Bill D. – AA # 3 – The Man On The Bed – Speaking in Canton, OH

(0:02 – 0:23)
I want to thank you folks for inviting me down here. First thing, I want to congratulate
you on having as many here as you have on your first anniversary. I think it was on our
ninth anniversary that we had over in Akron High, that I heard Doc get up and make this
statement.
(0:24 – 0:43)
I never paid much attention to statistics about any kind of statistics about AA. It never
made any particular difference to me who was first, second, third, or fourth. How many
but our Doc get up and make this statement? He said that at our first anniversary, we
had six at the end of the year.
(0:43 – 0:50)
Well, I didn’t remember that. And he said that four of them are here tonight. That was on
our ninth anniversary.
(0:50 – 1:05)
He said, and four of them are here tonight. One of them’s dead, and one of them’s out of
town and couldn’t be here. Well, I happen to know that a couple of them that were there
had had a little trouble during those nine years, but they were there that night and were
sober.
(1:07 – 1:24)
And so that’s all we had on our first anniversary was six, and of course, there were
several times this year. And of course, when we had that anniversary, I certainly never
expected to be down in North Canyon talking to folks. And there were a lot of the other
places where I have been and talking.
(1:24 – 1:46)
And we just had in mind that we’d get sober and stay sober. And to do that, we had to go
out and take this program to a few people, and enough to get sober and stay sober
ourselves, and then that would be the end. Now, that’s all I had in mind, I know, and I’m
pretty positive that there wasn’t anything much else in the minds of the others except to
stay sober ourselves.
(1:47 – 2:04)
That early thought has been worth quite a little bit to me. And then Third Freeway. I
haven’t felt any great responsibility about the movement being such a wonderful
movement and all those great things that are going to be done.
(2:04 – 2:16)
I even had a woman after one of the meetings I was through, she’d come around, oh,
she’d been a missionary in China for a long time, a very wonderful woman. Oh, she said,
this is wonderful. She said, maybe this is the answer to world peace.
(2:16 – 2:35)
And I said, well, I don’t know. Anyhow, I hope that the answer to peace in a lot of homes
around Manhattan, where you used to get drunk and fight with each other, now if you
can carry it on over and make the world peace out of it, that’s fine. But I have always
had in mind that the main purpose of AA was to stay sober.
(2:36 – 2:55)
And now there’s a lot to AA, in my opinion, that’s worth a lot more. And a lot in there
outside of staying sober. But actually and honestly, I hope that we always keep sobriety
as the main purpose of AA.
(2:55 – 3:11)
Now, I know positively that that’s the thing that we started out with, was to stay sober.
Certainly, I’ve got a lot of things out of it further than that. One fellow even argued with
me about not too long ago, and said if sobriety had been the only thing he got, it just
wouldn’t have been worthwhile.
(3:11 – 3:25)
And I said, well, I don’t know about you, but I know about me. I said the last six months I
drank, I was dragged into the hospital eight times, six months. Four or five times of those
times I’ve been tied down in bed there too, before I ever knew all of that.
(3:26 – 3:38)
And I said my doctor told me I didn’t have a two or three more, and I know I knew as well
as he knew that I didn’t have. He said, you get in such terrible shape that you’re not
going to make many more of them. And I knew it.
(3:39 – 3:56)
And that was 16 years ago, and I’m still living, and still feeling pretty good. In fact, just
about a year ago I had some sort of virus, and I stayed in bed two days. My wife kept
telling me go to the doctor, but I think this is sort of a call, and I don’t want to be
bothered with doctors.
(3:57 – 4:02)
But I did finally go, and he told me, he said, you’re sick. And I said, yeah, I know. But I
came back and told my wife.
(4:03 – 4:12)
She said, well, I kept wanting you to go to the doctor. She said, I knew you were sick.
She said, that’s the first time I’ve seen you stay in bed all day since they used to tie you
in bed 15 years ago.
(4:12 – 4:26)
Which was the truth, I hadn’t thought about it. But I said, that happened to me the last
six months I drank. And I’ve had, since that time, the day before yesterday, the fourth
day of July, was when I came out of the hospital.
(4:26 – 4:41)
Of course, I’d been sober some three or four days then. And that was 16 years ago that I
came out of the hospital, and I said, I’ve had 8 or 10 years extra of life, I know, that have
been good, with good health. And then you tell me, I said, that certainly was worthwhile.
(4:41 – 5:08)
If I had never gotten anything more out of a than that, that fact that I don’t go to the
hospital anymore, and I don’t go through all that hell and stuff that I went through with,
and the fact that I’ve had that number of years of good life is certainly worthwhile. If I
had never gotten anything more, I did get a lot more out of it, there’s a lot more in it,
and I hope that folks will get it. But I still hope that we keep that sobriety, the main
purpose of AA.
(5:09 – 5:30)
And, you know, it’s getting a little bit harder for me to beat a meeting right along. I think
the reason for that is that I’ve been doing it for so long, and most of you fellas know that
I’ve been doing it for so long, and so you begin to wonder why in the devil I don’t get any
better than what I am. And that makes it a little bit tough on me.
(5:31 – 5:36)
Well, that might be good too. Maybe then they’ll sort of stop asking me. You know, I was
just talking.
(5:37 – 6:01)
I think the first meeting that I went out of town to lead was over in Toledo, and I expect
that was better than ten years ago. Because I think it was about two years ago, I was
over in Aden, Michigan, and I was talking to a big fella there, and I said the first time I
was ever over here in Toledo, he was up there from Toledo, and I said that was about
seven or eight years, something like that ago. He said, well, I know exactly how long it’s
been.
(6:01 – 6:25)
He said, I haven’t been sober but about three weeks, and I was at that meeting, and I’ve
been sober eight years. So it’s been better than ten years, as far as I know, that I went
out of town. And I’ve been doing it, and there’s a lot of you fellas back there that can do
just as good a job as I can, and you ought to be up here leading this meeting instead of
me, because you can do it just as well, and it will help you.
(6:26 – 6:52)
Because in my opinion, there isn’t anything much that helps a person more than leading
the meetings. In fact, that was one of the main things that they had in mind when we
started out, and when we went to a meeting in the early days, we didn’t know when we
went who was going to lead the meeting. We went, and we had what we called quiet
time, and during that quiet time, we was to open our minds for instruction as to who we
thought ought to lead the meeting that night.
(6:52 – 7:18)
And then after we did that, they sat there in silence for five minutes, and they started
around, and you think, and this fellow say this one, this one, that one, and whoever
happened to have the most, we pointed to him and said, well, it’s you. So he got up
there and took charge of the meeting and went ahead, and we didn’t know until we got
there who was going to do it, and that wouldn’t be a bad idea to try out. In my opinion,
every once in a while, I’m here.
(7:19 – 7:38)
It’ll help a fellow. It might mush him up a little bit for a minute or two and get us, but
we’ll get over it, and I used to say when I started out that if no one was helped in the
meeting except me, well, I certainly knew I would be. By leading the meetings, it would
help.
(7:39 – 8:23)
And this idea of these fine speakers and good speakers and so forth being called in, I
never have been too much in favor of that because I’ve seen some mighty good fellows
take a licking on account of the fact that I’m very positive that that idea that they were
in demand quite a bit as speakers sort of began to go up here to the top of their head a
little bit, and they got a little proud of it. And the fact is I watched two or three of them,
and I was sort of wondering if that wasn’t happening, and then one or two of them, it
certainly happened terribly bad to them. Now, that might not have had anything to do
with it, but they did fall off a little bit, and I sort of wondered.
(8:24 – 8:35)
It’s a little, now, I’m not saying what I got up here to say, but it is a little hard, you know.
I was lucky. I’ve been lucky all the way through.
(8:36 – 8:56)
That’s helped me out an awful lot. I never could feel particularly complimented by the
reason of the fact that they asked me because they happened to ask me just because I
happened to be the first person that Doc and Bill worked on and were successful with.
I’m very positive that’s the reason they asked me rather than what I happened to say.
(8:57 – 9:22)
Well, I had no control over the fact that they happened to be the ones that, that I
happened to be the one that they picked up first, so I never could feel that way about it.
And that’s been helpful to me. But I remember one time I came in there at home, and I’d
been to a meeting, and, you know, I think, so the meeting, you know, something’s
getting sort of wrong with these meetings.
(9:23 – 9:36)
They’re not hardly up to par. And, I mean, just what’s the matter? What’s wrong? This
ain’t happening or something. I just wasn’t, I was rather low about how it was going.
(9:37 – 9:43)
And so I picked up a little book there and opened it like this. I just saw it laying there. It
was my wife’s magazine.
(9:43 – 9:47)
She, I never ever looked at it. But I picked it up that night and pulled it open. Just a
matter of luck.
(9:47 – 10:00)
I never looked. Pulled it open and I started to read it. And while I never even looked at
the heading, I don’t know yet what the heading of the article was, but the part I read
was, and I’m a little ashamed to tell you this, but it actually happened.
(10:01 – 10:20)
The fellow said he went over to his neighbors, and the fellow insisted on showing him
about an hour or better of pictures, new pictures that he’d taken of he and his family
around the house there. Well, the man said, I had seen him day after day around there
doing those same things, and I’d seen those rose bushes and things, and it really wasn’t
very interesting. It was rather boring to me to sit down and look at those pictures.
(10:21 – 10:31)
Then I said, as always, said, of course, naturally to be polite, I had to say something. Said
they had a little eight-year-old girl. Said I looked over at her, and I said, well, what part of
the picture did you like the best? Well, she said, part of it.
(10:32 – 10:36)
I was in, of course, she said. Well, I’ll do it. And that came to my mind.
(10:36 – 10:50)
Now, do you reckon that’s what is sort of the matter? Maybe they sort of slipped up here,
and maybe they haven’t been paying you hardly as much attention. Maybe you haven’t
read as many meetings. In the last, I wouldn’t tell you this, I’m sort of ashamed of it, but
it might help you.
(10:50 – 11:33)
And I said, haven’t they been paying as much attention to you as they should, or
something like that? If that’s the reason you’re finally hurt. And when I analyzed it down
and write down the fact I had to come to the conclusion that possibly that might have
had something to do with the fact that I thought those meetings weren’t hardly as
entertaining as they had been because I hadn’t had the spatial attention that I maybe
thought that I ought to have. Although I really never particularly wanted any spatial
attention because, and I told them over and over again, I don’t, because I’m very
positive that if anybody else begins to set me up there as somebody to go by and lean
on and give me spatial attention, well, the old devil, he’ll start giving me spatial attention
too.
(11:33 – 11:42)
And I’ve had about all the attention from that boy for the last 16 years and all my life,
and I really won’t. Now, I don’t say that in any sacrilegious way. I mean it.
(11:42 – 11:56)
Well, he’s always right after a fellow. And if he says, well, if I kick Bill out, I can knock a
half dozen, well, he’ll concentrate on me and I don’t need any concentration. And that’s
neither here nor there, but I thought about that, that that might happen.
(11:57 – 12:49)
But the fact, as I mentioned a while ago, that the idea of sobriety is the reason that we
are primarily in AA and the fact that I never expected any great world movement or
anything like that to go out of it has helped me because in that way I can go ahead and
do AA and practice AA the same way it was taught to me, which I’m going to give it to
you directly in about, and it only takes me about 10 minutes to do that. That’s what I
ought to do, of course, and quit, but I keep on talking a long time to get up to it. And it’s
helped me to go ahead and practice and talk AA just the way I learned it without feeling
too much responsibility of what’s going to happen in the movement and arguing with this
bunch that wants to do it this way and arguing with this bunch that wants to do it that
way.
(12:50 – 13:08)
And now there’s a little bit of that, you know, that’s going on around now. That some of
them want it this way and some of them want it the other way. And I told a fellow today,
he came all the way down to Cleveland and bought my dinner to give me help or
something, but he thought it was so-and-so and I just told him, I said, now wait, I’ll learn
this AA one way.
(13:09 – 13:24)
And I learned AA that the main purpose that I was in AA was not to save the world and
not to save a lot of people, but to keep Bill Dotson sober. That’s the main reason I’m in it.
To do that, I have to take this message to people.
(13:25 – 13:29)
And now, from now on, they have to take over. I can’t keep him sober. I couldn’t keep
him sober.
(13:30 – 13:41)
I couldn’t save the world. I don’t think I was expected to save the world. And the fact is, I
can’t think that you can find any place in the Bible, any place, where anybody was
supposed to save anybody.
(13:42 – 13:59)
If you go back and read the four synoptic gospels, you’ll find just before Jesus ascended,
he said, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. He never told you to save
anybody. I even read in the paper today where that fellow ministered up there and was
wanting so-and-so so he could save a lot of people.
(14:00 – 14:11)
I don’t think we do that. And I don’t think we keep them sober. We can take them the
message, but from now on, it’s between them and this higher power as to what happens.
(14:11 – 14:35)
And that’s what I’ve been doing is when they ask me to go around and tell folks, the AA
program as they gave it to me and sometimes a few other little things, I’ve noticed that I
heard a fellow get up and say in King’s School on Wednesday night, and that’s the first
time I’d heard him admit it that way. He said he stayed sober seven and a half years,
and then he got drunk and it took him about 15 months to get sobered back. Well, that
was true.
(14:35 – 14:50)
And I knew it, and he’s been sober since. And he admitted that, he said, I was a terribly
intolerant son of a gun. He said, I just didn’t have no damn use for these fellows that
came in through AA and slipped.
(14:50 – 14:58)
He said, I just couldn’t see it coming. Well, thank goodness I never had that kind of spirit.
When he comes around and tells me, he said, oh, he said, I had a slip.
(14:58 – 15:08)
I said, you had a slip and you just went out and got drunk. Just exactly the same way I
did hundreds of times after I knew I shouldn’t, I went out and did it. Now, that’s just what
you did.
(15:08 – 15:23)
No slipping or anything else, just got right over again. Of course, maybe AA would look
better to the outside world if we saved another fellow that came around and said he
belongs to AA. I don’t know how in the world he belongs to AA.
(15:24 – 15:43)
There wasn’t any joining or anything like that when I came in. And now I rambled around
there to talk to you. It was, as I mentioned a while ago, it was 16 years ago, about the
26th of June that I came to over there in the city hospital in Akron, Ohio.
(15:44 – 16:09)
One Thursday morning, that’s the only way in the world that I knew what particular day it
was. I knew it was Wednesday and I went in there and the only way in the world that I
remembered a year or two later that it was Wednesday was that I knew I started on
Saturday. And the last time before that that I had come out of the hospital, I told my
wife, I said, for goodness sakes, don’t let me get in such terrible shape any more before I
get into the hospital.
(16:09 – 16:23)
I said, that’s been hell the last few times. See if you can’t get me to go in the hospital. It
usually took me about 10, 12 days from the time I took that first drink until I ended up
over there in the hospital tied down.
(16:23 – 16:36)
It took 10 or 12 days. A week of it out, round and round like that, in and out. Then the
last week of it I found on the third floor of my home, so I was supposed to be out of town
and if anybody come in, they wouldn’t hear me up there.
(16:37 – 17:00)
And I just laid up there in that bed on the third floor by myself, which wasn’t my bedroom
if it’s on the second. But I’d go up there and hide and every time I’d wake up I’d just
reach over and get the bottle and take another drink and go back to sleep and keep that
up for about four or five days or a week. Finally comes a day, you know, you’ve heard
folks talk about throwing them up, you know, couldn’t get them down no more and well,
I’ll throw them up, up, up, up like that.
(17:00 – 17:24)
But that never made any particular difference to me because I knew that if I kept on
swallowing them, I’d finally get one that would stay down exactly. But, if you do like what
I talk to you just about doing, you spend about a week drinking, drinking, drinking and
then the last week up there on the floor just not knowing, just reach over and take the
bottle and go back to sleep. Finally you wake up some day and look at it and you say,
now, it wouldn’t do any good.
(17:25 – 17:30)
It just wouldn’t do any good. You’re fooled with that now. Well, it’s going to do any good.
(17:32 – 17:43)
Another day or so of this and you’d be dead. So, I told my wife to get a hold of a doctor. I
didn’t go to the hospital only for the six weeks but for the last two or three years I drank,
I never got over one without having to call a doctor.
(17:44 – 17:55)
Fine time finally comes when you look at it and you know it isn’t going to do any good.
You know the drink isn’t going to do any good. You’re just so full and sick of it that you
wouldn’t be anything about throwing it up but you just know it isn’t going to do you any
good.
(17:56 – 18:41)
Wouldn’t be any use in trying to take it and then you have to do something about it. And
so I told her not to let me get so bad the next time so I started on Saturday and isn’t that
odd, I remember just how I took that first week on Saturday. I went home to stay sober
and then I got home, got up there at the house and it was June, it was hot and I got drier
and drier and I wanted to drink worse and worse and there was a place over there where
they sold only liquor and wine and no whiskey and so I was shook and bothered and
fooled around there and I hadn’t had a drink probably for a couple of weeks then, maybe,
at least that long but I was so nervous and I wanted to drink.
(18:41 – 19:12)
And I finally sold myself and I guess, I mean I sold my wife, well I don’t guess I sold either
one of us, I don’t know but I tried to sell her on the idea that I’d just run over there and
have a couple of cold glasses of beer and come back if it was time for dinner or supper
or whatever you call it, about five o’clock in the afternoon and if it was about time to eat
and she had about ready and I’ll just run over there and I’ll have a couple of cold bottles
of beer and I’ll run right back and eat my supper and I won’t get drunk. Now I know if I’m
going to drink a couple of cold bottles of beer damn fine I’m going to eat right after
because I’ve just wasted. That’s all.
(19:13 – 25:03)
I’m going to have a couple of cold glasses and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m
going to have a couple and I’m going to have a couple of cold glasses of beer and I’m
going of cold glasses of beer and I’m going to have a couple of cold glasses and I’m
going and I’m going to have a couple of cold glasses of beer and I’m going to have a
couple of beer and I’m going and I’m going to have a couple of cold glasses and I’m
going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to
have a couple of cold glasses of beer and I’m going to have a couple and I’m going to
have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a
couple and I’m going to have a couple and I’m going to have a couple and I’m going and
I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going
to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a
couple and I’m going of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to
have a couple and I’m going and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to
have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer to have a couple of beer
and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m
going of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going and I’m going to have
a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of
beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and
I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m going
to have a couple of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer and I’m to have a couple
of beer and I’m going to have a couple of beer at the minister was trying to get to join
the church, and finally she said, well, minister, she said, I’ll join, but she said, you’ll have
to borrow with me, you’ll have to be easy. She said, I’m gonna have a tough time. She
said, you know, it seems strange, but she said, it seems like everything I like to do is
either illegally immoral or fattening.
(25:04 – 50:30)
She said, it just may be tough. So I guess I knew that answer, but I didn’t know how to
get it. That way, I didn’t know how I could make it.
I’d done a lot of praying about it, But as soon as I’d start praying about for the idea to
come up about cigarettes and a little penny antipoker And going to picture shows my
church frowns on all those and they wouldn’t even permit me to smoke if I was up there
in their Basement tonight. I couldn’t smoke there I can get up and go out like we always
do when we have a social get up and go outside outside the door and smoke well, I don’t
know whether Any more harmed smoke down there in the basement that would be
outside there just outside the door or not. I don’t know But all those things that bob up
there and I said, I don’t know I Couldn’t I just can’t I just can’t I know I won’t be able to be
that good I’ve done a lot of praying about and all those little things have come up.
I said, yeah. Yeah lord That’s been sure. I’ll do everything but i’m a liar and I know it
finally I Said well, there’s no use in you lying to lord praying for help when you know,
you’re lying if you’re not ready to do that Thing So I quit praying and that’s when I sure
did Start sliding then because I didn’t have anything to hold on to then and I suddenly
started Starting to get me down to the grave Hey, but my wife said I’ve been Said i’ve
been talking a couple fellas about you drinking.
No, I thought that’s funny Now, that’s the way I got a that’s the way i’m telling you. Of
course, it isn’t all that way I’m gonna sort you along that line my thing I’m, just telling
you the little things that happened to pop in my mind that helped me Next thing she said
to me she said you’re gonna quit And I think well, where are you devil? Did you ever get
any ass? You weren’t like that You must have hit a couple of daggone good salesmen It
makes you think That makes you think because she said a couple of minutes And it
makes you think and i’m gonna quit. I haven’t heard you say that for a long long time.
She just didn’t say anything about it And she didn’t hear me say I was gonna quit. I
always always say i’ll accept check this out I’ll have to quit this. I’ll have to cut this out,
you know I guess I knew I couldn’t quit so I didn’t want to go back on my word and I’d
just go around to help her And maybe help myself too saying that i’ll have to cut it out.
I’ll have to cut it out Knowing that I couldn’t I remember way back in 1969. I don’t know
what year it was because it didn’t uh my junior year in University and of course a certain
boy was room with me at that time and I had been terrible Oh the terrible one the night
before still was that morning But sick and I was sitting there on the bed and I was a
heaving and a gagging and a heaving and going off And this little mountaineer, he was
worse Drunk than I was he looked over at me and said why don’t you quit? Don’t hear
me at all. He used to say you hear what’s going on if it’s not even funny and I looked at
him as funny as sick as I was and I said quit Well, yeah, he said see there’s no trouble.
I’ve got a thousand dollars Well, I said you’re going to see I said you’re going to quit well
now that helped That influence that she had there. I couldn’t I didn’t have that assurance
But the fact that she still could believe in me and believe in this program I believe that
she had found something whereby I could quit. Well, why the hell? And she told me there
were a couple of drunks.
She said like you are said they had trouble too said He said they get drunk They’re trying
to quit And they’re poor weak sinners maybe she didn’t say it that way that’s what came
to my mind Well now that’s better all these other people been coming around here. They
come around here to help this poor weak sinner me They’re all right, but they want to
help me And uh, but there’s nothing wrong with them. But now here’s a couple of poor
weak sinners.
It’s come to talk to me Well now that that helped my egotism quite a little bit They
admitted that they were just had the same licking as I had I knew people started to look
down on me. Why don’t you use your willpower? Yeah You know i’ve used my willpower
and you have too Because when you get sober you have a hell of fights for no one like
that And if I’d had sense enough I could have bought that first drink Uh easier than I
could have fought it out there after i’ve been drinking it for a week or two But finally
knew that I had to quit and sit there and fight it out Now that that’s when you really got
a real tough fight to put out and I knew my preacher had never gone through that Sitting
there for a day or two shaking and holding fighting that out to get sober get back in now.
That’s a tough job I used to tell him all the time.
I said, you know, it always was kind of fun to get drunk, but I don’t get sober That’s what
I got in trouble when I started trying to get sober. That was what when my trouble
started And um, but these fellows well, they’ve had the same weakness that I had before
I wasn’t going through Uh hurt myself too much That’s kind of put them down off my
level and so, uh Then there was one other thing She said you’re gonna quit that helped A
lot and I didn’t forget it And I thanked her for the confidence put it all on mine without
saying something because I didn’t have much confidence But she went on and I talked
about the chemo cure and all that stuff. I had with my doctor.
I had a regular doctor That’s been helping me for three years And he was a mighty nice
fellow and he was a minister too And my wife and I talked to him about taking the cure
and he said It won’t do very good Said he’s a confirmed drunkard. I believe that’s what
he called He said I pulled up in the hall And he said i’m a minister And i’m a doctor He
said I ought to have some answer, but I don’t have any All in the world I can do is help
him Through this pain so he can get sober enough to get back and try to stay sober a
few days But it does a little worse and won’t be long. Oh, he’ll be again I know it because
i’ve had him before but I pretty soon tell him to hell with him.
I don’t want to be fooled by him And he didn’t need but he’s a good friend of mine like
my wife and my wife They did more for their for her than they did for me and uh, so Well
I think well and I said Next question I said, well, why are they gonna charge me? And I
never forgot that answer She said you know, that’s the strange thing about she said that
we’ve both been church members for a long time now. I’m not not I’m not I’m not doing
that, but we had been And had been constantly going. No, I didn’t go too regularly
because I’d get drunk too often But uh when I was sober enough and I went pretty drunk
sometimes to church but uh So I said, uh, why are they gonna charge me? She said, you
know, that’s the strange thing about it She said not only they they said not only whether
they’re gonna No, they weren’t gonna charge anything, but they said you couldn’t pay
them a cent If you had a million dollars You know, I think that’s a devil poor act if they
ain’t gonna get no place that way But There’s another thing in a darn and i’m not gonna
preach to you go out and handle a your wife See i’m not gonna tell you because if you
don’t get it, right And you get drunk it’s going to be you that’s going to be safe and not
me.
I’ll sympathize with you But i’d rather it be you because I don’t want to cry anymore. I
had enough They wouldn’t take a cent But that worked If you had a million dollars you
couldn’t pay them Now that’s the way it started out I take no pain for me I’m, not trying
to fall from anybody else But that’s the thing that that was one of the main things that
helped me To believe that these fellas had something there was two fellas I’d never seen
the hotel out that was four weeks centers just like I was And they were willing to come
over there and take their time and talk to me To show me a program whereby I could
stay sober and not only would they not charge me anything But I couldn’t pay them if I
wanted to And that was really the first thing that interested me and I ate And I told my
wife to come over and they came over and I could give me this program a long time ago
You see there wasn’t any book then there wasn’t any 12 steps. It wasn’t any of this other
Nice good literature.
We have some good and some not so good And that we have around and we didn’t have
any of those things It was just those two fellas there that said they wanted to get sober
And they thought they’d hit on a program Whereby they could stay sober and the part of
that program was That they had to bring it up to me and I sort of forgot that last thing
because they They told me that as part of the program that they had to bring the same
to me And here’s the program. So I say, you know 12 steps. I the 12 steps are all right.
They’re fine And but I learned it the other way. They told me that I had to really want to
quit uh They said if you don’t want to quit well, that’s your property. Just go ahead and
get drunk.
That’s all right We’re not kicking liquor uh We want to stay sober And to stay sober we
got we have a program and to stay sober We think we have to take that program to
somebody else Now if you want to go out and get drunk and get sick and die down in this
hospital like this Well, all right, and we’ll just ride on out. We won’t argue with you. That’s
your free privilege Well, I said them fellas.
That’s pretty obvious about this thing. All these other fellas want to plead with me now
and they said If you want us to get drunk, okay get drunk But they said we we we won’t
quit and we’d like to see you quit but we’ll leave it to you if you want to quit and uh And
they asked me he said do you think you can quit by yourself? Well, that’s pretty hard to
answer I’d always been pretty self-sufficient I thought I was going to run things just as I
was And I had told a lot of fellows I saw my cousin dying before he was 27 years old I
used to run with I’ve had him bed night after night with dts I saw him die But I was
smart. I wasn’t gonna let him do that.
He told me I don’t want to get drunk like this But he said I can’t help it Well, I started like
the preacher. I thought we ain’t using good sense I told him I said you drinking too much
too often a lot of them asked me said All these you’re about why you get the alcoholics
and I said, I don’t know after hearing all those stories I finally come to conclusion on the
reason I became an alcoholic was that I drank too much Whiskey too often over too long
a period. I think that’s what happened If I could avoid it just one of those maybe I wasn’t
becoming alcoholic and I thought I was going to avoid them But I kept on until I was as
bad as he was and But I kept on as I saw fellows.
I said now when it starts doing me like that, well, i’m gonna quit Well when I got out of
there it didn’t look hardly as bad and I said well that’s pretty tough But I do know when it
starts doing me like this fellas, then I know i’m going to do something about it Now I just
went right on clear down the bottom. I just kept lowering the standard Year after year as
I my standard got worse while I lowered it Too and so I was clear down to the bottom
And as far as liquor was concerned I hadn’t been down in the jungles because I’d had a
little money left me and I’d had some a few months before I got The bad and so I had
that run out and I kept fooling the banks. I was pretty slick at that and So I had run me
out longer.
I would have been down there before So they told me I had to have an honest desire and
wish to quit. Well, I don’t guess I wanted to quit And oh my goodness, I’d have had
nothing This kind of getting drunk. There wasn’t anything in that anymore.
I’m sure what I certainly if I didn’t want to quit drinking I wanted to quit getting drunk
and getting taken over to the hospital and tied down and put in jail things like that I
didn’t like that And so they asked me then the next question whether they I thought I
could quit by myself and that was pretty hard to answer I hated it missed it I had a
problem that I couldn’t handle a little silly thing like that. Anyhow, I’ll be able to have
done that I was going to do it all my life They said now if you can handle it by yourself,
all right, then we’ll go around and we’ll have somebody can’t handle And uh that we
won’t quit And to do that we got to take this problem to somebody that wants to quit and
knows that he can’t quit and we’re just wasting Time if you don’t want to quit or wasting
time if you don’t uh, if you think you can quit by yourself That’s fine. Just go ahead and
quit And they let me there to stay these things over and then they asked me Another
question said do you believe in a higher power? I said, yes, I believe in god and I believe
in the bible I never have lost faith.
I know that’s it. But how in the hell am I going to get it? Because I just can’t be that good
I I just can’t I said I do these little things what come I can’t do about that Well, they gave
me some very good sense They said well now let’s don’t you think That this drink
problem is causing you more trouble than anything else now And don’t you think that
you’re going to have about all that you can do To get rid of this drink problem. Don’t you
think it’s going to use about all your time now getting rid of it? Well, I said I wouldn’t be
surprised I certainly haven’t been doing very good at it Well, they said now let’s
concentrate on the drink and we’ll forget the cigarettes and the penny any poker And the
other little things like that for a while you concentrate on this thing And you work on that
and then after we get sort of straightened out on that then you start thinking about them
other things and If you still think you’ll get rid of that, well, then you start working on
those Well, now I said that’s pretty good sense pretty good thing So I said I I believe in
the bible believe in god.
I know that’s the answer that I but I haven’t been able to get him And the next question
they asked me was would I be willing in the presence of somebody else? We sort of
slipped that we don’t use that exactly that way anymore But they said would you be
willing in the presence of somebody else? Go to this higher power which to me was god
and admit that you have a problem that you can’t handle and that you want help And
they left me there and studied over I had to want to quit. I had to realize that I couldn’t
do it by myself I had to believe in some higher power that could help me And I had to be
willing to humble myself enough to go to that higher power and admit that I was Uh, I
had a problem that I couldn’t handle and ask for help And I stayed there on that old
hospital bed gotten over in july and I put up a fight I thought about all the things that I
was going to have to give up if I made this surrender Boy the old road looked pretty
damn dark, huh? They was straight and narrow door looked really narrow I ain’t finished
boy. I ain’t never gonna have no more fun Yeah, that’s right i’m telling you the truth they
just ain’t gonna be no fun in this life at all Oh, I know now The devil he was fooling me,
you know, he had them things he knew what would hold me back And he was using them
things, you know And I was still pretty worldly.
I love worldly things yet So I went over all those things That they’d said to me and I went
over back over my life things that i’d thrown away Material things and other things that
i’d thrown away the material things didn’t worry me too much Although I certainly didn’t
have any of them left and the opportunities I had didn’t worry me too much But I then
began to think about the humiliation and sorrow and things that I had caused some other
mighty fine people my mother And my wife the boy was getting old enough to know And
I just went back over what kind of a heel I’d been And I can tell you the thing didn’t look
very nice It certainly didn’t I’d had an awful lot of people have been awful nice to me My
dad and mother sent me to school and paid money They didn’t have to go without
something to eat to do it. But now I remember I knew that I was drunk back in 1917
1917 My dad got killed in that year and I was over in school and I was drunk when they
called on the telephone over there I was pretty drunk, but I was handling it pretty good
in those days They brought him over there to Lexington. He died We had to take him
home.
I had to take my father’s along with me, but I didn’t get real drunk. I was drinking
whiskey then Boston And then I was my senior year in university and that was the first
time I started to run. I knew all this was wrong I said well, I’m here to change You’re a
drunk and you know it now your dad left your mom here with two little kids And three on
a farm.
You better stay at home with your mother And look after this farm before spring comes
on that was in february And you better stay around to help her. She didn’t need me We
had some hard hands and this farm could have been done. I wasn’t very far away But I
made that as an excuse and I’ll go back to university and finish in the summer fun I’m
thinking that if I got away from the school and stayed down on the farm because through
the summer I went home.
I had to stay pretty. I didn’t get drunk some but I had to be pretty careful about dad
because He told me out and I wouldn’t get no more money down the school and I knew it
So when I got drunk around home on the farm, I had to be mighty careful about And uh,
so I stayed around there then mom said well, all right, she’d rather go back to school So I
took that as an excuse and I stayed around that Love in april air part of april and one day
i’m talking to her in the room And uh, I wanted a drink and I had my pocket So I just
stepped in the other room, of course, I would have had better sense and I closed the
door right in her face Pull my bottle out and start taking a drink, you know Well, she just
opened the door and looked in She said don’t let that many men come as crying. She
said are you a drunker? I said yes, I guess I am.
She said well i’ll leave you as bad as her only already knew he wasn’t going there
Because the doctor told me she said i’ll leave you as bad as he is. Well, I said Almost
mom. She said what are we going to do about it? I said, I don’t know Well, she said I
don’t either I said your dad and I since you’re old in school.
I’m out for four years All you’ve learned is to be a drunk but I guess that’s right. I said i’ll
go down and join the army It’s over. Well, I won’t bring that story.
That was a long time ago Mom, we had 13 years after I got sober and I was awful glad
But I went back over and i’m gonna make I should have quit already I went back over all
those things that I treat those people and I said boy you sure have been a heathen You
don’t have very much left now The rest of time you better start trying to do something
about and make up for some of those Things that you’ve done towards people So I said
well lord i’ve had enough of this. I don’t want to get drunk anymore. I’ve had enough
According to what the doctor says according to what I say.
I don’t have for him anymore Days around here I’m pretty well wrecked from every
standpoint in the world. I’m wrecked I don’t have very much left to turn over to you. But
whatever I what I have left i’m going to turn it over to you I’m not going to be the captain
of the boat because boy i’ve been running this boat now for a long time And I sure have
made a wreck out of it From now on i’m going to try to find Each day and instructions
from you.
I’m not going to get when I do even pray tell you what all the things that I want You
know, there’s another thing. You know with some awful lot of these prayers are almost
sacrilegious For an hour sometimes they’ll tell the lord what he ought to do what they
think the lord he ought to be done They’ll just try it over and over again. Tell the lord
what he ought to do all the time.
He knows what to do I’d like to spend a little more time asking That we might be worthy
that we get some of these things that we’re asking for like the woman told the little boy
He’s gone out and said his prayer He said mother. How’d you like that? Well, she said
that was pretty good But she said why don’t you spend a little less time telling the lord
what to do and a little just report for duty He’ll let him tell you what to do So I said from
now on instead of uh going ahead and running this thing telling you Come on, help me
put this over and this over. I’m going to try to find out what you want me to do I’m going
to try to do it.
I’m going to try to find out what your will is for me And I’ll do the best that I can to carry
it out. I know i’m human I won’t be able to do it all the time, but i’ll keep on trying if I fall
down. I’ll go back ask you again Because I don’t want to drink anymore i’ve had all this I
want I’ve just had all I want and I won’t quit And i’m going to rely entirely upon you when
that old talks about drink starts coming on I ain’t going to care on that argument every
time I started thinking about a drink when I was trying to stay dry an argument Came up
should I should And I could get more excuses somewhere other than why I should Any
idea was carrying on the other side of that argument about I should Was sure a winner
because he nearly always late I said lord when that argument comes up from now on i’m
going to turn that argument over to you because that’s one argument I always lost And
i’m gonna let you handle that job and I ain’t gonna even start in the argument about it.
I’ll just say Here you take this problem over and I’ve had enough I don’t want to do this
anymore anything that I have to give up or anything I have to do i’m willing to do and i’m
Manning i’ve said that before but I didn’t mean it and I got gone So when these fellas
come back I said well I’ve had enough. I don’t want to go And As I hate to do it. I’ll have
to admit that I can’t do anything about it because I know I couldn’t right when I’m going
through this I do believe in that higher power and I already have gone to that higher
power And ask for help and i’m willing to do it again here or any place in the world.
It doesn’t make any difference I’ll never be ashamed to admit that I have to go and ask
for that help any place where it might be I’ve done that and i’ll do it again. I don’t know
whether I did what I did it or not, but I told them I was willing to They said that’s fine.
Now.
There’s one other thing you gotta do You gotta go out and take that same problem
somebody else That’s what i’m doing here tonight. I could have made it a lot shorter and
quick. I’ve kept you folks and uh, But you know these aas get started talking.
I went over to even mission Not so long ago and as I went along and told me this story It
sort of did click but I forget it every once in a while instead There was one of these
fellows up talked on and on, you know, the crowd got restless in the chair He pounded
on the desk With the hammer and uh, they finally quieted him down. He got restless
again This fellow went on and on and pounded again that finally quieted him down. They
got restless again He got sort of angry.
He hit the desk real hard Flopped over here and hit this fellow sitting here in the front
and side of the head and knocked him out of the chair The fellow sitting there by him he
reached down right quick and grabbed him and picked him up He said are you hurt are
you unconscious he said no i’m still dreaming said hit me again Now that was the aas I
got it and that’s the way i’ve been going out and telling it I haven’t added much to it
because i’m sort of afraid to it’s been worth too much to me It’s meant those Eight or ten
years of my life. I know these last eight or ten years and have been in good health and
so on And so I certainly think an awful lot of it because i’ve heard an awful lot of people
say that they were sober as a result Of following that program of the 12 steps they were
added in as we went along and already learned You can take those five that I gave you
and pretty much spread them out and make 12 out of them And that was what was done
and i’ve heard so many people Say that they were happy and bereavement following
that program and I know that there’s a lot of people out that are happy in homes and
happy homes That otherwise would have been dead or they’ve been in asylum or
they’ve been in jail tonight and the program Means a lot to me and I certainly hope we
keep it simple along that line and if you read this, uh this last, uh Reader or grapevine,
you’ll see the first article in there by paul de grief or whatever his name is And he says
he was an atheist. He wasn’t a drunkard, but he learned He said he was an absolute
atheist But he said by his association with aa He had become to believe in god and pray
Now that’s worth an awful lot to that man That’s worth an awful lot to him and he said
this is simplicity in the way that we went after That brought him from complete atheism
Back to a place where he could pray to god And i’ve heard so many people so many
places all around over the country say this I came into aa Solely for the purpose of
sobriety, but it’s been through aa that I have found god And I know and the most of you
know how well worthwhile that is That’s the reason I hope we keep our a program.
I don’t get angry because I particularly I Because I don’t feel too much responsibility
myself. The only thing in this program that I have it’s worthwhile that I can take the
program on That somebody gave to me And whereby I have had the benefits of that I
can take it on to them and give it to them But from there on it’s between them and that
higher power whether they make it or not there isn’t any question about that Just
between them and their higher power was they’re able to make it or not And so I and for
that reason I don’t get too much disturbed when I see these things Breaking around
because i’m very positive foundation is that the program is on a good firm foundation.
It’s doing enough For it to disintegrate and go along and thank you folks for being as
patient As listening to me for as long as you did And thank you for inviting me down here
and congratulate you on the number you have here and miss Your first anniversary and I
wish you a lot more good anniversaries.
Thank you