Wynn L – Freedom From Bondage – California – DOS 1947

(0:00 – 0:20)
I made a telephone call not so long ago to a gal and I asked her if she’d come down and
talk for me and in spite of her schedule she said she’d be happy to. And I said we’ll fly
down and we’ll pay for it. And this is a strange program, this program of Alcoholics
Anonymous.
(0:21 – 0:47)
Through the grapevine she got the word from somebody else that she was going to
come down here because of the posters and Danny decided that he would come down
from Santa Maria and drive her down here and then they got down to the house here
and we’ve had a hell of an AA meeting all afternoon until now. Many of you I’m sure have
heard Wynne before. Her story is the last story in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and
it’s been quite an inspiration to me.
(0:48 – 0:55)
And I won’t take any more of your time, Wynne. You’ve got from now until 25 minutes
after or like I told you before I started. Okay.
(1:08 – 1:20)
Thank you, John. Hi, everybody. My name is Wynne Laws, L-A-W-S, and I’m an alcoholic.
(1:21 – 1:45)
Hi, Wynne. And I’m grateful to be here tonight. And I want to tell you that my old friend
Danny, my friend of more than 20 years on this program, felt he couldn’t read the steps
tonight because of a throat condition that would keep a lesser man home feeling sorry
for himself.
(1:45 – 2:40)
He had forgotten for a moment that we listen with our hearts as well as our ears. They
tell me that when you carry the message of recovery from the disease of alcoholism to
somebody else, that you follow the format that’s laid out in the big book and you tell
what you used to be like, what happened, and what you’re like now. And I have one
experience in my practicing alcoholic career that I think describes me and my drinking
more graphically perhaps than anything else I could tell you.
(2:40 – 3:12)
And with your permission, I’ll tell it to you again tonight. A whole lot of years ago, I was
invited by some very close and dear friends of mine to a very formal dinner party in Los
Angeles in honor of the mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, who was visiting Los Angeles. Now, I
feel about Texas like Texans do.
(3:13 – 3:31)
You know, I’m proud. I even love the state so much I married two Texans. In fact, at the
risk of being a little bawdy, there were those who used to comment on the fact that I
might be a Texan by injection.
(3:36 – 4:08)
Whatever that means. So I wanted to go to this party, and I wanted to be dressed to the
very teeth, and I wanted to make a real impression on this mayor from Fort Worth, and I
wanted to do honor and justice to my very dear and close friends, you understand. And I
anticipated the party for several days before the event.
(4:08 – 4:30)
I kept making decisions, you know, just like I could, and resolutions like I could make
them and keep them. I would resolve, for instance, that I would only drink this much on
this occasion. I lived in a constant state of preoccupation with alcohol.
(4:30 – 5:07)
Do you know this experience? Have you ever been totally preoccupied with alcohol? And
I was in that state. But I would resolve that I’d take one cocktail. Oh, hell, maybe I’d take
two.
You can’t walk on one leg. But certainly I would take no more than that, because I knew
what happened to me with more than that, and it wasn’t going to happen to me. And the
day of the party rolled around, and I changed costumes three times that day.
(5:07 – 5:36)
I didn’t just get dressed three times, I had costumes, you know, to make the impression
on the mayor of Fort Worth. And I went to the party, resolved I would take two cocktails
and no more. And they were passed early.
I took one, then I took two. And I was a victim of a twofold disease that is so graphically
described in the Alcoholics Anonymous book, an obsession of the mind, the thing that
made me drink. I had no choice.
(5:37 – 6:01)
And once having begun, created the second part of this twofold disease, the allergy to
alcohol, the physical craving that was beyond my control. And with two, here it came.
Now, I still was sober enough to remember what I owed to my friends in loyalty and
respect, and I didn’t want to embarrass them.
(6:02 – 6:22)
And I had to have an excuse that would get me out of there fast, and that was socially
acceptable. Now, when I came to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and heard the
step, Restore Us to Sanity, I quarreled with this in my own case. It seemed to me that it
was a weakness, not a sickness.
(6:23 – 6:39)
And it seemed to me that I copped out if I took a plea of insanity for the behavior that
had been mine. And I had to learn about insanity. And I turned to Webster for some
explanations of my behavior.
(6:40 – 7:09)
And one of my most common and most virulent defects of character was constant
rationalization for my behavior. And when I turned to this word in the dictionary, I found
that Webster says, rationalization is giving a socially acceptable reason for socially
unacceptable behavior. And that unacceptable behavior is a form of insanity, so I didn’t
have to worry about definition anymore.
(7:10 – 7:25)
And I needed this excuse. And this devious alcoholic mind turned very quickly to
something dramatic, and I came up with a migraine headache. Now, I’ve never had a
migraine in my life.
(7:25 – 7:43)
I’m not even subject to headaches, you know, nothing to ache. But I had heard people
say that migraines were excruciatingly painful, and that they came on suddenly and
simply overtook you. And I thought, well, everybody will understand this.
(7:43 – 8:02)
And I pleaded a migraine headache and went home. And they were sorry, they said, to
see me go. And like the true alcoholic I am, I went home and drank whatever part of a
fifth of whiskey was necessary to black me out on my feet, for this was my alcoholic
pattern.
(8:03 – 8:30)
And in my usual way, I went back to the party. Now, speaking of costumes, I was retired
a little bit differently on this second cruise. I’d been home long enough to get cold cream
all over my face, to get my hair up in curlers, which you can tell I never do.
(8:32 – 9:05)
And I had on white satin sleeping pajamas, and I’ve always considered this an act of God
because I don’t sleep in pajamas. And I was barefooted, and I had come in a taxi, and
everybody had to know this because somebody had to pay the taxi driver. And I’ve often
wondered whatever became of those dear and close friends of mine in Los Angeles.
(9:06 – 9:26)
I lost so many friends this way. But an interesting thing happened that I’m sure you
women will understand. I don’t think you fellas will, but you gals will understand what I
mean when I tell you that the next time the mayor of Fort Worth, Texas came to Los
Angeles, I was the only person he called.
(9:45 – 10:03)
And you gals will be happy to know that some of the fellas laughed in what we might call
a laughing consensus. I think they know more than they’ve been telling me. And so you
know now what I used to be like.
(10:04 – 10:39)
And you know, of course, that this kind of drinking had to bring me to a point of total
despair and total desperation and total defeat. And nothing that I knew of or had tried or
learned about or heard of seemed to solve this problem. And I had tried everything, it
seemed to me, at one time or another to get on the track that most normal human
beings seem to have been born on.
(10:41 – 11:01)
And I couldn’t make it, so I finally decided that I would commit suicide by drinking myself
to death. I had tried an actual suicide attempt on one occasion, and a very peculiar thing
had happened to me. It didn’t tell me anything, it frustrated me.
(11:02 – 11:32)
But I had come to out of a total alcoholic blackout on one occasion to realize that I had
just snapped a revolver at my temple. And the frustrating thing about it was that I knew
the gun was loaded all the way around and that it had been left to me, with me, for my
protection during World War II. It rested in my night table drawer when my husband went
overseas.
(11:33 – 11:47)
And it didn’t fire, and I couldn’t understand it. And I came to, in a moment of complete
sober clarity, to realize it had not fired. And I broke the gun down to look at it and
discovered the firing pin was broken.
(11:49 – 12:02)
I still have the gun, the firing pin is still broken. I’ve never had it repaired. The only thing
that happened to me on that occasion was the sense that I have failed at this too.
(12:02 – 12:22)
I couldn’t read any other message into this in the depths of my illness. I have come to
read another message into it. But I remember at that point in time that I simply thought
the parents of the man who had given me that gun couldn’t possibly have been married.
(12:22 – 12:40)
It was the only conclusion that I could come to. And so I went on this drunk, this 60-day
drunk, the one that I would die from. You see, I knew you could die from alcoholism.
(12:41 – 12:51)
I know this is a fact. I’ve seen people die of alcoholism in my family. So I knew it could
happen.
(12:52 – 13:15)
I remember sort of dramatically and melodramatically thinking, I wonder how it will
happen to me when I die of alcoholism. Will I die as my cousin died? Leonard, his name
was, 29 he was. A brilliant man, they said.
(13:15 – 13:27)
A genius. Vice president of a major oil company at 29. And he died of delirium treatment
upon admission to Camarillo State Hospital in California.
(13:28 – 13:45)
Would it be like Leonard? And then I had a second cousin who had died of alcoholism.
And I can remember her very well, this idol of my childhood. For she flew with the Big
Top, an aerial artist.
(13:46 – 13:57)
And this is a daring life. And I can remember when I was a little kid, they’d take me to
the circus and I’d see Grace fly. And I’d wait for her, for she wanted me to.
(13:57 – 14:10)
Down where she came down from the wires. And she’d take me by the hand and I’d bask
in the reflected glory of this aerial artist. And I can see her stilts as they rippled out
behind her.
(14:10 – 14:31)
And I walked with her, with her hand in mine, while the crowd gathered behind her and
asked for her autograph and did all the things that people do to the courageous and the
talented. And we’d go into her tent and she would make me feel very important. Always
surrounded by a crowd was Grace.
(14:32 – 14:43)
Until the end. Because she was dead alone for five days and nights in her home before
she was found. Dead of alcoholism.
(14:44 – 14:55)
No crowds in the end. And would it be like Grace? Alone and friendless. I was drunk for
60 days on this drunk.
(14:56 – 15:16)
And I did a lot of interesting things, they tell me, and I’ll have to take their word for it.
They tell me I canned 134 pints of strawberry preserves and I think that’s pretty
interesting. Especially since I don’t know how to can strawberry preserves.
(15:21 – 15:38)
I went to jail twice on this occasion for being drunk in an automobile. My stepfather was
driving the car and he got the 502. I understood later that on both occasions the officers
had said they would take us home.
(15:38 – 15:59)
We weren’t far and they’d take us home and there’d be no trouble. But by the time I got
through recounting their ancestry, of course they had no recourse but to take us to jail.
And I saw my first copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous book in Lincoln Heights Jail in Los
Angeles.
(16:00 – 16:18)
A beautiful black girl was reading it and she had the only piece of reading material that I
could see anyplace. And my second form of escape was reading. And I had to find out a
way to get acquainted with her so I could get that book away from her because you had
to wait out five hours before you were eligible for bail.
(16:19 – 16:35)
And being thrown in there, it kind of sobered me up. So as we sat in the drunk tank I said
to her, Do you know you’ve got your suit on wrong side out? And she said, I always turn
my clothes wrong side out. When I’m in jail they stay cleaner that way.
(16:37 – 17:00)
And I thought, gee what a fascinating bit of table, dinner table conversation this would
make. If you could just figure out a way to let people know how you found out about it in
the first place. And even with this devious mind I never did figure out a way, you know,
to tell this at a dinner table until I came into AA.
(17:03 – 17:09)
I scanned this book. She knew I needed it more than she did. I skimmed it I should say.
(17:09 – 17:20)
And I must confess to you that it wasn’t for me. It was obviously for her but it was not for
me. And to add insult to injury it wasn’t written very well.
(17:23 – 17:36)
So I was to go home and finally my mother interfered with my life again. And she said
that something had to be done about this. I was working my way through my fourth
marriage.
(17:37 – 17:46)
The foreclosure sign was on the line. It was just a matter of my getting sober enough to
sign the paper. And she said that I had to be committed.
(17:47 – 17:55)
I had to be sent to a sanitarium. You know something had to be done. I was one of those
drunks that didn’t sleep when I drank.
(17:55 – 18:03)
And when I didn’t sleep you didn’t sleep. And everybody was getting a little weary of all
of this. And then I kept on doing these strange things you know.
(18:04 – 18:13)
And in spite of all this I guess my mother felt that I was worth her love and attention.
And finally she called a doctor. We were in Los Angeles.
(18:14 – 18:26)
She called a doctor here in San Diego. An old friend of mine many years before and
maybe one that some of you know, Dr. Thorpe Wells. And she asked Thorpe what to do.
(18:27 – 18:34)
And Thorpe said call Alcoholics Anonymous. And she said oh I couldn’t do that. She don’t
know what kind of shape she’s in.
(18:34 – 18:40)
She’s drunk. And he said call Alcoholics Anonymous. Look it up in the phone book.
(18:41 – 18:50)
They’ll tell you what to do. And whatever they recommend, do it. And I blessed these
men and these women in the medical profession.
(18:50 – 19:05)
And the men and women in the clergy. And men and women in the paramedical groups.
That have taken the time and made the effort to find out what to say to a family member
who calls for the alcoholic.
(19:06 – 19:18)
And says to them call Alcoholics Anonymous. They’ll tell you what to do. Well my mother
called the central office in Los Angeles as Thorpe had suggested.
(19:20 – 19:30)
And she tried to tell Phil that I was drunk. And he said just tell us where she lives and
we’ll have some people out there tonight. And my mother said I don’t think you
understand.
(19:30 – 19:37)
She’s not very nice when she’s sober. And when she’s drunk it’s unbelievable. And she’s
drunk.
(19:39 – 19:47)
And he said you leave it to us. We’ll take care of this. Now I want to bless you too and
thank you.
(19:47 – 19:57)
That drunk as I was, remember I had not asked for it. You had no reason to believe I
wanted it. No reason at all.
(19:57 – 20:05)
But you came to me. You came to me anyway. To a sick alcoholic that needed your help.
(20:07 – 20:19)
And you came that night in the form of Mike and Donya King. Now Mike said to me later
that I had a lot of questions to ask. I asked all of them.
(20:19 – 20:34)
And I answered them to my complete satisfaction before he could get his mouth open.
And he went away that night saying well isn’t it too bad but obviously she isn’t ready for
this program. And he called some other people.
(20:35 – 20:51)
And the next night the two little mix, Ruby and Eddie Gibbons came. And Eddie Gibbons
talked a language that I could understand. For a long time when Ruby used to pitch she
would refer to me as that witch.
(20:51 – 21:09)
She went I think she said witch. That they went to see on this occasion. Now this peculiar
language that I didn’t know that anybody else knew.
(21:10 – 21:18)
Went something like this. Eddie took a look at my bottle by the side of my bed. And
there was about that much in a pint.
(21:19 – 21:39)
And he said is that all the whiskey she’s got? And when they said yes he said you better
get down and get her some more. For that isn’t enough to last her all night. Now I didn’t
know that anybody else in the world knew that that’s not enough whiskey to last you all
night when you’re on a drunk.
(21:40 – 21:56)
I didn’t know that anybody else in the world knew that at four o’clock in the morning. You
wake up with the sweats and the jingles and you’re out of your mind and you’re out of
whiskey. And there’s not a drop of anything to drink in the house.
(21:57 – 22:09)
And you have to wait two hours if you’ve got the money. And if you’ve got the strength
to get there and get it. I didn’t know anybody else in the world knew about four o’clock in
the morning.
(22:09 – 22:21)
But Eddie knew. He was telling me that he knew too about the nightmares that make
you stay awake. Fight to stay awake.
(22:21 – 22:41)
Because you can’t risk going to sleep and dreaming it again. And that he knew about the
cramps in the legs and the feet. How the toes are going to touch the heels in spite of all
you can do if you don’t get up and stand first on one foot and then on the other.
(22:41 – 22:54)
And the charley horse is in the legs. Medicine tells us that these cramps are the
symptom, the signal of acute alcoholism. That we’re in withdrawal when this happens.
(22:54 – 23:05)
That the calcium is burned out of the body. And that we’re in desperate physical straits
with this alcoholism when this happens. And Eddie knew all these things.
(23:06 – 23:30)
He also knew that I was in no condition to understand anything at all about Alcoholics
Anonymous. Not in the state I was in. Could you bring me a message of recovery? But he
knew that it was my right, my privilege, to have an opportunity to get sober.
(23:31 – 23:42)
And to make a sober decision about this program for myself. And he told my mother I
had this right. That they must give me an opportunity to get sober.
(23:42 – 24:00)
Where the message could be brought to me in a way I could understand. And he
explained to my family, as he explained to me later, that it would have to be my
decision. Because only I could do the things that were necessary to get sober and stay
sober.
(24:00 – 24:14)
That nobody could do this for me. And I had a right to an opportunity for a sober
decision. And I was sent into a sanitarium to be dried out.
(24:15 – 24:30)
To come in time to make a sober decision about Alcoholics Anonymous. And I came in
time to go to my first AA meeting. At the Old Maskers Club, the motion picture group in
Hollywood.
(24:31 – 24:49)
And I remember as Mike and Donya took me into that meeting that night, where we were
to meet Ed and Ruby. That he said to me, there are three things we would hope you
would remember as you go into this meeting. These three simple things, he said.
(24:49 – 25:09)
Honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. He said, we call these the essentials of
sobriety. And our book says that these three are indispensable if we would recover from
alcoholism.
(25:11 – 25:30)
In time I came to hear a beloved friend, Big Smitty, we called him from Flint, Michigan,
say at a meeting in Los Angeles one night, if you want to know how this program works.
If you would know how it works. Take the first word of your question, the how.
(25:31 – 25:43)
And the H is for honesty, and the O is for open-mindedness, and the W is for willingness.
And this is how this program works. And this made an impression on me.
(25:44 – 26:09)
But that night, so foggy and still so sick, and we walked into this room with as many
people as I remember as there are here tonight or thereabouts. And I know that
somebody read something that night from a book, and it didn’t make any difference
what book, as far as I was concerned. And a man got up and spoke, and I didn’t hear
anything he said.
(26:09 – 26:24)
And I couldn’t hear anything because something had happened to me in that room that
had never happened to me before in my entire life. Something had hit me right in the
emotions. Something I sensed that I had never felt before in my life.
(26:24 – 26:34)
And it was there in that room. I didn’t know what it was. And for a long time I called it the
thing in the room that I found at AA meetings.
(26:35 – 26:50)
And I didn’t know what it was, and I couldn’t understand it. But it became the most
important thing in my life right from the very beginning. And this thing I found in that
room that night was enough to take me home and keep me sober all through that night.
(26:50 – 26:55)
I didn’t need a drink. I read this book. I read this book.
(26:55 – 27:11)
And the next day, I got through that day, and I didn’t have to take a drink that day. And
that day, I kept having little twinges that I couldn’t understand. There were physical
responses to something I was thinking, and it was all beyond me.
(27:11 – 27:24)
I didn’t know what was happening to me. And I recall that along in the middle of the
afternoon, I recognized this physical thing I was feeling. And it was anticipation.
(27:25 – 27:45)
And it had been so many years since I’d felt anticipation. I didn’t recognize it for a long
time that day. And it came to me every time I remembered that day that I could get to
another meeting that night, and I’d find the thing in the room again maybe, you know,
this thing I’d sensed.
(27:46 – 28:05)
And I went as far from the Masker’s Club as I could go that night, way out on Hoover
Street to the Old Mayflower Group. And I did this quite deliberately. Because, you see, if
that thing in the room had only been at the Masker’s Club, I wanted to know that right
away.
(28:06 – 28:35)
And I was testing a little bit. And I walked into this great big, long American Legion Hall,
cold and, you know, the longest mile in the world, all by myself that night. In time,
people said to me, didn’t you find it hard, a woman, to walk into a meeting by yourself?
And I said, no, I never found it very hard to walk into a bar by myself.
(28:37 – 28:51)
And this was quite a lot easier, you know, because you know what happens to women in
bars. You know this is easier. Well, I wasn’t alone very long.
(28:51 – 29:08)
This gal with a beautiful smile and her outstretched hands came to meet me, almost
running to meet me. She took my hands and she said, my name’s Myrtle. Are you new?
Are you visiting from another group? And she knew all the answers.
(29:09 – 29:19)
She was just being polite, you know. And she said, it doesn’t matter, really. Let me take
you down here and introduce you to some of our friends.
(29:20 – 29:37)
Our friends. And she took me clear down in front, planted me in the very first row,
introduced me to all of you that were around, and you moved over and made room for
me. You took me in.
(29:39 – 30:02)
And never before that night can I remember having had this sense of belonging until that
night. And one of the great things about this program is that I know tonight if I walked in
that door, you would bring me down here and you would make room for me. Nothing has
changed.
(30:03 – 30:23)
The security of this program. And that I would find the thing in the room just like I found
it here tonight. And Denny is waiting for me to say, you would have to make more room
for me by twice than you had to make that night.
(30:24 – 30:31)
But even twice as much you’d make. And I know you would, you see. For I depend on
you.
(30:32 – 30:41)
I depend on you. Well, it was a round robin meeting. I came to know that night.
(30:42 – 30:59)
Many people from many groups in the surrounding areas had come to speak five
minutes, to make five-minute pitches, they called them. And I couldn’t hear anything for
quite a while. The reason I couldn’t was because there was a bird up in the rafters in the
beam.
(30:59 – 31:14)
And I was afraid to look up. Afraid somebody would see me. And it wasn’t until somebody
said, I wish that poor little bird could find its way out of here, that I realized there really
was a bird in the beam.
(31:17 – 31:41)
And then I could relax a little bit and I could begin to hear what you were saying at that
meeting. And one of you, a cherished dear friend, got up that night for one of those
speakers and he was shaking like a modelty Ford Fender. I’ve never seen anybody shake
in my life like Gus Schuch that night.
(31:41 – 31:50)
And he had me totally fascinated. I thought, boy, if we could bottle that or can it, we
wouldn’t need to take up a collection. I’ve never seen a rhythm like it.
(31:52 – 32:02)
And he said, I don’t shake like this is a rule. And he kind of got my attention. And then he
said, I’m on a drive drunk.
(32:02 – 32:12)
And he really got my attention. Now, I’d never heard the expression drive drunk before.
And it was a fascinating thought.
(32:14 – 32:33)
And he said, he said that a real traumatic experience had happened to him. A real
emotional thing. And it had hit him right between the eyes and he had reacted to it
exactly as if he were drunk.
(32:34 – 32:42)
And he said he got in a real squirrel cage. Wonderful expression. I knew exactly what a
squirrel cage was.
(32:42 – 32:59)
Nobody ever had to define it for me. I’ve never heard a better word, a better description
for that state of mental confusion. And he said because he had gotten in a squirrel cage,
he had responded with the physical symptoms of having been drunk.
(32:59 – 33:38)
And the shakes really had manifested from this thing. And he said he’d been around AA
for about four months. And that every meeting he had gone to, he had heard somebody
say, if you have a real emotional upset, something happens to you that you can’t cope
with, get to the phone right away and call a member of Alcoholics Anonymous because
you can always depend on an AA member being squared away that can talk with you
and stay with you till you get squared away and get to a meeting as quick as you can.
(33:39 – 33:53)
And because he had done these things, he had weathered this experience without
having to take a drink. And you were giving me the big news. Here’s a way to live
without having to take a drink.
(33:54 – 34:08)
And I began to collect your telephone numbers. And I had an address book specially for
this. And across the front I scotch-taped a nickel so I’d never be without that jitney for
the telephone.
(34:09 – 34:24)
And it wasn’t long until that book was not big enough. And I had to have another book.
And you were so generous with your time and your telephone numbers and your help
and your encouragement at every meeting.
(34:24 – 34:40)
And I began to go to meetings all over the place. And sure enough, wherever I went,
there was the thing in the room. I came to know, of course, it was there because you
bring it.
(34:41 – 35:06)
It emanates from you. You permeate the air with it. It’s there when you are there
because it is this psychic thing, this spiritual thing that comes from you because you
practice spiritual principles and the essence of this practice is in the room when you are
there.
(35:08 – 35:18)
Well, I began to try to apply myself to these steps. The people who worked with me were
hard task masters. They knew me inside out and backwards.
(35:19 – 35:28)
They knew I thought I was an intellectual. They knew I wasn’t, but they knew I thought I
was. And so they approached me this way and they went along with this silly game.
(35:29 – 35:51)
And they instructed me into the practice of the steps one by one and they quizzed me
and they gave me verbal examinations and we sat for long hours as we did this
afternoon talking about this program. And they used all kinds of dirty tricks. I remember
one night we were going to play charades.
(35:51 – 36:09)
We were just having a party and somebody said, my sponsor I think, did you know I just
cannot understand why we keep getting up in AA meetings and saying there are no
musts in this program. You’ve heard this expression. There are no musts in the
Alcoholics Anonymous program.
(36:10 – 36:26)
And he said I can’t understand why we keep on saying this when the word must is used
92 times in the AA book. Well, I hope you don’t think any of us were going to admit we
didn’t know this. And the party broke up very quickly that night.
(36:26 – 36:47)
Everybody had to get home early because they had something to do the next morning.
And we all went home and started underlining the word must in the book. And I know
that we did because we had many discussions on this and weeks to come each of us had
become an authority on the number of times the word is used in the book.
(36:47 – 37:17)
And if you don’t think it’s in there 92 times, go home and underline it in your book as you
read it because I’m not sure how many times it may be in there. I came to understand
that Mike was saying to us that we cannot say to you, you must, but we must say to
ourselves as individuals, we must. I must say to Wyn Laws, Wyn, you must.
(37:17 – 37:32)
You must do these simple things to the best of your ability in order to get sober and stay
sober and get the essence of this program. I must do these things. And it tells me this.
(37:33 – 37:44)
And it tells me I must do it to the full extent of my capability because it says half
measures of ill is nothing. I can’t risk that. Well, I was happy.
(37:45 – 37:58)
I was staying sober. I memorized chapter 5 so I could pull on it all day as I needed to
because you told me right away that it was my thinking pattern I must change. That I
must change.
(37:59 – 38:08)
I must do this. You taught me right away that it didn’t matter a damn what had
happened to me in my life. None of these things were important.
(38:09 – 38:27)
That the way I reacted to what happened to me was the important thing and this is what
I must work on, my reaction pattern. I must conquer the defects of character, the
shortcomings. I must work on these things.
(38:28 – 38:51)
Denny and I were talking AA on the way down here today. We were talking about
attitude. In one of Zebrae’s books, he says the Beatitudes in the Bible, you know, these
beautiful ethics that are so great to try to live by and to practice.
(38:52 – 39:05)
Actually, he says Beatitude means be of this attitude. And I thank him for the gift. It’s
been fun to dwell on this.
(39:06 – 39:30)
And my grandmother used to say, when you can’t change the facts, try bending your
attitude. And it works, this one. And so attitude, the way I reacted to what was
happening to me, became a very important thing.
(39:31 – 40:01)
And because I had come to you in agnostic and because I’d had to learn to pray and
because I was willing to come to belief and this I was willing to do and because I was
promised in this book that through my willingness, I would come to believe. If I were
willing, I would come to believe. And so I began to practice believing.
(40:02 – 40:10)
And I began to pray in the morning. I’d relearned the Lord’s Prayer. You had given me
this.
(40:11 – 40:33)
I learned the Serenity Prayer. And I found this great, great combination of words in the
Alcoholics Anonymous book that I believe with all my heart are the most powerful group
of words that have ever been compiled in a paragraph. And it’s a prayer that has been
given to us.
(40:33 – 40:46)
You know the one I mean. My Father, I offer myself to Thee to build with me and to do
with me as Thou wilt. Release me from bondage of self.
(40:47 – 41:09)
I can tell how it is with me whether I remember to put that phrase in. You know, when
I’m running the show, when this self-will takes over, you won’t catch me putting in,
release me from bondage of self, you know. I’ll forget that phrase on that occasion.
(41:10 – 41:23)
And it gives me a measuring stick. And I know then what’s the matter with me all over
again. And it goes on to say, take away my difficulties that victory over them will bear
witness.
(41:24 – 41:48)
Victory over my difficulties will bear witness to those I would serve. Of Thy will, Thy
power, and Thy love, may I do Thy will always, is this powerful prayer in the AA book. It
works, this prayer.
(41:49 – 42:14)
And I began to pray it. And about that time, I had an opportunity to work with a group
out at Norwalk State Hospital. They had said, could some people come out at 9 o’clock
on Sunday morning and attend the meeting? Because they wanted to show them that
people stayed sober on Saturday night and could get there sober on Sunday morning
without a hangover, you know.
(42:15 – 42:27)
And I thought, oh boy, there’s something I can do. I can go out there at 9 o’clock on
Sunday morning. And little did I know that for the next five years, I would miss exactly
two Sunday mornings at 9 o’clock.
(42:28 – 42:42)
Because in Nothing Flat, they were kind enough to allow me to come every Sunday and
bring a speaker for the group. And you know how that is. And I couldn’t have missed it,
and I certainly couldn’t ask anybody to do it for me.
(42:43 – 43:01)
And so I began to love those days. And I was being allowed to run errands for them and
to make telephone calls for the patients in the hospital and do all kinds of things that I
was enjoying doing. But I didn’t have a God that I could understand.
(43:04 – 43:30)
And one day, I was out at the hospital, and a man had owed me $1,000 for a long, long
time, and I finally decided I needed it worse than he did, and I talked to a lawyer about it.
And the lawyer told me he’d got my $1,000 for me, and if I’d call him about 2 o’clock the
next afternoon, he’d tell me what time to come down to his office and pick it up. And I
called him, and he said, When? I made a mistake.
(43:30 – 43:52)
I didn’t do something that I was supposed to do, and you won’t get the $1,000. He said,
You can go back to court and get it if you’d like to in court, but he said, I expect it’ll cost
you $1,000 to get it. And I was standing there, and nothing was happening, and I hung
up, and I thought, Well, I’ll be mad in a minute.
(43:52 – 44:20)
I’m in a state of shocks. What’s the matter with me? But I’ll overcome this in just a
minute, and I’ll be over there in that de soda, and I’ll be down at 7th and Spring, and I’ll
scratch his eyes out. That’s what I’ll do, and this is what I would always have done, you
see, and I’ll take the $1,000 in either blood, skin, or bills, whichever he decides to part
with, and I kept walking across the campus, as we used to call it, and I wasn’t feeling
anything, you know.
(44:20 – 44:49)
I didn’t want to go down to 7th and Spring and scratch his eyes out, and I got clear
upstairs on B Ward, and the door clanged closed behind me, and it was women’s
meeting afternoon, and one of the girls said, What’s the matter with you? You sure look
puzzled, and I said, Well, I sure am puzzled. I should be mad as hell, and I’m not mad at
all. I don’t feel anything, and I’m puzzled, and she said, What happened? And I told her,
and she said, What did you do when you got up this morning? And I said, Oh, you know
what you usually do.
(44:49 – 45:03)
You pray, and you ask for protection and care, and particularly protection against a no
destructive reaction pattern. She said, You got it, and I’m afraid it was like the minister in
the tire, you know. I’m afraid.
(45:03 – 46:08)
I said, Well, I’ll be damned, and that afternoon on my way back to Hollywood, I found
myself laughing out loud in my car, and I was all by myself, and you know what they say
about people that do that, and I laughed out loud every time I remembered how many
times I had said in my life, I’d give $1,000 for a good night’s sleep, and I slept like a baby
the rest of my life. And so maybe it was expensive to get it through this hardheaded mix
of mine, but get it through you were, and all kinds of strange things were beginning to
happen to me in addition to this miracle of sobriety. One day I got a 12-step call, and I
was rushing out because a girl had tried to kill herself, and they thought that she might
again, and I got clear out on Century Boulevard from Hollywood, and I was running out of
gas.
(46:08 – 46:38)
In fact, I was out of gas. Now, this is no big deal as a rule, but the gas cap was locked on
the car, and the minute I realized I was out of gas, I also realized that the key to the gas
cap was on my dresser in Hollywood, and all I had was an ignition key, and this could be
pretty serious. And I threw up that prayer that we throw up, that petition, for her and for
me.
(46:39 – 46:53)
And something impelled me to coast into that filling station that was right handy and
right up to the pump, and I took the keys out and handed them to the man and said, Fill
it up, please. And he said, Lady, that’s your ignition key. And I said, Yes, I know, but fill it
up.
(46:53 – 47:06)
And he opened the lock and filled it up. Now, we never carried another key. We threw
the key away after everybody got through exclaiming how they didn’t look anything alike
and they couldn’t possibly work, you know.
(47:07 – 47:22)
And I don’t believe that God came down from someplace I don’t know about and
suddenly changed the lock. It would always have worked, but we didn’t know it, so we
carried two, you see. And that day I knew it.
(47:23 – 47:48)
And the book promises me that these things will happen to me. It tells me all about it in
this book because it says when we’re trying our hardest to the best of our ability to
practice these spiritual principles, you know, in our daily living. All the time it says that
we become aware, that awareness comes to us, things from areas that we don’t even
question anymore.
(47:50 – 47:56)
Our energy increases. We’re so much more efficient. We don’t tire easily anymore.
(47:56 – 48:38)
We can do all manner of things that we didn’t know we could do when we practiced
these principles to the best of our ability in our daily lives, that awareness comes. And so
continuing on with the program, ultimately I came to the experience that several of you
have been kind enough to tell me has worked for you. And maybe because not all of us
have learned it yet, and maybe because it’s important for me to remind me every once
in a while, I’d like to tell you about it again, if I may.
(48:40 – 49:09)
I’d worked the steps to the best of my ability and was working on them. Defects of
character, fifth step, written inventory, which I am truly dedicated to, and amends. And
I’d come to know through the description of how to take a written inventory in the A.A.
book that resentment is the dubious luxury of the non-alcoholic, that it’s the killer of the
alcoholic.
(49:11 – 49:19)
We must be free, the A.A. book says, of resentment. We must. That’s the word used in
here.
(49:20 – 49:33)
We must or we die, he says, and so I believe it. I believe everything that’s in this book.
And then I’d come up against this resentment I’d had so long against my mother.
(49:35 – 49:49)
Seemed like all my life I’d resented my mother. I’d fanned it, nurtured it, and nourished
it. It was my excuse for all my failures all my life.
(49:49 – 50:06)
It was my last defense for total self-responsibility. So naturally it was difficult to part
with. What would I have when it was gone? What excuse would I have? Not reason, you
understand, excuse.
(50:07 – 50:26)
There’s a difference, I came to know. And one morning I woke up and I knew my time
had run out. I was no longer safe unless I did everything I could do to the best of my
personal ability and that morning I prayed for an answer to this resentment against my
mother.
(50:27 – 50:51)
Talking about it was not enough. And I went to the office and a gal brought in a whole
stack of magazines for me to take out to Norwalk that day and I leafed through them to
see what they were and there was an old copy of a Liberty magazine. It took me a year
to realize it was a Liberty and it took me a year to realize it had to be a Liberty.
(50:52 – 51:15)
It was the Freedom magazine. And across the front a great big banner said A
Condensation of Dr. Norman Vincent Peel’s A Guide to Confident Living. And I cracked it
out of curiosity and the first word on the first page in big bold black was the word
resentment.
(51:16 – 51:29)
And I guess you know I read it. And he said in there, If you’ve got a resentment you
would be free of. If you have a resentment you would be free of.
(51:31 – 52:10)
Pray for the person, the thing, or the institution you resent and you will be free. Do it
every day for two weeks and you will be free. And I drew myself up to my full five-five
and said well how phony can you get? He’s telling me to pray for my mother’s health and
prosperity and happiness and everything I would have for myself to ask for for her.
(52:12 – 52:53)
How phony can you get? I certainly don’t want her to have those things and I’m not
going to ask for them. And he knew I was going to read this and he knew exactly how I
was going to respond because in the very next paragraph he says even though you don’t
mean a word of it and you don’t even want it to happen it’s the last thing in the world
you want because you’re mad go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks
and you will find at the end of that time you have come to mean it.
(52:55 – 53:11)
And it works. It worked for me then it’s worked for me hundreds of times since and it will
work for me anytime I’m willing to work it. And I even have some added help that you
gave me in this book.
(53:11 – 53:42)
For in here it says that when I am not willing to do the things necessary to have the good
life I have the right to pray to be willing and the willingness will come. And sometimes I
have to pray to be willing to be willing but every time I do it comes. And because it
worked for me it will work for you and it will work for us every time.
(53:43 – 54:03)
And tonight before the meeting we were talking about a thing that Wilson used to say
Bill Wilson, the founder of God Rest His Soul and he used to say when the good is so
often the enemy of the best don’t settle for less than the best. Don’t be complacent.
Don’t be smug.
(54:03 – 54:27)
Don’t settle there just because you’re comfortable. Oh, I don’t like that word
comfortable. I cherish the divine restlessness that’s in all of us that makes us have to
move on because the only real freedom is doing what you ought to do because you want
to do it.
(54:29 – 55:56)
And I’m going to go over for just a couple of minutes because I want to tell you again
about the experience I had in Canada when the lady got up to talk and the tears were
running so down her face and she said that in her family she was trying to raise her
children on spiritual principles and to indoctrinate them into daily prayer and so before
each meal and dinner particularly they said the Lord’s Prayer is a blessing on the meal
and one night our little bitty one who was awfully hungry and could hardly wait said,
Mama, do we have to say this every night? Do we have to ask for our daily bread every
night? Can’t we just do it once a week? And her sister said, Listen, dummy, the reason
we ask for our daily bread every day is because we want it fresh. And I ask you, have
you ever heard a better way to say just one day at a time? And so asking for my daily
bread one day at a time has allowed me to live without having to take a drink for 26
years the 25th of last July and thank you very much.