really wanted to go, but I'm sure a lot of you know about bureaucracy, I mean, Indian bureaucracy is a caricature of English bureaucracy, I mean, it's just unreal, and I would have to get my ticket extended, I mean, obstacles, here are the alcoholics, the obstacles, I mean, I had to get a visa extended, I had to get a tax thing made out, I had to get my ticket extended with a medical excuse, I had to do all these incredible things, and I said, oh, there's no way I can go, and I'm walking down the street in Bombay, and I mean, Bombay is like New York, it's full of people, I mean, just like jammed, full of people, and I had to get a tax thing, and I turned to this, I had to go get a thing signed that you need to change a certain amount of dollars while you've lived that long in India, and I mean, into Indian money, you know what I mean, and I had to go to this tax billing, and I just turned to this guy standing next to me, I mean, on just any street, I was just thinking, you know, you're thinking, you're not in the now, just thinking, and I turned to this guy, and I said, where's the tax office, he says, it's right over there, but Alice, don't you remember me?
I met you at a meeting last night. He said, Vishvash, the intergroup chairman just went up in this building to talk about the convention, and I felt the hands behind me, and I said, uh-oh, I think I'm going to go, and I get up there, and I said, well, I need all the obstacles, I have to do this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and one of the men said, well, my wife's a doctor for the government, and he called her, you can see her in a half an hour, right, and by three o'clock, I had all the paperwork done.
They just happened by accident to have extended my visa just long enough for me to go to that convention, and I didn't even know it, and I had everything, I had the paperwork and everything, and I still couldn't go to the Alitalia office and say, you know, I need my ticket extended for a month because, you know, I have amoebic hepatitis, you know, I wasn't yellow, and, you know, it's kind of a lie, and I didn't know about all this, and I didn't know if this was right, but I could still feel this really powerful feeling inside of me.
You know, I can begin to glow, right? The big hotel and my roommate from the small town of Ganeshpuri, this meditation center, just happened to have gone in to Bombay and just happened to be coming out of the hotel at that time and just happened to be going to the Alitalia office, you know. It was just like, bing, bing, bing, by 4.30 I was going.
[01:15:02]
And it was just, it boggled my mind. I mean, just, I mean, just… When you were supposed to do something, and the most amazing thing for me was that it was like 4 or 5 hours that I just sat in that and I knew what was happening to me. And I have found, since that time even, the less time I spend forward in the future, you know, projecting what's going to happen, and the less time I spend back in the past thinking about what has happened.
And I live right in the now. My mind has quieted enough so that when I'm here and now, I notice all the coincidences. I mean, I know things that are happening to me. I see them happening. Sometimes I just smile. People say, but how did you, why did you get off the subway train here? I needed to talk to you about… And it's just, it's not me. It's all of us. It's just all of us. And the other thing is, not just living in the now, I don't get as angry anymore.
I was, when I moved to the Bay Area, I had a problem with bursitis. And I went to the doctor and they said, oh, you know, new joints and cortisone chunks and all that stuff. And I said, oh God, there must be an easier way. And I was trying to get home and I was lost. And I kept going over the Golden Gate Bridge. And there was, and I'm supposed to go to the Golden Gate Bridge. Am I supposed to go to Sausalito?
It's my higher power, you know. And I kept getting off at the last exit and coming around and bingo, right in this little section of presidia. I didn't really know what it was, where I was. And this happened three times. And when I was drinking, I would have been angry. I would have been cursing. I would have been furious. I mean, this time I was laughing. I said, and so I just pulled the car up to the curb and I said, okay, God, what do you want me to do here?
And I looked up and there's a sign, you know, acupuncture, instant relief for bursitis. I said, oh, yeah. And I look up, I look up at the sign and it says parking after 10 o'clock. And it was 5 after 10. I walk in, I said, how much is this? He says $30. I have $35. He says, I can't take, oh, I can take you right now. It shouldn't be open, but I got here early. And he says, have you ever had acupuncture before?
And I said, no. He says, aren't you afraid? I said, no, not afraid. He says, who told you about me? Because it was Chinese. I mean, it was a Chinese neighborhood. It's all in Chinese. And he was speaking in Chinese. And I said, a friend. But the more I'm in this program and the more I've worked this program and the more I am in that flow and that energy and that glow. I heard a woman from Southern California who said that her reason for being, her raison d'etre in life was to glow.
And I really feel that. I come into these rooms and there's so much of that glow going around. And when I see that coincident synchronicity, I think is what Jung calls it. You could just feel it come through you. You can feel it reach out. And it's all over. Montreal must be floating by this time. It's a beautiful city anyway. Thank you all. Time for one more. Yeah, the gentleman with the hat. My name is Gil.
I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. Hi everybody. I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. And it's awesome. This whole thing is awesome. I'll tell you about my last coincidence. I was two weeks in the program. And I was down in New York. I had an ex-wife in New York. And we were hassling over custody issues and visitation and money. And we'd been divorced for a while. But it was the wreckage of the past. I was trying to help clear it up a little bit.
Two weeks in the program, don't make any major changes. And I'm trying to get this through to her. But she wanted me to start making more regular payments. It did not go well. It did not go well. I was still in that fog. That real mocha state that we're in when we first come around. And I went back to my mother's house. I'm like 250 miles from home. And I'd had it. I said, if this is sobriety, I don't want it.
I was just reeling. My parents never really kept any liquor in the house when I was growing up. But I knew they had a quart of gin. And I never particularly cared for gin. But it'll do. You know? And I had my hand around the bottle. I was getting ready to take the cap off the top of the bottle.
[01:20:00]
And I hear my mother talking on the phone saying, No, he's not here right now. Can I take a message? And she looks over and says, Oh, wait a second. He must have snuck in. And she hands me the phone. It was someone from Boston. Calling to see how I was doing. I'm getting ready to get schnuggered. And this individual is calling to mess up my drinking. I didn't drink. I didn't drink. And that was my last coincidence.
The reason it's my last coincidence is because it's when I stop believing in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. It's all part of a game plan that I am totally unaware of. And every time I shift off in a wrong direction, I'm gently nudged back on the correct path. There's a lot of times when I ask for help. And the answer just comes into my head. And I know it's the right answer. Because it feels like the right answer.
I may not want it to be the right answer. So I'll say, Can I try something else? And the HP will say, Sure. Knock yourself out. That's what we call growth. Because there's generally a lot of pain involved with that. For me, turning my life and my will over to my higher power, it's like he's got it. He's already got it. It's kind of like a gorilla who's got a banana. If I choose to, I can take that banana away from the gorilla.
But he's going to hammer me something fierce. That's what it's like if I take my will back from my higher power. He'll say, Sure. You'll be sorry. I don't know. We came up on motorcycles. And my friend's got a Harley Davidson. It was giving him some trouble. So we pulled into a hotel that I didn't have reservations in. But they happened to have a room for that night. Another coincidence there. And we had to get some parts for his Harley.
We said, Well, in the morning we'll find a Harley place. And I look out the back window of this room. That I'd gotten by coincidence. And by coincidence, there was a Harley dealership. This big neon sign. I don't know. With the people that I sponsor, they're finally… A lot of them, through just my sharing with my coincidences, they're looking at their coincidences. And when they share them with me, we just kind of grin at each other and say, Coincidence, huh?
And it's nice. Everything happens for a reason. I may not know what the reason is. But then again, I'm not supposed to. I think that's half the fun. I don't know where I'm going. But it's a hell of a lot better than where I've been. Thanks. How about a big hand for our speakers, Frank, Betty, and Mike? Thank you. And would you please join me in the Lord's Prayer?