Pacific Group in Los Angeles, CA December 2nd 1998

Oh, good evening, everyone. My name is Jerome Scott and I'm a very grateful and very fortunate member of Alcoholics Anonymous. And above all, it's definitely good to be here at the Pacific Group once again. I assure you I was not always invited back anywhere. I guess some of my friends here can definitely relate to that because see I'm not a has been, I'm a never was

and alcohol took me to a point in life with getting up. Just didn't cross my mind

and only drank the fruit for steak either. I passed out, blacked out, fell out of my mouth. Would encourage someone to knock me out

drunken disorderly wherever I went.

And what separates me from those so-called social drinkers of problem drinkers is the fact that I drank for the effect from day one. In the summer of 1962, going to my first high school dance to hear Hunter Hancock spend some records up at Jefferson High School. Him and Omar was going to get down and four of my best friends from Vacation Bible School.

Said there's old Joe the wino, let's get something to enhance this evening with and I didn't want to seem like no chomp no poop, but so I went along with the program.

Oh. Joe asked us. What are you young men having tonight?

And I must have heard it from some movie. Whatever you drinking Joe

and old Joe got my favorite drink, Excel. Oh white pork right off the top of the shelf with dust on the bottom. It wasn't a great minute. It was all chemical

and I too have experimented with some of the controlled substances, Anatol, Female Barbital, true and all or anything at all.

But I am extremely grateful to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the principles and the structure that is is provided for my life because I'm from South Central Los Angeles, right here in LA. And it happened. If it had not been for Alcoholics Anonymous,

either been dead, locked up or insane

because for some particular reason don't have the complete answer.

I was always this quiet, insecure, awkward, irritable, angry, frustrated young man. But that Saturday evening, that Friday evening, drinking that wine, it mellowed me out and I knew three things. The first time I took a drink,

I knew I could act, I knew I could perform, and it didn't matter what anybody thought about. I snapped my finger and said, where's this stuff been all my life? I have found the magic elixir

didn't have any kind of idea about any spiritual awakening, but it took me closest to Nirvana that I had ever been.

But later on that night, I was going to find out that crucial ingredient

that was going to set my faith until I got in contact with you people because I got this old man, my father

who didn't play.

He was one of those strict disciplinary. You couldn't come to him and say, oh, I found something and you know, my buddy gave it to me or he loaned it to me or you didn't play that. He said, well, take me to where they loaned it and gave it to you, you know,

And I come home off of that wine and my good buddies from Vacation Bible School plot me up on my father's front door,

strategically leaning on one shoulder because they had the inability to stand up,

run the doorbell and laugh.

And I don't know if you have any

other siblings like I do. I have an older brother that I had a desire to kill

for years. He had embarrassed me, ridiculed me,

shame me,

abuse me and that line told me when he said look at the little chump, he's drunk. I say tonight is tonight.

Oh, it was a rumble in that little old 12 by 12 room. And I fell on my mom's favorite coffee table, smashed it, and she rushed in from the kitchen. And she knew that was going to be violence in mayhem

because soon as the real man saw the little man and the real man's house intoxicated

could seem like I said, my old man didn't

take no minutes. And they tried to get me into the garage and I hide me under the house, do something with me, but that wine would not allow me to to leave that room.

And my old man heard the commotion from the back of the garage, wherever he was. And he came into that little old room and he saw his oldest son

NSA intoxicated state from a distance and he needed confirmation. He said boy come here

and he says you look like you've been drinking and he says blow your breath in my face and see you have sponsors when you out there in the world, don't you? And my sponsors had told me if I took zins in and certs it would deter the aroma of wine.

They lie

because my old man didn't say go to your room the next morning or where did you get this? We'll discuss this tomorrow. He read back all 62 of him 230 lbs and put all the thrust and power into his fists and knocked me back into the chair

and didn't a teardrop. I say you Marlboro Man for real.

And all I can think is I take this onslaught and this vicious beating was I could act, I could perform and it don't matter what anybody think about it. And under the influence you don't feel no pain. My faith was filled. I said for rich or for poor, better off for worse, through good times and bad to death, do us for it.

Serious commitment. I ain't giving up my wine for nothing because ain't nothing on earth ever made me feel like good

and not feel that intense fear and loathing in self condemnation that I had always felt.

Because really I just lived in total fear. Had no idea why I was afraid, but I was just afraid.

And for those brief few moments in that oblivion that alcohol would cause, I was all right but my friend was going to turn on me like a vicious dog.

Because in the short time oh man put me out of his house. Because every time I got a chance, I got drunk. And every time he talked me, he punched me out.

And he saw these vicious beatings was going to deter my attitude and my behavior. And he pointed out the fact one particularly evening sitting at his kitchen table, he said, look, son, I have paid the utilities in this home. The mortgage is placed so we have a place to stay before foreclosure come. I have provided food for the family. And that's when he got real incensed and angry and he stood up and I thought he was going to hit me without any alcohol.

And I was a little concerned.

He said you haven't contributed anything to these endeavors and you are unable to follow my rules and regulations. He says there's the dough, let it hit you with a good Lord, split you and let him let it hit you on the way out.

See, I didn't have any incubation period in my drinking because I left his house,

arrogant, self-centered, got a Safeway paper sack and my only suit from dollars and dollar blue on blue pin strike and went to my chosen profession of being a hustler.

I see there are no hustlers in the room, but I I'm quite sure there are some Incognito. Let me explain what a hustler is from South Central LA. He sell whole blood every 58 days, plasma twice a week. He's sleeping old parked cars and under people's house, and he steals the newspapers in front of the Greyhound bus station on San Pedro in Los Angeles St.

in Salim on Spring Street and Broadway over there like he got a paper route.

And when he gets hungry,

he's too prideful to go stand in the mission and hear a sermon. He'd rather go and dig out of a trash can because of his independence.

And I tell you, those streets will chew you up and spit you out.

I was on and off downtown on Skid Row for I don't know how long

and I get sick,

I get anemic from selling plasma and whole blood, and I show up in the neighborhood with a coat too long to be short and too short to be long.

I was a pan handler and I would Panhandle in front of the market with my mom shopped and her friend shop and all the members for my mom and dad's church. And I know I would see some of these good, upstanding citizens coming to get their groceries

and I give me a strategic location

and see I was a pan handler who was arrogant.

I didn't use some of the softer Polish

salesman techniques some of the pan handlers used today, like when you get refused. Oh, thank you, have a blessed day. Oh, I had some blessings for him all right. Oh, I bless them and ran rave. Oh, I don't know how. I don't know how many times I've been arrested. I just stopped counting because the police before it was cruel and unusual punishment to put people in the Paddy wagon. They used to just

I've known all three ships and they just say get in Jerome

647 public intoxication, a danger to himself and others.

Like I said, I getting so bad shape and one of those church members would go and tell my dad or tell my mom. We saw Sonny down there on the corner, Miss Scott and he looks so bad. He looks like he's dying on his feet.

And that was just tear at their heart

because see, my mom and dad, although they were poor, they were hard working people. My mom, my father and my mom had seven kids and my father helped raise my mom's three sons from a previous marriage when she came to California. So it was ten of us on and off in that house. And I'm my dad's oldest son.

That was just kill him to know that I was up there

crazy and raising out of my mind and there asked me to come back and he had plead with me

with that fatherly love son, how do you do that? Why don't you come on in here,

straighten up, fly right and turn over New leaf. And I promise him, Dad, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna check in the school. I'm gonna give me a job. I ain't gonna hang out on the streets. I don't do it no more. I'm tired, I'm sick. I'm hungry.

That'll last for about 3 weeks

in that insidious idea about that first drink and I'd be off to the races.

And that last time

they put me out was in 1969. I had checked in the junior college, doing great.

Dumb person, never been dumb. Maybe a little inconsistent but not dumb.

I was doing well and I decided to go to a party with some friends and these friends had stolen a burglar alarm truck.

I'm too cool to ride in the burglar truck. I refuse.

But the back door, that van swung open and they were smoking some weed in there and one guy had a half a gallon, a excel of white porch.

And he said, you know, you want some of this,

come on in here.

Next thing I know, they were stomping me in the pavement. Beat me unmercifully. I

and my friend was telling me to run and when I'm in a fight, like I said, you could grease the blow floor, get a bad stick. I ain't running because I have to stand my grounds even if I'm losing. It's an honor thing.

Beat me to a pump. I ain't running. You ain't gonna say I ran.

Oh, man, I was getting a bad end of it, but that wasn't the end. The police came as I was getting up in this drunken stage and I was

hit me and I landed on top of the hood or I jump.

Now I assure you the police car has a different sound going into high pursuit when you own it rather than in it.

They flew by the liquor store and everybody was saying oh look at Sonny on top of the car, lights flashing. Only thing I can think of that I can never be cool again.

And the police gave me a spiritual wake and they beat me real bad. It beat me real bad.

Lock me up for felonious assault against the police officer one more time. My dad had to put his house up, get a lawyer, Get Me Out, and when I got on probation, I just went back downtown

and I was there until 1972.

About this time of the year

my brother was getting married,

came on

from college to Mary is our

high school sweetheart

and he had told my mom and dad since he was getting married in the church he wanted his oldest brother

to be the best man.

So they came downtown and they got me.

I hadn't bathed in days. I'm talking about dirt was caked on my feet because somebody had took my shoe.

You know, I had long since knew what underwear were

and they clean me up

and I was able to

stand up and be my brother's best man. Was one thing I didn't like about that though. When they got their marriage license, there used to be people from the Newlywed game and the Dating game down at the Hall of Records. That's where they would recruit,

uh, contestants for the TV show. And my brother and my new sister-in-law thought it would be a good idea

for them to recruit me to be on the newly on the dating game.

You know,

they actually call,

and it was kind of insulting

for them to ask me to come down and audition for the dating game in the state I work

because it didn't take no genius to recognize that I was a poor candidate visually for the dating game.

I didn't have no teeth, you know,

I didn't have no clothes.

I was two weeks off a Skid Row,

definitely didn't have any social skills,

you know, and I got mad at him.

But what's something good about that? After wedding my mom wanted me to talk to her supervisors husband who was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous

and she insisted that I talked to him before I got drunk or I shouldn't drink at the wedding,

at the reception. And I've talked to this man and he was telling me his story

about Alcoholics Anonymous and how it had changed his life.

And he told me that what had changed his life to make him recognize that he did in fact have an illness and a disease, was the fact that he took his newborn child

milk money that his wife had gave him to go purchase murals. He went and purchased wine and he was drunk and his child didn't have any milk.

I could not relate to that because I said to myself, I'm not married, I have no child.

But if I look closely at the subject,

one of my wine ants gave me some money to go buy a small can of pork and beans and two wieners from the market so we could eat.

We were standing a little old shanty downtown and we had Nate. We had drank and I got to the market. I looked at the small can of pork and beans and the two wieners and I said the heck with the wieners, I'm getting me some wine. She eat the best way she can,

you know? She wasn't my wife, but it was her money, you know,

And I couldn't identify, but two weeks after that I was.

I was at my wits end.

Couldn't get drunk, couldn't get soap and that terror

settle down. And the only place I know to go when that terror settled down and I'm suicidal and I want someone to snuff out my life like a cigarette butt because I don't have the courage. I go check into hotel unit 3. Now let me describe hotel unit 3. That's the County Hospital cycle award. 72 hour lockdown owe Thorazine shuffle in the Miller. Real twist

now. It would be insignificant in my story if it were only once. I don't know how many times I have checked in it, but this particular night I checked in there, the lady psychiatrist said I could not get a bed no matter how suicidal I was until she saw my chart

and she got somebody at the County Hospital to find my chart

and the guy slung it on the desk angrily because it was 2:00 in the morning. She must have woke him up to do his job.

And she looked at this chart and she stopped after about 5 pages. And I will never forget this woman as long as I live and have breath in me. She looked at me with those sincere, loving, empathetic blue eyes and said, Mr. Scott, your emotional problems will probably straighten up if you dealt with your Alcoholics.

I had no idea what alcoholism was or the disease,

but she offered me refuge. She said I want you to commit to going to an alcoholic treatment program for six weeks and I told her I'm ready to go. She said no, I need a commitment from you that you will stay and complete it.

And she suggests I think about it

into 10:00 and if I decided to go to be back at 10:00, she would provide

transportation and a referral to Camarillo State Hospital.

So I have difficulty thinking even today. So I thought, and I thought, and then I remembered that I was on SSI

in ATD, Aid to the Totally Disabled, and my game was to play crazy.

But since coming to Alcohol It's Anonymous, I found out there's a distinct line between playing crazy and being crazy. Sometimes you think you plan, you didn't skip to cross the line.

That's one of the significant reasons why I don't play with my sanity today.

I've guarded. It's one of my most precious gifts. But anyway,

I thought about it. If I go to Camarillo, I have six checks in three months, and I could be wine or rich. I could give me a little old place, apartment or stereo, some iridescent blue flags and some new shoes and I'll be back.

But I needed someone to hold my check for me until I got out and I couldn't think of anybody at better to perpetrate this fraud on the United States government then my dad. So I was going to enlist him to hold my mail for me.

Oh, surely anyone could trust their father. You know, he wouldn't skill it, would he? I thought maybe he might, but I'll give it a try. So I went there to convince him of this fraud. I told him I was going on a trip and he wanted to know how you go on a trip with no money. I say I was going to hate Asbury to experience free love

because I had heard that was a good place to socialize.

But eventually he he wangled it from me and I told him I was going to Camarillo to the hospital and he got kind of upset. He says I keep all of my crazy kids who were with me. I ain't letting them go to no mental institution. But my moms niece had went there and got some significant help. So she called my aunt and my aunt called my brother and my brother called my oldest sister and they came over there and they had a family intervention or conference and they out voted my dad.

So they were going to take me back up to State of Marengo St.

County Hospital. They had all my little nieces and nephews from daycare. In kindergarten they drove three cars in a caravan. They double parked out there on state and Marengo St. and as I got in the got out of the car and went in the end got into the state car to go up to Camarillo. All my little 5 little nieces and nephews

all aren't cute, said Bye Uncle Sunny.

You know, like I was going on a cruise or, you know,

the most depressing day of my life. But anyway,

that's where I attended my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, which was going to later be my love of doing institutional work in Alcoholics Anonymous because in Ventura County they staffed a meeting in that mental hospital every night of the week. But I would have nothing to do with AAI. Needed something profound to get my gestalt together and become aware.

My therapist had the answer,

but it was this fine black girl on a ward. Her name was Bonnie from New York. Baby look good

and she would invite me to go to the AAA in a meeting and I would come from South Central LA and try to be tough and tell her you could take that a crap and shove it. But I lust and loneliness. I went to that, Amy.

So I'm a firm believer it's not what you come for, it's what you stay for.

And I get lost in the preamble. And she got out of that hospital and got a job at tiny nailers stand at the Maryland Foundation, rebuilding her life, going to meetings. And she called me up the day I got out of that hospital

because I was standing at my parents house

and she asked me if I wanted to go to a meet and I was drunk. The very first day I got out of that hospital, I was tore up,

and it wasn't very many women calling it my mom's house for me anyway, so I said it'd be a good idea to go to this meeting. So we went to the Wilson Normandy Group

and in that drunken stupor those 200 or 300 people said the Lords Prayer and I flashed back

just a year prior to that and I was dying. It was no doubt I was dying.

I had been stabbed in the back. The knife had pierced my heart and broken my lungs. I was full of second all, F40 and Bourbon deluxe.

I almost had no blood pressure

and these people who were working on me was saying she don't have no blood pressure.

He ain't gonna make it. And

as they were willing me on to that operating table and I was going under that anesthesia, I flashed back on that moment in that meeting, in that drunken stupor, and I tried to remember some prayer that my parents had taught me as a young person. And I could not even remember. Now. Lay me down asleep. I couldn't even remember. I was so honoring and so hateful and so disconnected, I couldn't even say would you please help me?

And I came two out of that surgery. Every member of

my mom's playing circle from her church, about 15

women have been sitting there

playing all night for me,

and I opened my eyes out of that anesthesia. All I could do is say get your hands off of me and get the hell out of here and leave me alone.

And I kept on drinking

and that took me back in that meeting. And I was going to hear them say the Lord's Prayer,

be the last one in, in the first one out. But I want to hear that prayer.

I felt so comfortable here,

did not believe I could have what you had, because in my mind I had went one step beyond recall. All redemption, all rehabilitation,

but I met a man.

At that meeting, he was on the door, little old guy, ethnically, financially, socially. We wouldn't have never met if it wasn't for Alcoholics Anonymous. And he stuck out his hand. He says hi, my name is Jack. He says Jack K is my name and sobriety is my game. Call anytime

and for several months I collected those cards, but I would never call. And I ended up back in Camarillo,

and I was sitting in there for my second commitment in 1973 in May,

reading the Los Angeles Times business section. If I have some stocks of bonds.

See, I wasn't always a tramp. My psychiatrist that got me a job at International Business Machine

and I had bought one share IBM stock in the purchase employee purchasing plan in 1969,

so I wanted to see if it had split since 1969.

But it was another young man from South Central Los Angeles that had Jack's car. Jack had been working with this guy named Raymond for months and Raymond had never been able to stay sober. And Raymond called him collect because what, a baby goes to the nuthouse with enough money to call his sponsor on the pay phone?

I don't know many, but maybe he

did have some money and maybe he didn't. But he called Jack, and Jack left his home in West Hollywood and drove up the Ventura County some 50 miles to pick up this young man.

And Jack and Raymond were leaving, and he spotted me behind the paper,

and he eased up behind the paper and he says, Jerome, what are you doing here? I recognize the voice because he hounded and harassed me at that meeting.

He has self supported himself as my temporary sponsor. Whether I liked it or not.

He recognized I was new and I needed what they had. It's like this large as this room. If he saw me on the other side, he would be right there. How you doing, Jerome? And I had that newcomer live. I'm fine

be lying, needing help fast

and he asked me this question. He says Jerome what are you doing here? And I jumped up and say, damn, he doesn't follow me to the nut house.

But he asked me a question, what was I there for? And I had no idea in the latter part of May of 1973 why I was in the state hospital for the second time. And he recognized my perplexion and my confusion. And he didn't scold, ridicule me or belittle me. He says, Jerome, if you do what I do and follow what I follow, you will never have to drink as long as you live. Even if you feel like killing the pain at any cost, you won't even have to drink then.

And you will never have to come to a place like this unless you choose to. That's the promise Alcoholics Anonymous offers Every sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous

or new person or someone explained to acquire this here structured spiritual way of life.

It promised you the ability to face life on life terms, not ducking or dodging any of life issues, and not take anything to affect you from the neck up or the neck down, and walk life through life with dignity for yourself and others.

And you won't ever have to experience any of the degradation, humiliation and self condemnation and the fear that had dogged me every step of my life.

I was enslaved by Jerome

and I didn't know how to set myself free. But standing before me that day in May was a man that had the keys to the Kingdom. And I have something that will keep me sick, and it kept me sick. Then that pride swell up in me and said I can't have it. It's impossible. It's unthinkable. So why even try?

And that fear just whittled me back in that chair. And Jack didn't ridicule me of the little man, he said Jerome, I understand. And him and Raymond left. I got out of that hospital.

A week later,

Drunken Craze went over to my mom's house. My dad is sick with emphysema and heart disease. I attacked him in a drunken rage and sent him to the hospital,

beat and stomped him. They had me arrested and I got out of jail and I came back blaming them for my predicament and my condition and I saw my aunt, my father, sister crossing the street. I said I kid her too. And I chased her to our house. I thought she was running from me. She wasn't running from me. She was just going to get her, nothing else. 38

And when I saw her come out

backroom with it, I went on all fours and turned around, ran around the house, jumped over the fence, down the alley and hid in the trash can a very long time. Because see, it's one thing I know people on the streets and say, oh, he's drunk, don't kill him, don't kill him. But you start messing with family, they'll take you out.

And I got out of that trash can and I got arrested again.

And the judge gave me one day in the county jail,

and I was in the city jail

in that drunken stupor, and I had a spiritual awakening. I began to reflect on the things that I'd heard you say in those eight to 10 months when I infrequently came to meetings. And I don't know where I mustered the courage to say to myself, I'll make the commitment to myself that if I got off this glass House floor in this jail, I'm going to make it back to Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I left Bousette St. And I walk and broke into my mom's house,

got my brother's clothes who was back away at school. And my mom asked me why was I in her house

stealing his clothes. And I talk real sassy to her and she told me

something very pertinent. She said, son, you might not be familiar with BB King's new record.

And she told me, she said don't nobody love you but your Mama, and she might be jiving too.

And she said if you can't come around, don't come around any better.

And that's been 25 years because that day leaving there, I went to Alcoholics Anonymous

tell you I have an awesome life today.

If anything I'm grateful for in the 25 years I've been sober is 2 weeks ago when my mom was breathing her last breath. In those last few hours of her life, I was able to stand up and be accounted for

because I know why I'm here today.

I'm here on the strip of her prayers and her love

and the strength and hope of members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Just like you, someone who was a has been and never was. I'm rapidly becoming. I took the test for the post office 39 times and I've been there 20 years.

They told me in 1992 that you have to get you a master's degree if you want to keep your job. I went to Jefferson High School where they only had one microscope and it was broke.

I majored in I majored in agriculture and shot because I wanted to print my own money and grow marijuana

with efficient educational schools and full of that fear that I still sometimes have today. But I have a sponsor that believes and walking through fears

this past May, my mom lived to see me get hooded for a master's degree.

And I'll tell you, I will always be grateful for that. And I tell you, I've been telling everybody by my lovely wife who loves me dearly, I have a real Good Wife today. I have a wife before an Alcoholics Anonymous. She wasn't too bad. She's a little shaky and flaky, but she wasn't that bad. You know, I ain't going to knock her. I'll give her a do.

I grew a lot. I grew a lot,

but my wife, I'm gonna say this and shut up. My wife at the age of 46 loved me enough

to tell me, Jerome, you've never had your own child and I love you to go through this another time at 46 and my son Matthew was born on my momma's birthday, took his first step. Today my mom died. And when God takes something, he gets up and back all the time. Thank you.