Audio
Transcript
Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – UNABLE TO STOP DRINKING ON BASIS OF SELF KNOWLEDGE – RS 06433.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-unable-to-stop-drinking-on-basis-of-self-knowledge-rs-06433.mp3 Duration: 01:07:48
============================================================
We will start the meeting in the usual way, with a moment of silence, moment of silence, to do with, as you please, followed by the serenity prayer. Okay? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. My name is Cy Payne, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the marathon meeting, where love is available 24 hours a day. Several of you have come up and asked to speak, and we've got a whole list of people who want to speak, and I'm really sorry about that. If we can just extend the time for another three weeks, let's do it, and all share, okay?
I have asked my good friend, Marcia, from Seaside, to read the fifth chapter. Marcia? What a privilege. My name is Marcia Morgan McGuire, and I am an addict and alcoholic. Hi. I'm also going to take one of those seats when I get through here. Maybe the only way I can get to sit. Thank you. I'd like to read this with the microphone. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Usually, men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunate. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average.
There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these, we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now.
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Two, we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Ten, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaimed, what an order. I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. C, that God could and would if he were sought. Thank you.
[00:05:16]
We've asked Linda H. to read the Traditions. Our common welfare should come first. Personal recovery depends upon AA unity. Two, for our group purpose there is one but one ultimate authority, a loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants. They do not govern. Three, the only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking. Four, each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.
Five, each group has but one primary purpose, to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Six, an AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. Seven, every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. Eight, Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
Nine, AA as such ought never to be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. Ten, Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues, hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy. Eleven, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Twelve, anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Thank you. I'm still sipping and I'm still an alcoholic. And I'm going to even time myself. So I'll quit. I don't usually like to quit talking. I'm going to use the traditional AA pattern and tell you a little bit what it was like and what happened and what it's like now.
I wish I could tell you really what it's like now. My God, you know, I wish everybody could have this experience. I've known now for a long time, I love you, but man, what I'm getting up here is, and this is the power, that you love me. And man, I tell you, that's powerful. Thank you for that. Thank you for that support. The topic that I'll work around is I was absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.
And I'm an expert at that. But first, let me tell you, I got up this morning at 7 a.m. And I haven't even thought of drinking an alcoholic beverage. And that is truly a miracle, because, you know, alcoholics drink. That's what alcoholics do. Alcoholics drink alcohol. So we're all miracles. Congratulate yourself for being a miracle, because that's a true statement of fact. When I make it back to the hotel tonight, without drinking, it will be my 7,848th day of continuous sobriety.
The reason I like to say it that way, it really is one day at a time. You know, you hear all about that, but what really happens is it's one day at a time. What happens is happening right now, and that's all that ever happens, is what's happening right now. And that's how I have to stay sober. And that's how I learned to alter my attitudes. That's how I learned to love, is by being present in the here and now.
[00:10:01]
One and a half years before I got to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I literally went into a personal hell. Because it was absolutely impossible for me to take one drink of alcohol and function. Meaning that every time I took a drink, I either passed out cold, or I went into oblivion. And I got no escape for a year and a half. You know, the real insanity of the thing was, I knew when I took a drink, during that whole year and a half, that if I took it, I would be out of commission for three, four, or five days.
Because that's what happened. The only decision I was really made, the only thing I was really hoping for, and I was an agnostic in those days, I used to come around, and I'd look up at the ceiling, and I'd say, Oh, God. God, please, if there is a God up there, let me be somewhere near San Francisco. Oakland is okay. You know, I'll walk across the bridge. Let me be in San Francisco. And I'd go over and peek through the Venetian blinds, you know, bleary-eyed, and look out, five days growth, and there would be snow.
And we don't have snow in San Francisco. Maybe we've had it one time in the 30, some 35 years I've been there, but it's not usual to find it. And sure enough, that's what would have happened. You know, during that year and a half, I'm a practicing lawyer, and for that whole year and a half, I was sure that somehow I would find an answer. Somehow there would be an answer for me. And I didn't even think of Alcoholics Anonymous in this time.
Just the struggle to find what it was. So any sober moment I had, I would run down to Stacy's bookstore, which is a technical bookstore near my office, and I would buy psychiatry books, religious books, sociological books, how-to books. Anything that mentioned, I would flip either in the index or the table of contents and see if it said anything about alcohol or alcoholism. And if it did, I would buy it.
When I got sober, I had a seven-foot shelf of books, all with the mention of alcohol. And I'm a great student, so I underline significant passages. And I underline significant passages so I can remember them later on. And I did it with all these books. I would flip through it and find the chapter on alcoholism or the paragraph on alcoholism, and I would underline. And after I'd been sober a couple of years, I went back and looked at my books, and almost every one of those books that dealt with alcoholism had a statement in it in one way or the other.
Once an alcoholic becomes compulsive in his drinking, he cannot safely resume drinking alcoholic beverages. In other words, total abstinence is the only way that he can make it when he crosses the line. And not one of seven feet of books was that statement ever underlined. What was underlined is things like, alcoholics are terribly sensitive people. Alcoholics are caring people. You know, alcoholics are brilliant people.
I underlined all that and skipped the rest of it. I didn't even know about this book in those days. And it's probably just as well because I have had continuous sobriety. And one of the reasons I've had continuous sobriety was there was no more escape for me. You know, when I got to the program, it wasn't any great doing by me, but there was just no other place to go. Because I tried psychiatrists during that year and a half.
I went to two psychiatrists, a psychologist, to a drying out place, to a special treatment program down at Stanford University. I tried everything that I could think of to get it. One of my books that really will illustrate very well the way I was handling this thing, I picked up one book down at Stacy's called Alcoholism, the Nutritional Approach. And some of you probably heard of this book. This Texas doctor fooled around with rats for five years.
He experimented with injecting balances of vitamins and minerals into rats and then feeding them alcohol until he got just the right combination. Well, you know, he published his findings and he concluded that alcoholism was really a disease. They concluded that alcoholism was really a dietary deficiency,
[00:15:02]
and if you could just get the right balance of minerals and vitamins, you would be okay, because his rats proved it. Well, at that time, I had a strong identification with rats, so I figured, gee, this might work for me. So, there were only two places where you could order these vitamins. One was in New York, and one was in Los Angeles, and so you were supposed to try them for 30 days. Well, I figured, you know, knowing how these guys do these things, because I've sued them, doctors, I said, okay, what they've done is they've given a safe load, and what you've really got to do is you've got to triple the dosage.
So, I tripled the dosage for 30 days. I took 90 days' worth of the stuff in 30 days, and then I was free. I'm no longer an alcoholic, right? Wrong. I have one glass of wine, and I remember that one, and then I thought, after 30 days of abstinence, Jesus, in a year and a half? That's ridiculous. So, then I started on the hard stuff, and I remember two or three drinks, but the next thing I remember was, there I was, oh, God, let me be in Oakland, San Leandro.
People, don't let me be out of, I was terrified I was going to end up in Saudi Arabia and get shot or something. So, I went over and looked out the window. This time I was in Winnemucca, Nevada. Now, nobody from San Francisco that I know of intentionally goes to Winnemucca, unless they've been invited by somebody, but there I was. My recovery started on the day that I ended up, the next drunk after that, I ended up in a Sacramento motel room, and I was really trying to commit suicide.
I was trying to find a razor blade to do myself in, and I couldn't find a razor blade, and I fell down on the bed, and it was one of those slippery, cheap beds in a motel room, and I slid off on the floor, and I found myself on my knees, for the first time since I was 18 years old. And I said, if there is a God, please, I can't go on like this anymore. It's been a year and a half, and every time I do it, I end up like this.
So please help me. And at that moment, I thought of AA. I don't know, I've tried all kinds of theories of where I heard about AA, and none of them really, really hit just exactly right, because one time I thought I saw Jack Lemmon in a play that said that he was talking about the Days of Wine and Roses. He was talking at an AA meeting. I thought I saw that sometime back when I was drinking. That might have been where it was.
Then later on, there was a very friendly bartender in a bar directly across the street from my office, and I had remembered I heard him tell somebody to go to AA. But however it was, at the crucial moment, when I was totally wiped out, I got that message, and I called, and my recovery really begins right then, because the lady started to tell me things over the phone. Identification. I started to explain to her the condition I was in and what a mess I was in, and I couldn't come in like that.
I had to go get cleaned up. And she says, No, I want you to come just like that. And then I said, Well, you know, I'm a mess. I've urinated in my pants, and I smell. She said, Oh, that's fine. She says, I did that lots of times. I did a lot of other things. Now, you know, I love psychiatry, and I love psychologists, and I love all that because we're all in the helping. We're trying to help each other and love each other and get along in the world.
But all of those expensive psychiatrists, and none of those psychologists ever told me they wet their pants. There was something terribly significant about her telling me that. So I got on the program that very night. I got cleaned up and went to the Tuesday downtown meeting. And really, when I walked through the doors of AA, I knew I was home because, thank God for greeters, two guys grabbed me. One of them later became my sponsor.
And I started to relate to what they were telling me. I thought I was the worst drunk that had ever lived because of this compulsion and the inability even to get away with it one time anymore. And they told me much more horrible stories than my own. So I really had instant identification that very first night. My brain was rather foggy, of course. But nevertheless, I knew that these people knew what I was talking about.
And that was really quite an event in my life, very significant. So I said, Okay, that's exactly the way it's got to be with me.
[00:20:03]
I've got to do exactly what these fellas did. And I've got to follow them. And I've got to surrender all my ideas. And, you know, in the 7,000 plus days I've been on the program, I find my biggest task today is surrendering. My most cherished opinions are pure bullshit most of the time. That's the truth. It's really as if I've got a legislature in my mind. And my legislature sees something happening out there in the world, and it makes the law.
And it says, Uh-oh, that is wrong. And then I immediately start to put it into effect. Get it signed by the governor in my head. And I immediately communicate it to other AA members and get a few of them who think I'm hot stuff to validate the bullshit. And pretty soon I'll have this whole group getting into a position where I've validated everything so I can't possibly be wrong. And I wonder why my life stinks.
Right? Just instantly you can throw the third step out and the 11th step and say, I know. And I don't know. That's the most important message I've got for myself. I really don't know. You know, I've evolved into a person who came on the program and argued about the existence of God for a number of years and then evolved and I've had some dramatic things happen that came about. Now, I really know that what I do with my life today, and I do this consciously most of the time, is I practice the presence of God.
And what that means is nothing more than choosing God when the situation arises, in the split second when it happens. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, I can go that way. Because for me to believe, belief in the legal profession, as you probably know, in order to believe in God, I have to take the evidence. And when there's a preponderance of the evidence, that means when it stacks up higher than the lack of evidence, then you can believe it.
Now, what kind of a way to go to the higher power is that? It just won't work that way. What I have to do is get to the point where all that stuff goes out the window and God becomes my innermost self and a part of me. As that famous movie with Carl Young, the interview guy at the BBC, they asked him the same question. Do you believe in God? And he ended up by saying, no, I can't do it by evidence.
I have to do it by knowing. I have to know the presence of God. And the way I know the presence of God is to find out how he works. You ever noticed how God works? He works in a highly predictable way. You can catch him all over the world doing it all the time. He works through love, compassion, and forgiveness. So if I'm not working on those principles in the moment when the situation is happening, I'm not practicing the presence of God and I'm not practicing the principles in all my affairs.
If I'm weighing to see if it's right or wrong, if I'm looking at it to see what will people think, if I'm looking at it to say, well, my wife doesn't approve, if I'm doing any of those things, I am not practicing the principles in all my affairs. And as my first sponsor told me one time, and this was really significant, he says, you know, you really can't think of God in that way because remember when you try to understand and you try to figure it out, you're using the same set of gears and the same impulses that made you an alcoholic in the first place.
So what are you going to get out of that? I'm going to get exactly the same result. Eventually I'm going to get the same result. So I cannot use my rational process, no matter how long I've been sober, to practice that presence and to be in the presence. I've got a few more minutes. So when we say that God is present in these rooms, he's present in these rooms and present with us outside, with me outside whenever I choose to be that way.
Somebody quoted me this morning or earlier today as saying, God is love and you are love and that's the same. I just got to share this one thing before the bell rings. I was resting up at the motel room and that old John Denver movie came on with George Burns as God and John Denver says to him in a famous question,
[00:25:05]
he says to God, what's going to happen? And God says, I don't know. And he says, what do you mean you don't know? You're God. And he says, yeah, all I know is what's true right now. Isn't that terrific? I've got to meet that writer who wrote that line someday because he must be on the program of Alcoholics Tonight. I love you. Thank you very much. We're going to have the discussion part of the program.
Hello. My name is J.W. and I'm a recovering alcoholic. I also am a loner internationalist in the AA program. And some of you all don't know what that is. But there are about two and a half thousand of us who either live or work in remote parts of the world where there aren't regular AA meetings. And so we have a monthly meeting via a newsletter and people write to us and we write to people and we stay sober that way and by the grace of God and by the fellowship of this organization.
Recovering alcoholics are everywhere. I'm a loner. Sometimes you find more than a few people in one place and tonight's one of those places. There's a lot of people in this room. The topic for this particular marathon is about self-knowledge. And the actual topic was I was absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. But one of the early things that I found out about AA or one of the things that I thought about it was sort of like night school.
You could go back to school and you could learn about how to live. And as a loner, I serve as a ship's chaplain. And so I have the privilege of seeing AA all over the world. And I'd like to give you a few of my academic credentials where I've gone to school this year. There's a city on the Amazon River called Belém in the country of Brazil. It's about 750,000 people. There are 84 meetings a week of alcoholics anonymous and Portuguese in that city in the middle of the jungle.
There's an AA meeting every Wednesday night on an Air Force base in Athens. There's a city in the south of Chile which is called Punta Arenas. It is considered the southernmost city in the world. In that city there is a building made out of corrugated tin. It's an AA clubhouse. There's a meeting there every night of the week. After I went to that meeting, my next meeting was in a place called Kalamazoo, Michigan.
There's a meeting on Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock in the city zoo in the city of Honolulu. It meets under a large tree between the giraffes and the lions. This winter I went to school every other day to a place called the 1985 World Cruise Serenity Group on the Queen Elizabeth. There's a meeting on Wednesday nights, I think on Saturday nights, in a very dusty library in Cairo which has an exposed lightbulb hanging down from it.
There is AA everywhere. It is very exciting, I think, to realize how alive we are. I mentioned this earlier this afternoon, I went to a big book meeting in Hong Kong and they were having difficulty pronouncing the word Cincinnati. I thought to myself, it's not the messenger, it's the message. I thought only God would pick Ohio to start this worldwide movement in. I want to tell you, and this won't be a secret to you all, that I was spiritually bankrupt when I came into this program.
My spiritual center came out of these meetings and I know what I believe to be the truth from these meetings. Happy sobriety to everyone. Al, I don't know where you guys are going, Al? Is he coming up? Al? How about Jack O?
[00:30:11]
Okay. Hi, my name is Jack O'Brien from Avon, Connecticut, and I felt like a loner, and I'm an alcoholic, of course, that's why I'm here. I almost felt like a loner as well, trying to get from there up to here in this crowd. But I had a heck of a time convincing myself that I was an alcoholic, and in fact went to AA meetings 25 years ago, and I didn't last very long because I didn't accept the first step.
And I've always been in the press and public relations and government relations field, which is a beehive of cocktail parties, and I just couldn't believe I could work without drinking. So I finally drank enough to get myself in trouble at work, and after I got in AA seven and a half years ago, I found that I can work in public relations and still take people out to dinner, etc., and not drink and feel comfortable.
And the only reason that that occurs is because I have great spirituality that I found in this program and fellowship, and I do try to practice the 12 steps as best I can every day. And it is a one-day-at-a-time situation, and I've had some good sponsors and good guys to push me around when necessary, and I think some of that has to be done. But I truly love Alcoholics Anonymous as an organization and what it has done for me and all the people in this room and all the people in this city this weekend, and I think it's just marvelous.
I went to the stadium last night, too, and two weeks ago I went to Shea Stadium in New York to see New York beat Montreal six to three, and they did the wave there, but when they did it, people were spilling beer all over the place. And I must say that the Olympic Stadium last night here in Montreal was a marvelous turnabout from that. Again, I just love Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm very happy in it. I'm very active in it in minor ways. I chair meetings and I speak and I try to help others.
I will also tell you that I'm a high-handicap amateur golfer, and the second year I was sober, I had a hole-in-one, and I knew I would have it made then. Incidentally, I won $390 on that one swing at my club, but when I got back, I had to buy a drink for everybody in the house, and it cost me $165 to have them drink, and I had one Sprite, but I loved it. Thank you very much. Steve K? Steve K? Is Steve K coming? Okay, how about Judy B?
My name's Judy B. I'm a grateful alcoholic from San Francisco, and this is what happens when you have sponsors like that. This is what happens when you come to Alcoholics Anonymous and you say, I don't know what's wrong with me, and please help me. That's what I did six and a half years ago. I mean, the topic is being unable to quit drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.
[00:35:00]
I couldn't quit drinking because I didn't know I even had a drinking problem. I was a drunk. My life was about drinking or recovering from it or getting ready to do it. I didn't have a job. I didn't have a home. I was hawking my grandmother's jewelry, and I didn't like the attitude of the people in the hawk shop. You told me, I mean, my theme song was, anyone with troubles like mine would drink the way I do, and you promised me that the drinking was my problem, and you promised me that if I quit drinking, I wouldn't have those problems anymore, and that's been true.
My memory of my early sobriety is sitting and being unable to do it, unable to go for a day without drinking, but going for a day without drinking, sitting and crying and feeling hands on my back, and I didn't know whose they were, and you told me it would get better, and by God, here I am with you at Montreal, and you told me the truth, and I love you. Thank you. I can't scream like that. My name is Pete, and I'm an alcoholic from San Francisco.
This is tremendous to be here. You know, when you say that, it reminds me of that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When you came back with that, it sounded like that big echo, like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when someone plays that musical note and that big one comes back. I almost got blown off the stage. On the topic, I didn't have seven feet of books, but I probably had about 20 or 30 books like that, which I turned down the corners on and underlined and put yellow highlighting all over, and I think, though, that what I was trying to do, and this is in retrospect, what I was trying to do, I think, is find something that fit me, but the funny thing is that every time I went to another bookstore, and one of those little books on the shelf came out and said, buy me, buy me, somehow I thought, ah, now there's me, and that didn't stop. It kept on happening, so I got more and more books, more and more books, but what the problem was, I believe, today, was that all I was doing is trying to fill in a mosaic that couldn't be filled in that way, and what happened is that once I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and was introduced to something called the 12 Steps of the Program, I got a focus, and I got a set of principles which are universal, and which now, when I go back to some of those books, as Cy has, and look at some of those bent down corners or underlined or highlights, I now have something to which I can tie any of those sentences back on, because I have a focus. Those focuses are the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous, and so now the whole thing is coming home to me, that there wasn't emptiness in those books. There was something, but I just couldn't find out what it was because I was trying to fill in that mosaic.
Today, through the Fourth Step in particular, and what came after that, I have a filled-in mosaic, and now, either when I'm talking to you, reading books, listening, or gaining any kind of experience as I do with each day of sobriety, that mosaic comes more filled in, and I feel more a part of. Thank you very much. I got to share, at the lawyers' meeting yesterday, one of the lawyers said that, after all, Alcoholics Anonymous is just like the Mafia, if you resign, you die.
How about volunteers now? Right here. Hi, my name's George. I'm a grateful alcoholic from Belmont, Massachusetts. Just over four years ago, a friend of mine picked my head up off a bar in Watertown and told me I had a problem, and I said, yeah, I know, but what am I going to do about it? And for quite a while, I had known I was an alcoholic, but I didn't give a shit. I had sunk low enough that I didn't really care where I was, what I did, and who I was doing it to.
[00:40:04]
And today, I am learning to respect myself, to respect other people, and especially this weekend. I've done a lot of crying, and I'm really learning what love and what spirituality and what God is, and I'm shaking all over, and I love you all, and thank you very much. If Sandy Siegel is here, would she meet her friends by the escalator? This gentleman right here. Hi, my name's Kevin. I'm an alcoholic and an addict.
And a little over two years ago, I woke up in jail, and it wasn't something new. And I came into the halls of AA, and I met somebody that I knew when I was 16 years old, and she had gotten here before I came in here. And they went around the room, and they introduced themselves, and they got to me, and I said, my name's Kevin. I'm an alcoholic and an addict, and I don't know what I'm doing here, and I need help.
And a year later, at my first anniversary, my father gave me a cake, a man who had never shown any feelings in his life. He showed me some tears of love that nobody else in my family had ever seen. And I just found out a couple weeks ago that I'm going to be a father. And for a kid at 22 years old, driving up to a treatment center, I drove by a graveyard and didn't think he was going to be 23 years old.
To be able to live at 24 years old, and be two years sober, and make a convention where two friends drove me up there because I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be here, but I didn't think I could be here, to be part of this. And now I'm part of all this magic. It's unbelievable. I feel so… that's it. And all they told me when I got here was if I didn't drink, I asked for help, and I went to meetings, that my life would get better. And boy has it. Thank you.
Hi, my name is Sandra and I'm an alcoholic. I'm like shaking right now, but like, I was here at an earlier meeting and I was like, I felt so much in my heart and stuff. And I wanted to talk to someone about it and tell someone what I was feeling. And I just, this is like, when I first came here to this convention, it was like I was having such a hard time, you know. I wanted to ask someone for love and it's like I'm so scared.
It's like, you know, I want to say, can someone love me? And it's like I'm real scared, like my walls have been up so much because there's so many people here and stuff. And it's like, I just, I just, I need everyone here, you know. Like he was saying, he didn't think he'd be able to make his 23rd birthday or 24th. And it's like, I remember sitting down before I went to treatment thinking that I wasn't going to be able to live sober because I didn't want to live before when I was sober, even before I used any kind of drugs or drank.
And then I didn't think I could live without the drugs and I knew that I was going to die with them, you know. And it was so scary and stuff. And it's like I feel a lot of love and stuff for everyone here. And I'm just, I'm real scared to accept it from you guys, you know, and I'm scared to give it to. Give It To, and I'm going to be celebrating my year next month.
[00:45:21]
I can't believe you guys have put me up to this. I'm Lyle, and I'm an alcoholic. And I am all of six weeks sober. And I tell you what, sitting up here makes me pretty damn proud to say that. I'm here by myself from Jacksonville, Florida. My sponsor could not come. I decided I had a plane ticket, I had a room, and I had a pass. I decided this was an opportunity. I wasn't sure what to expect. I had no earthly ideas.
Today has turned out to be the greatest day of my life. I have so much to look forward to in this program. People talk about overwhelming. This is overwhelming. I thank the good Lord for bringing me here. It was meant to be. Thank you very much. You're right, it is overwhelming. My name is Paul, I'm an alcoholic. I found out a lot of things here this week. I just found out how old I was when Sandra spoke. I was trying to put a label on that for a while.
My knowledge about alcohol was nothing. I wanted to do a lot of things in life. Every time I got half way through them or a quarter way through them or thought about them, I ended up getting drunk or high or something. I was introduced to AA in 1981. I didn't go through a 90 day program, I did 89 days of a 90 day program. I went out and got drunk. That was my pattern, I didn't finish it. Because of the great ego and stuff I had, it took me three and a half years to come back into this program. I'll be celebrating a year in three weeks.
That's something I'm damn proud of because I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it alone. I couldn't do it without AA. I couldn't do it without you people. I couldn't do it without God. Today I believe I know who my God is. Today I have a conscious contact with him. Today I pray every day. Today I'm not ashamed to stand in front of a whole bunch of people I've never seen before and say that. Thank you. Good evening, my name is Bill Harish. I'm from Montreal and I'm a very grateful alcoholic.
If I miss saying welcome to Montreal to anybody at the convention center, here it is now. Welcome to Montreal. I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1967. I stayed around for about six months and I became an Alcoholics Anonymous reject. It was me that was rejecting Alcoholics Anonymous. I was too smart, I was too good.
[00:50:03]
The first meeting I walked into, I broke down and cried. One of the old timers, the long timers at that time, said, you better sit down, shut up, and stop crying. Then I heard him say to somebody else, he hasn't drank enough to be here yet. So I went back out and I had another 20 years of it. I still didn't get enough of it. I was sober for five years, or on a dry drunk because I tried to do it myself. After five years I thought I could go and have a glass of wine. I had a glass of wine at a couple of Sunday dinners.
When I had my first double shot of hot rum, that was the end of my sobriety, I thought. It was almost the end of my life. I woke up in the morning with my head in the kitty litter and a cat pissing on the back of my head. When you get up and you walk around and you've got a big lump of cat shit between your two shoulder blades, don't feel very good and don't smell very good. Then I found out I could still throw up from both ends at the same time. I needed help. I got myself detoxified and I walked into an AA meeting five months ago here in Montreal and for the first time in 48 years I found love.
I found you people. I am so happy and so glad to be here. My goddamned life is finished after the 25th of February and I am so thankful that I did find God. I did understand that there was a God because there had to be somebody there to look after me because I was an iron worker all of my life. I worked 300 feet in the air and I used to pull a bottle out of my boat bag and have a drink while I was waiting for the next piece to come up or to sit there and smoke a joint or put out a line of coke on a steel beam 300 feet in the air. I didn't believe in God. I don't know who the hell was looking after me.
I thank everybody for coming to Montreal to make this convention what it is today and may AIAA live on forever and this love has to keep going to every suffering alcohol, every drunk in the world. Thank you for coming and making this what it is. I'm Chyna Galland, an alcoholic from Mill Valley, California. I don't know why I wanted to get up here but here I am. The reason I wanted to get up was that when I was sitting there what struck me was that this is the most incredible 4th of July that I've ever known. This is freedom. This is independence from bondage.
It's right here in these rooms and this is where I found it and it's incredible. I was telling someone earlier today that a little over four and a half years ago I was a Zen student in a monastery wearing robes sitting there meditating at four in the morning thinking about how I was going to murder my ex-husband. I was trying to do it by myself and I can't do it by myself. I was enraged. I tried to be spiritual and drink. I tried to run and drink. I tried to diet and drink and nothing worked until finally through the grace of a higher power and the fellowship of this program someone informed me that there was such a thing as AIAA and that she had found sobriety in these rooms.
And so finally when I knew I was licked and I felt my life going downhill like a roller coaster at top speed I called AIAA. Happy 4th of July. I love you.
[00:55:05]
My name is Bill and I'm a human being alcoholic. I love you people. In September of 1967 I woke up in a hospital in New York City and I was blind and I was one nose to toes hurt. I had taken and run my car into a bridge abutment fully intending to kill myself and get eaten with them. You ever try to get eaten with them? And you know we talk about self knowledge. I was 29 years old. I had become a world class puker. I could puke straight up sideways and never miss a beat. I was eating 15 cracklizers a day but I was working and therefore I had no problem.
While laying in a hospital bed it never occurred to me that alcohol was the root cause of my problem. The first thing I did when people came to see me was ask me what I wanted and I said bring me a beer or bring me some whiskey. And they obliged me except for one man. A man came to see me that day and he looked different and I drank with this guy and he had big blue eyes and I looked at his eyes and I had never seen his eyes because I thought he had slits just like this.
And I asked him, I said John you look different. Why are you looking different? And he said well Bill I don't drink anymore. He said I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and I said that's ridiculous you drank just like I did and he said that's right. And he left me a copy of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous and I looked at this book and anybody knows any fool will start at the beginning of a book not me I started at the back.
And I started reading those stories and I said that's not me. During the stay in this hospital another, you see we have spiritual awakenings all the time. And something happened where a boy that was kind of like my son, he was my first cousin, was shot down and killed in Vietnam the same day I tried to end my life. And I said God why did you let him die and let me live? And all things put together when I got out of that hospital something told me I better do something about me and I went to my first meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous in September of 1967.
And there was people in there that sat around they were beautiful just like you. And they looked at me and I weighed 115 pounds my arm was wrapped around my neck my jaw was wired up and many people still wish it was. And I didn't know what was going to happen to me and they were sitting around saying they were alcoholics. And I would have admitted to being a bobbery ape if they would have gotten me acceptance.
And I said I was an alcoholic and I looked at those steps on the wall and that's what they were steps on the wall. And I looked at step one and I said my life is unmanageable when I drank. And the care of God was alright for those that needed it. And as I was perfect I did not need steps four through nine. And you know those people in New York were just crazy as I was because they would let me chair step meetings at three months over because I sure could talk the talk.
But I never ever I sat around I compared my story to yours never hearing the yets. And in 1968 I was to drink again and that drinking was to last for six more years. December 8th of 1974 I was in jail in Euless Texas. I moved to Texas in 1973 bought me a Cadillac and a case of Coors and off I went. And when I came to in 1974 so December 9th of 1974 I found this fellowship. And I've just been told I'm talking too much as usual but I wanted to get up and tell the beautiful young girls and boys that got up here before me.
Don't ever lose that enthusiasm for this program because it's what's going to keep you alive. And I love you very much and I just share one thing real quick with you. It's something that's not in the big book but it's in a book that's been taught to me. But it's in a book that's been taught to me, and that's what love is, and love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, or boastful, arrogant, or rude. Love does not insist on its own way.
Love bears all things, endures all things, and hopes all things.
[01:00:05]
And I love you. Thank you. My name is Steve. I'm an alcoholic and addict from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hi, everybody. This is immense. I hit this program for the first time about eight years ago, when it was in Denver. Or should I say, I hit this kind of convention. I was working behind the front desk in a hotel, and you people were real weird. Because I was high most of the time, and it didn't really matter.
You had a problem, I didn't, and that was fine. Several years later, I hit a 90-day treatment center. But again, I didn't have a problem. You did, and that was fine. I thought I was cured. I thought I could find the best way to think my way into being cured of this disease. And after 90 days, I was cured. Until I picked up, well, first a beer on a hot day, and there was nothing wrong with that. Then a glass of wine to celebrate, and finally the bag of grass that I'd grown in my backyard the previous summer.
And pretty soon I was off and running again. And now I can't believe it. The day after my 14-month anniversary, I'm here. And I'm talking in one of the most… I'm speechless, really. To feel the love from you all, and to know that my higher power, who got me here through 20 years of drinking and drugging, works through you people, every one of you. It makes me so grateful to be here. Thank you very much.
Hi, my name's Sally, and I'm an alcoholic from Brooklyn, New York. Wow, this is really an honor. And it took a lot of courage for me to walk up here and ask to speak. The topic tonight is, I couldn't do it through self-knowledge. And I thought that I could educate my way out of this disease. I come from a real big Irish Catholic alcoholic family. And it was kind of shanty Irish, and I thought that being late curtain Irish meant getting an education and not being a drunk.
And I found out some years ago that that wasn't true. However, like a lot of people that have come up here, I had to do it a couple of times, because I had to do it my way. I had to do it without doing in 90 meetings in 90 days. That's the big rule in New York. I had to do it without a sponsor. And so it took me about four years to really do it. However, when I finally surrendered and decided to come to AA and get sober and try to establish contact with my higher power, I found a great big huge family to take me in and to love me and to help me get sober and to bring me back to life.
And to me, that's what this is all about. It's life. When I came into AA, I chose life. I told my sponsor on my 90th day in 1982 that I wanted to die. I was afraid to stay sober. I was afraid to be sober. And I didn't want to pick up a drink. I wanted to jump off the roof of my apartment building in Brooklyn. I thought that there was something wrong with New York and there was something wrong with Brooklyn.
And on my 90th day, I realized that this disease wanted me dead. And I didn't want to be dead. I wanted to be here, and I wanted to be with all of you, and I'm here in Montreal. And I can't believe it because the only other two times I was in Montreal, I was either drinking or stoned on cocaine. And this time I'm here, and I can see the city, and I can see all your bright faces. I'm so proud to be alive, and I'm so proud to be sober, and I'm so proud to be in this fellowship with all of you because you are my family now.
And I thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. I'm sorry we only have time for one more, and I have to have Marcia do that because Marcia and I have been friends on the fellowship since way back there. This lady was the type of lady when her job did not permit her under the San Francisco meeting schedule to attend any meetings. So instead of moaning about it, Marcia creates meetings. Marcia.
[01:05:02]
Thank you, Cy. I am Marcia Morgan. I am an addict and alcoholic. Yes, I have some problem with this topic. First of all, I have no self-knowledge, and second of all, I never tried to stop. As a matter of fact, I was here probably about two years when I realized that most of you had tried to stop, and it began to dawn on me that maybe I didn't belong here. I just didn't have any reason to stop. I had been doing something with chemicals since I was a wee child, I am told based on rumors that I overdosed on raisins at age two, and I did hyperventilating and sucking gas and a whole lot of things, so I had never tried to stop.
I had no intention of stopping, so the topic does not fit me well. I came equipped with absolutely no knowledge, and I am a 13-year product of our program, and I'm very grateful for that. As a matter of fact, I bought a little 13 today. I had to do something that I haven't heard mentioned here, but at the Denver conference, which for Jerry's sake was ten years ago, he was probably in a two-year blackout, we read a whole lot of the last page of the big book, and what I had to do eventually was put myself in the you, and when we talk about great events will come to pass for you and countless others, I had to realize that it meant you and you and you and you and you and you, and I had to put myself in that you, and I became a part of a fellowship that is worldwide.
I also began to put into practice some of the promises that you had given me besides the ones that are on page 83, and that was the promise that I could do anything but drink or use, and I don't like to get a whole lot of credit or take any kind of credit for anything that has been given to me in my sobriety, but I'll tell you from the snot flying, pants peeing, legs spreading drunk, gutter hype, dope fiend, liar cheat, sneak and thief, diagnosed everything there is to be diagnosed to come crawling into the fellowship through the central office in San Francisco, and I am now a pilot.
I am now a Ph.D., psychologist, doctor. I am now a lot of things that have been given to me as a result of becoming a part of the you of this program, and I love you. Thank you.