Clancy I from Venice, CA at San Diego April 11th 1999

Speaker Tonight, when I was getting sober,

he, of course, would never Remember Me, but I remembered him. I was just I was in the I hadn't really dried out yet, but I've been around a A for six months. And there was a guy up at the podium. He was talking about leading the choir at the Texas Nut House. And I don't know, but I really identified with him. And if you have the other antics that went on and, and, and it was somebody that I,

I said, well, if he can do that, maybe I can do that.

And, and several other times he's encouraged me to take a step forward and it's always been good. And I love him. And I like to introduce our speaker tonight, Clancy I.

My name is Clancy Emerson and I'm an alcoholic.

I'm very glad to be here today. Now I just start setting the record right. I never said, but I let a choir at the Texas Nut House ever. I never did. I directed a Christmas pageant.

Not a very complex one, but

the director's main job was trying to keep the three wise men off the Virgin Mary. If you possibly could

get back Lamar back.

But I'm happy to be here tonight. Gosh, I just think that's the 18th trip I made down here for this meeting. And

I must say that this accommodation is considerably better than that hideous mechanics hall we used to better. I got to like it after a while. I was I got to know all the plaques on the wall and

but this is really got a little more little more pizzazz to it. I I hate to get off of the wrong foot, but it's I am compelled to do this by Bill Wilson in heaven has asked me to do this on a continuing basis. So I'm going to do it about 35 years ago in the San Fernando Valley, there's an old guy at the Canoga Park meeting named Bill

Bill Davidson. And he was having an old fanatic and he was just, he had strong ideas. But I think one of his ideas that everyone in a a should be anonymous. Not only anonymous the level of press, radio and films, but from each other, just nobody should know anybody.

And what he would do, what they would read the traditions he would echo the last phrase you say, hear that principles before personalities. They say, oh, shut up, Bill, not going to shut up peacefully, said

three or three or four young guys, one of whom I sponsored

start. I didn't know at the time, but they mock him. He'd say press looking for a personal before personality. Is that right, Bill? Shut up. Yeah, got to be a joke and find you some boob from the Sylvan and Sedros group. Came over there to talk one night and heard this

and that is some sort of a spiritual breakthrough they had and took it back and told his group we should all join in and say principles before personalities. And so they did. And for about 25 years in the central San Fernando Valley, there about four groups who used to chant principle as before personalities. None of every knew why

and anybody got there to speak. We're going to speak to them. We'll speak for the chanters. You know, it's kind of a laugh, which is always next to have a little microcosm of

in anity in the middle of the San Fernando Valley. But then some other court got out of the bottle

and the wind carried the microbes around the countryside and now there's any sort of number of meetings. This was one tonight for principals and for personalities.

Larry that but he ended in chapter 5 for no reason whatsoever. God, Gordon would have thought. They probably would join in the end of the promises too, if they know what they were. But

I

it really serves no purpose. There's a lot of bees. In fact, here's the irony of it all. The Canoga Park being work started part of the format as the secretary asked the meetings not to chant because it has no meaning whatsoever. So where it started, they don't do it anymore. And a lot of places they don't. Our group in West Los Angeles, there's over 1000 people every Wednesday night. When they read it, they read it. There's nobody joining in because it has no purpose whatsoever.

So I'm down here tonight to talk to some of you,

some of you people who probably been here quite a long time, 5-6 months.

You, you're probably set in your ways. There's no sense trying to convert you. Well, I've gone my way. Screw him, you know. But if you're new, some of the guys your first 30 days, Jeffrey, and some of the others, if you're just new before, you've gone down the wrong path.

You don't have to chant. It's done nowhere else in the country. It's done nowhere else in the world.

It's done Southern California amongst certain groups or and not one person a chance knows why. Why do you chance?

That's all I'm saying. You don't have to chant. It's not part of A and nobody in our role chanted this evening. But because if you do chat, you're not doing anything for Alcoholics Anonymous. You're merely mocking Bill Davidson and the Canoga Park meeting. And he's been dead for 18 years, for Christ sake.

That's all.

Is there anything else I want to say before I sit down?

I, I used to drink alcohol and I drank it for a long time, but I never paid much attention to it. I, I grew up in a little town up for northern Wisconsin, little town called Eau Claire. And in fact, there's a little class dinner earlier today in Malibu. I wanted to get to drive as far in the rain as I possibly could. So I drove to Malibu in the rain so I could come all the way to San Diego from Malibu.

And there's a little plastic in our group. It's a very large group. So all the people got sober to give a year get together to have a little dinner. This was the class of 1995. There are about 35 of them having a dinner,

and in that 35 to three of them were from Eau Claire, WI, which is some kind of a record for a small Midwestern town. And they're all goofy.

When I grew up in this little town and I, I was raised in something called the Norwegian Lutheran Church. Most you've never heard of the Norwegian Lutheran Church because it isn't big in this area.

I'm a Norwegian and people say isn't that wonderful, but it really isn't. I'll tell you. Let me tell you what's put the Norwegian is like, I can tell you in one small example,

I was talking in Oslo a couple of years ago and they took me up to 100 miles north or so where my grandfather and some of his little brothers, chump left her. Whole bunch of Norwegians left to the 1880s to come to the United States to get out of that terrible climate, to get to comfortable time. And they came over, they all settled in North Dakota and Minnesota and Wisconsin and they spent the last 100 years that they're saying Jesus is cold up here too. You know,

that's, that's the kind of mindset I have to start with that I

I've had a fight to overcome it, but it's a very, very strong religion. You only have two rules is for I could tell now as a little boy a very strict church is because you don't sin, you don't talk to Catholics.

Seems reasonable if you want to go to heaven,

but I was kind of a nervous, restless kid and I've

I found out later in psychoanalysis that the Norwegian Lutheran Church had repressed me.

Remember I had tears in my eyes thinking if they only known, if I knew then what I know now, I would have formed adult children of Norwegian Lutherans.

We could have hired a couple codependents and sat around been pissed off every week.

But

when I was the 15 the Second World War started. Now it's nervous and restless. Monday I told my mother I want to go to up to Superior, WI and visit my aunt. She packed my little bag and gave me my little suitcase and gave me some money for bus fare and I got a ride from a guy to Minneapolis and I hitchhike to San Francisco. I had no idea where the hell I was going, just San Francisco. Remember standing outside in Minneapolis already has further than ever been away from home. This was 100 miles

and every I knew the hitchhikers, I'd ask them questions. You stand on the highway and you nice stuff

and the car stops. Where you going kid? San Francisco to sell my hop in and the way we went trigger he used the Navy going back to a ship and God, I was just I didn't think was going on and we would travel for, you know, 1000 miles and at night there weren't any motels and their trailer courts. You'd stop and get me in bed and get him a bed and he bought my meals and listen to me talk and talk to me and I guess he just wanted somebody help and keep awake all this whole trip. And

I thought about that many times since, you know, I had no idea. Just I never hit checked. I just thought you'd tell people where you're going and they take you there. You know,

as we get to substance, your son has going to be in the Marines and go over there and kill chaps. And he said you're really kind of small. You ask about this big face full of pimples. He said you probably wouldn't get the Marines or anything else at the moment, but they're crying for merchant Marine guys. I'll tell you when to go to the Coast Guard office. I'll show you how to get there. Tell him you want to be in the merger. Tell him you're 16 for sure, not 15 and see if it happens. So he let me off. I remember going to the Coast Guard office the morning the 1st morning of San Francisco

and I said I want to be in the Merchant Grand. Can I have these applications? Got this application kid

at 2016.

You're only 16, you'll need your parents permission. So I took it around the block, got my parents permission

and I brought it back and tell you how desperate they were. They issued me Siemens papers right there.

My training was walking around the block

and he said well we're OK, but these are temporary. You get some provenance the male interim we're crying for men down the National Maritime. You can get down there right now. Some show me how to get to the National Maritime Union on Montgomery Street, my little bag and have me signed a check saying or waiver saying take me union dues out of my next check. Remember that was guy said hop in the car here quick and they drove me and another guy over the Embarcadero and says here's your ship go down and quick. They would need two guys.

I got this enormous ship. I just got aboard and they raised the gangplank and the way we went to the South Pacific.

And it's kind of funny for a while. You know, guys, there's Pressure Island. That's where the World's Fair was last year.

That's Alcatraz over there. That's where all the big gangsters go.

That's the Golden Gate Bridge.

But the damn ship just kept going,

and pretty soon the earth was going out of sight, not standing there on the deck watching it. And I think I had an intuitive feeling that I'd made the 1st in an endless series of career errors.

Some guy came. I said, hey, you get your focus on hi, Kenny. And I, I said, no, hi, Kenny. He didn't say hi, Kenny. I just saw Kenny back here. Hi Kenny,

your head and wave your hand you dummy. Anyway, I hate to see him go to officer early in the talk.

He's probably the only man in this room, or any man that anybody here knows that was present the first day I walked into a in Los Angeles. No front teeth and nothing. No. And he ridiculed me. The son of a bitch. Anyway,

but I've forgotten it.

It's only been 40 years,

but

I said get your folks. I don't know folks who was sounded ominous to me because the folks who was just a sleeping horse on a ship as most of us know. And I got in this room, they called it a cabin was like a room to me and had three of the worst type of people that a small dumb Norwegian Lutheran pimply faced puke could ever be with. And these kind of people are called men.

And they said, what the hell are you supposed to be?

I didn't know quite what to tell him. And I look back, I know why they were so upset at the moment. I knew, didn't know at the time, but there were four man deck crews. I was the 4th man of their four man deck crew. And they looked at me and they realized they're going to be doing their work in mine for the rest of that trip.

Why did you get your damn funk? So I did, and that ship was moving around like this and got us. So I started to get a little seasick and it's hot in there.

And these, I wanted my mothers what I really wanted,

but I didn't want to say anything and ruin my image.

Then these guys got talking and I couldn't believe my ears. My God. They'd been in the San Francisco apparently for several days, and they'd been doing things with women that you wouldn't

I, you know, I'm a nutrient. I, I couldn't, I leaned over Sunday. I really, of course, of course I should have known it. They all got black hair Catholics

and

I don't want to give the wrong impression. Even at the age of 15 and Eau Claire, WI that had sex, but I'd been apprehensive and I'd been afraid and I'd been alone and he's

these guys were doing it with people. If you could imagine that

Nigel that was a terrible start and then but I hung around dumb after a couple of days and I found my my roll on the ship. But every ship I guess has one every military unit the ship fool you know after I've got to know my awareness could on the answer them Tom we need left-handed wrench.

I can't stop in the bridge. Tell the capital we need some elbow grease.

On and on.

One day these guys used to sit around and they all had carried their whiskey and their seed bags. They weren't supposed to, but they did because it's very loose. And one day the guy turned me, says, hey, junior, you think you're man enough for a little snort?

He shut that bottle in my face and I drew the line there because I may be dumb, but I met a Sinner. I'm not a Catholic and I I, I couldn't think what to say. I just,

you know, when you get under a lot of emotional stress, you choke up, you know,

well, look at the Padres. But

I'm a veteran anyway.

OK, the Chargers that better

for those Clippers you sent us see anyway,

private tendency and emotional stress to check choke upright. You can't even talk, you just.

I just feel my pimple standing up

preparing my mind because I was going to tell them I could say how dare you put that in my mind. That's my face. I'm a Lutheran. I promise my mother I'm not going to drink. I'm not going to drink. I don't do that sort of thing. What the heck is wrong with you? Leave me alone. I just about to say that when he said you want to snort and I heard a voice say God damn right

turn down them. A little weak under pressure too.

So I had my first drink of whiskey out of the first bottle of whiskey I was ever close to, and it burned my throat and burned my mouth and burned my stomach and burned my throat and burned my mouth and burned his shirt. So I thought,

get the bottle.

God, I don't know to this day anything. And it's more painful than public humiliation that makes people kill people, right? If I had a gun out of shot, if I'd been bigger out of smash them, I didn't hit him.

I thought later there's one thing I might have done. I'm glad I didn't think it was. It had thrown me overboard. But I might have leaned over you. Yeah, take that.

Give them one in the old eye just to teach them a lesson

as we continue to cross the Pacific every day. I'd sneak in that guy's teabags sooner or later and try to take a drink of that stuff someone and I'd throw it up and have to wipe it up so they wouldn't know. And I, I hated it,

but I so desperately wanted to be accepted by these people. God done on my lecture. I just want to be accepted and be a thought of man. I had no idea that wouldn't do it. But as we were coming into Pearl Harbor, they were still digging up ships off the bottom and I was down there taking another drink. Day before my 16th birthday.

I didn't drink this crap, and when otherwise and stayed there. That's the first day I didn't throw up a drink of whiskey. Then I couldn't breathe.

Why do they do this?

Now all of a sudden something strange happened. I found myself feeling significantly better

and

I had, no, I didn't pay much attention to it. I just remember your reaction because when you're in your teens is when you learn most of the things you learn about life and you just learn new things. You don't think, oh, that's a breakthrough. You know, I, I most envied people who had great insights. I've never had insights. I just stumbled through,

in fact, new people tonight you'll hear me talking knowledgeably about my life as though I knew where I was going. That's just,

that's what speakers do there. Yes, I can see what at the time it's just like a blind man running through the woods,

but later you get to age it. And then in 1951, I, I realized I needed to run into an Elm tree.

But I heard a guy say a few years ago, he said when I held that first string down, I know, I I knew I'd gone into a new garden of experience with many flowers and fruits to be savored in the coming years until I left that garden to come to this wonderful program.

And God damn I wish I'd known that. All I ever learned was if you don't puke and you can breathe it makes you feel better.

That brother in the smoke on that ship. Nobody. I do smoke but they all smoke. So I smoked and puked and smoked and puked and one day I smoked and didn't puke and I smoked 2 1/2 to 3 packs a day every day for the next 40 some years

till I realized I was going bald.

I want to say something I said this before but I want to say one more time because I think about in California now I I haven't been able to smoke there but

part of my vocal cords for a different reason. But he said you get shortage of vocal cord you better not smoke anymore and I was able to stop. He had told me 20 times that I might die if I kept smoking and stopped me, but he implied I might go mute.

Now we're getting down to the facts.

But I

still a smoker at heart, and I I detest the way the state of California treats smokers. You can't smoke anywhere. You drive down the street and rain, as I did today, huddled outside the buildings.

Bunch of lepers that should not carry a belt. Unclean, unclean, unclean.

Not only that, but prying goofs feel they have the right to come up here and denounce you for smoking strangers.

They were doing that by last year of smoking a few of them, and I couldn't. I just wanted to go screw, leave me alone. I finally thought of an answer, and then I had to stop smoking. Because for any smokers in this room, I'm going to give you a tool that if you use it wisely, you'll be thankful to me. As long as you live,

I'll guarantee you that they will never ask you why you smoke again.

I think mom say

hurting a slope. Here's an answer that will stop. Why do I smoke?

I have a feeling that one of these days they'll find a market for phlegm and I'll be rich.

Have they never asked you again? I'll guarantee you, well,

just think there are probably 10,000 AA meetings going on in the world right now and you were at the only one that could have helped you at that point.

But I learned about other things later on. I got in another ship. I knew a little bit more that I get to be 17. I went to the Navy and

can the Navy as an enabled naval hospital up in Northern California. They're being sewed together and they pass throughout some tests. That has been good on tests because I read a lot. I did very well in this test. My dad is a teacher and they gave me a high school apartment, which shouldn't seem like anything worthwhile even what do I care, but it did shortly thereafter. So I went home after the war and they allowed me to go to college because I'm still a junior in high school. I was able to go to college with first class of veterans 1946,

which was very fascinating when I looked back at it, just seen normal at the time, but it was, unless you're old, you wouldn't remember it. But it was the one of a year, one year of its kind in the whole history. For the first time in ever, the last time ever, millions of people got out of the service all at once. And they all had the GI Bill and they could all go to school and many, many hundreds of thousands did. And they filled all the campuses. The colleges had higher buildings and bring people and they're just every other veterans have fun, Everybody had fun. And you go to freshman,

there'd be some old 50 year old ex Sargent sitting there

next to some little girl just out of high school.

Were were you in the war?

Yeah, you put out.

I fit right in and I won some trophy. I found some I could do well, and I found one some trophies. In that university

I met this girl who, God, she seemed exotic to me. She had cold black hair

and hard, hard to find that Wisconsin black flashy guys and just seemed exotic and she won my heart. And then she dropped the bomb. I'm a Catholic.

I thought, you can't go to hell over that. That fought against her, but she had me in her neck.

So we got married and got my grandmother went into a two year depression. Just, oh, Sundays, you're going to be so sorry.

And around the world, I became a sports writer, newspaper sports writer, which to this day is my favorite job I ever had. And, and then my wife began to show the manifestations of Catholicism that I didn't know about. And that really changed my life significantly. There's something you never tell little Lutheran boys. Or maybe they don't tell anybody, but if you marry a good Catholic girl,

you're about to have a big family,

whether you plan on it or budget for it or not.

I became a national distributor of small Catholics. Just

remember, remember talking about life, would think can we use birth control? She said

no. I think I look back, I don't know what I've done. She said yes, because it's hard to realize in this day and age of freedom how restricted everything was. Those years, you know, when I was in college, after being in the service, I don't believe I still had ever heard the word condom. Maybe I had, but I don't recall it. The real you might you don't even contact. You'd have some real bad guy

in a low bar might say something like

I got a rubber.

And even these guys wouldn't dare, wouldn't buy them because you'd read them to find somebody really depraved, just knit with depraved fool and and even they went and they'd be ashamed. They'd say, think, like,

give me some cigarettes and some rubbers.

And that's why so surprised you today, after all these years, things have changed so much. At least of the Rite Aid drug store by my house, these kids will say, hey, give me some condoms

and some cigarettes.

But I got I had to get better jobs. I got into advertising and public relations that worked around the country and I was very emotional. And that's considered a sign of creativity, at least to me. And I get good jobs at Goodwood City, get my job and bring my wife and children in and I get the job pushing the town. I would like the town anymore. And I get the beef with some of your drink too much because all these years I drank and smoked and did all the things I ever wanted to do.

And I get the beef or lose the job and go to Newtown. I had good

had good writing samples that could get jobs

and all these. I look back down

realize now and I've realized for some time since I've been at a ate what drinking meant to me. Then at the time, it didn't mean anything to me, just something I did, but I could look back and see what drinking does for people like me. I could really get a feeling of it seemed to me, I guess much of my life and occasionally now, but I'm not, but I'm not feeling well is that there's something missing in me and I don't I didn't know what it was, but I know that when people got close to me, they'd realize there's something missing in me

like me so well. So I'd keep him at a distance or is it a distance one you get kind of lonely is in there sometimes. So you have somebody get close and then they don't really like you. After a while they get a term and it wasn't till I was sober for some time and listening to many inventories that I begin to understand why I have traditionally

most of my life had difficulty in one to one relationships especially in those years. And the reason was quite simple. But you got nothing going inside of you. When you feel not a great deal of self worth, you must get your approval and worth from other people not even being aware of it. So that even being aware. But I fall into a series of demands on people that I've seen close to without. The demand is always the same. I can see in retrospect,

just treat me special all the time.

If you treat me special, I feel average. If you treat me average, I feel rejected. And there's nobody going to feature special all the time. After a while, that part of the acceptance is treating you normal. And when they start treating you normal, I knew they didn't like meaningful screw you, I didn't like you anyway, and on and on.

And drinking changed that. When I drink, I feel like I'm enough. I feel like I'm more than enough. How you doing baby?

What a nice feeling after being a wussy all day, to be something at night.

Much of my life I've been bothered by fear, all kinds of fears. But one of the great fears that people are going to see through me and see what a phony I am sometimes and that I'm not to get but slick as I pretend to be in all the things that go into that. And I just hate it when I when I drink

I often become fearless. I fight cops. I jump off balconies in the swimming pools. Don't have a swimming pool and I'll jump on your lungs. Shit make serious to me I'll just jump

and I who cares. One of my great problems in my life it is for most people are insecure. Feeling so sensitive all the time. Feeling so sensitive especially the way when feeling I can reject you. God I can't never could stand rejection. I can sense rejection when nobody else can see it. I can see it across the room. I can sense it in the air.

And

you know, I just, sometimes I hate to ask my wife to dance in those years, but I'm sober because she must say, oh, not now. I'm busy.

I discovered I had a few drinks. It's all different. The best way I don't describe it. I must have said it 1000 times. Still the best way I know. I'm sure it's happened to guys in this room. Sit at night, late at night in the bar, having a few drinks,

thinking about how they're screwing around. Donna Work

Brown knows who's getting ahead.

Men of integrity being held back,

and as you drink, perhaps you notice a miracle slowly take place of the corner of your eye.

Some obese gradually becomes beautiful.

I might decide that over to such an old queen at closing time,

imply there will be delights beyond her comprehension.

Like to join me in the old Chevy.

If she would say now, God, if I were sober, I'd just cut my wrist right there. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't even bother you. I didn't mean

but I've had a few drinks. It's all different.

I don't feel rejected, I feel sorry for her.

Too bad. Bitch, don't come begging tomorrow.

Well what a nice thing drinking is for people like who need it. Sometimes I drink too much that I get. Sometimes I act bizarrely if you say so when I still a kid. Almost 1949 I guess some friends of my family said class you'll get in trouble if he doesn't do something about that drinking when he's trying.

There's this new thing in town called AA apparently where they can cut down on their drinking. So you would like to go to. I said sure. I went to AID in 1949 and about 10 old fools sitting around in a room with Gray hair and burned out old boobs.

I mean, I'm sorry for him, but Jesus, you know,

I don't, I don't know what they said, but it seemed my memory is that they said things like I stayed drunk around the clock for 25 years. One day I walked through that door and

they told me to put the plug in the jug and I did.

And I've just never felt that God damn happy.

And even the dumb kids like me, there's a little credibility gap there's somewhere. Why don't you tell your face? You know,

when I hung around to eat for a while and I left again, I went to Aegon next year. I was working in a different city that he was on from then on,

where I drink too much. It wasn't very well known and so you could Alltel employers. It had a nice mystique said I'm going to try that new a a for my drinking good that that would connect it all right. So that give you at least a few weeks to discover where you're going to go next and give you a little cushion. But mainly I knew that my problem was not alcohol. It was what I'm drunk, but I'm not just not really alcohol. It's these other emotions, feelings of sadness and depression and remorse and regret and

sensitivity and ever thinking somehow rather, when I came off the assembly line, they were supposed to put some coating on me. So I don't feel things quite so much. But Sonny wants to said, hey, God, you know,

and I have all the emotions other people have, but they're just right on the surface and people can destroy me with a sentence.

You learn not to show it

now. What he said doesn't bother me,

but a new name is on my kill list for the rest of my life. I'm a bitch. I'll kill him someday.

And I

but drinking helped me get through a lot of things. Smoking, I'm great, had a pretty good reputation being intelligent and clever. And I went up and down, up and down to prison. One day I went down and I couldn't believe it. I went down and didn't come back up. And that can't happen to me because I'm too slick. I was in Dallas of all places,

had been working there at a big advertising engine. I went down and within matter of two or three weeks

they repossessed my car.

They asked me to leave the house, as in my wife was up as up a few days drinking. She took the children, sold the furniture and left with the children to go somewhere. I don't know. And all of a sudden I'm standing in this empty house with my pile of clothes and another closed dinner on me to them on parole from the state hospital. And again, to be long enough as the How can this be?

But I knew I had to get out of there. So I, I don't know if they still do it. But then they used to have driveways where you could rent it or give an organization in your car and you'd take move it to a city. And then if, if you were a driver looking for to get to that city, you go out there there, give you a couple bucks for gas and you could drive the cars your own. So I got a car for Los Angeles. I got as far as El Paso, got drunk with some old friends, got as far as Phoenix and got drunk and lost the car.

Jason, I knew it had to be there to arrange you 100 blocks, but I couldn't find

and I got crossed as angry and some guy bumped me in the street course. God, that good? He says take it easy, take it easy. Sure turned to be a plainclothesman, says you need to get cooled off. That's kind of cute. There's about 113 in Phoenix that day. And he threw me in jail overnight, which has been in jail overnight a lot. And then in the middle of the night I got so sick and I had to throw up and I threw up and turned out I threw up in a guy's bed and was in the toilet like I thought

he was gone. Though night I came out, felt better early done, went to sleep on the floor and he came back and found his bed full of vomit and we laying next to it. You think that's funny

when I get to the part where I get leukemia? You like that anyway? And he just kicked me, said damn you drunken bastard, and kicked my front teeth off.

And

God, I was one of the few nights I've ever glad that I've been in psychoanalysis. I've got several $1000 in psychoanalysis to find out the root of my problems. And I've got it had that morning because I was almost instantly able to identify his problem. Remember lying there thinking

this son of a bitch is overreacting,

but I don't want to say anything to make trouble.

I got that jail the next morning. I I didn't know what to do. I'd been in out of a for a year. So I know that if you really get up against it, you're really drunk. Go to an A club and pretend to be a new cover some you'll help you give something. So I found the a club there near downtown. I was staggering. There's an air club and sat there in some old lady said are you sick?

I watched the ride at an all time basis for you.

She said what can I do for you? I I need a few nights lodging at the 12th house. I could just have that I'd be I could make the program push this. Certainly she was some money. I run down the busty phone down there as fast as I could got from Los Angeles and didn't know it by Los Angeles. There was a guy in in KFWB radio station. They're named Ted Crullen, who's a big star at that time and I'd give him a start years before not to see him. I look terrible, but I said that I've been in a terrible accident.

I'm waiting for some my insurance could take care of my geez, can you give me can you give me some money? So sure Clancy. God, yes. I drank and run around town. There's crazy places that I was going funny. I ran out of don't want to come back to see him again. And while I said Ted, I needed more my next to have you. You become an old drunken mum. Get out of my station. Don't come back here. I was humiliated

and I was around. Somebody took me to the A A clubs. Maybe that's the way a A I said no.

It dropped me off in a club and I gave them erection of crap and went on my business. And one morning I found myself in a situation that the person in my background and intelligence and ability cannot be in. Two big guys were throwing me out of the midnight mission on Skid Row and say and stay out of here you damn bum. Now try to explain to him I'm not a bum. Three years ago, I was on the faculty of the University of Texas.

Ads that I helped write the old Elsie Del Mirage for the board and company

we're running that very week in life and time inserting post. I've had my picture in the New York Times for one of my achievements. How many people do you have had their picture in the New York Times for one of their achievements? But it's hard to explain these things in mid air.

And I stood outside that damn mission that morning. Cold drizzle. Not much cheaper than it is tonight. Except it was raining. Not raining so hard, but a cold drizzle

and I was sick and had a terrible feeling. I look back, I know that feeling is not. I've seen people who come in a after me identified. I couldn't identify because the feeling of not having a friendly direction. There's no place where if you go far enough, there's going to be somebody who's good. Glad to see you.

It just it's just no place to go. And you think, well, certainly on schedule. But I've seen that happen to people a lot of don't they, they burned everybody off. If some of God went through that morning and said,

slim, you're dying, you're down to about 125 lbs. You've lost your wife and children. You'll never see them again. You've lost your career. Once Upon a time they call you a boy genius. Now you can't even get a job washing dishes. You've lost your clothing must be in that car in Phoenix, wherever it is. But all you got that is what you got on. They're dirty and torn and wet. Even if you get some clothes, you can't get a job. You have no front teeth. You have like such a mess,

your mountain bloody and filthy.

You're an only child and your mother is not allowed to accept phone calls from you anymore because your stepfather is so tired of watching you manipulate her one more time for some money and make promises and break him and break her heart. He would rather have her think you were dead than the way you are now. You've been in and out of A for a lot of years being superior and smug and clever. Why don't you just go back to a A now one more time and admit your alcoholic and do something about it before you die?

And if some guy had said that to me and if I were in the mood to be honest, which I may or may not have been. Most people in this room who've been desperate know that honesty is not your number one priority. Priority is how do I get out of this or how to give them to leave me alone. But if I were in the mood, to be honest,

I'd have probably had to say pal. It isn't the way it looks.