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Source: 1985 Montreal International Convention – Unknown Speaker – WORKSHOP LAWYERS IN AA – RS 06405.mp3 File: 1985-montreal-international-convention-unknown-speaker-workshop-lawyers-in-aa-rs-06405.mp3 Duration: 01:22:18
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The meeting will start precisely at 3 o'clock, so if you want to start taking your places, it would be much appreciated. The meeting will start precisely at 3 o'clock, so if you want to start taking your places, it would be much appreciated. The meeting will start precisely at 3 o'clock, so if you want to start taking your places, it would be much appreciated. The meeting will start precisely at 3 o'clock, so if you want to start taking your places, it would be much appreciated.
The meeting will start precisely at 3 o'clock, so if you want to start taking your places, it would be much appreciated. My name is Jerry and I'm an alcoholic. Mon nom c'est Gérald et je suis un alcoolique de Montréal. This meeting is entitled Lawyers in AA and we're going to start the meeting in the usual way by, if you want to join me, in the recitation of the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Now, it's an hour and a half, the program is going to be for an hour and a half and we've been given instructions to try to abide by that schedule. I know that a miracle is going to happen in here this afternoon because we have three lawyers and they just can speak for 25 minutes. You'd think they were charging fees. Alcoholics Anonymous, there's just one qualification to the name of our fraternity and that relates to anonymity.
There may be someone here who is not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion. We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker or indeed any A.A. member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings.
The assurance of anonymity is essential to our effort to help one another and other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. Our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before personalities. I don't know if there are any current announcements. I've just heard a rumor that the attendance here is reaching the 70,000. That's the biggest. And I'd estimate that we're about 500 lawyers or people who are interested in lawyers in A.A. here this afternoon.
It's great to see you here in Montreal.
[00:05:01]
We've been preparing for this, but the realization is full of joy today. Now, as I said, there were three speakers and the first speaker is from New York. Jack Kay has been one of the founders of International Lawyers in A.A. You're going to be hearing a bit about that organization that is within A.A. And I won't take much of his time because he's a high-priced lawyer. And I'll turn the microphone right over to him.
Hi, my name is Jack Keegan and I'm an alcoholic. Bonjour, mes amis. And you have heard about $3,000 worth of college French. It is a great privilege to speak here today at the International Convention, and it really is a great privilege. But it was not my idea when I opened my law office in 1965 that I would speak at an A.A. meeting. As a matter of fact, the last place in the world that I wanted to be was at an A.A. meeting.
I suppose when you think about it, A.A. is one of the few organizations that the members of which never wanted to belong to it in the first place. And I was one of those. I have since found out that A.A. is just like the Mafia. If you leave, you die. Just about a month before I… I'm going to skip a lot of the usual automobile accidents because my friend has cut me down to 25 minutes. I told him it would take me 25 minutes to tell you about my high school drinking.
I'm going to skip the automobile accidents and the various fights and my various cosmetic injuries that occurred throughout the course of my drinking during college and get up to a time when I was into social drinking. If you had stopped me the day before I came into A.A., I would have told you that I was a social drinker. A heavy social drinker indeed, but a social drinker nonetheless. My brother Jimmy, an older brother, was having difficulty with his drinking and his wife asked me to come out and speak with him.
He lived in Long Island. I said, my dear, I'll be happy to do that. One of the things I did not want Jimmy to do was to stop drinking because if he did, I knew I was next. And I went out to talk to Jimmy about this very delicate, serious problem and we were discussing this in his living room and he had six or seven children at the time and I said, Jimmy, this is no place to discuss your drinking. Let us go to a place where men gather.
So I took him to a saloon to discuss his drinking. That lasted about a month and he was bad enough to come to A.A. I took him to A.A. and ran out very quickly. I started my own law practice and I really wanted to be a successful lawyer. I didn't want to come to A.A. I knew that that was always in the background. I set out certain very definite rules for myself when I opened this practice in 1965. I said I would not drink at lunch.
I would only drink on a social occasion. And I had all these disciplines, which I adhered to for two, three weeks. And then someone asked me that question against which I had no defense. Absolutely no defense. All the resolve in the world would not help me with this question. Someone would ask me at lunch, Jack, what do you have? And I really did not know how to answer that question with the exception of alcohol.
I didn't know how to answer that. I didn't know how to say iced tea. It wasn't there. You know, a couple of years ago, I really enjoy a certain hot dog made by a restaurant chain. I have a buttered roll and it's really a terrific hot dog. And I would stop wherever I was in this restaurant chain and I'd get it.
[00:10:02]
And one day, I got very ill from this hot dog and I ended up in a hospital. And I haven't had that hot dog again for the past two or three years. I don't hide those hot dogs under the front seat. I don't put them in a closet. I don't go out in the backyard and something about it. But alcohol was not that way with me. I started this practice and things began to happen. I was drinking now on a daily basis.
I was in my own business. I really come to consider now that any alcoholic that's active and is in his own business or her own business is an attempt at suicide because there is no one to watch over your shoulder. And I did not have anyone to do that. I had a secretary who would lie for me and she was great at that. And I was always in court and I was always postponing things. I could postpone anything.
Lawyers are the great postponers. I could walk across the street to that courthouse and I could postpone Labor Day if you gave me a chance. I just did not want to work. Don't tell me about picking juries or crossings. This case must go over. There are matters to be considered here. We have to put this case over. And over it went. And that's the way I ran my business. I didn't want to work. I remember going through this.
There was a case I had involving a drunk driver. I used to do a lot of that work for some reason. And this poor fellow was charged with driving while intoxicated in a little village called Scarsdale in Westchester County. And he had a .24 blood alcohol at noontime on Sunday. Now just to bring those of you up to date and not familiar with the blood alcohol content. First of all, at noontime on Sunday the saloons are closed.
And that's about two and a half times what you need to be convicted of drunken driving. To add to this gentleman's troubles, he not only had me for a lawyer, but he ran into the rear of a police car. It was a difficult case. However, as all lawyers know, we must select juries that drink as our clients drink. That is a difficult thing to do even in Scarsdale. So you ask the jury, do you drink? And they say, yes.
And I remember this one lady, Mrs. Van something. I said, Mrs. Van, do you drink? And she said, yes I do. I said, are you a social drinker? And she says, of course I'm a social drinker. Now I was a very prominent social drinker at the time. And I knew social drinking. And she did not look like one of my people, if you know what I mean. She did not have that puffy, beery look. And I wanted to get her definition of social drinking.
And she said, well, my sister and I have a little wine at Thanksgiving. And we have a couple of highballs around the holidays. Now I had not heard the word highball since about 1940. And I said to her, Mrs. Van, what about the person who comes home each day from a very difficult day and has a couple of cocktails just to take the sharp edges off the day? Would you consider that social drinking? And she looked at me as if I had a hole right here.
And she said, Mr. Keegan, why would anyone, anyone drink every day? I had no answer for that. I excused Mrs. Van and I lost the case. But it taught me one thing. That her definition of social drinking and mine were worlds apart. I went about my daily routine coming home drunk and staying drunk and things got very bad around the house to a point where I took one of these things called a pledge. Now I've come to understand since I've been in AA that a pledge is a promise to drink on a certain day.
And I would take these pledges. And I would take these pledges for six months, and six months later I would drink.
[00:15:03]
Now, during that six months, life was not easy around my house, you see, because I was a drinker. And the only reason I wasn't drinking was because Mrs. Keegan did not want me to drink. Only reason. So if she did not want me to drink, she must suffer the way I would suffer. I went nowhere during this pledge. She would say, let's go to so-and-so's house. No, no, nothing doing, can't go there. Well, why not?
I'm not drinking, that's why we can't go there. Well, let's go to the movies. No, no, no, no, can't. Well, why can't we go to the movies? Because I'm not drinking, that's why we can't. What has the movies got to do with it? I don't know, I'm not going. Finally, after two of these pledges, she said to me, for God's sakes, would you please drink? And I said, for you, my sweetheart, I will run that risk once more.
And I did that, promising never, never to take those pledges again. Along about this time, I got into what I consider the stage of drinking that gets us all in here. And it's the fear stage of drinking. I really believe that God invented the telephone to help alcoholics come into AA. At least, that's my feeling about it. I would have these telephone messages to please call back Mr. So-and-so, please call back Mr. So-and-so.
Well, I did that once, and I don't remember what I said to him or her. And that gets very embarrassing when you call back the second time, and they say, well, you're contradicting yourself about what you told me the first time you called. There's only one way to handle that, we all know how to handle that, you never call back. You never call back. And the phone messages stack up and stack up, and you're afraid to hear the phone ring.
I'm a lawyer practicing in White Plains, and I'm afraid to hear the telephone ring. That's how bad things were with me. About this time, I got a client who was charged with vehicular homicide, and he had the misfortune to come to me. I listened to his case, and it was plain that he was not guilty of vehicular homicide. It requires a degree of culpability that was not in this case. I knew that all I had to be was an adequate lawyer to win this case.
I didn't have to be Clarence Darrow. I just had to provide the proper defense for him. And he was out on bail. He established the attorney-client relationship. For the non-lawyers in this room, that means he paid a fee. And he had a lawyer. Now, his case was about 18 months from trial. He was on bail, and no one cared about speedy trials in those days. Now, for 18 months, I worried about what my condition was going to be the day that his case was to be tried.
Because, you see, by that time, I couldn't tell you what my condition was going to be. I didn't know. Some days were good. Some days were bad. But I couldn't tell you which would be which. I had lost control of drinking. I didn't know that. If you came up to me in the street and said, Jack, you've lost control, I would say you're crazy. But I know now that by that time I had lost control. I just didn't know how much I was going to drink on a certain night.
Some nights were five drinks, and some nights were 25 drinks. And I didn't know when that would happen. Control had left me. That case was tried and won. But for 18 months, I was in fear of what my condition was going to be on a certain day. I was scared to death that I was going to blow this case. And that kid would do two and a half to five for something that he shouldn't have gone to jail for. So I knew about fear.
And then finally that case come that I really, really fouled up. This fellow had an armed robbery charge. He was in jail. And I was assigned to his case. And when I went to interview him, he told me that he was in New Orleans at the time of the robbery. And I thought that was just another alibi. And I was drinking, and it sounded like a good idea to go down to New Orleans and check out his alibi. And I did that.
And the saloons in New Orleans, they open 24 hours a day in case anyone doesn't know that. I found that out and did not find his alibi witness.
[00:20:04]
The case was tried, and he was convicted. And about six months after I came into AA, which was about the time that I finished trying his case, I found the alibi witness for him because I went down to New Orleans sober. And he was released from jail. And I always think that there's a guy out there who did six months in jail because he had a drunk for a lawyer. I never wanted that to happen again, and I never treat clients the way I treated him anymore.
But I came into AA in July of 69, and it was no day different than any other day. I was drunk, and I found myself at an AA meeting. The reason I went to the AA meeting was because I thought I was going to die if I continued to drink. I don't know if anyone in this room has ever felt that way. I said, I've got to stop drinking or I'm going to die. And I went to this meeting in our area, and it was not in my hometown, of course.
And I sat down in the back of the room very drunk and with a large thud, and some people turned and they smiled at me. You know, the smile that old-timers reserve for newcomers, that we'll-get-to-you-later smile. And I sat there, and after the meeting was over, a woman came to me and said to me the nicest words I've ever heard in my life. She said to me, do you want some help? And I knew that you people had the answer. I knew that it was here.
And I said, I sure do. And she introduced me to a man who saved my life. And he wasn't even a lawyer, and he saved my life. He said to me, he looked at me and he went, he smelled me, I'll never forget that. He said, Jack, you've been drinking tonight. And I thought to myself, what a perceptive guy. Nobody had ever told me that I was drinking at 10.30 at night. No one. And I said, as a matter of fact, I have been.
And I said, the reason I came here is because I'm going to die. And he said, well, you don't look like you're going to die, let's talk. And then he began a series of questions. I don't know if all sponsors ask these questions, but he asked me these questions. And he told me some secrets that you people had. One secret he told me, for example, was that if I wanted to stop drinking, I should stay out of saloons.
I asked him if he was sure about that. Because I didn't know where else to go. He said, yes, if you don't want to drink, stay out of bars. If you say so. And then he said to me that I should change my patterns. That I drink in a pattern. And I thought, that's a little strange. My drinking was on such a schedule that I would pick up legal papers from the bartender. He would say, here, Jack, so-and-so left this for you.
And I'd pick up a complaint or something and stick it in my pocket and away I'd go. That was my pattern, and I had to break that. And then he asked me the question to end all questions. He said, do you think your life would be better if you didn't drink? I said, you've got to be kidding. That's what I'm here for. I've got to stop drinking or I'm going to die. I have a business and a family. And if I don't stop, it's all over.
Of course my life would be better. He said, good, then come with me. And we went back to his house and we talked and talked and talked. And now about three hours have passed. And you know what happens when you don't give a drunk a drink for three hours. He begins to sober up. Suddenly I'm not going to die. Perhaps I'm immortal. I'm not sure. But I am certainly not an extremist as we understand it in the legal sense.
And I said to him, just a moment. I wanted to get out of this as gracefully as I could if I weren't going to die. And I knew now that I'd jump much too soon. I had many months, perhaps years of good drinking ahead of me that I was going to let lapse into oblivion. I said, now wait a minute. I said, in March I go on vacation. And I always drink on my vacation in March. He said to me, Jack, this is July.
I said, I knew it was July.
[00:25:02]
And he said to me, Jack, you cannot drink in March in July. I asked him to repeat that and he did. And he got into my head that I only did this one day at a time. It was amazing. And then he literally saved my life, this man. He asked me to go to a meeting with him the next night. I said, I have my aunt's birthday party the next night. And he said, what time would you get home from her birthday party?
Not ever having been to her birthday party, I didn't know what time I was getting. I said, 11 o'clock. He said, I'll be at your front step. And he was there at my front step. The next night he said, I'd like to take you to a meeting. I said, I have a cookout. You know, an emergency cookout that newcomers always have. He said, what time do you get home from that? I said, 12 o'clock. It's late. He said, I'll be here.
He was at my front step. And he saved my life, literally saved my life. He brought me into this program that has changed my life, changed my personality, changed the way I do things. I haven't found it necessary to pick up a drink since I came in here. And it's just been from a guy who was scared to death, from a guy who was afraid to hear the phone ring, I enjoy a peace of mind and a serenity now that I didn't believe.
I didn't think people lived the way we live. If you told me about this, I don't know what I would have done about it, but I never believed that people could live the way we live. I think I can best describe it as a sense of peace and well-being. When I was about nine years old, I remember being at the movies at the end of the school year in the summertime, and I had the summer to look ahead of me. I'm sitting in my favorite movie watching a black and white, and I have my favorite candy, and I am on cloud nine.
I have the summer ahead of me. I have all of these free days to live my life, and I just feel wonderful. And I never had that sense of peace since that time up until the time I came into AA. I don't have it all the time now, but I have my life ahead of me, and it's a sense of peace that I look upon my life ahead of me. And it's really the gratitude of this program that I have to thank, and those two guys who started it all 50 years ago.
And it's a great pleasure speaking to you. Thank you. Applause That was a great talk, Jack, and it's good knowing guys like you. Now our next speaker this afternoon will be a lawyer who comes north of the American border. He's a Canadian lawyer. I've known John M. for about five or six years now, and I'm given to understand that, and many of us know that John is married to Delphine. And Delphine is presently, I understand, in England.
And I'll be very interested in hearing John, because probably it's the first time he can tell us his story without Delphine being there. So without further introduction, John. Applause Got your watch. My name is John, and I am an alcoholic. I'm a grateful alcoholic and very pleased to be here. I won't say whether or not I'm pleased to be here without Delphine. I better not go that far. But it will give me a little bit of liberty in bringing Delphine in at certain times.
But I must say, Jack, I certainly appreciated your talk, and that's certainly a hard act to follow. But I'll do what I can, and maybe Delphine will give me an assist here and there as I go along. But my name is John, and I am an alcoholic. And I'm using that word am very advisedly, because that's my status. My status today is that of an alcoholic. This I must not forget. This I must not forget. I forgot it on one occasion. I forgot it actually in England.
[00:30:01]
Maybe that's why I'm not with Delphine right now. And I forgot it when I was in England and I'd been sober four and a half years at that time, a day at a time. I should put it a day at a time that eventually totaled four and a half years. And this was back in 1957 and I was going in the pubs with my father-in-law and I was drinking ginger ale. I was drinking ginger ale to the extent that I was getting terribly tired of drinking ginger ale.
So I put the question to him, have you got anything other than ginger ale? He said, why don't you try cider? I said, has it got alcohol? And he said, no. And on the basis of his statement, I took a cider. I took a second cider. I took a third cider. Now this is on a Saturday night. Plans called for me taking the boat out of Liverpool on Tuesday morning. I'm going to take Delphine and her mother to the theater on Monday night.
This is Saturday night. I have the third cider and I go home and nothing happens Sunday. But Monday noon, all by myself, I'm at the pub and I'm ordering a cider. And then I have a second cider and a third cider. And then I found myself turning the label around so I didn't see alcoholic content so much. And I said, well, McDonald, you're into it. Through no fault of your own. Through no fault of my own.
And that allowed me to go ahead and get into the mild and bitter and the bitter and et cetera. The pub's closed at three o'clock. Mind you, I hadn't had a drink for four and a half years. The immediate question to be answered is, when do the pubs reopen? And when I found out it was 5.30 and not six o'clock, it was like I captured half an hour. I carried on drinking the rest of that day. I did not take Delphine and her mother to the theater.
I went pub crawling with my father-in-law. I woke up the next morning. I'm leaving Delphine. And Delphine's not very happy with me. As a matter of fact, she's hardly speaking to me. And yet somehow she has the thought that maybe since I'm going away she should say something. There was a lot of tension in that room. I also had a little bit of money in my possession and that was no asset at this particular time.
And we said goodbye and it was a very tense party. I got aboard the boat train going up to Liverpool. Sat down with a chap from Switzerland and he said, would you like a pint of ale? Well, this was one symptom that was very strong at this time. I did want this drink. I wanted it very badly. There was a physical thirst there. But somehow or other, the thought came to me that you're not deciding on a nail or a beer.
You're deciding on a way of life. And it's at that moment that I have immense, for that moment and those thoughts, that I have immense gratitude to you people, to this program, because I was able to think back to what I'd heard in AA, latch on to these positive thoughts, and I managed to say no. And because of the association of AA, that has gone on to the present time. And that's why I emphasize that word am.
I am an alcoholic. I was an alcoholic. Every bit as much today as the day I walked into AA. But how did I come to AA? I took the first drink at the age of 19. I didn't even finish that pint. Fourteen years later, I'm drinking 80 ounces of hard, no, 80 beers a week, 40 ounces of hard liquor on top, never, ever being able to stop under my own steam. Always some force outside of myself that brought my drinking to a close.
And this was the situation I found myself in the summer of 1953, when the message of AA was brought to me.
[00:35:03]
At that time, I was practicing law in Cornwall. Delphine and I worked together. She'd gone on a trip to England that summer. I thought she would be back, but I wasn't really all that sure. She did come back. And all the evidence of alcoholism was descending on me at that time. The indebtedness that I had, I owed my dad something like $6,000. It was done in very gradual loans. I'd slip down and borrow $500.
And then a little later, I'd run out of money and be down to borrow another $500. And he'd say, what happened to the first $500? And I'd suggest to him, yes, it's rather untidy having two loans about. Let's consolidate these loans into one loan of $1,000. It seemed to cater to my perfectionism a lot better. And it wasn't long before I was back for another loan. And then it was $2,000. And shortly after my father died and I was in AA at this time, I was called down to the law office and presented with my father's will.
And there, right on page one of the will, how dare he put it in there. I hereby direct that my son John repay to my estate the sum of $6,794.33 together with interest at the rate of such and such. This was being shown to me by a lawyer, whom I knew quite well. And when I saw it, I was terribly embarrassed. And I said, I rather knew about that, or I knew about that. And he said, I would rather think that you would have had some idea about that.
And it represented a lot of money, but it also spelled out alcoholism and it spelled out what alcohol was doing to me and all the expense it was creating. And it was spelling out the way of life that was taking place, the direction that I was going. So the evidence was piling in. This is just a little bit of evidence, and this is the summer of 1953. But there's even more vital evidence, and this evidence is taking place at home, where somehow or other one is letting down one's guards.
Fights are taking place with Delphine. And one such fight, this was a dialogue that took place. I said something, Delphine said something, I said something, and then Delphine said, John, John, I'm going to remember that. I'm going to remember that to my dying day. And I thought, what an attitude. What an attitude. And I was great with a pencil and paper at this time, so I got out the pencil and paper and I wrote her a letter, and it was a very formal letter, a very proper letter, to my good wife, Mary Delphine MacDonald, and I quote your remarks, quote, John, John, I'll remember this, I'll remember this to my dying day, unquote.
If this be your attitude of mind, Mary Delphine MacDonald, then what is the use of I, your husband, John Alexander Grant MacDonald, expending the necessary effort or the necessary energy to do anything about my drinking problem? And I signed that and presented it to her. And I certainly did not advance the sanity issue. Certainly didn't advance that issue. There was a lot of evidence of insanity coming into play.
There was a lot of evidence of unmanageability coming into play. And there was a lot of evidence of powerlessness at work. Perhaps the best story to sum up this insanity, this unmanageability, this total craziness, by this time I had to get rid of a car. That's a good thing in retrospect. I should never have been behind a car. Got rid of the car, so we had to use the bus to go out. We had to play bridge on this particular Saturday night.
And Delphine says, whatever, John, today, could you be sober? We're playing bridge with so-and-so.
[00:40:00]
So I assured her that I'd be properly sober, sufficiently sober. But I really wasn't. And we went to catch this bus. We're standing down the corner. There's a church there, and there's an iron fence around. And it's snowing, and the bus is in the distance. And I said, right out of the blue, without any advance warning, Delphine, I feel like biting the fence. And she said, you feel like what? I said, I feel like biting the fence, that's what.
And with that, I went over and bit the fence. About to hop aboard the bus, and Delphine says, just a minute, John. You've lost a tooth. I had an upper plate at that time. The forefront teeth were not my own. And one of these had come loose, and it was lying on the ground. And Delphine got it. And so I went out and played bridge without that tooth. And I'm over at my dentist on Monday morning. And explaining, I'm not explaining too much.
Letting him kind of figure this one out. And then he said, John, John, how did this happen? And you know, I didn't have the nerve to say, well, you see, sir, I was out biting fences on Saturday night. I didn't have that type of nerve. Anyway, all this is spelling what's happening. Delphine went to England the summer of 53. She came back. The pressure is on. She gets me over to see a doctor. Very fortunately, I went to a doctor in Cornwall, Ontario.
I think in retrospect, out of 30 doctors, he's the only one that would have routed me to Alcoholics Anonymous. He knew what Alcoholics Anonymous could do. But he also first had to send me off to a psychiatric hospital in Montreal. So actually, I drew my first sober breath in Alcoholics Anonymous right here in Montreal. I came to Montreal. I was at the Queen Mary's Veterans Hospital. And the first contact I had with anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous was a lawyer.
And the lawyer was visiting a chap in the next bed who was having problems, legal problems. And this particular lawyer, Clarence MacC, came up to see him to discuss the problems. And then my friend introduced Clarence to me. So we had a few minutes. And those were very, very important few minutes. And looking back, maybe without those few minutes, without that contact, maybe when I went back to Cornwall, I wouldn't have linked up that quickly.
But I was talking to Clarence, and Clarence was trying to help me, and I was putting questions to him. But Clarence, as a lawyer in the small community of Cornwall, can I go back and actually join Alcoholics Anonymous? It's a little different for you being in the big city of Montreal. And I put this up, and Clarence says, Your life depends on it. The lives of other people near and dear to you depend on it.
Your whole future depends on it. You do what is right. You have to seek out a solution here. You go back, and you link up with AA immediately. And I said, What are my friends going to think, Clarence? Clarence says, John, your friends, the people you've been drinking with, they're just acquaintances. Your friends will be glad that you've joined AA. The people that are near, close, and dear to you, they'll be glad that you've joined AA.
And everything that I was putting up, Clarence was answering. He was answering so that I could understand. He was knocking down a lot of defenses that I was putting up in front of me. This is the point I want to make. Already I was putting up defenses, and Clarence is knocking them down. Was it important that this meeting be with Clarence? Important that this meeting be with Clarence, not necessarily, but it was very, very helpful because as a lawyer, he could respond in a language that I could understand and appreciate at that time.
[00:45:07]
I was very fragile at that time. I was very tense at that time. I was very withdrawn at that time. And here's a lawyer, who's now quite a successful lawyer in Montreal, showing that he as a lawyer is very happy in AA, that there is an answer here in AA, and armed with Clarence's enthusiasm, I went back to Cornwall and I phoned my sponsor and I got right into Alcoholics Anonymous. My next contact with a lawyer in AA, and I just want to give, in the next five minutes, a few of these human contacts with lawyers because in retrospect, they have become very meaningful to me. I was thinking about it in preparation of coming here today.
And the next contact that I had with a lawyer, the shoe was on the other foot this time. What's really coming through to me at this time is just how important a lawyer can be in dialogue with, and being in contact with, and being part of the 12-step process in helping another lawyer come into Alcoholics Anonymous. And throughout Ontario, we see this over and over again. One lawyer will join ILA in one community, and it's not too long after that the second lawyer in that community will come in to Alcoholics Anonymous.
But the first lawyer, and getting that first lawyer in a community, that sometimes can be a much more difficult task. The third story I'd like to mention along this human way, and then I'll be through. Really, I'm at that part. I've told you a bit of what it's like, what happened, and what it's like now. I'm really focusing in what's happening in liaison with other lawyers. And just focusing in on that part, I'm not going to get into other elements that are being well covered by the other panelists today.
But I'd like to wind up with this story. It's a very important story to me. Without this happening, there wouldn't have been Delfine. Well, there would have been Delfine, but we would never have gotten married. I have a very good friend who's a lawyer in Peterborough, Ontario. We were in the Army together. We were overseas together. I was going on leave, and he gave me the name of a girl that was a very nice girl.
That girl's name was Delfine. And when on leave, I looked up Delfine. Then later on, when I came back to Canada, he and I were roommates together for a while. After he graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School, he went to Peterborough. But he introduced me to Delfine. And Delfine and I got married in Toronto, Ontario in 1947. We lost touch with each other for a long time, or we weren't in touch with each other.
But I'm attending a conference in Peterborough, Ontario in 1963. I call around and see John. He says, what are you doing in Peterborough? Well, I said, I'm going to an AA convention. Well, he says, what are you doing at an AA convention? I said, well, I'm an alcoholic. He says, you, an alcoholic? Well, you couldn't be an alcoholic. You and I drank together. And you didn't drink any more than I drank.
So therefore, I don't see what you're doing at an AA convention. So I said, well, John, I've gone through this with others. I am an alcoholic. Just take it from me. He had no other choice. And I was quite curious about this. And every so often, the phone would ring, and it would be from his wife, that John's been having a little bit of trouble, and could I get him into such and such an institution?
[00:50:01]
And it took a long time. It was about five years, or even longer. And then I got a phone call, and it was from Minnesota, from Hazelden. And it was from John's counselor. John had to go through a little treatment, you see. He had to go out to Hazelden to meet senators and so forth. Anyway, he called, the counselor called me and said, John's coming back. He wants to join Alcoholics Anonymous. Will you be his sponsor?
And I said, I'd be delighted to be his sponsor, certainly. And the upshot is that John came back. He had to slip after one year when he went to Ireland. But then he went right back into AA, and he's been in AA over ten years. Now those are just three instances, I've told you, of some of the human dynamics in the dialogue with lawyer to lawyer. But really, lawyer to lawyer, it's really person to person.
Alcoholic to alcoholic. That's the primary thrust. But the other very valuable supplement, a very valuable addition, and very, very valuable, in my opinion, in those early days in Alcoholics Anonymous. So thanks very much for listening. Thank you. I'm so happy to have heard you this afternoon, John. It sure is a program of rigorous honesty. And by the way, all these talks are taped, and I hope, well, anyways, I don't know if Delphine will be hearing they're taped.
The third speaker this afternoon is a fellow that I'm very fond of. I met him again five years ago. He has been most instrumental. I think he's been the heart of international lawyers in AA. He's a fellow that everybody loves, and I'm so delighted to have Igor S. here this afternoon. Hi, folks. My name's Igor, and I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic. And I've never seen this many sober lawyers assembled in one room in all my life.
I'm going to follow the traditions of speaking to you by qualifying, and I'm going to do that short and quick because I'd also like to talk a little bit about lawyers reaching out to lawyers because that's what ILAA is about, and that's what I really feel is a dynamite kind of outrage. Now, I'd like to say first, by the way, I'll get to my story in a minute, but I do want to say this. I am not one who says that— I'm not trying to say that lawyers are a special breed of alcoholics.
I'm not trying to say we're a better breed or a brighter breed. My good friend Dr. Clare has once told me that lawyers coming into a treatment facility are considered a real pain in the neck. We're a tougher breed, maybe. We're not any different. We're just garden-variety drunks. And I'm a drunk who happens to— well, when he was drinking, earned his money for his booze playing lawyer, and when he got sober, still continued to be a lawyer, but basically I'm a drunk who, through the grace of God and the grace of this fellowship today, has been sober for today.
However, there is a particular function for some drunken lawyers where the entry into the mainstream of AA seems to come better if the 12-step work has at least some contact with another lawyer, and that's what we're about in Lawyers' Concern for Lawyers. Let me tell you, by the way, a little bit about myself. I started drinking—actually, I have a Russian background, and I started drinking when I was a kid with a Russian Orthodox background.
You used to get up at Easter at midnight, and you'd get up and go to a mass and then have wine and drinking all night long. That was a tradition, family tradition.
[00:55:01]
I think it's gotten up to, and the family used to give the kids a sip of vodka because they knew that as soon as they'd sip it, they'd think it was terrible, and they would immediately cease, and they wouldn't touch it for a long time. Well, I had my first sip of vodka at age two. I drank it all, and actually they put me to bed drunk that night at age two or two-and-a-half or whatever I was. I also remember that I didn't drink at home, but I do remember that the first weekend at college we had a college mixer, and I hadn't drunk at home.
On the first day away from home, I had a college mixer, and I drank 11 beers. I had to carry me home, and I was 17 or 18 years old. I guess what I would say about both those stories is that I don't think I ever drank socially, and I mean that quite sincerely. I drank to get drunk from the first time that I started drinking. I didn't get drunk every single time, but the objective was clearly, I don't think I ever was a social drinker.
I don't think I understand what that even means. I drank from teenager to get drunk, to have that feeling, to have that click, that something that changed the mood. Well, take my word for it. I drank long and hard. I spent a night in jail. I did all those things. I ruined a political career. I greatly damaged a law career. I greatly damaged a marriage relationship. And finally, I do want to share this.
How I got here is funny. People talk about what they finally did and what really helped them in getting sober. One of the best 12-step thoughts I've always had was just to be joyful. When you're sober on a 12-step trip and you are joyful, you're conveying an incredible message to a drunk. We had a group of lawyers who used to drink at all lunchtime, and we drank five or six martinis or beers by this time.
And one time, one of this group disappeared. He disappeared for 28 days. Coincidentally, we didn't know what that meant. In fact, he just was gone, you know. What the heck? You know, Danny isn't around. Wow, I wonder where he is. Well, anyway, Danny came back, and Danny was sober. And Danny was joyous. And he was bubbling over, and he said, I'm sober, and I'm an alcoholic, and I'm in AA. And his sheer joy captured something in me, because I was still drinking.
I was drinking at that lunch. And a couple of weeks later, I called him, and a couple of weeks later, he took me to a meeting. And then started, I'm not one of those guys. I was stubborn. I'm not one of those guys who went to my first meeting like Jack, and bam, I got it. Uh-uh. It took a lot of experimenting. I was one of those who kept going out and coming in, going out and coming in. And finally, I made it for a while.
And I was sober for five years. And I just want to share that with you for a few minutes, because I had sobriety for five years and threw it away. And I usually tell that as part of my story, because if there's anybody here who served in World War II in the Pacific, he knows that most of the time in the Pacific they used to give you quinine pills. And that was quinine to avoid fever. And you took it as a preventive medicine.
Whether you had the fever or not, you just took your dosage every day. Well, for my first time in AA, I took AA like a medicine. I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I could stay sober if I kept coming to meetings. And that's about the way I did it. I came to the end of the meetings. I did as little as I could. And I left early. And it was maintenance, maintenance sobriety, if you will. And as things will happen, we moved.
And I didn't link up with another meeting. And my meetings… I didn't link up with another meeting, and my meetings fell off, and then for about a year I didn't go to meetings, and I ran into a crisis in my life, and I was defenseless. Again, I chose to drink again, and I don't say anything else created that.
[01:00:06]
But what I did create was the lack of a support system, the lack of an outreach, lack of people who would look me in the eye and say, you're acting crazy, where have you been, you're being too busy, you're being too frantic, you're being upset. I lacked, I cut myself off from you all, so that when the crisis came on, I was alone, and I wasn't strong enough to handle it, and I drank. I picked up a drink deliberately, and drank again, and let me tell you, someone has told me that the first time is a gift, getting sober the first time is a gift, it's a gift of God, and it comes, and it's by the grace of God, I think.
The second time, you've got to scramble for it, it's tough. No pink cloud, and you just get it, get it by hanging on by your fingernails. When I came back, beaten, suicidal, didn't have the guts to commit suicide, had all the intentions and all of the despair and all of the total feeling of humility and futility and everything, not the courage. So I came back and I chose life, and one of the things I knew from my past experience was that I hadn't worked the program right.
I know the program, I'd watch people go on and build sobriety, I'd watch people that I brought in, and the 12-step, who were out there and would build a good record of sobriety while I was continuing to drink. So when I came back, I sought out a sponsor, I knew the first step, and I knew that I was helpless and hopeless in this situation, and I found somebody and I did the fourth step. I did the fourth and fifth step my first day of sobriety, which worked for me.
I'm not recommending, telling you, whatever worked. I knew I had a pile of garbage, I knew I had not worked the steps, I knew I was sitting on so many things, so I called someone, I said, I've got to talk to you, I need help, and we sat in a restaurant for five hours, and we talked, and I haven't had a drink from that day to this day. The next thing that I did, and I did it almost immediately, I knew I had to get active, and so in getting active, what I chose was saying, hey, listen, they're lawyers, and I just felt that that was an outreach that suited me, and I went to the ABA convention, which was then in the plant at Georgia, and I put up a sign in the lobby, they had a big lobby at the central convention desk there, and I said, friends of Bill and Bob, who would like to share coffee, meet in such and such a room, and there were a few names there that came up.
We had coffee, and I was sober then for the first time on a trip, because I did a lot of my drinking on the trips, and then I heard about a fellow who was putting together some groups, a small group, I heard from GSO that there were some lawyers meeting in Buffalo, and so I traveled to Buffalo, and I met John, and I met Jack, and Tom, I think you were there, and Lou, I know, was there, and I met a handful of people who, others there, anyone else there from the original Buffalo Lawyers Group?
I can't see any, I think, I know you all were there, there were 17 of us, and from that was born something called International Lawyers and AA. Let me talk a little bit about that. I became somebody who was sort of a secretary to that group, did a lot of mailing, some samples of a few pamphlets are out there, you're welcome to take them, there's also a sign-up sheet if anyone would like to be added to the ILAA mailing list, we meet once a year, we're going to meet in Los Angeles next year, September 13th, 14th, and 15th, and possibly this year, this year, September 13th, 14th, 15th in Los Angeles, in this year, and next year, Tom, I think possibly in Western Canada, right?
Winnipeg, Winnipeg. We are an international group. It was started, I think our godfather here, you just heard from John M., is really one
[01:05:02]
of our godfathers, and the godfather of international lawyers, and let me just say, what are we trying to do in ILAA? We're trying to encourage, we're the bridge between the Bar Association and AA, I think, in some states. A lot of states have formed what they call LCLs, or Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers. I'd like to just say this, too, we're talking about how much, I mentioned how Dr. Clare says we're difficult clients.
We are difficult clients. We're difficult people to sober up. We're just like any other alcoholic, except we're more of a pain in the neck, and we're more cerebral, and we think, we think, talk too much, and incidentally, we're a high-risk group. Now, I mean it, now wait a minute, I'm being serious. I think, and this, I would say this to you, my experience from having looked at our conventions is that I think that the percentage of lawyers is higher than what NIAAA, the National Institute, considers the average for the average population.
I think we have an average that Clare has told me, and it runs considerably higher than the average population. I'll give you another statistic, I'm going to do a study on this sometime, if I can ever get it, at least from ILAA membership. The highest risk group, trial lawyers, sole practitioners, practitioners in small offices, general practitioners, I don't know why, but ILAA's experience at least seems to be that we are the highest, that category is the highest risk group.
It may be that we have relative affluence, I said relative affluence, you know, there's no lawyer who will admit that he's affluent, but all of us have a freedom to spend our money and expense accounts, and freedom to spend our time where we will, and something else that seems to make it acceptable to, you know, drink hard, work hard, the trial lawyer syndrome, the TV trial lawyer syndrome. So I think we have a high risk group.
And let me tell you something, we're losing a lot of people. In Connecticut, we've just in the last year had four guys disbarred for things that were ostensibly and clearly violations of ethics and all that, but clearly if you knew their stories you'd know that underneath the problem was alcoholism. We've had two suicides in the last year, and we're a small state, we've had two suicides from members of the bar, both of whom were extraordinarily heavy drinkers, and only those of us who are in this room, I think, know that black despair of having lost control of your life, of totally despising yourself, not having meeting the responsibilities, and then just giving up on it.
So I'd like to urge everyone here, give thoughts to reaching out in your community. I had somebody from North Dakota who felt that he was the only lawyer from North Dakota. How many people from North Dakota here? Anybody willing to stand up and say one? Anybody else? You are all of them, okay. Well, let me, okay, you know, let me say this, there are ways to reach out. If you, for example, a lot of people contact me and say, is it all right for me, would you send me the list of the people who are recovering?
And I do use the list that way. Your list doesn't get publicized in any other way, but I will ask you to sign up because I guess that my, I'm the conduit for putting people, and we put a lot of people in touch with each other and said, okay, here is the recovering lawyers in Texas, or something like that, or Alabama. And I've had people call, I'm willing to do that, continue to do that. If you want to give your name in that list, there's a sign-up sheet over there.
I'd like to say that a simple letter to the editor or an announcement, not using AA, but talking about a formation of people interested in outreach to lawyers with addiction questions and problems.
[01:10:00]
And among the younger lawyers, cocaine is very prevalent, by the way. I think AA will have to take a long, hard look at that. Personally, we've been dealing with people that are all, anybody under 30, we're almost automatically assuming is dual addicted, and we're dealing with them on that basis. I'm urging people to reach out to other lawyers in the state, to reach out to the committee, to support them.
It is incredible what help you have if you can simply say to them that, to others, that yeah, they're sober lawyers. And so what we've done is we've put a telephone number in. I know that New Jersey has that. I know that a lot of states have that. Those of you who don't, you can get a few names together and put a notice in your monthly bar journal or whatever it is, or put on a seminar on drunk driving, or what every lawyer should know about their client.
One good one, by the way, if you're really skittish, is put out a seminar for your bar association for your annual meeting and just say, you'll have a seminar on what every lawyer should know about their clients who have problems with alcohol. See, nobody will come in and tell you that they've got a problem, but they will come in and tell you that, well, I have this client who has trouble. Another thing that I have done, and I urge you to do too if you've got an active group, is get in touch with the drying out farms or the treatment facilities and let in your state or where lawyers might go.
I'm on the list for places like Chit Chat and High Watch and Hazleton and a whole bunch in New England area. What I ask there is that if someone is a lawyer is coming out, and a lot of what the contact that we try and do is this, if a lawyer is coming out of Chit Chat, say in Pennsylvania, and he gives his permission and he says, yes, I would like to be contacted by lawyers, then I can get his name and send it to everybody in his particular state, or if it's a larger state I try to do it by county, but basically we're organized by state, and we'll take that name, if we have his permission, and send it to all the lawyers.
Now, there's some people who must have gotten some of my mails along that line, and says, Joe Smith's coming out of Chit Chat, he wants help. We've had people that get mainstreamed that way. I want to emphasize that I am not, nobody that I know of in ILAA, none of the people that have worked in the state groups believe that a person should try to get sober just in a lawyer's group. We've had a few people who've tried it, and their track record's not very good, but that's their choice.
We do try to get them into mainstream, but we try to give them as much possible support from lawyers. So it's with, that's what the basic thing of ILAA is, to try to encourage bar associations to create lawyers' concern for lawyer committees, and we have them going in about half the states. Half the states do not have that kind of contact. And as John and Jack have pointed out, John in particular, what is the power of seeing another sober lawyer come into your office, even if, you don't know how long he's been sober, but you know he's sober, and you know that by reputation he was a heavier drinker, and so forth and so on, you knew that face, and that 12-step kind of outreach is what ILAA is all about.
I bless you all for being here, you're just a super group. Let me say that I'm sober today solely because of what you, the opportunity that you gave me by reaching out, and are reaching out to each other, and a whole bunch of you that I've only known through mailing, and through names, and through writing, and through telephone calls that I've never met, and I've been meeting people all, for the last, just since we've walked in this hall, people that I know by name and by address.
I apologize if I send too much stuff, sometimes I used to do that. I'm like Scheherazade, you remember the story of Scheherazade who had to tell a story every night. Well, I had to keep cranking out mailing to save my life. That's what it did. It kept reminding me that I was an alcoholic.
[01:15:00]
It kept reminding me, as you corresponded and as you called and as we wrote and as we photocopied and Xeroxed things and exchanged them, and we exchanged stories and exchanged what you were doing, it just kept reminding me that I am a plain garden variety drunk. I can't get sober alone, and I didn't get sober alone. I got sober with you all. Thanks. God bless you all. Thank you. Thank you very, very much, Igor.
I got one more. Let me just make one more quick announcement. Dr. Claire Bissell is in the corner and would like, there she is, she's doing a study and has written a book on alcoholism and the professions, would like very much permission to interview with women attorneys in the fellowship. She's doing a study. She will preserve your anonymity. She knows the fellowship. She knows the program. She's one of us.
Any women attorneys who are willing to meet with her, she's going to stay there in that corner. Your arm again, up. Okay. Thanks. Well, we've had a glimpse this afternoon as to what lawyers in AA are like and what we're doing within the program. We're just ordinary alcoholics that happen to be lawyers, but we do probably have something to say to other lawyers who are also alcoholics. And I think that's the only purpose of ILAA. And we've seen it happen here in Montreal. We have a group here that's been alive for five years.
And because of that group, many alcoholic lawyers are now part of AA. And that's because ILAA taught us what to do about it. So I think that we have to be very grateful to be here in Montreal. It's a wonderful weekend. I think we see gratitude all over on our faces. And it's great to be a sobering alcoholic the AA way, 24 hours a day. I want to thank each speaker for his message this afternoon. They were great messages befitting of this conference.
And I'd like to close in the usual way. If you'll join me with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Thank you, Gerald. Thank you very much. I'm not a lawyer, but… Thank you very much. Gerald, it was great. Thanks a lot. I enjoyed it. I practiced in Edmonton. Oh, is that right? Good, good, good. I've been in the program about, well, this month, God willing, I'll have my fourth birthday. That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah, it's good. It was good meeting you. Thank you. Good meeting you. Thanks. That's Jim.
Oh, go ahead. Sorry. You mentioned there were forms? Yeah, there are forms here for you to register in ILAA on the table there. Yeah, yeah, I'd like to do that. Thanks very much. Did we get together for dinner this morning? I think so. Great. What time should I call you? Yeah, probably during the afternoon. At the office? Yeah. 1-2-8? 1-2-8 or 6-8-3-4, one or the other. And tentative, like what time would you like to go from there to dinner?
Yeah, probably. Okay, so if something happens, maybe we'll just come by. Okay, good. Okay, at about 5 o'clock at your chair. All right, great. Very good. See you again. Bye-bye. Hello. Hi, Gerald. Hi. I'm a marriage and family therapist. Oh, yes. And I have a couple. Mm-hmm. They're lawyers. Yes. And they've come up with dialogues. Yes. So she's your person. Yes. And I said, hopefully you can have them when you're drinking.
Yes. But of course, it's not a nice call.
[01:20:01]
I'm afraid so. And it's hard to be apologetic about it. Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah. Everybody knows it's an accident. Mm-hmm. But I think we're going to get her somewhere. We might have to call her. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, we have a group here. Sure. Yeah, it's, uh, okay. Seven. Okay. Yeah, there is. We meet every Wednesday. Okay, good. Thank you very much. What's with, uh, I've got the, uh, picked up the papers and it goes through a form, uh, blank.
There is a, uh, there is a, uh, a notepad. Or if you see Igor himself, then give him your card. I thought there was a printed form. Thank you.