Bill C. from Charlotte, NC at Las Vegas, NV Nov. 26th 1988

I'm Bill Crawford and I'm an alcoholic,

and sometimes you're more nervous than others when you do this. I'm scared to death. Not. John helped me a lot with that, though, that relaxed night. And one thing, this is a big deal. It's something to be nervous about.

22nd Las Vegas annual roundups a big deal. I didn't know the

1090 people paying. God knows. I don't wanna hear what you had to pay for a plate of food in here,

but it's a good crowd. It's an up crowd. First time I've ever heard checkbook getting applause really,

And I've been to a lot of these things,

so I know I can't screw up too bad if somebody else give a clap for a lost checkbook.

The thing I regret most about this conference is I have, and I'm going to miss too much of it. I miss Hank's talk. What I heard was just excellent Friday night because I didn't get here too late and it was the only way I could make clean connections. And I'm going to miss Mary's talk in the morning and I'm very unhappy about that. But I've got to fly out at 724. That's the only time they can get me to Charlotte in the morning and I don't like that. But I certainly have enjoyed today's events in today's figure that

Ruby was just absolutely beautiful.

I set in on the Alka Thon meeting and enjoyed that. And I thought the panel, I thought relationships, what are they talking about?

But it was just beautiful and just, everyone have read my mail and I just enjoyed the people. You know, you come here, you're kind of apprehensive 'cause you don't know anybody, but then you soon know people. The, the committee in particular, Karen has just treated me like royalty and just just tended my every need. And I'm, I'm certainly thankful for that. And I thank you for asking me to come and speak with that. I think I'll just sit down. I'm telling you,

I just while I was talking, I took the authenticity to count this crowd. I

I was born 50 years ago in Greensboro, NC, and I was born an alcoholic home. I know the power of alcoholism from that other side. You know, if alcoholism is anywhere, certainly in a family, it's in control. It's powerful thing. And it controlled us. Now, we didn't realize that we couldn't appreciate that. But I know in retrospect, folks like you had caught me

that what owned our family was my daddy's disease.

And even when he wasn't drinking, we were dreading when he was going to drink

and when he was drinking, you know, And my daddy was a good drunk. He was. He was not violent or abusive or, or, or mean like I later came to be. He was a good drunk, but he was embarrassing and unreliable and drank at the wrong time. And that insecurity that goes along with that. Was there president in our house? It's also a Baptist.

I don't know if y'all heard of that out here.

Boy, once you get that, that's terminal too. I'm telling you,

that's hard to get out of that. You know, I still got a lot of that in me. And Baptists are not very complimentary to beverage alcohol listed. It used to be. And so from from what I lived, my experience in my home, plus my religious training was alcohol was a bad thing. I didn't know anything good about alcohol. You know, my childhood heroes didn't drink. Now, you young people are not not going to know who I'm talking about,

but some of you will. I can see that. You know the whiteheads out there.

I'd go down to the movies on Saturday afternoon, watch Lash LaRue

and Johnny Mac Brown and Durango Kid. These were the B Western Cowboys stars and if you remember, they didn't drink. Not the good guys and bad guys didn't drink, but the good guys didn't drink. So I had a negative view of beverage alcohol coming up. I knew that I'd never drink. I knew that I would never. I knew what was wrong with my daddy and I knew what was wrong in our home, or at least I thought I did. It was his drinking and if he would just not drink, things would be OK.

But along came something called peer pressure. And I didn't know it was peer pressure. I know now I've, you know, read a lot of stuff like Ladies Home Journal and stuff like that where you learn stuff like that. And I know now it was peer pressure,

and it's a little story I usually tell in my talk.

I was in downtown Greensboro back when people came to downtown Greensboro. Now they all out at the malls and shopping centers. But at that time, everybody on a Saturday was down there. And I was down there and out in front. I was about 14 years old out in front of Manzo Henry Drugstore with three of the finest looking boys I'd ever seen in my life, Older than I.

Let me tell you how they look. They stood there in the shirt collars, were standing straight up their pants. Their hair was comb back on the side and squared off in the back

and the war that bridges real low and the britches were real big in the knee and real small at the cuff. These grape riches,

the greatest thing I'd ever seen in my life. You could tell they were rebels. And I got up with somebody and I said, what is that? And they said they're kids, That's what they're called.

I want to be a cat. Worse than anything in there.

See, I had already, this peer pressure thing had been at work with me all along. I've learned how to smoke Lucky Strikes and I, and I was doing a pretty good job of inhaling too. It's important to inhale back then. I don't know if you remember that or not.

And I remember I worked real hard. Inhaling didn't come natural to me.

I remember I hadn't really worked at that. I I, I can remember it hurt me so bad to inhale that I'd only do it if somebody was looking. I don't know if you can identify

if I'd be with a gang and we all had our luckies lit. If somebody would turn my way, I'd grab a post and inhale a big drag

and look cool. So I was inhaling pretty good and I was sort of,

you know, sort of tough and that kind of thing and there with a catch.

So me and Ola and I'm I'm sure he wouldn't mind my using his name in old Charles Beligny. He sort of advised me on how to be a cat. And I don't want to dwell on this too long, but I'll just say I became a cat pretty quick. I got me some pants with a big knees and the little bottoms and I got my Mama to search starch my shirt collar so they'd stand up. Had a little hair problem. I had real fine hair, still do. It just wouldn't. That was in the day of Wild Root cream oil. If you remember that,

put a half a bottle on it and it still would just kind of

fall down. And

oh, oh, the Legney introduced me to a product called pomade. I had so much, well, pomade. The blacks of that in that period were using pomade. And of course, we some of us cats used it too.

Let me say this about pomade. In case you're too young to know what pomade, you may have seen the final net Hairspray ad on TV and they've got the gal with the Hairspray and she goes to a real rough day and at the end of the day she's pooped her hair still in place.

That tickle spinal net to death that that hair stayed together. Pomade, Hold your hair for three months.

You know,

I just say, if a train hits you and if they found your head, your hair would be in place, right?

I say all that to say this, I, I made my way down in front of Manzo Henry with the rest of those cats. And you know what, what all this means or what I'm leading up to the drug of choice or the drug that was available then was, was beverage alcohol. And I began to drink simply because the need to be like these people, to be included with these people, was greater than my fear of the drug alcohol.

And that took a lot 'cause I was really afraid of alcohol. I really had a contempt for alcohol,

but the need to be included in this bunch was more important. A stronger pool, if you will. And so I begin to drink and this is my social drinking period. I'm kind of proud of this. It didn't last long, so you have to listen back. I drink and I don't remember what it was. It might have lasted two months. It might have lasted three or four months.

It was that period that I took a little swallow of this or a half a can of that, and until I reached that night when I was 15 1/2 years old, that I got enough in me to feel it. I never felt it before and it did something for me that I wouldn't attempt to describe to any other group of people.

And I've had the privilege of talking to groups of professional people and the Rotary Club and all those things that some of us end up talking to. I never attempt to describe. You know that half of you are a little over half of you know exactly what I'm talking about. It did for me something that it was like something had been missing. There was a hole there that this filled up. And I've heard you describe it in much the same way.

And it just, you know, I just assumed it did this for everybody. I assume for everybody. Put the world out where it belonged. It made them a part of it, made them enough. You know, I was, I was tough enough and smart enough and good looking enough and included enough. I was just enough when I was on this stuff. And that's what I thought he did for other people. I sense and learn better.

Only about one in ten of us apparently get this at some point, and I drink in this wonderful reward.

And so I became preoccupied with drinking with alcohol right then.

Didn't know it. I would bet if we use our description, our definition of alcoholism, out of our book of experience, the Big Book, and we believe that alcoholism is that physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession of mental compulsion. Then I was half an alcoholic from the very first. I was down at the old downtown cemetery there in Greensboro, where we'd sneak down into all sorts of things. And we were sitting in there drinking old Mr. Mac wine. And I felt it. And the moment I felt it, I was half an alcoholic. The mental obsession was there

that night and I didn't realize it. I know now, looking back on it, that I said about to drink at every opportunity and when I wasn't drinking, I was looking forward to drinking. I made sure that I went where drinking was going to be going on and I made sure I associated with only those people who drink

half an alcoholic. The physical allergy wasn't there in the beginning. Didn't take long. My whole drinking career was not a long career because I hit the ground running. I didn't have that period like some of you have,

you know, where I drank, OK, for 15 years or whatever, and then I crossed the invisible act. I standing on that invisible line when I was at that old cemetery,

healthy for the first time and life will know. And it was that nagging fear and guilt that that that there was there. I shouldn't be doing this. This is bad. It's not only evil and I've learned that religiously, but it's also something that's going to get me like my father. It's something that may turn on me like my father, but I would rationalize

and say I'm not going to do this forever. I'm just having a good time,

and when I'm older and when I set out to be a man, I'm not gonna drink or I'm gonna drink like those people I'm learning about that don't drink and have trouble.

I'm gonna have that mixed drink and have the Great Dane dog at the fireplace or whatever. I thought, you know, grown people that succeeded in drink,

but I would put that day forward and life went on. And I'm gonna try not to bore you with a long drunk along, but because I don't have a long drunk along. But I life went on and I, it was still doing great things for me. You know, what it does for us is what gets us in trouble with it. And what it does to us is what gets us here, hopefully. And then it was doing a lot for me.

The scale seemed to be tipped way in favor of the reward and not the price.

I'm doing right much vomiting and stuff till I got it right. There were those things and I had some embarrassment and I and I had some scrapes with authority situations and circumstances that I wish hadn't happened. But basically it was doing so much for me and very little to me,

and later when our when it seemed to be demanding its price, when it seemed to turn on me, I just almost missed it.

Now the blackouts are that amnesia I had right from the beginning.

I didn't know that I was having amnesia or blackouts in the beginning. I just thought people who would mix me up with somebody else. I don't know. If you had that, I'd get a report on something and I something I'd done or something. I hadn't been there.

Amazing things. But they'd always have a witness, you know, I would say, no, it wasn't me. And they'd say welcome here, Joe, and tell Crawford here that it was. And I would hear this thing. And I said, well, I, I did. I was there and I did that and I forgot it. But see, I didn't know that that was peculiar to Alcoholics.

I didn't know that this blackout thing was something that we get and normal drinkers don't get. I just or I wanted to think that all drinkers when they drink too much forget.

I start in at one of the things that was sort of subtle or seemed to be. I started being less and less able to predict the amount I was I was going to drink.

I would set out to drink a little and I wouldn't drink a little. I drink a lot and by then I'm married. You know, we always do that, don't we? Always as how it becomes a family disease, you know, very few. I shall go off and be an alcoholic on our own. We gotta take some hostages in there and

screw up everybody. And I had gone for very little bit of college,

and I know now how much my drinking or the alcoholism interfere with any kind of education I might have gotten. But I went into the military. It was something you better do in my time or you couldn't get a job. And I joined the Army and they made it. Just so you'll know, you're hearing from the professional tonight. I'll just say this to impress you. They made me a neuropsychiatric technician.

I can actually a look of all on a lot of faces that

most of you can't even spell neuropsychiatric techniques and I was one.

Now what that is, that's a keeper in a nut house is what that, what that

and by then I'm a I'm rocking along with it with with with a lot of I mean, my alcoholism is going full of course.

Now, to give you an idea of what a neuropsychiatric technician is, an artist, you can picture it if you'd walk on one of these wards, let's say at the old Valley Boards General Hospital up there in Phoenixville.

And now you just walked in cold. You didn't know anything. The nuts were in blue pajamas and we were in white clothes and with carrot key. So if you'd wonder who to back up against the wall with, we went to life

and they taught me. I never went through a training course and they taught me just enough psychology to worry about it. I don't know.

I don't know if you ever had that kind of when I hear about things like schizophrenia and I'm no sickle and my God, I feel that way, you know?

But you can't let you can't let them know.

And that's a big secret to know. But I'm just as crazy as these nuts,

and I'd stand there on that ward about to go have these panic attacks. And some of you know what that is? I say they're ashamed to flip out.

And it switched my suit, you know, and it embarrassed me in front of the other people.

But that night when I would leave the ward and go to the club,

things were changed.

And this is where I, if I think of it and I just thought of it, I stop and give a quick little educational course on alcoholism. Some of you want to go to work and somebody already working in the field and making you living at it, and some of you aspire to do that. So I stop and give a quick bachelor's degree because they've done a lot of research on us and I've gotten rats drunk for years and studied us in this kind of

and I always thought it was interesting

all his billions of dollars they spent on anybody should, I mean, we have a disease that should be. I always thought it was interesting that with all that money they researched on us, they never spent a dime researching them. Non Alcoholics, you know,

So I've taken it upon myself.

They say there's no government grants coming down for the study of non alcoholism

and it's been fairly simple because I'm married to one of the worst cases none alcoholism you've ever seen New York. I mean, this is, I mean latter stage non alcoholism. You know,

NISK has she, she'll drink a little now, you know, we'll go out to a restaurant maybe two or three times a year. She'll have a half a glass of white wine or something

and over the years, and we've known each other for 100 years. We've been married 29 years. Over the years, she's probably drunk enough to feel it,

forecast maybe. And you know what she does. And this is going to discuss the newcomers, so brace yourself with this one. You know what she does when she starts to feel it? She stops.

That demands research,

so I've looked into it.

You know what she says and I ask her and I've analyzed this thing and basically what she says. The bottom line is she quits because she doesn't like that feeling.

You know what she thinks when she starts getting that feeling? How you get the pilot lit. You know when you get that? You know what I'm talking? When she gets her pilot lit, if she even has one, she feels, she feels like she's losing control.

When I would leave that nut board and go up to the club after thing, I'm gonna fly apart all day and they're gonna learn my secrets. I would start ingesting that stuff and for the first time that day, I would be in control. You know, I'm satisfied. All kidding. The sign. I'm satisfied that that's all the difference I need to know between me and them

is the same stuff that makes them feel that they're losing control was the only thing that gave me any semblance of control.

And even when it was clear it was doing these things to me at times, and later on it got at times clear, I still had to have that control. It seemed beginning because the other thing I

so I would, I was losing control of my drink and I didn't know that.

I didn't know that I was losing control. I just think I screw up then and yeah, we are. I just didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to stay at all night. I didn't mean to drink that much. I didn't mean to start drinking liquor. I wanted to just drink beer. It happened to anybody, you know, this kind of thing,

another thing. And I think this is real similar with all those, or at least if I understand the stories you've been telling me over the years,

I started losing control of my behavior too.

I could not predict my behavior

might be funny in in the life of the party, which I wanted to be, but more and more often I was becoming hostile and mean and I was doing and saying things that I didn't wanna do and say.

And there's the shame and the remorse. The guilt set in because of this,

and it became evident to me at times that something's wrong with my drinking that would come become evident to those around me. Real. A lot, Sir.

There's something wrong with my drink

and I begin to get the fingers pointed, or at least that's the way it seems. Why do you drink so much? Don't drink so much when we go tonight. Don't drink so much. Why don't you drink like so and so this kind of thing?

And I was, I would, I would resent that and I would defend and all that kind of stuff when they were attacking me and everything. But secretly I would say, well, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna correct it. I'm gonna be better. I'm not gonna let that happen again. My golly, I'm not gonna do that again. I'm not going to that place again.

I'm not going to embarrass myself like that again. Then I started getting those hangovers along in there. Something I thought I'd been having hangovers, but when I'd been having, it wasn't a hangover at all. There was a whole new thing waiting out there for me. And you know, some of you know what I'm talking about. Oh, real hang. The hangovers that make you look back fondly on what you used to call hanger.

If I like, I'm non alcoholic hangovers. I know you. You know, if you got anybody you work with or anybody in the neighborhood, the family of none, they're going to go out on New Year's Eve. One of those people drink

and they really tie one on there. There's 6 1/2 drinks or whatever they have

and they they brag about them hangovers

more. I was telling you, I woke up New Year's morning. I was just dying. I took my head was throbbing, a tongue felt like a foot. I could barely eat my waffles. You know that. That's a serious hangover to those guys.

But I'm talking about those real deals. You know

where you come to and you don't wake up and every fiber of your of your being is screaming for more this stuff, whether you know it or not.

And the only person in the world was me

in the fear and terror is indescribable.

And I got in the morning drink and I discovered the morning drink. That's the term. And I discovered the morning drink. Thank God, by the way, I discovered the morning, right? I've heard a lot of stories from podiums like this and heard, you know, I lost 15 families, a lot of sad stories. But the saddest thing, the thing that really gets my gut is those of y'all that never discovered the morning drink. I want to grab you and hug you after you talk. I tell you,

I couldn't have stood that.

Now, of course, the morning drink turned into the and I'm all trying to hurry through this thing a little bit and it became Bender drinking. Now, I'm not talking about somebody in his 40s or even his 30s. I'm talking about somebody in his 20s

and since Greg who was with me in Texas a few years ago, who

heard me talk at it a conversation since he was nice enough and asked me to tell one of these stories. I'm almost timid 'cause this sort of goes along with my this part of my drinking, this period of my drinking.

I was looking for ways like we always do, just like we were heard out of Chapter 3. I was looking for ways to have it what it's doing for me without paying that price of what it's doing to. I had to have what it was doing for me, but what it was doing to me was becoming bigger and greater and

more severe and I was looking at all kinds of ways and everyone I would discover a ways to drink and not get in trouble. I don't know if you know that feelings, the most wonderful feeling in the world. You know, it's like discovering beer, you know, and that you can't be an alcoholic on beer and this kind of thing. Well, I was, I was about 2425 young fell, married with a couple of children. And I'm looking through Esquire magazine

and they have all the nice heads in there and they, I opened up Esquire to a double page ad and they didn't even have a pretty girl or a guy with a graying temples or anything. There's no people in there. It was just a glass

with a green liquid in there and crushed ice. Beautiful little doobel of sweat going down the glass, You know how that is. And it said mint juleps

and it was advertised, and I don't know what it was advertised one of these sour mash bourbons or was advertising the brand, the Cream de mint, I don't know. But I was so impressed,

and it even got a little recipe over there. You took a jigger of the cream Dement and a jigger of the sour mash bourbon. And you, you know, did that and you had your mint. You and I was talking at some deals a few years back and some lady said this was a bad recipe for mint juleps. But my God, it was a recipe in Esquire that day.

Couldn't wait. It was a Friday

and when I left the office I stopped by the liquor store and I didn't get the Rebel Jail or the Wild Turkey. What it was I got me a pint of George Stag. Old Stag was a little bit cheaper and a pint of cream to mint and headed home with my brown sack to do some

dignified drinking.

Now my name. I'm getting a lot of trouble with drinking, and when I walked in with that familiar looking sack, Kay gave me that look.

She hadn't seen the ad and she thought I was gonna get drunk,

and I said no, we're gonna have, I was including her. We're gonna have mint Jills, I said. I've been getting drunk Friday nights and all weekend,

but I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm gonna sit and drink some mint Jules and I'm warm. We live in apartment complex. It was a warm summer evening and the other couples, young couples were, some of them were sitting out back. Now I know there was a couple of gals there and I hollered at the screen door. Would you gals like to have a mint julep? Well, they were the light. I said I'll mix you one and Kay would not have any part of it.

Didn't have a nice crusher, but I wrapped with a dish towel around the ice and beat it with a hammer if you ever done it

and beat up some ice and made free mint juleps. And I walked out and joined these gals and we shipped on engine

and I remember the ceiling that I'm drinking OK now. In fact, I kind of hated the taste of that cream, the mint. And I can't kind of felt like you're drinking something you didn't like. It was kind of nicer. And so I drink. I can remember I drink mine faster than they drank there.

And I went back for as a matter of fact, I can remember how their crushed eyes kind of looked up to one look. It just stayed in there so long, melting in it, and I may have had two or three before they were able to get theirs down. I offered them another one. No, that didn't want anymore, but I continued to have meant jurors and and I felt good about it. And I can remember

along about the 6th one I'd be holes in that town

and I and I and Katie want me to beating up anymore town. So I said I said, you know, in the ad it was crushed ice. But you know, the cubes chill it just as well.

Put the cubes in that, swirl that stuff and

shipped on it.

At 10:30 I ran out of ice,

but you know, when I discovered you could just put a jigger of each warm,

it was fine,

sort of a mid. You look tidy,

it's a good thing.

Lost the glass about 11:30.

You know my glasses are roll under things.

You know what you could do that you could take a slurge of of the bourbon and chase it with the frame limit and it mixed. This is good

K5, don't get drunk.

A key stayed green for about a day and 1/2.

So yeah,

I, like the all of us have untold number of stories like this, the craziness,

that crazy way that I'm gonna do it different this time.

And life was bad and life wasn't funny

and life was sick. And my family was becoming sickened by this disease, like my family of origin had become sickened by this disease. And we were all doing crazy things.

I had gone away. I was working some crooked company because I had gotten my employment. My resume was getting a little weaker, and I was working with this crooked company. I was up in Saint Louis and I stayed drunk up there for two weeks and I came back

and I was in trouble and I knew it and I was sick and I just knew I needed weeks. And I came back

and I was in trouble and I knew it and I was sick and I just knew I needed to do something

and I needed to make some green stained move. I needed to make some promise to her to get the heat off, do something, say something.

And I was. And she left the house for some reason. And I called Alcoholics an office. And this was in the middle of the summer of 1966

in my then, you know, I'm standing. I'd always drink down to my underwear, you know, and I would get that morning tonight around the clock type drinking Bender drinking. And as in that underwear that I'll always end. I just didn't. It was two things that I didn't do while drinking, two things that are ruling the bugs and most of you know it

lose. I mean baths and food. And I didn't take any baths and I didn't eat any food.

And of course, you know, you can imagine what my breath I was like from the no food. And you can imagine how gaming the rest of it was from the no math. And my wife, Aunt Pearl, as a joke, would make this funny, crazy underwear she'd give all the men. And if that's a joke, yeah, hearts in the rear, some obscene stuff I won't even share with you, but lace around them. Just kind of a joke. There's no joke with me. I was not investing a lot in underwear. So this is all the underwear I had, which is

an accumulation of Ant Pearl shorts which she'd made over the years for Christmas,

and if I picture myself it'd be an aunt. Pearls drawers with a crotch down at my knees, oversight and AT shirt I hadn't changed. Little vomit down the front.

And this day, in that condition, I called Alcoholics and on

and a fellow by the name of Bill In, who was and is an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He called me back. I connected with answering service in Greensburg and called me back and we talked and I was tapering off. You know about tapering off? Yeah, some of you not tapering off. My daddy used to taper off.

I later got real proficient at tapling off

and I would drink and then I knew I just couldn't quit abruptly so I would taper off. I would, you know what I'm saying. Y'all know what I'm saying,

but Kay didn't know what I was saying. She would confuse tapering off of drinking. I don't know if you know anybody,

you know the difference,

but she she, she just didn't have it kind of man. Or she could could understand that, you know, she say thank you. You said you're going to quit drinking yesterday, and I said I did quit drinking yesterday. Today I'm tapering off. It's a whole, I'm just giving myself a beer every hour.

Of course a couple of times I did have a dosage problem there and I get Plumb drunk tapering off. I don't know if that ever happened to you. And of course, nothing to do but start over. So I might pull a three day drunk and then tape her off for two more weeks. And I wasn't getting to work every day under these conditions. And

thanks for buying.

And so I called A and Bill and I talked and he could tell I was tapering off and he was bad as narrow minded as Kaywood about taking all but he didn't want to rush to my aid.

We made an agreement,

but I was going to be back in touch with him and we were getting ready to leave town. OK. You know how wives and husbands and family of Alcoholics playing all the trips and everything like things that normally she had planned. God love her. The beach trip, we were going to go down the the next day and spend a week and he said when you're down there at Long Beach, call a A It's down there. When you come back, call me

and here's my name and here's my number and I wrote it now. And when she came back to the house, I had it, a name and a number from somebody at the Ana to show her

before she can open her mouth. I said I have called the Ana, here's the man's name, here's man's number. Hush

now, he and I agree. I'm not ready yet, but he said,

he said. Should I be?

Do you want me to call?

I said. Hold on. The next

If you drink like I drink and you hand your wife or anybody a number on a name, somebody might help you. You don't need to tell them to hold on to this. She let the youngins go first. She that that name and number was going to stay there. And of course, I did not call him back,

but at one of those times in our home, and I don't need to tell you what that's like. One of those desperate times, one of those painful times, she called

initials maybe four or five, maybe even six months after I'd made that original call. And she called and she got him on the phone and she explained who she was. And I had talked with him some months earlier

and you listen with empathy and he listened as we do. But he did the big thing, the important thing when that other that that family member called, he said hold the phone. He went, got lid, his wife

who was being in Al Anon and she

got on the phone, told Kay about Al Anon.

The game changed. I'm OK

if you're drinking and your spouse gets an al Anon. It probably won't cure your drinking. It's not designed for that,

but a break your rhythm. I'll guarantee that

things change.

She began to change. Now what she began to do is begin to recover from alcoholism. She began to be free of my disease. That's all it was. That's all, you know, if somebody, somebody in that mess gets into recovery,

thing is gonna be better. Things have been a chance,

and God loves she did.

Al Anon has as much more to do with my finding this program than anything else,

because although I could not appreciate what was going on, I was watching somebody get well right before mine.

I was watching alcoholism lose its grip on someone, even though that's not I didn't understand. On June the second of 1967, I'm sitting there coming off another one of these brunks. It's not evenly particularly exotic one. I've been in a hell of a lot more trouble on others,

maybe even sicker on some others. I don't remember, but I was just there again. And the only person in the world that's full of that terror and full of that pain.

And I turn to her and I said let's call that man again.

And she had learned nothing in al Anon. She wasn't supposed to do it for me. But she also knew when I was coming off I was drunk. That's back when the telephone had holes in it, you know, didn't have the button. And she knew I couldn't run her around 7 times like that. So she did dial and got him on the phone and handed me the She handed me the phone and I couldn't remember.

What do you say? So he knew about me. He knew about the disease anyway, but he had kept up with me through Kay and Lib. He said. Are you about ready to throw in the towel now?

And I said, yes, I am. And I think I was telling him the truth as much as I knew the truth. And he said I'll see you in the morning. This is a fairly low down. And he came to that. I have a homeowner. That's part of my denial. I'm a homeowner

now. The mortgage company was working real hard to change that.

We're about two weeks from the courthouse steps if you're on those houses. And he came into that almost foreclosed upon house and said in that little living room

did what we

and they did it beautifully. But the main thing you did is you made that deal. We always, I hope we're still trying to make that deal. I know a lot of us are rushing out now since they got Blue Cross so we can throw them down in treatment. But the first first thing I think we ought to do is try to talk to them about Alcoholics. None. That's, and that's what he did

and he wanted to be the example that he was proof that and he was, and I couldn't deny that he was pretty clean cut and nice looking fella and things seemed to be going well for him. And, and that was convinced of that he made that deal that I hope we always try to make #1 that I would not drink that day. And this was a Saturday morning and then I would go to Alcoholics Anonymous with him that night. Isn't that what we try to do? And I agree, I'd agree to anything. I was about ready for him to leave. You remember when they came to

so you, you know, you just talk and talk and talk. That's what it seems like. And it's just time for them to go. My attention span was short

and so you know, if he just said well we you know, we have to take your ears and deposit. I should find cut off here.

You see, I was too sick to go to a meeting that night.

I wanted to go. I was going to go next week. I was $2.00 on 6th. But I kind of had a feeling he didn't want to argue about that, so I would just send him. We could explain to him later. But see, Kay heard that video. She had her ear pressed to the door, so we had to go.

So I got in the old Mercury that Wachovia Bank was trying to take back from me, and we went over to the Starmetr move. On June the third of 1967, there's a speaker meeting. Most meetings were in Greensboro at that time. Of all the meetings in town, only two were discussion meetings or what we call close meetings. The rest were speaker meet

and went into a meeting in the * Mount Presbyterian Church.

I won't tell you just a little bit about and I hope I never get a podium between my hands that I don't talk about this meat. Yeah, I think everybody has his or her first meeting.