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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – TWELVE STEPS – RS 06333.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-twelve-steps-rs-06333.mp3 Duration: 01:28:25
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…of the marathon on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. There are some things I have to do first. First of all, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Uli. I'm a grateful alcoholic. Hi, Uli! My home group is in Frankfurt, Germany. It's the Frankfurt International Group. And I'm very happy to be here. And actually, well, but I can go into that maybe a little bit later. I would like to ask for a moment of silence, please, in gratitude for the AA recoveries in the past 50 years.
And we'll have this serenity prayer afterwards. God grants me to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thank you. For the benefit of saving some time, I think in this workshop or how you … well, it's a marathon. We will not read the beginning of the chapter five, how it works. I think to most of those that are a little bit familiar with the steps already, they know at least the beginning of this chapter five.
And it was written for me in a book I received from a sponsor, my sponsor in Germany. Her story is in the yellow booklet, AA for the Woman, and her story is entitled The European Doctor. And when she went ahead to another life, she left two books for me. One was a big book that Bill W. gave to her, and the other one was The Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions Bill gave to her, with his signature.
And her sponsor was sent to Germany on an assignment with the army and went to Bill and said, What shall we do over there? There's no AA in Germany. He said, Okay, start it. And this reminds me of my favorite cliche, keep it simple. And so she started and she found this doctor, and later when the doctor … well, it was shortly after the Denver Convention ten years ago, when I got it, she wrote on it, Rarely have we seen a person fail that thoroughly followed our path.
So I think I will just want to explain a little bit on the anonymity. I have to use my glasses lately. There may be some here who are not familiar with our traditions of personal anonymity on 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 films. 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. Are there any announcements? At this moment is the time where we can have some announcements. I have only a very brief announcement. That is, in Germany we also have big conventions.
Of course they never come to this amount of people like this, but we have a pretty 4, 5, 6, sometimes 7,000 people gathered. We always hesitated to bring these German speaking conventions to a town that is very dear to me because I was born and raised there. That is Berlin.
[00:05:01]
Berlin is like an island in East Germany and there are some travel difficulties to overcome to get there. And this is why we, to make it simple, said we wanted not to include Berlin. But in 1987 Berlin will be having the 750th anniversary. And for this occasion we will have the German speaking convention in Berlin. One more word to it is that it is a tradition for us as Germans in our German speaking convention that English speaking meetings are an essential part and they are part of this convention because we know where we got the message from.
Well, I'm an… Let me briefly identify that I, when I was not able to continue my studies because alcohol had become too much part in my life, I had to find me a job. I worked in the student council from time to time in Tempelhof Airport and helped there to establish a student airlift out of Berlin that was after the big airlift into Berlin and so on. And we had cheap charter flights out of Berlin for the students.
In fact, we were the first commercial charterers after the war that was a student union of the technical universities there. And so I had become in contact with the airlines. Now, when I had to stop with my studies and I did not know what to do, I thought maybe I can do something in this. But before I started to study I had also another profession and with this profession and some knowledge of English I had worked for the Canadian mission in Berlin as an interpreter and whenever there were fairs, they had a pavilion and an exhibition too.
And so I thought, well, why not emigrate to Canada? And I started to get all the paperwork ready. I got all my medical examinations and everything. And just at this moment I got a call, Uli, there's an open position with an American airline in Frankfurt. And I'm one of these smart alcoholics that always try to catch two flies with one clap. So I thought, oh, that's marvelous. This will help me to get me out of the broken situation I am.
And also after half a year I'll be eligible for a pass to reduce rate travel to the States and then it's no problem to come from the States to Canada and I can go where I please and work for the money I want to work for and not the government has a saying in it. And so I started to work there. Well, many of us alcoholics I found out there are good workers and maybe I had been at that time too. At least I had pulled myself together and I was promoted.
And I was offered to go on a training course for TWA in the States and I said, oh, that's gorgeous. Now I can go to the States even for free. But I had to decide whether I leave the company then or not. Anyway, this is trouble making decisions. That is still something a little bit difficult for me. And on one hand, and on the other hand, there's a joy about this promotion. I started to party and the end was that I was late so often to work that they demoted me again.
They sent somebody else to the States for the training. And so I still was in Frankfurt Airport and I couldn't get out of the booth again. And it continued and I did not do much travel, but my colleagues, they all traveled and then they said, oh, Uli, we brought you a bottle of this vodka and of that brandy and of this whiskey. And I was drinking all the time in Frankfurt. And this was 25 years ago when I had my papers ready to come to Canada.
I arrived in Canada Monday last week. I'm happy that I'm nearly five years sober now.
[00:10:12]
And I think I just, we will speak now about the 12 steps and in particular now about step seven, eight and nine. And I always was going mad when I was sitting in a meeting and they referred just to the number of the steps because I never could, well, too much brain damage. Step seven said, I'm going to ask him to remove our shortcomings. And in a way it's connected with the sixth step, but, well, we speak about step seven.
Step eight says, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. And step nine says, we made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Now we heard the steps and we have three marvelous speakers. I just met them 10 minutes, 15 minutes ago before we started. And I think I stopped rambling on now and I asked the first speaker.
It is Patrick from California, Patrick W. And please, he will speak about step seven. Well, this is the group level, I take it, huh? And Sybil said it last night that at the group level we give our full names. And my name is Patrick Wickman, I'm an alcoholic. And half of the room is San Mateo County, California. I brought my own rooting section, paid for their airfare, took them out to dinner at the Ruby Foo.
But here comes two more. You can come in here and sit on the stage here. These people have heard me so many times, it's unbelievable. But can you imagine, I don't know how many people are in Alcoholics Anonymous. I have no idea. But can you imagine a guy like me to get a letter in the mail and it said, we are sending you this loving invitation to come to Montreal, Canada to share with us with the seventh step.
And overwhelming, absolutely overwhelming. And my conception of the seventh step is honesty, tolerance, and true love of God and man, and character building. And you know, when I was a lot younger they used to say, Jesus, what a character, huh? And now I'm trying to build character, huh? I'd briefly like to tell you what I was like and how I got here. I started running away from home when I was seven years old.
I started smoking cigarettes when I was nine years old. I went to my first jail when I was ten years old. I quit school in the seventh grade when I was twelve or thirteen. I started drinking when I was fourteen. I went to the Oregon State Reform School when I was fourteen. At sixteen I was put in the Merchant Marine and I started using dope. At seventeen I was sentenced to break and rock, hard labor, on a chain gang.
At eighteen years old I was sentenced to the United States Army. I'm sure a lot of you guys understand this. I stood in front of a judge and he said, we're no longer going to take your antics around this town, Wickman, so I'm going to give you a choice. He said, you can either go to the Oregon State Hospital where they'll help you out with your disease, or he says you can go in the service. And I said, well, how long will I have to stay in the hospital?
He said, the rest of your life. And I said, well, how long will I have to stay in the Army? He said, three years. Well, I could count one, two. I said, I'll take the Army. So they put me in leg chains and handcuffed my hands behind me and took me to Eugene, Oregon and said, this kid wants to enlist. And in the seventh step it says, rebay and dogs are every step. I was in the Army four hours and I was in the brig.
And I said, geez, I should have went to the hospital. I, and I said, geez, I should have went to the hospital.
[00:15:03]
But two years later in the Army, they threw me out as a chronic alcoholic. And I was 20 years old. And at 35, I was in a garage in San Carlos, California, and I tried to take my life. It was all over. I had a $50 Chevrolet, I had a pair of suntan pants, I had a pair of black shoes, no socks. I was just telling somebody here tonight, I had a T-shirt, one T-shirt I had was all ripped out on the collar, it was all ripped out underneath the sleeves, it was black and hadn't, you know, never been washed, I doubt it.
And yesterday, I bought 10 T-shirts for $70. Things have changed a little bit. But I just couldn't, I couldn't go out on the street no more. I hadn't worked in three years, I hadn't worked from 1963 to 1966, and I just wanted to end it all. I have a sister named Annabelle who does not have our problem. Our whole family's dead from alcoholism. And I called her at 3 o'clock in the morning, hoping that she would tell me to not do it and come to Portland and she would save me.
I told her what I was going to do and she told me to do it. She said, the world would be a better place without you, Patrick Wickman, and hung up. And with that, I turned on the gas to die. And in a sense, Patrick Wickman did die that night because the next morning when I woke up and I can't share the feeling of devastation that I had because all those problems were still there and I was still the same guy and I didn't know what to do.
And I did the first humble thing I've ever done in my life and it was probably the greatest thing I've ever done in my life, without a doubt the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. And when I was 11 years old in a jail, a man told me never to pray to God, that weaklings prayed to God. And here I was 35 and I was so scared that this man would see what I was going to do, I put a towel over the door and I got on my knees and said, dear God, please help me.
It was the first prayer I've ever said in my whole life and help came immediately. I have not found it necessary to stick any substitute for living in my body since I said that simple little prayer. And on February the 15th, 1966, God took me to my first AA meeting and I've been trudging the happy road of destiny ever since. And I wish I could say, you know, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
I love Alcoholics Anonymous with all my heart. There is nothing I wouldn't do for Alcoholics Anonymous, but being of the character that I am, I did not follow the path thoroughly. I did not take the steps for 11 and a half years. I had a wonderful life. I married after two years in the program. She bought me a big fancy car. She bought me clothes. She took me out of the garage is what she did. Geez, I would have married anybody to get out of that garage.
I used to sit there and talk to God and I'd say, God, do you think it's possible that you could find me an apartment someplace, you know, I said, you know, with a swimming pool and maybe some ladies. I said, God, I said, you know, God, we're so far back off the street here, girls don't even know we're back here. Then God introduced me to this lady and we got married. We had a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time, except like it says in step seven, I thought materialism was going to make me a better man.
Fancy cars, fancy clothes, a wallet full of credit cards, trips. I remember in 1970, I went to my first world conference in Miami Beach and stayed in the Fountain Blue Hotel, huh? $70 a day, the room cost. My garage only cost $70 a month, you know, it was so fancy, it had two rolls of toilet paper in the toilet, you know, I had a telephone in the john. Can you imagine that? I was calling for room service.
I said, God, if the guys could see me now, you know, I mean, I really thought it was something, you know, and, and, you know, when I first came here, when I went, when I went to my first meeting, this guy said, tonight, we're going to talk about character defects. He says, John, do you have a character defect? And this John said, yes, I do. He said, I'm, I'm having a real problem with my ego. And I sat and I, I kind of looked at this guy and I said, Jesus Christ, I come here to learn how to quit drinking and this guy's going to talk about a bird?
I'd never heard it, huh? I'd never heard that word yet when I was breaking rock, huh? What are you in for, Wickman?
[00:20:00]
Oh, pride. Lust. Yeah, lust. That was another word, you know, I was at a meeting with my friend, Vince, one night in Belmont and this guy was talking about lust, this, lust, that, lust. I said to Vince, I said, what'd that guy talk about? He says, don't worry, we ain't got it. And I believed him, yeah, yeah. But like I say, I, I, you know, I, I just, I, I, I was secretary, uh, I made 12 step calls.
Uh, I did everything for Alcoholics Anonymous except take those steps. I was what the book calls a two-stepper. I took the first half of the first step and the last half of the 12th step and, uh, you know, isn't it strange that like my friend Linda here used to say, I'd be in trouble. I was in trouble constantly, you know, I'd be out of one trouble into another trouble into another trouble. Always, you know, my life was, was not really smooth and Linda used to say, uh, well, have you taken the steps, Patrick?
Yes, I've taken the steps, geez, oh, I used to get real defensive, you know, sure I've taken the steps. Oh, okay. Okay. You know, isn't that strange? Since I've taken the steps, no one's asked me if I've taken the steps. Sometimes I have to volunteer, hey, I've taken the steps, we don't care Wickman. But there comes a time, there comes a time and my time came and I had a job and finally I got, I had a disability, I got asbestos and fiberglass in my lungs, I had a major surgery done to my back, I was sitting around the house, I'd be, I thought, I heard a man say it this morning, I thought, uh, I thought I'd become a handicapper, you know, become the world's greatest handicapper, you know, drive to the racetrack in my brand new Cadillac and tip the guy $10 for parking my car and be in my $300 suit and get a box seat, you know.
The only trouble was I didn't know how to pick the horses, I'd lose $1,000 a day, you know, and I wouldn't tell anybody because I didn't have $1,000 a day. I was getting it off those credit cards I had and all those, you know, I used to tell the people, geez, this credit card's worth $10,000, this one's worth $7,000, this one's worth $5,000, you know, and my wife used to say, uh, Patrick, why don't you let me handle the finances?
And I'd say, oh, I'm doing okay, you know, I've taken money from this one to pay this one, you know, I couldn't remember how much I got from that one, and she'd say, well, how much are we in debt? I'd say, oh, $2,000, I think we was $20,000, and finally she had enough and she asked me to leave in 1977, and I moved down into the woods of La Honda, California, and all I had was a bicycle, a bicycle, and I moved into a little trailer, and I went to a meeting in Belmont one day, and this lady says, you know, Patrick, God only made one mold of Patrick Wickman, and she said, you are, you are completely out of that mold.
She says, you know, Patrick, if you don't do something and do it quick, I'm afraid you're gonna die. She says, I have a feeling you might take your life, Patrick, and she said, have you taken the steps, Patrick? I said, I can't take the steps, and she said, why? I said, well, I said, I drank so much and used so many drugs, I've damaged my brain, and she said, you know what's wrong with your brain, Patrick?
I said, no, Vera, what's wrong with my brain? She said, it's still in the same crate that God sent it to you. She said, unpack it and use it. Isn't that strange, eleven and a half years, and it made sense, and I did. That afternoon, I bought my first 12×12, and went out into the woods of La Honda, and started my venture into the steps, which was not easy, but when I got to step seven, I could see where it says how the demands I've made upon loved ones, upon God, upon myself.
You know, I used to pray to God for everything, huh? I used to pray for winners at the horses, I used to pray for trips, I used to pray for money, I used to pray for boats, for airplanes. I mean, and I, you know, like I say, gee, dear God, do you think we can go to Disneyland? And I'd go to Disneyland. I've been to Disneyland five times, and I thought God sent me.
[00:25:01]
Since I've taken the steps, God hasn't sent me to Disneyland. I can't afford it. And then it says in the seventh step that there's a big difference between a simple request and a demand. And that was, it was like it jumped out at me. And in October of 1977, I started to preface everything. I don't care what it is. Even before we said the serenity prayer here, I said, if it be thy will, dear God, I simply ask.
How do I know that God wants to grant me serenity? I know that I've got to do a lot of legwork, so I always preface it, if it be thy will, dear God, I simply ask. Another thing that come along while I was out there in the woods of Lohanda was, it had been eleven and a half years. How did I miss that word only in the eleventh step, huh? Pray only for the knowledge of God's will. In October of 1977, I have prayed only for the knowledge of God's will.
I have not prayed for anything for myself or for anybody else. And if I do pray for somebody else, if they're sick, drinking, or trying to get in the program, or whatever, I say, if it be thy will, dear God, I simply ask that you might help this person. And my life has changed. My life has changed. I'm happy, joyous, and free. I'll give you some examples of how God has been in my life, and how much I love God.
In 1979, I was standing at a window in Redwood City, California, and I just wasn't quite making it on my pension, and I hadn't worked since 1973. And I said, if it be thy will, dear God, I simply ask that you might be able to find me a little job someplace. And I said, thank you. And ten minutes later, the phone rang, and it was a friend of mine in Oregon. He said, how would you like to go to work for me?
He said, I'll pay your way up there, and give you so much a month, and I'll pay for your apartment. And I said, thank you, God, and went to Oregon. Another great thing I learned, after 15 years of sobriety, I had to go to a psychiatrist, and I had to learn that I had never forgiven anybody in my whole life. I always got even, you know. I never learned that word, you know, to forgive. And I'm not very good at, you know, I'm not perfect today, far from being perfect today.
But there are times when I feel so good about myself, when I do some simple little thing like someone might cut me off on the street, and I'll say, I forgive you, instead of saying something about his mother. I mean, it really does feel good. And then there's other times when I don't have that control. Another thing I'll share with you, and I know a lot of people say, gee, this Wickman is ding-dong.
He is, you know, what has this got to do with sobriety? Well, it's got a lot to do with sobriety. It's making me a better person. I was living in Oregon on the beach, and when you live near the beach, you have a lot of flies. And one day, this great big fly was on the wall, and I went and got the fly swatter. But I want to preface this, that just a couple of days before that, I had read where God had put two flies on Noah's Ark.
Yeah, and I grabbed this fly swatter, and I went to swing it, and I tell you, I couldn't move my arm. I couldn't move my arm. And I said to myself, I said, when did you get a letter from God saying you was the official fly killer? And with that, I went and got a little paper cup and a postcard, and I caught it and slipped the card in there, and I took it out on the brand and let it go, and I cried.
I cried because it was probably the first time in my life I'd ever done something simple and kind and giving. But you see, when I was a little boy, they put me down in the basement in a jam and jelly room, and they said maybe the spiders and the rats will get him. I lived in god-awful fear my whole life of spiders. If I came in wherever I was living, there was a spider up in the corner. If I had to get a step ladder, I'd go get it before I could go to sleep.
Now when a spider's in my room, I say, welcome to Patrick's house. Make yourself at home. The fear was gone. I've had a ball, an absolute ball on Alcoholics Anonymous. Who'd ever thought that a guy like me would have this opportunity to grow and to become a human being? I run a lot. As a matter of fact, I don't run a lot.
[00:30:06]
I've run three marathons. I've run 800 miles this year already. I'm going to run that race tomorrow morning. You know, I used to weigh 230 pounds. One time I weighed 270. You know, I used to smoke. I used to smoke four or five packs a day. You know, I had my back operated. I had two discs removed out of my back that said I'd never walk again. You know, I asked God, I said, God, if you make it possible that I can walk, just walk, I promise you from the bottom of my heart that I'll take better care of our body.
God's kept his end of the bargain. I've kept my end of the bargain. I'd like to end this with, I wrote a song about God, and I didn't write the music. I haven't got that far yet, but I wrote the lyrics, and I sing it every morning. You know, it takes me about a half hour to get out of bed. I say all these positive affirmations, all these prayers, you know, and I start the day good. I start the day good, and I usually start it with my song, and my song goes to the tune of Old Christmas Tree.
I'm sure you all know that one, and it goes, Oh, thank you, God. Oh, thank you, God. Oh, thank you, God. Oh, thank you, God. I love you. Thank you. Shortcomings, defects of character. Well, I also experience very often relapses in old habits. I told you about this habit of trying to catch two flies with one clap. I found myself today to do the same thing, because I wanted to be in this meeting of the pioneers in AA, with Jerry Delaney in it and others.
And also I wanted to sneak in here and see how do they run the marathon here. So I was in a squeeze again. Well, I did. I sneaked in here and went back there. But with the pioneers, well, it was a pioneering thing in Frankfurt to start a 12-step group. When I came into AA, there were just four groups in Frankfurt. We have now about 40. It is not too much, but it is not so big a town. And I'm one of these persons who always are trying to do something.
And now I do it for AA. And so we spoke about steps in the normal meetings. But any time a newcomer was there, then, of course, we switched back to step number one. And there were other topics also to be discussed. You don't have speakers' meetings there so much, only at the conventions. But we have more of a discussion-type meetings. And so I thought it is about time. I need the steps, so what shall I do?
There is no real step meeting. And so I founded one. It's still running, and I'm very happy about it. And now I think we will hear from a lovely lady about the step number eight. And I ask Dolores to come up and speak now. Good afternoon. My name is Dolores Buckley, and I'm from Worcester, Massachusetts. Hi. It's nice to be here. This is kind of my hometown a little bit. I'm a French-Canadian. My maiden name was LaDuke.
I married an Irishman, enough said. And I was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. I came to school here in Pointe-au-Trombe. I think the school is torn down because I have a nun on my list that I owe an amendment to. From 1936.
[00:35:01]
She's on my list. And this is the step that we're on today, the eighth step. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. I'm willing to make amends to this nun because I gave her a good swift kick in the shin when I was around seven years old. And I felt at that time she had it coming to her. And I was severely punished, of course, if you know how nuns behave.
And it's a long story. But I don't know her name, but someday if she ever comes up to me and she says, I remember you were the little French girl from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and you kicked me in the shin. And I will make my amend to her. She may remember me. But getting back to the serious thing. I'm a very serious person. I always have been. In Worcester, Massachusetts, we have a lot of step meetings.
A lot of step meetings. And when I came out of the treatment center in September of 1970, I saw the steps on the walls. I was there for three weeks. And but for the grace of God, I fell in love with the steps of the fellowship. And I wanted those steps. I knew that that's what I had been looking for all my life. It was like a design for living. Someone called it a blueprint. And I needed that. I had been in and out of the hospital for different fictitious diseases, you know, from brain tumors to gastritis.
And this last treatment center, it was acute alcoholism. There was no more gimmicks. And so when I was discharged from the hospital in that September of 1970, which is almost 15 years ago, I proceeded to go to step meetings. In fact, I went to three step meetings a week, and I didn't even know about open meetings. That's how desperately I wanted the steps. And I did not find a sponsor right away, so I decided to hurry up and work these steps so I could get well.
So the first month of sobriety was first step, second step, third step, fourth step, and fifth step. And then I found out that I was doing them a little too fast, so I had to go back to one. And further along in my sobriety, after I had taken these first four or five steps, I got well enough to find out what the eighth step was all about, which is what we're on tonight. I was scared. I was willing to take up to seven.
But when it came to the eighth step, I was very fearful, because I was sitting around the tables, and we were reading the step over and over and over again, and I didn't like what I heard. In one particular step meeting, we had a choice of going into the eighth step when it came around, eighth and ninth, I have to kind of put them together, or going into the back room, which they call the serenity lounge, which was for newcomers, and they discussed the first three steps.
So I'd run away from discussion of these steps, and I'd go into the serenity lounge, and finally one day I decided to take a chance and sit in on an eighth step. And I needed to hear about the eighth step and not the ninth step, because I was so hung up on the ninth step where I had to make direct amends that I didn't know that there was a step preceding the ninth step, where it said that we made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
And if you look at that step very carefully, it mentions the word all twice. All. That means everyone. For me, it implied that I had to put everyone that I could possibly remember on that list and go out and make those amends. Then it goes on to say that they are face-to-face amends, and that I wasn't ready to do. I was willing to go into the back door and send in anonymous letters and things like that.
I was willing to make indirect amends sneakily, and that's not the way I read it. For me, it had to be face-to-face confrontation, and I did start to proceed making the little ones with my family especially. They weren't too, too difficult. And because for me it meant face-to-face confrontation, it took me a long time to get that list down because a lot of these people had moved away. And I made one about, oh, five or six, seven years ago.
I wanted to get together with each member of my family and discuss my alcoholism. The eighth step also implied to me that I had to become willing to break my anonymity, and that was a very, very precious thing for me. When I was new in the program, I was very, very ashamed of being a female alcoholic.
[00:40:02]
It was, I saw it as a moral stigma. I really did. And I remembered I used to go to meetings in Boston or in Pittsburgh sometimes, and I couldn't get that word alcoholic out of my throat. In Boston, they used to say, my name is so-and-so. They used to go around the tables, and when they came to me, they'd say, my name is Dolores, and I'm from Worcester, Massachusetts. And I did that for a long time because I just couldn't accept down deep.
In fact, it took me five whole years for my gut and eye to get together to accept that I am an alcoholic. And today, my anonymity is not very precious as far as that goes. I break it any time I can. I break it in the fellowship. And one particular incident, which stands out in my mind, where I put my sister on the list, and she lives in Maryland. And I only see her twice a year, and she was coming home for Christmas.
And every time she came home for Christmas, you know, all the relatives were there. I could never get her alone, so this particular incident, this particular time, I said to her, I have this girl on my list, and I have to make this amend to her. So I finally cornered her, and we went off into the bedroom, and I started telling her about my disease of alcoholism. And I explained it, you know, the first drink got me drunk, and we went into a good 45-minute talk, and then when we emerged from the bedroom, my father had, a lot of the company had come in the meantime, and every Christmas my father happened to have a little punch bowl for the grandchildren.
And every year it was a common thing, the corner table was the punch bowl, and it was for the grandchildren. And every year, you know, I would ask my father, Dad, I made my men to my father so he knew I was an alcoholic, is this the grandchildren's punch? Yup. And so I had it for the punch bowl, and I thought it was safe. And I'm a guzzler, I drink coffee fast, I drink booze fast, I drink water fast, and I'm not a slow drinker.
So I had the glass to my lips like that, and my sister, the one that I had just made the amend to, that didn't know that I was an alcoholic, that didn't know anything about the disease of alcoholism, grabbed the punch right out of my hand. And she says, Dolores, I just saw Dad put some vodka in that punch. And I had a good cry. If I had not become willing to make that amend to my sister, if I had not done it face to face instead of in a letter and things like that, I would have had a drink that day.
Maybe I would have not become sober, maybe I wouldn't have known what happened to me. I know I would have been off the walls that day. But knowing I'm an alcoholic, I have a feeling that I would have gone off and drank and maybe never come back to AA. And that was another experience. I had this other girl. She lived in Tampa, Florida. And I had her name on the list. Someday I'm going to go to Florida and visit her.
And the opportunity came. One of my good AA friends moved out there, and I wrote her a letter saying, I'm coming to visit you. And I got to Florida, and every day I kept calling her up. When are you going to see me? When are you going to see me? Too busy, too busy, too busy. And I knew. She didn't want to see me after what I had done to her. And I was determined I was going to get this step done. And so I called her up on the last day and I said, Gee, my plane leaves this afternoon.
Can't you see? Can't you take time out to see me? So we did get together and went out and had lunch. I started discussing our past, and I broke my anonymity. She said, Oh, you're doing the 10th step, huh? And I said, No, I'm doing the 9th step. And she had just joined AA three months before. And what happened was she was so darn busy going to meetings, she couldn't even find time to see me. She was out there chasing after all the meetings.
I know I shouldn't go to the 9th step, but it talks about you get kind of high when you do the amends and you keep doing them because you feel so good about yourself. But I had to be very careful of that. But those are two of the highlights that I remember in making amends. When I was going around the tables, I said I was afraid of the 8th and 9th step, and I found out that I just had to work on the 8th step first.
But never mind. They told me to ignore the 9th step. Don't worry about it. Now get into the 8th step. Make your list out. And I remember once, Make your list out, and I remember once I was at a meeting and we were cheering the Eight Steps, and I hadn't done mine yet. I'm sitting there with a pen and pencil in my hand, and I'm making out my list at the meeting, so when they get to me I can say, well, I made a list out, you know.
[00:45:06]
And it was like I wanted that feeling of belonging to the group, you know, and I had been around long enough that I should have gotten started on this, but I wasn't willing because I was afraid. And I remember, I said, gee, you know, that's a long list, and I didn't know how to go about it, and they say this is a relationship step. So one day, I guess it was around Christmas time, and I was sitting down writing Christmas cards, and I started addressing the envelopes, and, you know, my husband would say, are you going to send this envelope to so-and-so, are you going to send this card to so-and-so? And I'd say, no.
And he'd say, why? Well, I don't know, I just don't like that person anymore, or something like that, you know. And we went through from A to Z, and there were a lot of people that I was crossing off my list, and so that's how I started doing my Eight Step Inventory list. You know, usually when you have a Christmas card, a dress book, you've got everybody on that list. So I sat down one day, and I went through every name from A to Z, and I put down, I've got a resentment there where there's something going on that I don't like, and I owe that person an amend, but I don't know exactly what it is yet, but that person's going on my list, and it'll come to me, you know.
And I did it partly that way, and another way I did it, of course, is I went back to my Four Step Inventory, it mentions that in the big book, where I did write a lot of my amends, a lot of the amends that I owed. I remembered when I was doing my fourth step, I happened to be working on it on January 31st, don't know what year, and I knew it was my son's birthday, his birth date was that day, and I also remembered that it was one of my aunt's birthdays, and she must be 85 years old now, she was probably in her late 70s, and I remembered an amend that I owed to her.
When I got married, she was unemployed, but she was a very good seamstress, and she made my going-away suit, and I never really properly thanked her for making a beautiful going-away suit for me. I never appreciated it, and I saw that in a lot of my amends. It wasn't just the harm that I did people, it was the not being grateful for all the things that people did for me, especially when I was actively drinking, like this girl in Florida, Sheila, my next-door neighbor, she was a nurse, she was always taking care of my kids and picking me up and cleaning the house and calling the doctor or the ambulance, and she was doing all kinds of nice things for me like that, and I never said thank you.
So on this particular day, I called my aunt up, you know, 25 years later, and she was a little hard of hearing, and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, and she says, oh, I didn't know you liked that suit! And I said, yeah, you know, I don't know if I ever properly thanked you for that beautiful going-away suit. And she was in second heaven because I remembered her birthday, and I remembered the suit that she made for me.
And even though I wasn't into that step, it was something that told me that I had to do it, and she died, you know, a year or two later. And, you know, it talks in the big book. I didn't know that for a long, long time. On page 83 and 84, it talks about the promises, and if you go back to those pages, right before where the promises are, there's a paragraph that says, I'm going to read it because I always blow it.
It says, if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know new freedom and new happiness. And it goes on, you know, to the promises. And the promises of AA that I wanted, I wanted those promises. And the only way that I could get those promises is to work on my eighth and ninth step. And that's the word I was looking for earlier in the day was, AA is a program of attraction.
When I work the steps, I'm attracted by people's defects being overcome, by people making amends or having spiritual experiences or making decisions and, you know, having God take care of their problems. And so I'm always attracted by people sharing back and forth. So when I saw those promises, and I wanted them, and I went after them. And a lot of those promises, of course, have come true. You know, maybe 75, 80%, like Pat said, I have good days and bad days, like everybody else.
But I'm a very, I'm quite a stickler about the steps. I think I'm very grateful in Worcester. In fact, I take myself too seriously about the steps. So I don't want, you know, lots of times when we started the step meetings in Worcester, they started before I came in, a bunch of us used to go to Providence, Rhode Island, because they were just starting to get started on the steps. I remember they used to ask for us to go up there.
And I happened to have the eighth step one day.
[00:50:00]
And I've never been in an argument with AA people, but I tell you, I was really confronted with this face-to-face confrontation. And in the ninth step it says, we lay our cards on the table. And if you read that eighth step, it's a very serious step. It's not just something you can gloss over. And they kept saying, we don't have to do this. I said, I'm just going by this book. This is my little book.
I've had it for 15 years. I've got it all taped up and scotch-taped. And, you know, I go to one step meeting a week minimum, sometimes two. When I was first in AA, I made a commitment to be consistent. I remember I was working for the Beacon, which is our newsletter. I'm also a member of Intergroup and a trustee. And I was one of the founders of Intergroup in Worcester. So I've always been very, very active in AA.
And I lost my train of thought. And anyway, I get into the steps. And I wasn't afraid of them because I didn't know any better. I think that's what I was trying to say. And I think I've spoken all that I need to say. But just remember that if you want the promises of AA to come true to you, get into the big book and start considering working in the eighth and ninth step. And don't be afraid of the ninth step because the eighth step comes first.
And the biggest obstacles in the eighth step are forgiveness and the face-to-face confrontation and fear and pride. And if you're working in the sixth and seventh step, God will remove those defects of character with you and make a beginning on your list because it is a mighty beginning. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was very good. And I like that Dolores also referred to this introducing sentence of the Twelve Promises if we are painstaking, which is for me as necessary together with the Twelve Promises as for the Twelve Steps that is necessary to know if we thoroughly follow this path.
Okay. In the meantime, it also dawned to me that why they picked as a moderator for this part of the marathon a man who is familiar with the air industry because we went from the west coast, from California, now to the east coast. And I was coming from Europe. And now we'll hear a speaker who comes from Africa. And I ask now Ronnie P. from South Africa to come up. My name is Ronnie Parkin. I'm from a place just outside Cape Town in South Africa.
Yesterday morning, the co-op turned me into speaking around the world. And I sat on a platform with all these people with suits on. I'm the one in the open-neck shirt. This morning, I took a decision. I put halfway there, I put a tie on. You'll get me beat, you people. I simply can't win. But now after the Lord Mayor's show, Patrick gave his song and dance act. I read Delores. Now I'm going to hear an English accent from South Africa talk a bit about the Nine Step.
If you're wondering where the accent is, it's from the northern part of England combined with a bit of South African. So I'm an ex-British type, you know. I was one of these who didn't get down to the Bowery. You don't have many low-bottom drunks in England, you know. But we get there just the same as the old song goes. And I got there. I had a geographical change, but it took me 6,000 miles to do my change.
And I found a booze cheaper. More available, so this was ideal. But little did I know that I had a problem with me. Anyway, here I am, and it's a wonderful privilege. There's as many people possibly here in this room as in practically the whole of the Cape Town area. So you can understand why when I spoke in front of that meeting yesterday morning I was inclined to be a bit nervous. But realizing that we are there, people, it gives me a whole wonderful feeling.
I did attend a conference in New Orleans in 1980. So I do know a little bit about the country and about the meetings. A little bit about Step 9.
[00:55:00]
Dolores had a difficult step to take in Step 8 because virtually she's got to tip over into Step 9, whatever she likes to say. I feel that getting down to basics, and, you know, I'm one of these lazy people. We have a saying in Africa that all you hear in African AA's is drunk a lot. Now this is easy. It's easy to hear a drunk a lot and ignore the steps. The steps of the living part of AA. The steps which lead us to a life.
And I always like to think, and I divide these steps, the whole of the steps up into three sections. Step 1, I feel, is the introduction where we open this door. To this life. And, of course, if we've got to progress, we've got to go through it. And steps, you can say, from 2 to 9, are the working steps. The steps we take to change ourselves. And I think of Steps 10, 11, and 12 as the maintenance steps where we keep ourselves in trim.
So Steps 2 to 9 could be the toggle for readjustment. And the step I'm asked to talk a little about today is the 9th step. Well, you know, the first thing that any alcoholic needs, and I think that primarily all the time, is humility. And by God, we do need it. We heard a little bit about that little bird what Patrick mentioned. And I'm sure no one got into the chain gang on humility. And this bird, it's quite a common bird all over the world.
It gets quite big at times. And they used to know me around about Cape Town as Humility Long. But they always said, when I come on to speak, now you're going to hear the good stories. And I can't tell them today because they're inclined to be a little bit coloured. And I'm being decent. My wife says, keep it clean. And they are South African jokes, and they possibly won't go down well here. But South Africa, you probably know where it is anyway because we get quite a lot of publicity these days.
But we have a good air there. And it's not like people like to think it's a complete free air. And in this ego of humility which we try and get, I often think it's a thing which I never had for many, many years. I never realised the amount of the pride which I had. I had the pride of the typical Englishman or limey, as you want to call them. I get called a limey in South Africa quite a lot. I don't take it any worse than an Australian calls a pommy.
But I'm quite quick to talk back, well, you've still got the marks of the chains around your ankles. The best judges in England sent people to Australia, as you all know. But I think we've got to, well, I know we've got to, let go of all these fears of approaching people, of saying to people. Because generally speaking, the alcoholic is an indirect person. The only time they're direct is possibly when we say in Africa when they're putting bite on someone.
That's when the only time you hear them direct. But the main thing in step nine is a directness, direct amends. It's an easy thing not to do. Twisted that word around for you. Because I feel it's so easy, and an alcoholic is a born manipulator and a born conniver. I know I could make my wife fully convinced that she didn't have money when she knew she had it, when she should have had it. I didn't actually see where she put it, but I psyched it out.
And she used to say, well, there's something gone wrong, I thought I had more than that. And I convinced her she'd spent it. So we've got all these beautiful characteristics. And I often think if we could have used those in our life after we'd become sober, God, what would we be? But somehow this is the alcoholic personality. So the same thing arises when it comes to it that we've got to do something about all the harm we've done to people.
And this is why the steppish pleb is saying direct amends where possible, qualifies this. Because, and I've heard of this, of people who go blindly into this and say it says direct amends. But the whole of the fellowship is built on love. And we don't want to harm someone. And we don't want to harm someone by trying to make amends, this is not true love, it's the complete opposite, so we've got to understand and study what we've got to do, and this may take time, I think the immediate, when immediately we stop thinking, we've made a direct amend possibly to our wives or to our loved ones, but they don't need words, they can see this themselves, but when it comes to the obvious thing which we all think about when
[01:00:18]
we've run into debt or we've harmed someone physically or destroyed something, then this is the one we tend to think about mostly, and this one must be done in a direct fashion, and this is the humiliating part of it, or so called, because it creates in us a feeling that we've got to cut out this pride which possibly kept us drinking, and I think this is what keeps a lot of us drinking, the pride that booze cannot get us beat or booze hasn't us beat, it's not booze was my problem, booze was never my problem, my wife was my problem, and sometimes when people see her they say I understand why you drank that long, and I'm joking, I'm glad she's not here anyway, she's in Al-Anon somewhere, she had to go to Al-Anon, she couldn't live without Al-Anon, and oh I hated Al-Anon, I hated Al-Anon, they were always talking about me in that room, no one else but me, and when they came out I thought they were all looking at me, and so I made sure for the first while I went to one group, one end of Cape Town, and my wife went to Al-Anon, the other end of Cape Town, because then she could tell her tales there, but it worked, because I hated her, because she handed off me, she left me alone, and I hate to be ignored, god I can't stand that, and you can't make a fuss of me either, so what the hell do you want of me, I don't know, so now you've got a mixed up character to begin with here, to end with, so the whole gamut of pride was in me, so when I did eventually get to this step, clever me, I decided I would do all the parts, because I'm one of those alcoholics that was very clever, I was always cleverer than the next man, so I believe, I was too intellectual even to come to A for many years, because A wasn't the place for me, I was too clever, I was too brilliant, I'm an engineer, I should know better, it wasn't booze, it was everything, South Africa was my problem now, I hated the government, the rank, I hated everyone, so now I decided to go back to England for a while eh, so I worked my passage on a ship, ship's engineer, I got back to England, but the first thing I got to find out, had the beer changed, since I'd been away, so I took a census of all the breweries in the north of England, I found out it wasn't so bad, but anyway my brother poured me back onto the ship and I poured myself back to South Africa, come down, tail between my legs, back to A, because I started to go to A before I left for England, but A wasn't for me, I remember the first time I ever contacted A that, I went to one of these social agencies we have there, they call it SANKA, Marty Mann was the one who started it many years ago, they call it the South African National Council for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction, so I went there and the head of this little place in Cape Town is an ex, an alcoholic anonymous member, so of course the first person I see is a little girl about 16 years old, I said send me the boss, let me see the boss here, you can't talk to me 16 year olds, and this unfortunately is sometimes the case I find, in the social workers, they send someone to see yous, no idea, they're looking at me as though I'm a piece of dirt and it's a cat dick, so I saw this particular person, I've tried agencies, I've been in a home for alcoholics, a hospital, we have a hospital there which is tied to the provincial hospitals, which is a government agency, which is very good, and so I decided I'd go to A, because the pressure was on me now, this pressure which you can't see but you can feel, you all know what it's like, the looks of it, you know my wife didn't have to speak to me, she only got to look, I said yous, so the usual thing, I attacked, I formulated my attack, and anyway the first Wednesday of the meeting I went to a place called Seapoint and it was a congregational church hall, I decided we'll go there this Wednesday, I got halfway up the road and I had the fears that someone might see me going in that church hall, can't allow this, so I did a walkabout and I went into the pub, I spent the next hour and a half in this pub and thought this would be about the time for the meeting of normal, so I go back home and my wife said, everything alright, what was it all about, I said I can't tell you, it's anonymous, how silly can you get, so now the ideal situation I have Wednesday night free, well imagine a situation the guilts are getting worse eventually,
[01:05:03]
my wife told me many years later she used to follow me, she'd been going to Al-Anon but she didn't tell me she'd been following me, but she followed me, anyway eventually I got through that door, that was in 1968 and I showed up in 1970, I had a wonderful experience in here, and these steps when I come to have to tackle them, which I deferred them for a long time because I thought they were alright for other people, these things what you read about are always alright for the people, until you mix among people and you get these little sayings and I had some sponsors, I was one of these people who couldn't have one sponsor, I had to have quite a few and I chose them very well, one of them was an old Scottish man who was sober up in Durban with the help of the medical council there at the time, a chap called Bob McGregor, this is going back many many years, the beginnings of AIDS South Africa, and he used to be so simple in his replies to me, I hated him, a wonderful man, and he could break my arguments down in two words, and he once said to me, have you ever apologised in your life Ron, I said what me, a Yorkshireman apologised, we're the rulers of the world, we don't have to have apologised to anybody, but he came to it, on his words, he said why don't you try it, why don't you try it, so I didn't like these exact words he used but anyway I retained them and eventually when I had to do something because I realised I was not, nowhere near progressing in this fellowship, I was remaining dormant, stagnant, so I tackled this step after doing the list, the 8th step, and I think these steps in my way, in my opinion, have got to be kept in the sequence, we have arguments over whether you do them like a liquorice shot, do you take them in the turn, it goes on forever, are you an alcoholic, do you become an alcoholic, this goes on forever, and I firmly believe I took them in, rotation, so when I come to do this it was a most humiliating experience for the first couple of times when I tried to apologise, but I realised after the people I was trying to apologise to were nice people, but I was inherently afraid of approaching people to tell them I had a defect of any description, they'd already seen me drunk and rolling round the place and to me that wasn't wrong, but now I got to go to them and say certain things I'd done, as I say I was a manipulator, my wife said I'm still a manipulator anyway, and so I had to do this, and it's the most wonderful sense of relief I've ever known, and I realised, and I've realised many times since, how wonderful these steps are, how our forefathers if you like to call them, based these steps on their experiences, it wasn't because they thought of the things we should do, the things what they know they had done and had to do to remain sober and happy and content in sobriety, I know that my sobriety lies in my hands, and I'm one of these who sometimes get disliked in the A in Cape Town because I'm inclined to say what I feel is true, but when I come into this room I am the most important person here, you help me to keep my sobriety, but I'm the only one who's got to do it, so when I hear all this emotional claptrap about the newcomer and this and that, there may be an old timer out there who's battling too, we're sober for today, so that's the main thing.
So let's not forget sometimes a person who's been sober for a few years can also have troubles and also have a few hang ups, so let's also give them a little word of cheer sometimes or a little peck on the cheek makes a lot of difference. So now I've got a peace of mind, through and I think largely taking this step like the ninth step, where I can look at a person in the face and feel I don't owe them anything.
So after all this talk, and I could speak here for much longer, which I'm not prepared to do because I think it's getting very warm and you've heard some good speakers this afternoon, but always remember one thing, you can never ever buy your peace of mind at the expense of someone else, I've tried it and it simply doesn't work. And in this step it's easy to do this, by saying okay we'll make a clean vest of it and harm someone so badly, it may give you a so called peace of mind, but you'll get your payment for it in the end.
So we must be ready to accept the consequences of our past, and I think there's a fear sometimes of trying to make up for things in case there's something to pay for, some consequences, but the consequences in all my experience of being good and in all my experience of listening and talking to other people around here has been good.
[01:10:11]
So I think we've got to be prepared to take the responsibilities, and I think this is holding the spirit of this particular ninth step. We have no colour problem in our meeting, no problem at all, so our race is good and solid, it's wonderful to be here to experience the number of people, you know when you're in the tip of Africa you think you're a small fellowship, but I know people there do. And it's good to come here and realise the immensity of this fellowship, and the spirit which is there, the wonderful feeling, I've had the privilege of actually meeting Lois, we took her around the Cape area when she was much more vigorous and alive than what she was last night, she was a wonderful person, I've had the privilege of meeting many people in AA.
And if any of you any time in South Africa, we are most hospitable country and I can promise you a good reception and good hospitality. So thank you for listening, and as we say in Afrikaans, tot ziens. Thank you, Ronny, this was really mega-mense and why don't you try it, this was a sentence I think had something also to me. We still have some more minutes left, and I told you that I sneaked in before, and so I met a man here, and I would think especially because following this South Africa speaker, and we learned also that AA in South Africa is maybe the only point where black and white meet, I would like to have this black speaker who spoke from the audience, is he here? No, he left in the meantime.
Well, I have another friend here, I also brought my crew along, actually I met some friends again, and I told you in Frankfurt I worked with CWA, I worked with several Americans there, and a young girl was there. In the meantime, that is some time ago, she is a little bit older, but I would like Susan to say a few words about this. Last time I met Susan, five years ago in New Orleans, I was sharing a meeting there in Europe, and she just planned a trip to Europe and thought, oh, I wonder what this guy who drank so much was doing, you can stay at this microphone.
And so she came to this meeting, and all of a sudden this guy was chairing the meeting, and that was me, and that's how we met again in AA. Susan. Thank you, Lee. My name is Sue, and I'm from Kansas City, I go by Kansas City Sue, and I am a member of Al-Anon. I've been around this program for about 12 years, and I can't tell you the number of miracles that have happened to me, from near death and suicide, to a grateful, God-loving human being today.
One of the things that I just cannot imagine, because I do still work for the same airline that Uli used to work for, is how small this world is. And I didn't, I had no idea how my life would be going. When I was on the thresholds of suicide, it took me four hours to kill myself, and it was a series of comedy of errors that I now know was the higher power that kept me alive, and I finally gave up and said, alright, if I'm to live, then show me why. And he's done exactly that for the last 12 years.
And he's done exactly that for the last 12 or 13 years now. I, too, was very afraid to come out of my anonymity. In fact, one of the names I grew up with that only my family knows is Sue Jean.
[01:15:00]
So when I came in and would sign the book in our meetings, I would sign Sue Jean, so nobody would know. I didn't tell anyone where I lived. I would go to a meeting that was 50 miles south of me. God forbid somebody should know that there was an alcohol problem in my family. And as the years have gone on, I, too, don't have the problem with anonymity anymore, and I started to travel. I since was able to remarry in a very happy marriage it is, and he is in AA.
I've never known my husband drunk. I hope a day at a time I don't have to. But we have a program of recovery together. In fact, we're so good at it, we can even fight in it now. And we started to travel because of my benefits with the airline, and I started to go to different Al-Anon and Open AA meetings throughout the country. And at that time, my mom had sobered up in Tokyo and had traveled and was living with my dad in England, and so we started to travel in England.
And we went to AA, and I have so many friends. I have seen the world before Al-Anon, but I never saw the world, because now when I go, there isn't a country I can't go to that I'm not at home, not one. And when I had the opportunity to go to the New Orleans Convention, and my vacation worked out and our money worked out, we were very excited about this. And I wanted to go to the international meeting.
You never know, I might see someone there from England. And there was a man at the podium who was emceeing for the day, and one thing I can never remember his name. I'm not really even too good at faces, but I do know voices. I don't know why that is, it's just the way I am. And I recognized the voice from the speaker at the podium. And I looked again, and I couldn't understand. The body didn't match, nothing matched the voice.
And I went back in my memory, and of course being in the airline industry for very many years, I put different uniforms on until I find the right airline that matches, and I found one, bingo, and I thought it can't possibly be. And it ended up to be Uli, whom I hadn't seen for 20 years. And Uli and I used to go out and get drunk together. Yes, Al-Anon's drink, you know. In fact, we used to get very drunk together.
And when I went up to see Uli afterwards, and I said, you might not remember me, in German I used to be called the Kleine Susanna, because I used to be very little, and my name, Susan, is Susanna in German. And I said, it's the Kleine Susanna, about 80 pounds heavier, and you're bald. And we're both 20 years older. And to think that we would meet through this fellowship so many years later. We've kept in contact.
I'm not good at letter writing, nor is he. But we've kept enough where he told us, and Dave and I, my husband and I, went to Frankfurt to one of their German conventions that you're talking about. And if you can ever go, I suggest you do. The warmth was overwhelming, and it's true, you don't have to know German. I happen to. And it was wonderful to hear the Serenity Prayer said in German again. To me, that's one of the miracles of the program.
When I make out my list of the men, believe me, I better be ready, because this world is small, and I'm meeting people from my past. Thank you for having me here today. Thank you. Thank you, too. Okay, we have one more speaker. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Earl Scott, and I'm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hi, everybody. Boy, this is good. I've been to this third international convention, and the first time that I've got up to the mic to say something, and it's really great.
Thank you for being here, and thank you, Patrick and Dolores, and Ronnie P. especially, and the Eight Step. You know, the Seven Step for me is the Seven Step Prayer is part of my morning prayer and meditation, and I don't, I'm not able to do it. I have to keep saying it and trying, and maybe someday. But the Eight Step talking about amends and listening to Ronnie reminds me of an amend that I had to make a few years ago.
I came into the program, and a guy named Dick Caron, and I think that as people that might know Dick Caron from Pennsylvania, he's gone on now from all over the world because he was that kind of guy, and he spent his money sending out papers and writing to stay in touch with people all over the world. And I came in, and I guess I met Dick when I was three or four months sober, and I knew a hell of a lot more then than I know now.
And Dick, he really believed in this correspondence thing, and he gave me the name and address of a guy in South Africa to write. And I wrote the guy, and he answered. And as I said, I knew so much, and I didn't know any damn thing.
[01:20:01]
And I got very political, you know, talking. I just assumed that he was a Zulu or whatever, and started telling him about, gee, I really sympathize with how hard it must be to stay sober living under those kind of conditions and whatnot. I never heard from him again. But I heard from my dear friend Dick Caron, and next time he saw me, he tore me up. He lit right into me. Who the hell do you think you are and whatnot?
And Dick was the kind of guy, he said, you know, I got people down south, and this was in the 50s, he said, they can't get to meetings and all, and they're staying sober because I write and have other people to write to them and help them to stay sober and all. Before Dick died, I was able to make that amend to him and tell him how sorry I was about that thing. And I want to say to Ronnie today, because you're a South African, I want to make that amend to you, too.
Thank you. Thank you, Earl. I think this was grand, too. I really think it is a wonderful fellowship. And we probably still have time for one more speaker. My name is Perry Boxer. Just for a day, I'm losing my voice. I've been yelling a lot. Happiness yells. My name is Perry Boxer. Just for a day, I'm a very, very grateful alcoholic. Hi, friends. And I want to say an extra thing, Pat. I've wanted to say this for a long time, Pat, but I want what you got.
And that song he sang, Thank You, God, I do that in the morning at my apartment. Everybody bangs on the wall, but I go to bed at 11 o'clock, and they always got TVs blaring, so I think I get back at them at 4.30 in the morning when I get up. And I was singing that. I told it sometimes quite a bit. Back home, I was singing Thank You, God. Oh, thank you, God. I can't keep the tune. I'm tone deaf, I guess.
I always wanted to be Elvis Presley when I was a kid, but that never came to be. Needless to say, thank God, because he's dead. But I was singing that on El Camino Real, which is a main drag 666 thing. I stopped at a red light one time, and the windows were open. I was coming back from work, and I'm 37 years old. The first job I ever kept for two years. I've got two years and three or four months now, and I'm still working there, and that's a miracle.
The only other place I worked was for my father. The only reason I kept the job there was because it was my father. Anyway, I was singing this song on the way home from work one day. I was really happy, up high, and the windows were open. And I noticed I stopped at a red light, and I was singing really loud. I guess everybody, I'm surprised everybody else didn't roll up the windows, because my voice is so bad.
And this cop was in there. He knocked on my car a little bit next to me, and he said, you all right? I said, yes, sure I am. And the light turned green. I didn't even think, kept singing. Looked in my rear-view mirror. I said, and he's scratching his head, sitting there, the green light stopped. He said, you know, looking at me like, that guy's nuts. And I just went on singing. And I want to thank Patrick and Dolores and Ron.
I want to thank everybody. I want to thank everybody for being there. It's my first one. I hope it's not my last by a long shot. I got goosebumps on my goosebumps on my goosebumps. Thank you, everybody. I love everybody. Well, I'm very privileged that this is my third one. But I can tell you, it is again and again that I also get these goosebumps. And goose, goose, goose. I don't know. I know what he means.
And then you know. And you understand me because we all speak the fellowship of the heart. And this is really the thing that is so wonderful about our fellowship. And when he's talking about singing, it came back to me that I joined a gospel choir. By all means. Me brought up during the Nazi era. Not being baptized and nothing. And while having just a general knowledge about Christianity. And now singing with the Martin Luther King singers in Frankfurt.
And on the 9th of last month, I also became baptized in this Atterbury Chapel there. Well, miracles. And I think it's now about time to close. Oh, yes. They cut our tapes.
[01:25:01]
But we have speakers heard from all over. And I think we'll have more time even to come to hear speakers. And there are speakers I did not know 10 minutes before we started. And the miracle, that's another miracle. We were instant friends. And the minute we talked to each other, we didn't know where the other was coming from. And I identified so much when Patrick was telling about his jails and so on.
I did not have much time in jail, but there was a time when you had to go to jail in Germany when you lost your driving license because of drunken driving. I lost my driver's license five times. But I had pushed this fact completely out of my mind. And this was just a thing a man has to experience. Some experiences when they are in the forces and some experiences when they are gone drunk. I don't know.
And I always said a man without jail is like a ship without sail. And so I had to experience that. And actually then when I came to AA, I did not want to be an alcoholic. And I did say I have problems with alcohol and my name is Uli. But the minute when I heard after about four weeks, one guy he spoke about his experiences and he mentioned jail. Then it dawned to me that I had been there behind locked doors.
And that is just the same as if I would have been in a mental hospital or in a mental ward. And I never have been and so on. And then I was able to identify and to say I am Uli and I am an alcoholic. This was with Patrick and Dolores. I did just the same. And with the first list I did in my 8-step, I did it also during the meeting. And during the 8-step was discussed. And to Ronnie, direct demands, they need so much courage.
But it is this directness that makes so much in our program. It is a person-to-person talk and it is the direct demands. So I thank you all. And I have some invitations which are in a bad English translation to Berlin. Whoever likes and cares to pick one up, he will be welcome. And I would like to close now. If you would like to join me, we can hold hands and close with the Lord's Prayer. As we pray.