John Q. from Sacramento, CA at Fresno, CA February 23rd 2001

Thank you very much for inviting me to be here tonight. I want to thank the committee or whoever puts on this thing for inviting me for you. I've been in town, went down and had dinner tonight. It's a beautiful hotel right in downtown Fresno. Was looking up over the many floors, up over the ground. It's just wonderful to be in Fresno. I don't know whether you feel like it's wonderful to be in Fresno, but you got to not be in Fresno for a long time. It seems like it's wonderful to be in Fresno, and I haven't been a president for a real long time, so it's wonderful to be impressed.

I am a real alcoholic and it's great to be in an AA meeting. It's an honor to be in an AA meeting, and it is a distinct honor to be asked to speak anywhere at anytime about our fellowship.

It's always cold, but you bring the night that it's cold. Am I the only person in the room is cold? I'm cold. I think the antifreeze is all gone out of me and I need, it's hard to get used to being unmanned, please, but I'm not. We're going to, we're going to warm up to the subject here.

I, I think I'll start at the beginning. I was born thirsty. I was born in the same year that Alcoholics Anonymous got started. In fact, I was born a few months before the program that started. I was born in February of 1935. And in June, on June 10th, Bob and Bill got together in Stockton, Ohio. And that was the very first meeting between

anybody in the whole world. So I was running over in Arizona from February or June waiting for those guys to get some kind of programs started

because I really do believe that I'm one of those kinds of people that came on to the Globe and Alcoholics. They told me that in the hospital I went to, but I firmly believe it. I don't, you know, they talk about crossing the line or things getting bad or drink for a while and things begin to crowding on you. My experience was like started running. I never remember having a social dream

all I have four older brothers, all of them Alcoholics. Two of them have died in the in the from the brain result of our disease.

One of my brothers been able to stay sober for many years into religion and my habit it. Wilson tells us that art was not the only way, but it certainly is a preferred way. But anyway, as I grew up and started going to school and just like all of us, I found out and it was just a very young guy about 11 years old

by family, went back to the family farm back in Wisconsin, back in Marion, WI.

And there was a great deal, great number of beer Breakers and stuff around there. And I'm just an 11 year old kid. But I had a cousin back on the farm and he felt kind of sorry for me because I was just a little the little kid that never got anything to drink. And he told me one day he says come here, I want to show you something. He sent me out into this barn and just

beautiful farm back in Wisconsin and back in Wisconsin they cut hay and stopped in the few summer months before the winter and they put it out in the in the barn for the spot to eat all all winter long. And he showed me a hole when he made it the hay and way back in as far as the brief the whole length of my arm. He had bought me a pork bottle of Virginia Dare wine and he says now I'll tell you what's on. He said this guy's about 22 years old and he said I went downtown today and I

wine and it's right here in this hole and you're the only one that knows about it. And anytime you'd like to have a drink in the grown up for drinking, just come out, sneak out to the barn and you can have a drink. And he says I got a whole part. We were going to bake it all summer. He says, I'm sure it'll last the whole summer for you, you know, and that way I can have a nick just being kind of a gentleman. They got

that night. The bottle was gone. I drank the whole thing in one day. 11 year old kids got completely bottled. He's my pants. Went downtown to where they were having a movie, went into the ladies room, stuffed up the toilet and it overflowed. The manager was Madison. I made a complete fool out of myself on my very first shot

the next day. Here I am a 11 year old kid throwing up sick as an adult. And that was the beginning of my drinking career. That's how I kind of like eased into things. And that's, that's just the way it was. Now I'm one of those, one of those Alcoholics, though that was able to be what I guess what they call a working or a,

or a rack of vertical alcoholic. I was able to continue on through school and I was shortly afterwards, by the way, on that trip to Wisconsin at the end of that particular year, that was in 1946, I did get really sick and I got polio. And that's why I'm in a wheelchair today because I got polio back just about three years before they invented the polio vaccine. So the reason I'm handicapped is because of of foliomyelitis,

infantoparalysis, whatever you want to call it. But anyway, I went to that was all right. It worked out fine. It got out of the hospital after a couple of years, went to

high school and was very, very interested in all the things that happened in school. I ran for all the I was president of this and president of that, president, the band of a student body president. Just had a wonderful time. But about every second or third weekend I would get drunk. Never, never had a social break. I could never kind of ease into it. I always drank too much and got drunk and had something unpleasant to happen. Usually some kind of a

my kidneys or a little bit of a wreck or something or broke something or knocked something over. I was constantly in trouble, but I couldn't put the two together when I didn't drink. I was a pretty good student and a nice guy and I worked. Everything seemed to go along just fine, but the thing kept creeping up on me and having too much to drink and having these problems.

But if these draw through the teenage years. When I got out of high school, I went to fell in love with the broadcasting businesses with another story and I went to a regular engineering school, learned how to become an engineer and a broadcast engineer done in the broadcasting and television all it was just wonderful.

It was just perfect. It was great to be, I was in a wheelchair, didn't have to walk because I could talk on the radio and broadcast sporting events, et cetera, and just making a good living. But even then, I would have noticed every once in a while I'd overshoot that mark. I didn't want to. I love my work. I love being in broadcasting,

I just wanted to be a nice style but I kept wrong with the guys, have a few drinks and I was always the one that seemed to end up going into a blackout and crossing over and going too far and have hangovers. My God I used to have the most horrible error, debilitating, throwing up, bad stomach Jesus for a couple of days. Swear I've never drank again, and of course I always drink again.

And I always able to work pretty good too. Continue to work. And then I fell in love one time

doing this whole thing so I can get into my silver, because I've been talking about my sober life in the drunk life. But I went, I went into this world of broadcasting. And in 1968, I'll never forget, I fell in love accidentally with politics. Those of you who this great state of California, which is a fabulous political state, back in 1968 there was a an enormous upwelling of interest in our state about unionism.

The Republicans wanted to do away with unions. They had a thing called rights and work. And the Democrats are all very all the labor unions. Never that he came up

killed this bill called right to work and I was just while I was born in 3568 to figure out I would say 2324 years of age and I got interested in this thing and began to work a little bit in politics met everybody Pat Brown and all the people are running for office and I got very interested in public life and decided to run for office. My God and I did that I got elected I still can't believe it actually went out and

talked to people and BSA little bit and they had the election. I've got elected to the city of San Bernardino City Council. This is in back in 1969

and I'm so it was just wonderful. I just, I just couldn't believe what a wonderful honor that was. And I can remember there was a guy who was the city mayor guy named Raymond H Gregory that elected at the same time. And he called me up to the house a couple of days before we were sworn into office, gave me a book. And he says, John, they tell me that I get to a point members of the City Council with certain boards and commissions and he says, you and I are going in together. I don't know those guys down there. They're all been there for a while,

but I feel kind of in a kinship for you. So we said, I want you to look through this book and you can pick four appointments that you want and I'll give them to you. Then I'll give the rest of them to the other guys. You spare me. So I'm leaking through the glove and it's all interesting things like public buildings and parks and and the Finance Committee and all this stuff. And I look down and turn the page. Police commissioner. Police Commissioner,

Yes. Damn, they had a ring to do it. You know,

I forgot. Like that one right there. You governor. So the next Monday, they were sworn into office. I go over to the San Bernardino City Police Department, right where they booked the prisoners. They booked me, except for what they were doing was to take my picture for a laminated card, bring it out to me. This. I still have it at home. Beautiful car like this. John P Quinby, Police Commissioner Sunili of San Bernardino. Now, if that was wonderful, I put that bugger in my pocket and away we go. That's just let me tell you something

turned out get arrested for drunk driving in the city of San Bernardino when you're the police commissioner. Now

how it works is just nobody ever arrested me. Believe me, I didn't stop drinking because I still had that. I still had that annoying habit of going for one or two weeks or three and maybe. And then I hit that time where I would go on over that line, make a fool out of myself, throw up, fall down, get into some kind of trouble. But now I have some mother drive me home.

I served for four years in that position,

enjoyed it, loved it very much.

When I found out that the man who was the state assemblyman

have decided to run up or in the higher office, following up and offered if I could run for that office. This is in 1962. And I said why not? Let's go and I'll be a son of a gun. Ladies and gentlemen, I know it's going to be hard for me to believe when I'm here tonight to tell you that in the June primary of that year, in 1973 or whatever 6362, I got elected. I got more votes than anybody else in the in the campaign.

I couldn't believe it. I've never been to Sacramento. I didn't know where it was. And I've been elected to the California State Legislature. I'm only 2627 years old. I still got this

you know, I'm I'm I'm married at that time. I've met a robbery lady and we actually married my second time. The first one Steve go by, but the second one I'm ready to just very impressive lady got two or three little kids. I'm working with the radio station. I got a nice name on the city police commissioner on the summit of gun. If the people in that county didn't elect me to the state of December in 19. I took office on January 1st, 1963. That was back in the days before what they call full time legislature.

So you can take your wife and kids. You just everybody would go to Sacramento for three or four or five or six months. And I came up to Sacramento that sworn in when there was Pat Brown, my old friend who was the governor and all these people and I, you know, as an alcoholic, as an alcoholic personality and all of these this incredible illness that most of us have, which is a superior feeling, both an inferiority complex. You can imagine how I felt. I was surprised that I was there. I couldn't believe that I was there.

But on the other hand, I was kind of an ego, self-centered, healthy in one side. And it is just, it was a very mind blowing thing. But what the hell? I took the local bosses, got sworn into office and here I am in this California legislature. They give me a beautiful car. I don't forget. I'd always wanted a Thunderbird

and the right time to see me. He says that we have what we call the safe auto where we get ascended automobile program. You have any car you want, I mean any car you want. And I says can I have a black Thunderbird you got? It's a 1963 Black Sea bird. Didn't you remember that was the hump

gone on a dream and had license plates on it and said Member California Legislature 8072. Now this was in the days it isn't true now, but in those days, Anita, the Legislature set the salaries of a highway report. It was entirely off to the Legislature.

California hybrid Trauma didn't arrest Decembermen in those days. They do today now because they do today because they don't have. Not just because of that, but for other reasons. But I'm the drive. When I said I haven't been to Fresno for a long time, I used to come through this town. I used to admit it's one of the statues. This is being paved right now. I'm just kidding. I would come through this town,

you know, 9500 miles an hour. Another one time between here and Bakersfield, I forget what kind of I was driving toward Southern California and it began to rain and I turned the windshield wipers on and it wouldn't work. They were going back and forth, but it didn't work. And I looked down and I was going 100 miles an hour. And what the trouble was that the wind would hit the windshield and move the blade up off of its glass. So I will slow down to about 70 before the rubber will come down and touch the glass. And it went back and forth

elegant. Julie, let me say one thing I want to interject 1 little thing here because I get to talking about alcoholism and Alcoholics and how bad it was. The truth is during all this time, you know what, I was a great member of the legislature. I really love serving. I was a good member. I did contribute a great deal in the state of California and I'm very, very proud of the fact that I was in both on the City Council and a member of the legislature as I talked and kid and joke about those times,

self dictating rundown stories that I hope you'll identify with. I do want you to know that I did go to work every day. I work hard to tell and I was a good member of the legislature, but I was also this booming, bugging oncoming Alcoholics and these times when I would run over the line used to be every two or three weeks. Now it was getting to be every week or every few days.

One of the things about being in the legislature that many years ago

there was 120 members of the legislature and about 800 or 900 registered lobbyists and those lobbyists jobs still to this day. That then was to give anything that they could to get the attention and the good feeling of the Legislature. That's what they were paid to do.

And that was just my my drinking continued, but I kind of went up the scale on the things I drank good whiskey and good cigars and a good sign of that by all in the evening hours. And I drank not to drink so much that I finally in the election of 1974, actually didn't even campaign. I was so screwed up. My wife had left me by this time and got mad and took off And on the alcohol, my alcoholism got to the point where I couldn't function.

And luckily, and I thank God tonight in my heaven and 100 times says they didn't, people did not vote for me in the June primary election of 1974 simply because I didn't campaign. I was too drunk and too screwed up in order to go out and put on any kind of a campaign and I was thrown out of office.

Well, that was in June of 74 and didn't leave office till the end of that year. And my attitude at that time was those dirty, rotten, no good and lousy people that didn't vote. Those wonderful me that held out of mine just had this terrible feeling of rejection and anger. And I really poured the colon, drank almost to death from that day until the 15th day of September 1976, which is my sobriety day. It'll be 25 years this year.

I mean, in Sacramento,

in Sacramento then they used to have a hospital that actually treated the disease of alcoholism. That wasn't, you didn't have to sneak in there with a bad liver or something. It was called the care unit and you went right to the front door and gave me your name. And that's what happened to me. My son checked me in, call the hospital and sign me up. And I went out there on my last drink was I guess the 14th of September. I finished off of the rest of a of a bottle of Jack Daniels in the parking lot of that hospital

and went in there and submitted myself to whatever the heck they want to talk about. I hadn't had a bath for about a month. I had a broken arm. This arm was broken. I didn't even know it. You know, you got 22 bones here between your wrist and your elbows. Both of them were busted. I didn't know it and I just was a real mess. I was cursing. The wheelchair didn't have a power chair in those days, so I got one busted arm and sitting in a wheelchair.

And when you have a broken arm in your inner hand control wheelchair

and you can only use one arm, it's always the wrong circuit. So that's my then I'm doing it. I got it. I just go around in circle. So they got me in there and put me and got me in bed and cleaned me off and gave me a shower and all this stuff and got the, the, the medical stuff done that they had to do.

And one of the things that they suggested at this carrier and all what they would do during the day is you'd go to lots of lectures about what the World Health Organization has to say about the disease of alcoholism and how alcohol effects the liver and all of this stuff, which is all very, very interesting and wonderful. And I remember it distinctly. But one of the things that they strongly suggested that we do was go to an A A meeting every Sunday night.

I have never in my life heard of a A

I think I've read about it in a magazine one time and I've just heard people joking about it. But Can you believe that here a member of the legislature, of the former member of City Councilman, a guy in broadcasting had never heard of AA. But I really haven't in 1976. I, I've heard of it, kind of like to hear about the Rosicrucians and the Rotarians and the, you know, the auto club. I had some vague idea that there was a group called ADA, but I didn't know what it was. I've never been to a meeting. I didn't know

about it. And the reason I dwell on that is because I have known anything about it. I probably would have formed a bad opinion, but I was lucky enough that I've never I didn't know what it was. I thought, what the hell, I'll go to one of those day and maybe need it. But since Sunday night in the cafeteria at the merchant stand, One Hospital, Carmichael

down there and it was a meeting room smaller than this, but not different from you tonight, not different from us. They want to listen, folks sitting around having a meeting and I went to the meeting and a staff to listen to it and the unit was upstairs and all the patients would come down and go to the meeting. There was nothing particularly

interesting that was said. I don't remember. I kind of guess I heard him read the steps. I didn't really identify with anything there was. I kept waiting for something to be said or done, or some road, or maybe some Hank hidden handshake or a secret.

Word or sometimes nothing really I think it was on the second step and there was probably 35 or 40 people and they kind of shared you know a couple laughs here and there some real bad coffees. Everybody smoked in those days so the whole room was full of smoke an hour and a half meeting and they got upset the Lord's Prayer, which is a little bit difficult for me. It was a little bit uncomfortable that hold hands and

pray about. I was able to get through that. Went back up to the unit. It was just, you know, it was nothing all that fabulous about it, frankly. Went through all the whole next week of lectures and the next Sunday night went down to the same page. So I've been in the hospital before. We come up to four meetings. Nothing really profound that I could figure out. Still haven't figured it out. But you know what

about I got out of the hospital and kept going back to that meeting. I'd go every week. Didn't go 90 minutes in 90 days. Hadn't heard about that. But I went every week and about 3 months. It's suddenly dawned on me, for some reason that I'm still unable to tell you, I have lost the compulsion of the dream. I didn't even think about it. I didn't hadn't even gone on it. It just simply happened. There was a magic for me

just by attending a a meetings while I was miraculously relieved

of this obsession to drink because prior that I was a daily blackout pants pissing drunken mess up until the day when I took that last ring of Jack Daniels in the parking lot on the 14th of September and about two or three months. I used to hear people like sit in that meeting and there usually was a little lady. I remember she would admit, see, I thought she was knitting the

Dodgers stadium or something. I don't know what she was doing. She was always knitting. And they would call on her and she would say something like

when I tweet through those doors, God miraculously took from me the compulsion, the drink. And I, I would think to myself, I can confess to you now. I say to myself, I wonder why they let those submitted old bastards in the meeting. He sits around here and click those goddamn knitting needles all the time

and then they Paul aren't you all says the same thing. God miraculously took them for me. The compulsion of the dream. I mean clearly have 20 minutes. She tell us something and I was really a negative, rotten, self-centered word, but they're not mad about that. Third or third and a half months

dawned on me. One day she was telling my story. I just came to a A and God miraculously removed from me my desire to dream. I hadn't had a drink for three years, three months when I hadn't needed to have a drink. I didn't want to have a drink. I hadn't actually even thought about it. It just kind of went away. Isn't that a miraculous thing? Because you don't want that. That is a very, very common story. If we hear about,

we get here, many of us here in different ways. My, my, the way I got here, I just told you,

of course, it was just the beginning. I did continue to go to meetings. I always have gone to meetings ago to three meetings a week now. And I continued to go and go. And I want to tell you that during about all the third or fourth months of my sobriety and going back to the hospital at Mercy San Juan Hospital in Sacramento, one of the people that I met was the lady who invited me to come and speak here to you tonight in a registered. And then Rita, who came in there to that unit.

And that's where we met a long, long, long time ago, 2324 / 25 years ago. And the boy, she was a very, very, very important part of my early sobriety in those very early days. I owe her an enormous debt of gratitude. Can I ask you to just give Rita another round of cards?

Mendoza, You have an emergency call. You have a Mercury at home even. Mendoza. Is that the right name? Are you here, Yvonne?

Well, huh.

You know who it is? Hi, Eva. You're not even OK.

Anyway, thanks for climbing, Corina. I don't have the right to tell her story, but I do want you to know that she's very important part of my story and that we were together very, very early on. And she taught me a lot about the program in those early days. And Floyd was, I agree, and unknowing and unknown. I really didn't know what the hell would happen, but I just didn't drink. The only thing that I did right was that I didn't drink

and I went to a lot of meetings and that was the foundation of the beginning of my survival, which has been continuous for almost 25 years. In general, one of the things that has that has occurred to me in recent years is how long I was at that time about some things. And that's what I really want to share with you tonight. I was one of the people

that really believed. I now know. I know this now. I didn't know a thing, but I know it now.

I really believe that I was a pretty good guy. Basically had 32 problems. My problem was that I drank, that I drank alcohol, and my problem was that the drinking Alcoholics that was screwing up my life and I was making a bad mistake and doing bad things behind my drinking. And so it occurred to my fascinating

mind that if I didn't drink alcohol, I would be if that was could be removed from me

that everything but be great, everything would be fine. I will be that nice guy, that well adjusted sweetheart of the news and everything would be great. And I lingered under that delusion for about 15 years in Ada because what happened is my story saying the truth. eight-year story, my story. And that's the only story I got. So I got to share it. What happened to me was I didn't drink anymore. I steadfastly did not drink. I did continue to go to meetings,

did sponsor even a few people. I got a sponsor and with all the things that I heard I was supposed to do, but a fundamental thing didn't change, and that is that I didn't

change in the areas of life that had constantly given me the most trouble. My problem was, and I found it in the 5th step in the 12 by 12, I was incapable of fashioning a relationship with another human being. What I did was everybody that I would meet,

I will marry. I have been married and I've been married six times. I've been divorced five times. I was married and divorced so many times that I have rice pockmarks right here on the side of mine. And I saw when I got into AA and got sober, I released sincerely thought for myself, God damn, finally, this is over. This is over. I've been married in the course three times. Trump

and now that's what the problem was. So I got married again and this ended about five years. It ended. It entered into force. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it. Or the three drunk marriages and divorces. I kind of figured that, but a sober marriage and divorce, I twisted. I really had a hard time swallowing that one. But you know, it looks painful. It was expensive and all the stuff and I took a lot and pretty soon I met this lovely calmly

from Lodi and it got murdered again and finally this is dead. That's there. I mean you know the hell five times

get ended in divorce. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it. I'm really goddamn couldn't believe it. It almost killed me. I'm 15 years clean and sober in AA. I go to three meetings a week. I put $2.00 in the collection plate every time I'm gonna play. Not 1-2 dollars on sponsoring 3 guys. I read about. I even read as Bill season. I mean, you know,

what else can I do? I thought I was going to die. I really thought I was going to die. I'm fighting began to read some of the literature. I want to commend the one for you The night that I read. Anybody ever read a thing called the 12 and 1212 steps? You know, Bill Wilson wrote that 12 and 12 and he was about 15 years old in the big book in our beautiful big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the six stacks and the 7th step have about one paragraph each

just kind of mentioned as he moved by because it was written in what 381938 or 39 when he only had three or four years sobriety. The heads of steps. But they you know, I mean nobody really working. I guess something you're wrong. I love the big book of AI, think it's the most fabulous piece of leather turn of the 20th century.

But when he got around the writing, the 12:12 there, he had about 12/15/16 years of sobriety and the man had really been through it. And in the seventh step, that's fabulous. 7th step in the 12:00 I'm reading this Booker and it says in there sometimes we have to go through

a painful process of ego conjuring. Painful process is at the end of a long Rd.

We finally get to this part where we are ready to reach for humility because we want it rather than having to be buzzed and beaten into it. Now I used to read that and I thought God could be buzzing and beating into it. Now I used to read that and I thought, God,

they haven't been a little dramatic. You know, that was AI just thought, you know, the man was getting kind of being a little. But let me tell you something. When I read that that that that year of my 15th year sobriety, the year of my 6th divorce, my second sober divorce wasn't and speaking into humanity was just about to display affecting users another term in there called groveling despair. I couldn't understand what groveling despair.

Somebody talk one time about being on your hands and knees and going backwards and that's where I was.

You know what, this probably isn't your story. I don't think that it happens to a hope too many people, but I've just got to tell you tonight it happened to me. I was finally thought to my knees. I didn't know what to do. I went down. I pay off that off I was I couldn't drive. I was in a bag of physical shape behind this emotional

Waterloo that I've reached as I've never been behind drinking. I had to have a girl that worked for me, my secretary drive me. I called up and made arrangements to go into a hospital in Southern California.

That quality of black room. She'd wrote a book called It'll Never Happen to Me. Wonderful lady. And I had to have my secretary driving me down there because I was unable to drive the car to Southern California. I was like where? They couldn't do it. I haven't been eating. I was a mess. I was a mess. And I got down there and I went into this hospital in Southern California. Now ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, they had me doing things down there that I thought man guarantee you I would never have done

if you'd have had a gun on that. Those lip wristed faggots,

pardon me talking to my inner side. Can you believe? I mean, I tell you one thing. I used to talk there used to be an ACA meaning after in the after Roseville and people were sneaking to that meeting carry little teddy bears River on an ACA or the taxi teddy bear with him. Wrong people with their own teddy bear. I used to hold those folks real low regard.

I got myself a teddy bear. I'm at that hospital down there

and this psychiatrist says to me, you would have to get in touch with your inner child. Now, I knew that that guy had the key. If I wouldn't get in touch with my inner child, legal let me out of there. So my motivation was to do whatever the hell it was that I said. You know what I started? And he said, once a day, John, I want you to go somewhere on this campus of the Sun in Chorizo all alone

and taught. Your inner family gave me a little script to read. I've written on a yellow pad

and I would go sneak away in old oxide something and I would read that to my inner child and mean it. And you know, I began to feel the presence of that in a child. And another thing he said to me was I want you to write to your inner child. Can you believe that? And that's still, I get a little bit back on my neck wiggles on. I think about writing a letter Anyway, he says, I want you to take a pen in your right hand, whatever your dominant hand is, and write a letter to your inner child. It's a very simple, lovely letter.

And then what? The pin in the left hand and heal right back.

I figured this side.

I was really worried,

but when nobody was looking,

I wrote a letter. Dear John, I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that you can come out of the flag. You're safe. I don't remember all the lyrics, but it was just something. I love you. I want to provide a safe home for you, whatever the whatever the line up. And I put the pin in my left hand

and folks will begin to write back. It was real Squaw and hard Marie,

but I actually got a few words. I wasn't thinking of it my head. It's almost like a Ouija board. Anybody here ever play with a Ouija board? You don't think my name started in the line getting the letter back from this bugger. It was almost scary. Then these these little reading things that I had began to take on a kind of a a spiritual effort. So I was getting serious about it now. I would go away from all the other patients and kind of hide in an unused room and read to my inner child.

And I get this feeling. Another thing that they had me do was I had to write a letter to my dead father. My dad had died in 1951 and then I had to write a letter to all of my relatives. But the tough part is that to read those letters to the assembled all of patients in the hospital.

I I just thought it was terrible thing to do my dad and I'm dead since 1951. I'm going to write him a letter. So I had to do it. So I wrote the letter, you know, and I then it come today for me to read that letter. When I got that letter out on I had to read it to the class. And about halfway through the reading back of this letter, I began to have these feelings of emotion and grace and sobbing like I haven't done, I don't know, remember when.

And it was a real cleansing. I'm not advocating any of this, by the way, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just telling me what happened to me. Well, I was down there for five weeks. I went back home to Carmichael and the funniest thing happened.

I have this lovely home in Tom Michael and I got a nice swimming pool in the backyard and I used to think to myself about my grandkids. I hate it when those little bastards come over here because, you know, they rub two net butter on the screens and they, they, they, they grab my cat with a tail and they break things. I just didn't like kids. I didn't want the little bastards around. I meet him in a restaurant downtown, but I didn't want him to come. This is before I went away. Now I'm back and I'm

my backyard and I'm thinking to myself, everything about this backyard is perfect. The lawn is mowed, hedges trimmed. There's a guy that comes and cleans the pool. You can breathe a 25 cent piece of the day all the way through the water. There was nothing out of place. It was just sterile and neat and terrible. I didn't give him anything. If one of those grandkids would come over and swim on the board, they're not going to come over and swim in the grandpa's house because they can tell they didn't like them.

So what I did was I started calling them up one by one. I take one pizza. And The funny thing is I found out that I love children. I love babies. I always hated them. I like WC Fields and said that he hated kids. I had a big picture of WC Fields in my garage and remember that I love that picture about him holding that theater on the golf course and I'm trying to strangling.

All of a sudden that didn't seem funny to me anymore.

All of a sudden I had this wonderful, warm, compassionate, loving feeling for children. And I now think that that's because I have made I come to terms with this inner child again. I don't know. I really don't know the answer. All I do know is that I fell in love with this wonderful collection of people called My Own grandchildren. I got 11 grandchildren. They are fabulous. A bunch of them are mine for my kids. A bunch of them are from my wife and her kids.

Anyway, they're just all over the place. And you know what they're, they're clean, they're neat, they're intelligent, they're smart, they're lovely. God damn, they're great. I would take two or three of them and we'd get the car and take trips. And I've only Las Vegas for a week with this amount of the Boulder Dam. We're not the Palm Springs. I took them all down to that.

That came down there by LA with all those rides up in the sky. What do you call it, the 12 flags or something? I personally can't stand the goddamn rise. But the kids loved it. We got a hotel room, a couple of rooms and we just, they just had a ball. They ranged in age from about four to about 15 years of age

and I fell in love with these bunch of human beings that were my own grandchildren because I guess I had gotten rid of the anger and the hate of in the pit of my stomach about myself. I finally had gotten to the point where I could reach out with humility and love and embrace my own family. The pride and ego and the anger and the self centeredness had kind of begun to wash away.

You know, if I, no matter whatever happens to me and nothing else ever happens to me, the fact that a a opened the door for me would be teachable enough to do that one thing as men so very, very, very much to my life today, I was able to finally, believe it or not, I'm here to know. You're wondering. I did mean I had known Russell Lady for a very long time, but I've never had any

emotional or or romantic feeling about her. We spent an A A She was a general secretary of the Roosevelt Group

and we regard to dinner once in a while and we get fall in love and married. I'll be married four years this August to a rugby lady named Linda. We haven't had any fights. There's no battle going on. The war is over. You know, the fights are done. It is really, I believe, than a miraculously cleansing thing for me to go through.

I want to tell you, I know that there are places in a A where they get mad if you talk about things like inner child work and all that kind of stuff. But it's my story and it's happened to me. And I know that I would never have been able to think about it or open the door to it in my, in my mental attitude. I said it wasn't for the fact that I had this basic training in the love and the miracle of a A. I remember reading, and some of you do too, that our founder, Bill W suffered himself.

From great anger and Great Depression, I read one time that Bill Wilson would go to bed. I've been in bed for a week with paralyzed with the, with the depression that he couldn't get out of. And I believe it was Father Dowling who came to see him from Detroit one time. And he must. He said he wanted to meet the great Bill Wilson. And they took him in the backroom and they're laying in bed with Bill Wilson laying in bed