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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – EASTERN CANADA REGIONAL ALKATHON – RS 06431.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-eastern-canada-regional-alkathon-rs-06431.mp3 Duration: 01:27:55
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I'm going to ask you to help me. We have three speakers for this meeting this morning, and each of the speakers will be talking to you for 20 to 25 minutes, and if we have time before 11 o'clock, there will be an opportunity for questions of these speakers, because they're going to be telling us, I think, something of AA's history or AA's beginning in the particular area that they come from. And the first speaker that I'm going to ask to come up is Ian M.
and he comes from Nova Scotia. Will you welcome Ian, please? Hi, everyone. My name is Ian M., and I'm from the Bedeck Group in Nova Scotia. I am an alcoholic. I've been scared of this ever since I said yes to Ken when he asked me if I would speak here. By the way, can you hear me? No. I don't see any controls here. Can you hear me now? I'll see if I can get this on. No, it's dead. Testing, testing.
Get close to it. Is that better now? To begin, I was born in the city of Sydney, way back in the Dark Ages. I was born on the 29th of February in 1908. And you can see right off the bat, I was sort of a freak. One birthday once every four years, and I passed my 19th birthday a year or two ago. And I was brought up in a good Christian home. I was taught all the moral things I should be taught. My family was very good to me.
But on that morning on February 29th, when I was born, it was a terrific snowstorm, which later turned to rain. When I had reached baby, the doctor couldn't get to my mother's home. But there was a midwife there, but she couldn't get me. And finally the doctor made it, and I was born. Under rough circumstances, I presume. As I started to grow up, I was very slow in school. And certainly he must have had some damage to my brain some way, because I was in grade one for four years.
My father was an ex-school teacher. I was taught in school, and I also had a tutor. And the amazing part of it is that somehow or other, all these things they had taught me down through those four years came to fruition, and everything cleared up. And by some miracle, I moved from grade one to grade five. And whatever happened, I don't know. But I never had any trouble after that. In fact, I went from grade one to grade five, took grade six, skipped grade seven, and into grade eight, and then went into the high school.
And I graduated from Sydney Academy in 1925.
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I had planned all my life to be a journalist when I came to myself. And my father asked me if I would mind waiting a year, that he thought I was too young, because the only journalistic school in Canada was in the University of Toronto at that time, and that I would work for a year and then go to college. As it happened, I went to work in the Royal Bank of Canada for the municipal sum of $300 a year.
We worked six days a week, and you worked until you finished without any overtime or anything else. And it was a tough job. I worked there for four years, but during that time, after my graduation from high school, I went to my uncle's farm for the summer. And one time there was a milling frolic and dance and so on at a place called Indian Brook. And my cousin and I decided we'd go to this dance. He had a car.
And I got into the beer and the wine and the whiskey. And from that time on, I was in trouble with booze, because the next morning when we woke up, he didn't want a drink, but I did. And I hunted around, and he drove me around until I finally found a pint of Bobby Burns whiskey, and away I was, drunk all over again. So I feel that from the first, I was a born alcoholic, and I was sure in trouble from that day on.
As I worked through the bank for four years, my booze got worse, and finally I quit the bank, and there was more trouble. I went to work for a place called Harris Abattoir, which later became Canada Packers. I worked there, and I wasn't fired, but I lost that job, and it was just one job after another. And it was a terrible way to live. In 1934, I had been going with this girl, and we were quite well suited.
Her father was manager of a bank in Nova Scotia, in Sydney. And in 1934, we got married. And the poor soul, if she only knew what was to happen, I'm sure she would never have said yes. But we did get married, and I was from job to job. My father, who had retired, turned over the home to my wife and myself, and he bought a home in Bedeck. In 1935, a child was born to us, a daughter, and all we had was a drinking spree going at our home for quite a while.
Booze, booze, booze. And as any of you know, that meant trouble. The daughter was born, and I got in trouble with money matters. We had to give up our home and move into her home for a while. I got another job with an insurance company but lost that, and I was drunk and drinking, and I was in debt, and I took off for the geographical cure in Toronto. Of course, there was no cure there. It was a desperate situation.
I was from city to city, from Belleville to Ottawa to Kingston,
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back to Belleville, and all over. This was during the Depression when things were very tough. I remember going six days without a bite to eat in the city of Ottawa but finally got some help, and by this time it was so desperate, I had moved back then to Belleville, and I decided I'd try to make it home to the deck. I had left my wife without letting her know where I was or what I had done, and of course that meant separation because they were furious.
I finally went my way back to Three Rivers, Quebec, where my brother-in-law, he was an engineer in a construction job, and I got a job there for a while. And then I decided that I was living at my sister's place. I thought I'd better get going from there, and I hired on an old freighter at Three Rivers, and I was firing on an old three-boiler ship going down south and then back up to St. Lawrence. And on one trip I took desperately ill, and they had to put me ashore at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, and I was in the hospital there for three weeks.
No money, nothing, except the hospital was paid and the doctor. And I thumbed a ride back on the boat that ran from Sydney to Georgetown, and my father met me in Bedeck the day it came back, and he had to pay the fare for me. Well, you'd think that would have wisened me up some, but it certainly did not, because I kept on drinking. I went to work for a construction crew, and of course, as most of us know, construction crews, they were places where you had lots to drink.
I came back finally from there. I was back home, and the war came along, and I tried to get into the Navy. I went to Halifax, and they turned me down on account of a heart murmur and record of having a heart condition. So I went to work for the Naval Service, and I worked all during the war there. And during the war I was divorced, and I met my wife in Bedeck, and she, I couldn't get away, and she came up to Halifax, and we were married.
And we had a very happy marriage for a number of years, a long number of years. My wife died two years ago last March, and I was still drinking. I had a son born in 1949. 1946, I mean. And things were going along. I was working in Bedeck, back with the construction crew again, but still drinking. In 1949, our son took desperately ill. He was not given a chance to live at all. He had tubercular peritonitis of the bowel, and they couldn't get a drug to work on him, but they finally found something like a triple sulfa and something else, and he started to improve.
We finally got him back to Bedeck. He was in the hospital there. My mother had fallen and hurt herself. She had previously broken a hip, and they thought she had broken another one. She was in there, and my wife was at her wits' end because she was looking after my father too. My father and mother were both getting old, and here was I, still drunk. Finally, it came to my wife that something would have to be done, and she called our wonderful doctor in Bedeck.
She came to the house, and she said, You'll have to do something with him. Put him in the hospital.
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But an hour later he came back and he said, Yeah, they'll take him. Where is he? And he came up to my room. And he was wise to the ways of Alcoholics Anonymous because he had read the Big Book. And the reason he was, was because a wonderful man from Philadelphia had come to Bidek, spend his summers. He was married to a granddaughter of Alexander Graham Bell. And he had given the Big Book of AA to this doctor.
When he came up to my room that morning, he put three questions to me. And the first one was, he said, Ian, do you want to stop drinking? And I said, Yes, I want to stop drinking. It's going to be easy, you see. But the next question he put to me was, like we do many times, will you do anything to stop drinking? Well, that was a tougher one. But I finally said, Yes, I'll do anything to stop drinking.
And then he put the third one. He said, Will you go to the hospital? Well, that was the one that really stuck because there people would see me in the hospital, would see that I was a drunk. Never for once thinking about all the times I wandered the streets of Bidek, bumming drinks, knocking on doors, and everything else. But just to think that somebody would see me there. What a terrible ego. You know, I don't know how I survived at all with the ego I had.
But somehow or other, through the grace of God, I presume it must have been, I said, Yes, I'll go to the hospital. But don't tell my mother or my son. So he put me away down in a room at the other end of the hall. And I was there. And they worked on me, and they worked on my son, and they worked on my mother. And finally, after five days, the doctor came in this day. He'd been in every day. But this day he came in.
He had his hand behind his back. And he said, How are you, Ian? I said, I'm fine. Good. How about a drink? Would you like a drink? And I just looked at him. I said, No, I don't want a drink. Well, that's good. I'll let you out tomorrow. Before I do, there's something here I want you to read. And he took from behind his back the big book of AA. And I took the book. And he said, Read that. And he left.
And I started to read the book. I would hear someone coming down the hallway. And I would shove the book under the clothes so they couldn't see what I was reading. What a crazy way to go. Completely egotistical. Frightened somebody will know. But then as I read along, and I came to Chapter 5, and I read the 12 steps of AA, it scared me half to death. Because I knew there was no way I could practice all that.
But fortunately, I kept reading. And as I read through and came to some of the stories in the back, I really got interested and started all over again. And the wonderful thing was that somehow or other, something moved me and I began to like what I would see. I got out of the hospital. Got home. The three of us got home. We treated our son for a year and a half after that with violet ray lamps and so on.
And he recovered. My mother recovered. And things looked a lot rosier. I was in November 23, 1949.
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I was home for, oh, the first of January or so. I was rushed to the hospital with acute appendicitis and operated on right away. I got out of there in ten days. I came home. And the next day or the next evening, I got word my favorite uncle had dropped dead at the barn on the farm where I used to stay as a young fellow. And I loved him. He was a bachelor uncle. And he was a wonderful person. And it was hard to take.
But I stayed sober. Thank God. It came along to the March, and my mother took a heart attack and was put to bed for three months. I had the wonderful experience in April of that year of my father saying to me, Ian, I think you've finally made it. What a wonderful thing. I'm going to change my will and turn everything over to you. On April the 10th, my father took a stroke and died nine days later. So the will was never changed.
Not that I minded that. It didn't bother me at all. But I did mind the passing of my father, but I stayed sober. Now, these are miracles because everything that I had been doing all down through the years was against what I used to do, drink to forget the troubles. And I didn't get drunk. Things went along, and I realized as I read the big book that somehow or other I must start to do what Bill and Dr. Bob did.
That if I was going to keep what I had, I had to start giving it away. And as I thought, I wondered to myself, who could be the next worst alcoholic in Bidek to myself? And immediately I thought of Danny, and I started to work on him. And we worked together for quite a while, and eventually he got sober. And it came along that the two of us then decided we would work on the third person. As it happened, he was in the DTs when we got him.
My friend Danny stayed with him till midnight, and I sat on him from midnight till five o'clock in the morning. Five o'clock in the morning came, and the miracle again happened. I had a glass of whiskey on the table right alongside of him with a paper over it. And when he came to, I said, Benny, you're pretty sick. If you want a drink, it's there for you. And he reached out halfway, and he stopped.
He said, No. And he quit. We started on the fourth fellow, the three of us, and he got sober. So then we thought it was about time to start looking into how we got an AA group going. And we did. We had some meetings at our own home. We had to pull down all the blinds, tell my wife and my mother to go upstairs, and we had our little meeting. And we decided we'd do something about it. The nearest group to us was Sidney Mines, and we decided we'd go down there and see how they ran AA, which we did.
And from there on, there was no stopping us. I'm just telling this story because I realized how we started the group in Vedette. It came October, late September or October,
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and this was in 1951, by the way, and we had a little gathering. We had quite a few people in then. We had a little gathering in the municipal building, all in the quiet, and we asked for pledges and donations to build a hall of our own because we had been working out of an old store that had been vacated down an old side road, difficult to get to, but we got the rent for nothing there, so we just used to take…
We had one jeep driven by Danny, and we used to be hanging on to this jeep on all sides of it by this time to get to this old building. So we decided we'd try to build a hall of our own. And miracles of miracles, this was strictly against AA tradition, but a gentleman and his wife, who were good friends of many of us in AA, said, Ian, if you're going to build, we'll give you a piece of property. It was pretty hard to turn down, so we didn't.
We took it, and we started, and we built our own building. That was in the fall of 1951. We had, at that time, a Christmas party for all the families with children that were there, and we had our first Christmas party in that new building, but it wasn't completed. But we had that there, and the next spring we completed it and moved into our building. It was a wonderful success. I can go on to explain to you that it grew and grew.
Sometimes it went back, but then it always kept going. And from that group started different groups throughout Cape Breton, in the northern part of Cape Breton, in the Marguerite Valley, in different places, Waikato, and so on. But it was a wonderful experience. And I'll never realize that from that big book of AA that was passed to me, through the years that have passed, it has been a wonderful experience all the way.
When I came into AA, I had so many things that were tearing at my soul. There was a person with sorrows behind me, lots of them. And a person with regrets behind me, of which I did not speak and tried not to think about. And with no one to share my sorrows or regrets, I kept them to myself. And when I couldn't hide them even from me, liquor was the antidote, but it never worked. All it did was to postpone the horrible hell on earth.
I was a person brought up in a Christian home. I was a person that went to church, son to school. I sang in choirs. I sang solos, but still I couldn't keep sober. And as I started my life in AA, things that never meant anything to me in the church began to mean a lot to me as I realized what this program was all about. One of the things that really hit me after I came into AA was an anthem we used to sing in church, and I don't think the words really meant much to me because I was just singing the tune.
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And when I came into AA, right out of the blue, these words came to me, Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord, and he will have mercy and abundantly pardon. And if anyone needed pardon, it was me, because I had a guilt complex that was something terrible. It was desperate to try to face the world with all this on my mind. But somehow or other, those words hit me. And as they hit me, the Big Book became clearer. The fellowship of AA became clearer. And all this time, something was growing within me.
It was a wonderful experience. It was a joyful experience to see all these things happening, and a wonderful new life beginning. And by the grace of God, and through this wonderful program, something had come to me that is priceless. And before I close, I would like to say that this has been a wonderful meeting to me. I lost all my nervous feeling as soon as I saw the faces in the audience, and I don't think there's anything in this world like the human face.
I've been in AA, and I've watched a lot of faces. And it's the most wonderful feeling to see someone new come in, and the strained look, and the tortured look, and gradually as they grasp even a part of this program, the strained look, the wrinkles, the torture leaves, and something new begins. And something new replaces it. You know, we're the most blessed group in the world, as far as I'm concerned. I love AA.
And one time I read a story, and I still read the old Western stories. And in this book that I read by Louis L'Amour, he was describing the wonderful way the tracks were left in the forests and on the trail. And these trails were left as what he called it, the people before, and then the Indians, and then the others that came along. And they marked their paths, little stones piled, and so on. And then the words that followed really shook me, because all it said was, each of us must leave a little behind to make easier the path of those that follow. Thank you for listening.
Thank you, Ian. And our second speaker is Mel H. from Ontario. Mel? Good morning, everyone. I'm Mel H., and I'm an alcoholic. Isn't it a wonderful morning? I was asked to say a few words this morning and tell you a little bit how it was before I came to AA and when I came and how it is now. I was brought up in a farm up in rural Ontario, and as I look back, I had no right to become an alcoholic, but I did. I was one of the ones that tried to gain things.
In my early years, I believe when I was in college, I used alcohol to reach goals that I had set out to reach. And what I'm saying at this particular time, I used alcohol for a number of years to gain the things that I wanted to gain, but then alcohol took over and used me. This has been a wonderful conference, I would like to say, and before I think that everyone who was out last night at the opening ceremony, I'm sure that you can't help but realize what a wonderful occasion it is and the feelings that we have.
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The feelings that are vibrated here are for the good of all of us and the good for all of the suffering alcoholics. I was fortunate enough at a particular time that my alcoholism developed fairly fastly. My father died the year after I graduated from college, agriculture college, and I came home and I took over the farm. I became involved in the purebred livestock business, such as shipping Holstein cattle down to Cuba, etc.
Not getting paid for the cattle when you got them there, that doesn't do too good for an alcoholic. Those are some of the things. I won't go into that particular part of my story, but I was good as a livestock judge, and if you can reach your bottom and your top both at the same time, I did. I was given the opportunity in 1946, I guess it was, to judge livestock at Chicago International, which was the largest livestock show in the United States at that particular time.
I took the boys and the farm out for a party before I went, and I had a blackout on the way home and hit a car. I went and judged in Chicago, and they said I had some teeth knocked out, and they said to watch for infection, and I sure watched for infection. I kept lots of alcohol in my mouth most of the time. At any rate, I came home from there and went into the city, like the coast by his own sound, a small city, and went into the police stations and picked up my summons that sent me to jail for a week for drunk driving.
That's why I say I reached my bottom and my top at the same time. I would like to say that at that particular time, and this is important to me, that when I was coming out of jail, I thought that I should have the decency to go and thank the sergeant who had arrested me, not for arresting me, but for letting me go to Chicago to judge, which he shouldn't have done. He could have been up on the carpet if nothing had happened.
Anyway, he did that, and I went into his office, and I said I'd just come in, and I wanted to thank him for what he had done. I guess I threw him off because not many people go into the office and thank the sergeant when they're coming out of jail for what he had done. But it wasn't, again, it was for letting me go to Chicago. And he said, Mel, sit down. And he said, I would like to tell you a story about myself.
This was one year before Alcoholics Anonymous came to the city of Owens Sound and our area up in there. And he told me a story of how he had been in the police uniform in Sudbury and how he had run down an 11-year-old girl and how the police had come and taken him and hid the whiskey and put him in a hotel and didn't lay any charges. And the hardest thing he had to do was to face the parents of that child the next morning because they didn't know whether she was going to live or die.
His name was Jack, and he said to me, Mel, he said, I haven't had a drink since that day. And he never did have another drink from that day on. But I've often thought after that that if he could have, he didn't know about AA. AA wasn't in our community at that particular time. And I am sure that if he had known about AA and had told me that he said there's a group of people in here that might be able to help you, that I am sure at that particular day I would have contacted those people because I was in the right frame of mind.
But let me tell you that right frame of mind didn't continue very long. I got back home and I lost my license and got the poor me's and everything else that goes along with it. And you know how silly and crazy we are. We had a real telephone line with about 18 people on it. And the people I hit in the car happened to be a cousin. And my dad, when he was living, had helped him out on two or three different occasions.
And all that would have to happen, and we were sitting there quite quiet at home and the telephone would ring. Ours was one long and two shorts and theirs was five shorts. And there had to be, their telephone number would ring and it would set me off and I would jump in the truck or something and go to the hotel.
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That's crazy, but it's the truth. And that's how we go. Anyway, my good wife who is with me here today, we got married in 1948. And eight months after we were married, it was a civic holiday weekend and I took off with a Scotch-Coley pup that was six weeks old on a Monday morning to go up to the watering hole to get a drink to settle my nerves. And which I did. And if I'd have turned right, I would have went home.
And I turned left and I ran from myself. And I just kept on going. I had no intention of doing it, but that's what happened. The following Saturday I was in a hotel about 50 miles away and I kept moving from one hotel to another so they wouldn't be able to catch up with me. And a guy came in through, I was sitting having a beer with somebody at the same table. And a guy came in through the door and he was bumming a dime for a draft beer.
That was in 1949. And the guy beside me said, he said, you know what's too bad about that chap? They have an AA group here in Pamerson. And he said they had him sober for three months, but something's happened. He has fell off. I went to the guy and I said, do you know who's in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous? A small community, two drunks got sobered up. He had no problem telling me who was in the program.
He told me, give me the names of two. And one stayed in the hotel. The next morning I went to see him. And I talked with him and it happened to be they had a meeting. And my Scotch-Coley pup and I went to the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. That particular day, before I come home after a week's drunk where nobody knew where I was. Let me tell you, maybe I had more than one reason to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.
Because I should have a hell of a good excuse when I come home after I've been away a week. Go to Alcoholics Anonymous was as good as any. And at any rate, I did go and we started going. And through the next 16 months, I could believe in the 12 steps as they outlined them. And it went on. But I still didn't want to actually admit that I could never drink. You know what I mean? And I had three or four drunks in the meantime.
And finally I ended up coming home one day and I'd been drinking and I was in a hotel. And I ordered a couple of beers. And I never did drink those two beers. And I phoned a chap I got to know in Own Sound at that time who was in the program. And I asked if he'd come out to where I was and bring somebody else with him to drive my car. And I don't know why I did it because I'd often drove the car when I was a lot drunker in that particular time.
Anyway, he did. And it was freezing rain and that happened to be in December the 2nd, 1950. And he brought somebody and we got back to where we were going into the farm. And I said, it's fine. I can go from here. And I said, I want to pay you for your gas. And he said, no, you can't pay me for the gas. The only way you can repay me, Mal, if you will promise me that you won't miss a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and Own Sound on Friday nights for the next year.
And I said, and by God, I'll do it. And by God, I did do it. And by God, I haven't missed very many since either. You know, and I often thought that that was really, really, you know, I mean, I really committed myself. And I often think today, one of the greatest things that has gone is that people take their AA sort of cafeteria style when it's convenient. And I'm telling you, if you watch a guy comes and joins a group and makes a point of being there every week, his chances of gaining and maintaining his sobriety is excellent.
But if he starts missing his own group and starts taking it free choice when it's convenient, you've lost some of that giving. And I think this is important. One of the things that went on from there was the fact that we didn't, there wasn't too many in AA up in our part of the country at that time. And I had a good friend that I asked. And I'd like to tell you a little bit about a few of my spiritual experiences.
And I don't mean flashing lights or anything like that. But my program are on the ways of Alcoholics Anonymous. There have been many small spiritual experiences that when I recognized them, That when I recognized them, give me strength to grow, and I think this is important. One of the things was the fact that I had this good friend and I prayed that someday that he would come and ask me for help.
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I did that for over a year. One morning we got up, I got up and it was about 7 o'clock in the morning and we're having breakfast and the telephone rang. And it was my friend Lou. His wife had kicked him out of the house and she owned the house. And the only way he could get back in was to phone me for help. And he did. And you know, and I think of it at that particular, how easy it is to get our program of Alcoholics Today, Anonymous Today.
The first, that particular chap was a Monday, and the closest meeting to us on a Monday at that particular time was 85 miles away. And I drove him 85 miles in a pickup truck to that particular meeting. And the second guy that came along was a Monday and we had to do the same thing. You know, and that's 85 miles back and forward. But I can tell you one thing, when you got a new pigeon and it takes you two hours to get there and you get a meeting and you got two hours to come home, you can get an awful lot of AA talking in.
And it really, really, really does work. I would like to say that one of the things that, that was a spiritual experience to me. That I had asked for that help and God had given me, put the words in the mouth to call me and I was able to help. And we had going on from there. And I think that one of the things that helped me in my sobriety was the fact that in the fourth step where it says to take your inventory.
And I had taken my inventory and one day I decided that I should list my defects of character in order of the way that I thought they were. The ones that I had that made me want to drink, if you can look at that particular time. Things that I'd done that I didn't want to do and made me want to drink to forget. And I listed these in this particular order. And then in the morning I would start out by asking help for one day at a time to keep my sobriety.
And I'd also ask for help to stay away from that one defect of character. Just one at a time. And it's amazing how you'd catch yourself and sort of get one under control. And then I would go on to the next one. And then the next one. And that's why we have in our tenth step, we continue to take personal inventory. And when we're wrong, promptly admit it. Because after a good number of years, these still keep creeping back in and you still have to work on them.
One of the things that when I was drinking, we had a little Anglican church half a mile from the farm. And I used to sneak in the back door of the church which was never locked in early mornings when I was drunk. And kneel at the communion rail and beg for help. Bargain for help, I guess you would call it. One of the times that I was in there was in the harvest time. And I could see the harvest moon coming in through the window.
And there was a little stained glass window. And I could always remember that. One day I was reading The Power of Positive Thinking by Vincent Peale. And he suggested that we all should have a picture of something that was calm and serene in our mind. One of these particular scenes. And this was a scene that I picked out in my own self. And many times when problems would arise, all I'd have to do, and still do, is shut my eyes and roll that picture of that window in that little church and the moon shining in.
And sure, I wasn't there for the right reason. But it eventually got the results. I would also like to say that many times that when I have problems, and I still have problems, I have a little place out. It was on the old farm that we used to own that we don't own anymore. And at times if I think there's something really bothering me, I will go out there and stand up on that hill. And I can have a half an hour's meditation with my maker.
And ask for help and guidance in the decision making that has to be done. And it comes. But I also go back out there and thank them for it when it comes. And I think this is important. That we ask for help, but we should also give thanks for help when we know it has come. Another thing that I have used is I have an old manila folder in my files in the office. And it is my turnover to my higher power file.
And over the years, and this is something I learned from a former delegate, a former trustee, I heard him speak about ten years ago. And I thought, well, I'll try it. And if something bothers me, and I'm in business, and if I wake up thinking about something in the night, that bothers me. I'm not supposed to be doing that. I'm supposed to be sleeping. So the next morning I go down to the office and take a piece of plain paper
[00:50:03]
and date it and put, Dear Lord, and I write down my problem. And I sign it and I put it in the turnover to the higher power file. And you wouldn't believe how those problems disappeared. You just can't. I do this. It has become like, it really has worked. And I mean worked. In all things, in my AA life, in problems we find in the AA fellowship, where I might be asked to give some help, or in my own family problems, or in the work problems, or anything else.
And it just works. And it's just amazing. I've got a stack of them that high. And then I write cancelled or finished or whatever it is, you know. But it does work. And this is what is so important to me. And I think of, you know, the great things that have happened. Of the years you've gone on and as you grow in the fellowship. And I think, I can think of so many of these. And you talk about your little spiritual experiences.
Every time you write down one of those and you see that it comes to, you know, that it's finished. And the answers may not be all what you're expecting, but they come. And then you can recognize them, you know. And it gives you the strength and growth to go. One of the greatest things we have in our program of Alcoholics Anonymous is to come in. You come in to get sober. And I find that many people are not willing to give up all of their other defects of character to allow themselves to grow with strength and confidence and reap all the benefits that are here from working the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I think this is, so many people shortchange themselves. And shortchange themselves so badly and don't even realize it. Now it's not all good that comes, but I think it's, but it is. Now, I would, I think that the feelings, our feelings cannot be all good and serene and calm if we still have other defects of character within us. And it's not all, and these have to be removed. They can only be removed by a higher power, which I choose to call God.
And I believe this. One of the things that really struck out to me this year, I happen to be the current delegate for Western Ontario, was at the conference in New York this year. And this was the 50th anniversary. And it was the feelings that was there during that week of conference. It was something that, just hard to believe. And I could like to sum it up in one of the two or three. There was a chap there by the name of Homer.
I'm not too sure whether Homer's here or not. I have an idea he is, but I haven't seen him. But anyway, and he worked with Bill Wilson before the first general service conference was held. And he was the current delegate. And he was telling us of his personal contact with Bill. And he said to Homer, Homer, he said, don't take a drink. Join a group. Go to AA meetings. And he said, and marvelous things will happen to you.
And he said, marvelous things have happened. And marvelous things have happened to me. And marvelous things will happen to you if you work our 12 steps and the 12 concepts and the 12 traditions of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I thank you. Thank you, Mel. Our final speaker this morning is Belle H. Belle is from Quebec. She asked to be last. She preferred to be last. And it's my tendency and my upbringing to say, to welcome this lady, but she tells me she prefers to be called a woman.
She prefers to think of herself as a woman. So I'm going to ask Belle to come and finish our meeting. Well, Mel, that was a fine entrance. I'm sorry. Did you hurt yourself? I really don't know. I don't think I hurt myself. Okay.
[00:55:00]
I'm okay. Sorry for the rumpus. And, you know, I never stood in front of one of these things before because all you can see over there is the top of my head. I think I'd be better on a little stool. No, sorry. Well, my name is Belle, and I am a grateful alcoholic, and I'm an alcoholic who is very glad and happy to be one. For that reason, I will tell you that I would never have found the life I have today unless I had been an alcoholic.
I'm quite sure of that. Now, usually I am known for talking an awful long time. This morning I'm going to have to cut a lot of that short. But before I start, I would like to emphasize a little bit on the last speaker's remarks because many of them are mine. I want to tell you, first of all, how much I love you. I bring you not only my love, I'm on my tiptoes now, but I bring you God's love. He loves every single one of us immensely.
And in case I might forget that, I want to say it right now. God's love is with you. And one other reason it is is that he pours it in to this old woman every day. And why? Because he knows I'm going to share it with everyone I meet, not only in AA. Now, I have a story which, if I start late enough in it, I may be able to tell you the important part of it, as it is to me. My mother was an alcoholic.
She died of alcoholism at the age of 52. I worshipped my mother, and I suffered immensely. And I detested any form of alcohol. My brother took his own life at the age of 39 through alcohol. He could no longer live with himself. Now, this was all before AA. I tell you those two things so that you know why I detested alcohol. And if anybody had said to me, Bill, one day you will be one, they would have been crazy.
However, when I reached the age of 40, you see, a lot of my life is going to be skipped because I haven't got time to talk about it. I was a very smart child, but I wasn't so smart when I took alcohol as a friend. But I didn't really take it as a friend. I took it as a relief. I was a married woman at the age of 20. I left my husband after 11 years of sobriety because of many reasons, which I'm not going to tell you.
And it wouldn't help you, and it wouldn't help me. I never hated him because I didn't know what hatred was. However, I met another man in my life several years later, and I think it was the only love of my life. The war came along, and he went overseas. And he was stationed in England. He was there about six months, and we corresponded constantly. He was a journalist. He wrote for a living. And he wrote me beautiful articles on the way over on the ship.
And actually, when I came to the burning of the mall, I kept a few, but I hid them on myself. I hid them on myself. I didn't want to come across them, but every once in a while, I do. Well, the heartache has left. But after he was there, about six months, he sent me a cable.
[01:00:05]
Sell out your home and come over here, and we will be married. We had divorce proceedings on the way, and by the time I would have got to England, they would have been okay. I sold out everything I knew I owned. I had a nice apartment in Montreal. I worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital. I am not a nurse. I am a telephone switchboard operator. That has been the thing I have done all these years. Maybe that's why I can talk without it hurting me.
I used to have a good enough voice that I didn't need one of these things. You could have heard me to the moon. But I guess it's faded a little in the latter years. But however, at that time, I sold out everything, and I gave the notice at the hospital that I rented my flat. I had just one thing I was keeping to give away to my sister just before leaving. It was a great big majestic radio. I am crazy about music, and I used to dance from morning till night.
It could subdue every problem, every heartache I ever had. I could forget it if I could dance. And I still love music, and I am almost buying out Reader's Digest. Everything they send me and ask me to try, I try it. And unfortunately, most of them I keep, so they're very expensive. I'm living on a government pension and another small pension, which in a little while I'll tell you about. Now, I was ready to go. My trunk was packed.
Three days before I was to sail, the government put a ban on any woman going overseas for the duration of the war. Well, I'd had a very tough life, a very poverty life, a very sick life, a heartache almost all my life. And here was the biggest bomb of all. I wasn't going to meet the man that I worshipped almost. I might never see him again, and because I will forget at the end of my talk, I never did see him again.
He was lost during the war. I almost always forget to say that. At the time, I had to find a little place to live. I didn't want to live with any of my friends or my sister, because I knew I was going to do an awful lot of crying. The job at the hospital was safe. They were glad I was not going away. I wondered what I would do that first night in that little, small, one-roomed apartment. But I had my music, I had my radio, and it took up half the room.
But it was with me. And I thought, over those years, I have had a drink now and then, if we were out on a party or we were with a lot of social people, but I never had any problem. I didn't drink constantly. So, for some reason that night, I thought, if I had a small drink tonight, maybe I could sleep. And I knew I wasn't going to sleep. So I walked down to Peel and St. Catherine, here in Montreal, and I bought a small bottle of something.
I don't know, to this day, what it was. But I came back and I took a small drink, and it did help me sleep. So I think you can gather by the idea that it did what I thought it would do, and I drank for an escape. I was sunk before I started. The next night, another one. A couple of nights later, a little bigger.
[01:05:03]
Finally, it was a 26-ounce. And then it became a 40-ounce. And then two 40-ounces. And I could drink any man under the table and stand on my feet. I almost went off my feet here this afternoon, but that wasn't regular. I don't know when alcoholism hit me. I don't think any of us ever know that answer. No doctor knows anything about it. But they do try to help us today, I believe. I haven't asked for help for some time.
Well, I'm not going to talk too much about those years, but I want to tell you of the loneliness, of the sitting on the floor reading letters from Len at first, and then the trunk was closed. I hadn't heard from him. He was presumed missing. I finally took all his letters up to my sister's way up north and burnt them. And she cried more than I did. I just kept out a few that were precious to me. And I was trying to forget.
I had a few, what you might call an affair, that I would meet someone that I kind of liked. Half tipsy, maybe. But nothing was ever serious. Never again. I thought I fell in love with a man in AA once after I got in. How did I come in? Well, I phoned one night when I was desperately ill, and I phoned a doctor where I had used to work. I gave up my job at the hospital because I knew they were finally going to fire me.
And I must tell you that I went through a major operation because I told the lie that I had hemorrhaged all night. They sent me a doctor and they got me into the hospital. I was scared to death of a hospital, even though I worked in it. Maybe that was why. And after a week of telling the same lie to everybody, every doctor, I was hemorrhaging all night. It was one morning when I couldn't go to work.
And I gave that as an excuse, thinking they'd just leave me lie there for a day. But no, they felt bad because I was alone, so they sent a doctor of my choice at that time. And I thought I'd tell him the truth, but I never had the nerve to tell anybody the truth that I was drinking. He finally called an ambulance, and I wasn't sick. I had a hangover, yes, but I wasn't really sick. So he took me in an ambulance because he said, you can't stay here all night alone. This is dangerous.
Well, it was dangerous going in in that ambulance, and one of the first nurses I saw, she said, Bill, when is your operation? I said, I didn't come for an operation. She said, well, if you go out of here without one, you're going to be good. She knew what she was saying. After a week, the head doctor came to see me again, and he says, we're going to operate on Tuesday. I wondered what they were going to operate for.
And I never knew until some years later when there was a piece in the Montreal Star which explained every woman has thyroid tumors, and the only danger is if they hemorrhage. And that was my story, and somehow they believed me. The best liar you ever saw. But I'll tell you one thing, I don't lie anymore. You may be sure everything I'm telling you today is the absolute truth. I think I like to tell that story about my operation because it shows to what limits there are none that we will go without telling our drinking problem.
Now, after I was alone in this apartment and becoming an alcoholic very fast,
[01:10:06]
I lost several jobs, but the first one, I left the hospital because a couple of years after my operation, I could feel that I was going to be fired because I was losing an awful lot of time, and I found a lie to tell them for everything. So I gave up my own job. I'd been there 17 years. I was somewhere in the vicinity of 45, I would say. And I wanted to do it in a big way. So I was American-born. I'd been in Canada since I was 8, so I'm a true Canadian.
But then I wanted to show my independence, so I resigned on Independence Day, the 4th of July. This is how nutty I was. Well, that's only a little story, perhaps, to make you amused. Now, I'd lost jobs. I'd been fired from several places. Now, it's about… I'm about 52. I've gone through all the horrors of alcoholism. I've had the DTs by myself and seen and heard the things on the ceilings. I'd locked my door, double locked.
I didn't have a friend left. Nobody came. But when I was there, it was double locked. My shade was pulled to the bottom. This is the condition I got into. That's from my tumble. Then I had a telephone. I asked the woman downstairs, who was looking after an old man that owned the house. These were all small apartments made over from an old house. They were about a little bit bigger than this box. They had a bathroom, and I had a little plate and a cupboard that I could cook on, and I loved to cook.
So times when I was half sober, I'd cook. I always ate my breakfast, no matter how or when or if I was under the weather or over the weather. I ate in the morning if I just had to take it out of the fridge and eat it like it was. I think that helped me later on. However, after I phoned that last place I lived in, this woman phoned for me, the very next morning I got a phone call from this place I worked.
It was a large furrier's, and I was a switchboard operator. The only reason I got taken in there was because they needed me immediately, someone to operate that thing, and they never asked me any questions. They phoned up to tell me I was through. I'm 54 now. They said, Don't come back. We don't want you anymore. Well, this was a terrible thing, because at 54, I thought the world had come to an end.
There was no place for me in it. Now, I have forgotten to tell you that I called a doctor that I had known years before, and I told him of my drinking. And he said, I'll send you somebody in five minutes. He said, Don't leave the phone. Well, the phone was just out in the hall. I couldn't afford a phone. And there was a girl in the front, and she was away that weekend. After they fired me, I went back into my room, and I got back into bed.
I had a temperature of 102. Temperature of 102. I was, well, the end of the world had come for me. There was no way that I thought I'd ever have another job. No way at all. So I called this doctor to
[01:15:04]
tell him I was drinking and he sent me a woman from AA. I'd never heard the word AA. I'd never read about it. It was very new. Well, new for me. So she came and she told me a little bit about herself and took me to a meeting three days later because I was too sick to get up. And the night I went, I was shaking just like that all over my body. And I was scared because I didn't know why I was going or what I was going to. But for the first time that night, something that one of the speakers said made me laugh. I hadn't laughed like that in years. So I kept going back to AA with this woman as a companion.
I could never have gone alone. And eventually, after a couple of months, I was able to go on my own. I took a sponsor after a while, but she didn't live long. I guess I killed her. And nothing got through this marble head. I didn't understand or I didn't hear talked about too much, the steps. And while I'm on the topic, I would like to say a word about the twelve suggested steps of AA. If you are working them, good for you. But if you are only playing with them and reading them and not putting them into action, you're not living the program of AA. No matter how long you've been sober, you are not living the program and there's only one program of AA. And it is twelve suggested steps. Every single one of them. One at a time. One day at a time. I can't make you use them, but I must tell you how important they are. And all the beautiful things that you think are coming into your life will really start to come. They have for me. I've worked them all. I had many defects.
You never get rid of those defects, but you can push them down awfully far. Use your twelve steps one at a time as best you can. But please, try to work them. There are so many people I know in AA that stop at the second or third. I don't need the rest. I never saw anybody come in here who didn't need them all. So, do your best. Now, where was I? I have to say these things as they come to me. Finally, I got dressed that day because I hadn't made a close friend in my year and a half in AA. I couldn't. I didn't know how.
And I knew everything. And how do you tell anybody anything when they think they know it all? You can't. And I was sure I knew it all. Everything. I was smart. I thought. I didn't know anything about this fellowship. Well, after I started going to AA, I still didn't, but the last six months before I lost my last job, I hadn't been drinking. Previous to that, I'd been cheating every once in a while. Cheating on who? Me. It was myself I was cheating. I thought I might hurt the group. I belonged to a group, the Sunday afternoon group in Westmount. I didn't live in Westmount, but that didn't matter. It was a good group, and it still is. I was there this year to give the history of the group. That doesn't interest you too much, so I have to come. I hope
[01:20:02]
I have time. How much have I got? Well, I'll try and make it fast. One Saturday morning, I decided to stay in bed all day, and I did. At that time, I'd lost the tolerance for alcohol. One drink did just what a 40-ounce bottle did. Knocked me out. So I got up at six o'clock when I knew everything was closed at that time. I was deathly sick. It had been three months since I lost that last job, and I was living on $15 a week from unemployment insurance, and I was destitute. I had an old blind man as a friend that I used to go and help and cook for, try to help him. I always loved to help people from the time I was a little girl, but this last 12 years, I had almost killed myself. I was desperately ill.
I needed hospitalization, but I couldn't ask for it. I didn't ask for anything. So that night, about eight o'clock, I went out to this little phone in the hall, and I called all the AA people that I had been a little friendly with. It was a Saturday night, and everybody was very busy. That, I could understand. And finally, as a last result, I phoned this old blind man and asked him if I could take a taxi and go to his house, his apartment. I said, Eddie, I think I'm going to die tonight, and I'm frightened. And he said, die and be damned. Well, when you're as sick as I am, you think you're going to be. I got back into my bed. It was 11 o'clock, and about two or three in the morning, I hadn't slept, but I became paralyzed. I won't say from head to foot, because my head was clear. I had never been so sane, but the rest of my body was completely paralyzed. I couldn't move a finger. I was scared. And these are the only words I said. Please, God, don't let me die like this. And you know, that's all you need to do, is ask. So many of us forget that God gave each person their own willpower, and he will never remove it. So if you really want or need something, you've got to ask him. I thank him today that I was able to do that, because the paralysis, I can't tell you time, but it was a matter of seconds or a minute when the paralysis left my body. And I was propped up with pillows, because my heart was just about jumping out of my throat. I felt a presence there with me.
I didn't see anything, but this presence was very strong. And you know, at every meeting I have been since, I feel that same presence right here amongst us. He is always with us. I know I'm going to get a little note, and you better make it big or I won't see it. I can't possibly tell you all the wonders that have come into my life. I'm an old woman. By the grace of God, tomorrow is my
[01:25:10]
birthday, and I'm 86 years old. You're very kind. Thank you. I don't think I look that young. I know I can, but I feel that young in my heart. I'm very young. Now I live up at Lac Collie. How did I get there? I had to buy a house. I needed a job. I had to find a job. I looked in the newspaper, and I saw someone that wanted a job part-time, and I phoned. And they answered me as, House of Seagram. So I went, and eventually I got this job, but I didn't believe I would. I didn't have faith then, but today it's strong, oh so strong. It could lift me up and carry me right out of this room.
Well, I got the job, and I worked there for 10 years in their office, a switchboard operator. They liked me. They were good to me. They gave me a small pension, although I was 55 when I entered. They left me a little pension, which was doubled for the first three years of my retirement, because I didn't get the old age pension until I was 68. I have a home. I sacrificed to get it. I have something here that I would love to have read to you, but it takes five minutes. I can't.
It's supposed to be off now. What time is it? 11 o'clock. Well, another time. I hope I'll have that other time. I would like to wish you all a wonderful conference, and I hope that everybody here has definitely had their last taste of that poison that nearly killed us all. I love you. God loves you.