(0:00 – 2:32)
You want to fix your PA system? I didn’t do it. Somebody just adjusted it in the last
couple of minutes to turn up the volume and kind of you’re getting a feedback we call
that technically. Here, we’ll get our ace mechanic here.
My name is Clancy Emerson, I’m an alcoholic. I’m very glad to be here tonight, very glad
to be in the… I sat at the table here and listened to Debra and Joe talk to each other all
night on their walkie-talkies. What do you think about that Debra? I don’t know Joe, what
do you think? Over and out, breaker nine.
Hey, stop it. I, uh, that little knob is the first time in history that Joe’s been able to
discontinue Debra’s voice. I’m, as I said, very glad to be here.
I enjoy Florida. I come down here a lot, a lot, quite a bit. I, uh, last time I spoke at the
Florida State A convention, I guess, was 1975 over in Miami Beach when they held it in
conjunction with the Southeastern Convention.
As a matter of fact, Yvonne, who spoke Thursday night, was at that convention too. And
I, as most of you know, a group of us come down here to every October, end of October,
early November to Naples, and this year will be the 25th year we’ve come down here. I
spend a week in a, Bill D. Ixson has a house near the Beach Club.
We get up every morning and walk along the beach to the pier and get orange juice and
coffee and walk back and take turns cooking for each other. And some of the guys play
golf and some of the guys read and sit in the sun. It really is, really knits up the ravel
sleeve of care very well.
So I really have a warm spot in my heart for Naples, and I always have had. I’m, since we
started coming down here, it’s grown quite a bit and it’s getting a little more commercial,
but it’s still a very pleasant place to be. So I was really indeed doubly pleased when our
program chairman, Joe, called me and invited me to come down here.
I really enjoy it. It’s been an excellent convention, I think. I didn’t get here till Friday
afternoon.
(2:32 – 4:40)
My host, let me tell you what my host has done for me. I saw him briefly last night at the
meeting. I said, hi, hi, hi, Dick.
Oh, hello there. I said, you want to go for a ride in the car I rented up at Fort Myers when
you’re too busy to pick me up? No, I don’t have time now. Bye.
So I really enjoyed having you for a host, Dick. Could have been worse. You could have
spent a lot of time with me.
And I was, I’ve enjoyed the convention. I’ve enjoyed several of the meetings. I’ve had a
little chance to sit in the sun and listen to good speakers.
Last night we had Doug DeBee from Houston who gave a wonderful talk. He gave kind of
a good history of AA. Not all of his facts were exactly correct, but they were mostly, you
know, what the hell.
Doug has not learned one thing, however, and I’m going to educate him tonight. Never
be cute with a person who has the microphone after you have it. That’s why I’m so eager
to say I’m really looking forward to Keith L., who’s my favorite speaker in the whole
world.
Doug did say something in passing last night that I did identify with, however. He said
that he was an AA agnostic. An agnostic is one who doesn’t always, not sure they believe
in clancy I. Now I want to tell you something.
If that’s the, if that’s the definition of it, I’m an AA agnostic. There have been many times
over the years I have not always believed in clancy I. But that’s why I keep going to
meetings, because I get back believing him and again. But I understand that point of
view.
(4:40 – 16:53)
I spent a lot of days in my adult life, in my sobriety, where I haven’t been sure whether I
believed in clancy I or not. But that’s why we’re here, so we take those actions to bring it
back. And I, I was thinking what to say to that.
I’ve come down to Florida so often, and I was, I was going to talk earlier this year, I
talked in Florida on the history of AA, and Doug kind of covered that last night. And then
I was over on the East Coast and talked about the traditions, and Doug kind of talked
about that last night. My back’s to the wall.
I think I’ll talk about what it used to be like, what happened, and what it’s like. I come
from a dysfunctional family. That used to hurt me a lot till I realized I was the one that
made it dysfunctional.
But I grew up with most of, some of you know I’m sure, that I grew up in a little town in
northern Wisconsin called Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Just a lovely little town, and I got the
clap there too. I feel a little ill at ease today.
I feel good, but ill at ease. I go to a lot of conventions. The way things are, many times I
am the oldest person at that convention.
And tonight, I wasn’t even close to being the third-leading one at my own table, for
Christ’s sake. Those old-timers are ruining AA. But that really is great.
I hope that as long as I live, there will always be somebody ahead of me, because that is,
that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You should be people ahead of you and people behind
you, and you should be somewhere in the middle milling around. I’m so glad to sit
tonight with Eddie and Mary and see the other folks around here with a little length of
time.
It’s continuing reminders that this program works despite the petty complaints of those
who fall by the wayside. But I have a, most of my life, like many people here, I think it’s
safe to say that I had a great deal of difficulty in coming to believe the things I was
supposed to believe in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I think the reason for that is because
I, I always, I look back over my life, and I suppose the number one feeling in my life,
most of my life, has been, and intermittently now, I might say, any time when I talk
about emotions I used to have, there are traces of them still there.
I’d like to tell you that they all go away, but they don’t, because you remain being a
human being. But probably that terrible feeling of, of my case is different, and I don’t
know why. I don’t know how.
I know that, I suppose that’s the universal, I’ve come to understand that is the universal
feeling amongst people. I have over the years had the opportunity to go to a lot of places
in AA, meet people and talk and so on. Just a month ago I was down touring the cities of
Australia for the, there was, they have a kind of a big celebration on there for the
celebration of birthday of AA on June 10th.
So I was in Melbourne one night, in Sydney and Canberra and Perth. And last year at this
time I was touring the cities of South Africa, which was pretty exciting because there
were some starting to rioting because one of their leaders had been assassinated. And
over the years I’ve been in exotic places like Dublin and Belfast and, and Berlin and, and
it’s always the same, you know, it’s really an amazing thing.
You’d think you’d find something exotic and wonderful in these places. But if you, if you
ignore, ignore the accents, you might as well just stay home. You hear the same dismal
crap that you hear in your home group.
I remember in, uh, sitting in Berlin, I was in Berlin, not very long after the wall had come
down. In fact, I was up there at the wall and I had a, they gave me a little chip and a little
hammer and I chipped off pieces of that wall to bring home to my grandparent,
grandchildren, which is a little thing you learn when you’re a grandparent. You do things
like that.
You would chip and you say, here’s some parts of the Berlin wall. Remember, I love you
more than your other grandfather does. Well, I was supposed to speak at a dinner
meeting on Saturday night and we were there that Friday night, that English speaking
meeting as exciting because this meeting was just a few blocks from checkpoint Charlie
and over all the spies used to go in and out.
And here were people coming from East Berlin for the first time and people from West
Berlin mingling with them. And the alcoholics were meeting this meeting and you just
knew you’re going to hear something tonight about freedom. And you’re going to hear
about freedom from bondage of alcohol, freedom from bondage of communist tyranny,
freedom.
And I remember sitting there, you hear a guy behind me saying, but I don’t think you
really understand. I, I’m afraid my case is different. See you down to the coffee shop
hunt.
Yeah. You can hear that in Santa Monica. You can hear that in Fort Myers.
You don’t have to go to Berlin to hear that. But yet for people like me and I presume like
most of you, when you have it, you don’t have the knowledge of knowing that isn’t that’s
indigenous, that there are a lot of people like you. All you know is I feel if there’s
something different about me, I look over my life and I, I think probably if I ever felt I’ve
been given any gift, it was the gift of self analysis.
And I didn’t want to waste that gift. So I used it a lot. How do you really feel? I’m sure
there are people in this room that have that gift.
Maybe some of the new people we’re talking, you know, I don’t know how people 10
days sober can go to a banquets. I couldn’t even get out of my abandoned car, but we
don’t judge. But, uh, I spent a lot of time in self analysis.
I’m sure there are people who do that here. And if you are a self analyzer, I think I can
guarantee you that you will never have a comfortable day as long as you live. It may
start out comfortably, but you’ll screw it up by noon.
Just why do I feel comfortable on and on? But I spent a lot of time evaluating myself and
analyzing myself. And I think it’d be safe to say that probably over the years without
being aware of it, I worked out a lot of emotional things, but probably three major areas
in my life as I can look back and see now that I felt I couldn’t identify that when you’re if
you’re kind of new, you got to remember this. You hear all these old fools talk, and
they’re so knowledgeable.
Then I felt this. And then I saw that then it isn’t really that way at all. We’re going
through it.
It’s just all just what next for God’s sake. I’m kind of a civil war buff, and I like to trudge
over the battlefields and do things like that. A few years ago, I had my boy when he was
about 10 or 11 years old.
I took him on Gettysburg, and I gave him a tour of Gettysburg. And I told him more about
the Battle of Gettysburg than any guide there. I’ve told him what happened the first day
for half an hour, and that took him about half an hour through the second day, and about
half an hour through the third day.
And I was really giving it to him. I looked down and the kid is going. He really was not
pleased.
I said, Boy, you sure know a lot about the Battle of Gettysburg. I said, I know more about
the Battle of Gettysburg than anybody who fought in it. But that’s really true.
I know a lot more than about the Battle of Gettysburg than anybody who fought in it.
Because I know what everybody is thinking. I know General Lee was thinking.
I know General Meade was thinking. I know General Hood was thinking. I know
regimental colonels were thinking.
I know that the 20th Maine was thinking. I knew a lot of things, you know. And because
you read that in retrospect, that’s part of being history.
The people in the battle didn’t have this information. All they knew is, Oh, Jesus, here
they come again. And that’s much the way it is with these AA stories, you know.
We talk so knowledgeably and package it together. But when they’re happening, all of us
just sit there. Oh, Jesus, here they come again.
That’s really how it is. But in retrospect, I would say probably the three major areas of
my life that I can look at and see the other bit. One is that in some way that I could not
define or describe or even tell you what it was, but I can see the feeling now.
In some way, it always seemed to me people felt like I wasn’t quite good enough.
Nobody ever said anything, but it seemed to me they treated me like I was not quite
good enough. It seemed to me they liked each other instinctively better than they liked
me.
They accepted other people more than they liked me. They they seem to just get along
together. They just nobody ever told me what was wrong.
Nobody ever said this is what’s wrong with you, and it makes you feel bad. And when
they get close to you, they don’t like you. So I guess an instinctive reaction I had as a
young man.
I didn’t realize that for many, many years. I had did this for years. That is this.
Keep people at a distance. Give a little song and dance. Give a little clever remarks.
Give a little funny poses, little postures, but don’t let them in too close. Then they won’t
know that you’re not enough. Have them accept the role you decide to play for them.
But it gets lonely. So every once in a while you have you let somebody in. Then it turns
out they won’t like you.
So you don’t keep anybody else in for a while. Another great part of my life that always
has been a part of my life has been seemed to me I’ve always lived with to one degree
or another of fear, not so much fear of pain or fear of that sort of thing, although I fear
that, too, but fear that people will find out that I’m not good enough, that they’ll see
through my postures, that they’ll publicly embarrass me. They will humiliate me.
Fear that people will discover I’m not what I want them to think I am. And another great
area of my life, of course, the other great area of my life is that it always seemed to me
that there’s something about me that makes me too vulnerable, more vulnerable than
other people seem to be. It’s almost as though if you come off the assembly line, there’s
supposed to be a layer of insulation on you and I didn’t get my layer of insulation.
So as a result of that, I was always too sensitive to things. I always felt rejection. Other
people said there’s no rejection.
I can see rejection in a glance that nobody else can see. I can hear it in a tone of voice.
When I’m at the top of my game, I can see it in a passing memo.
Just I know what they’re up to. And the net result of that is I spend much of my life. I
didn’t realize how much I’ve been sober many years with hurt feelings of one degree or
another.
People are always hurting my feelings. And one of the competence of that, oddly
enough, is that I never saw this for years, years and years. But when all the things come
together, like these people are in astrology telling us all the moon is in line with
Sagittarius, who’s in line with Capricorn, and we all got to watch ourselves tomorrow, you
know, when a certain series of combinations came together, when I was feeling
especially vulnerable, when people seem to publicly hurt my feelings or embarrass me,
when people would just take advantage of my fear, when all of these things came
together at once, which they didn’t come often, but when they did, I have one fixed
reaction.
I hated it, but I didn’t realize I had it. That is this. If you publicly humiliate me and make
me feel bad when I’m feeling very vulnerable, I must give you the ultimate punishment.
(16:54 – 17:15)
I must deny you my presence as long as you live. And I’ll tell you, it sounds kind of funny,
but I’ve spent years getting jobs that I’ve left and just if that’s the way it is, screw you.
I’ve given up loves, I’ve given up friendships.
(17:15 – 17:25)
Doesn’t happen very often, but when it happens, it’s a Dr. Pavlovian response. Just I
salivate and that’s the end of it. And I’m not even aware of it.
(17:25 – 17:41)
But these a lot of other emotions have always hounded me and feeling too sensitive and
feeling not quite enough and feeling up. And the one compensating factor I felt I had for
it was that I seemed to have an undue ambition. It seemed to me I’ve got a lot of
ambition.
(17:42 – 17:50)
This will help me overcome all these feelings. And I thought this is a very positive
emotion. I look back in my life now when I see guys coming to AA now that I work with.
(17:51 – 18:04)
And once in a while I’ll see a guy who has the type of ambition that I used to have. And I
think this poor guy, this is going to be a long, long battle because this is not ambition.
It’s a reaction to not feeling good enough.
(18:05 – 18:35)
It isn’t that I want to become successful. It’s that I want to show them I want to prove to
them I’ll show you. And there’s never enough because no matter what you get, there’s
always another layer to show.
And so there’s an endless, it’s an almost satirizes of the ego. Just there’s never it’s an
insatiable need. But I had this and that sort kept me going and trying things when I was
a young man, I realized that I had these emotions and I want to do something about it.
(18:35 – 18:42)
So I went to psychoanalysis. A lot of people say today, well, you shouldn’t go to
psychoanalysis. I love psychoanalysis.
(18:42 – 18:57)
I made breakthroughs there that would make tears roll down your cheeks. I discovered
I’d been hurt in ways I hadn’t even dreamed of. I, as I’ve said many times, I was one of
the great heart heartaches of my life.
(18:57 – 19:12)
I was raised in a Norwegian Lutheran church, a little town called Eau Claire, Wisconsin,
and some nice church. My grandparents were big in the church. My parents were.
I was confirmed I could sing little songs in Norwegian. And then it’s a really it’s a strict
church, but it’s a good church. Good, solid folks.
(19:13 – 19:21)
They really only have two rules. You don’t sin and you don’t monkey with Catholics. And
if which seems reasonable, if you want to go to heaven.
(19:25 – 19:34)
But as I was growing up, it’s I became aware of something strange. It wasn’t anybody’s
fault. I just seem to need more fun than other Lutherans.
(19:35 – 19:45)
Who knows why? I don’t know why. So I begin sinning little by little. Then I got monkey
with Catholics and I got sinning with Catholics.
(19:47 – 19:58)
And I realized I was going to probably go to hell, but it wasn’t anybody’s fault. They’re
just a luck of the draw. But in psychoanalysis, I discovered that I had been
psychologically scarred by the Norwegian Lutheran church.
(19:59 – 20:08)
It had left it had repressed me in ways I hadn’t dreamed of. It put me in a funk for quite a
while. I I’d always liked the church.
(20:08 – 20:25)
Now they’d turned on me. If I knew then what I know now, I would have formed adult
children of Norwegian Lutherans. We could have hired a couple of co-dependents and sat
around and been pissed off every week.
(20:28 – 20:46)
I I discovered I’d been scarred by the Depression. Did you know there’d been a
depression? I discovered all sorts of things. I just want to just it was just I found thing
week after week, new things, new understandings, how I had these feelings.
(20:46 – 21:03)
That it’s such a great thing to know why you’re having these feelings. I am sure that
anyone in this room, I’m sure there are people here like me who are trying to find why do
I have these damn feelings? Why do I have these damn emotions? I want to tell you
something. I want to give you some good news and some bad news.
(21:03 – 21:19)
The good news is you can find out why you have them may have to go to different
therapies and you put these therapies may have different answers. But you will know I
now know why I have these feelings. And the downside is, of course, it doesn’t help.
(21:20 – 21:35)
You you wind up feeling crappy and knowing why. Yeah. The only possible use of it, I’ve
ever been able to think of for that kind of information, maybe late at night in the bar, so I
didn’t do it, but it might have worked.
(21:35 – 21:45)
You know, some big boob. Hey, what the hell’s wrong with you? And you can tell him,
well, I wasn’t sufficiently nurtured. Now, certainly the Lutheran Church.
(21:47 – 22:08)
But I went to psychoanalysis and I psychoanalysis made me feel better on a continuing
basis, and I never knew why. I remember in after a twenty five years thinking, why am I
talking about these things? Why does that make me feel good? And it always made me
feel good. I swore by it for a long time.
(22:08 – 22:22)
And it wasn’t until the last maybe seven or eight years I now understand why
psychoanalysis was so important to me. Because it did something for me that nothing
else has done. But now there’s new therapies in America that do it for everybody.
(22:23 – 22:36)
I think it’s the hottest thing in America today, but I didn’t know it then. And it’s just this
probably the worst single emotion of anybody I know on the deep seated level is guilt.
Guilt is a terrible, deep thing.
(22:37 – 23:02)
Not only the guilt of the things you’ve done, but the guilt of the things you didn’t do and
the unspoken things and the sins of omission, if you will. And if only I had treated that
child differently and if only I had done this, if only I had taken advantage of that. And
these guilt, you can talk about them and assuage them verbally, but eventually gets to
be two o’clock in the morning and they’re there just like a big some clutch in your throat
sometime.
(23:03 – 23:12)
And there’s nothing that I’ve ever found that gets rid of those guilts except alcohol. But
there’s one other thing that gets rid of them. And it’s things like psychotherapy.
(23:12 – 23:20)
They may not intend to work this way, but it works that way for me. And these modern
therapies do the same thing. I’ll tell you how you get rid of guilt in a guilt ridden patient.
(23:21 – 23:36)
You convince him or her that he is and has always been a victim. And when you become
a victim, it is no longer your fault and it relieves guilt. And that is why victimization is
such a hot therapy today.
(23:37 – 23:47)
Well, laugh if you wish, but it isn’t. I’ll tell you, it’s the biggest it’s the biggest therapy
going in America by far. Everybody’s into little segments and sects and groups.
(23:48 – 24:06)
Everything is few people cluster together how we’ve been victimized, how we’ve been
victimized, how we’ve been victimized religiously and racially and ethnically and
psychologically and background and where you live and just and you get rid of guilt. So
you think, what’s what’s wrong about that? Nothing. It’s great to get rid of guilt.
(24:08 – 24:25)
The downside of victimization, of course, and it may be all right for most people, isn’t all
right for me. I can see in retrospect and I would doubt if it were all right for you, if you’re
like me, is that nothing is ever free in the world. There’s always a little price tag for
anything.
(24:25 – 24:51)
And the price tag for victimization is hidden, but it is nearly always there for people like
me, although I don’t see it. And there are three little price tags that are really are almost
invisible, except they each up like piranha fish. One, if you can accept the role of victim,
whether you intend to or not, you must continue to sustain and enhance resentment
toward those who have done it to you.
(24:51 – 25:04)
Again and again, you must remember what they have done, what they didn’t do. If you
go to some of these groups where they preach victimization, I’ve been to a couple of
them with someone as just as an observer. You find no laughter in these meetings.
(25:05 – 25:19)
There’s no jolliness. People dislike it outside of an AA meeting when they come out for
their laughing and talking and having a cup of coffee. They come out sullen and resentful
because they have reinforced the resentment toward what has been done to them.
(25:20 – 25:31)
And that’s an unpleasant thing. Ongoing resentment, no matter how justified you can
make it. And the second little price tag you have to pay, whether you intend to or not,
you must accept the fact that you are terminally different.
(25:31 – 25:53)
There’s no way to redress this. I never really understood this until I again went to one of
those meetings and I heard a national leader in the movement saying, you must look at
yourself as a tree, that as a sapling has been bent and turned and changed and you’re
not killed. And you grow to a full tree, but you’re grown into a crooked, narrow tree.
(25:54 – 26:11)
And no matter what, nothing can ever make you back to being straight arrow, which is
you must accept the fact that you are terminally different and there’s no way out of it,
which, of course, keeps you in that therapy for a long time. True story. I’m not I’m not
judging them, just telling how it works.
(26:12 – 26:28)
And the third little thing is obvious to see for people like me and I presume like you. If
you have these things going for you, the third little price tag you pay is intermittent, but
intense self-pity. Why has this happened to me? I could have been something I could
have been a contender.
(26:28 – 26:35)
I could have been something I could have had love, but no, they ruined my life. I hate
them. And so these these things are.
(26:36 – 26:46)
Are really quite lethal. And maybe but maybe it’s worth it to get rid of guilt, what the hell
to get rid of guilt, that’s a suicide thing. These things aren’t suicide things.
(26:47 – 26:59)
Guilt is a suicide thing. And it may be OK for most people, but we come to and stay
around your while and finally the fog lifts and finally begin to understand what you’re
talking about. You look in a book and it’s a funny thing.
(27:00 – 27:15)
The it almost specifically outlines these emotions as the most deadly emotions for
people like you and me. Resentment. Self-pity.
(27:16 – 27:32)
Feelings of difference. Why are they so lethal to people like me? Because they will justify
every drink I ever take from now till the time I die from drinking and it will never have
been my fault. They did it to me.
(27:33 – 27:40)
And it’s a lethal, lethal thing. And you see people with it all the time. But I went through
a lot of that for years.
(27:40 – 27:48)
Now is a great practitioner of victimization. I read books. I’ve always been an imitation
intellectual.
(27:48 – 28:00)
I read books that I got to read in German philosophy after a while, which is really
wonderful because that stuff is just so obtuse. It’s just so you get to make sense. They go
into German words.
(28:03 – 28:31)
And if you know, if if you’re reading by yourself, you can say, what the hell does that
mean that that doesn’t even track? But if people are looking, you must say how true. I’ve
done a lot of things over the years, the things I’ve worked on, those emotions beyond
anything I can know of. And the only but the thing that helped me the most in all of
these years is something I paid no attention to at all.
(28:31 – 28:46)
When I was a boy, 15 years old, whether the war just hadn’t been on very long and
whether in a fit of patriotism or neurosis, I told my mother I was going to go to Superior,
Wisconsin to visit my aunt. And I hitchhiked to San Francisco. I had no idea how far it
was.
(28:46 – 28:54)
This map of the school library is about a page and a half. Not that bad. Blue states,
yellow states, green states.
(28:54 – 29:07)
Interesting things. And one guy gave me a ride almost all the way around. I’ve been
dead.
I had no idea how lucky that was. But I got to San Francisco and I he told me how to lie
my age on an application. I went to the two and get the service.
(29:07 – 29:15)
But you’re crying for merchant seamen. So I got an application. I put some put my age
on a 16 and brought it back.
(29:15 – 29:26)
And they said, well, you’re only 16. You have to have your parents. OK.
So I took it around the block, had my parents. OK. I was small and dumb, but I wasn’t
that dumb.
(29:27 – 29:34)
And they issued me some seamen’s papers. They sent me on the National Maritime
Union. I signed a waiver for my union dues and they sent me to the Embarcadero.
(29:35 – 29:59)
And the next morning I was on a ship going to the South Pacific. And two things in my
life, two great impacts in my life on that ship. One, but the second day out, I think I had
the first in an endless series of intuitive feelings that I have made a career error.
(30:02 – 30:12)
I’ve had that feeling many times since, but no more strongly. I remember his title telling
the guy, I really enjoy this, but I should get back now. We have a big English test
Monday.
(30:12 – 30:31)
And the other thing that happened to me on that ship was that I was raised to be a good
boy. I wasn’t a good boy, but I knew how to be a good boy. And on that ship were hard
bitten, black haired, obviously Catholic people, just terrible.
(30:32 – 30:41)
I’ve never seen anything like it. I remember the first day on that ship, you know, I lay in
my bunk just I wanted to cry on my mother. I didn’t want to ruin my image.
(30:41 – 30:52)
These guys were talking about what they’d been doing in San Francisco while the ship
had been in port. I couldn’t believe my ears. I said, my God, these are sinners.
(30:56 – 31:09)
They’re talking about sex. I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Even in Eau Claire,
Wisconsin, at the age of 15, I’d had sex, but I’d been apprehensive and I’d been afraid
and I’d been alone.
(31:09 – 31:32)
And I just. I couldn’t believe those pictures were coming to life in the San Francisco
waterfront. But one of the things they did on that ship, in addition to being filthy, dirty,
non-Lutheran people, they intimidated me to trying to drink whiskey.
(31:32 – 31:40)
And I promised both my mother and grandmother I will never drink whiskey. Lutherans
don’t drink whiskey. Lutherans, their bodies are temples.
(31:41 – 32:09)
And we don’t drink whiskey and we don’t even talk to people to do. And these guys
intimidated me. I remember the guy sticking that bottle in my face and, hey, you, you
think you’re man enough for a little snort? And I choked.
I’ve been doing that all my life. I just. My pimples stood straight up in rage and I wanted
to say, how dare you? Instead of voice, I heard a voice say, God damn right.
(32:13 – 32:37)
And I discovered I was a little weak under pressure. So I had my first drink of whiskey
and it burned my mouth and burned my throat and burned my stomach and burned my
throat and burned my mouth and burned his shirt. You know.
And they all laughed, ha ha ha, get the bottle away from the son of a bitch. Now’s the
day where I really felt humiliation in public. If I could have, I would have withdrawn and
punished them, but I had no place to go, obviously.
(32:39 – 32:42)
I thought if I had a gun, I’d have shot him. I would have. I hate that feeling.
(32:43 – 32:54)
I thought later, the only thing I might have done to get him, I’m glad I didn’t think of it.
I’d have been thrown overboard, but I might have said, hey, buddy, lean over. Yeah, take
that.
(32:55 – 33:07)
Give him one right in the old guy just to teach him a lesson. But I hated that whiskey. But
all the way across the Pacific, I would nobody’s run out, sneak into that guy’s sea bag
and take a drink of that whiskey.
(33:07 – 33:15)
It was hot. It had made me sick and I vomited and I’d have to wipe it up and do it the
next day. Because then for much of my life, I want to be accepted.
(33:15 – 33:24)
I’ll do whatever you want me to do to be accepted. I hated that stuff. I remember sitting
in Pearl Harbor the day before my 16th birthday, which was July 8th.
(33:24 – 33:29)
Just today is my birthday. And there’s a long time. No, don’t take up a love offering,
dummy.
(33:29 – 33:42)
Anyway, but I I finally took a drink of that slop and it stayed down. And I couldn’t even
breathe. And oh, God, I can’t stand to die.
(33:43 – 33:53)
And then all of a sudden, something strange happened. I found myself feeling
significantly better. Well, that’s why they drink whiskey.
(33:53 – 33:58)
It makes you feel significantly better. That’s all I learned. You know, I’ve heard people.
(33:58 – 34:17)
I guess they mean that get a meeting to say, well, I held that first drink of whiskey down.
I realized a new Vista had been opened, a doorway to a new type of life in which I would
use alcohol to enhance the qualities of my existence. I never felt that at all.
(34:17 – 34:30)
I thought that makes you feel better at all, because, you know, that’s when you learn
things in your teens. There’s a book out that says everything I ever need to know, I
learned in my kindergarten. I never learned anything in kindergarten.
(34:31 – 34:45)
I had to bring home notes because I wouldn’t sleep on my rug. Yeah. Where you learn
things, you learn things in your teens, at least the people I know do, especially young
men, because your body starts to change.
(34:45 – 35:01)
And all of a sudden you learn lust and then you learn about love. And then you learn if
you’re going to have any luck whatsoever, you’ve got to find a way to disguise lust as
love. And you learn about.
(35:02 – 35:21)
Your parents are going to support you learn about smoking. On that ship, everybody
smoked except me. I didn’t know.
I didn’t know anybody smoked, but I wanted to be accepted. I smoked and puked and
smoked and puked and smoked and puked till finally one day I smoked and didn’t puke.
And I smoked three packs, most just about three packs a day for the next forty five years
every day.
(35:22 – 35:36)
And I’ll tell you something that bothers me now, I want to tell these spokers in the hall
this tonight. There are still people who tell you that smoking doesn’t hurt you. But I’m
telling you from personal experience, I smoked about three packs a day every day for
forty five years.
(35:36 – 35:50)
In addition to that, spent many years in AA where everybody smoked and the rooms
were so cloudy you couldn’t even see the podium up there. Just secondhand smoke. And
I inhaled tons of it.
(35:51 – 36:01)
And they say it doesn’t hurt you. It practically made me bald. I can see there’s a lot of
other smokers in this room.
(36:04 – 36:12)
So be careful when you start getting a bald spot in the middle. Stop for God’s sakes.
Well, there’s time, but you learn a lot of things.
(36:12 – 36:26)
Your teens and I learned that my teens run around the Pacific Ocean and later in the war
and I got old enough. I went in the Navy and the wars in Pleasanton, California, Naval
Hospital being put together, sealed, sewed up a little bit. And I passed out some tests
and I was been good on tests.
(36:26 – 36:42)
My parents were both teachers and I read a lot since I was a little kid and they gave me I
took this test and I didn’t know what the hell it was for. But turned out they came and
gave me a diploma, high school equivalency diploma from the Armed Forces Institute,
which I didn’t think much about. Except I look back now.
(36:42 – 36:55)
It was a great miracle in my life. If I hadn’t gotten that, I’d had to go back to Eau Claire,
Wisconsin, theoretically after the war and start my junior year of high school, which I
never would have done. Not in a thousand years because I was too slick by this time.
(36:55 – 37:13)
Instead, I went back to the first. I went back, I went to college after the war in Wisconsin,
the first class of veterans, and we all stood around the campus and tried to look like
steely eyed, sex crazed killers. One of our unemployment checks would come out for
that freshman was 18 or not.
(37:16 – 37:27)
And I got married in college, I met this girl with black hair seemed exotic to me and we
got married. She was a Catholic girl and caused a great deal of heartache to my
grandmother. But I went out in the world.
(37:27 – 37:39)
I became a sports writer, newspaper sports writer. And then I discovered another
problem. I had married this lovely Catholic girl and she was a lovely girl, but she had the
failing that many Catholic women have.
(37:40 – 38:14)
And I am not criticizing them at all, but she had a terrible tendency to bear young. So I
became a national distributor of small Catholics. I just.
I used to play this, it can’t we use birth control now? I think about that now. Things are so
different than some of you young people not believe this. But in those days, the early
middle 40s, you know, I I didn’t know anybody personally who had enough guts to go in
and buy condoms.
(38:15 – 38:42)
It you’d have to hire some renegade kid to do that. And even he would say things like,
hey, give me a pack of cigarettes. And some condoms, I’ll tell you how things are
changed, the thrifty drugstore at my house, these kids come in now and say, hey, give
me some condoms and some cigarettes.
(38:44 – 38:58)
But I so as we had more children, I had to get better jobs. I got an advertising and public
relations and became somewhat successful. And all these years, alcohol was a
continuing influence for good in my life.
(38:58 – 39:13)
It seemed to me it always made me feel better. It always enabled me to come out of my
natural, introverted, self-centered, nasty little self and become what I pretended to be.
And alcohol is the best friend I ever had.
(39:13 – 39:22)
That’s a terrible thing to say in a meeting, but it really was. It just enabled me to do so
much, seemed to me. And looking back, I can see what alcohol does for people like me.
(39:22 – 39:41)
I didn’t know at the time, but another great retrospective insight. It takes people like me
if they happen to be alcoholic and people who are feeling they’re not quite enough. And
for a few hours and hopefully longer, I become more than enough.
(39:44 – 39:54)
Takes a person like me who lives with a lot of fear. And for a few hours and hopefully
longer, I become fearless. I’ll fight cops.
(39:54 – 40:01)
I’d jump off balconies in the swimming pools. What do you want to do? Let’s do it. Shit.
(40:07 – 40:22)
It takes people like me who are always so afraid of rejection, you can hardly do anything.
And for a few hours, I become the rejecter. And the best example of that, I must have
said it a thousand times, but I’ll say it one more time because I don’t know a better way
to say it.
(40:22 – 40:41)
I’m sure there’s a lot of young guys in this room who have never thought of it this way,
but it’s really true. We’ve sat in bars late at night, had a few drinks and watch a literal
miracle take place in front of your eyes. Watching some old beast gradually become
beautiful.
(40:49 – 41:04)
Maybe talk with your shoulders a little bit. I might sidle it over to such an old queen at
closing time. Imply there will be delights beyond her comprehension.
(41:06 – 41:20)
Would you like to join me in the old Chevy? Now, if she was saying now, God, it would kill
me if I were sober, I’d hang myself. I’d never asked you in the first place. But I’ve had a
few drinks.
(41:21 – 41:29)
I don’t feel rejected. I feel sorry for her. Too bad, bitch, don’t come begging tomorrow.
(41:37 – 41:51)
What a difference that makes to be like the others naturally are apparently. And the only
problem is I have a tendency to drink a little too much sometimes. Or as I learned in
psychoanalysis, I’ve many times been thoughtlessly over served.
(41:56 – 42:10)
Then I have a tendency to become a little bizarre. And I have to work out the
repressions, not my fault. And so I was sent to my first day meeting by a judge in 1949.
(42:11 – 42:17)
That’s a long time ago. A lot of you little snots weren’t even born. We love you.
(42:22 – 42:29)
And I tell you, it didn’t take me long to realize I didn’t belong there. You know, I was 22.
22 is not terribly young now.
(42:31 – 42:42)
But then no one had heard of anybody within 20 years of that state. 22-year-olds go to,
like, today a six-year-old would come in and say, I think I’m an alcoholic. Get out of here.
(42:43 – 42:57)
If your parents are looking, I’ll give you a kick too. But, you know, they just treated me
like, what the hell is wrong with you? And I knew, you hear these guys talk, I was in jail
14 times. Not me.
(42:58 – 43:09)
It didn’t take me very long at all to understand I wasn’t an alcoholic. Alcoholics are
people whose problem is alcohol. Do you really think you’re an alcoholic? I said, no, I
really don’t.
(43:10 – 43:19)
He said, what the hell do you think is wrong with you? I said, I think I’m too sensitive.
And he laughed. Yeah, that.
(43:20 – 43:30)
I just want to make a little passing note here. I’ve thought about that many times since
then. That was the last time I gave a truthful answer to a sensitive subject in AA for
many years.
(43:31 – 43:49)
Something to remember, when you’re working with new people, and they say something
stupid like, I think I’m too sensitive, be very careful you don’t laugh, because they don’t
know you’re laughing with them. They think you’re laughing at them, and they’re
vulnerable, and they may never give you a truthful answer again. Be understanding.
(43:49 – 43:55)
It really is true. You’ve got to remember, new people are vulnerable. And they tell you
things like, I think I’m too sensitive, for people to understand.
(43:56 – 44:02)
When you’re an old timer, you laugh. But when you’re new, you’re opening your armor.
And if you stick a knife in there, boy, they’ll never tell you again.
(44:02 – 44:11)
So it’s something to think about. But anyway, I hung around there. Then I left, and I went
to psychoanalysis, and I went to AA meetings off and on for years, and here and there,
people would send me to AA meetings.
(44:11 – 44:15)
And I read books. I did a lot of things. I became somewhat successful.
(44:15 – 44:29)
And I look back, when I took my inventory, my sponsor pointed out to me what a pattern
was in my life. To go into a city, to work my butt off, to become somewhat successful, to
bring my family in, would have a baby soon thereafter. I would be doing well, and then
my emotions would get out of whack.
(44:29 – 44:36)
I’d get drinking a little too much. And I’d screw up the deal somehow. And pretty soon, I
was out of that town, into a new town, starting the whole pattern over again.
(44:37 – 44:51)
But at the time, it didn’t seem that way. It just seemed like it was a series of bad breaks
and misunderstandings that just, next town’s going to be all right. And all of a sudden, I
kind of held my own, ups and downs, but held my own, go down, bounce back up.
(44:52 – 45:08)
And all of a sudden, one day, something happened to me that could not happen to a
person in my background and intelligence and ability. I found myself being physically
thrown out of a skid row mission in Los Angeles. And the guy said, stay out of here, you
damn bum.
(45:10 – 45:20)
And I tried to explain to him, I’m not a bum. Three years ago, I was on a mission and I
was on the faculty of the University of Texas. Ads that I helped write, the old LC Elmer
ads for the board and company.
(45:20 – 45:35)
We’re running at very weak in life and time and colliers and Saturday Post. I’d had my
picture in the New York Times for achievement. How many people do you know have had
their picture in the New York Times for achievement? But it’s hard to explain these things
in midair.
(45:40 – 45:54)
And unfortunately, about a month before that, I’d had my front teeth kicked out in the
Phoenix jail. So I wasn’t hitting those continents quite as cleanly. And I was dressed in
dirty clothes and they were ragged.
(45:55 – 46:06)
And my family was gone and my home was gone and my clothes were gone and my
career was gone. My front teeth were gone. You can get new families and new homes
and new careers.
(46:06 – 46:13)
But like our book says, we are like men who have lost their front teeth. They never grow
new ones. Or whatever it says, who knows what it says.
(46:15 – 46:29)
Are there any newcomers out there without teeth? Let me give you some hope. When
you become spiritually perfect, they grow back. I have your sponsor explain that to you
some night.
(46:30 – 46:51)
But I stood outside that Skid Row Mission and I guess I was dying pretty close to it. And if
a guy would have come up to me, he didn’t, but if a guy would have come up to me, he
said, hey, you’re about dead slim. Can’t you admit that you’re an alcoholic? And if my life
depended on it, I’d have to say, but I’m not really an alcoholic.
(46:51 – 46:58)
I can’t explain why, but I’m not. I wish I were. My life would be so much simpler if I were
an alcoholic.
(46:59 – 47:05)
I know all about AA. I know that it works for people who are alcoholics. But there’s
something wrong inside of me and I don’t know what it is.
(47:06 – 47:12)
And I just, I’ve been victimized all my life. Part of that would have been there too. And I
didn’t know what to do.
(47:13 – 47:31)
And it started to rain so I walked 71 blocks up Wilshire Boulevard to a place that used to
be an AA club called the 6300 Club. And I slushed in there and I’d been asked to leave a
week before for being in there drunken, swearing and fighting. And I hung around that
club and I hated it.
(47:32 – 47:47)
Everything was gone. I had absolutely no intention nor desire to stay sober because
being sober is a terrible bad thing for me. I had no I sometimes look back and think
about that.
(47:47 – 48:05)
The only time I ever really stayed sober any length of time is I I had taken a vow on my
son’s casket that I would not put my children through bad times again. And I I was in jail
when he died. Not very long, just overnight.
(48:05 – 48:14)
But that was the wrong night. And now I was down in Texas and my kids moved in and
my wife moved down there. And that fall was just terrible.
(48:14 – 48:20)
It’s just it was hot. And in Texas, there’s wind blows and hot winds and dirt. I mean, sand,
fine dirt.
(48:21 – 48:32)
And it’s so strange to me and it’s so unusual that I I was trying to hold two jobs to make
up for the last city I blew it up. And my wife got pregnant and it just got so hot. The
culture was so strange.
(48:32 – 48:41)
I couldn’t find any comfort and I couldn’t drink. I needed to drink so bad I could have
screamed but these little kids were there. I swore I wasn’t going to drink with these little
kids in that situation again.
(48:42 – 48:57)
And I couldn’t stand it. And I couldn’t drink because you can’t drink and you take a bow
and your son’s casket. So my wife took the kids to church one day to mass and I just
pulled our car in the garage and hooked up a hose and turned the motor and went to
sleep and died.
(48:57 – 49:28)
I just didn’t know what else to do. And a neighbor watched this happening and noticed I
didn’t come out anymore and kicked down the door and found me dead in the car and
took me out and beat on my chest and breathed my wrath and rushed me to the hospital
and they oxygenated me and talked to me until they determined I was mentally ill and
moved me to the psychiatric ward and after about a week determined I was a paranoid
schizophrenic and committed me for an indefinite period for the rest of my life to the
Texas State Insane Asylum in Big Spring, Texas. That’s how I get when I stay sober, folks.
(49:30 – 49:41)
That is not your basic alcohol problem. That is a problem. I was glad I’d been in the A
because the next spring I was there for some time.
(49:41 – 49:50)
I escaped once. There’s no escaping the state hospital in Big Spring, Texas. I don’t know
if you’ve ever been in Texas but they can see you’re running for three days out there.
(49:55 – 50:07)
And it’s just a matter of time before the old field glasses pick you up. Well, there goes
that little Yankee sumbitch now. So they gave me a lot of electric shock treatments that
autumn.
(50:09 – 50:35)
And once you get a lot of electric shock treatments you never run much after that. Do
you remember my name? Is it property of the state of Texas? And the next spring I’m
glad I’ve been to A A means all those years because they put in the first AA ward in the
state of Texas there. By that time I had enough sense back I pretended to be an
alcoholic because I know how to pretend to be an alcoholic always doing what they
wanted to hear.
(50:35 – 50:43)
And I eventually got out. But I’ve often thought about that. That damn doctor that
psychiatrist I’ve often thought I’d like to go back and find him someday.
(50:43 – 50:59)
He must be about 90 now but I could move him around really good. And say you want to
lose your license. Make calling me a schizophrenic calling me a dual personality.
(51:00 – 51:04)
Maybe a little paranoid. Yes. But schizophrenic you’re crazy.
(51:05 – 51:17)
Christ if I could have got my personalities down to two I would have made it. My problem
has always been this committee that forms in my head at the drop of a hat. What do you
think we ought to do now? Let’s get out of here.
(51:17 – 51:34)
Don’t think we can maybe we ought to give it a try. I used to hear people in AA say
things like perhaps the program isn’t enough for me I’m going to enter group therapy. I
just have to go for a ride alone in my car.
(51:42 – 51:51)
That’s one of the reasons I like alcohol. Alcohol reduces it to one voice. It may be a sick
voice but it’s one voice.
(51:52 – 52:07)
Why don’t you quit your job and punch the son of a bitch in the face. Okay. That’s how
stopping drinking has gone.
(52:07 – 52:27)
I look back now again maybe this is my last great insight I don’t want to be tedious for
this but I now know why I knew I wasn’t an alcoholic and I would have bet my life I wasn’t
an alcoholic and did bet my life. Because of this reason if you’re new you already know
this. An alcoholic is a person whose problem is alcohol.
(52:28 – 52:48)
They start drinking alcohol and their emotions get screwed up and their lives get out of
whack and they go to AA and they sober them up and their emotions straighten out and
their lives straighten out and their lives take a turn for the better. And I look to the naked
eye exactly the same way. Many, many people have told me I look exactly like that.
(52:49 – 53:07)
But what I never could identify really but I felt is that I’m 180 degrees different in some
way I can’t understand. When I stay sober too long my emotions get out of whack and
my life gets screwed up. And when I drink I drink to feel to feel the way they feel when
they’re sober.
(53:08 – 53:14)
I drink to feel complete. I drink to feel ordinary. And sometimes I drink too much.
(53:16 – 53:33)
And then well-meaning people say oh your problem is drinking son you ought to go to
Alcoholics Anonymous. And I could never think of an answer to say but inside of me a
visceral voice cries out but you don’t understand my case is different. And it was
different as far as I could tell.
(53:35 – 53:48)
And I hung around that damn club and I hated it. It was full of fanatics and AA fanatics
and they’d do all sorts of things. And they’d do things like get a scratcher get a scratcher
get this leave me alone boob.
(53:48 – 54:18)
I was living in the back street of an abandoned car back at the AA club and I just hated it.
And uh I look back now I’m sure everyone does in their own life. Why under those
conditions about as bad as they can be I wonder why was that the time I stayed sober?
Why that time in 1958 when I already knew all about AA there was no surprises there
was nothing there I hated it and I didn’t want to be sober.
(54:19 – 55:04)
And somehow I stayed sober till now. And every long term slipper or even short term
slipper I’m sure looks at those kind of moments and says what was different? What can I
teach to my babies so they understand what was it? And it’s almost impossible to see
anything different except over the years I’ve kind of come to believe that what happened
to me in that club was kind of the same thing that happened to me on that ship when I
was a boy and other places in my life where I felt I had no alternative I felt so vulnerable
and my defenses were down so bad that I began to take actions that I thought were
stupid that I thought I would never take. On the ship I drank and smoked.
(55:05 – 1:05:49)
In that club I began to take AA actions that I’d heard about for nine years that were
stupid and silly and inane. I began little by little you know if I had anything good feeling
it would seem to me I always felt at least I’d maintain my intellectual integrity I never
sold out I may be down and out but I’m not a phony the world is full of phonies I’m not a
phony you want to know how I feel I’ll tell you how I feel you want to know what I think of
that I’ll tell you how I think of that I’m not a brown noser I’m not a psychopath I’m a guy
with intellectual integrity and in that damn club they were grinding on me at the
meetings they were grinding on me and they finally said get a sponsor I got a sponsor
because I’d seen him in the movies he was a loving guy in the movies he was a crazed
fanatic in real life I should have won the academy award about a dozen times as far as I
could see but these guys ground me and they ground me and they ground me and little
by little I began doing things that I detested myself for I found myself being kind being
nice to people I didn’t like I’ve never been a brown noser but I became a brown noser
little by little and I was sucking around and I was taking and I was pretending to pick up
cups hanging around and take part in discussion meetings and talk about the meaning of
the steps and I lay awake in my bed in that car at night and think God I’ve sold out now
I’m a phony and I’m still nothing it’s just and I’m disarmed I’m getting rejected I’m not
going to do that anymore I’m not going to sell out it’d be so uncomfortable I’d sell out
and Christ and I look back now and I can see when I became a phony is when my
recovery started really true really true as long as I hung on to those ridiculous
perceptions that was killing me when I began to take actions that I did even though I
didn’t understand them or agree with them that’s when my recovery started and that is
what they mean in AA about the program of recovery it’s an action program you take
actions you don’t change your thinking thinking changes 20 times in a day you can walk
out of a meeting and say I’ve seen the breakthrough I’ve got a new light by 11 o’clock
you have a gun in your hand who cares Christ that means nothing but those tedious little
actions sometimes they wonder what a sponsor does the best example I know I’ve said it
before but I don’t know a better way to say it that curtain back there I guess you would
call that a brindle wouldn’t you that’s that’s the only color I can think it might be it’s a
brindle now truth is as I see it to me truth is as you see it to you that’s what we have to
think about here I’m looking for truth okay my truth is that curtain is brindle if you all
told me it was green that wouldn’t change my opinion that much all that tells me is that
you’re crazy or you’re color blind or you’re pulling some kind of a joke or you’re nuts but
that is brindle green is considerably different than that now you may wonder if you’re
new these new people here tonight what do sponsors do at least from sponsors for
people like me they tell you things that are as stupid as what I just said they say things
almost as stupid as that that curtain is green no Bob that’s that’s more of a brindle I’d
call it I told you that’s green Bob I’m not trying to be smart but it’s brindle really well god
damn it you act like a screen yeah now obviously they don’t tell you they don’t tell you
colors but they tell you things that seem as stupid as that I don’t care how it looks to you
you go and apologize to that woman but she’s a bitch nobody cares just apologize you
bitch I don’t care how it looks to you don’t quit that job but it’s a terrible job I used to be
a big executive Bob I used to have a lot of people I did I was a big executive but it’s a
crappy job putting envelopes together it’s a terrible job it’s the only job you can get just
go to work for christ sake I don’t care how it looks to you you sit in that Tuesday night
meeting but it’s a big clique Bob they just call on each other they suck around each
other and they go to parties Bob they treat me like I’m a piece of crap Bob probably
because you’re a piece of crap go to the god damn meeting and this just goes on and on
and on and one day you turn around and the damn curtain has turned green then you
have to spend the rest of your life with dumbbells you think it’s brindle but I would say
one of the great all time pieces of information I could give you based on my life is that
nobody really cares how truth looks to you because we’re not dealing with perceptions of
truth it has been said and rightfully so alcoholism is truly a disease of perception and you
cannot trust your perceptions the hardest surrender you and I will ever have to make is
to allow someone else’s perception to overrule my perception and that’s the last one I
like to have made but you say what do you do with all the pain you got the pain that’s
going to pretty soon the pain gets you reeking again and it’s an odd thing another thing
about the action here the super imposition of perceptions I would say is that if you allow
it these surrenders when they talk about surrender it’s very cute to be glib about
surrender but surrender is not a thing you do and then you’re well because you’re also a
human being you know you hear old timers say things like I came to AA and I threw in
the towel and by God it’s just been wonderful ever since I know most old timers in the
world and that isn’t true ever anywhere tell you what happens you come to AA and you
throw in the towel and as soon as the heat’s off you snatch that baby back and you
spend the rest of life tearing off small strips what more do you want for Christ’s sake and
that’s why people like me have to stay active in AA because I’ve got a lot of strips yet to
tear turn in I guess I used to envy people who get sober and feeling well for a while and
then they had to turn in can’t be around anymore and over the years how do they do
that when the time comes for them to turn in the strip they’re not reinforced to throw in
the strip and one day their perceptions go back to a brindle but when I make them I feel
comfortable it’s an odd thing there’s only two times you have to worry about these
surrenders one when you’re new and you don’t want to make them one when you’re
doing well and you don’t want to make them one when you’re doing well and you and
you don’t them one when you’re like this I finally came to believe the one main thought I
had was this alcoholics are people who’s problem is alcohol and I had to come to
understand that my thought was incorrect. In fact, I would say this, if your problem is
alcohol, you are not an alcoholic.
(1:05:51 – 1:07:34)
That may sound like a fulmination of an inner child, but that is really the message of
Alcoholics Anonymous. I don’t mean to decry inner child philosophy. I’ve always envied
people with inner child.
I’ve had a rather immature problem with immaturity in my life. I have an inner adult
fighting to get out, and he better hurry up because I’m getting up in the paint carts now,
and he better make his move quick because I haven’t had a happy childhood, but it sure
as hell been a long one. But you say, of course, the problem is alcohol.
I can disprove that in 10 seconds. If alcohol is a problem, detoxes turn out recovered
people, and they don’t. Jails, hospitals don’t.
They turn out people whose problem is the pain of sobriety. Unless something dramatic
happens after that, sooner or later, they must always eventually drink or sedate. The
problem here is not alcohol.
It is something called alcoholism. And they sound the same, but they’re tremendously
different. Probably the number one difference, put it a little late, run a little succinctly.
An alcohol problem is overcome by stopping drinking and cleaning up your act. However,
in this strange, deadly, phenomenally difficult thing to understand called alcoholism,
you’ll discover sooner or later that stopping drinking and cleaning up your act has no
significant long-term effect other than to gradually make it so painful you can’t stand it.
The thing that makes alcoholism a fatal disease is that the pain of sobriety eventually
gets worse than the remembered pain of drinking, and you’ll always drink again.
(1:07:34 – 1:10:51)
I don’t know of anything in the world that is more susceptible to denial than this illness.
Over the years, I’ve had three or four guys, who I sponsor, four guys, I guess, who have
died of cancer in the last 30-some years. And they’ve all died, by coincidence, in UCLA
Hospital, because that’s the best cancer hospital in the West.
And there’s a hospice there. A lot of people go in there and get to come out again, but
these people had, like, cancer of the liver, something like that, where they could not
treat it. And I’ve gone up there and sat with them after work, sometimes for weeks at a
time, in this hospice.
And I don’t, uh, I hate to do that. I hate it. But that’s what sponsors are supposed to do, I
suppose.
But I mean, I remember sitting there thinking, looking around that ward once, that
hospice, all these people dying. This bed was full this morning. It’s dead now.
They’re bringing a new guy in. They’re all dying. I remember thinking to myself, kind of a
wry thought, what do the people do in this hospice ward? If I said, hey, got a deal for
you.
Would you, uh, take an hour and a half or two hours out of your day every day and come
with me, meet some new people, drink a little coffee, sit around, have some laughs,
have some jokes, feel good, get some understanding, get a feeling that you belong
somewhere? Would you do that if I could cure your cancer? Man, they would sign over
their homes to you. They would give you their cars. They’d give you everything I got.
Oh, take me, take me, for God’s sake, take everything I’ve got. Maybe the worst place
I’ve ever been in my life, the single worst place, is the downtown Los Angeles County
Charity Hospital Ward for AIDS in Los Angeles. Not only are these people just in there
dying, but they’ve been thrown away by everybody.
Just get him out of here. Charity Ward for AIDS. And you go in there and there’s death all
around you, death in the air.
I mean, they keep it clean and neat and everything, but you’re just death. It’s like going
into Molokai when it was leprechaun, people with open sores. And there’s no way out, no
matter what happens.
I remember standing in that doorway thinking, what would these guys do? I said, hey,
got a deal for you. Would you take a series of actions, whether or not you agreed with
them, maybe jot down some things that you’ve always been ashamed of, wouldn’t tell
anybody, tell me and maybe tell God and maybe want to make some things right that
you feel bad about. Would you, on a continuing basis, if I gave you a series of things to
do, would you do it if I could cure your AIDS? They would crawl across the floor and lick
your feet.
They would lick your feet. And yet in that same charity hospital, you go down two floors
to the charity alcoholic ward where guys are laying with their livers out to here and their
skin is yellow and their eyeballs are yellow and you can’t get them to go to an AA
meeting on that ward. Because God damn it, I’m not an alcoholic.
And it’s kind of funny, except you come back next month and he’s dead and there’s a
new guy in the bed saying, I’m not an alcoholic. Now, if these people can convince
themselves they’re not alcoholics five days before they die from alcoholism, certainly
you and I can do it. And that’s why it becomes so necessary for you and I to understand
what we are doing here.
(1:10:52 – 1:11:10)
The thing that alcoholism is so prevalent for, it distorts my perceptions of reality, makes
it unlivable. And what a sponsor does, in a sense, is this. Roughly speaking, one of the
many things he does, or your group, you know, I do a lot of flying.
(1:11:13 – 1:12:02)
Coming in here yesterday morning, you know, flying to Chicago on the red eye, took the
same plane O.J. Simpson took. See if there’d be any excitement on that plane. I got off
and stabbed a couple of stewardesses.
I shouldn’t say that. I don’t mean to say that. But in Los Angeles, we’re all so wrapped up
with that that you have to joke about it or else you cry every day.
But anyway, came down here and this plane zips down from Chicago, about 500, 600
miles an hour. And it stops at Fort Myers, which is not a big airport. I hope this guy’s got
good brakes, girl.
But, you know, he doesn’t need brakes. He reverses the thrust of the jets. The same jets
that push him 600 miles an hour this way are stopping the plane by reversing the thrust.
And enough to do it. And in a sense, that’s what he does. People in a that help us.
(1:12:03 – 1:13:00)
They take the same pain that science says must drive this patient to ameliorate it by
drinking alcohol. If I allow him to steer that same pain, he can take that same pain and
use it to force me to take actions that I would never take under any other circumstances.
In other words, we are steering the pain.
That same pain took when I was six months sober. I was about to commit suicide. I had
lost my job as a dishwasher.
I had been embarrassed and humiliated. I couldn’t get hold of my children. I knew I’d be
nothing all my life.
And I told my sponsor, I’m going to kill myself. And he used that pain and cursed me to
get me to write an inventory that I swore I would never write, because I took my
inventory with the psychiatrist. And he used it and started to change my life.
Time after time, he took the pain and just used it to change the direction. Because
you’ve got to remember this if you’re new. Most old timers know this.
(1:13:00 – 1:13:35)
But it’s so easy to get confused here with all the other therapies you hear about. And all
of the therapies say the same thing, in effect. You come to us, we will change your
thinking, and eventually your actions will change.
And this is the only place you will ever go, where they say, you come to us, we will
change your actions, and eventually your thinking will change. Our thinking is so all over
the lot, so mercurial, even after we’re sober, while sometimes you cannot trust your
perceptions of reality. I cannot trust what I believe to be truth.
(1:13:35 – 1:14:42)
A day after you feel on the top of the world, the next day you may feel suicidally
depressed, especially when you’re new, or when you’re not working in AA. That’s what
happens to old timers who don’t go to AA anymore. They stay the same, but everybody
around them turns bad, and they become sour, bitter old people.
And you see them a lot. Happened to my sponsor, the man that taught me all this, finally
got mad at AA and stopped going to meetings, he finally got drunk and died. And he
certainly convinced me what he said was true, that if you don’t do these things, you get
drunk and die.
And little by little, I took the actions. Over a period, I took the steps, and I finally got a
job that I could hold, wrapping packages. And a year later, I had a little job as a writer in
a medical corporation, two years sober.
When I was five years sober, I’d become director of advertising for that corporation, and I
had front teeth at last. And when I was five years sober, the same wife and all those
children heard the crinkle of green in my wallet, jumped out of their post office box in
Dallas, fled to my side. Nine months and 10 seconds later, another Catholic hit the
street.
(1:14:47 – 1:15:08)
A couple of years later, I was working in radio and television in Hollywood. Another guy
and I created the number one hard rock station in the world, and we all wore shiny suits
and said things like, what’s coming on down, baby? And 10 years sober, I was downtown
doing public relations with oil companies. 15 years sober, I was a marketing director in
Beverly Hills.
(1:15:10 – 1:15:28)
And so my life became wonderful. I want to tell you new people, this is a moment that I
know you’ll cherish. I want you to remember this.
Think about this. I’ve got it all together, and you haven’t. And I know you’re very happy
for me.
(1:15:34 – 1:15:43)
But what I’m trying to tell you is this. That is not the name of the game here. And you
say, well, how can I ever do it? I didn’t get thrown out of the midnight mission on Skid
Row.
(1:15:44 – 1:16:04)
That is not the requirement. The requirement is allowing yourself the desperation to
surrender. Over the years, I’ve sponsored a number of people.
I sponsored the guy that put the flag on the moon. I’ve sponsored movie stars and movie
directors and psychiatrists. I really had a time with him.
(1:16:08 – 1:18:15)
I’ve sponsored corporate guys that their bottom year were still making $250,000 a year
and thought they were out of business. And what do we all have in common? Did we all
get thrown out of the midnight mission? Not at all. We all wound up in a fit of pitiful and
incomprehensible demoralization and sobriety where you can’t drink and you can’t stay
sober and there’s nothing can help you and nobody understands.
And my case is different. And that is called, I suppose, that is called requirements to
start taking the actions that you do not believe in. And so that’s why we gather together
with these kind of situations to reinforce, to remember.
That’s why we have meetings. I still go to meetings. I haven’t heard anything new in
meeting in 30 years.
Really, I haven’t. But I never leave a meeting I don’t feel better because it’s reformed
and restructured and kept me remembering why I surrender, why I do these things. And
action has always been the best result of that action.
I eventually came to believe in a God, as I say. I came to live with some degree of peace
with my family. My father and I were very close for 20 years before he died.
My mother and I were close people I hadn’t talked to for years. And this is all very nice,
but it boils down to the continuing action. The last thing I want to say before I sit down, I
don’t know a better way to describe how action continues to work in my life.
When I was about five years sober, I really wanted to be a secretary of a big meeting. I
was ready to make my move. And I went to the Bredwood meeting, got some guy who
was a big meeting there and got him to nominate me.
Well, the nomination died for lack of a second. I realized there was not a groundswell for
my, so I gnashed my teeth and some guy said, hey, Ohio Street little meeting hall, the
Tuesday night meeting just died. Why don’t you maybe get over there and start a
meeting? I said, you bet.
I was over there like a New York minute. I had a format written before I got out of the
car. And I had nine tattered followers.
(1:18:15 – 1:19:53)
And we had a meeting there. We had a speaker come in. And God is great that I knew I
could teach and lead and help.
And the next week we had about 14 people at that meeting. And the next week there
were about 19 people. And I guess I offended him with my announcements because
we’re back to nine the next week.
I’ve never had much luck in being suave. But over a period of time, over a year, that
building, that meeting built up to maybe 45 people on a regular basis. And I just felt
great.
And I thought to myself, you know, this most groups have the election now. But we’re
trying to build an entirely new concept here. An election would really not be would be
counterproductive.
Somebody might get in there who didn’t have the zeal and stick to this that I have. So I
will sacrifice myself or we won’t even have a damn election. I don’t care how much I
have to give if I can just be of service.
So I stayed on as secretary for another year. We got to about 65, 60, maybe coming
right. All that.
Then in the second year, I felt this is like watching an evolving African nation. They’re
this close to self-government. Not quite, but this close.
I’ll sacrifice myself a while longer just until I get it really on the rails. And about a month
after that, some goof came up that I sponsored whose life I’d saved. Are we ever going
to have the election or on this goddamn group? I said, why do you say that? I don’t think
I’m doing a good job.
Oh, no, no, no. You misunderstand me. Class is just the people in other groups.
So you never have the election. And if we could have the election, then we could vote in.
Nobody could say a word.
(1:19:54 – 1:20:27)
Good idea. So I had an election and they swept me out of office. I didn’t care.
I know how Churchill felt in 1945. So now to tell you what a good foundation I’ve made,
however, even though I was out of office, the meeting really took off. And now it’s about
1100 people every Wednesday night.
(1:20:28 – 1:20:41)
Biggest meeting in the world by far. Everyone that many of you have attended it. Bill
spoke there.
Some of you spoke at a big, exciting, enthusiastic meeting. And of course, I’m not the
secretary. I don’t care, but I I’m the founder.
(1:20:46 – 1:21:43)
So I sit right in the middle of this crowd every Wednesday night. And when I do it, I’ll give
a little signals, you know. Nobody pays the attention to it.
Just at the end of the meeting, I stand in the back and sometimes I’ll greet people. Our
members will bring newcomers that meeting and they’ll bring something. This is Clancy.
I he travels all over the world by airplane to carry the message of AA and he founded this
group and he’s been a member since the first meeting and he’s been sober over 35
years. I try to give him the proper look. Hello there.
I hope you brought your problems tonight. Many folks leave them here. Once in a while,
some puke will come up who doesn’t know who I am.
(1:21:45 – 1:24:07)
Hey, buddy, can you give me a ride back over to the VA psycho ward? And the nicest
lesson I can tell you about is this. I could look him right in his sick, beady little eyes and
think whatever I want. I could just think, what? What the hell are you talking about?
There are 1100 people in this room who need action desperately.
There’s one who has been giving and giving and giving for over a third of a century. For
Christ’s sake, I’m not just a nice looking guy in the back of the room. I’m Clancy.
I from up in the sky, bringing hope to thousands all over the world. Now, I can think that
as long as I say, OK. The continuing miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous is this.
After I drop that puke off at the VA and I’m driving home, my head says, oh, Clancy, is
there no end to your goodness? I want to thank all of you for being such good hosts and
hostess to me, make me feel so good. I especially want to thank Michael and Michelle,
who yesterday really helped me and got me some stuff from the store that I needed
badly. I want to thank all of my old friends.
So glad to see Eddie Dalton down here, who I knew has been ill and glad to see him
feeling well again. And Mary, I’m glad to be a participating member of something that
has done something for me that nothing else has ever done. It has enabled me to walk
with a degree of dignity in a world that left me afraid.
Just the last thing I want to say, I’m sure the new people here say, why is this guy still
good to me? He’s been dry for 35 years. He’s about to burst into flame. I’ll tell you why I
go to AA.
It’s the same reason, because Alcoholics Anonymous over a period of time, I’ve become
aware, does for me very slowly what alcohol used to do fast. It takes a person like me
who’s always felt like they’re quite enough, not enough. And today, most of the time I
feel like I’m enough.
Sometimes I don’t. That used to bother me. What am I missing in AA? I’m not feeling like
I’m enough.
(1:24:07 – 1:25:43)
Then I had to realize no human being feels like they’re enough all the time. That’s not a
mark of failure. That’s a mark of being a human being.
Just live with it. It takes a person like me who’s lived with fear all my life, and most of the
time today I’m fearless. I go down alleys on Skid Row now where the police won’t go
down with drawn guns, and I’m down there with my chatter and my smile to pull some
guy out of there that the police won’t go down.
But on the other hand, I’m a human being, too. When I sit at home with my wife in the
living room and we hear a suspicious noise in the backyard, I send her to see what it is. It
may be a boogeyman, and everybody knows that boogeymen are more intimidated by
Al-Anons than AA.
That’s all. Very few boogeymen can stand up to that cold smile coming out of the dark. I
release you, big boy.
Takes a person like me who’s always felt rejected and hurt feelings. I still have once in a
while, but not all the time like I used to, just part of being a human being. In Texas, they
used to say when they introduced themselves, a little bit like you do here, but a little
more, my name is Fred, and I’m an alcoholic, and through the grace of God and the
power of this simple program, it’s not necessary for me to drink any alcohol or take any
monster-eating drugs.
Since my sobriety did this, I’m grateful. Then I said, ah, Fred. I thought, if I ever sink to
that, this will be the end.
(1:25:45 – 1:26:08)
But I want to tell you tonight, my name is Clancy Imuslin, and I’m an alcoholic. Through
the grace of God and the power of this simple program, it has not been necessary for me
to drink any alcohol or take any mind-sedating or tranquilizing medications since
October 31, 1958. For this, I am truly grateful, and I thank you and God with all of my
life.
Thank you.
Carry The Message
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