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Source: 1990 Seattle International Convention – Unknown Speaker – WHY DOES THE PROCESS TAKE FOREVER – RS 17636.mp3 File: 1990-seattle-international-convention-unknown-speaker-why-does-the-process-take-forever-rs-17636.mp3 Duration: 01:12:07
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Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Alateen presents its International Convention, 55 Years, One Day at a Time, July 5th through the 8th, 1990, in Seattle, Washington. And today, we have the preamble to Alcoholics Anonymous. 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 AA membership. We are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politic, 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.
And I've lost my reader of the Statement of Anonymity. Theo, where are you? Hi, I'm Theo. I'm a recovering addict alcoholic. 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 to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, TV, and films.
Thus, we respectfully ask that no AA speaker, or indeed any AA member, be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meetings. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that AA principles come before personality. Thank you. Along with the Statement on Anonymity, I need to advise you all that the marathon meetings are all being sound taped, not video taped.
So they will be available afterwards. I have now asked Jan P. from Puyallup, Washington, and that's a hard word to say if you're not from this area, to read How It Works. Hi, I'm Jan and I'm an alcoholic. How It Works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.
If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery. One, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.
Two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Six, were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
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Nine, made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Many of us exclaimed, what an order, I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas.
That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism, that God could and would if he were sought. Thank you. And now it gives me a great deal of pleasure to present to you a friend of mine in recovery, Jackie W. My name is Jackie and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm thrilled to be here with you today. I'm having a quiet nervous breakdown up here.
About as quiet as I've ever done anything in my life. But I am overwhelmed at the thought of being here and standing up in front of you. It seemed like such a good idea at the time when they called me. I got into town the day before yesterday. I live in Portland, Oregon. And I came into town a couple days ago and I got out the little sheet that showed who the speakers were. And there was a topic on it and it had my name next to it.
That was the first I'd heard of the topic. And the topic is, why does a process take forever? Beats the hell out of me. So now you know as much as I know about that subject. So let me get on and tell you something I do know something about and that's my story. And I can tell you about what the process has been like for me. And the way to tell you about what it was like is to just take you quickly through the last year.
The total insanity of the last year. I shared that with my husband, a very loving man who I was drawn to. Because not only was he dysfunctional like me, but he also drank like me. So we had a great deal in common. And so that was the basis, the premise of our relationship. The last year of our drinking together, we wintered in Fairbanks, Alaska. That should give you some kind of a clue as to where we were.
However, believe me, it got even better than that. We wound up, as soon as the thaw came, we thawed out and came down to a little town in the state called Oak Harbor. And we tried to retire, but I was so full of pep and energy and a fifth of booze a day that I couldn't sit still. So we got a job. And about the only thing we were capable of doing was managing an estate. Now, we at least were able to go through the motions of looking like we were able to do that.
I've seen pictures of us at that time. And I want to tell you that the people that hired us had to be very sick because we looked like late-stage alcoholics. At any rate, we got a job. And I will share with you that this was a couple, and they had this gorgeous estate. And they didn't have any children, but they had a chimpanzee. And I was the caretaker. And this chimp lived in this house and had its own room and its own bathroom.
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And the toilet paper matched the wallpaper in the bathroom. And there were a lot of little strange things like that in this house. And this chimp, and I cooked for the chimp. And I thought that was very interesting. You know, how interesting that I would wind up doing this. I didn't think it was strange at all. I just thought it was interesting. So, the chimp and I spent a lot of time rolling around on the floor because he liked to jump.
And I wasn't too steady on my feet. But I'll tell you, the day finally came when I was able to see that this was a little different. This chimp had a keeper that came from the University of Washington, a zoology major. And she used to come out and they'd go camping. And fishing. And the chimp had a creel, a little creel and a fishing pole and a tent and they would go off. And one morning I found myself leaning out the window waving bye-bye.
And it occurred to me that that was a little strange. On the same estate they raised gibbon apes. They had a pair of gibbon apes and they were attempting to get them to mate so they could have the first gibbon ape born into captivity. Big deal. At any rate, my husband, part of his job was to go with another person into this cage and feed these hummers. They are small-bodied and a lot of tail and they are wicked.
And you were always instructed never to go in that cage alone. But of course Tom, you know, hell he'd been around these things. He'd worked in the woods all his life. Never mind there were never any apes in the woods but he knew about woods and animals and things like that. So he decides one bright, shiny morning to go in and feed the apes alone. And interestingly how God works in our lives, that was the beginning of the end for us.
Because one of the apes got a hold of Tom and did a lot of damage to his hair and his face. And I took a look at him when he was finally able to extricate himself from this thing and told him he ought to really go see a doctor. He looked pretty bad. So he went down to the local hospital. And that began a series of coincidences that started us on our spiritual odyssey. Which is what my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous has become.
Tom was intercepted by a doctor, if you can believe this, who recognized an alcoholic when he saw one. And who also could smell an alcoholic. I mean was this God at work? And at the same time in this hospital, this small little country hospital where this remarkable doctor was, there was also an alcohol and drug community specialist who happened to be calling on another man the doctor had been able to identify as an alcoholic.
So Tom met his nemesis with the doctor and the alcohol and drug specialist and made a phone call to me and told me that he wouldn't be coming home. He was going to go someplace they called treatment. And I wanted to know what the hell did they do there? And he said, he guessed, they were going to teach him how to drink. Because he obviously had a problem with booze. So Tom went off to treatment and that was the beginning of the end for me.
Because at some very deep level I knew that it was done. It was over. It was changing. And that it was never going to be the same again. And within a matter of days I found myself in a hospital, in a veterans hospital here in Seattle up on top of a big hill. And I survived a hepatic coma and came out of that with a little doctor, female doctor, sitting on my bed asking me would I like to quit. Funny she didn't even have to say what.
We all somehow knew what it was I needed to quit. So I asked her if that was possible. And she said that some folks could do that. And she told me there was a program upstairs in that hospital and that when I was stabilized they'd like to take me up there. Where else was I going folks? I couldn't get shoes on. I was school bus yellow and 190 pounds. I was school bus yellow and 190 pounds a bloat, and I wasn't going, I wasn't being sought out.
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So I went, reluctantly, but I went upstairs to this treatment program and there sat 17 men. And they looked me over quickly, I was, I was no threat to anybody. So I, I was very toxic, and as you might guess, very toxic, very angry, terrified. Everything, everything you've been, I was max. And so they finally, on Monday night, Howard Cosell and the football took over on the ward. And I had a private room, but I wasn't allowed to do that because I'd be isolating.
So I sat and made enough caustic remarks about Howard Cosell and men who played football and patted each other on the butt. And finally somebody said, somebody take her downstairs to that meeting. And so faster than you could say anything, I was on my way being wheeled downstairs to the basement of this huge hospital. And there I found 12 more men, all seated around a table. And this was an AA meeting.
And I was just as rude and inappropriate. You did what, I'd say? You said what? Why would you do that? Whatever made you do that? Those were my remarks. Inappropriate, out of, out of sequence, out of context, whatever. And they just smiled at me and said, keep coming back. Keep coming back. And for seven weeks I kept coming back. Because I told them the first night, however, I can't keep coming back if somebody doesn't take me back upstairs.
So somebody took me back upstairs and after that they were damn glad to see me go downstairs to this meeting. So for seven weeks I attended that meeting. And they kept telling me, the men kept telling me that there were women out there. And I kept wishing one of them would show up because by then I was convinced I was the, and I had this figured out, that I was the only woman on the Pacific coast who joined the Navy in World War II that turned out to be a drunk.
They'd only had one other woman in this veterans program in the ten years that they'd had that program and she was Army. So you see, I knew. At any rate, I would just tell you that those men in that small little AA meeting, those men loved me at my unloveliest. They were kind to me and they told me what I needed to hear and they told me I was okay. But when I got out of there, I went and I found the women.
And that was the beginning for me. Those women validated me, nurtured me, told me I was okay. They too had experienced lots of emotional and physical absences from their children. They too had done the same things I had done. And they told me that it got better and that if I was willing to live within the parameters of these 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, that my life would turn around and it would get better.
It would get different a lot, but it would also get better. And so I began my spiritual odyssey and I was very fortunate. I got sober under the most optimum of conditions. My marriage was intact. We loved and cared about one another. And it was okay for me to go to all the meetings I wanted to go to. And so I really appreciate how that worked for me. And I have great gratitude in my heart that that was what was possible for me.
We started living out in the valley outside of Seattle here and opened a little AA meeting. We didn't know how, but I found a baby out there. I had six minutes of sobriety about and I found somebody who was worse off than me. And so I told her she could be the secretary and treasurer and I'd be president of the AA meeting. And so Valar and I started an AA meeting in Duval. And finally after about four months of her husband and my husband and the four of us sitting and looking at one another every Friday night, finally a group of people trudged down the stairs and we really became a meeting.
And they found us and they helped us and we grew. And there are lots of meetings out in that valley today. And we were just the tip of the iceberg.
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There have been many, many things like that for me in sobriety, many gifts that have come to me like that. I feel as though we are in an alcoholic holocaust, that we live in a holocaust, that we are a nation of denial. And I think the best analogy is that after World War II in Germany, nobody could find anybody who'd ever been a member of the Nazi party. Nobody could ever find anybody who'd ever known they were burning people up.
It is like that when you think of it in terms of how this nation views us as recovering alcoholics. And the whole system is so infused with addiction, the whole addictive process. And we are a nation full of denial. And I think that what we have shown Seattle is just an incredible, we have given them an incredible gift to be here en masse like this today. There are many of us in this room who are from, I sometimes think if I hear the word dysfunctional again I'll throw up.
Mine were just nuts, you know. They were very sick and nuts. And I grew up very sick and nuts. And I was only drawn and attracted to people who were sick and nuts. And you know, that just makes sense. And raised my own kids who were sick and nuts and out raising their own. So this is a process. This is a process. However, you know, there's a lot of talk today about ACOA and all that. And I fit all those things.
I have found that a wonderful way. One of the greatest gifts that has come to me from this fellowship is the ability to lighten up and to laugh at myself. And to laugh at others too. And when I think about that and ACOA, I always think about Ronald Reagan. And you know he was the easiest ACOA to identify. You just stop and think about that. Somebody tell you, what about that national debt? He'd say, what national debt?
But the most telling time, and I saw this with my own eyes, was the day the market crashed in October a couple of years ago. And they had this hastily thrown together press conference. And Sam Donaldson, you could see him come out, he'd been prepped and computed and he was ready for anything. Sam Donaldson stood up and he said, what went wrong, Mr. President? And he said, what went wrong where, Sam?
I was raised around folks like that all the time. I knew all about that kind of a day. He was no surprise to me. He was easy to understand, boy. He was typical. Typical untreated ACOA, right? Right on. Part of this process that we go through is called life. And life has a way of impacting us. And we all have experienced life. And probably one of the greatest events that happened for me in terms of trauma was that three and a half years into our sobriety, my husband, Tom, walked in and had a major coronary and was gone in two minutes.
Gone. And I would tell you that I learned many things throughout that process. I spent three months in total abject fear. And mostly that fear had to do with the fact that in that trauma of that, I shut down spiritually. I was totally unable to make any kind of a connection outside of my own fear. I couldn't get up and over the fear. And before that, you know, my life had gone along really well. Everything had just moved along and I had this wonderful, wonderful relationship with God as I understood God.
But it came the time when this, the major trauma of my life, and I just shut down and I was terror stricken.
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I was just terror stricken. I was surrounded by people who were very supportive of me and who were unobtrusive but always there for me. Whatever I needed in the way of companionship was always there for me. And sometimes just to sit and let me cry. After three months of that, I reached a point where while a drink didn't look like one of my options, suicide was certainly one of the things I took a very serious look at.
Because there wasn't any point, number one, living without Tom and or the connection with my higher power. So at the end of three months of that, one night on a raging river here in the state of Washington, I went out and I took a very long, hard look at that river. But before I made any sort of a move like that, I got down on my knees on the banks of that river and I just screamed out my pain and my anger and my fear and all of the stuff I'd bottled up inside of me.
And I screamed that out and in the process of doing that, a feeling of peace came over me. And I was able to get up and go into the house and be quiet for the rest of the evening and to get up the next morning and go home and to say, I'll be okay. I didn't know how, what, where, when, but I knew I was going to be okay. What I had done was I had surrendered. I had surrendered to the pain, to the fear, to the agony.
And once I did that, I then opened the door for my higher power to come back into my life. What had happened was I had gotten in my own way. I was in there, mucking around, trying to figure it out. And every time I do that, I get all the attendant pain, all the attendant grief that goes with that. So there is one very important of all the important things that I know today, and that is that my life is none of my business.
And that if I get out of my way, things begin to happen in God's way. And that as long as I'm willing to stay out of it, it just gets better. Left to my own devices, I'll muck it up every time. So I am grateful to tell you that out of that trauma came the knowledge that the third step works. The knowledge that I just have to get out of my own way. And the knowledge that God loves me, cares about me, and will guide me.
But God will do the guiding. So those were three major lessons. I would tell you that I have never walked through pain in this program, in this part of my life, where there hasn't been a gift waiting for me at the end of it. And always that has been true. And today I got up here and I was scared to death and now I feel like I know all of you. And you know just about everything there is to know about me.
And I'm going to thank you for your kind attention to me. And we're going to call some people up to come up and talk and share with us. Thank you very much. And may we hear from Mary from Nevada. Come on Mary. It's not really scary up here. Where's Mary? Where's Mary? Okay, here she comes. And we ask that as you are called upon, you try to limit your time to three minutes because there are a lot of folks we'd love to hear from.
There's my wife. Thanks Jackie. My name is Mary and I am an alcoholic. It is scary up here. Don't believe her. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. It is scary up here. Don't believe her. I was sitting here listening to Jackie and my sponsor Pat up here and what a wonderful feeling it is that we all can feel here in Nevada. What a, what a wonderful feeling it is that we all can create, one alcoholic being with another, and the whole deal going on here, and the, to just, to just be up here, or to be anywhere out there, and to know what happens when I open up and reach out to another alcoholic, or vice versa, and, uh, what Jackie was saying about ACOA, I was wondering if people from foreign countries know what ACOA is, it's such a big rage here, but, um, I too qualify, um,
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I think I qualify for every Twelve Step program there is, uh, that I've heard of, but, um, I've always found my answers in Alcoholics Anonymous, I've always found my answers by, uh, going to a meeting, um, I didn't always have a problem and walk into a meeting and there it is, bang, but I know when I put one foot in front of the other, do not drink or take drugs in between meetings, my sponsor gave me a really, really important gift, uh, a few years back, she said we're going through something, we're not stuck in something, uh, and the process, which was the opening topic, um, why it takes forever, I don't know, but I think I have a long time, uh, to keep coming back, um, one thing that I have never, ever lost, lost sight of, or it's always been close inside of me, is the fact that, um, when I share it with another alcoholic, it loses some of its power, whatever the problem is, and it also, when I share the joy with another alcoholic, it means so much to me, and, um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, um, I've had the opportunity to see three of my sisters come in the program, uh, one of them unfortunately, isn't in the program any longer, but I still have two, um, sober sisters and, about, uh, five years ago I got a letter from my younger sister, who was just coming in the program, um, we were going to Montreal to the convention five years ago, um, and she sent me a letter, she was making plans to go, and one of the, one of the pro, one of the things she said in the letter was, I don't crave alcohol anymore, other things are a problem, but I share it, I talk about it, and it goes away, and, uh, she only had six months recovery at the time, and now she's going on six years, um, and she's here, she's here too, and I just can't, I just, I, you know, I thought, I had a warning that I was going to be called to come up here and talk, and I thought, how can you say in three minutes what this program has given, or what it means, what it means to be a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous, there is no way to describe it, but there's a way to feel it, and I think it's the feeling that's going on right here, and all around Seattle right now, and I, and I lived here for nine years, and it's so good, I don't live here anymore, I, I came back for the convention, and it's just, it's just an incredible, incredible high to be here, and to share what's going on here, and I'm so glad you're all here, thanks.
Dave from Lake Tahoe. Do you want my cane, Dave? I'm Dave, I'm an alcoholic. I liked what Jackie was saying about my life is none of my business, um, I feel like my pain is none of my business, that's God's pain. I've had a, a chronic thing going on for a long time now, and I believe that the grace of God can heal me, and that's been true, that's exactly what's been happening in my life, as much as I can accept it, because it's always there, and it's always offered to me, and my main problem is getting me out of the way, so that I can accept the good that my higher power wants for me, because I believe that God wants me to be happy, joyous, and free, and sober, and rich, and beautiful, and, uh, satisfied.
And, um, I was coming down the steps of the hotel last night, and I tripped on a step, I twisted my ankle, and, and, uh, I, I, when I said, well, this isn't that bad, you know, I can, I can handle this, and, so I went to the dance last night, and went walking around town, and this morning I woke up, and it swelled up, and it's discolored, and, so I went to the hospital, I was in the emergency room this morning, getting it X-rayed, and the doctor says, well, you have a sprained ankle, and it's not broken, luckily, and, and, uh, here's these crutches, so now you, you gotta get around on crutches, and I was just kind of laughing at myself in the car on the way home, because I was thinking, well, you know, how could I cause this accident to myself? And I thought, well, there's no accidents, right? And, and my wife said, yeah, there's not, because we 12-stepped three people while we were at that hospital, and that's the reason why we had to be there.
I, I, I just want to say one other thing about acceptance, that's, that seems to be where I'm at in my program. I got sober in Roseburg, Oregon in 1986, and I had a sponsor, my first sponsor, name of Dale D., if anybody's heard or seen him, or if you're out there, let me know, I'm looking for you, Dale.
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And, uh, he told me, one time, I was newly sober, and I was looking at all these things, what am I going to do with my life? And I had all these different ways I could go, and he said, well, I, I said, how do you, how do you choose, how do I know what's God's will, and how do I know if I'm not choosing the wrong thing? And he says, well, you look at whatever is available to you, and then you pick. You know, you ask for guidance, and then you merely choose one path or the other. And I said, well, you know, what if it's the wrong thing? What if I pick my way instead of God's way? And he said, no, that's not possible, because whatever happens, that's God's will.
And so today, I just have to remember that there's no accidents and no coincidences, and that I'm here for a reason, and God, it feels great. You guys are wonderful, and I'm glad to be a part of this fellowship. Thank you. How about Lena from Bremerton? Oh, my God. You're beautiful. My name is Lena, and I'm a sober alcoholic. I don't know if you feel the electricity in the room, but, boy, I've been feeling it ever since I got here this morning. You know, I took the day off from work, and she stole three of my minutes, so I'm going to take them back.
This beautiful, inspiring woman, I'm truly one of the, although it's bad for our humility to give her that much of praise, you know. I never found a ladylike way to fall off of a bar stool. I don't know about you guys, you know. There's a person in the room who's responsible for my sobriety, a great deal responsible. I used to borrow money from her to drink over in Bremerton. My last drunk was at the Chief's Club at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, and she was waiting tables there, and she'd been in AA a couple of years. I knew she'd disappeared, but she didn't drink like I did.
I wanted to just get drunk for the end of the day, but her, man, she took highballs and chased them with straight shots, and it took 12 of us to get her out of the club. I'd love, I wish you could hear her story. She's truly an inspiring person, and, Nita, I owe you my life, babe. She's my sister. Thank you, by the way, for being here. Washington will never be the same, I guarantee you, if they could only see us in here. You know, when I'd been sober just about six months, I'd come over to Seattle. I'd never come over to this side of the water, by the way. You know, I'm from a small town. I was born in Oklahoma, and for those of you Okies out there, hello, I saw a few of you this morning.
But I'm, Bremerton is about 40,000 people, and that's big enough for me. I don't know what I was going to say about, oh, I never come over to this side of the water, but I came over here once, and I didn't stay long, because I'm telling you, if I get drunk, I lose my way around town. This lady's talking about being a veteran. I was drunk during the entire Vietnam War. I didn't know where Vietnam was. All I knew was the last time I'd heard, it was Indochina, and the French was in there. They talk about the loneliness of the practicing alcoholic, and I ask you, in your thought today, I've got a, I work with veterans, and I've got a guy that got up and walked out of a treatment.
I'm not professionally in it, but we've got a lot of Navy guys over there, and I've got a retired Navy corpsman that got up and walked out of treatment the other day. They had brought him in the hospital in DTs. He's a brave man, one of the bravest I ever met, and I saw his medical history and his background. He's going to die from the booze he's drinking himself to death, but I ask you to hold him in your heart and talk to your higher power about him.
I was going to say, if they'd have mentioned God to me when I first got sober, I'd have said, shove it, man. I'd have been out that door, because I come from the Bible Belt back there, you know, where you're going to fry if you say the wrong things.
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But somewhere along the line, I forgave God. By the way, I didn't know I was mad at him until I sobered up. But I didn't, and even now today, I went down to California, no offense you guys, and I'm not even going to tell you the town I went to, but they opened up the meeting with our Heavenly Father, and boy, the hair on the back of my neck just started crawling. And I said, wait a minute, you know, I said, what about the atheists and the agnostics and the non-believers, you know, blah, blah.
I had to correct them right then and there, you know. My sobriety date, if I make it, my birthday month is August, and it's August 25, 1970 if I make it, but she swears up and down it's not for her, I won't make it, you know. One day at a time, one day at a time. In 1980, I woke up, I had a brain hemorrhage, an aneurysm, if you don't know what that is, that's where a bubble goes off in your head. They always did wonder why I was a little flaky. But when I came to, there was a minister standing on one side of me and a doctor standing on the other, and I said, am I going to live?
And they said, we don't know. And I looked at that minister, you know, and I thought, well, I better start doing some fast talking. He forgave me somewhere along the line. I found a higher power that I choose to call God. But for you newcomers out there, when they say keep coming back, those of you who are struggling, why did I go back when I'm the rebel, I'm the maverick, and I'm the misfit? Don't tell me nothing, boy, don't tell me how to do anything, but you can tell me how you did it, and I'll listen, you know.
But, well, I can't share with you, because I feel this pressure sitting over here in this red jacket. But, oh, I think you're exciting, and I'm really glad to be here, and I'm going to go through, I'm going to saturate myself with AA this weekend. But say a prayer for my friend, and keep it simple, you guys. Bye-bye. How about a volunteer? Come on, guys. Come on. I got one right here. My name is Michael, I'm a drug addict. Alcohol's a drug. I'm sober today by the grace of God and the fellowship of you people.
Yeah, I've been mad at God. When I first got sober, I was on a pink cloud for nine months, and at three months sober, I was telling old-timers for 20 years how to work their program, and went to Boston to save Boston from alcoholism, and found out the hard way I couldn't save anyone, I can't even save myself. That's God's job, whatever the hell God is, you know. But I know that I'm a miracle today. I didn't drink today, I didn't take any drugs today, and that's just incredible, and to me that's what this is all about.
God knows I want to drink and I want to drug a lot these days. I've been kind of riding a dry drunk for the past four years. I want to stay sober more than I want to drink, more than I want to drug, and that's why I'm here today. I drove from Boston, and the miracle, I was going to sleep in my van the whole time, and I hooked up with a woman from Al-Anon, her family, her husband's got about 15 months, she offered me a place to stay in Issaquah. Had I been paying for this, it would be like $150 a night, and I didn't ask for this. This was just handed to me on a plate.
I'm having a hard time in relationships. I can't speak. I'm just overwhelmed with this incredible conference. I think I'd be better for it, and you probably would too, because I can be a control freak at times, and it's just a real, real high to be in. It's just a real, real high to be in a city, and sometimes I feel real lonely here, you know, I know there's going to be a meeting on that, if you feel lonely and stuff, that's okay, you know, there's lots of us that feel, we don't have to be alone, we don't have to go through this alone, you know, we're here to help each other, and if you talk about your problems and you participate, like what I'm doing here, and not that I'm better than anyone here, though I'd like to think so, you know, we can get better, that's how I get better, is by sharing my problem,
[00:45:22]
and Bill told me that a problem shared is a problem solved, you know, and I believe I feel better just having participated with you people, and I love you all, thanks a lot. My name is Jim S., I'm an alcoholic from Troutdale, Oregon, I had the opportunity to have tears run down my face four different times sitting in the meeting, and I had to walk out and tell some friends of mine I have to get up and say something, and I've done two different things like that in Alcoholics Anonymous, one time when I stuck a finger in a guy's chest and told him I was his sponsor, and I don't even know where that came from that night, but it worked for both of us, I'm half a decade, and I'd have 12 years of sobriety except for I thought you could smoke pot, and I'm not going to go into, I can best describe my past, I heard Patty O. one time say that I was an alcoholic with latent human tendencies, and I can relate to that, and I don't need to talk about the jails, I don't need to talk about the mistreatment of a wife who tried to love me, I don't need to, all those things have been taken care of through a program called Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm pretty much in awe of that miracle, and I'm pretty much in awe of you people, and I'm pretty much in awe of a God that I would not believe in, I'm pretty much in awe of sponsorship that I had that at the time I hated, that I cussed out, that every other word started with an F when I got here, of having to turn myself in, and if this doesn't sound crazy, to the IRS, of not serving time a couple of times over things I could have, of having a scar that runs down my face that reminds me every morning when I smile and shave that that's how I got to Alcoholics Anonymous the last time, of walking into a Saturday night meeting because people were familiar with me in this little town, I'd come to your meetings and I wouldn't get better, see, because I just wanted it to happen, and I didn't want to do anything, and so when I was uncomfortable I drank, and then I'd clean up and come back, and the last time that happened, you folks had somehow filtered something in my head and somebody had thrown a dish in a bar and it caught me in the cheek, and cut my face open, and being a tough alcoholic, see, because I grew up with loggers, I drove myself to the hospital four or five days later when they told me that they'd done micro surgery and I'd lost three and a half pints of blood, and one more time I shouldn't be alive, I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and you know Alcoholics Anonymous worked for about eleven months keeping me sober without me doing anything, but going to meetings, and making it as miserable as I could because I wouldn't take the action of the steps, and I'm not like some people that have enough intelligence left to surrender, I had to be defeated, and when I became defeated, and then I got suicidal, I accidentally slipped that out in a meeting, and these old boys grabbed me and they said, we've got a place to take you, and they took me to a meeting called Scully's in Portland, Oregon down on Burnside where they work with what they called the real alcoholics, and before every meeting they read something called, and they said if what you see here and what you hear here cannot be reconciled in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it is of our opinion you're better off not hearing it at all, you know, and I didn't like any of that, but I eventually came to know your God, and I came to know you, and I have a daughter that graduates from West Point next June, and none of it is deserved, and none of it is earned, it is because you loved me when I was unlovable, thank you.
I really like this, I get to hug all the guys.
[00:50:05]
Hi everybody, my name is Jim, Grateful Recovering Alcoholic, and I too am sober today through the grace of God and this wonderful fellowship. I'm from Lake Wales, Florida, and down in Florida when they have meetings they ask if anybody has a burning desire to speak, well it's not really a burning desire, but I felt almost compelled to, out of gratitude I guess, to say thanks to Bill Wilson, who started this fabulous thing some 1935, through God's grace and your help, I celebrated 20 years in January, and when I look back, I'd also be remiss if I didn't recognize all the red tags in here.
I got into AA because of Al-Anon, and a few other things like a judge and some police, but it was Al-Anon actually, because my wife went there first, she's a lovely lady down here, and I owe my life, I truly, truly owe my life to AA. There's no other way, there's no other way as far as I'm concerned that we can get sober. I've heard stories about psychologists, psychiatrists, priests, ministers, those simple 12 steps, and I love what she said about we are a nation of denial.
My entire family denies that anybody in the family is alcoholic. I look out here and I see young people, old, well not say old, let's say a little more mature, a little more mature people. And it's just wonderful, if I had been, when I was 17 I was almost kicked out of the Navy because of booze. Had I only listened then, I could have avoided a lot of pain. But I also like what this young lady said about God. To me, it's a God-inspired program. I'm so fortunate I can get up in the morning, I read my 24-hour book every morning at breakfast with my lovely wife.
She reads her Odette book, and that reminds me, Jim, you're an alcoholic. I don't care what I've been, what I'll ever be, I know that I'm an alcoholic, and I pray that I will die a sober alcoholic. And I tell you, if you haven't got up here, if you have something to say, even if it's for a minute, even to say thank you to AA, come do it, come do it. Because this is, I don't know when I've ever been this thrilled. It's like she said, the young girl before, how can you say in three minutes or two minutes what it was like for 20 years? This program gave me my life. I wouldn't even be in Seattle, let alone live, so I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
And we're going to ask Jan P. now to speak to us. Jan? I didn't want anyone to know who I was, and I crept into the meetings dependent on blackmail. I wouldn't tell on you if you wouldn't tell on me. And that worked for a period of time. And to think of where I am now, to feel so delighted to be with you, and to be one of you, and to have you my people. But this was, as much as this was true, it is even more so now. Because a week from today, ago today, my niece died as a result of this accident, of this illness. And I have a good way of knowing now of just how important we are.
We always talk. When Lena was saying about the Navy Corpsman, we talk about these things, and we know there are people out there who aren't going to make it. But this has touched me now so personally. And I went to an AA meeting with my other niece down in Marin County, California, and we share it together. What a gift we have been given. We work our rears off to work our program, but it still comes back to this. This is a gift of sobriety that we have been given. My niece was not given this. And I am really grieving over this and aware of how much we have been given here. Thank you.
We have a gentleman who has come all the way from Ireland. Thank you so much. For me to be up here from Cork in Ireland, my name is Dennis. I am an alcoholic. And due to the grace of God and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am sober today.
[00:55:17]
This is beyond my wildest dreams. And when I see down there that matchly crew that I travelled with, some of them from San Francisco, six of us together with 95 years of sobriety between us, the message that you people here in the United States brought to us in our little country there on the other side of the Atlantic, my heart fills with warmth for you. And I can assure you that if you come to Ireland, you will get a Cade Meal of Farta. That is 100,000 welcomes.
And I know that, as I said, that this is the icing on the cake. And I want to think back to that little town that I come from and that little group that nurtured me and gave me this tremendous gift. When I, at the end of my drinking, and again just out of another mental institution, went to try and get reconciled with my wife who was also seriously ill in another hospital. My two eldest children were scattered and the two children younger than those were also in hospital.
And she said to me, when I again apologised, she said, Dennis, don't look back in anger, not forward in fear, but around in awareness. And that was the message that I got when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I think of her today because to me, even though there is silver threads amongst the gold, she is still fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky. And from that, those terrible days, being brought to Alcoholics Anonymous, being told simple things, whatever else, drink it out, you don't drink today.
Find a loving higher power and take your own inventory. I've stuck to those words and from that has blossomed this beautiful programme. And all I can say is that viva America, long live America. And again, thank you very much. God bless you all. Here's Sandy. Hi, my name is Sandy. I'm a member of Al-Anon. There wasn't any room in the rooms where the Al-Anon meetings were being held. They're jammed full.
And I knew I would be welcomed here. And I felt comfortable to come in here. We talk programme, we talk 12-step and that's the basis of all of this fellowship. It's the basis of all the anonymous programmes. It is really, really beautiful to me. Eight years ago as I sat around the tables of Al-Anon as a newcomer and I heard one woman say, I never thought I'd be grateful for the alcoholic in my life, but today I thank God for the alcoholic.
And I thought, well, good for her. That would be the day you'd ever see me, hear me saying something like that. That was back in the days when I couldn't string two words together. That was back in the days when I couldn't string two words together, look anybody in the eye, or speak out loud. It feels really good being up here. But I want you to know today, I am deeply, deeply grateful for the alcoholic in my life.
[01:00:06]
The person that brought me to this beloved Twelve Step program, and I don't care what you call it, Alcohol Anonymous, Al-Anon, Overeaters Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, they're all wonderful, beautiful, life-giving programs, and it gave me back my life that I never was living until I came into program. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Takayuki, and I am from Japan. Thank you very much. And I am an alcoholic.
And I was in and out of mental hospital ten times. And ten times of mental hospital is too many times in recent Japanese Alcoholics Anonymous program. My case is so minor case, but when I was drinking, there was no AA alcohols program. Today, Japanese 64 people are coming here to join AA Seattle 55 convention, and they are so grateful for your nice and warm accommodations. And in my case, I was drinking alcohol or taking drugs, and I was sleeping all day long at my last stage of alcoholism.
But I could not stop drinking, and I was sometimes engaged in Johnny Walker dispute in Japan. But I was kicked out because I was drinking Johnny Walker too much. And when I was age 43, at first, I started AA program, and I was trying to attend. I have been trying to attend AA meetings day by day, and at first, now, I have got sober life. Now, I have been sober for 11 years. Thank you very much. AA in Japan started 15 years ago, and there are about 3,000 AA regular members throughout Japan.
And including non-regular members, there are about 10,000 AA members. And compared with AA in the United States or in Canada or so many other countries, it is very minor group in Japan, but it is growing day by day. So we are very grateful for our higher power, for Alcoholics Anonymous program, and for all AA members here and throughout world. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is Sid from Juneau. Hey, Sid, how are you?
Hi, I'm Sid. I'm an alcoholic. I'm very, very grateful to be here for my life. When I came in here, I conveniently forgot my drinking and my blackouts. I had quit drinking when I found a higher power. That was another addiction, people to get high off of out of there, outside of myself like everything else. I was this intellectual giant who had a higher power in a computer, a thousand pages in a computer that could pull out keywords.
I thought that's what a higher power was. And I got here ready to drink again or die, kill myself or have a nervous breakdown. My best thinking when I first came to AA, I knew you were all real sick. And I knew that you could recover so I could recover quickly.
[01:05:01]
And when I think of this process, this subject, I learned the hard way. The longer I've been in recovery, the sicker I've become, the sicker. I keep realizing how sick I've been. And the amazing thing is the sicker I realize I am, the better life gets, the more I can surrender to my higher power. And just do what I'm told for once in my life and work the steps and talk to my sponsor and so on. I'm just real grateful to be here.
Thank you all. Good afternoon. My name is Vincette. I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon from Tucson, Arizona. I just want to take this opportunity to express a quick gratitude to AA. My ex-husband was in AA and it was his best friend in AA when he went to his first or second meeting that suggested that I go to Al-Anon eight years ago and I'm still going strong. Thanks a lot. We're just about on the closing side of our share of this.
But before we go, I'd like you to have the opportunity to talk to Pat S. Thank you, Jackie. I'm Pat. I'm an alcoholic addict. And tremendously grateful to be here and to see all you out there and to realize the marvelous growth in this beautiful program of recovery. When I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1959, my ex-husband, who is now deceased from this disease, was much further along the road to alcoholism than I was and I used to follow him into meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I tell you, of all the memories of things that I did while drinking and in early sobriety, the worst memory I have, the very most shame-faced memory I have, is going into a closed meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and telling you nice alcoholics how to do the inventory the Al-Anon way. I can't tell you about the ego and arrogance I brought to the program. I didn't stay sober at that time and I didn't stay too long in Al-Anon.
I was there as long as my husband and I were together and then I went out and drank the way I had wanted to drink for three years. And in that three-year period from 1967 to 1970, every one of the yets, except death, insanity, and permanent incarceration, occurred. I did get incarcerated twice for drunk driving. The first time was the most horrible thing that ever happened to me. It would never happen again.
The second time, as the jail doors closed behind me, there was this little lady from First Avenue, a little bag lady, and she looked up and she said, Oh, what's a nice lady like you doing here? And I smiled and said, Obviously there's been a mistake. At any rate, I came back to Alcoholics Anonymous on the 15th of April, 1970, and I have a continuous clean and sober since that time. And I say sober since that time because I did have some prescription drugs that I chose to take for the first three years.
But at any rate, the yets that I think about today are different from the yets then. The yets today are that you're eligible too. Every one of us is eligible for the joys of recovery. And all we have to do, really, is to show up for drill and not drink between meetings. There was a man, when I first came into my recovery, who went to every AA meeting that I went to on the east side of Lake Washington.
In those days, we had 70 meetings a week of Alcoholics Anonymous in the whole greater Puget Sound area. Today, I think we have a thousand meetings in that same group, which is just incredible to me. At any rate, every meeting, my friend Lloyd would say, My name is Lloyd. I'm an alcoholic. AA is for those who want it, not those who need it. And you better believe I want it. Monotone. And that's the end.
And every meeting, I'd see him the next night. AA is for those who want it, not those who need it. And you better believe I want it. And I wanted to kill him. I thought, My God. He became a great, as the man before us was just saying, intellectual, superior human being. Well, my intellect is what got me drunk, and my intellect kept me drunk, and what have you. But anyway, eventually, after being around a while, and incidentally, Lloyd has 27 years of continuous sobriety at this point.
In every meeting, he says, His name is Lloyd. And AA is for those who need it, not those who want it. And you better believe I want it. But you know, today, my ears have changed. His message hasn't changed.
[01:10:00]
What I hear him saying is that this program is a gift to us. If it were for those people who needed it, we would be meeting in the Kingdome, not just tonight and Sunday. We'd be meeting in the Kingdome 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, standing room only. Please make your reservations far in advance. Because this marvelous program is a gift to us. But it is needed by the whole world, as Jackie has said.
I am so grateful that somewhere along the line, somebody said to me, not, Let us love you until you can love yourself, because that made me want to throw up, because I knew I would never love myself, but they said to me, Let us tolerate you until you can stand yourself. And I, who hated myself as a woman, and who hated other women, because I couldn't stand myself, am so filled with joy at the recovery of women in this program, and to be a part of the recovery of some beautiful women in this program, and to be myself sponsored by a woman in this program.
I am so filled with joy. And to be myself sponsored by a woman in this program. I am just overjoyed with the opportunity to be here with you, and to have all of you here with us in the great state of Washington. Please keep coming back. It does work. Now, I would like to take the prerogative of closing the meeting with a serenity prayer. Do you want to start it? God, God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Keep coming back. It works. If you work it.