Vince S. at Montana Fall Roundup 1989

Good morning. My name is Vincio and I'm an alcoholic.

Hi. Hi. I'm glad to be here this morning and I'm glad to be part of a A and I'd like to thank your committee for inviting Pat Guy, Missoula, Mt. I've never been to your lovely state before now, but I must tell you it's gorgeous. It's lovely and it's smog free and it's

Christine and

it's just a delight to be here. We had, as Pat told you last night, we had a colorful trip out here.

We just got off an airplane and it exploded in flames moments after we got off. But we were on the other side of the terminal and we looked out the window and the plane we just got off, it was exploding in flames, which is a kind of a spiritual experience and

it's good to be here. I

I must say that

you wouldn't think that a nice, respectable man like myself be married to a woman like that, would. You

know,

that is really a tawdry story, isn't it?

But

we're glad to be here during the countdown last night when Katrina was doing the countdown, we had, we had the in addition to all of the old timers, we had live. We have a lot of new people in their first year of sobriety here at this continent.

I want to welcome you to AA, the new adventure of Alcoholics Anonymous,

and I want you to know this morning where you are,

York and A A. It is distinctly different from anything else you've got to go around. It is not psychotherapy. It is not a treatment center or a care unit, nor is it aftercare.

It is a spiritual program

and understand that if you're new because that's what it is. And I think there is a tendency some days today, some places today at AA to salt pedal at,

to let the stress that because it's somehow embarrassing to our sophisticated notions of who we are now in the late 20th century. Well, I'm going to tell you who we are. We are members of a spiritual program

and it will require of you if you're new certain things, but you'll have to do to recover here. Contrary to popular belief, none of it is optional

that is suggested. It's mandatory what you have to do here if you want to get better. Now you have an option not to get better.

You can do that if you want. God knows I did it for a long time, I'll tell you that.

But I want to start out this morning and I think I'll tell you about my first AAA meeting because there are so many new people here. I want to tell you about how it was that I came to AA and it was a long time ago now. It was in November of 1965, which more and more makes me feel ancient in Alcoholics Anonymous with considering the age that some people get here at today, which is wonderful. But it was in November of 1965.

It was on a Friday night

and it was in the basement of a Presbyterian Church in the Los Altos section of Long Beach, CA

and Lord Reach. The Los Altos section of Long Beach, CA, incidentally, is a very nice upscale upper middle class community.

Today. We would call it a yuppie community. In those days that word had was not in the vocabulary yet. So it was just upscale upper middle class. It was a a lot of split level ranch houses, you know what I mean? All owned by dentists, that insurance salesman and you know, real estate people. That kind of the community and what I got a drinking problem. They went to the Presbyterian Church on Friday night

and they were nice people. They were dressed well, they all seem to have coats and ties on back then, and they were all incidentally married to pretty blonde Alabama women,

you know what I mean?

Where did needlepoint during the AAB? You know the crowd, you know what I'm talking about.

And that's the kind of an A meeting it was. And as a matter of fact, if you knew nothing of alcoholism or nothing of AA or nothing of Alcoholics, and if you were to just as a ordinary citizen wandering off the street into the basement of that church, and if someone were to say to you, this room is filled with mostly Alcoholics,

can you pick them up?

You wouldn't find any one of the Alcoholics there. They were all tightly wrapped people, you know what I mean, with well ordered lives. I mean, nobody looked like an alcoholic in that room. Everybody looked good.

You pick one out you to pick me. I was there. I look like an alcoholic, but I was the only one in the room that did. I had on a torn tee shirt and ripped pair of jeans and I had not shaved your bathe in over a week and I just spent the previous five days in the Long Beach City jail

due to a series of unfortunate circumstances that were not by fault.

The Police Department of Long Beach, CA is statistics

they had they had regularly abused my civil rights

on a consistent basis. Let's see that being the latest. And I like to remember why I was in the basement of that Presbyterian Church on that Friday night. And it's important to remember. And if you're new, I want you to hear it. I'll tell you first of all why I was not there.

I was not there because I was in search of lifetime sobriety,

all right? I was not there because I wanted serenity or I like this quiet heart.

Those were not my concerns in November of 1965.

You want to know why I was there? I had no job, no car, no money, no place to live, and it was the only one place I could think of where I could sit down and not be arrested.

That's why I was there. So if you are new and you are not, if you're not, you know, if your therapist told you your motivation is not what it should be, I have very good news for you.

We do not grade you on your motivation here.

If we did, this would be a smaller meeting

and you have a different speaker.

Doesn't matter why you're here.

The only thing that counts is that you're here. It's all that matters right now, so you must stay here

now.

As a matter of fact, you would get this out of the way if you are new

you, It's not a question of whether you want to stay here or not. You simply have no other choice. There's nowhere else for you to go.

This is the end of the line,

the zip than anywhere else.

So you have to stay here.

Now, I should tell you that I, I, I went to that meeting. I sat in the back of the room where most new people sit in a a meetings. You never get up close if you're new, you might catch it if you don't have it right.

And I sat in the back

and I should tell you also from the outset that I am Irish and uncatholic and I'm from New Jersey and I have great difficulty with people from Texas.

We there's a bad chemistry there, I want to tell you.

And I sat in the back of that room next to a guy who was about 6 foot five and he had on cowboy boots, a 10 gallon hat in his lap. And his name was Tex,

and Tex was not sober very long himself. He was, he was at what I like to call the evangelical stage of sobriety. You know where that is? Somewhere about three months

and Tex wanted to hit me,

He told me, he said, boy, I'm going to help you.

And I told him, text, why don't you go help somebody else?

I'm really not interested.

He helped me anyway,

and the first thing he did is he repeated to me in rapid succession all of the A a cliches.

And they are jury, aren't they?

And I thought, good grief,

easy does what you know?

Finally, he draped his arm around my shoulder and he said, Ah, keep it simple,

I thought. I'll bet you do check.

I have.

I have

absolutely no quarrel with that. That was the only thing he said that I could agree with. I was certain that was true. And he gave me a handful of pamphlets, which we have for everybody. That's new. If you haven't got, you know, we have a whoever you are or whatever you've done, we have a pamphlet that covers your case,

you know, and on top of the pamphlets was a cart with the 20 questions on. I'm sure he used that out here with the card. This card, this

quiz

was designed and originated by the medical school at Johns Hopkins University, very prestigious school where they have their infinite wisdom. They did a study on alcoholism and they decided somewhere along the line in their infinite wisdom that they can decide how alcoholic you are

by the way you answer these 20 questions. And the key is if the more, well, first of all, I can tell you this. If you're new, if you're new and you don't like it here and you want to get out of here and you want to find a way to justify and rationalize your way out of here, find a way to answer no to these questions.

Because the more yes answers you have as you go down the column, the more alcoholic you get. The criteria is if you answer one question yes, you may be an L, you may have a drinking problem.

If you answer two questions, yes, you do have a drinking problem. If you answer three or more, yes, you're an alcoholic. I answered 19 yes.

I answered no to the question. Do you seek lower companions?

I couldn't find any.

Now, I don't know what that means. I, you know, I just think it's superfluous. It's probably the most useless thing you'll ever do. I don't, you know, I don't know why we're upset with convincing new people or alcoholic. We, we really are. We have a preoccupation with that that's unbelievable. And I do it too. I we all do it. I guess we don't know what else to do with you When, when we first meet you is to convince you you ought to stay here. You don't. You don't need to be convinced. You know, you're alcoholic. You don't would not come here. That social drinkers don't show up here.

Yeah, the social drinkers in Missoula are not here this morning. It's not where they come. People here are alcoholic and

but anyway, I'll tell you a good reason to take that test. It will please the old timer who gives you the test,

which is a very good reason to take it because they tend to treat you a lot better when you, you know, do things they like. So it's a very politic way to get into a A. Now, I took the test and I, the meeting began. It was and it began the way we began. I don't know whether you do it here in Montana, but it began much the way we do in Southern California. They read that portion of our book

in chapter 5 That constitutes our recovery program, which is something else you ought to understand if you're new.

That's a a What's in that book, that chapter and those steps, that's a A. Anyone else tells you any different? They're lying. Get away from them.

Now,

if you want to recover here, you must take those 12 steps, not work them, take them, do that,

you must execute them A. A is a program of execution. It is not philosophy.

No one cares what you think. If you're new,

your opinion about anything is useless.

We don't care if you believe in God, that is a luxury you left a long time ago. You used that up. You better find a way, pal.

You better find a way. You got to do it here,

and it doesn't matter whether you believe in God. Incidentally, what you will discover when you're here for a while, He believes in you. And you must take those steps. Now, I heard those steps read at that first meeting in the basement of that Presbyterian Church. And I want you to know that I am the end product of four years of eight years of Dominican nuns, 4 years of Jesuit priests. And I didn't hear anything new.

There's nothing new there to me, nothing that I have not been exposed to,

indoctrinated with and lived within the framework of my entire life. I know that ethic. I am well familiar with it now. Some of those these things we you, as a matter of fact, it seemed to me rather broad brush, spiritual strokes, if you will. I mean, you know, you call that you, you act like you invented these concepts here in this in a a let me tell you something.

These things have been around for a long time. This is the basis of living

for almost every ethnic eastern and western in the history of mankind. We called some of these things by different names. That's all. You talk about a searching at a fearless moral inventory like that's some kind of a new idea.

Let me tell you, You ask any kid that's been raised in the Roman Catholic Church about his searching in far fearless moral inventory. I'll tell you what. It's called a different name. It's called examination of conscience, but it's the same thing. It's the exact same principle. You talk about admitting to God into another human being, the exact nature of your role

every Saturday afternoon

from the time I was seven, probably through the time I was 16.

So I am well familiar with these concepts. I knew it then and I know it now. So what I said to myself subconsciously, I didn't reason it all out based on that church, but in the back of my mind somewhere I said, if this is your answer,

my case must be different.

Because if this is what works for what's wrong with you and me, I will never get better here because I know all about that and it has nothing to do with the way that I drink alcohol. So I dismiss those steps subconsciously. And the meeting continued and several people participated. And it was, they were nice people. They were

insurance salesman and dentists, I think, and they were and they said innocuous things that seem to be inapplicable to my life. They talked about one guy in particular said six months prior to that evening he got drunk through the mortgage payment on his house.

Then he found you wonderful people, the splendid program and this little blonde Allen on wife nodded her head yes and did another row. And,

you know, I turned to text and I said,

where do you send the more difficult cases? Because I don't know

what's wrong with him, but there's a lot more wrong with me than that. And he said, shut up or something equally as appropriate. And and the meeting continued. And if I had any doubts as to whether I belonged at that meeting or not, they were cured at the end because we have in California. And I don't know whether you do that here. How do you celebrate a anniversaries in Montana? I don't know. But back in California, they do it in in the lexicon of the birthday party.

You know what I mean? They have a cake

and they put candles on it. And it is really, if you're new, strange. I mean, you know, I mean it really it's, it's embarrassing. I mean, you are sitting in a room full of middle-aged people and some jerk

gone for a year without taking a drink and they walked down the aisle with a birthday cake with a candle on it. And all these morons sing happy birthday to this fool and he blows the candle. I mean, it is really like some cheap pop psychotherapy, isn't it? I mean, think about it. They're going to smack of the day room at a mental institution,

you know,

really does. I mean,

first, they take time. It's like something you would do right before dance therapy, you know?

After you've spent the morning working on your wallet, you know,

and they had a series of these idiots birthday parts, you know, one after another.

And they had one for a gal who was about 110.

She was sober forever because they had a bonfire on top of.

Flames came up off of his birthday cake

and she hobbled up there and she puffed and puffed and she kind of blown them out. Look like Emphysema would kill her before she got the candle that she got him out

and she came up to this podium and she said her name was Phoebe

and she was an alcoholic. And then she said something about did I want what she had?

Now,

it's true that my standards were not high that night.

You'd have to take a long look at Phoebe

and you would pass

Just grim.

That was my first day a meeting.

Now, it is safe to say that I did not have a spiritual awakening.

Let me tell you what I did though, because if you're new, IT may be the only significant thing that I have to say at AA when you when all of it is boiled down

and that is this. For the next 3 1/2 years, I drank no alcohol nor did I use any mood altering chemicals whatsoever. And I participated in every facet of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I did everything there was to do, an A, A in that 3 1/2 year period of time. I was in an A, a meeting nightly.

I was involved in my group. I had every kind of an A, a commitment you could have.

I did everything there was to do in a A except one thing.

I do not take these steps.

And you know what happened?

My alcoholism got worse.

It got worse while I was intensely active in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It got worse while I sat at AA meetings nightly. So if you are new

and you are exposed to the very popular expression today in a a meetings, I just love it. Bring the body here, the mind will follow.

Let me give you a clue

that's wrong.

And if you are around anybody who's given you that gas,

get away from

because you have to do a lot more here to bring the body

much, much more.

Now, my alcoholism got worse while I sat in a a meetings and I knew it was getting worse. And there are people here today in that boat who have been an Alcoholics Anonymous some period of time who have not taken these steps and who are getting worse. And they're getting crazier by the day. And the way that you know you're getting worse is 'cause you are surrounded by people who are getting better.

Because recovery here is visually perceptible. You can see recovery in AA. You can see somebody getting better. Nobody has to tell you they're getting better, do they? You just watch them and you know they're getting better. Something happens to people who get better Here it is. It is absolutely miraculous. They get

boom, something happens in her eyes. They get a sense of purpose about their life. They have direction, they're going somewhere. They are operating on all 8 cylinders and they are talking about things that make me crazy.

They are talking about developing a relationship with a higher power,

a personal relationship with a higher power. They are talking, they are writing inventories and making amends, paying money back, and they are helping people for free, no price tag.

And they're getting better. And there are other people here who are not getting better, who sit in the back of the room and they're arrogant and they don't like anything that goes on here. And they criticize everybody who's doing anything here.

They don't like the secretary, they don't like the leader and they don't like the speaker. And they resent. Not only do they have, you know what happened to me, I started, I have a whole new set of resentments, not only the ones I brought in here. Now I hate these bastards and a they're all getting better. I'm getting worse.

And it's a miserable existence here, isn't it? And there are people here today that know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a terrible existence and it's a terrible way to live. And you watch people get better all around you. And I used to think, when do I get mine? When does that happen to me? When do I get to feel like that?

I used to think they had secret meetings somewhere where they, you know what I mean? Do you ever have that feeling where they shared what was really going on that made you feel like that? It certainly couldn't be this. I mean, it had to be something much different than this. And so now, on the outside, my life looked good. She's 24 years old

and I bounced up. When you're 24, you don't stay down, incidentally, So don't recuse. Don't confuse outside things with recovery in a because you get better in a hurry just by attrition. If you're 24, good things happen. You don't drink and you don't use any chemicals and you stay at AA. Marvelous things will happen to you. If you don't do anything

on the outside, things will. Great things will happen to you. Great things happen to me. I have a a wonderful education. I come from a wonderful family. Let me let me tell you about that for a minute too. It's another thing I want to talk about that I know there is somehow a feeling and somehow a notion

in a a meetings that I am in these days that somehow

hating your parents can make you a whole human being. You know, I'm going to tell you something if you're operating on that number. I got some bad news for you because I discovered something when I wrote that fearless and searching moral inventory that you demanded I write. And you know what? I found out?

My life's my fault.

Oh, sorry, but I saw that.

And when you write it, that's what you're going to find out.

Now I have this wonderful family

there. My wife calls my family Norman Rockwell. You know what I mean? They're a big Irish Catholic family. They're all married to the same spouse. There aren't any other Alcoholics. They're kind. And like, we have a big reunion every year in New Jersey and all of my nieces and nephews and sisters get together and there's, it's a typical Irish Catholic family. There are 8 billion kids, you know, and, and everybody loves them. They love each other

and they're all glad they have them.

There's no and they drink. They drink beer and I suppose white wine now, which isn't that hideous.

I'm the most glad I'm not drinking today.

I think I'd see me sitting. I'll have a glass of Chablis, you know. But anyway,

so they drink and they drink. They do that during the day, during this picnic. And at 4:00 The funny thing happens. All the coffee pots start bubbling. Nobody drinks anymore.

They quit drinking, they drink coffee, and we all go home.

Can you imagine that? That's the damnedest thing. It's hard to fathom, isn't it? It really is. It's it's, it's unbelievable. And so that's what

what my family is like. My family sought to it. I am the youngest of five. My youngest sister is 11 years older than me. And for an Irish can, I'm the only boy. They're all poor girls. Now I want to tell you, for an Irish Catholic family, I came along to this and my mother was 45 and my father was 50 when I was born. So here it was, his fifty year old Irishman who had a son

after all these girls and all these sisters

who did nothing. But I mean I was like the Crown Prince of, you know what I mean? I mean they dressed me in sailor suits and soldier suits, right? You know, I mean we've got pictures at home. I mean I've got waving the flag. It was during the war, you know. I mean, God, I had every uniform and hat known to man, you know what I mean? They had it was just wonderful.

I'm the end they and you know what they loved me and I always knew they loved me. There was never any doubt. They cared about me. They nurtured me. They sought to it. I got the best in life right on up to my parents died when I was 12. Within one week of each other. They were sick and these and my family was almost like I missed my parents and I loved them and it was terrible, but I never missed a beat.

I mean, it was all there for me. There was plenty of love. There was plenty of protection. There was plenty of care,

plenty of nurturing. I I'm the end product of a classic Roman Catholic education. Can't get a better education than I have. And I'm going to tell you about nuns and priests. My only experience with nuns and priests is that I was exposed to a group of men and women who cared about me enough to see to it that I was educated in spite of myself.

They saw to it that I had the very best of everything.

I was not exposed to any warped spiritual perception of God. But

none of that happened to me. All I got was the very best. Therefore, why alcoholism is not the fault of the Roman Catholic Church either.

So if you're new out there

and you're still trying to hang it on them,

quit blaming those poor nerves. I got to tell you, you know, they take a lot of heat in AA and I and I'm going to tell you they don't deserve it. So and hang it up because they're not going to take the blame. Let me tell you, it's not going to happen. Now, I, I went right on to a, I went to an Ivy League university and I quit school my senior year because I had a fight with my family and I,

I showed them I joined the Navy, right?

Was an intelligent decision

and I, I was a biochemistry major, so I was going to be a physician. That was the grand plan. And

in the Navy, if you're not a position, the closest you can get to being a physician is a hospital corpsman. That's what they said they would do with me. And so I went to hospital core school. I took tests, first of all, which is very good. You know, that's another thing I, and I think a lot of Alcoholics are like this. I'm very good at written text. Are you good at written test? I'm bad at living life,

great at written test. As a matter of fact, did you ever have the feeling if life were a written test, you'd never have to be here, right? You'd never have to come to AAI mean you just it all would have been fine.

Always practical application is where I get the jackpot. So I went to Navy, I gave you these tests. I went to hospital court school and I graduated number one in the class. And they said to me, well, we want to send you to a more advanced medical school where we train hospital corpsman to function on destroyers, small ships where there are no physicians. So it's a more sophisticated medical training and it's a lot longer time. It's a brand new school and would you like to go to that school? I said, certainly. They sent me that school and I graduated number one in that class

and they said you're really a bright fellow. How would you like to go to medical administration school, which is another year and a half school

so you could learn how to become a medical administrator. And if you complete that school successfully, we'll make you an officer in the Navy. Went to that school, graduated at the top of that class, and they commissioned me an Ensign in the United States Navy. And then they sent me to Okinawa, to the Marine Corps, which was a hell of a thing. I mean, I didn't plan on that. That isn't what I had in mind, but I got sent to

the northern end of Okinawa to the 3rd, to the 5th, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine, 5th Marine Regiment, which was one of these,

You know, we killed all The Jets on ELO, you know what I mean? They were. It was really, you know,

just Jones here knows

I rest my case.

So they are like Jones and his brothers, you know, I mean all of them.

And I lived in the Officers Club and in the northern end Camp Schwab. Remember that you were, and I met a guy over there who is a Navy surgeon, a thoracic surgeon, Lieutenant Commander. He was a we became spiritual brothers because we discovered the answer to life together. And if you don't know where it is, I can tell, you know, the answer to life is it's in the officer's club

on Camp Schwab in Okinawa and it's called Hagen Hague Pinch

and it goes for $0.60 a drink, $0.60 a shot for Hagen Aching. He said that then and he and I lived in this officers cover. I say we lived in there. Literally we lived. First of all, I was in medical administration officer and they couldn't find a job for me. It was though. So all I did was live in the officers club and drink. It was all you know.

And I helped him with, I saw some patients, helped him with the sick call, but he was worse than I was, as it turned out. And pretty soon the battalion commander, this Lieutenant Colonel, decided that we were unfit to be around patients. So we got relieved of our duty and we got, we spent the end of our naval career in charge of the neural Disease Control on the island of Openality, unceremonious,

very non professional, kind of a way to end it all, you know. And I ended up back in the United States and I got out of the service and I went back to school and I got my degree

and I ended up in that a, a meeting I was telling you about in the 1965. And that was the background. And you got to know this because when I was with this 3 1/2 year period of sobriety, I was telling you about a moment ago, why some wonderful things happened to me. And first of which was a new profession opened up in civilian medicine was called the physician associate program.

And what it was is they took some people who were had this medical training in the military such as myself, and they license us to go into emergency rooms and practice primary emergency medicine as a physician would do in an emergency room. And it was a whole pilot program in California. And I was the 3rd licensed PA in the state of California in 1966.

And I got the very best job a Pennsylvania could get in Los Angeles in 1966. I went to work in an industrial emergency room in the industrial complex of LA where Kaiser Steel and Norris Industries and all these big manufacturing plants were. And they would have these terrible injuries. I mean, you know, Kaiser Steel would have terrible things happen to some of their people at night and Latchward glass would have, you know, people would get sliced almost in half. You know, it was terrible. And we would handle all of this trauma in this emergency room. And I was the PA there and I was a good

and it was professionally rewarding and I was very confident at what I was doing. I was well trained. I made a lot of money. It was monetarily rewarding. It was a good place to be. I mean, it was a ground floor of a brand new profession. I met a beautiful girl. We fell in love and got married. She was the daughter of a long time sober a a member and we were that grand young a, a, a couple. You've got one here, I'm sure.

They're just so cute, aren't they?

He's got a great job and she's pretty, and boy, nothing bad's going to happen to them. They have this wonderful program. You know,

all that gas,

maybe it may be true, but I would say it's not true in our case because I had not taken these steps and I had no program and I'd go into this emergency room night after night and funny things would begin to happen to me. I'd become inadequate, less there, not up to the task,

frightened and alone. All the things that you and I know about that happened to people who don't, who are Alcoholics but don't drink and don't have a spiritual program. Now, although I have no spiritual program, I have a very good medical background, so I know how to take care of depression.

I use Dexedrine.

15 milligram spatials work best, and by the time I was through with those, I was taking seven or eight of them a day.

Anyone that knows anything about amphetamine abuse understands that. How's you moving? Right along is what that does.

Whatever you're doing, you do it in a hurry.

But it has an overriding problem, and that is this long. About the 5th or 6th day, when you have not slept nor eaten,

your hair stands right up on end like that. Your eyes dilate right out of here to your ears. And

when you show up in the emergency room like that

to help the sick,

the guy you're relieving never wants to go home.

But there's an answer to that.

And the answer to that incidentally, is a drug called Demerol, which is a Demerol incidentally, is another thing I want to talk about drugs. Demerol is a narcotic, comes from opium. It's really a synthetic, but it's the same analog, chemical, analog opiates. Incidentally, narcotics are addictive.

Any drug that comes from opium is addictive,

period. You know, which is the difference, incidentally, between and. I hope I don't upset some of you who are here, but I don't care anyway. But I hope I don't.

Narcotic addiction and alcoholism are different.

Let me tell you the same It's not true. They're different addictions.

Narcotics come from opium and they are addictive. I mean, case closed. They are addictive for everyone. Heroin, morphine, Dilaudid, opium, Percodan, they're all from opium. And opiates are addictive. They are physiologically addictive and they are psychologically addictive. If you inject them in your vein, you will get addicted. That is a promise. That is not true with alcohol.

Did you know that nine out of 10 people who drink alcohol do it with impunity?

They are not alcoholic and they never end up in a A

9 out of 10. We represent one out of 10 people who drink alcohol for us. Something else happens when we drink alcohol. It does something to and for us that it does not do to other people. 9 out of 10 people who drink alcohol are social drinkers. That's what they are now. I don't understand them, but that's what they. You know what social drinkers do. Social drinkers, people who normal ordinary human beings drink alcohol. They do it a different way than we do. They they drink. They.

Things like

no more for me,

I have to drive

or they say she had loved to have another with you, but my wife's waiting dinner

or the very best, my favorite

let's eat.

That's what social drinkers do.

I don't drink that way.

Happen to be both. I happen to be both. I happen to have been addicted to Demerol and I'm an alcoholic and I'm sure many of in this room or both. But they're two different ball games. And I think it's good to understand that when you knew, because all of the psychotherapeutic community would like us to believe it's all one big can of worms and it isn't. And it's important in a a that we know that it isn't.

Now

I became addicted to Deborah. I mean I got it out of the narcotic work and I indic I injected it and I got addicted. And when you're addicted and all of you know you're addicted to any drug you use more and more of it all time. And there's a problem with Demerol. Demerol is called a controlled substance. Let me tell you about that.

That means that people care about what the hell happens for Demerol.

I mean really, I mean, people, all kinds of human beings are in involved with where Demerol is. I mean, they spend time measuring the Demerol while Christ, you know, Jesus, Vince, where the hell is the dope?

I mean, it's good every time on your shift it's always gone. And

long and short of it is I'll tell you about who cares the most about Demerol.

The people on the State Narcotics Board in the state of California,

they care more about Demerol than you could possibly imagine.

They ended up in that emergency room early one Friday morning inspecting the narcotic logs.

And you know what they did? They placed me under arrest like a common drug addict,

called me out of that emergency room and took me to the Los Angeles County Jail, put me through the booking procedure, which was an hideous kind of a thing for a fellow like me, and I didn't have to go to jail. I was charged with a felony appropriating narcotics for my own use. No, I didn't have to go to jail. That charge was subsequently reduced to a misdemeanor,

but I was put on probation and I lost my medical license as well I should have. And to make a Long story short, I ended up spending the summer of 1972 living in an apartment by the airport in Los Angeles with this girl that I married. She and I lived there, and we spent July and August of 1972 with my drinking 1/2 gallon of vodka a day. And she watched.

And all the things that happened to you when you drink 1/2 gallon of vodka, they happened to me.

And once again, I think that's axiomatic. I think if you have, if you drink 1/2 gallon of vodka a day, you never have to worry. You know, I like about that kind of drinking. You don't have to worry about any diagnosis. You know what I mean? Nobody ever accuses you of being in denial

you really you drink 1/2 gallon of vodka today and you go crazy is what you do then there's no and the same thing happens to everybody. I mean, there's no social drinkers that half gala vodka a day. You, what you do is you vomit bile a lot. You

don't, you're never asleep and you're never awake. You remember that you're never drunk and you're never sober. You live in a twilight zone that you only know about if you've been there. You can't describe it. It's A and you lose 35 lbs in July and August. If you're like me and all of the bad things and the nightmares and the terrors that chase Alcoholics, they chase when you drink 1/2 gallon of vodka a day. And finally in the beginning of September, this girl's family came and they moved her out of that apartment and they left just me there.

And I had some money left and I don't know how much, but enough to get over that liquor store. Several more days. I don't recall quite how many.

And I would buy that half gallon of vodka and I would bring it back and I would somehow get through it to the next day. I was in and out of blackouts all the time. I don't know what was real and what was it. And I came out of a blackout in the early part of September in Newport Beach, CA. And I remember how I got there, but it was