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Source: Various S – I Wasn't Alone Anymore – RS 17664 – 1990-07-04.mp3 File: various-s-i-wasnt-alone-anymore-rs-17664-1990-07-04.mp3 Duration: 01:11:16
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I'd like to call this marathon meeting to order and welcome you all to the 1990 International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Robin and I'm an alcoholic. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level which states, our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion.
We need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, television and films. Thus, we respectfully ask that no A.A. member or indeed any A.A. member, excuse me, or speaker, be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us.
And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before A.A. personalities. I would like to advise all present that this marathon meeting is being sound taped, not video, but sound taped in its entirety. And Mike from Seattle, Washington will read the promises. Hi, my name is Mike, I'm an alcoholic. I'm pro-promises. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through.
We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They're being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.
They will always materialize if we work for them. Thank you. Thanks. And now I'd like to turn the meeting over to our chairperson, who is Don Dee from Cornwall, England. Thank you. My name's Don. I'm an alcoholic. Hi. That was a bit quicker than I… I wasn't quite ready. I thought we were going to read out a lot more things, but there we are. I come from a little village in Cornwall, and my home group is a Monique Hospital group in Helston, in Cornwall, and that's a beautiful group.
I joined that group about almost a year ago. I'd been in another group where I was secretary, and my term came to an end, and this group I particularly like, because it was a group and it was all newcomers, and it's a beautiful group, you know. I consider it the best group in Cornwall, and they're so enthusiastic. It's run by newcomers, and nobody there, apart from myself, has got more than three years of sobriety, and they're really beautiful, they're wonderful.
And the group is growing at such an alarming rate, you know, it's just unbelievable. You walk in there and you're always greeted as soon as you walk in, and that gives a feeling of never being alone, and that's beautiful. And I celebrated my twelfth birthday on the first of May there, and another person celebrated with me who had three years of sobriety, and they set up two chairs, and they put a lot of balloons around the chairs, and they put a lot of streamers and things hanging down, and there was birthday cards there, and they gave us presents, and there was cake, and they invited guest speakers, and it was absolutely wonderful, you know, and that's what this fellowship to me is all about.
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It was the first group in Cornwall that, you know, with newcomers in, and it was the first
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group in Cornwall that ever put on a marathon, and they put on a marathon, and that was fantastic. And I had a large candle, very similar to this candle, that I brought back from Miami Beach some years ago. So I provided the marathon candle that was there, and they got together and they provided a buffet, and they got a speaker down from London and all over the place, and they were really terrific, you know, and that's what this fellowship is, as I say, you know, and it's really wonderful.
And I'm over the moon just being here, it's fantastic. I'm very nervous, I've been nervous for a couple of days, but, yeah, that's how I go. It's good to be nervous. I went to the New Orleans Convention, and I made friends with a very dear friend of mine now, a man called Bill, and he was talking at the marathon, you know, and he said, I'm not, I'm very, very nervous, he said, but I have no fear, and that was wonderful.
He told me, when I was in New Orleans on that convention, he said to me, when you go out in the morning because of the air conditioning and the change in the temperature, he said, you want to make sure you have a good breakfast, and I started doing this so that I could get used to the heat. And on the morning that he was talking, you know, he was talking about seven in the morning as well, and I said to him, have you had your breakfast this morning, and he said, no, he said, I couldn't take a breakfast this morning, and that's how it was, you know.
I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll give you a try and do a drunk-a-log in about two minutes, and I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1957, I said to my wife last night, I said, what shall I talk about, you know, I said, I don't know what to talk about, because I can never remember anything to sort of talk about, you know, and I said to my wife, what shall I talk about, she said, tell him about the straitjackets, I said, oh, I don't know, I don't know whether you want to hear about a straitjacket or not, you know, yesterday I went to the lawyers' meeting, and I listened to that, they were beautiful, I listened to those people there, and the thought that struck me, you know, is how anybody is able to get up and talk at a convention, you know, the damage that so many people do to their body, it's a wonder, it's a wonder and a miracle that I'm here, it's a wonder that I've got any brain cells left at all, I think it's a wonder that many of us get up and talk, it's a wonder that we've got anything left there at all to talk with, you know, and yet we recover, and it's wonderful. When I came in at the age of 26 in 1957, and I was given three months to live, and they wanted to put me into a mental home, because that was the only method they had then of drying out people in England, and I wouldn't go, and they said to my wife, you know, well look, if you'd like to sign this paper, we'll take him away in a straitjacket, and that's the state and condition that I was in in 1957 at the age of 26 years old, and the specialist washed his hands of me and said I'd be dead within three months. But I wanted sobriety, and yet I carried on drinking, I carried on drinking for almost a year, and I was dried out maybe eight times in that year, and then suddenly I thought, well I've heard of this Alcoholics Anonymous, and not many people had in England then, you know, about six meetings in London alone, that was all, six, you know, there's thousands now, and so I went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I found that I could stay sober, and it was a miracle, and I wanted sobriety, and I stayed sober, and I stayed in Alcoholics Anonymous for ten years, and life was wonderful, I was able to do all the things that I ever dreamt about, I was able to get a business going, and to make money, and to do all these things that I thought were important, but I didn't change my personality, I remained the same rather vicious person that I was when I was drinking, and I didn't know there was anything wrong with me, I didn't look at the program deeply enough, and I didn't look at these steps enough to find out that I needed to do a lot more, and then I stopped going to Alcoholics Anonymous because I felt so wonderful, I thought, I don't need Alcoholics Anonymous anymore, and I stayed sober for another nine years without the fellowship, and then one day it seemed an idea to pick up a beer, you know, I never wanted to drink a beer, all my life I never wanted to drink beer, I worked in bars in the West End of London and I was able to get as much booze as I wanted, and you know, there was a difficulty
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working there and keep drinking beer, you have to keep peeing a lot, and you can't keep running out all the time when you're working, and so I just used to nip down underneath the counter and knock back, you know, whatever there was, any form of spirit, the stronger it was the better, so just, I drank because I had to drink, that's how I felt, I drank because I needed it, I couldn't live without alcohol, I didn't drink because I enjoyed it, I didn't drink because of the taste, I just drank because I needed something inside me, I could function when I had alcohol in me, I felt good, the world was rosy, you know, it seemed to set me going when I was able to drink alcohol. Now after 19 years of sobriety one day I thought, well it would be a good idea just to see if I'm okay now, I'll take a beer, and I made that fatal mistake of taking a beer, but I also made another mistake, I hear sometimes people say, you know, if something goes wrong I can always come back to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, well, I couldn't, for three years I drank and I knew what was happening to me and I couldn't get back, I couldn't get back into the fellowship and I didn't know what to do, I had to drink and I didn't want to drink and I couldn't stop drinking and yet I couldn't carry on drinking and that's the condition I was in.
In that time lots of things happened to me, I went through quite a lot of pain, one of the things that happened was I lost a son and I found that alcohol wasn't doing what I wanted anymore because with my grief it just used to depress me and I was in a situation where I couldn't drink and I couldn't stop drinking and then eventually there came a day when I decided that I would try and see if I could come back and I picked up the phone and I phoned Alcoholics Anonymous and I came back to AA and when I came back the amazing thing and perhaps the greatest thing that ever happened to me was I forgot every single thing that, if I learned anything the first time around, I'd forgotten everything, I didn't even understand the first step and I started from nothing, I was able to recite the Serenity Prayer, that's all I could remember out of all those 19 years and I had to learn and I had to do the things that were necessary and the topic today is I wasn't alone.
When I came back to AA I wasn't alone anymore, I didn't know that at the time, it took me a long time to even begin to understand what emotions were, what my feelings were, I didn't know that there was anything wrong with my feelings, I thought the only thing wrong with me is that I drink too much and I know it's going to kill me, I just want to stop drinking and I went to meetings and they started talking on different topics, they started talking about resentments and anger and tolerance and I said I don't want to listen to these things, I want to know about how to stop drinking, I don't want to learn about those things and they talked about love and they talked about if you want to get rid of a resentment you can't wish it away, you've got to replace it with love and I thought this is terrible, not only do they want me to stop hating people and to stop resenting people, now they want me to love people, you know, and I hated this and I didn't like what they were saying but I wanted sobriety, I wanted sobriety more than anything else in my life and yet at that time with the grief that I was going through I also wanted to die and I thought I had no hope whatsoever. I mentioned earlier this Canadian man and he helped me a great deal because he was talking to me one day and I talked about this steel wall that I put round me where I wouldn't let my emotions out because I felt that I would become vulnerable, you know, that people would be able to hurt me, they'd be able to manipulate me, they'd be able to use me if I allowed my feelings to come out and therefore for most of my life no feelings ever came out except of course to my children because I never felt my children could hurt me. So I was able to give love and understanding to my children but to my wife I don't think I ever really gave her the love that I wanted to give her or the understanding because I was scared, I was scared that if these feelings came out that the people would be able to use them against me, I even felt that my wife would use them against me, I felt that it was wrong to allow feelings to come out and I had to do something about this and I had to…
I had to do something about this, and I had to learn, and it was very difficult learning about these things, and this Canadian said to me, I know exactly how you feel, because my wall was made of bricks, I had a brick wall all around me, and I had to take that brick wall down, brick by brick, and that's how it was, that's how I had to learn, and it was the people in Alcoholics Anonymous that taught me, and that showed me, and helped me, you know, I went to, when I first went to a meeting, I,
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I was so scared inside the meeting, I couldn't sit with people there, I used to go in the kitchen, and as I was in catering, I said, I would take over the coffee and the tea, so what I used to do is, I used to make the coffee and the tea in the kitchen, I wouldn't allow anybody in there, and they used to come in for tea and coffee, and I used to say, no, you wait outside, and I'll wait on you, and I used to serve them like a waiter, you know, now I don't know what they said, but I can imagine today what they would have said, you know, who's the nut in the kitchen, you know, and they would have answered it, it's okay, he's a newcomer, don't worry, and I said, oh yeah, that's okay, fine, you know, because it doesn't matter what newcomers do, it doesn't matter how crazy they appear to be, just leave them alone, let them come to the meeting, get them in the meeting, and get them to stay in that meeting, they'll be alright, you know, and I heard, when I mentioned the lawyers' meeting earlier, you know, I've heard so many times, and the lawyers, again, they mentioned it there at this meeting, you know, they went to their first meeting, and they said, what am I going to do, and they were told, you know, don't take a drink today, go to meetings, you'll be alright, and you hear it all over the world, the greatest wisdom that there is, go to meetings, don't take a drink, you'll be alright, that's all I've got to do, go to meetings, don't take a drink today, and I'll be alright, if I go to meetings and I don't take a drink, I will do the things that are necessary to remain sober, and sobriety is a gift that I believe is given, I believe it's God-given, I believe that I'm not alone anymore, that I wasn't alone anymore when I cried out for help, when I asked God after about six months in AA, and I cried out for help, I said, I can't stand it anymore, please help me, because I couldn't take alcohol anymore, I didn't know what to do to kill the pain, and I can remember I cried out for help, and I said, God, please help me, because I can't cope with this, you know, and I went to a convention within a couple of days, and I listened to the people at that convention, it was the All England Convention, and at the end of the meeting, there was a man who I now know was the, he was on the General Service Board, and his name was Gordon, and he used to finish up at these conventions always saying the same thing, he said, these people talk from their heart to your heart, and this is what this program is for me, it's not what is said, it is the feeling that goes with it, it's like the program, the program is not learning it from a book, it is finding out what to do, and then trying to do it, trying to work it, I understood the steps when I worked the steps, I couldn't understand the steps until I started to work them, and then when I worked them, I started to understand what they meant, and it sounds crazy, I put the cart before the horse, but that's how I learnt to do things, and the people that helped me in AA, I had people, I had my sponsor, my sponsor who was very gentle, who took so much time with me to try and help me, and I wasn't alone when I had a sponsor, and I wasn't alone when I had other people that helped me, and I think that I'm, I don't know, do you know, I don't really, how long have I been talking for?
And that's about it, my time is up, I don't know, I don't know how, I can't express my gratitude for Alcoholics Anonymous, I can't explain or express what I have today, I can't explain the peace of mind that I have, the peace that's inside me, the inner peace, the ability that has been given to me to cope with any situation without having to take a drink, I can't explain how beautiful everything seems, I can't explain really how I cope, I cope with the pain of living which at times can be very difficult and yet I'm never alone and I never, I never have to worry because I have a power greater than myself, my power happens to be God, as God as I understand Him, and that God looks after me, and that God gives me what is necessary for me, and that is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and thank you very much for listening.
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Now we'll hear from Bernie from Miami, Florida. I'm Bernie, I'm an alcoholic, and I love this man. I go to a meeting in Surfside, Bell Harbor, and that's where I met himself and his wife who I'm looking at right now, and I know more of his story and more of his grief, and you know I think it was through this program that I became a human being, and I think was particularly the fourth and the fifth step that did it, but what brings that back to me so very clearly is to listen to other people, and for some reason it's the grief or the pain that they went through, and the fact that they stayed sober that gives me the trust to go on.
I have a very difficult time with religions. I was raised Roman Catholic, and I'm gay, and it was a long struggle for me. The whole concept of a God and a higher power was one that just, I didn't want to hear it, and I was, as they used the term, terminally unique because of my particular sexual preference, but the truth was when I got into this program, I realized that I was just another variety of the species on the planet, and there were people here that actually believed that and affirmed that, and that I was a good person, and that I could contribute, and that I had no monopoly on being mistreated or having to go through pain, that that was all part of life, and that was all part of what made me what I was, and helped me to help other people.
I never understood that. I share what you said about when they started saying you had to be truthful and honest. From the very beginning, when you first start getting involved in your gay world, the thing that was bred into me as a matter of survival is don't tell any straights, and I lived in a society in Miami where you were destroyed if it ever got out, and I had many a friend destroyed, and their career destroyed.
It was like overnight, and I look back on those days, and I just sort of shudder. I wonder why I'm here, but it's this program, and it saved my life, because what I had done is I had picked up alcohol, and alcohol was the only thing that made me feel okay, and I had all these excuses for drinking, and I had all these excuses why it wasn't me. It wasn't Bernie. There wasn't anything wrong with Bernie.
It was all the other people. It was the rest of the world. It was the cultures. It was the religions, and all this kind of thing, and I had to come here and listen to people, and I had to realize that I was not alone, that what I was going through was part of being a human being. I was amazed. When I saw that the only requirement for membership was the desire to stop drinking, I kept looking for that other little clause, because on every organization, fraternity and college, everything else, there was always an escape clause, and homosexuality was right in there, including disservice.
I was one of those that went into the Army and everything else, but you had to desperately hide your sexuality. I don't know, I don't believe I would be here if it were not for the program, and I was constantly running away from myself.
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I could not accept myself the way I was. I was the person that hated the very gift of sexuality that was given to me by the Creator. I hated that part of me. I had the pattern of moving, moving on, and I kept that pattern up in sobriety. I originally got into the program in the Redondo Beach area of Los Angeles County, and at that time, what was called the gay AA was separate from AA. The gay meetings were not listed, and you had to identify yourself as a gay or a lesbian to be allowed in the room because there were so many fights if it was brought up.
It was a network within the organization. They had started something that they called Alcoholics Together. I don't know, I needed that, and that's been very important to me, and I belong and go to a gay group in Miami, but I cannot stay there. I am a human being. I feel part of the total race. That's why I'm involved in the so-called, what we call, straight AA. To me, it's all AA. I feel that in this room and in my mind, there are so many people that are with me that I have seen go through horrendous things.
Death. I can remember a woman, Boston Helen, she was 85 years old, and she contributed so much to my sobriety. The big shock to me, it didn't make any difference to her. She was 19 years sober. She's in a nursing home now in Los Angeles. She was half deaf, and she used to have a little dog, and it was amazing to watch the way she would go give that program away. I saw her go through breaking up her apartment and moving into a nursing home when she didn't want to go there.
It was like coming towards the end. It's funny, like I started to say, I ran away all my life. Even in sobriety, I got sober in LA. I went from LA to Philadelphia, and there it was very important for me. Philadelphia was much different than Los Angeles. It was heavily black, heavy drug addiction, and there were people that were in the groups there that died. It made me realize that this was a very serious program.
It made me realize that I would be one of those, and the people on the street used to just tear me up. But then I got a job in San Diego, and I often think that San Diego was my long-term treatment because I ended up three blocks from a place where there was a 7 o'clock in the morning meeting, and virtually for five years I went to that meeting, at least five times a week. And I got to know people, all kinds of people, and I got to know their stories and their struggles, and the marvelous recovery.
When I was in San Diego, twice I ran away. I went one time to Austin, Texas, and that was a real lesson for me because I was really very prejudiced against Texans, and they're just alcoholics. They have a marvelous program there. It's all a learning process. It's not them, it's me, and it's my prejudgment, as you were talking about. And from San Diego I went to Orange County, and I actually lived in the city of Orange for a while, and that was a different area.
Politically it was quite different. It was very Republican, and I'm not very Republican. But it was a learning process for me, and also there they have a very strong program. And through my sponsors, I've had tremendous sponsors. I've had three so far, and she just gave me the note. It's about time. I want to thank everyone that's here, and I want to thank everyone that has been there for me, and I want to tell you they're still here with me.
And I want to tell you they're still here with me. When I get in tough spots, I remember these people. I remember Don's story. And I see the remarkable recovery. I love Eileen. And thank you for letting me talk. Thanks for having me.
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Now we'll hear from Richard from Bellevue, Washington. Good morning, everyone. I'm Richard from Bellevue. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a little nervous this morning. I'm used to barking orders from the bridge of a big ship. I travel around the world on big ships and have to deal with my alcoholism sometimes by myself. And we are not alone. I like that. I like that subject. I could have a job that would be the biggest ego trip in the world, be a master of a large vessel and have a crew to command. And I used to get off on that. I was elected to the office rather early. And one of the benefits of that was bonded booze.
I don't know if anybody knows this or not, but if you take the tax off of booze, it's very cheap. And my first days of sailing as part of my office, I ordered it by the case. And as a result, I kind of accelerated my tendency toward drinking, entertaining in foreign ports and taking care of the needs of others. And it was an interesting time for me. It didn't last. I came into AA through the door of insanity. Booze for me then and the way it ended up and the way it is today is insanity. And that's how I got here. They had to lock me up because I was crazy.
I was in a place I'd never been before. I was doing some training for an advanced equipment that we were going to have up on our ships. And I just had a little too much to drink. That's all. Just a little too much. And they had to put me away. And I came to in a cell for crazy people. And right there and then I turned over my life and tried to seek a better way. I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous because my father had been a boozer. He had died sober in AA.
But he had died very young. And at my age I was exactly, I was doing exactly what he was doing at that age. And I had the same feelings and the same aloneness doing my drinking act as I called it. I feel very close to my father today. I hated him growing up because he was an alcoholic destroying the family. And I swore that I would never repeat that. I never learned the lesson. I was bound to repeat it because in my own mind I had put my father down as a drunk.
And when he got into AA he went to a party for drunks that failed. And that's what I thought of AA. You couldn't drink successfully so you had to go join a group of people who didn't drink successfully. Well in a way there's a little bit of truth there. But I was on the other side of the street on that one. And I had to do my own thing and come in just as he did after being locked up and a brief time in the hospital.
My first call, my first quarter was to an AA service group. And on that day a gentleman came out and took me to my first meeting when I was allowed out of jail. I was in a lot of trouble and a lot of hurt. And I was very much alone. Today I'm carrying a coin. This has 55 years, Seattle 90, for my first sponsor and I'll be sending it to him on the east coast when the convention is over. I feel very grateful first of all that AA was in existence.
[00:35:11]
I don't recommend my experience to anyone but all of us, as the man said last night at the Super Bowl meeting, travel down our own dark tunnel. And at the end if we grasp the principles of this program there is not only a light but the light in our lives. Today I have gratitude where before I had terminal selfishness. Today my life is different, much different. I still command the ships but I've been promoted to the latest and most modern and technologically advanced models that we have in our country.
And that wouldn't happen unless there was a sober mind at the helm. Everybody knows about the Exxon Valdez. I know a little more information than most. But there for the grace of God goes me. I have total empathy for the situation. Maybe not sympathy but empathy. I know how it can happen. I don't think my job is unique anymore. I think that it's just my assignment. I believe that my higher power is someone called God, a friend and a pilot for me. I can't get to meetings often when I'm out on the deep but I have AA with me at all times and every day in my spiritual guides.
And it's a practice, a ritual almost, to daily turn over my life to the care of God as I understand Him. To have my morning meditation. What happens then is that my life is filled and I am given guidance. I don't often succeed every day. I have many failures every day. But I hope to succeed in the main and in the spirit and to carry forth as God intended me to be, a useful person. Like I said, my job could take me into becoming a real ego trip. I'm the master of my vessel. That's got some real connotations to it.
But what I found out was that the master of the vessel is the ultimately responsible person of the vessel. And he's responsible for the lives of every person on there. Every person is important. And it's my job to motivate those people and to bring them along and to make sure that our goal, which is to take the ship to sea and bring it back safely and to get the cargo into port safely. Get the ship along safely.
It's a great burden. But I'm not alone. I can share that. I can share that with my higher power. HP is with me. And he's my master. And he's a friend. I'm not alone because I have you and people like you all over the world. It's amazing. I've been to meetings that are incredible. And the message is the same. And the people may look different or talk differently, but it's still the same. My good friend Robin and I belong to a home group. I just want to share this with you. It's in the basement of a hospital. I love that. I should have ended up in the basement of the hospital right down the hall at the mortuary. But it didn't happen.
And it's a miracle every week when I'm home to go to a meeting and see the beautiful Robin and the others of our group and to know we're right down the hall from the mortuary where many of us should have ended up. But we're in a meeting for newcomers. I love what you said about newcomers. And we're in a meeting for newcomers. Many of them are in the treatment program, outpatient, inpatient. And it's such a wonderful thing to be with new people and to feel the enthusiasm and the spirit that transpires in the meetings and the circle of energy.
Did you feel that circle of energy last night when we had the Our Father? It was incredible. I'm real good at controlling my emotions, but I had tears on my cheeks last night. It's an overpowering thing to feel this and to be able to express this in our hearts. And that's what happens at our meetings. It's a circle of energy when we connect and we heal together. A man said last night, it's a progressive illness, yet it's also a progressive recovery. And that's what I feel I'm in today. Progressive recovery. And thank you very much. Thanks for being here.
[00:40:10]
Now we'll be Bill B. from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hi, everybody. I'm Bill. I'm an alcoholic. Aren't you the famous Don D.? This is kind of a joke because I had the pleasure of meeting Don a few days ago. And every time we've been in a bus or a crowd, I'll say in a very loud voice, holy cow, it's Don D. He's speaking on Saturday morning at 730. I didn't do a very good job. The idea of the title of We're Not Alone Anymore, you know, it's one of the things that I was probably the best at when I drank was alienating everybody, ticking them off or worse, and getting everybody alone so that I could do the thing that I did the best, and that was drink.
And the only way that I could do that really the way I wanted to and with impunity is if I was alone. And that meant that the wife that I had at the time had to leave, and my brother had to go, and the rest of my family and my friends and everybody eventually. I was very good at getting rid of them. And the difference between that and now being in the program is that's tough for me to do. The first meeting that I went into, I was reminded of when you were talking about the newcomers. Back in Minnesota, we give away these medallion things with how many years you have or months in some cases.
In the first meeting that I went to, I probably had five minutes of sobriety, and by that time up on the wall, I had read the 12 steps, and of course, I understood the program perfectly. And there was a guy there that was getting a 14-year medallion. Can you believe it? 14 years. And I thought, what an idiot. What in the world took that man so long? There's not but 12 steps up there, and this guy's been at it for 14 years.
So eventually, I came to understand that I'm not alone anymore, and that they're not going to let me be alone. My home group is the Thursday Night Sahara in southwest Minneapolis. By the way, if anybody wants to show up, it's a good meeting. It's a men's meeting, but that's okay if you show up and are a woman. We'll change that for one night. But the point is that you get into a group like that, and they won't let you be alone, even if you want to be. And it is really and truly, through the grace of God and the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, that I truly don't feel alone anymore, and that gradually and eventually, I'm learning the difference in those two wonderful words in the English language, the difference between being alone and being lonely.
And now I can be alone when I want to be or when I have to be, but I'm not lonely ever again. And thanks to meeting people like Don from all over the world, and last night at that flag thing, I don't know, 63 countries or something like that were there, I can go anywhere in the world in some place, sometime when I need it, somebody who's going to tell me that Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other.
I'm not alone, and I don't have to be. And I'm really and truly grateful for that. Thanks a lot. We're not alone anymore. And just being here in Seattle, living here in Seattle, we have a lot of meetings. We have over a thousand meetings a week. And when I first sobered up, I went to a lot of different meetings and saw a lot of different people just starting out and a lot of people who'd been there for a while.
But coming to this convention, coming here Thursday and registering, I got to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in a year, people that now have a year and have been sticking around. And it's great. It's just unbelievable. I wasn't going to talk that long. I'm kind of nervous being up here, and I just wanted to get involved. I'd just like to say thank you. You people didn't lie to me. When they told me that my life would get better, and it did, it's been 16 months that I've been sober.
And when I got here, I was… When I got here I was living in my mom's basement. I didn't work. I'd been hobbling around on a broken foot that had been that way for three years and in sixteen months I've changed a lot of that. I've kept an apartment for eight months. I've worked steady for ten months and in about three months I got that foot operated on and fixed that had been broken for three years.
[00:45:21]
It's just unbelievable the way I feel and the things that have occurred to me that have happened to me in sixteen months. I couldn't have done it without this program. I drank for fifteen years and it progressively got worse. It's just amazing to me how it's gotten so much better in such a short time of being sober. Thank you. Now we'll hear from Harvey from Miami Beach, Florida. Good morning. Glad you're all awake this morning or half awake. My name is Harvey. I'm an alcoholic. I know I don't look like an alcoholic. I don't feel like an alcoholic but I am. I learned this in Alcoholics Anonymous. I came to my first meeting. I thought I was going to a little party and it was.
I had lobster salad sandwiches, served coffee not in paper cups but in china cups and a saucer and a spoon and all this. This was in Old Lyme, Connecticut in 1963. Don't ask me what month it was. I forgot about it. I came to these meetings to learn how to stop drinking. I wasn't an alcoholic. God forbid I should be one of those things. An alcoholic is somebody down on a dock on Sunday morning with his head on a ten by ten, two overcoats and a pair of sneakers on Sunday morning.
How the hell can you be an alcoholic? I drank a little bit of booze too much once in a while but alcoholic, that was a very, very dirty word in my vocabulary and a lot of other people's vocabulary. I came and they talked about this word sobriety, being sober. I picked up this girl that I went to the meetings with a third Friday night in Old Lyme and she said, Harvey, you've been drinking. I said, well, yeah, I had a few beers this afternoon, a few ales. She stuck this finger out, god awful finger she had, like a razor blade. She said, Harvey, you keep screwing around like that and it's going to happen again.
What do you mean again? Come on. She said, don't you listen to those people down there in a meeting? They were talking about being sober. I said, I'm sober? Christ, I'm not drunk. What the hell are you talking about? And she says, go ahead, keep screwing around, it'll happen to you again. I said, wait a minute, what the hell is this sober thing? She said, Harvey, you can never take another drink as long as you live. I said, what? I don't believe this. Me? Never take another drink as long as I live? What the hell are you, some kind of an idiot?
You talk about being sober. I am not intoxicated. Come on now. Look, I can't talk to you. You're a thick-headed Dutchman, for God's sake. Let's go to the meeting. I went to the meeting and listened, and you know what they talk about down there in a meeting? About being sober. I thought, oh, these people are nuts, really nuts. And I went out about my business the next week and went to the tavern that I normally hang out in, just had a couple of screwdrivers, shot a little pool, did my business.
This is about three o'clock in the afternoon. I come to find out later, Jesus, when I came to, I'm walking down this yellow line and some jerk with a blue uniform and a patch on his shoulder is saying, get in my car. Now, don't ask me what happened between three o'clock in the afternoon and 3 a.m. the next morning. I don't know. The shades went down, the lights went out, because when I got into these alcoholic situations, I don't remember what happened.
It's like when somebody says, what happened? I don't know what happened to me when I became intoxicated. Somebody stands up in the meeting and says, this happened to me and that happened to me and that happened to me. I don't know what happened.
[00:50:14]
The lights went out. The guy in the back of the theater turned off the projector. There was nothing on his screen up here. And that's how I was, gone. I come to on a highway and I'm walking down this line and this guy says, get in the car and blah, blah, blah, blah, go have a cup of coffee. I get off of another arrest. And this has happened to me time and time again. And I go back and I think to myself, gee, maybe these stupid people in that Alcoholics Anonymous, they might have something here.
It's like he was saying that he read the 12 steps. How come these people come to these meetings so long? Are they stupid for Christ's sakes? You can't understand? And I thought the same way. And I came back to the meeting and I thought, well, okay, I'll do it their way. And I did it their way for three years. And then I wasn't so much of an alcoholic. When does a pigeon become a Baltimore Oriole? I used to ask these questions. Why do they call me a pigeon? Pigeon's a dirty bird, for God's sake. I'd rather be a beautiful Baltimore Oriole or a nice red-breasted robin or something. Why do they call me a pigeon? God almighty, that's terrible.
And you're talking about somebody who's an old timer and somebody who's a newcomer. What the hell's the difference between them? Where's the fine line? Where do I get my merit badge, sash? What the hell is going on around here? Now this is after about three years, but I knew a lot of things in a big book and a chapter, but I didn't know anything. I really didn't know anything. And I'm out at the Connecticut Yankee Motor Inn and I know this girl that I used to know years ago.
There's one thing about this. You have some gas bag to come up here and speak. I can't do this in three and a half minutes. How much time have I got? Four minutes? Watch this acceleration. I have a dance. She says, Harvey, loosen up. You haven't had a drink in years. Not a bad idea. What the hell? I went out on the most miserable, horrible, atrocious, four-month-drunk one would ever want to be on. What happened is none of your damn business. I don't even want to tell you about it because I can't remember it. I can only tell you what happened from what other people told me happened, and they all lied. Those things would never happen to me. God.
I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous in January 1967, and I'm not alone. I'm not an old-timer. I'm not a newcomer. I remember in a 1979 grapevine, they define what is an old-timer. It's 29 minutes after eight. The program chairman is rather fidgety. Where's the speaker? Who's going to run the meeting? They turn to Don. Don, would you chair the meeting tonight, please? Then he's an old-timer. That's the definition of a newcomer. Gets to be an old-timer. I'm very pleased to be here. If someone had told me last year that I was going to be in Seattle, Washington today, I would have told him he was stark raving mad. No plans at all.
I don't live and make plans. We got in a car on the 21st of June. We got in a van, and we came across from Florida like this, all the way to Seattle. Had a hell of a good time getting here. We've had a nice time being here. When we get through here, all because of AA. Nothing else. We're going to go north, and we're going to go all the way to the east, across Canada. Got to go say hello to Bob Hoey in Montreal, make sure he's behaving himself after 42 years. He'll have to catch him drunk. Don't do that.
Then we got to go to Saratoga to the races. By September, we'll get back to Florida and see all our wonderful friends again. Thanks very much. It's great to be a little bit sober anyway. Now we'll hear from a woman. Linda from Burbank, California.
[00:55:13]
Now I know why they wanted to hear from a woman. I'm Linda. I'm an alcoholic. And when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1985, I had been through five years of depression, at times which I had lost bodily feeling. I had been a borderline anorexic. I had gone for psychiatric care, and I was told that as my inner condition improved, my drinking pattern would dissolve and go away, that that was just a manifestation of my illness. And needless to say, that did not happen.
What did happen, though, was that during that period of time when I was in that care, I did have a brief type of recovery that was followed by a still greater relapse. And during that five years, that was a pattern that I was in. But, you know, I was not alone. I did not know that then, but I was not alone. I was crazy. I was isolated. There was no human being that I could really make contact with from my own self, and yet there were people there that were pointing me in the right direction.
A friend of the family at that time had come in contact with an Al-Anon. He was out here in California. I was back in Cincinnati. He came back for a visit and forced me to talk about alcoholism. I was married to an alcoholic who was very violent at that time, and he forced me to talk about his alcoholism. I heard the name AA, and I was able to call him whenever I wished, although financially I was in dire straits, he wasn't. But he had enough of the program to know to let an alcoholic talk, and later he took me to my first AA meeting.
Also at that time I made a geographic. I had to get back to California, I thought, to solve my problems, and at that time I didn't know quite how to do that, and yet I made it. I made it with $2,000, two kids, a dog, and a crazy husband, and of course I was not well wrapped at all. I don't even think I was wrapped at that time, but we got here. And my recovery started here in 1985. Today when I work with newcomers and we talk about the third step, I always ask them, I said, remember the times that you should never have made it and what brought you through.
Because I feel that what we are doing in the third step, and this is not original, I got this from the grapevine, is that we are acknowledging something that has always been true. But what we are attempting to do in the third step is something that we have never done, and that is align ourselves with God's will. And that has been a really joyous thing. Another part about my history is that I was a product of the 60s. I went to college before the revolution. For those of you who don't know the term, that was before drugs hit our society here in America.
But during that time I heard about LSD and things like that, and I was drinking at that point. I was not drinking successfully. I never did. But I was still a valiant in the attempt, and I was working hard on becoming an alcoholic and eligible for this program. But the reason that I bring that up is because in the 60s there were a lot of dreams that were filtering through along with the drug culture, and one of them was a world that was full of love. A world where we could overcome our fragmentation and realize our unity as human beings.
A world in which race or creed or sexual preference did not cause divisions and hatred and fear and ignorance in society. That was the dream of the 60s. I had those dreams. I was a product of that time. I worked in my own way toward the fulfillment of that dream until it was smashed into an alcoholic stupor. And there were many in my generation that felt the same as I did. as I did, all I can say is that during this convention, I have seen that dream. I have seen that dream in a living sense, not as a personal sense of ideals or as a political
[01:00:06]
philosophy, but as a byproduct of the wreckage of this disease. I see a harmony and a love between people of all backgrounds, people who in a normal sense would never mix. But we not only mix, we have that love and that unity. This is truly a world community here. And for that, I will be eternally grateful to have seen this. Thank you. Now we'll hear from Valentine from Chicago, Illinois. Okay, it's time to liven it up a little bit. I'm Valentine, powerless over alcohol. So this morning, through God and you, the people of these meetings of alcoholics anonymous, we are not alone anymore. Okay. I come to the court of last resort, Alcoholics Anonymous at the age of 20, November 1979, first Thursday after Thanksgiving. And what happened to me was I heard your steps, your traditions, and all your Alcoholics Anonymous stuff, as I'll modify it. And what happened for me was I found a division between myself and Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe I was a little bit alcoholic because I had numerous hangovers, massive hangovers, where I could not get to work, where I could not function my body, where I could not sit on a toilet to perform a normal human function. I could not aim to go to the toilet. I'd hit the walls, but not the toilet. And that's how bad of a drinker I was. Now that's what it was like for me. And in that, in that idea that I was only a little bit alcoholic, but not powerless over alcohol, was where I found my division with you. And I went through a whole year of on and off nasty experience with alcohol. And in all of that, I just bounced in and out like a rubber ball, fighting with every ounce of fight that I could to win the battle so I could not enter Alcoholics Anonymous and drink the way Valentine Schneider wanted to drink. And that just was not it for me.
My final fight with Alcoholics Anonymous and alcohol came two weeks previous to becoming 21 years old. I thought, now I got these bastards at 12 Step House by the ass. I am going to become 21 years old. This is it. This is adulthood. This is the root of my problem. I am not a full adult. I am not given the legal right to do what I feel I am entitled to do, etc, etc. And being 21 will change it all. All I got to do is either get a state identification card or a driving license, and I'll have the world by the beep. And that's the way my thought processes were. Once I had that ID
[01:05:10]
card in my hand, look out world, I'm going to party for a few weeks, and then I'm going to really grasp control over this. Then I'll come back to 12 Step House, Chicago, Illinois, at Damon and Sunnyside and show them bastards how I straighten myself out. That was my dream at the age of 21. Then 41 days past my 21st birthday, I come back to 12 Step House and Alcoholics Anonymous to take whatever you had. I did not care anymore. I was beaten, burned, wasted. And my recovery began November 10, 1980. I'm coming up 10 years. And in this process of recovery, I have been harassed to death by elder state persons of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't like this word old-timers. The long-timers at Step House say, we are not old-timers, we are long-timers. Let's get the word straight. You know, they're real hardcore, singleness of purpose. I even had a drug habit, and I talked about it for the first two years in my recovery from drinking. And they didn't like it, and they kept harassing the death out of me. They even pointed to the 12 Traditions to penetrate me. And finally, two years after gaining alcohol recovery, I said, okay, enough is enough. I'll do it their way. So I walked the line of singleness of purpose, and I don't talk drugs in closed meetings. That's standards that they taught me. But however, after the Lord's Prayer is over with, I'm taught I'm entitled to do anything I please, as long as I don't get too loud about it. And so I'm living conservative standards in Alcoholics Anonymous. I connect up countrywide with a lot of people. I've been privileged to conduct marathon meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have conducted a marathon meeting Thanksgiving of 1989 at Chicago Serenity Club, 101 hours. I slept 13 hours in a grand total of five days, and it took me two months to recover from doing it. December and January of earlier this year, I did not make one meeting in two months, because I was riding so high on the high I experienced that entire weekend. Plus the physical exhaustion was too much. It was go to work, come back, and sleep. Period. So I'm a little nuts, and I'm the guy wearing the raccoon hat. The reason I'm wearing the raccoon hat is it's part of my souvenirs that I picked up along the way out here. I come out here via Eugene, Oregon, via Yachats, Oregon. If you want to pronounce it the way it's written on the map, it would be Yachats, Oregon. I have relatives living out on the Pacific Coast, and they took me to cape this and cape that, and hill this, hill that. And I'm really enjoying it, and I've been running like hell since Monday. I'm very little sleep. Now I'll almost be grateful to see Sunday come when I'm back on that plane, because I'll need two weeks to recover from this in Chicago. And I wish you all the very best, and I hope you
[01:10:11]
all have as many blessings of Living Alcoholics Anonymous as I have. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank Don Dutton from Cornwall, England, and everyone that spoke here today, and everyone that came to this meeting. And there is another meeting that's going to be held in 15 minutes, so we need to straighten up the room, and we'll close with the Serenity Prayer. God, the Serenity, to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Keep coming back. It works.
That concludes our program. Thanks for listening.