AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
January 4, 2024
(0:20 – 2:01)
Hi everybody, Joe Conroy and I’m an alcoholic. By the grace of God, the Fellowship of
Alcoholics Anonymous and my own efforts, I’ve been sober since January 1st of 1989.
You guys don’t make me drink tonight, I’m gonna get 30 years before I know it, so this is
pretty cool.
Thank everybody that had anything to do with getting me here, the committee and all
these people. This is a crowd. Okay, so I’m in farm country anyway, so it was the pig fair
last September, the day I well remember I was walking up and down the streets in
drunken pride when my knees began to flutter and I fell down in the gutter and a pig
came up and laid down by my side.
As I laid there in the gutter thinking words I could not utter, I thought I’d heard a passing
lady say, you can tell the man who boozes by the company that he chooses, and with
that the pig got up and walked away. Yeah, so that’s who you got here tonight folks. You
know, anybody under a year sobriety, would you just raise your hand to stand up or do
something like that? I just want to look at how many people are here today.
This is pretty cool. This is really cool. Really, really.
I’m gonna talk to you guys because I love the newcomers. I love the newcomers coming
to a conference. If it’s your first conference, welcome, because you’re probably just
about ready to pee your pants right now because you’re just so uncomfortable you don’t
want to be here.
(2:01 – 4:58)
That’s the way it was for me. Oh, it was awful when I was, my first conference was nine
months sober and a wicked sob. Yeah, I’m from Alabama.
If I didn’t, he told you I was from San Diego, but I’m originally from Alabama, right? Yeah,
originally from Boston. I came out, I moved out to San Diego. Wow.
I moved out to San Diego in a drunken stupor right after Thanksgiving in 1988, and I
ended up in the streets of the city, and then I got sober. So I should talk about that one
first. So I got sober because when I was in Boston, I worked at a comedy club, and the
guy who owned the, the guy that owned the club was a sober member of AA.
He had eight years of sobriety. His name was Dick D. As far as I know, he’s still sober,
and he was a boob. I didn’t like him at all.
I didn’t like him at all, but there was something about him, something about him, and I
think that’s what the attraction of Alcoholics Anonymous is. That’s like, that’s why I want
to know how many new people are here. My job and all, everybody else’s job is to make
this thing just a little bit attractive to you so you’ll come back tomorrow, just so you
come back and just try to enjoy this thing till you can, you know? And this guy just
would, he was sober, and everybody that worked for him was sober, and it was a very
strange, I was a bartender, and everybody that worked for him was very, it was very
strange to see people sober, and they sat there, and they would look at me, right? Now
I’m, I got a little cocktail on the bar.
I’m fine. They let us drink behind the bar, you know, but that little cocktail never goes
down, right? So you’re drinking it all night long, and then when I have to stock the beer
chest, I would go back and do a little bit of something with a straw in the back of the,
with the cooler, and I would get a little bump up, and I’d come back out again, you know?
But these guys used to sit at the end of the bar, and they would stare at me, and they
would drink coffee, and they’d go, Joe, how are you doing? And I sweat a lot. I, I haven’t, I
can’t believe I haven’t even started sweating here.
I, just coming out of the shower, I was sweating earlier, but it was, I’d be sweating
behind the bar, and they’d go, Joe, how are you doing? I’d go, I’m fine. There’s something
about an alcoholic that’s in a recovery program. When they say, how are you doing?
There’s a deeper meaning to it, a much deeper meaning to it, you know? Because all my
friends, Joe, how you doing? How you doing? How you doing? They would say that all the
time.
I’m doing fine. I’m doing fine. How you been? How you been? How you doing? But when
an alcoholic says, how you doing? They continue to look at you, and it’s like, it’s like
setting a hook, and then I would go, what do you mean, how am I doing? And they would
continually ask me, you look like you’re stressed.
I’m not stressed, and I was stressed, and I didn’t know why. And they would leave, and I
would go home at the end of the night, or early in the morning, and I would think about
that conversation, of all the conversations I had in the bar all night long. How are you
doing? And I’m just like, wow, I’m doing really bad, you know? I get home, and I’m just in
a bad, bad shape.
(4:59 – 10:20)
But this one night, it was really bad. It just kept piling up, and piling up, and piling up,
and I’m the only one in the bar, and it’s a full bar, and we’re really busy, and Dick was
leaving. Dick rode a motorcycle.
He was just long-haired, and just a boob. And anyway, he was leaving. I said, Dick, I need
your help.
And he says, what do you mean, you need my help? I got to go. I got things to do. And I
go, Dick, I need your help.
He goes, I have places to go. It’s 1230 at night. I got to go.
I said, Dick, I need your help. And it was like he heard the desperation of my voice, and it
was almost like being in a stop-motion movie. Everybody but him and I were stopped,
and he came around the bar.
He said, what’s going on? I said, Dick, I think I’m an alcoholic. So it’s a Saturday night at
1230. He goes, Jesus, you picked a hell of a time to figure that out.
And he said, here’s my phone number. Call me, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow. Let’s
talk about this, and this is not the time to talk about it.
I went, thanks, Dick. Thanks. And he left, and I was glad, and I didn’t want anything else
to do with him.
I was like, I was done, you know, and I felt better, you know. I just admitted I had a
problem. But as soon as I admitted it, I was regretting it, and I was like, and I didn’t talk
to him again for a while.
I avoided him, and those people at the end of the bar, I was mean to them. And I
remember turning to Melvin one night, my buddy Melvin that I drank with. I said, Melvin,
I think I’m an alcoholic.
He said, Joe, there’s no way that you’re an alcoholic. I go, why? He says, because if
you’re an alcoholic, I’m an alcoholic, and I’m not an alcoholic. Oh, okay, thank you,
because that guy over there, the sober guy, wants me to go to A&A, you know.
You don’t need to do that. You don’t need to do that. And then I’m out on my bike one
fall day in Boston, riding my bike along the Charles River, and I stopped.
There was a mob of people in the middle of the Esplanade in Boston, where the After
Fever and the Boston Pops used to play, and they were just blocking my way, and I was
pissed off, and I pulled over next to a tree, and I was leaning up against the tree, and
just cursing these people, and I got a tap on my shoulder, and it was Dick D. He goes,
Joe, how are you doing? What do you mean, how am I doing? I’m doing fine. I’m out
riding my bike. It’s a Sunday.
These people are in the way. I don’t know what they’re here for. They’re driving me
crazy.
I can’t get by. He says, well, this is the fall roundup of Alcoholics Anonymous. What’s that
mean? I don’t know what it means.
He says, but they’re all sober, and they’re all having a great time. He goes, how you
doing with that problem? What problem you talking about? Remember the problem you
talked about that night at 1230? Dick, the bar was packed. I was all alone.
I was swamped. He goes, okay, and then he started telling me a little bit of his story, and
this is when, if you’re new and you don’t want to come here, go. Walk away.
Walk away, and he started telling me his story, and he started making it sound a little
better than I thought it was, and then he went on, and he went on, and he went on, and
he went on, and he went on, and I’m like, Jesus Christ, the sun’s about ready to drop
here. Let’s go. Let’s go, and he said, Joe, I don’t know what to tell you, but if it comes a
time you’re done with this feeling, and you’re done with drinking, and you ask some
power greater than yourself for help, you’ll never ever have to take another drink as long
as you live.
Get out of here. That’s fine for you, but I’m done. I’m done.
I don’t want anything to do with this stuff, and my solution, what, was to move to San
Diego. Literally. I packed my bags in two days, and I was gone.
Gone. Moved out to San Diego. I didn’t know a soul.
Not a soul. Nobody, and San Diego 30 years ago, almost 30 years ago, was downtown
San Diego was pretty much a ghetto. Now, $2,500 for a 600 square foot studio, and I’m
sitting in my car down there.
I had a, I got a 63 Ford Falcon station wagon that I was sleeping in, in the downtown San
Diego, living the life. Sometimes I would get scared, and I would drive over to the airport.
You could park at the airport for a buck overnight then.
A buck. I’d sit in the airport and sleep. I’d get up in the morning.
I’d go into the airport and brush my teeth, and I’d get a newspaper and read it. I’d go
back into my car. I’d go over to the beach.
I’d get some broccoli and some apricots and a gallon of water, and I would sit on the
beach. I wanted to be a surfer dude. I wanted to be kind of like a dude, and I would just
sit there in the back of my car and eat the broccoli and apricots, because I’m kind of
healthy now.
I’m in California, right, and all I would do was fight. I would just fight. I’d just sit there and
fight, you know.
(10:20 – 22:10)
I was like, what’s so healthy about this, you know, and it got worse, and it got worse, and
it got worse, and I was all alone, and I wasn’t desperate yet, but on New Year’s Eve, on
New Year’s Eve 1988, that was the start of my last day of drinking. I want to say
something to somebody. I was sitting in the back, last row.
I was here just feeling a little sorry for myself before I got up here, and I was just sitting
there, and I go, God, I don’t want to do this, and a guy named Larry came up and said hi
to me. I just want to say Larry, and any other Larrys that are in the room tonight, that
the act of putting your hand out to somebody you don’t know will change the course of
that person or your person’s life. I will tell you that, especially with the newcomers.
If you’re in a meeting and you see people walking away from AA, take a moment and just
say, is everything okay? Is everything okay? And usually they’re going to say, I can’t
stand this. I can’t. I hate it.
I hate everybody. I hate everybody, and I’m going to tell you a little story about that, but
I was sitting on the edge of a bed on New Year’s Eve in downtown San Diego. I didn’t
want to sleep in the car that night, and I got a room for $19.95 at the corner of 6th and F
Street, and I woke up the next morning, and I started drinking at Patrick’s 2, and oh,
there was a dump downtown.
It’s still there. The Chi-Chi Club. The book talks about sordid places.
There should be a picture of the Chi-Chi Club there, you know. It’s just awful, and I kept
drinking all night long, all night long, all night long, and I couldn’t get drunk, and I
couldn’t stay sober, and I couldn’t get drunk, and I’m sitting there, and I’m thinking,
those words that Dick said, there’ll come a time when you’re done with the way you’re
feeling. If you ask some power greater than yourself for help, you’ll never have to take
another drink again, and I didn’t salute this time.
I said, God, I’m an alcoholic. I need help, and I was alone. I didn’t know a soul in the city,
and I had no idea what to do, and I called my brother, who lives up in Santa Barbara, and
he calls me dude.
He said, dude, I don’t know what to tell you. Let me give you my wife. Little did I know
that she was an allotine as a kid.
She was nice up until she picked up that phone that night, and all these people that get
put in your life, they save your life. They save you from the seemingly hopeless state of
mind and body. She just asked me questions, and I answered them honestly.
She says, can you get up here to Santa Barbara? I said, well, somebody had broken into
the Casa de Jose. That’s what my brother called it, the little 63 Ford Falcon station
wagon, and they stole my ice skates. I brought ice skates to San Diego, thinking I’ve got
an ice skate, right? I never found the ice skates.
I haven’t been on a pair of ice skates since then, but I was determined to find my ice
skates, and she says, well, go see if you can find them, and I didn’t find them, and then
she says, get your ass up here to Santa Barbara, and I went up there, and I’m driving.
The Ford Falcon didn’t have any remain seal, so it leaked oil like a sieve, and it was just
this blue smoke coming up the back, and Santa Barbara to San Diego to Santa Barbara
is, I don’t know, 300, maybe, maybe 300 miles. I don’t know, but it’s four hours if you’re
a bird, seven hours if you’re driving, eight hours if you’re driving a 63 Ford Falcon station
wagon with no remain seal, and it was so long, and this thing had a big steering wheel
and an AM radio, and I’m just driving, and it was just, the red light would flash every
once in a while.
I’d pull over. I had a whole case of Pep Boys used oil in the back, and I would put some
oil in, and I would keep driving. It was just like, it was just like, it was like, it was like the
end of my life, right, and I’m just in a panic state, and I go, oh my god, this is ridiculous,
and then I, then I went in, and, and they had made an arrangement for me to get
interviewed at the 12, at the, at the central office, see if I could get admitted to AA.
I guess that’s what I was thinking. They’re gonna interview me? Yeah, he’s waiting for
you, so I went down, and this boob was sitting in a chair, and he was really excited to
see me. Wasn’t too excited to be there, and I’m sweating like a stuck pig, and he says,
tell me your story, and I don’t know what I said to him.
I had no idea. I didn’t know what you have to do in here to get admitted, and then he sat,
and he told me his story, and it went on, and on, and on, and on, and I got really pissed
off at him, because he was a, he just retired from the, from Shell Oil Company. He was a
captain, merchant marine.
Boy, did that piss me off, because I always wanted to be a captain, merchant marine,
until they told me I have to go to school. I’m not going to school to be a captain, so I’d be
pissed off all the time, you know, all the time, and he was so cool. He was so attractive
to me.
He sat in this chair, and he just rocked, and I’m like, this guy’s just rocking, and I’m just
like sweating. Jesus, it’s hot in here. And, and when he was done telling his story, he
says, Joe, why don’t you go to AA? Well, I’ll go.
Where do I go? I don’t know what to do. He says, well, there’s a meeting tonight at the
Atlanta Club. It’s a speaker meeting.
You should go to a speaker meeting, because I don’t think you should go to a discussion
meeting, because you don’t really want to talk, do you? I said, no, I don’t really like
anybody, and, and, and he said, just go there, and I’ll be there, and we’ll see what
happens. So I went home, and I told my brother that they want me to go to a meeting.
He goes, I’ll go with you.
I go, you’re not an alcoholic. He goes, I’ll go with you. Little did I know, he was talking to
my other brother, Brian, back home, and Brian said, you know, Joe can’t go anywhere
without a booze in him.
He goes, he, he won’t even be able to walk into an AA meeting without booze in him.
Walk in with him, Jerry. Jerry goes, I’ll go.
So we went to the meeting, and it was awful. Sitting there with my arms crossed, pissed
off, angry. I look over at him, and he’s crying.
I’m going, what are you crying for? He goes, this stuff is great. I’m like, what? This is
ridiculous. Look at these people.
They don’t know what drinking’s all about, and I was pissed, and then we’re sitting there
in the middle of the room, first meeting, not know what’s going on, and then they go,
now we’ll close the meeting in the usual manner. The whole room stands up and walks to
the side, and we’re going, what do we do? You know, we’re sitting in the middle of the
room. Some guy goes, hey guys, come up here, come up here.
So we get up there, and then they hold hands, right? We’re holding hands, and they start
saying the Lord’s Prayer. Oh God, no. And I look over at Jerry, and the tears are flowing.
This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, Joe. This is just unbelievable. I didn’t get
nothing, nothing, and he’s never had a drink since, but he’s still not an alcoholic, right?
And I haven’t had a drink since either.
I haven’t had a drink since January 1st, yeah. So I started that long story with another
long story. Nine months sober.
Now I’m sober. You know what you’re like when you’re sober. Yeah, you just go into
meetings, and you’re sober.
Really happy people. Who made the coffee? This is awful. The sober people, you know.
I’m nine months sober, and I go to a conference in San Diego, and there was a woman
named Grady O. speaking. Now Grady O. was the most foul-mouthed woman I’ve ever
heard in my life, and I couldn’t stand being there, and I had to get out of this conference,
and it was just awful, and I couldn’t, I just, I wanted to drink. That’s it.
This is like everybody was so excited to be listening to this woman, and they couldn’t
believe what she was saying, and I’m like, just shoot me now, and I walked out front, and
I, and it was at the Princess Hotel in Mission Bay, and I’m driving a 63 Ford Falcon station
wagon, right, and all I saw was brand-new chrome, big wheels, shiny cars, beautiful cars,
and I just got mad. This is crap, and I couldn’t find the Casa de Jose. Couldn’t find it
anywhere, and I turned around.
I was so mad, and this boob came walking up to me, and he goes, how you doing? And I
hate that term, if I haven’t already said that, right, and I go, I got to get out of here. I got
a drink. I can’t stand this stuff, and he goes, my name is Paul.
I haven’t seen you around. I’ve been here for nine months. How’s it going? I can’t stand
it, man.
I got a drink. I can’t do this anymore. I hate it.
Everybody’s so happy, and they’re, and I’m miserable, and what’s the point, and this is
blah, blah, blah, and he started to tell me his story, and you know what he did, right? On,
and on, and on, and I’m like, oh God, I got to get out of here. I need a drink, and it just
kept going on, and on, and on, and he goes, I found your car. Where? He says, right over
there next to mine.
There were only two cars left in the parking lot when he was done, and you want to know
something? I didn’t want to drink anymore. It was a moment that somebody saw in me. I
don’t, when you’re new, you don’t know, you don’t know what you’re in for.
You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know what it’s like for us to help somebody else.
You don’t know what it’s like to just keep coming back, showing up, and coming to the
meeting.
Paul has been my best buddy for 30 years. I’m going up to visit him next week. He lives
up in Sea Ranch now.
He retired, and he’s just been the greatest person I’ve ever been, that’s ever been put in
my life, and there’s so many of those people. There’s several people in this room tonight,
believe it or not, that have been put in my life, and I don’t know why, but they’re put in
my life so I can change. They help me change.
I help them change, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about transformation in here. It
really is, because we come in here broken, broken.
I was the type of alcoholic that had to drink to go out to drink, drink to go out to drink.
I’m sitting in the house. Jerry, I would call.
I’d be sitting at home. I lived in the North End in Boston, so I’m Irish Catholic, right? Irish
Catholic. I got five brothers, no sisters.
My dad died when I was, when he was 47. I was 12. My mom just died on July, on June
17th.
(22:10 – 32:32)
She was a hundred years old, and she raised us from little kids, and she was as strong as
an ox. She was a wonderful, wonderful woman. I’ll tell you this story because it’s just so,
it just gets me, and my mom was born and raised in Ireland, and she moved over here
when she was a kid, and she never wanted or needed for anything, and she was just the
most wonderful woman.
She says, I want three things when I die. I want Irish music to be playing. I want to wear
a yellow dress.
I don’t want any crying. We were able to take care of two of those things, but there were
a lot of tears, and I, and when she, when it came time, she was in a home, and we had,
we had, we got to the point where she had, she had lost consciousness, and I swear to
God, when everybody says, why don’t you just go and talk to them, it’s an odd thing to
do. It’s a very odd thing to go and talk to somebody that’s not responding because you
want response.
You want response, and it’s a very, and they kept saying, just keep talking. She can hear
everything. I go, she can’t hear a damn thing.
She’s gone, so it was one night about two o’clock in the morning, and I’m in the room,
and she had two other roommates. I said, Mom, and I’m playing the Irish music. I said, I
think I’m bothering the other people, and I’m gonna turn the music off, and I went to
reach to turn the music off, and her hand came up, just grabbed mine, and pulled it
away, not conscious for days, and, and I was just like, oh baby, oh baby.
You know, she knew. She knew. She knew, and I was there for her, and I can’t tell you
how grateful I was to be there for her, and how AA has actually given me, given me this,
this gift of that.
There was, there was, um, I was talking to a woman before, and she called me Joy by
accident, and I said, that’s fine. I get called Joy a lot, you know, and I hate the word Joy,
because I hate Christmas, right, so I always associate Christmas with joy, and I never, I
never forget when I was new, and there’s a lot of people do this when you’re new, you
need to go back to the family at the holiday times to be happy, and bring joy into their
life, right, and I hated Christmas, and I remember walking into my mom’s Christmas, uh,
kitchen one Christmas morning, and there was just this angst on my face, two years
sober, and she goes, Jesus Christ, you look like your father now, and I says, what do you
mean by that? She says, he hated Christmas too, and then she said, you know, you don’t
have to come home like this. You can come home and visit us any other time, but I know
you don’t like coming home now, and she relieved me from the bondage of self.
I thought I had to be there to be strong for the family, and she was just one of these
really intuitive people, just like the people I’ve met in Alcoholics Anonymous, just like the
people that have given me a moment of time, that have given me their, it’s the most
precious thing you can give anybody in here. It’s the most precious thing, because I don’t
know if you guys listened to this noise that happened just before Fred, who had a tough
time quieting you guys down, just before he got you quiet. It was a buzz, and if you’re
new, listen for that.
Listen for that buzz in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and then seek out the silence
in a meeting, because when a meeting is silent, you know it’s really good meeting.
People are doing what we call identification. They’re seeking a power greater than
themselves, and they’re getting it in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.
From the fellowship, it’s coming right out from us. It’s a wonderful thing to do, because
when I got here, I hated you. I despised you.
I went to this meeting in Long Beach. It was a Friday night meeting. It was a discussion
meeting, and everybody, you know, discussion meetings, everybody gets called.
The same people get called at the same time, and they say the same thing, and it just
goes on, and it goes on, and especially if you’re new, you’ll notice it. If you’ve got time,
you don’t really care, you know, but if you’re new, you know. You’re sitting there keeping
track of who’s getting called, right, and then you keep it, and then you go on, and they
said the same crap last week.
I don’t believe them, and you’re going on and on, and then you’re just going, why don’t
they call on me, because I’ve got some stuff to share. I have some experience in here.
This would be, if they called on me, I could turn everything around and get them
rocketed into the fort to make some distance, if they would just call on me, and you’re
sitting there, and they go, how about the guy over there, Joe, would you like to share?
No, I got nothing.
I got nothing. No, I’m good. I’m good.
I’m good. I’m good. Is everything okay? Yeah, I’m good.
I’m good. I’m good. Yeah, yeah.
I’m not going back to that damn meeting again. They want me to talk. They want me to
talk, and I go, oh my god, I was just, I would listen, and I would sit in this meeting, and at
the end of the meeting, everybody would get, they’re up, they’re happy, they’re joyous,
and they’re free, and they’re just excited, and I’m miserable.
I got to go back and sleep in the car again, and then this boob would walk up to me. You
know there’s a lot of boobs in meetings. I don’t know if you guys know that, but I’m going
to, I’m going to point them out to you.
He would walk up to me, and he was so happy. He said, hey, would you like to go to
Millie’s with us? We go to Millie’s for dinner after the meeting, and I’m standing there
going, sure, I’d love to go to Millie’s. I had no intention to go to Millie’s, but I wanted to
shut this boob up, and then he would say, it’s down the road, go left, go right, you tell
me everything, and I would, I would drive to Millie’s, and I would pull up close enough
that I could figure out what’s going on, but not close enough so you guys could see me,
right? And you know what happened? The same people that shared were going to
dinner, and they were all hyped up, and I’m not liking it, and I, and I get in my car, and I
drive to a bar.
I drive to a place called the Mineshaft, which is a gay leather bar in Long Beach, right?
It’s about ten o’clock at night, and those places don’t kick off that early in the evening,
and I’m standing there with a Coke, and I start to smell leather, and I look up, and there’s
a guy standing next to me. He said, I thought you were going to Millie’s. Yeah, I, I’m the
manager of this place.
Marty’s my sponsor. I heard him invite you to Millie’s. Oh, I was just ashamed of myself,
and I dropped my head, and Michael said, it’s gonna be okay, kid.
You’ll be able to get there someday, and he stood with me, and I couldn’t say a word,
and the next Friday night, I did the same thing, and I’d go to Millie’s, and I couldn’t walk
in. I’d go to the Mineshaft. I said, Michael, I can’t walk in there.
He goes, you gotta ask Avery for help, Joe. I said, I can’t do it. It’s too much, and then
this one night, Marty came up to me, all excited, saying, Joe, would you like to go to
Millie’s, and it was like, it was like, Marty, could you do me a favor? I’m, I’m, I’m
protecting myself.
I’m just protecting myself, and he goes, sure, what do you want? I said, would you walk
in with me? He gave me one of those hugs, you know those hugs, and he was so
embarrassed that he hadn’t figured that out already, and I was, that’s okay, Marty, relax,
relax, and he walked in, and then he, there was a U-shaped boot, and he told the two
guys in the end to get out, Joe, sit in there, relax, you know, and I said, sure, and then I
get in there, and I couldn’t relax, because they came back in next to me, and I couldn’t
get out of there, and I was like, oh my god, this is awful, this is ridiculous, and I’m, I’m
three or four months sober, and I ordered a hamburger, and they told me then I had an
accident. I know I don’t have one now. I got rid of it, and it was, they, they go, where are
you from? And I said, I’m from Boston.
They pointed to every word that ended with ah, and they made me say it, right, and that
was really my introduction into the fellowship of AA. I hated them. They were laughing at
me, and what happened was, I started to let my guard down.
My buddy, TJ from the Bronx, he’s about six foot five, he used to be a court officer, and
he calls me Conroy. He said, Conroy, you’re gonna take these arms, and you gotta put
them down by your side, so we can embrace you. He said, you are the hottest son of a
gun to embrace, because I just had my arms crossed all the time.
Just leave me alone. I don’t want nothing you guys have, and I, and TJ’s flying out from
the Bronx next week to go meet me and Paul up in Northern California, right. TJ’s one of
those guys that I met along the way.
He was sponsoring a guy that I know. He said, Joe, you’re gonna meet my buddy TJ, and
I, and I met his buddy TJ, and TJ said to the other guy, get out of here. We’re gonna, me
and Joe are buds.
We’re buds now, and we’ve been buds ever since. You know, we’ve been, it’s one of
those things. You never know who’s gonna come into your life.
He’s a Yankees fan, a Yankees fan he is, and it’s just, it’s just wonderful what happens,
you know, when you just let your guard down, when you let go of these old ideas. It says
in the big book, we let go of the old ideas. Absolutely, not a little bit, not hanging on to
the corner of it.
It’s absolutely, it’s like, let go of these ideas that are keeping you in bondage of self. No,
you don’t understand. These things have kept me alive.
They’re keeping you in bondage now. Sobriety is a different way of life. It is a
transformation from the drunken, stupid guy with the pig to somebody that can walk into
a meeting and they say, Joe, would you like to come and speak in Omaha? What are you,
crazy? Sure I would.
(32:32 – 43:21)
You know what I mean? It’s like my sponsor, my first sponsor, knew that I couldn’t speak,
knew that I couldn’t look at anybody. I knew that I just don’t want to share, and he said
to me, Joe, there’ll come a time in Alcoholics and Homeless where they’re asking you to
come to places to tell your story. And I go, why? I have nothing to share.
He says, it’s not about you. It’s about somebody else. It’s about identification.
It’s about somebody else sitting in a room that doesn’t want to be there. You tell your
story in a general way, what you were like, what happened, and what you were like now.
He says, you listen to everybody, they’ll stand at a podium and they’ll say, I’m going to
tell you what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now.
What I’m like and what it’s like is two different things. When I tell you that I’m full of fear,
and I’m full of doubt, and I’m full of hate, and I’m full of rage, you guys can identify with
that. When I tell you what kind of money I make, what kind of car I drive, what kind of
house I live in, there’s people I can’t identify with those things.
They go, well, I don’t have a house. I don’t have a car. I don’t have a job.
I’m not really any good for this thing. But when I talk about the stuff that makes me, that
my defects of character, that drive me away from you, I use these defects to keep you
guys away. And usually what happens is these boobs that identify that defect that I’m
driving, they jump in and they go, hey, how you doing? I don’t hate that term anymore.
It really is a deep question. Sometimes they say, how you doing? And I tell them. And
they go, God, will you shut up? I’ve had an awful year.
Lost my job at 27 years in the morning of April. April 12th, I’m in the hospital. I’ve had afib.
I’ve had two cardiac conversions and an ablation. I got shingles. Mom died.
And now they got to fix my back. My back is a mess. I was over at the VA and they said,
your back is all messed up.
And I’m like, oh, God, help me. I didn’t tell you about that. I got real close to Omaha
about 35 years ago.
I was in the U.S. Coast Guard on the Missouri River. Yeah, yeah. My first duty station was
Leavenworth, Kansas.
Wow. Hoofigo figure. But then we used to come up all the time and put navigation up to
the river.
As far as I don’t know, if we came to Omaha, we drank a lot. And we pushed in
sometimes. We’d push into these towns and these rivers.
And man, we got loaded. Wow. But who knew I’d be back here telling my story? Who
knew? I didn’t know.
My sponsor seemed to know. He says, you’ll come. There’ll come a time when they ask
you to come and tell your story.
I got nothing to say. But really is, it’s a wonderful way of life. I don’t even know how long
I got going here.
I’m doing, I’m having fun. There’s a wonderful little pamphlet called Members I View of
Alcoholics Anonymous. When I was newly sober, now, I didn’t like anybody, right? And I
couldn’t talk to anybody.
And I couldn’t barely read. I couldn’t barely read. And I didn’t want anybody to know that.
I was a little embarrassed by it. I’ll tell you this story before I go to that story. So now I
got involved if you, there’s a lot of people that want to get involved in corrections in HNI
and hospitals and institutions.
But you might have a past that can’t get you into these places. You can write to GSO.
They have this thing called the corrections correspondents.
And people in prisons write to GSO and they say, hey, can you give me a pen, pal? It’s
really what you are. Can you hook me up with somebody that I can write and talk about
Alcoholics Anonymous with? And I’ve been doing that for years. And this new guy that
I’m writing to now, he said to me, Joe, I’m just amazed at how many people in prison
can’t read or write.
And I help them all the time. And I wrote back on the plane on the way out here. I wrote
him a letter back and I said, let me tell you about my own story.
And I remember telling my sponsor, I said, I can’t read. And he says, well, let me help
you. And the way he helped me was picking up the big book and reading it a page at a
time.
I’d call him at six o’clock in the morning and read just a page. And they’d say, you don’t
understand a word. Ask me about it.
If you can’t pronounce it, tell me and do all this stuff and I’ll help you get through this
thing. And I thought it was the stupidest thing in the world anybody could ever do. And I
go, this is ridiculous.
And I did it. I never stopped doing it. I’ve done it for other people.
And I’ve done it for this guy now. And now he’s a lifer. He killed people.
And he’s in jail and he’s the happiest person I’ve ever met. I haven’t met him. And he
said, Joe, I need to work the steps.
And I said, I can’t help you work the steps from this distance. But he says, I can give you
some information that you could help these guys that can’t read work the steps. And he
started doing that.
And he just says, I can’t tell you how much this has changed my life. And these guys
come to this meeting willingly. Willingly to learn what it’s like to live sober.
In a prison, learn what it’s like to live sober. And I know there’s probably a dozen people
or more that actually do a lot of institutional work. And it’s just a wonderful thing to do.
It’s just a wonderful thing to do. Because, you know, sometimes people get out of there
and they don’t know anybody. But what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous, we give them
the chance to actually have a bridge to a freedom.
It’s the same sort of freedom we have in here. It’s the same freedom that we were
locked up in a prison of our own making. We were locked up.
We were bound up. And we came in here and we surrendered. We got rid of our old
ideas and we got new ideas.
That’s the thing. Because sometimes you don’t want to get rid of your old ideas. Because
what if I get rid of the old idea? I’ll have nothing.
In the 12 and 12, in the third step in the 12 and 12, it says, it says like, people don’t want
to do that because they’ll think they’ll be like the hole in the donut if you get rid of your
old ideas. Now my sponsor, Ken D, says, be the hole in the donut. The donut comes and
goes, but the hole is always there.
That’s like profound, you know. That’s like, that’s like, you’ve got to be kidding me.
That’s unbelievable.
But it’s so true. Because we get so consumed. I forget where I was going.
Oh, so I wanted to talk about, so, so I’m personally convinced that the basic search of
every human being from the cradle to the grave is to find at least one other human
before he can stand completely naked, stripped of all pretense or defense, and trust that
person not to hurt him. Because that other person has stripped himself naked too. This
lifelong search can begin to end with the first AA encounter.
The first AA encounter. That’s why I always say reach out. Look for that person that
stood up and gave you their name, and they were new.
Don’t let them go home without being touched by somebody with a program of alcohol
traumas under their belt. Because a lot of times people come into here in packs. I
watched it tonight.
There’s some wonderful newcomers in here, and you come in here in packs, and you sit
in your pack, and you leave in your pack, and you go home, and you go, that was the
biggest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard in my life. Yes, I agree. But if you separate, if you
get rid of that old idea, just if one person just got rid of that, and sat with somebody they
didn’t know, and say, hey, how you doing? Oh, God, it’ll change everything.
It’ll change everything. It’s just an amazing process. This doesn’t seem like that’s gonna
be the mystery of Alcoholics Anonymous.
It’s not magic. Alcoholics Anonymous and what we do here isn’t magic. Magic is a trick.
Magic is stuff you can go to Las Vegas and see people and just be awed at. AA is
mysterious. Why does one alcoholic talking with another alcoholic change lives? I don’t
know.
You can’t change everybody. You cannot do it. But when Bill was dying of alcoholism in
Ohio, and he reached out, and he said, I need to find somebody to give this away, and he
found Dr. Bob.
There were two men from Vermont, which is weird in itself, and they were two men from
Vermont. They meet in Akron, which is weird, which is like, and they start this thing
called Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill was a shaker and a mover, and Dr. Bob was just Dr.
Bob.
He was big. He liked to drive fast cars. He used to drive 12-cylinder packet converters all
around Akron, and he had a tattoo that he got one night drunk.
Dr. Bob was old, and back in 1935, he had a tattoo that ran across his crest and down. It
was like a tiger or something ran across his chest. There’s a lot of tattoos in here tonight,
you know.
One of our founders was a tattoo, you know, and one of the greatest guys. I love Dr. Bob.
I love Bill.
I like it all. My grant sponsor, Ken’s sponsor, is 102 years old, and he came to AA in 1947
for the first time, and he got 8 years, had a slip. He got 13 years, had a slip, and he just
picked up a 49-year cake, right? That’s a long time to be sober, and he loves talking
about early AA history.
What was it like? What was it like? He had the chance to meet Dr. Bob in San Diego. Dr.
Bob came out to San Diego for, Dr. Bob ended up dying of emphysema or cancer, and
Bill did as well, but Dr. Bob knew he was dying, and he donated his body to science
before he died, and he came out to San Diego with 13 years of sobriety, and Bob had six
months. My grant sponsor had six months, and Hugh McCoy was the leader of the pack
in San Diego back then, and he rounded all these guys up to go that somebody was in
town.
They called from Scripps Hospital. They needed an AA meeting, so they rounded up 15
guys, and they went over to Scripps. They didn’t know who it was.
They didn’t know what it was, and they walked into this room, and the guy wasn’t there,
and all of a sudden the door opened up, and Dr. Bob came in, and he sat at the table. He
said, gentlemen, I’m really sick, and I don’t have much time. What I would like you to do
is just go around the room, give me your name, your sobriety date, and your home
group, and that’ll just give me a little bit of hope that what I’m doing here is going to
save somebody else, and he did, and my grant sponsor had six months of sobriety, and
he had that opportunity to experience that.
Man, I think that’s pretty cool. I think that’s pretty cool. I remember going to the
Founders Day.
(43:22 – 44:23)
I’m not a big rah-rah kind of guy. I love sobriety, and I think it’s corny and quirky
sometimes, and I think some of the people are boobs, if I haven’t said that already, and
Founders Day in Akron is a huge celebration, and people are excited. It’s like wonderful.
It’s the Midwest. It’s totally different than the coast AA, and it was like there were just
groups of people that are so excited to be sober, and Dr. Bob was a simple guy. He
wanted Smith.
Bob. I can’t think of his wife’s name right now. Ann.
That was it. Didn’t want anything, you know, and on Sunday morning at Founders Day,
they have this procession, a motorcycle procession, and everybody from the conference
goes over to the gravesite, and they circle around the gravesite, and I did it with my
friends. I’m going, this is stupid, and I see this guy standing up next to the grave, about
six foot eight, huge man, biker, leather, long hair, wasn’t cleaned.
(44:23 – 46:08)
He was ugly, and I’m going, this is ridiculous, and then this guy picks up a pair of
bagpipes. I’m going, oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, and I’m just angry now, and I’m
sitting down in the back, and he starts playing Amazing Grace. Okay, I’ll listen for a little
bit, and he was pretty good, and the song was incredible, and they did a second chorus,
and everybody started humming.
Oh, this is ridiculous, and then I started to cry, and then I started to hum, and I felt the
fellowship of AA just embraced me for a moment. I let go of this old idea. It took, it took a
new idea for me to let go of the old idea, and I think that’s what the music of AA is.
That’s what I, if you guys, if that’s what I said, when you come in here tonight, you’re all
really loud. Everybody was talking, and nobody was listening, and they’re yelling, and
they’re going trying to find a seat. And Larry came up, and he said, how you doing? I
said, good.
Just, wow, I got to go up and speak in a little bit, and I was listening to the music in here,
and I tell you, if you’re new, listen to the music until you can understand the words,
because the words are weird. The language of the heart is weird. You know, it’s It’s love,
and it’s service, and it’s tolerance, and it’s wonderful when you let go of that old idea
that it’s corny and goofy and stupid.
(46:09 – 46:27)
You got to let it go, and then you got to listen to it. I was sitting at a meeting one night,
and Dave Moore, I remember he was, and I had a real problem with God, I had a real
problem with God. I thought I had to have Mom’s God, but I just needed to have a power
greater than myself that I could do business with.
(46:27 – 46:49)
We’re in a meeting on Monday night, and it was a stupid meeting, and nobody was
saying anything that was really good, and I just wished they would all shut up and leave
me alone and let me go. Dave’s sitting on the edge of a chair, and his legs were flopping,
and he said, my God listens to the same kind of music I do. Wow, that’s unbelievable.
(46:50 – 47:01)
I said, you got to be kidding me, that is profound. He listens to the same, and I’m looking
at all these people, and they’re going, I wish he would shut up, get over, let’s go home.
I’m like, wow, that is unbelievable.
(47:02 – 47:19)
I’ve never forgotten that moment. His God listened to the same kind of music he did.
That’s like, we come in here with this adversity towards some power greater than us,
and then you can make that power anything you want, anything you want.
(47:19 – 47:56)
Make it metal, make it rap, make it pop, but you can make that. You have that ability to
give yourself this connection, and that’s why I think when we’re personally convinced
that that first encounter, that first time somebody meets you and greets you and says
hello to you, you know what’s going to happen is you’re going to go back to a meeting
the next day or the day after that, and who are you going to be looking for? The 90 other
people in the room? No, you’re going to be looking for that one person that said hello to
you. That’s a physical connection to a spiritual program.
(47:56 – 48:06)
That’s what it is. When we reach out and touch somebody, something happens. When I
reached out and touched my brother the night we were saying the Lord’s Prayer, he was
crying, I felt something different.
(48:06 – 48:25)
I felt a change. It was a transformation that was starting by one alcoholic linked up
together with a whole group of people. We become a power that’s greater than ourselves
that can solve our problem, but the stupid thing you have to do is ask for help.
(48:26 – 48:38)
Oh my God, you don’t understand. I can’t do that. And I do understand, and I do know
that, and usually the people that have that same hopeless state of mind and body are
the ones that are looking for you.
(48:39 – 48:47)
They’re the ones that are going to come up and talk to you. They’re the ones that are
going to come up and say, how you doing? They’re the ones that are going to say, will
you come back tomorrow? They’re the ones that are going to say, come over to this
meeting. I go to this meeting.
(48:47 – 48:50)
You might like it. It’s like this. Well, I didn’t like this.
(48:50 – 49:11)
Well, why did you not? Well, I’ll take you to this meeting. And it’s just an amazing
process that works. When I was two years sober, I was on fire for AA, and I remember I
went back to Boston and I was in a meeting, and they called on me, and I just loved what
I shared.
(49:11 – 49:24)
It was great. It was unbelievable, right? It was unbelievable. And then they called on this
other guy right after me, and he says, and I’m going to swear here, he said, you
goddamn Californians, all you do is talk about God and the steps.
(49:25 – 49:38)
I was pissed, and I was looking around the room and nobody was protecting me, and I
was pissed for a long time. I’d go back and I hated the meetings back there. I hated the
people.
(49:39 – 49:47)
I hated New England. I hated the East Coast. I can’t stand AA back here, and I was like, I
won’t go.
(49:47 – 50:01)
And I didn’t go. And this one night I’m back there for work, and I’m on the phone with
Ken, 725 on a Sunday night, and I’m miserable. He goes, why don’t you go to a meeting?
I said, I hate the meetings here.
(50:01 – 50:03)
I hate the people. I hate it. He says, just go to a meeting.
(50:03 – 50:16)
I said, I don’t know where the meetings are. And I’m walking by this church on 15
Newbury Street, and people had these styrofoam cups in their hand. I said, is there a
meeting going on? Five minutes upstairs.
(50:18 – 50:41)
And I went in, and it was the same goofy people I’ve ever seen anywhere, and there was
a guy sitting two or three seats down from me. He’s wearing white patent leather shoes,
white jeans, a white tank top, over, under a white t-shirt, chains around his neck,
greased hair. He had arms that just didn’t stop.
(50:41 – 50:46)
He had tattoos, and he was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He was a ba-bing, baboom, ba-da-bing. He was an Italian.
(50:47 – 51:05)
Okay, I’m being, I’m being, he was Italian, all right? And he was a ba-da-bing, ba-daboom. That’s what he was, all right? And this girl started sharing, and she was a little
overweight. And I said, there’s nothing this person can say that’s going to help me,
because I hate everybody here.
(51:05 – 51:20)
And she started talking about God and the steps. What’s happened? And it was just a
wonderful meeting. And then everybody started to share, and they called on Guido first,
and he goes, he said, I can’t believe it.
(51:20 – 51:33)
Whenever you talk about God and the steps in a meeting, the meeting’s the best
meeting you ever go to. I’m like, this is ridiculous, and everybody started talking about
the power of recovery. And I walked up to Guido after the meeting, I said, can I talk to
you for a minute? I go, yeah.
(51:33 – 51:46)
And I told him what I just told you guys about my resentment, and he said, you’ve been
holding on to that bullshit for 20 years. What, are you crazy? He said, that guy doesn’t
even know you exist. I was, oh my God, you’re right.
(51:47 – 51:53)
And it was gone. He gave me a new idea. But I had to tell somebody my old idea first.
(51:53 – 52:03)
I had to let go. I had to get to that point where I was recovered from a seemingly
hopeless state of mind and body. Recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind
and body.
(52:03 – 52:23)
It’s really, seemingly I think is a great word, because it really is what, like Clancy talks to
disease of perception, that’s what seemingly is. Seemingly it’s like, oh my God, it just
seems like I’m having a bad day. Once you go, did you talk to your sponsor? No, he
doesn’t want to hear about this stuff.
(52:23 – 52:37)
What about your friends? No, they don’t want to know anything. Once you let them in,
no, I’m okay, I’m fine, I’m fine. And then they go, how you doing? With that how you
doing, and I go, well it really is bad.
(52:38 – 52:50)
Because of this. There must come a day it seems to me when every alcoholic in and out
of AA finally sits down in the presence of his enemies. When he does, he will be amazed
to discover that he is attending a meeting of one himself.
(52:51 – 53:14)
The day the alcoholic in AA realizes that his enemy is within, that the tigers are largely
creatures of his own design and lurk in his own unconsciousness, that is the day when
for him AA becomes what I believe the founders meant it to be, a flight into reality. It’s
really weird, reality. It’s really weird.
(53:14 – 53:30)
But you know where reality exists? Right here, right now. Reality doesn’t exist when I
turn 30 years sober, when I’m 90 days sober, when I’m three months sober, when I’m
two years. It’s right now, right here and right now.
(53:30 – 53:45)
If you can live in this moment, it’s amazing how quick it goes. But if you can live in this
moment, you’ll be rocketed into what Bill called the fourth dimension of existence, which
is right now. It’s right now.
(53:46 – 54:00)
It’s right here. And for me, that constant, a lot of people call the 10th and 11th and 12th
step the maintenance steps. I can’t call it a maintenance step because if I’m maintaining
this wacko, I have to grow along spiritual lines.
(54:00 – 54:11)
They’re the growth steps. We grow along spiritual lines. When I do a 10th step, and the
best I can, and I recognize my defects of character, and I release them, and I let go, and I
make amends when I can so I can sit and meditate.
(54:11 – 54:29)
When I let go of all that stuff that’s driving me nuts, and I can sit at peace in the
morning, as in a sea of madness, and I sit there, and I do this, and I get meditated, and I
get right for the day. I get right for the day. And when I do that every day, I feel wicked
pisser.
(54:32 – 54:43)
Wicked pisser. It’s really, it’s so, I think a lot of times, the longer people are sober, they
think some of these steps we don’t have to do. But if you do the 10th step, you’re doing
four through nine immediately.
(54:44 – 54:57)
You’re doing four through nine immediately, and you’re surrendering over and over and
over again so you can live in that 11th step, so you can be of maximum service to God
and your fellows. Maximum service, maximum’s a big verb. It means a lot.
(54:57 – 55:12)
It means I have to sometimes spend hours with a goofball that doesn’t want to get what
I’m giving him, and he’s just pissed off, and I go, oh my God. And all of a sudden you say
something, and they go, what did you just say? I don’t know. I don’t know.
(55:12 – 55:24)
But it’s just an amazing process of discovering, recovering, and discarding, and all that
other stuff that we’ve heard along here. It’s a wonderful way of life. If you don’t think it
works, just try it.
(55:25 – 55:32)
All you got to do is try it. And if you don’t think God will help you, all you have to do is
ask. It’s been a journey for me.
(55:33 – 55:43)
It’s been an incredible journey for me, from a seemingly hopeless mind and body to
where I am right here and right now. And I absolutely love being sober. It’s the greatest
thing that’s ever happened to me.
(55:43 – 55:53)
And I didn’t love being sober for a long time. I didn’t love being sober. I think I learned to
love being sober by being of service to sobriety.
(55:54 – 56:07)
The Dalai Lama said one time that love and service is what we all try to strive for. They
asked him, what do you think the most spiritual thing is? And he said, Alcoholics
Anonymous is the most spiritual movement. Why? He says, because they practice love
and service.
(56:08 – 56:19)
He says, some of us can love, but we can’t serve. And others of us can serve, but we
can’t love. But you can do those two things, and you can get to that point where you can
be of maximum love and service to God and your fellows.
(56:20 – 56:27)
I don’t know what maximum looks like. I have no idea what maximum looks like. I just
strive for some sort of perfect ideal.
(56:27 – 56:38)
I strive for some sort of maximum way of life. It’s wicked. I hope if you’re new here, if you
can come back for the weekend, if you can’t afford it, come back anyway.
(56:39 – 56:48)
Get in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. Get into the fellowship of AA. Get into the
love of what Bill Wilson calls being indescribably wonderful.
(56:48 – 57:03)
That’s what love is, indescribably wonderful. If you ever try to ask anybody what love is,
they go, well, I don’t know what it is. But you can look around the rooms of AA, and you
can see people loving somebody else till they can love somebody else, till they can be
somebody else, till they can bring this message to us all.
(57:03 – 57:12)
That’s all it is. I don’t believe in let me love you until you can love somebody else. Let me
be of love so you can be of love to somebody else.
(57:15 – 57:20)
Whether you take it, I don’t care. I don’t care. Somebody’s going to hear.
(57:20 – 57:28)
Somebody’s going to hear me. Somebody’s going to be attracted. I was attracted to
people that I didn’t know because I watched what they did.
(57:29 – 57:46)
I tried to make it prove that they were not telling the truth, but I watched what they did,
and I listened to what they said, and they did it over and over and over and over. Not
expect anything in return. I hope you guys find peace over this weekend because I’m
having a great time.
(57:46 – 57:47)
I hope you come back. Thanks. Peace.
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