Clancy I. from Venice, CA at Specific Group Las Vegas June 15th 2000

My name is Clancy Emmas Lund, and I'm an alcoholic.

I'm very glad to be here tonight. I had a hell of a time getting here. I was on, I was driving to the airport. I was at work today

down at Skid Row and I was driving to the airport and I got to Sepulveda to the better type part of town and I stopped in a few minutes. I stopped in in front of a liquor store to get it. I didn't got a coke can of coke and said

few words and came out got my car and drove away and got to the airport and I got to the airport and I realized well I'd been into having a coke somebody stole in my briefcase out of the car, which was alright except my ticket was in it and I so I went over the ticket counter. I didn't leave a hell of a lot of time and there's big long lines of people moped from other places. And

I convinced one of the clerks my case was different.

And I went through all kinds of procedures of I've got receipt here for a lost ticket

and I

kind of threatened the guy. I told him I said I've got boxer shorts on and I know how to use them,

but I finally just got on the plane the Nick of time, and we're glad. Then it turned out down to be Nick Diamond all the half hour late, so it was all right. But I'm glad to be here. Mom was glad to find places where people are enthusiastic about A, and I'm glad to see this meeting is off to such a good start. A fellow I sponsor, Johnny H, was here last week and told me what a good group it was, and I'm glad to be here.

I, I started a group similar to this a number of years ago with significantly less impact than you've had. I was about five years sober and I, I had a feeling that I'm ready to be in secretary of a group. I I've got a lot to offer

and the biggest group of Los Angeles that time was the Brentwood group and I, they selected their secretary through steering committee. A few people got together and made a decision

and I knew one of the people on this committee. So I I said, how about mentioning my name and get me a secretary?

He said OK, I'll do it. So the next day I came back. I said, well, did I get elected? He said, no, actually your name died for lack of a second.

I realized there was not a big tie to. And so a couple days later, somebody a week two later, somebody said Ohio St. Little Ohio St. meeting hall, the Tuesday night meeting just went bad. Why don't you you, why don't you start a meeting over there? I said yes, I will.

And I rushed over there and I rented the thing and I started meeting and I wrote a little form. I was working in advertising against you that time. So that afternoon I wrote a format, kind of just banged it up, which I thought would be a good idea. And I

had 9 or 10 tattered followers that we started a meeting there and had a speaker come in and 210 minutes speakers like we're having tonight. And at the end of the meeting, I gave a few announcements. I could just see the groundswell starting. The next week we had about 14 people. The next week we had about 19 people.

Then I think I offended some people. My announcements, we were back to nine people.

Yes. They weren't ready for truth, I'll tell you.

And at the end of the year, they had about 30 people there, maybe 30 people coming regularly, plus others. And I thought to myself, you know, a lot of groups would have an election at the end of the year. But this would really be unfair to these people because they, they're good people, but they don't have, they don't have the focus I have.

So I decided to just quietly sacrifice myself and I, I stayed on the secretary. At the end of two years we went through about 60 people and move it doing quite well

and I thought Kenny we should have it well not is like dealing with an emerging African nation. I mean they they know the words, but they don't quite have it here yet. And I

and I,

I thought I'll, I don't care. I don't care how inconvenient is to me. I'm going to stay on the secretary.

I had two or three months later, I was sitting in the back in the kitchen, Ohio St. I selected a bad speaker so I would sit in the kitchen not listening. I was reading a book or something and

some guy came up to me whose life I had saved, incidentally.

I said, are we ever going to have a election around here? I said, why? The group is growing, we're doing good. We got the best traditional observations in the country. We're doing fine. Why do you have on the election Force What? Don't be upset, he says. It's just that people in other groups, Are you ever going to have an election? If we had an election and voted, you win, then nobody could say a word. That's it.

That's a good thought.

So I had an election and they swept me out of office.

I didn't. I didn't care. I still get the ballots home.

I was 1965

Over the years I you know, I'm no longer the secretary. You'll have that feeling someday. I I'm the founder and to

tell you what a good idea to establish that meeting. Even after I got out of office it really took off

and now it's around 1000 people every Wednesday night. Was there last night the largest and most successful group in the world I guess. And I'm not the secretary, I don't care.

But I sit in the middle. I'm the founder and during the meeting I give little signals.

Nobody pays the attention, but it cheers me up.

And at the end of the meeting, I stand in the back and I was relatively well dressed because I'm coming from work like I am tonight. And people bring newcomers up to me. They say this is Clancy Eye. He flies all over the world and talks in other countries and he started this group. He's been sober well over 40 years and

and they said, oh,

and I try to maintain a certain persona. I say hello there, welcome to our group. I I hope you brought your problems tonight. Many folks leave them here.

Sometimes you can spot diabetics. They go into a coma

once in a while some boob will come up who doesn't know who I am apparently.

Hey, buddy, can you give me a ride back over to the VA Psycho ward?

And the great thing about Alcoholics and honors, that is always such a wondrous thing, which I'll talk about in a minute, is that you can think whatever you want to. You never have to worry about what you're thinking. You could stare right in his beady little eyes and think, what give you a ride to the VA Psycho? Or my God, there's 1000 people in this room who need action desperately. There's one who is given all year after year after year.

I'm a vessel that's been tipped and dripped out of. I'm not just a guy standing around looking good. I'm Clancy I from up in the sky,

helping people throughout the world.

Now I can think that as long as I say OK

and the.

And the miracle of Alcoholics Anonymous is after you drop the puke off at the VA and I drive home, my head says, oh, Clancy, is there no end to your goodness?

Reassuring.

At the Pacific Group we bought a little thing called the poop sheet, which has thoughts and ideas and so on. And yesterday they had a good little thing and they said many newcomers wonder what structure is Russell, what the structure of the group. The best single structure is doing what you ought to do

when you ought to do it, whether you feel like it or not. That is almost a cornerstone of sobriety in my life and it took me many years to achieve it. Incidentally, I want to thank our 10 minute speakers who did an excellent job. Almost made me hate to get up here. They they were both so verbal and,

well, actually, I dozed off. I don't look.

I mean, I, I got up early this morning. I no

really are fine and and I

several people have mentioned tonight that they saw this A&E special Monday night. Don't don't take up a love offering.

I had to pay extra for this second ticket anyway.

Yeah,

but I haven't seen it yet. So I really, but I know, I know about my my wife told me, but I haven't seen it because I was up an idle while talking to a painting up there, you know,

but I hope to see it this weekend.

But it's an interesting thing because, you know, two or three months ago the World Service office called me from New York and said they're doing a special on a a but would you mind, would you mind being interviewed in Los Angeles? No underwind. And so they came up and set up at Ohio St. That building is the whole South side of there's a lot of windows and glass. And they waited till the sun was pouring through the afternoon and they sat me in front of it. So all you could see is a silhouette, I guess.

And they set up the camera. And I'm a strong believer in anonymity because of my work. I'm on television a lot and I'm in the newspapers a lot, but not as never as a member of a A because that's absolutely verboten, I believe.

But you know, but they I knew this was going all over the country due to thousands and thousands of homes. And as he started to roll that camera, I just had a terrible temptation just kind of go.

I fought it off, but it was nipping tuck.

But it's interesting you ask me some questions that apparently they didn't use on the air. They used some other schmoozing. I did, but the questions he asked me I thought were very impressive. I didn't get very good answer to I guess which why they didn't use them. But he said questions first question you asked me use. You asked the questions puffball questions like, well, how many chapters do you have and how many people are there? He said. Why is it that some Alcoholics can get sober without a A and others have to have a A?

What's the reason for that?

Good question. And it is a very good question. That's A and it's quite obvious that's true. Most of us know of or have heard people I've heard of my families have called more attention people who used to drink terribly and are now sober and doing so, pardon me, doing something of their life. And even when Bill Wilson wrote this book, he knew there was people who seem to be able to get sober, seemed to didn't need this stuff and he didn't know how to describe them

describe us. So again and again throughout the book, he says Alcoholics of our type. He doesn't have the other types are, but there's Alcoholics of our type and and nobody can really understand it because it's quite obvious. There are people who are apparently Alcoholics. And when they're when their security is threatened sufficiently, there may be a loss of a job where their family leaves them or a death in the family or something. They suddenly realize and they say I quit, to hell with this. And they don't ever drink again.

Then there are other people who seem to be mentally and physically addicted, and they are the people Friedman centers were originally set up to help to because they needed medical withdrawal. And at each step of their withdrawal, they're pointing out what's happening to them and they get off. They say, man, I'm, I'm off of this stuff. This is ruining my life.

Now. There aren't very many of these people, but there's enough of them to make an impact. By far the most, the most numerous type of alcoholic or Alcoholics of our type, Alcoholics of our type are characterized, we're very similar to the others we drink. And there's perhaps our security is threatened by the loss of a job or a family leaving, or a death in the family, or something that really says my security and I quit.

But sooner or later, I must always begin to drink again,

or I go to a treatment center and get medically withdrawn. And I've learned my lesson and I pray for forgiveness and I quit.

But sooner or later, I drink again. And we are the type of people who baffle science and baffle medical people and baffle religion and baffle our families and baffle there goes a couple of now

baffle people.

We baffle people. And most of people in this room have had that experience. I'm sure I've had it a number of times. I'm sure some of you've had it

of having your family or someone close. You say, oh, how could you?

You were starting to do good again and the children were back and you had your job and now you've ruined it all again. How could you? In the variations of that, I've heard that. I'm sure you've heard it too. And they act as though I know an answer and I don't know an answer. And I'm baffled and frustrated and angry. So my only answer to that is leave me alone, God damn it. Leave me alone because I don't know any answer. And that the type of alcoholic that

through centuries have baffled people and created heartache and left a swath of destruction.

And as baffling to themselves as they are to the people around

now. I didn't have a chance to give a big answer like that to the guy 'cause he didn't want a big answer like that. I just had to tell him. Well, there are some people who seem to be able to stop drinking when their security is threatened, and a great many are not. And the sad thing is that many who are not

begin by thinking they're the ones who can. I was reading chapter 3 tonight. All of us have come to think we can handle this or find a way to beat it, and people are sort of driven to the wall because we haven't found a way to treat it. Then he asked me another interesting question.

Is it OK? The people that go to a A, how come some of them can stay sober and some of them can't? They're all hearing the same thing. And that's really true. If you've been here very long, you know that to be accurate, if this front row here, these ten people or so all were newcomers tonight at their first meeting, and they went to the same meetings, had the same sponsor, read the same book, did the same things.

In a few couple weeks, a couple would be gone.

Pretty soon a couple more would be gone. Maybe at the end of the year a couple will be here to take a birthday cake, and no one could tell which one of the two would be here. Sometimes the one seems to be most earnest are the ones that are gone, and the ones that are selling and bitter stay around and are transformed. Who can explain that?

How do you explain such a thing? Why do some people stay sober and some people don't in the same program? And when I'm trying to give them an answer, I think I had to think about my own life. I hate pain. I am a hedonist of the first water. I hate physical pain and I hate mental pain. And so I, I have to wonder why after being in great pain and being brought to Alcoholics Anonymous,

why did I slip year after year after year after year after year after year after year

after year after year. The worst years of my life came after I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and good people tried to help me. And for my life is kind of a high bottom drunk. And then I was a medium bottom drunk for a few years up and down and and finally at the end I was the last day I drank, I was two guys threw me out of a Skid Row mission and said, 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 Delmaras for the Borden Company. We're running that very weak in life and time and certain 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? The New York Times for one of their achievements? But it's hard to explain these things in mid air.

I stood outside of that damn old mission on a cold morning in October,

end of October, raining, slightly sick, desperate. I had a terrible feeling. I didn't know anybody in Los Angeles, one person I guess, and a terrible feeling. I didn't know what that feeling was. So later I heard the guy telling me in his inventory. He explained that feeling. Oh, that's the feeling I had. And it's the feeling I'm sure many people in this room have had because you don't have to be on Skid Row. I've seen guys who are still making $1,000,000 a year have the same feeling. The feeling that there is no friendly direction.

There's no direction, if you follow it far enough is going to be someone laughing and happy to see you.

You just have burned. Oh, here comes that son of a bitch again. And they may not say it, but you see it in their eyes. And we all know that site.

And I stood up there. I, I thought, this can't be happening. This must be a dream. Pretty soon my wife's gonna shake me and say, Clancy, come on, you're kicked up all your covers. Get up and go to work. But it wasn't. And I just didn't know what to do. I if some old guy would come up with me that morning and said, hey, Slim, you know, you're dying. You're down to 120 some pounds. You've lost your wife and children. You'll ever see them again.

You've lost your career. It used to be considered a boy genius, the guy said.

Now you can't even get a job washing dishes. You've lost all your clothing except what you got on. Apparently lost it in Phoenix when they arrested you and threw you in jail, where the guy kicked your teeth out. And I knew that happened 'cause my lips were swollen, my gums were bleeding, And you know, you've lost your home, You have no place to go. Your only child and your mother is no longer allowed to accept phone calls from you up in northern Wisconsin 'cause your stepfather's so tired of watching you calling her up and manipulating her and give her a sad story

more bucks. Now you've been going to A off and on for 10 years and you think you're awful smart and you never thought A was enough for you. Could you spend your money in psychoanalysis, like many discovered things and understandings and and I why did you just for God's sakes, go back to a one more time and admit you're an alcoholic, something you've never done?

And if a guy said that to me, and if I were to mood, to be honest, we may or may not have been, I'd have had to say it isn't the way it looked, pal. It isn't the way it looks. I know I'm took terrible,

but I'm not really an alcoholic. Not really. I know there's something wrong with me. I know there's something wrong with me since I was a little boy. I'm not quite good enough somehow, and I get afraid a lot and there's something missing in me. I don't know what's missing in me, but people get close to me and they apparently can spot it. They don't tell me what it is, but when people get close to me, they apparently don't like me very much anymore. I've never been able to successfully maintain any kind of relationships or any kind with anybody to speak of.

I found out later why that was

and you may be having some trouble with your relationships. And if you're the way I was insecure and frightened and lonely and different,

I discovered that when you're that way approval, you have both very little or no self approval. So whatever approval you have has to come from outside. And so all I ever ask of people who have long term relationship with or close relationship, all I ask of you is just treat me special all the time.

I don't consciously do it, but I did it again and again because if you start treating me special, I feel average. If you treat me average, I feel rejected.

When you start treating me special, I'm gone. Average, I'm gone. So I'll reject you before you reject me. I'm going to protect myself. But I didn't know what to tell. All I knew is that everything I like, reverse Midas effect, everything. I touched her to crack somehow, and I don't know why. All I ever wanted to be was a good guy. And I spent thousands of dollars in psychoanalysis and I discovered reasons why I was this way. It was it made me feel better. You know, I I discovered I'd been repressed as a child by the Norwegian Lutheran Church.

You talk about the Holocaust. Let me tell you what tougher this was. Tough

discovered a lot of things. I read books, I read Nietzsche. I loved Nietzsche, you know, our German philosopher, and I just loved because he was such a cynic and such a he knew the establishment was rotten and he just attacked them and, and I really identified, it really hurt me. And I discovered he died in the insane asylum, I think.

So I studied a little more closely. I discovered he really wasn't crazy. He had syphilis. Just a good time guy like me and that's all.

Well,

but you're a Norwegian Lutheran. There aren't very many good times either, I'll tell you.

I think I met this the last time I was here, but I might as well tell you again 'cause I like to hear it.

I'm getting older, though. I'm, you know, I turned 70 a couple years ago and I'm still in good shape. When I play ball and I still do things, I feel good, great, Still go to work every morning. But when you turn 70 you have a feeling you are on the home stretch. No matter how you slice it.

Every day you look in the old bits and am I in that? Some bits.

But my doctor started giving me iron tablets when I was 70, and that's kind of made me feel better.

And then a few months ago, you know, because I'm just a human being,

I tried a Viagra

and I had no idea. If you're taking iron tablets, you're not supposed to take Viagra. And now every four hours that face north

Well, the

there's a guide where I work who even more coarse than I am. He's AI just take an eighth of a Viagra every morning. Why is what good is that? He said. Keeps me from peeing on my shoes

so

but I all my life I've been trying to find the equalizer and the equal. I found that when I was 15 years old I ran away from home because nervous and upset irritable early the Second World War and I hitchhiked to San Francisco. A skinny little guy, pimply faced, dumb lied my age guy showed me how to do that, got Siemens papers without any kind of a test. And the day I got San Francisco, I was out of on a ship going to the South Pacific.

And on that ship,

I think about that sometimes. Don't tell you something, it makes you.

You can't hardly pick up the paper today. Today on the plain reading,

but children being molested by adults of various kinds. We just arrested a janitor in the Los Angeles this morning for molesting a bunch of general all of us. You just go down all. I don't know if it always go down all the time at once, but I look back, I think he checked all the way across the country. Dumb little kid got on shift with the scum of the earth. All the good guys that go in the Navy. These were the scum. Filthy, rotten, dirty people.

Many of them Catholic, I might say.

Or so I was led to believe by my grandmother.

And I never was molested once.

It makes you feel unattractive

anyway

on that ship. One of the things that happened to me,

some guys got me to take a drink of whiskey and I I didn't want it because I, I really was raised in a strict religion. I didn't want it, but they intimidated. They didn't intimidate. How about you think you're mad for don't start. Yes, I am.

I took a drink and it made me throw up and they laughed at me and I hated that.

So, you know, I don't know. To this day, I don't know any feeling that's worse than public humiliation. You know, it's just terrible. I I just felt so bad. These guys, I couldn't hit them. I thought I had a gun. I'd have shot them. I thought later, one thing I might have done, I'm glad I didn't think of it. And I said, hey, you lean over. Yeah, take that.

Just keep one of your life.

But all the way across the Central Pacific, I every day when nobody's going to sneak in that bottle and take a drink of it, I just hated it. I just throw up and have to wipe it up.

We're coming into Pearl Harbor. They're still digging up the ships and and down there's the day before my 16th birthday. I remember that taking a drink of that crap. It has stayed down and then I couldn't breathe.

Oh God, what am I going to do? Then all of a sudden something strange happened. I found myself feeling significantly better

and and that was the first time in my life I ever felt the way men looked.

It was a great feeling. A couple day later they took me into Pearl or Honolulu and filled me full of beer and got me drunk and I threw up. But it's fun and I I didn't become a raging alcoholic. And just as when you're a teenager, you got those rights, you know, on that ship going to be my family smoke. They all smoked. So I smoked and puked and smoked and puked the world. I smoked and didn't puke. I learned how to lust effectively. I mean, don't misunderstand me. Even at the age of 15 in Eau Claire, WI had sex.

But I'd been apprehensive and I'd been afraid, and I'd been alone.

At least these guys taught me you could do it with people

and later on I want another ship in the Aleutian Islands get a little less dumb. And I went in the Navy and the worst and it went to was up Northern California. The hospital being sewed together and they gave pass around some tests. I wasn't good on tests. They give me a high school diploma. I'm still a junior in high school in Eau Claire, WI. And after the war I went to college first class of veterans 1946. I don't know if anybody here is old enough to remember that, but that really was exotic because only time in American history, millions of people all got out of college at once or got out of the service,

had the GI Bill, and a lot of went to college just for something to do for a while. And so the college would jam folding and renting buildings, and you'd go to ink pressure in English class, and there'd be some hard, grizzled old Marine Sergeant about 50 sitting next to some little honey just on a plum bum. High school.

Are you in the war? Yeah. Do you put out?

Yeah, just

sometimes they said yes.

Well,

but I got married in college. I met this girl with black hair and I didn't even care. She was a Catholic, and my grandmother went into a fit about it. But I loved her. And I know in the world I became a sports writer. I was thinking about that last weekend. I was at the 50th reunion of my graduating class up in Wisconsin, and I was so happy to see a lot of those people looking bad,

looked old and feeble. I'm doing good

for someone looked better than I did, hurt me a lot. But anyway, it is amazing to go back to your 50th college reunion because some of these kids, one of those owned a big stockbroking firm in New York, would have been Under Secretary of Defense. And these boobs, you know, just seems so funny that these kids have to

but anyway, around the world and became a sports trader. My wife began having children like Catholic women do just incessantly. I began a national careers dropping little Catholics all over the world here. So I had to get better jobs. I got an advertising and public relations did some good jobs in all these years. I drank and all these years I I worked and I drank too much. Sometimes they sent me to a A briefly. They had no answer for me when I was a young man.

I was 22 when I went to my first meeting. And that doesn't seem very young in a A now. But then no one had heard of anybody within 20 years of it, that state. And I don't know what they said, but I'm sure if you're new tonight, you'll hear, you think you're hearing us at some of the meetings, you know, just seemed to me, they said things like I stayed drunk around the clock for 20 years. One day I walked through that door,

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

And I've just never been so goddamn happy.

If I went to a from then on, off and on, I did drink quite a bit and I got in trouble and,

and I went to psychoanalysis. I did a lot of things, but I always knew if I could just find the thing that would change that balance within me, that imbalance I always felt and the imbalance seemed to be getting worse. That went along and I didn't know what to do with it. I, I tried everything I knew within power because I, I never wanted to be a bad guy. Not the very many people do, but unfortunately people like me seem to have two speeds. Very good and to hell with it,

and you stay as good as long as you can and then to hell with it. You stay bad as long as you can, and then you got to get good.

There's just never any rest anywhere.

And little by little I went to hell. And one morning I found myself standing in front of a Skid Row mission and there was no explanation for

and it was raining and I wanted to get out of the rain. And I knew that someone had told me there I'd someone had dropped me off there a couple days before. I hadn't been in town about a week or two of an A, a club. But I don't know if you'd go back to around those a A clubs. You could hustle a little bit sometimes because they're simpletons to like get a get catch a break somewhere. And I walked out to this club. You're 72 blocks. That's a long way in the ring. I found out where it was and I got there. It's the same old crazed fanatics of their steps and they're meaningless. Turn your life over to God.

Work the stuff, do the thing. I know very few things more tedious to an intelligent non alcoholic slipper

than being surrounded by a A fanatics. Jesus, they're a terrible bunch. And I hung around there and I

at night there had a meeting that I ate about 8 lbs of cake. That's all it was, no tea for. I went to this meeting, somebody talked about gratitude and how much puked it back up. And that night they let me split an abandoned car in their parking lot in the garage. Isn't that something? Five years ago, out of hired and fired these pukes and now they're putting me in an abandoned car.

Someday I'll be on top and I'll come back and buy this club and I'll have their ass. I'll tell you next morning I went in there having a spiritual meeting. I almost puked together and just this went on for days. It kept raining. My God,

I thought, maybe I'm dead. Maybe my grandmother's right. This is hell for marrying a Catholic. Just day after day

of people telling me about the program and I had no idea that would be my sobriety VIX. I didn't want it to be had no intention for it to be.

I've often thought, you know, as a mini told us tonight, what happened to the amount of truth for her kneeling by her bed after trying many of these things. And I,

I'll tell you, there are authorities. I'll tell you who authorities are. They're people who come from far away. When we have conventions in California, we bring people from New York and Virginia, Florida. When they have conventions in New York, they bring people from California, even from Las Vegas.

Yeah,

I'm kind of in a minor authority in Toronto.

I go there every year and every morning on this one day and Saturday I talk on something like the history of a or the traditions or some other adult subject. After there's a question and answer session. Then at night I tell my story and of all those things I like to do, I think I like to question and answer part better because I've, I've found out that I seem to have a natural facility for weaving a, a tapestry of verbal BS. Well, I think of the answer.

Few years ago I was out there talking. A woman makes his Clancy.

I have a question if you don't mind. I wouldn't like one of your long answers.

I thought I had. Somebody ought to go back and slap her. I didn't say it. She's every year we hear about how long you slipped, how terrible it was and how long you've been sober, how wonderful it is. What was the difference? What was the dividing like

and what happened? Just tell me in a sentence or two, if you will.

You can't answer that in a sentence or two. That's ridiculous. That's just stupid. I, I didn't say this either. I said I it's rather complex

topics to do that. I thought to myself, I'd like to find out where you live and come on, smash your face

because it threw off my rhythm.

I still have to think about that, that dad is taking a shower before the meeting. And the answer came, at least an answer came. And I didn't like is that crazy goofy little answer. I, you know, I like answers that have a little body, a little panache, a little zip. I'd like to have the newcomers tonight leave and say, did you hear what? Clancy said.

Wet birds don't fly at night.

Yes, but did you hear what he said after that?

Never mind if the horse is blind, keep loading the wagon.

Now. These answers mean nothing, but they give the newcomer hope.

The answer I thought of the next shower was this was the first time I did things that I thought were demeaning and stupid and beneath me and I didn't do because I wanted. I did to hang around that club. So I would have to leave there till I get on my feet. And I found somehow my resistance was down. I mean, for example, we have Styrofoam cups here. Those days, nobody had Styrofoam cups. Everybody had porcelain cups. After every meeting they had to wash dishes.

You without the teeth? Would you wash dishes tonight

if I had any zip left? I said no, I don't last, but I found myself in

You want to help clean up the hall?

I felt like Quasimodo. They couldn't tell me to ring the bell. Next

I lived in abandoned car and I hung around that club. And when you do that, they want you. Eventually I stayed sober for a few days

and that's a great involved group. Better get a sponsor. Burning a sponsor. And I'd had sponsors. Now, if you're new tonight, let me warn you. Sponsors all seem so nice and pleasant, but they will eventually stick their nose in your business.

And I used to see this movie actor come in. He was a character actor, and he he always played loving roles. I'll get some money from this old jerk and I'll get out of town, get some front teeth, get the clothes, get back to an advertising agency and make my move. And I said, Bob, would you be my sponsor? Said yeah, but I want you to do what I say.

Sure Bob. I want sobriety at an all time basis.

I look back, he should have won the Academy Award for every loving role he ever played because they were far into his nature.

He was a right wing fascist, a a pig. Just the worst.

I I used to wonder why would I take crap like that from this guy? Because I never took crap from anybody. That's my stock and trade all my adult life. Don't give me any crap. I know how big jobs, big advertising energy. Somebody gives me some crap. Get yourself another boy. I'm gone. I don't know how many bars. You don't seem to be so much. You don't think so? Son of a bitch. Try me

and I get knocked on my can a lot,

but they know I'm tough.

After I sober, I learned why I always had to be so defiant. Took me a long time to understand that. You know why? Because all my life I secretly knew that I was a weakling and I hate it. I despise being a weakling inside. And no one's ever going to find out if I got to fight every night and if I got to quit jobs, whatever I got to do, you're going to find out I'm a weekly. And the odd thing about a A is this. You stay here long enough and do some of this junk

and eventually you become strong

and then you can afford to be weak,

but you can't afford to be weak when you're weak. Funny paradox, but why would I take that crap? Because he seemed, he was the first person I ever met that seemed to understand what I felt. He would tell me things. I say yes, I know what he's. I believed that he knew how I felt. Now what difference would that make? The difference is what makes Alcoholics Anonymous work. I've been getting advice and in all my life

but it's just information because I know you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

You may for you and people like you, but not for me. I have problems you don't even understand.

And this guy seemed to know how I was feeling, and therefore what he told me was no longer just information, it was advice. And begrudgingly I'd try little bits of it and little bits of it. And yet instead of running away, I'd get little jobs and he would give me ways to. I finally got a little job when I was two years old, but I kept for a while. And as a writer I've never had. I've been a busboy and a dishwasher and just a lot of things.

Back in my field and almost didn't last, but he taught me some of the great spiritual lessons of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, some great spiritual lessons are prayer and meditation. Certainly. Let me tell you some others do what you said you would do. Be where you said you would be when said you would be there. Don't take out your hostility on people who can't answer back. Children, waiters and waitresses.

Kids, employees on days you know you're having a bad day,

that damn mouth because you can just cut people and ruin relationships and never know what happened and on and on. And I finally, I didn't learn them well, but I learned enough to hold that job and I finally went out sober four years. I finally got some front teeth, but nobody that medical corporation didn't know I didn't have front teeth occurred by lip like this for two years.