Jerome S. at Santa Barbara AA Convention, September 23rd 2000

Good evening, everyone. My name is Jerome Scott, and I'm a very grateful and very fortunate member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

God, it's good to be here and it's definitely good to be sober and somewhat dressed in my right mind.

When I was thinking about the theme A Design for Living are reflected by when I was in

seeking some mental health treatment

and the therapist was doing their case conference

and it's a weekly event.

But I'm educated far beyond my capacity and I would go up there and demand and knock on the door. What's my diagnosis? What's my prognosis? I need to know

little white haired psychiatrist with

lookout the room and say, Jerome, you just can't handle it. It's too deep.

And I was fortunate enough to get sober and to return to school and I was doing my internship and this psychiatrist was a medical director of this facility. And I was in there doing one of my groups. And he came in and interrupted the group. And he said this young man 10 years ago would come and demand his diagnosis and his prognosis.

But now, after 10 years of sobriety, I believe he could handle it.

And the good doctors judgment, medical professional judgment, that I would be in some institution, some boarding care home on medication for the rest of my adult life. And that I suffered from deep seeds of neurosis and episodes of schizophrenia. And that I would never function in society. And this design for living,

this simple process outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, has not only afforded me the ability to have a life and a design, but to be able to function and be a productive member of society. And God knows I knew I would never have the opportunity

to come back

because I didn't have anything to come back to. Because I stand here tonight as a testament that I'm not a has been. I'm a never was

and alcohol took me to a point in life that didn't even cross my mind.

And that's why I'm grateful

because I've been spared from an insidious disease called chronic acute alcoholism. See, something happens to me every time I drop take anything that breaches the blood brain barrier,

reaches the topmost part of my brain and kills the will of care. And while I'm under the influence, I can't care what happens to me, how it happens to me, and under what circumstances happens to me. See, I have a spiritual disease,

a soul sickness that had dogged me every step of my life up until May of 1962. I was always restless, irritable, discontent, angry, separate, alone and afraid. And I could not put any labels or names on why I felt so out of the ordinary, different from other siblings in my family and I used to try to figure it out.

Why am I so strange?

And you know, I thought I had figured it out.

I thought I had came up with a good

understanding of why I was the way out.

Head up had become and see I come from a large family. I have

nine other siblings, three older brothers, two younger brothers and four sisters. And my parents were the working poor. My daddy didn't make enough money to get drunk, so he had to bring his paycheck home with all them kids.

And his whole claim to fame was there's a roof over our heads, there's food on the table, we were decently dressed, we could go to school. And they were values and principles

that he astounded and insists that we acquired. But what made me

an alcoholic was that on Saturday mornings was original in our home. My mom would make breakfast for all us kids and she loved to make buttermilk biscuits. And she rolled out that door. I see some people in there know about buttermilk

roll out that dough and she take that glass and Bang Bang bang and she make all these little old glass size biscuits. But what she would do with the remnants was she'd take it all in one big old huge biscuit.

I never got that huge biscuit

because those are the three older brothers would beat me out of it every time.

But really in the summer of 1962, my father gave me 5 Chris $1.00 bills to go to my first high school dance to hear Hunter Hancock spend some records. Him and old Marge at the high school. They called it a record high. I have been looking forward to going to this dance for several years because that meant that I would have arrived. I would be able to associate and mingle with the elites in the neighborhood,

and I would be the center of attention. I would be able to be

alive at at last instead of that laid back radio or TV set. Awkward, insecure, clumsy. For the first time I would be a part of life. See, my old man didn't let me run around the streets and sang Boom Moon on the street lamps. He was a strict disciplinary and he didn't take that mess. You better be at home in front of that TV.

When that street light came on,

I didn't still know Tail lights off of 59 Cadillacs and hubcaps. But he gave me that first Chris $1.00 bills to go to that dance with my friends from Vacation Bible School. Cub Scout, Boy Scout.

And we went to this dance and someone in the crowd, I don't know, it wasn't me, said, you know what, we can enhance this evening

if we proposition this habitual guy who hung around the liquor store called Old Joe the Wino to get us something to drink.

And I don't want to seem like no chump, no poop butt. So I went along with the program.

We back in old Joe and the alley and we propositioning. We say, Joe, we want to get something to drink for this dance tonight. Will you get us something to drink? Oh, Joe said, well, what are you young pump striking and being, you know, worldly, as I say, for sophisticated. I told Oh Joe, well whatever you drinking Joe?

Oh Joe is a gallows man.

He went and got some

some Gallo white port right off the top of the shelf.

Hi wasn't even chill.

You know it wasn't a grape in that wine. You know that it's all chemical,

21% by volume, he said. This is some powerful stuff for you little whipping snappers. It would be in your best interest to get some strawberry kool-aid to cut the taste. See, unbeknownst to me, I was going to be introduced to the original wine cooler.

I never forget that first drink of wine. It was the most foulest beverage I had ever tasted in my young life. It almost made me gay. One part of me said spit it up, but then that other part, that loud part said if you spit it up chump, it'll be a reflection on your manhood. Force it down

and I force it down into my chest cavity and I got that warm sensation

and then it hit the pit of my stomach. I got this instantaneous rush that radically transformed my entire life. I knew three things instantly that I could act, I could perform, and it didn't matter what anybody thought about it.

All of a sudden my Marlboros came out of my socket into my top pocket and I became Marlboro Man.

No longer was I shy, insecure, awkward, and clumsy. I could lean with whatever I had to say and do. No longer did I have a stick up my behind. I could just. I was cool. Instant cool. Got up to that dance with belligerent, intoxicated, created a disturbance in a commotion.

Cigarette dripping all off my lip, talking out the side of my leg, talking, more noise than a radio.

And the lady said you can't come to this dance. And I had to correct her immediately.

I told her I've been waiting to go to this dance for three years. I have my $3 and I'm not going to be denied. You need to get your superior here immediately so we could discuss this thing. She had a superior there. He was a Sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department,

and she had sent for him. As soon as I started talking,

thank God, my friends who had took me to that dance say we better leave here and leave here in a hurry. We left out the back way, which is going to come up MO later on the back way, every way. And someone said that's all right about that funky dance. We could go there anytime.

Let's get some more wine and see. That's what separates me from a social drinker, problem drinker into chronic acute alcoholism. I came on and I came on a living color and I said, no, it's not going to be that way. You get yours and I'll get mine. And I drank for the effect. And that's what makes me an alcoholic. Despite the consequences, despite the circumstances, I will continue on trying to produce that

in that effect that alcohol gave me. And later on that night, my good friends from Vacation Bible School prop me up on my old man's front door, run the doorbell. They just stick around to discuss anything with Mr. Scott. And I have this older brother who I hated with a passion, who had ridiculed and belittled me all of my life, took that biscuit every chance I had,

I fell in, he said. Well, look at the little punk. He's drunk

and that wine told me tonight's tonight, we're going to settle this score immediately.

But my coordination was a little off and my left jab fell over and I missed him and I crashed and broke my momma's coffee table. You know, the one with the mermaid up under.

She rushed to the living room immediately after this crash. And she knew when she took her eyes on me, she knew it was going to be violence and mayhem and it was going to be inflicted upon her young son. Because when

the real man who wore the pants in our family caught the young fake man who was intoxicated, intoxicated, it was going to be swift retribution.

And they tried to Get Me Out, but the wine wouldn't allow me to to be here or disposed of.

And my dad came from the back of the house and he took one look and he knew something gravely was wrong with one of his sons. And he looked at the damage on the floor and he leaked across that room in a single bounce. Snatched all 90 lbs of me up

and he wasn't like Bill Causey. Odd link letter. Father knows best. Go to your room, we'll discuss it tomorrow. You intoxicated? He was a strict disciplinary. They didn't have 911 in.

Oh, man, he knocked me back in that chair and he was welling on that head. He got tired. He picked up a belt and he was wailing on it. And I'm sitting there taking all this abuse and this punishment and getting a teardrop. And I'm sitting there reflecting on my experience with that initial drink and all I can think of. I can, I can perform

and it doesn't matter. When anybody think about it, this stuff is miraculous. I don't feel no pain.

My faith was sealed. I got married in my that day, in the latter part of May of 1962 to a little girl in my neighborhood commonly known as Sweet Lucy. I said for rich or for poor, better or for worse, to good times and bad to death do its part. Serious commitment because I wasn't going to give up that wine no matter what happened, what the circumstances are, the conditions because it held out the promise that I would be a part of. And I

have to suffer the consequences of any of my actions.

And every chance I got, I got drunk and every chance my old man caught me, he punched me out. I graduated from high school in 65, and I was sitting at the kitchen table that early part of July, right after graduation, and my old man came in there and he was a little upset with me. He stood over me screaming and foaming at the mouth, talking about he had paid the mortgage and I had not contributed not one dime to that endeavor. He said his family would

have something to eat because he is responsible. He goes to work and he provides and he says the utilities are paid and you haven't contributed not not a dime to it. He says it's only one he stepped around. He says only one man wears the pants in his family and it's me. And since you can't go along with my program, there's a dope. Let it hit you with a good Lord, split you and don't let it hit you on the way out.

Arrogant, self-centered, egotistical. I went into the cupboard, got a Safeway paper sack,

got my only suit from Silas and xylophone

blue on blue pinstripe,

and I told him what to do with his house, food and lights, and I stepped off to my chosen profession of being a hustler.

Oh, I see there are no hustlers in the room.

Well, let me break hustling down for you.

Well, mine was a pitiful type of hustling. I'm not going to be grandiose. I stole the newspapers in front of the Greyhound bus station down on Skid Row, and I sold them on Spring Street like I had a route. And when that didn't work, I sold whole blood every 58 days in plasma, twice a week. Now it's a art to sell in plasma. You have to do it a long time.

Like they take a little drop of iodine,

a little drop from your earlobe, a fingertip, drop it in a big vial of iodine to see if your blood is

marketable.

And that's where I learned to pray.

They dropped that drop down in. I closed my eyes. I said I hope it stay down.

Who wants to be embarrassed in front of a whole bunch of other tramps at 5:00 in the morning? Rejected and throw out the place. How would I

account for that? But see, I would have a plan.

See I'm selling my life bodily fluid and this is just seed money to come up quick.

I'm just going to sell this so I can get me something decent. Maybe give me some decent clean clothes. Go work at the day labor market. Give me a little nest egg rolling check in the junior college. Get me a trade. Give me a 5 figure job. You know, don't have to be high 5 figure, just like a 5 figure job would do and buy me a pre owned automobile.

Get wino sharp like I am tonight. Pull up in front of my old man's house at 4:00. I know

at 4:00 sharp, Mr. property owner citizen never been arrested is sitting in front of his line warden, his grass and I'm going to pull up in front of my pre owned automobile, get out of my vehicle and lean on it and tell him say see sucker, I told you I was going to be somebody and get off and roar off.

See that's four hours on the couch while they take your red blood cells and separate your white blood cells and the red blood cells back in. I'm planning, but soon as I get off that couch, get my Graham cracker and broth. I remember something I read in the last emergency room I was in. Since you done depleted your red blood cell count, a little red wine would build it back up.

Oh, I'm telling you, those streets will chew you up and spit you out.

I'm talking about in the early 70s homelessness wasn't fashionable. They didn't have a safety net. And I'm talking about I would be in a coat too long to be short and too short to be long looking like death sucking a soda cracker.

I'm talking about don't have the shakes, the leaks, and I show up in the neighborhood because I know they're responsible for my condition

and I'm gonna make them real sorry for throwing me out in the streets. And I get me a strategic location where I know I'm gonna run into one of my mom's friends from Bible study.

I know I'm gonna run into some of them sisters from Metropolitan Baptist Church. And I get me a location. I see one. I'm going in the market and I say Miss so and so. I need something to eat. Could you feed me Bill? Do a good Christian deed and she'll grab her purse and run in the market.

Total rejection. But see, I didn't have the customer service skills that some of us homeless people have today.

Today they would say God bless you brother,

God loves you, have a good day. Oh, when that Lady come out of there, oh God, she had, she had a tirade foaming at the mouth raving maniac, cussing her all the way to the car. And I know she would call my mom or call my dad or some member from the church. Mr. Scott's son was down there on the streets. Oh, he looks so bad and he was performing so bad. And that was just, I'm junior and that would tell my old man's heart up just.

Tear it up. And he'd say come on back home

and I'll come back. And he said, no, drink it in here. I said, Dad, I'm gonna straighten up, fly right, turn over new leaf, take care of business. I'm gonna give me a job. I'm going to school. I'm gonna make you proud.

I came off the streets one time. I was serious in a heart attack. Checked in the junior college, gonna be an X-ray technician. Doing great,

got me a part time job for the county. Went down there, didn't know anything about libraries. Assistant took the testing damn hard the same day. Checked into college, doing great.

Christmas came up. I decided to go to this party. I needed some recreation

with some of my classmates.

These are not these derelicts I hung around with. This is a college person

went up there to go to this party and this guy had stolen a burglar alarm truck.

Say, wait a minute man, I'm going to meet some girls in a stolen burglar alarm truck.

Are you crazy?

I turned around and I was gonna walk back home. In the back of that band swung open. It was Rabbit, Mad Dog and Pookie. They had a half a gallon of Xello White port and the biggest joint I had ever seen.

And the smoke hit me in the face. And they say, oh, you think you better than us. And of course I was. So I decided to educate them that night about how they could raise their standard of living, but they didn't too much care for my psychological and educational counseling. And they start stomping my head on the street and the police rolled up and in a drunken days I stumbled and jumped on the police car.

Now I tell you

the police car has an entirely different sound going in a high pursuit when you on top of it as opposed to beginning.

Oh man, that police car took off wheel smoking,

shot up the street, around the corner in a dark alley. And those police gave me a serious spiritual awakening.

I'm talking about I almost lost my left eye and they arrested me for felonious salt against the police officer. And I was chained to the bed in the hospital ward up at General Hospital not knowing if this eye would ever be functional. And I'm sitting there with the patchy in his. Everything is shut and I can't see, but I'm going over the event

of hide. Blew it because I blew school. Doing great to see. I'm not a dumb person, just a little inconsistent. Inconsistent by wine, a blue to jar

and I'm trying to figure out what happened

every time it got down to that wine. I would say no, it wasn't a wine, it was those people you were with. If you were drinking with some better people, you wouldn't be in this particular.

And from then on I became explainer because all of my friends in the neighborhood saw me go by on top of the police car

and my only thought is I could never be cool again.

That's where my mom name took me and got me some therapy.

You know, they took me on. My mom took me over there to see the psychiatrist. I'll never forget it. I went over there that Monday, they did they little assessment and evaluation and the next day I was going to start treatment. And that first day in treatment,

I'm sitting in there waiting in the lobby to go back to the group session. I met this other guy from the neighborhood that I didn't know and he flashed on me. He flashed second all true and all or anything at all.

My therapy went out the window because I dropped anything too thin to chew. And I went through those barbiturates like they were, you know, it wasn't even an addiction. But when you OD,

or let me put it this way, OD and in a coma and you say that you were sleeping for 72 hours,

nobody sleeps 72 hours. You in a coma? Because see, I like to chase barbiturates with second all second all F 40s with Bourbon Deluxe.

See, that don't mean 1 + 1 = 2. It has a so genetic effect. 1 + 1 = 6 and eight. And I'd be walking along, you know, trying to be cool off of these second halls and drinking this here are Bourbon Deluxe and Old English. And all of a sudden they would start affecting my equilibrium. And you know, in your equilibrium gets radical and you start falling like you're a tree.

And I'd hit the payment and I bounced back up and I say, didn't nobody see that?

The Los Angeles police have arrested me more times than I could count. They would drive up downtown and say get in Jerome

647 Air.

I don't know how many times I've been in unit 3. That's the County Hospital psycho ward. 72 hour lockdown hold Thursday and shuffle in the middle rail twist.

I show up there because now alcohol is not working and sometimes I'm so sick going into DTS and hallucinations audio and visual and I show up at the hospital for my 3 hots and a cop 3 hot meals in a place to lay my head and I'm terrorizing the family and I'm blaming them for everything. They had this little old room, they called it Sonny's room, and in Sonny's room, as is he a filthy urine

mattress. And I'm drinking in the back of the house with that cheap wine every day and it has this stench of that filth and that urine in my parents house. And I would go into DTS and I'll be hallucination, hyperventilating, screaming at the top of my lungs in the middle of the night, and only two people come near me, be my dad, my mom. And my dad would get down on that mattress and hold me like I was just a little infant and be rocking me.

And I'll cuss him out. Get your hands off of me.

And I thought it was all their fault. And I get downtown on the streets and I'm a belligerent drunk because, see, I only drank the four states. Either I pass out, blackout, fall out of my mouth, would encourage someone to knock me out

'cause I got a death wish.

Nothing but a death wish. 2 chickens to commit suicide. So I'll try to get one of you citizens to do it. Oh, I used to mess with the police. I never forget. I was messing with this rookie cop.

Everything about a book. I'm just harassing him, harassing him, just cussing it. All his liturgies and everything. And I guess we got to the holding cell to the booking, and I got on that last nerve

to see I would alternate between drunken citizens. So when I'm a citizen, I want to know your badge number.

And he got tired. He said you want my badge number? He took his badge off and put it in the promises and said Bam and I had his number right on my phone

1972. I'm at my wits end.

I'm at my little wits in. I'm 6 foot two and I'm weighing something like 100 and 1525 lbs and I'm talking about on Slack.

My people don't want me around no more. I've been downtown

for weeks

and my older brother, my younger brother, was getting married to his childhood sweetheart and he had decided that he was going to drop out of Cal State, San Luis Obispo and come home and get married.

And

he told my dad that since he was getting married in the family church and I was, his oldest brother was only fitting in right, that I would be his best man. And they came down to Skid Row and got me,

dressed me up in a tux. Oh man, I'll never forget that bath though. They gave me a bath with some Vogue washing powder which will clean anything

and added a couple of drops of purest. It makes you that it would work

because I was all you talking about filthy. Oh man, when I stood up at that wedding is this best man. My mom wanted me to meet her supervisor's husband who was a sober member of A A

and at the reception, standing at my new sister in laws parents house and I'm standing at the fence and this guy was telling me his story.

He had said that he had twin daughters and his wife had gave him $3 to go get the baby some milk. And he took that $3 and he didn't come back for two days. He was drunk. And that was so horrified him that it made him go to A and get sober. And I listened thoughtfully to this man and I reasoned and I reasoned and I thought. I said, well, when I get twin daughters and a wife

and I run off with their milk money, then I'll go to a A.

But shortly thereafter, I ended up in Camarillo State Hospital.

If anyone in the room has done institutional work at Camarillo, my hat is off to you. I'm thankful and I'm grateful because there were a night in that hospital where they didn't have a a meeting,

but I was there under due rest. Boy meets girl on the Nuthouse campus and falls in luck.

This lady who was on the ward a patient as I had been to the best prep schools in Europe for spoke 4 foreign language fluently. But baby was in the nut house with me and she would say Jerry Jerry They going to have a a meeting at 8:00. They going to have cookies, Donuts, coffee and cigarettes. Let's go and I'll call her a pregnant dog and tell her to get out of my face

without a lust and loneliness. I went to an A a meeting.

So it's not what you come for, it's what you stay for.

I got out of that hospital after 90 days ego tripping. Abraham Maslow, Fritz Pearls of my heroes, all the intellectual giants in psychology, they was going to get me together. And I had done such a wonderful job in getting sober. I thought it would be a good thing to do is to undo that and do it again. And I had drunk,

and the very night I got drunk, she called me.

She was out of the hospital, and she says I'm going to a meeting, do you want to go? And she said, I said, yeah. What? No girls calling my parents house, taking me out, nowhere. As a matter of fact, my brother who got married really embarrassed me. He went down to the courthouse and got his marriage certificate. And at that time they had ATV program, the Newlywed game and the Dating Game, and he gave them my name

as a good person to call to come and be a contestant on the dating game.

Thank you. I'm right off of Skid Row with no teeth in my head. You know,

even I knew I wasn't a candidate material for the dating game. Don't embarrass me like that,

but this young girl called me. She was in a recovery home on Karan Delet

and she came and picked me up

and took me to this meeting where I met my sponsor. I didn't hear anything in that meeting other than the Lord's Prayer.

That's what I heard at that meeting, huge meeting, just like this. About 3 or 400 people got up and held hands and said the Lord's Prayer. And that drunken stupor I flashed back to two years previously. I had been stabbed in the back. The knife had pierced my heart and broke off in my lungs, and I was dying with no doubt I was dying. And I tried to remember some prayer

growing up in a religious home with some religious training and background I could not even remember. Now lay me down to sleep.

I was so hateful that I was so far removed from any type of spiritual teachings or I couldn't even say, God, will you please help me? But hearing that Lord's Prayer got me to come back to that meeting, and I will come back to that meeting on an infrequent basis. If the Lakers are Star Trek wasn't on,

but that's where I met my sponsor.

Little old guy about two years sober ethnically, financially we worlds apart. I wouldn't have never met this man if it wasn't for Alcoholics Anonymous. PhD in literature from Indiana. He stuck out his hand at the door. He says hi, my name is Jack and he said Jack K is my name and sobriety is my game call anytime. And he held my hand 5 seconds longer than any man should hold my hand.

And for the next 10 months,

he gave me his card. It says Jack K is my name and sobriety is my guy. I said, damn, he's a poet too. For the next 10 months,

if I'm at that meeting, that's Jack's Home group, the Wilson Normandy group here bursts across the room. Stop what he's doing, talking to his friends, his other aid babies, his wife, his sponsor. He'll rush across that room. And he said, Jerome, how you doing? And I had that newcomer line. I'm fine

lying. I'm talking about I look new. I smelled new. Everything about me was saying, somebody will you please intervene and help me.

And I collect those cards.

One time downtown on Skid Row, coming out of D TS, I had Jack's card in my top pocket

and I came somewhat coherent. I said. I looked at his car. I say I'm gonna call this chump Jack and see what he could do.

This. Hey, I called his house. The phone rang three times. Jack didn't make a mad dash. Push his wife off his lap and tell the dog you out the way. That's Jerome calling. Can I help?

I say Jack don't care a sucks and stay drunk. That's why I'm known. Around some circles there's a Camarillo nuthouse rethread

and I was there for another 90 days and that last May of 1973. I'll never forget it as long as I live because it's real dark just before the light of sobriety comes in your life. I'm sitting in the county and in the nut house facing a year in the county jail. Ain't no doubt

because I know as soon as my probation officer find out I've been arrested for playing drunk I'm going to jail for a year because he already been violating me every 30 days. Like it was I was on the installment plan centimeter wayside on a Rancho to be a pig farmer. Didn't know anything about pigs. I'm from South Central. What I know about farming, you know

that May I'm sitting in the day room up at Camarillo.

A gentleman comes in all dressed sharp with a white shirt and a tie, and he's walking on the ward. He says is I'm looking for Jerome Scott.

So the attendant points him out to me over here sitting in one of those chairs and he come over there. He said, are you Jerome Scott? I said yes. He says I'm special agent so and so from the Internal Revenue Service. You owe us $8000. And I look at him, I say, you ain't nothing but a damn fool.

I say, do you look do it? Do I look like I have $8000?

Do you know where I'm at? This is Camarillo Nuthouse.

He just turned around and left

and ice cream there, I said. You can't get blood from a turnip either.

See I had worked my only job besides that part time job at the county. My psychiatrist had got me a job at International Business Machine as an operations clerk and as operations clerk I have worked almost a whole year and I had bought one chair

and IBMIBM stock and employee purchasing plan and so that year I wanted to get all my income tax back. So I lied and told him I had 12 kids.

I got all my money back,

but I couldn't verify the children, you know,

so they wanted a $8000 back

in the next week. Mr. Leinker came up there on Mother's Day. My probation office, not parole, probation. I'm on probation for a $5 bag of marijuana that was not mine.

It wasn't. It was my best. It was my best friends.

He was standing in front of me and the police were behind me. I didn't see the police and he asked me to do him a favor, he said.

Will you hold my marijuana for me?

And I did. So I was on probation for six years for a nickel bag of weed.

So Mr. Leinker came up there on Mother's Day with his 90 year old mother to visit me and he talked real nice to me. But when he got down to his car, he got real nasty and sarcastic. He said, Mr. Scott, if you get arrested in the vicinity of a liquor store for jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk, I guarantee you going to do a year. Already had a year coming so

in this little white haired mother stuck her head out the window and say good luck young man. I wanted to cuss out too, but I bet not.

I was depressed,

depressed

and see what happened was two weeks later, just before

Memorial Day. It was another young man from South Central had one of Jack's cards. Jack had another baby in Camarillo, had ran up to Camarillo to get away from AI.

And this young man was named Raymond. Raymond called him. You know, it had to be a collect call to your sponsor because what a baby goes to the nut house with enough change to call his sponsor. None call Jack. Say Jack, this is Raymond. I'm in the nut house and I'm not crazy. Will you come and get me and take me to that Ana recovery house she was talking about?

Jack got in his plush a a Beamer that a A had given him from West Hollywood

and drove all the way up to Ventura County to pick this guy up. So I'm 55 miles

and they were leaving after war and I'm sitting kicked back like I'm in my living room reading the Los Angeles Times business section. If I had some stocks of bonds,

I was checking on that one share I had bought to see if it had split

and my sponsor ease behind the paper

and he said, Jerome, what are you doing here? I knew that voice. I said, damn, he done follow me to the nuthouse. But he asked me a question in the latter part of May of 1973. He says, Jerome, what are you doing here in Camarillo State Hospital?

An unbeknownst to me, I got rigorous honors not only with him but with myself.

And the answer that I could give him that day was it was simply, I don't know.

I don't know why I'm here. I have no inkling to my condition or my circumstances. I guess I'm here for just a little R&R rest and relaxation. And he saw my perplexion and my confusion. He didn't immediately come from some superior, knowledgeable premise and say, Jerome, you need to do this or talk down to me or belittle me. He looked at me with all the compassion and love

that one alcoholic could have for another, and I knew in an instant that here was someone standing before me that cared about me

and was willing to do anything to help me. Because an alcoholic, I know in an instant when someone is being judgmental,

he'll turn them off in an instant. Because I can look in his eyes. And I seen that look before. I've seen that look in my mom's eyes. I've seen that look in my father's eyes. I've seen that look on strangers on the street who came and rescued me from my own madness

and I know he loved me. And he said, Jerome, I'll never forget it as long as I live. He said Jerome, if you do what I do and follow what I follow, you will never have to drink. As long as you live, you will not have to drink. If life

in some of the vestitudes that life could be flicked upon you, some of the heartaches and frustrations and disappointments you won't even have to drink even then

and you won't ever have to come to a place like this unless you choose to see that's what a a promise. The ability to face life on life's terms, not ducking or dodging any of life's issues. And there are plenty of issues to deal with with life because I think people are Hardy

and I had a lot of issues to deal with,

Lots of issues to deal with, far too many to overcome by myself.

And he stuck out his hand to assist me and to help me to overcome those issues in US.

And I have something that will keep me sick even today,

and it's my baseless pride.

It will dictate

powwow. And when I received the help I so desperately need. And that day I couldn't go with Jack and Raymond

because my pride wouldn't let me get up out of that seat.

That baseless pride wouldn't let me move. And it's more formidable than any resentment I'll ever have. And it's always lurking in the shadows to pass upon me and undermine whatever spiritual growth I may ever acquire.

Jack and Raymond turned around and walked away. And I did what I always do, poor, poor me, a drink. And I got out of that hospital a week like, well, basically the reason why I say I didn't leave is that I had $67 in patient account and it was Sunday and I wasn't going to leave my $67 in no nut house, but nobody. But I didn't realize that $67 going to finance my last drunk 'cause I got that check from Camarillo.

Was that the first Bank of Camarillo with no ID? Cast a check. Went to buy my bus ticket to come back to LA

and the bus was going to be 30 minutes late.

Said, well, since it's gonna be 30 minutes later, I need a little refreshment.

I went and got me a bottle when I was so drunk and I was just terrorizing the bus driver. As a matter of fact, he was coming down Pacific Coast Highway and he was going to let me out in Malibu, not in the town of Malibu. You know that part of Pacific Coast Highway where it's nothing. But I begged him to be kind with me. He let me stay on the bus and I got back and I reached my parents house and I was in a drunken blackout stupor and I assaulted my dad, the only friend I had.

I hit him, kicked him and knocked him to the floor. By now he's not a robust man. He has heart disease and emphysema,

and he said

the only person who would come up to the county jail and bring me $3.00 so I wouldn't have to pick up butts off the floor, The only person who would treak up the Camarillo on the bus to see his son. I got there, kicked him and knocked him down and spat on him. They had me arrested