(0:05 – 0:16)
My name is Clancy Imleslund and I’m an alcoholic. I’m glad to be back here. This is my,
what is your 18th anniversary? This is my 19th trip down to this meeting.
(0:17 – 1:58)
See, the first meeting, and it’s your first anniversary, would be the second, you see. And
I’ve been here, as have the gentlemen, you know, the little church where it started, and
then to that union hall, and then over here. It’s really booming right along.
Glad to see it. Glad to see the meeting continuing to flourish. And I was thinking, I was
sitting here thinking, you know, I guess it’s kind of corny, maybe I’m too emotional,
maybe I’m getting too old and emotional, but I was thinking, if I had just one evening left
to spend, I think I’d like to come down here and spend it the night you’re having a
countdown.
It would somehow make it seem like forever. I’m glad to be here and I’m glad that it
continues to work. I’m glad that we have, there’s an old timer here, got more time than I
have.
And he says, who the hell is Clancy? And that’s what I say too, who the hell is Clancy?
Only one thing kept me from heaven that many years, and that’s drinking. But I’m glad
to be here. Interesting thing, A&E, the cable network, is going to do an investigative
report on Alcoholics Anonymous in June, sometime in June.
(1:59 – 2:51)
And they apparently brought their cameras in, they let them in the World Service office,
they did it, and they shot some groups around, they shot our group in Los Angeles, out of
focus, you know, just kind of a pan to see what a group of a thousand people would look
like compared to most little groups. And the World Service, it’s not a joke, that’s how
many people were at the meeting, and the World Service group office called me and said
they wanted to do an interview on the West Coast, would I mind being interviewed by
A&E? I said no, I wouldn’t mind, I believe in AA. And so we have a little meeting called
Ohio Street, a building on the west side of town, it’s the south wall, it’s mostly all glass
doors and glass windows, so in the afternoon they set it up with the sun pouring in the
window and then sat me in a chair right in front of the door, so all you can see is the
silhouette, which is how they maintain anonymity in those sorts of interviews.
(2:52 – 3:08)
Some of you may not understand what anonymity consists of. All it consists of is never
identifying yourself as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, or if you do you must not see
your name or see who you are. You can either be a disembodied voice, but if you’re ever
seen, you can’t be a member of AA.
(3:08 – 5:03)
But anyway, I believe in that very strongly because of the nature of my work, I get a lot
of TV exposure, I’m in the papers a lot, this and that, but I’m never mentioned as a
member of AA. Whenever you see someone mentioned as an AA member in the press or
TV or something, that means they haven’t asked them not to do it, they’re not being
abused, no one’s ever done it that I know of. But I must say, I was sitting there, and they
were about to ask me these questions, and I heard the camera rolling, and I believe in
anonymity, but I just had a terrible urge to just kind of go, some enchanted evening.
Just in case a producer were watching, but I fought back the temptation. And this guy
asked me some questions, and I was kind of surprised because usually when you get
those kind of interviews, they ask you puffball questions. Incidentally, Tom B. is not with
us tonight, this is the first night since he founded the group, he has the first anniversary,
he’s not been here.
He’s in Spain. Maybe the next time he has a depression, he can go to a bullfight.
Anyway, well, maybe not, too, I don’t know.
But he has these questions, he took me by surprise, and if you’re kind of new tonight,
they might be interesting to you, too. First question, he says, tell me, why is it that some
alcoholics seem to be able to quit drinking, and others have to go to AA? And that’s
absolutely accurate, and it’s a good question. In fact, with Bill Wilson, the book that was
just given to the young man, I hate to see kids with 12-hour sobriety look better than I do
after 41 years, but we care.
(5:07 – 5:38)
You’re the second most important person in this room, kid. But that’s actually, you know,
when Bill Wilson wrote this book, he realized that there were people, some people were
able to stop drinking, some people were parent alcoholics, there were some people who
had to be helped to stop drinking, and he didn’t understand how, but he knew that
people like us didn’t, so he didn’t know exactly how to define them, but again and again
in that book he talks about alcoholics of our type. People of alcoholics of our type.
(5:39 – 6:14)
And then since then, of course, it’s been kind of slick to get involved in alcoholism, a lot
of people have done the research, a lot of people have made many, many dollars out of
alcoholism and AA. But no one’s ever, still cannot find out the reason why, there’s
nothing in the genes, nothing in the DNA. And there seem to be among alcoholics,
there’s a few people who absolutely seem to be alcoholics, but when they are severely
emotionally threatened, either their family leaves them, or there’s a death in their
family, or they lose their job, or something significant happens, they are so overcome,
they stop.
(6:15 – 6:31)
I quit! And that’s the end of it, and they never drink again. And there’s a number of cases
like that. Then there are some people also who apparently get physiologically addicted
to alcohol, they must be withdrawn medically, these are the people for whom treatment
centers were originally started.
(6:32 – 6:45)
And they’re brought off, and each step of the way they get off they’re told, now look
what’s happening to your life, and look what’s happening to you and alcohol, and so on.
And by the time they get off, they stop. Man, I didn’t realize it was that far, I quit! And
they quit.
(6:45 – 6:58)
In fact there are some facilities who are designed specifically for people like that. One of
the big ones is Chick Shadel Hospital up in Seattle. And they’ve advertised for years, and
it sounds ridiculous to people of our type.
(6:59 – 7:13)
But they say, alcoholic, we’ll recover you from alcoholism in 10 days plus 2 follow-up
visits. I mean, that’s stupid. Except they have a whole list of names of people who’ve
done it, and who are off alcohol.
(7:15 – 7:31)
And then there’s another type of alcoholic, much more numerous than we are familiar
with, and they are known as alcoholics of our type. Most of us have had the feeling at
one time or another we were alcoholics of another type. It’s just, God damn near killed
us.
(7:33 – 7:47)
And we’ve come to believe we’re alcoholics of this type. And we are like them in many
ways. Something threatens us, loss of family perhaps, loss of job, someone dies, and I
say, I quit! And I quit.
(7:48 – 8:13)
But sooner or later, I will always drink again. Or I could be taken off medically in a
treatment center and learn my lessons and know it, and quit! But sooner or later,
someday, I will drink again. And the sad thing is that this type of alcoholic is what’s so
baffling to science and medicine and social services and our families.
(8:14 – 8:32)
I bet there aren’t very many people in this room who haven’t weathered that
interrogation. When someone says to you, but you were doing so well. You started, you
got your kids back, we got you this job, everything is going okay, and now God damn it,
you’re drunk again.
(8:32 – 8:40)
How could you possibly do that? And they act as though we have an answer. Well, I have
no answer. I feel as bad as they do.
(8:41 – 8:51)
And so the only answer that people like I can give is things like, leave me alone. Just
leave me alone. And it sounds funny, but people die saying that.
(8:51 – 9:10)
Thousands and hundreds of thousands of alcoholics die saying, leave me alone, because
they’ve got no answer. And that’s, this type of alcoholic is just baffling, and nobody
knows why. And it looks as though the people around them, that they don’t care even.
(9:11 – 9:31)
And then there’s no word for the patient to explain, I care so much I can’t stand it. Leave
me alone. Give me a drink.
I care so much because I drink to forget what’s happening to me sometimes. But I didn’t
give this guy that long answer. I just told him that there seemed to be people who could
stop drinking, and people who were medically withdrawn.
(9:31 – 9:42)
But most alcoholics were of a type that required some ongoing therapeutic. Then he
asked me another question. Interesting question.
(9:42 – 10:02)
He said, well, okay, all these alcoholics now, they all go, the ones of your type, they go to
AA. Why is it that some of them stay sober, and most of them don’t? That’s a good
question. Why do most of them not stay sober? And if they’ve been sober very long,
notice that’s accurate.
(10:03 – 10:20)
We could take this row here, maybe 11 or 12 people in this row, and if they were all full
of new people tonight, if they had the same sponsor, and went to the same meetings,
and did everything the same, in a few weeks, a couple would be gone. And a couple
more would be gone. Maybe at the end of the year, two or three would be here.
(10:21 – 10:29)
And no one can explain why, and no one can explain which ones would be here. That’s
the baffling part. We could have people 30 days sober, one, two, three.
(10:29 – 10:33)
I’m so glad to be here. My life has changed. It’s given me some hope at last.
(10:33 – 10:47)
And he’s just, yeah. Then some goof gets up, and I’m just, I don’t even want to be here.
It’s just terrible.
I’m in such trouble. I’ve got to stay here for a while. And a year later, that goof is here,
and the nice guy hasn’t been heard in for 10 months.
(10:48 – 10:54)
And he probably, he might be dead out there for all we know. Who can judge this?
Nobody can judge it. It’s a baffling thing.
(10:55 – 11:05)
And I was trying to think of an answer to that. And when I had to think of the answer, I
had to think of my own, I had to put it in perspective of my own life. And I had to think
about myself.
(11:06 – 11:14)
I am not a masochist. I am a, a masochist is one who enjoys pain. I neither enjoy pain
physically or mentally.
(11:15 – 11:20)
I don’t enjoy pain. I am a hedonist, if anything. Just, what’s more comfortable, I’ll do that.
(11:22 – 11:42)
And give me some more. So I don’t like pain. So I have to look back and wonder, why did
I slip year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after
year after year after year after year? And I tell you, I came here doing fairly well.
(11:42 – 11:57)
I was kind of a high-bottom drunk, and I went to some meetings. Then I was kind of a
medium-bottom drunk for a while. And my last day I drank, up till now, two big guys are
throwing me out of a skid row mission in Los Angeles.
(11:57 – 12:06)
And say, and stay out of here, you damn bum. And I try to explain to them, I’m not a
bum. Three years ago, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas.
(12:07 – 12:24)
Ads that I helped write, the old Elsie and Elmer ads for the Borden Company were
running at very weak in life and time and so on and so forth. I’ve had my picture in the
New York Times for one of my achievements. How many people in here don’t have their
picture in the New York Times for one of their achievements? But it’s hard to explain
these things in mid-air.
(12:32 – 12:46)
And I stood outside of that damn old midnight mission on the corner of 4th and Los
Angeles in a skid row. And it was a cold morning, rainy drizzle morning. And I just felt so
terrible, I just couldn’t believe this could be happening to me.
(12:47 – 12:56)
I had such a terrible feeling, I didn’t know what it was even. I know now because I’ve
worked with people who’ve had it and they’ve explained it to me. But that feeling, I’m
sure a lot of people in this room have had it.
(12:56 – 13:10)
And you don’t have to be in a skid row, you could have it in a penthouse where there is
no friendly direction. There’s no direction where if I follow that direction long enough
there’s going to be somebody glad to see me. It’s just that you are shut off.
(13:11 – 13:25)
And I remember thinking, this can’t happen to me. This must be a dream, any minute my
wife is going to shake me and say, Clancy, God you’ve picked up all your covers, come
on, get up and go to work. But it wasn’t a dream, I stood there and I just, I couldn’t
believe it.
(13:26 – 13:54)
If some old man would have come up to me that morning and said, you know Slim,
you’re dying, you’re down to 125 pounds, you’ve lost your wife and children, you’ll never
see them again, you’ve lost your career. Once upon a time they called you a boy genius,
now you can’t even get a job washing dishes. You’ve lost all your clothing, must have
lost them in Phoenix before they put you in jail where that guy kicked your front teeth
out.
(13:54 – 14:19)
Because I knew I’d kick my front teeth out because my gums were bleeding and my lips
were swollen up. And you’ve lost your home, you’ve lost two homes, you’re an only child
and your mother is no longer allowed to accept phone calls from you because your
stepfather is so tired of watching you manipulate her to get a few more dollars and then
break her heart one more time. He would rather have her think you were dead than the
way you are.
(14:20 – 14:43)
Now you’ve been in and out of AA for 10 years now, and you’re dying on the street. Why
for God’s sake don’t you just go back to AA and admit you’re an alcoholic and do
something about it before you die. If some guy had come up to me and said that, and if I
were in a mood to be honest, which I may or may not have been, because I think most of
us know when you’re desperate honesty is not really a big item.
(14:44 – 14:56)
It’s how do I get out of this jackpot. But if I were in a mood to be honest, I’d have to tell
him, pal, it isn’t the way it looks. I’m not an alcoholic.
(14:57 – 15:04)
I wish I were. I know there’s something wrong with me, I’ve known it since I was a little
boy. There always seems to be something missing in me.
(15:04 – 15:16)
There’s always something that enables me. I don’t seem to get along with people quite
as well. I don’t seem to be able to communicate very well, and people don’t understand
me, and I don’t seem to get the love I need, and I don’t seem to understand how to love
exactly.
(15:16 – 15:24)
And I don’t really feel like I’m in something. And I was 15 years old. I’m kind of a goofy
kid.
(15:24 – 15:40)
I ran away from home in northern Wisconsin, and I hitchhiked, got one ride or else I
wouldn’t be able to make it to San Francisco early in the Second World War. I lied my
age in that Seaman’s Papers. That was in the South Pacific, before my mother knew I
wasn’t up in Superior visiting my aunt.
(15:42 – 15:52)
And on that ship, a number of, you know, I’ve thought about that many times. I was out
there with a scum of the world, boy. Because most of the good guys had gone in the
Navy.
(15:52 – 16:14)
I hitchhiked across the country, got one ride from Minneapolis to San Francisco to the
guy in the Navy, thank God. And then there I was on this, got on this ship with a scum,
you know, the good guys, and here they are. You know, today I read in the papers, you
can hardly pick up the paper without reading about some new person molesting children.
(16:14 – 16:27)
And you go to Amy and hear people say, well, I was molested as a child. And that’s sad.
And I look back, and I was on that, hitchhiked across the country, was on a ship with
some of the worst rotten bastards that ever lived.
(16:28 – 16:46)
And I never was molested once. It makes you feel unattractive. be that as it may, among
the things that I did on that ship, some of the guys got me to take a drink of whiskey.
(16:46 – 16:56)
And I didn’t want whiskey, because I was raised in the Norwegian Lutheran Church. I
didn’t know much, but I knew what Lutherans were, and I knew that they don’t drink. But
I finally took a drink, and they can talk me into it.
(16:56 – 17:01)
I took a drink, and they made me vomit. And they laughed at me. Look at that kid,
vomiting under.
(17:02 – 17:14)
To this day, I don’t know very many feelings worse than public humiliation and
embarrassment. You just want to die. And all the way across the Central Pacific, I’d
sneak in that guy’s sea bag every day and take a drink when nobody’s around.
(17:14 – 17:34)
And I hated it, and I’d throw it up, and I’d wipe it up, but I wanted so desperately for
those guys to accept me. I thought that would make them accept me, but then I
remember we were just coming into Pearl Harbor, and it was the day before my 16th
birthday. I remember very clearly, and I thought I’d take a drink of that crap one more
time and stay down.
(17:34 – 17:55)
And it’s just, oh, God, it was so terrible that all of a sudden, something strange
happened. I found myself feeling significantly better. And I could not put a finger on the
feeling, but I would look back now with a wisdom of retrospect and say that was the first
time I ever felt the way men looked.
(17:58 – 18:07)
That was the first feeling. And I didn’t become a terrible drunk that weekend in Honolulu.
Somebody gave me enough beer, so I got drunk, and they thought it was funny, and I
thought it was funny.
(18:09 – 18:15)
And I didn’t become a terrible drunk. I learned to smoke on that ship. Nobody that I knew
smoked in my family, but they all smoked.
(18:15 – 18:32)
So I smoked and puked and smoked and puked. One day I smoked and didn’t puke, and I
smoked two and a half or three packs a day every day for the next 40-some years.
Incidentally, they took out part of my vocal cords.
(18:32 – 18:41)
Some of my friends have thought, not quite enough. But I still am a smoker at heart. I
still am a smoker at heart.
(18:41 – 18:50)
And it hurts me. I haven’t had a cigarette in many years, but it still hurts me to see
smokers, how they’re treated. It’s just hideous, you know.
(18:50 – 19:13)
You go drive down the street, you hear they’re crouched outside. Why do they have to
wear a bell saying, unclean, unclean, unclean, unclean? And not only that, but people
feel they have the right to come up and denounce you that don’t even know you. They
were doing that just at the end of my smoking.
(19:14 – 19:26)
And it just took me a long time to think of an answer to it. I finally did and I had to stop
smoking. But to those of you who smoke, I’m not telling you you should smoke, but if
people harass you, let me give you an answer.
(19:26 – 19:51)
I will guarantee you they will never again ask you why you smoke. If you’ll just quietly
say, why do I smoke? I have a feeling that one of these days they’ll find a market for
phlegm and I’ll be rich. And what they will say is, oh, how gross.
(20:00 – 20:14)
But later on I got in another ship and I drank some more and I smoked and learned how
to lust effectively by those guys. I mean, they didn’t show me, they told me. I don’t want
to leave the wrong impression.
(20:14 – 20:29)
Even as a Norwegian Lutheran in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, I had sex before I was 15. But I’d
been apprehensive and I’d been afraid and I’d been alone. These guys showed me that it
could be done with others.
(20:34 – 20:56)
And later on, when I got 17, I went in the Navy and spent some good time in the Navy
and had some ups and downs and captains’ masks and this and that because people
knew that I was a flabboy and I guess they had the wars at the Naval Hospital up in
Northern California, Pleasanton, and they passed around a bunch of tests. I was good on
tests, I read a lot. I did very well on those tests and they gave me a high school diploma
from the Armed Forces Institute.
(20:57 – 21:07)
So after the war, I went back to Wisconsin and went to the University of Wisconsin and
started with the first class of veterans after the war. We’re talking about on the way
down tonight. Really exotic times.
(21:07 – 21:36)
Most of you will never see it. There never will be another time like this in America where
there are millions of people and on the front row there’ll be some grizzled old Marine
Sergeant about 50 years old and next to him some little sweetie just out of Black River
Falls High School. Were you in the war? Yeah.
(21:36 – 21:48)
You put out. And I got along well. I met a girl in college.
(21:49 – 22:04)
We got married and I became a sports writer. I was supposed to be a teacher but I had
some problems. And I became a sports writer which to this day is my favorite job I ever
had in the Wisconsin newspaper.
(22:04 – 22:10)
And I really liked that. And then my wife began to… I didn’t know this. I married a
Catholic.
(22:10 – 22:16)
My grandmother warned me about it. She said, don’t marry a Catholic. That’s pre-war
bias, Grandma.
(22:17 – 22:25)
This is the post-war we’re all equal with. Grandma was right. It’s not that she was a bad
girl but she was a good girl.
(22:25 – 22:37)
She was a good Catholic girl. And there’s something they never tell little Lutheran boys.
If you marry a good Catholic girl you are about to have a big family whether you plan on
it or budget for it.
(22:38 – 22:52)
And I became a national distributor of small Catholic food. And I had to get better jobs so
I got into advertising and public relations. And all these years I drank.
(22:53 – 23:02)
And sometimes I drank too much and people thought I was acting bizarrely. I was sent to
my first meeting in 1949. A little before your time, Slim.
(23:08 – 23:20)
I don’t want to pull my time on any newcomers. Anyway. I went to this meeting up in
Wisconsin and, you know, old people.
(23:20 – 23:35)
People 35 and 40 and gray hair some of them. And I don’t know what they said but it
seemed to me what they said I’m sure newcomers think they hear it today. I stayed
drunk around the clock 25 years.
(23:37 – 23:49)
One day I walked through that door they told me to put the plug in the jug. And I did.
And I’ve just never been so goddamn happy.
(23:57 – 24:06)
I went to AA while but I just realized I was an alcoholic. And I got another job in another
place and the heat was on. Because I occasionally drink too much because I like to drink.
(24:06 – 24:19)
It makes me feel like I’m something. I never do better than what I’m drinking. But I have
a tendency to drink too much because I prefer to think and I get in trouble.
(24:19 – 24:30)
I went to AA off and on for years and after a year or two I realized AA wasn’t designed for
people like me. But it took the heat off. Nobody knew what you wanted to do.
(24:30 – 24:37)
You go to an employer and say they have this new thing called AA and it’s going to help
me with my drinking. Okay son, you do that and we’ll give you another chance. Thanks.
(24:38 – 24:49)
And I give you a little something but you’re going to look for a job anyway. Wonderful.
Wonderful.
(24:49 – 25:02)
I’ve heard such good things. What do they want you to do? They want me to taper off.
And there wasn’t any Alan on then to screw it up for me.
(25:07 – 25:30)
Ever since the birth of Alan on there’s never been a moment’s rest for any sensitive
slipper. That’s what I went to AA but mostly I could realize my problems were emotional
problems. I had deep-seated emotional problems and so I spent thousands of dollars in
psychoanalysis to get to the root of my problems.
(25:30 – 25:49)
I’m sure a lot of people have. We didn’t have Prozac then so you had to find out what you
could do about it. And I tell you, I found things and people put psychoanalysis down.
(25:49 – 25:55)
I loved it. I made breakthroughs that would bring tears rolling down your cheeks. I
discovered how I’d been hurt by the Depression.
(25:56 – 26:03)
Didn’t even know there’d been a Depression. But I found out I was hurt and I could see it.
I was hurt by being a Norwegian Lutheran.
(26:03 – 26:24)
The Norwegian Lutheran Church had repressed my psyche. I’d like to find that your own
church has repressed you. If I knew then what I know now I would have formed We could
have hired a couple of codependents and sat around every week and been pissed off for
an hour.
(26:27 – 26:34)
I learned a lot of things. I remember thinking, God it’s so wonderful to find out at last a
breakthrough. I really had great feelings until one day it suddenly struck me.
(26:35 – 26:48)
Nothing has changed. I still feel rotten, but I know why. The only possible use of the
information I guess is to lay the night in a bar and you might get a beef with some big
moose.
(26:49 – 27:03)
He finally says, What the hell’s wrong with you? And you can tell him. I was repressed by
the Norwegian Lutheran Church. I read books.
(27:03 – 27:12)
I did a lot of things. But mostly, I went to ADA, but mostly it was fighting. There’s a thing
in Chapter 3 that I love one little sentence.
(27:13 – 27:23)
It’s so easy to see in retrospect, so hard to see as you’re going through it. If you’re new
to it, we have a number of new people. You may wonder, you look around, what have
you got in common with all these people? All kinds of odd people.
(27:24 – 27:38)
Different sizes, different shapes, different sexes, different colors, different everything. All
drank, all told their stories, all tell different stories. What do you have in common? Tell
you one of the things you have in common if you’re an alcoholic of our type.
(27:39 – 28:04)
You have somewhere along the line voluntarily or involuntarily had to accept the
obsession that somehow, someday, I will control and enjoy my drinking. And it says in
the book, the persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many of us pursue it into, not up
to, but into the gates of destruction and death.
(28:05 – 28:19)
And that’s certainly true. And I always thought, I’ll find a solution Why would people get
in that situation? Why would you have to accept that obsession? A little later, in that
same chapter 3, there’s a whole paragraph of things that people do. Drinking beer only.
(28:21 – 28:26)
Not, drinking wine only, nothing. Never drinking at home. Only drinking at home.
(28:27 – 28:37)
Taking, reading spiritual literature, taking more physical exercise. There’s a paragraph
this long of things to do. I remember reading that a few years ago, I’ve done every one of
those things.
(28:37 – 28:55)
Why would people do that? And they never seem to realize, and we never seem to
realize, most of us never find out before we die. That is the symptom of this, being
alcoholics like us. We have gotten to a point in our lives where sobriety is unbearable.
(28:57 – 29:09)
And now drinking has been, they wanted to take drinking away from us. The only thing
that relieves the pressure. When you get into a position where sobriety is bad and
drinking is bad, then you start scrambling.
(29:09 – 29:14)
Maybe just beer. Maybe I’ll just, I’ll just drink on weekends. Maybe I’ll, on and on and on.
(29:14 – 29:21)
All the things we do. Why, people don’t do that unless they’re in deep trouble. And that’s
why if you come here and have trouble with the steps.
(29:22 – 29:30)
Say, I can’t admit I’m an alcoholic. Nobody says you have to admit you’re an alcoholic.
But for example, just look at the first step.
(29:31 – 29:38)
You have to admit you’re having problems with drinking. You have to admit you’re
problems when you’re sober. That’s all.
(29:39 – 29:51)
And whether you know it or not, you’ve just admitted you’re an alcoholic. And if you
weren’t, if either one of those weren’t true, you wouldn’t be here. If you could still drink
without problems, you’d be out drinking.
(29:52 – 30:00)
So would I. If you could stay sober without going to meetings and doing these things,
you’d be out doing it. But you can’t do it. So we’ve driven here.
(30:01 – 30:10)
Can’t stay drinking, can’t stay sober. And, but all of us have gone years trying to find a
technique by which to do it. Hoping against hope, I’ll find a way to do it.
(30:11 – 30:15)
And you don’t. And that’s what’s so lethal here. And over the years, I held jobs.
(30:16 – 30:21)
In fact, my job kind of went downhill. And little by little, I thought I was being persecuted.
I thought I was being screwed by life.
(30:21 – 30:33)
And people were screwing me around. And one day, my wife left me and took all the
children to Dallas and never knew where they went. Two weeks later, I had my teeth
kicked out in a Phoenix drunk tank.
(30:33 – 30:41)
And a week after that, two weeks after that, I was being thrown out of the midnight
mission. And it was all over. And I was 31.
(30:42 – 30:46)
And I felt like I was 150. Boy, I’ll tell you. My life was over.
(30:47 – 31:17)
And that’s why it’s kind of strange to find myself jumping in my car, coming down here at
night, driving from Los Angeles, west Los Angeles, so I can stand at this podium and say
a funny thing happened to me and murdered the grave. And I’m gonna… And I was
trying to find a way to explain this to this guy. And I was trying to put a finger, as these
thoughts went through my mind, how can I explain what happened to me? Because
that’s the difficult thing.
(31:17 – 31:24)
What happened to you? You know, there are authorities in AA. I’ll tell you who the
authorities are. They are the people who live far away.
(31:26 – 31:41)
When we have conventions in San Diego and Los Angeles, we invite speakers from New
York and Virginia and Florida. When they have conventions in New York and Virginia and
Florida, they bring speakers from California. If you come from a long ways away, you’re
an authority.
(31:41 – 31:57)
I’m kind of an… I’m an authority in Toronto. They’re not the sharpest knives in the
drawer, but they’re, you know… I wouldn’t want this to go outside of this room, of
course. Our hats are off to you, partner.
(31:59 – 32:17)
Yeah. But, I’ve been going up there every year. Like, I come down here every year and
the same 100 or 150 people, they get together and have a little day and they buy tickets
and I come in there and in the morning I talk on the steps of the tradition or something.
(32:17 – 32:36)
In the afternoon they have a question and answer meeting and at night I talk at a dinner.
And, a few years ago I was talking and someone in the back said, Clancy, I have a
question. Every year we hear how long you slept and how wonderful you are and how
sober you are.
(32:38 – 33:12)
What happened in between? You know, and I kind of like question and answer meetings
because I’ve developed, I seem to have developed a natural facility to weave a tapestry
of verbal BS when I think of the answers. And this old bag said, if you don’t mind, I
wouldn’t like one of your long answers. Just in a sentence or two, what is the difference?
If you’re lucky I’m recovered I’ll come back and slap you, you bitch.
(33:16 – 33:27)
But I couldn’t think of an answer. So I had to say, I read it, there’s no way to answer that
in a sentence or two, ma’am, I’d like to but I can’t. But it threw off my rhythm and just
ruined everything from then on.
(33:29 – 33:40)
Later that night I was taking a shower before I went to speak at this dinner and an
answer came. The answer came, at least an answer, not the answer perhaps, I don’t
know, but an answer came. But it was such a crappy little answer I didn’t like it.
(33:40 – 34:00)
I didn’t even want to hear it, you know. I like answers that have a little body, a little
panache, a little zip. We have a bunch of newcomers here that I wish when they left
tonight they’d say things like, did you hear what Clancy said? Wet birds don’t fly at night.
(34:06 – 34:36)
Did you hear what Clancy said? Never mind if the horse is blind, keep loading the wagon.
These answers mean nothing but they give the newcomer hope. Maybe next year you’ll
be able to afford glasses for the speaker.
(34:43 – 35:04)
Nothing special for me, I’m just one of the guys. The answer I thought of in that shower
was such a dreary little answer. This was the first time that I’d gotten so desperate inside
of me psychologically somehow that I did things in AA that were demeaning and I
thought were stupid and I wouldn’t have done if I had any alternative.
(35:04 – 35:26)
For example, I mean little tiny little things like, I mean I went to AA and I said yeah, yeah
there’s no children’s crusade crap. In those days there were no styrofoam cups just like
here. But all the meetings had porcelain cups.
(35:26 – 35:40)
Every meeting had porcelain cups. They all had to be washed. And my colleagues said,
anybody want to volunteer to do dishes? Why don’t these goops do it? Maybe I’ll give
them a job tomorrow.
(35:41 – 36:29)
But now they’re saying, are you without the teeth? Do you want to do the dishes? And
every fiber of my being wanted to say screw you. And I found myself in a I had to
cooperate because living I’d gotten to an AA club in Los Angeles and I was going to
hustle some money there and I couldn’t get any money out of those boobs and I wound
up living in the backseat of an abandoned car back at the club and I was eating cake at
all the meetings so I couldn’t chew anything and listening to these jerks tell me about
the steps I just wanted to scream and just choke them. Here’s your god damn steps!
Leave me alone! And I found myself doing We need some help picking up the chairs.
(36:29 – 36:49)
Will you pick up the chairs young man? All I hear is somebody say hey Quasimodo go
ring the bells. Demeaning and insulting and inane and stupid little things. And I guess I
just gave up and I’m never going to be anything ever.
(36:49 – 37:05)
I’ve just been screwed. And that’s how much I’ve been screwed. And I went to these
meetings and somehow I just survived.
(37:05 – 37:15)
I don’t know how I survived. I tried to scramble. I wasn’t really looking for a long time
sobriety because for me sobriety is a bad place.
(37:16 – 37:27)
If you’re new you might think well if you really want to stay sober like these people do
can’t you stay sober? The answer is yeah you can. I had a good reason to stay sober. I
was in jail one night.
(37:27 – 37:35)
I’ve been in jail a lot. I’m not a big tough felon. I’ve been in jail 32 times which is not a
record but it’s good for an advertising executive.
(37:37 – 37:52)
And I’ve never been in jail for any big felony or anything. You know my problem is when I
get drunk I have an overpowering need to straighten out police officers. I could just cut
off my tongue every morning afterwards.
(37:53 – 37:56)
You blue belly son of a bitch I’m your boss. I’m a citizen. Give me that.
(38:00 – 38:08)
But one night I was in jail and I thought oh God. But that was a wrong night to be in jail.
That night my son died and they couldn’t find me to tell.
(38:08 – 38:20)
And I had a bunch of little girls and one little boy and I almost went crazy. And the judge
let me out the next morning and he said I hope this teaches you a lesson. Remember
that Sunday before the funeral on Monday.
(38:24 – 38:42)
Sitting in my living room and my brothers in law and my father in law were there with me
and nobody mentioned my drinking or being drunk. Well Clancy can we get you a cup of
coffee or something. Put in their eyes you can just read you dirty rotten bastard.
(38:43 – 38:58)
You dirty look what you’ve done to my sister. And the next day I was so sick of all this I
buried my son and said to myself John this will never happen again in our family. I
promise you.
(38:59 – 39:10)
And I went back to work in Texas where I was working at that time. And I had a great like
my dad said you go by that bar you ought to see John’s picture on the wall. I said yeah
that’s right dad I’m going to do that.
(39:11 – 39:18)
And I had such a zeal by God I’m going to do that. I’m going to change my life I shall not
have died in vain. And you can really do it.
(39:20 – 53:42)
Except one night as always happens for people like me someone sneaks in the night and
puts an invisible spring in your gut and the next day they start putting the pressure on.
And all of a sudden it’s just you start to get irritated and irritable and a little upset and
people are crappy and I’m tired of being treated like this. And I know a couple of drinks
will make it alright and I can’t have a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a
drink and I don’t want a drink don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want
a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I
don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a
drink and I don’t want a drink and I and I don’t want a drink and I want a drink and I don’t
want a drink and I a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t a drink and I don’t want a
drink and I want and I don’t a drink and I want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t
want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink
and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I a drink a
drink and I and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want and I don’t want a drink and I don’t
want a drink and I a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I want a
drink and I and I don’t want and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t
want a drink don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I
don’t a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink
and I don’t and I don’t and I don’t want a drink a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t
want and I want don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I want a drink a drink
and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I a drink and I don’t want a drink
and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I and I don’t
a drink and I don’t want a drink and I and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink
don’t and I want a drink and I don’t and I don’t want a drink and I don’t want a drink and I
here.
You learn that alcohol is not, was not the problem. As long as you think alcohol is the
problem, you think you can beat it. But eventually, as I said before, you come here to
discover it isn’t alcohol, it’s alcohol and sobriety.
When you add that element, it is now called alcoholism. Alcohol problems are stopping
drinking. Alcoholism is there’s no way out.
And that’s why we have to work so hard to stay here. That’s why you have to surrender. I
didn’t go through this whole thing with this interview.
I just said some people are unable to surrender to the actions that AA offers. And most
people aren’t. I’ll tell you something staggering.
There’s more sobriety in America than any place in the history of the world. It is
estimated today in America there’s more sobriety than any place in the history of the
world, but about 95% of alcoholics still die drunk, or as a direct result of drinking. And
I’m sure most of them die saying the same thing.
But you don’t understand. I’m not really an alcoholic. My problems came when I was
sober.
I just drank to get a little relief and got a little out of the hand. You don’t understand. And
they have no idea.
They’ve just defined the disease of alcoholism. That’s why it’s imperative not to trust
your judgment here. But I told him that, and he seemed to sit, told him a little more, I
guess.
And the last thing he said, one of the other questions, I won’t keep talking all night here,
but he said, well, why do you have to be an alcoholic to be an Alcoholics Anonymous?
Isn’t it all one disease? Drug addiction, overeating, gambling, alcohol? And I had an
answer for that one. I said that particular theory was originated in a treatment center
that just had one van. And you might wonder, why do you have to be an alcoholic to be
an Alcoholics Anonymous? Isn’t that kind of elitist? Not really.
In all the history of the treatment of alcoholism in 5,000 years, there’s only been two
organizations that ever had any significant effect on alcoholics. One you’re in. The other
was started in 1840, a group called the Washingtonians.
Six guys got together, six bad drunks, and they started something very much like AA.
And there’s no radio, no telephone, so they had every contact to be one-to-one. At the
end of five years, they had estimated 100,000 members.
AA, after five years, had less than 1,000. So you can see what a significant thing it was.
And then they had a feeling which sounds right, because people in AA have the same
feeling now.
If we can help alcoholics, we should be able to help all kinds of people who have other
problems. And so some of them began helping narcotics addicts, not addicts like we
have today with heroin and cocaine, but laudanum and opium. Some of them got into
politics, some of them got engaged in freeing slaves, all sorts.
They wanted to really put the whole organization to work behind these wonderful things.
And by 1848, with very few exceptions, the Washingtonians were extinct and all of them
died drunk. When I say extinct, I jump forward to 1945, 100 years later.
AA was going through some bad times. It got off to a good start with a Saturday Post
article, but it’s now dying off. City after city, more people were getting drunk than
getting sober.
(53:42 – 57:01)
They didn’t know what to make of it. People were writing to Bill Wilson. He didn’t know
what to do about it.
It just staggered. And the guy in North Carolina wrote him and said, Bill, we’re going the
way of the Washingtonians. And Bill had never heard of the Washingtonians, so he got
some books on it and discovered, my god, we are the way of the Washingtonians.
And after reading what happened to the Washingtonians and what problems they had
and what happened, in a desperate effort to save Alcoholics Anonymous in 1945, ten
years after AA was founded, he sat down and wrote the Twelve Traditions. Turn up. Oh,
does somebody have a cell phone? Oh.
Boy, I bet you’ll be able to get a job soon. Anyway, he wrote the Twelve Traditions, not in
the form they read it tonight, but in the long form. If you ever want to understand the
traditions in the back of the book, across from the short form and the long form, read
them.
They tell you about, they took the things that killed the Washingtonians. Washingtonians
had no anonymity. We have anonymity.
They had fights over who was the most, who’d get their name in the paper the most,
who had the most money. Many of our traditions are based exclusively right on the old
Washingtonians, and it saved AA. And even then, the members didn’t want to accept it,
but they finally decided to have one meeting and try to convince people.
So on July 4th, the week of 1950, they brought in all the warring factions from around the
country to Cleveland and had this, I have a tape of that convention, very interesting, and
the quality’s not very good, but they, six young guys, each took two forms of the two
traditions, long form, and tried to show people, these are not rules, these are not trying
to stifle us, they’re trying to save us. And they begrudgingly voted them in, 15 years
after AA was in, and they were printed in the book the next year. They’d been part of,
and unfortunately over the years, they kind of get lost.
Now we forget what they’re about, but I’ll tell you, if you want to stay, if you don’t have
AA to be a viable thing, stick with those traditions, and you don’t have to know the
reasons for it. But the one number one thing among all most of those traditions is this, it
is one drunkard talking to another drunkard. Why would that be important? Shouldn’t a
doctor, a psychiatrist, or somebody qualified? You know why? Because the greatest
enemy you and I will ever have is our own feeling, but my case is different.
I know you mean well, but you don’t understand. I had enough advice by the time I was
29 to last me for 5,000 years, but it didn’t make any difference because I know they
didn’t understand how I felt, and I didn’t see how I felt. And the greatest gift of AA is that
if you stay here long enough and do these things, you may survive long enough to hear
people talk about the various, the very things that you thought were unique unto you.
All my life, people have been coming up to me and saying, oh Clancy, I know how you
feel. No, goddammit, you don’t know how I feel. But you stay around AA, and one day
some old fool will come up to you and say, I know how you feel.
And you think, my god, he does know how I feel. And that’s the germination, that’s the
insemination of sobriety. And little by little, and why is that so important? Because if I
believe you know how I feel, I will listen to the advice you give me.
(57:02 – 57:48)
It becomes, it goes from being just information that I disregard to communication that I
accept. And little by little, I even can’t accept it much then, but I can accept it here and
there. And little by little, that’s what they call the language of the heart, the language of
identification.
I believe you understand what I’m saying, so I can listen to you because you just
explained how I feel. And when you, when you don’t have that, I’ve been working with
addicts for over 25 years. I’m not an addict, but I’ve been working with addicts for over
25 years.
I think I know more about heroin than most addicts. I know about the great euphoria
they get. I know that eventually you can’t get to the euphoria anymore.
They always overdose. What kills a heroin addict, always an overdose. They eventually
have to go to the hospital and kick it, so they get off it, so they can go back and get that
feeling again.
(57:48 – 59:57)
Cocaine, way up there, great omnipotence, wonderful feeling. And cocaine is certainly
not this hideous crack they got now, it should even last about five minutes. And, but
unfortunately, it’s a speed drug and the side effects of speed are always the same,
eventually growing paranoia, growing, growing terrible discontent, terrible addiction,
your body starts to go, you can’t do anything about it.
And I know all about, I know a lot about addiction. But I’ll tell you, when I go to an AIM
meeting, when some guy gets up and talks about shooting up for 45 minutes, that isn’t
an AIM meeting to me, that’s an informational seminar. I, let me have the guy, much
rather good, see, I, I’m not, I’m not doing very well, but I used to drink a lot, and I need
to drink, and I’m not drinking now, and my sponsor’s helping me, and I’m trying to do the
steps, and somehow I’m getting a little better.
And you’re, yeah, I know just how you feel, pal. It’s probably the best example that I
know. When I was about two years sober, I, I was talking one, one of our groups on
obsessions one night, not the solution to it, but I knew about obsessions, because I had
them all, and some woman came up to us, and she said, I just helped start a new
organization around the corner called Overeaters Anonymous.
We just got permission to use the steps. Would you come over and talk to our ladies
about obsessions? I said, sure, glad to help them. So I went over there the next Sunday,
and about seven old fat ladies sat around the table, and I weighed about 130, so I, I
looked pretty good, and I gave them a wonderful talk about obsessions, and they all,
then I got done, and they went around, and I thought, I guess I’ve helped them.
Then they had a little sharing session, and I couldn’t believe my ears. I couldn’t believe
my ears. One over here had fixed a cake for her husband and her son, a big cake.
And she took one bite, and ate the whole goddamn cake. Just have a piece of cake, you
old bag. What’s the matter with you? I didn’t say anything, because I’m too nice a guy.
(59:59 – 1:01:03)
Someone over here had eaten two chickens the night before. Just have a piece, have a
wing, for Christ’s sake. Some woman over here said, I ate, and I couldn’t eat any more,
and I needed more food, so I went and put my fingers on my throat, and threw up, so I
could have some more food.
Don’t bother shaking hands with me after the meal. I can see doing that for drinking, but
not for eating, for Christ’s sake. Now, what is the difference? They were talking about
stuff that was just information to me.
I didn’t identify. Identification is the necessary. That’s why you have to be an alcoholic.
You can be an alcoholic, and an addict, and a compulsive eater, and anything you want
to be. You can twist baby chicken sticks, who cares? I would like to say to this new guy
down here, who would identify himself as an alcoholic, and an addict. We don’t care what
else you are.
When you’re here, you’re an alcoholic. When you’re an addict, you’re just saying, look,
my case is different. A lot of people in this room are also addicts.
(1:01:03 – 1:03:46)
They also have other things, but when you’re in this room, you’re an alcoholic. Fit in.
Don’t be different.
Fit in. That’s why you should be an alcoholic. I tried to explain this to the man about the
identification much more shortly than I told it to you.
We got all done, and I was going home. I remember I talked to him a little bit about this,
briefly about this. Incidentally, this convention they had for the, Dr. Bob, the co-founder
of AA, was dying of cancer that week, and they said, you probably wouldn’t want to
speak.
I said, oh yes, I want to speak. He said, next to Bill Wilson, I’m the sober, the longest one
in the world. I’m 15 years sober.
And so, the July 4th weekend, 1950, they helped this old guy, his son on one side, AA on
the other side, they helped this tall, gaunt, sick man to the podium. And he gave a talk
that’s been reprinted. A lot of times, some of us have tapes of it, but it’s a touching little
talk.
It’s a beautiful talk. He started off by saying, I want to welcome you to Cleveland. I hope
you go back and tell the boys and girls that we’re all on the same path, and we’re all
doing the same things.
And we get the same things by doing the same things. And he said, I hope that you’ll
forgive me. My health has not been very good recently.
I’ve been in bed most of the last few months. I hope I’m going to get better. And he said,
we finally got around to saying, but there are a few, two or three things I want to call to
your attention.
I would indeed be remiss. And he said, till then, he gave what I conceived to be the
Gettysburg Address of Alcoholics Anonymous, short and right down the middle of the
road. He said, first, let us remember to keep our programs simple.
Let us not louse it all up with Freudian complexes, which may be of interest to the
scientists, but have nothing to do with our work here. When reduced to the last, our work
here consists of love and service. And we all know what love is, and we all know what
service is.
And secondly, he said, let us guard that erring member of the tongue, and try to use it
with kindness and understanding. And there isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t know
exactly what he’s talking about. When we’re feeling good, we can all be very nice, but
when we’re threatened, we are nasty, nasty assassinating people sometimes.
And finally, he said, let us never be too busy to help the man behind us. To give him a
pat on the back when he needs it, take him to a few meetings, because none of us would
be here if someone hadn’t done it for us. Let us never reach that stage of smug
complacency where we are too busy to help our fellow alcoholic.
Then he said a few closing remarks and sat down and died shortly, a few months
afterwards. But that convention was such a success that he decided to have another one
five years later in St. Louis. And that’s for the, every five years they’ve held him ever
since.
(1:03:47 – 1:05:21)
That’s what they have here in 1995, that’s what they’re going to have in Minneapolis in a
couple months. Same convention. But the thing to remember is this, that this is a
program of action.
It is not a program of knowledge, of being slick. You could out fool them all for a while,
but eventually they get you. If you be an alcoholic of our type, and I presume you must
be because if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here, you’d be out doing the other thing.
But there are certain actions here that must be taken, and you cannot use your
judgment to decide which they are. So people like me, and I presume like most of you,
need someone that I can trust enough to let them know what a failure I am and allow
them to superimpose actions over my judgments. And come to understand the nature of
my illness, come to realize I’m an alcoholic because not to have a problem with alcohol,
but because I suffer from alcohol and sobriety both.
That’s what an alcoholic is. And in the last analysis to remember this. I want to
remember to keep this program simple and not louse it all up with Freudian complexes,
which may be of interest to the scientists, but have nothing to do with our work here.
Our work here consists of love and service. And I want to work very hard, as hard as I
can, to guard that erring member of the tongue and try to use it with kindness and love,
because sometimes I don’t, and I’m awfully fallible. And I want to never be too busy to
help the alcoholic behind me if I can do it.
If I can remember to give him a pat on the back and take him a few beatings and never
reach that smug complacency that’ll keep me from doing it. And when I do that, my life
will be what I want it to be. Thank you.
Carry The Message
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