Gene D. at Springfield, MO November 5th 1989

Yeah, my name is Gene, and I too. I'm an alcoholic. And always when I identify myself as an alcoholic, I base that identification on how I interpret the definition of the word alcoholic, as is defined in the third chapter of the book Alcoholics Anonymous,

wherein it says that we Alcoholics,

our men and women who have lost the ability to control our drinking. And that's all it says. It doesn't make any reference to how much we drank, what we drank, where we drank, or what happened as a result of our drinking. Doesn't say that in order to be an alcoholic you got to drink wine, live on Skid Row, go to jails and institutions and marry the same woman three or four times.

There's a decision as to whether or not we have lost the ability to control our drinking.

I certainly would be remiss if I didn't thank the committee for inviting me down here,

wherever the hell we are.

But I don't really mean that. I don't have too much of A kinship with Missouri. About 30 years ago, I spent seven months on the nut ward up there in John Cochran Hospital in Saint Louis. Try to remember the yoyo squad,

I said. I was emotionally upset

on the time I was upset with when I run out of booze. That was the only time I got upset,

but it's some people have asked me where Calistoga is and in reference to a recent Holocaust in San Francisco. I am a member of the Barbary Coast of Men's Stag group, which is part of the San Francisco Winter County Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Unlike you, I consider that the best group in a A and I live about 60 miles straight north of San Francisco

as part of the recent earthquake.

And I live in what is generally figured or considered in by many people in California is the most enchanting valley in our state. It's called the wine country, the Napa Valley.

I could best explain it to you. Or when did you see ATV

series called Falcon Crest? That's where I live. I live in an area like that where the only industry in our little 26 mile long valley is

the wine industry. But where I come from, they call winos connoisseurs

and I certainly never had a chance to suck on any of that $90.00 a bottle stuff. I was,

I was more or less down there in our kind of wine, you know, pride of Lodi, something like that,

$0.80 a quart,

888 a chase.

Ah, you know, we had dinner tonight next door here in an Italian restaurant, and it was nice. We had a little fellowship. I was scared to death the Jerry was gonna ask me to tell you what we talked about at that meeting, at that dinner, that would we'd all get run out of here, I think.

But as we were eating, I got to thinking of something that I'd like to share with you. It should be obvious to most of you by the size of my belly

that I love food. I love food, especially Italian food. It's a matter of fact, a few years ago I gave up sex for food. You know, as a matter of fact, we had a ceiling. We put a mirror on our ceiling in the dining room at home now,

but

in this little valley that I live in the neighboring community is a little town called Saint Helena. I live in a little town called Calistoga. There's only three little towns in our valley in in our county and our values world renowned for French and Italian wines and French and Italian food. And that suits me to achieve. Some of the finest Italian restaurants in the entire state are located right in our valley

and I have lunch most of the time and the weekdays when I am home in an Italian restaurant that I and some other gentleman have been eating in for the last 25 years.

And that's a table set up sort of like this, only a seats 12.

I'm the only member of this group, this fraternity that doesn't drink. They all know the nature of my business, not that I'm trying to be commercial. I own and operate the an alcoholic treatment facility in Calistoga, CA. That is the oldest treatment facility and the continuous ownership in California. And it's the first social model detoxification ever done in the United States. And the only program we have is the book Alcoholics Anonymous. So many people know that

and all of these other people around the table are are men who are actively engaged in the wine industry. Some of the finest names in the wine industry, Peter Mondavi and Robert Mondavi and Louis Martini and and brother Timothy from the Christian Brothers and, and guys like that. And we sit around this table to 12 of us, and we're like little old ladies, you know, we have our own

chair and we get upset if somebody sits in it by mistake. And then we have the same two waitresses. They've been there for 25 years. I guess

we don't even order from them menu anymore. They just ought to know what we want and they bring it and we don't say nothing. And that's, you know, and it's, it's just a great hour, hour and a half of camaraderie every day. I really look forward to it. And occasionally some of these wine guys will bring in a visitor from some foreign country, Italy, France, England, Spain,

Australia, something. And it just so happens he always winds up sitting alongside of me because the table where they have to grab the extra chair for him like over there to weave it into our table and it winds up right alongside of me.

And my wine glass is always turned upside down. The waitress just does that automatically because she knows me. Because all of these other guys bring wine to lunch. They bring their fine estate type wines and they share with each other their new blends and stuff like that. And, and my glass is always upside down. So as we sit there eating,

inevitably about 15 minutes into the lunch,

the stranger will look at me

and he says that inevitable question.

Don't you drink?

I say not today

and that would be fine if he just leave it there

at about 10 minutes later when you got that has a mouthful of tortellini or something, he says. Why?

Well, I'm not about to get up and say my name is Gene and I'm an alcoholic and I'm I'm bound by a moral obligation to tell you what it was like. What happened was like that.

And so I come up with a couple of them little white lies we tell, you know, and I said, well, I'm going to the dentist this afternoon and, you know, like this alcohol on my breast. So my mother-in-law is coming tonight or something like that. And I've done that for a long time. But it always bothered me, Always bothered me. Because, you see, it will be very obvious to most of you shortly that I don't have an education.

I'm explaining my feelings and my thoughts

has always been a difficult thing in my life. I know inside of my gut what I want to say, but I really don't know how to say it.

And I have gone for a long, long time Why I don't drink. I know why I don't get up in the morning and put a needle in my arm, roll a joint to chop a line or smoke a funny or whatever to have my game is, you know? I know why, but I didn't know how to tell you that. And I never used to know how to tell these strangers that

until a few years ago. I was invited to participate in a activity in a place called Stockton, CA Jeez. Now let me tell you, Stockton is not exactly the French Riviera. You know,

I'm Stockton is about as exciting as an empty paint can.

Big thing in Stockton on Saturday afternoon is to go through the work clothes departments of JC Penney's. That's sort of a big deal around there, you know.

And so I was holed up in one of these Mama Papa type motels waiting for the festivities that night and trying to pass the time of day. And I had the TV turned on and I was watching one of them Saturday afternoon classics. You know, Shirley Temple makes it with Godzilla or something like that,

when all of a sudden the commercial came on. Now, this commercial meant so much to me that I researched it right down to its filming date and everything about it, and it was a nationally syndicated commercial. So I'm quite sure many of you in this room have seen it.

And ironically, it was advertising a beer,

but it was filmed right in on our most beautiful day in San Francisco Bay

on what I would choose to believe was in October afternoon because October is the best month, you know, in in San Francisco. That is our summer, you know, October. And it was filmed on one of them beautiful days when the Bay was just a glistening sheet of blue, you know, and all the sailing boats are out there look like a bunch of little white butterflies flitting around, you know. And and then they took with the camera, they zoomed in on one of these sailing vessels,

these with a big flowing sales, you know, and it showed a bunch of young people running up and down the deck. And they had cut off blue jeans on and funny little T-shirts and wear little hats. And they were shimmying up the mask and diving off the yard arm and they swinging on the lines and dropping into the Bay, just just guessing around, having a big time. And then the punch line came on for the commercial

and said you only go around once,

grab all of the gusto you can. And I didn't know what the hell gust on this.

And I went out to the desk and I asked if I could borrow a dictionary. They had a little apartment back in there someplace. They got me a little dictionary and I looked up the word gusto and it says gusto,

slang expression for living.

You only go around once,

grab all of the living you can.

And it's because of that

I didn't put a needle in my arm, I didn't take a drink, and I didn't smoke a funny little cigarette or chop a line this morning.

I want all of that living I can get.

I want to go every place there is to go. I want to see everything there is to see. And I've learned some very cold facts about life. Very cold,

sometimes not really worth repeating, but sometimes necessary to repeat.

Jenna starts to think about life.

Life is the most precious thing that you and I or anybody else will ever experience.

Life.

And from the moment it starts, it begins to get shorter.

Every unit of time that goes by, whether it be a minute, an hour, a day, or a week, whatever unit you use as it goes by, that is a portion of your life that is over

done, finished.

In a very morbid way, every unit of time that goes by

brings you that much closer to the end of your life.

And life isn't a VCR. You can't put it on Fast forward, rewind or anything like that. Life goes by at its pace. Not our pace, its pace.

And so I want it all, damn it. I want it all.

But common sense has taught me, and probably has taught you that we can't get it all. We know that.

But how fortunate you and I are, how much more fucking that you and I are than those out there.

Because you see, we know something that they don't know yet.

If the you and I know that we can get more out of life

clean and sober than we ever got out of it drinking and using, we already know that

they don't. You and I sit here tonight

right where we've been trying to be for years.

Or haven't you ever said Jesus Christ? I wish I had a chance to do it all over again with what I know now.

Well, here you are Charlie. Here you are

chance to start out all over again.

And that's what Bill meant when he defined our program

to start all over again. What is a? A

bill says that it has. Bill sees it.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a program designed for people who seek a new way of life

and as a result of taking what we call the 4th step of this program, which most of us took long before we even came to this program. The 4th step, I believe, is what brings us to this program

because most of us sat alone someplace in a jail or a hospital or your kitchen or your bedroom and said, Jesus Christ, I don't want this to go on.

That's the first step of this program. And so we're here now to embark

on a program. Program sounds too clinical.

How about adventure?

Embark on a new adventure called Living the Great Adventure of Living

and here we are. Here we are.

But a guy asked, does that come in the lobby tonight? He's right. Now, how'd you get here?

I I got to already say, well, I flew out of San Francisco into Denver and United Denver. Ho, ho,

how did I get here?

Me and you started coming here a long time ago. A long time ago. I don't know when you started. I know when I started. Just about. Let me tell you a little bit about me. You know, as a matter of fact, I was sort of reminded of it. I drove down from our valley over to a town called Santa Rosa yesterday because as you know, our bridge,

the main artery into San Francisco, is must have mad.

So transportation getting around right now is a little hectic,

and as I was driving through the vineyards and over the mounds and some chanting place,

I came upon a construction site.

Now, I was a stone Mason by trade for many, many years.

I've been retired for a long time. I've spent most of my life in the construction industry and I still take an interest whenever I go past a construction project, you know, that self-centered egotistical nature of us. I'd like to stop by and make sure they're still doing things right, you know, and things like that, mixing the water just right, you know, and,

and I, as I went past this, this won't mean much to the women in here, I guess. But the guys are like this thing that a big sign out in front, you know, and obviously you can see it was a new school that they were building and big sign, says future home

of the Francis W Pennington High School.

Jesus Christ,

Can you imagine telling somebody you go to Francis W Pennington High?

The logo on their football helmets must be a Canary. You know,

I'm born and raised in a ghetto like neighborhood in New York and

in the high school I went to, didn't have a name, had a number, had a number. As a matter of fact, if it had a name, it would have been something like Lucky Luciano's Cat

Al Capone Prep. You know,

driver's education in my high school was how to leave the scene of an accident.

President and a senior class is a guy by name of Vito. That ought to tell you everything right there.

I had a hell of a time there. Let me tell you about that.

I was placed into what the New York State Board of Regents called special education.

Nowadays they call it welcome back Cotter. I stayed in the same room for eight years.

Whatever came first dating the teacher was smoking determined that you graduated or not, you know.

And finally I got put out of the 8th grade

and they told me I had to go into the high school.

And then the great mystery started,

because the first day I got the high school, they told me that it was a requirement of the New York State Board of Regents that all high school students take a foreign language.

I have been getting F ING English for eight years

and now they wanted me to take a foreign language.

I thought, entertained the weird thought that if I ever picked up on a language, that's where they were going to ship me. You know,

I told the brother Jack was along with me that day. And I can't really recall the choices I had. I think it was French, Spanish, German and maybe Italian. I don't really remember. But my brother said I didn't have much of a chance in any of them. But I'm a little Irish, Roman Catholic. So obviously as a small lad I had served on the altar of the church. So I knew the Latin of the Mass and I knew the Confederate and a few things like that.

So my brother wisely, you know, he said. Well, you know a little bit about Latin,

he says. Tell him you'll take Spanish, he says. That's the closest you can get.

So as a freshman, I took Spanish one

and there's a Sathmore I took Spanish once.

As a junior I took Spanish one,

and in 1940 I was still taking Spanish one as a senior when I split from high school. And with the suggestion of two detectives in New York City Police Department, I voluntarily enlisted at age 16 with a fake birth certificate in the United States Marine car.

And I lost my virginity in a House of ill repute in a place called Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And I learned more Spanish that night than I did in the whole four years.

I certainly don't tell you that to be vulgar,

because I want to tell you how important that was.

That instilled into me, although I didn't realize it at the time,

a strong belief in practical experience,

a belief that was eventually going to save my life

because I am totally convinced that this very moment,

it's the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, had been anything other.

And the sharing of experiences between one alcoholic with another. If there have been anything other than that,

I'd rather be back in the penitentiary or I'd be dead.

I'd be back there as a piece of crap on Chicago, Skid Row or wherever. If this had been a program where I had to come in here on Monday morning and recheck the five and then on Friday ask answer 30 true or false questions, forget it. Or if I had to read chapter three more about alcoholism and then write a 500 word thesis and what the hell I read, forget it because I couldn't read anything. They had more than two syllables in it.

And God, as I understand Him,

placed into my life

three men, three men who sat at tables just like you sit, three members of Alcoholics Anonymous

who walked the words in that book for me. I couldn't read that book, but those men put those words into motion, and I saw what you meant.

I'm not criticizing anybody anywhere in a a. I'm going to tell you just how it was and how I feel.

No man in AA that ever worked with me told me

to go to 60 meetings in 60 days or 90 meetings in 90 days. They never told me that. What they said was this. We are going to go to 60 meetings in 60 days. We are going to go to 30 meetings in 30 days. You should never, in my opinion, ever let a new alcoholic go to a meeting alone.

How is he to know if he's hearing right or wrong

if you're not there?

90 meetings in 90 days is a brush off where I come from. In other words, I got no time for you. Get out of my sight for 90 days and then come back and report.

And it was through these men that I found this great adventure

called Alcoholics Anonymous. I'd like so many I stumbled along the way.

I'm the shining example of the great success of AA.

I came in here when I was 24 years old and stayed drunk for six years

because I would just like the new people today and the young people today.

I'm too young to be an alcoholic. My God, I'm only 24 years old. I'm a big time war hero. How the hell can I be an alcoholic?

What, are you taking the fun out of my life? That's what I thought. Hell, I can drink beer, can't I? I just drink on weekends. Can I?

There I was being auditioned for the third chapter of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Here are the things that we try.

But what possesses people like you and I to become like that?

Doesn't it sort of bug you sometime when you run into these people and they say, oh, you don't drink anymore?

No, neither do I. Oh yeah. You on a? A what? What's a

You said you quit drinking? Yeah, I decided to quit. I'd like to break him up.

The book says that will

persist, You know, in an illusion, an obsession,

right through the gates of insanity. And it's a death

that will participate in countless vain attempts.

For what?

What the hell are we looking for?

What causes us to do these things?

I certainly don't know what causes you to do things.

I'm not too sure I know what caused me to do that, Sadhguru, but I have sort of a a vague idea

because I don't think we're all that different.

I don't care whether you're smoking though. Chopping lines, drinking a lot,

it's all basically the same. All for the same reason. All for the same reason.

Let me offer you this opinion

with me. It started in that recruiting office

in 1941, prior to World War 2. The war hadn't started yet. So I don't want to think I was any big hero out there to defend our shores and all womanhood. I just had a couple of detectives prodding me along, you know, if I had gotten into the Hubcap business and the Spotlight business and a few other businesses

and they had given me an alternative

integrity of federal building at 90 Church Street in New York City. And they said that before you leave this building, one of two things is going to take place.

You're either going to voluntarily enlist in some branches of the military. Are you going to be sentenced to a year and a day at Rikers Island, which in those days was New York City and county juvenile detention facility?

Anybody have any common sense? But no, you're better off in the military than going on a reform school.

So I I accepted my fate and I wound up being interviewed by a Marine. What a big interview that was. I think he held it in the broom closet.

It didn't even turn on a light. He just let the light shine in from the hall is I got to give you an eye test and he hung up this big chart, you know, and he said put that over your right eye. Tell me what you see. And I went he just fine

like that.

I've been interviewed by the Navy priors at just to show you the kind of a asshole I was.

I'm a 16 year old wizard St. Punk.

I would have Jack rolled my grandmother if I knew she had 1/4.

I lied and I cheated and I shot every angle I couldn't. I figured the world owed me a living and today was payday. That was the kind of an attitude that they brought into his Navy recruiting office.

The first guy I saw was the chief Yeoman. So I can see him as plain as day sitting right out there in the middle of this big office, You know, you ever see a chief Yeoman in the Navy? It looked like ambulance drivers. You know, it's a black coat on the black time. Big fuzzy little cheekies are all in red, you know, and they got that true cutting their teeth. They look like they come from Iowa.

And before I, you know, before I gave him a chance to speak, I told him that if I went into the Navy, what ship I wanted to be on and few other things. And he got upset about that, you know, and he expressed, you know, his disgust with me in some nautical terms,

which I didn't really understand, you know. And when he got through, I expressed a few viewpoints of my own in some St. terms, which really upset him. He came out from behind that desk. And man, he must have hit me 5000 times, you know, before I kissed the floor. And when I came to, this should be easy for those of you who are alcoholic. And I came to out in the court. I was laying on my back

and as I shook myself into some semblance of reality and my eyes opened up, I was staring straight up

and right over me looked like the tallest guy I'd ever seen in my life. Looked like it was 19 foot 11, you know, from that anger you had on them. Royal blue trousers and a red stripe up the side and then dark blue and yard and a half a crap up here and red and yellow all over here. Look like Wallace Beery, you know,

he said. Hello, tough guy.

Yeah, I didn't think I was tougher, but I think as long as that jacket has, did you know I I thought he played in a band. I didn't know the hell he was, you know,

and he turned out to be the Marine recruiter.

But that's night, you know, if, if, if I was somebody

engaged, you know, in the field of alcoholic treatment and things like that, that

I would diagnose it. I would say this to you that what I'm about to tell you was the beginning of the development of the alcoholic personality. You know,

because that night I got put on a train in Penn Station

with six other guys who had enlisted in the Marines that day.

But they were in 16 year old fuzzy cheeked little wimps like me.

I called them old guys. They were probably 1819 years old, but they were big guys. They were six twos. They had a big shoulders. They were the kind of guys you see in the Marine pictures on TV, you know, John Wayne, victim of laughing and all them Ty hard, not big guys. You know,

when I was on the train with six of them and I was streetwise enough to know to keep my mouth shut, you know, and I just sat there in total awe of these guys

total because one of them, and this won't be no big deal for those of you who live here in the West, one of these guys was a real cowboy. I have never seen a cowboy in my life. The only guy I've ever seen on a horse in my life was a New York cop, you know, and here this guy is sitting there and he was a real cowboy. He wasn't one that just bought the clothes. You know, he had dirty old hat and big buckles, you know, and and worn out shoes and and he talked that cowboy talk, you know,

rope in and and fencing and and things like that. And she was talking, man, I just taking it all in. And right in the middle of his clock he kept talking away and he pulled out a little bag and fooled around like that. Some paper

son of a bitch made a cigarette with his hand. I had never seen anything like that in my life.

My God.

Oh, I wanted to be him. Jesus, I wanted to be a cowboy. I wanted to make a cigarette with my mouth. I want to rope. I want to ride the range. I want all the things, you know? But I only wanted to be that until somebody else started to talk

and the next guy was sort of a liar because at first he said he was with the circus,

what he really was. He was a stagehand with a burlesque show

that traveled around with a carnival.

But it didn't take a lot of thinking on my part to realize that if he's a stagehand in a burlesque show, that means he is backstage when the stripteasers get finished there.

Now I know topless is no big deal today in our permissive society.

Come on, in 1941 for a 16 year old virgin man, that was the Deep Throat of my day

and I wanted to be him

only until the next guy.

The war was half over before I figured this out.

Some lousy island out in the Pacific, I guess, one day. And I went because this guy was a merchant seaman and he had enlisted in the Marines that day under a fictitious name because he was trying to duck whatever kind of punishment he was going to get in the maritime service because he said he had lost his ship in Manhattan

for two years, right? How the hell do you lose that shit? Big shit, you know.

But what was so exciting about him, it's just a week prior to being there on the train with me, he had been in a place called Reykjavik, Iceland. Holy Christ, you know, up till that day my entire world was 40 square city blocks.

I knew every rooftop, every manhole, every alley in that 40 square block.

But outside of that, everything was totally alien to me. I could look across the Hudson River and I knew New Jersey was over there someplace. And I knew that if you went on up through the Bronx and up and through Westchester, you'd eventually come to someplace called Connecticut. I knew that, and I had never been out of my little cocoon.

And now I was on my way to a place called Paris Island, South Carolina. I thought Indians were still down there for all I And I put a cowboy and I want a guy to just come back from Reykjavik, Iceland, and a guy from the circus. My God, I'm a world traveler, you know, And the train hadn't even left the station.

Check yourself.

If you sat on that train with me that night,

you would have thought the same thing. I thought,

I want to be those guys.

I don't wanna be a 16 year old when I wanna be a cowboy. I wanna be in a circus. I wanna be something other than what the hell I am.

And I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to do it at 16. What that. But after we left Penn Station, through some process of selection,

they had a layover in Washington DC

and we pulled whatever change we had amongst us together.

And however we selected Beta Speed Run in Washington DC and went downtown and come back on the train. But a shopping bag full of booze? I have no idea to this day what kind of booze it was, how much it was. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference,

but that night I drank and that night I got drunk

and it was the greatest night in my young life. God, it was phenomenal.

I didn't shoot a cop, I didn't have a convulsion, I didn't have seizures or DP. Jesus. It was fantastic. I was one of the guy that was one of the guys. I remember walking into the dining car when the gentleman came to serve me my evening meal. I left them square in the face. I said you know who I am? And he said no, no. And I said I'm a rodeo star and I just come back from Cheyenne, WY

in a little while later. I told a little old lady sit there who didn't give a damn who the hell I was.

I told her I was an aerialist with the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus, and someone helped me into the birth that night and I told him I was the first mate on a ship that had just come back from Reykjavik, Iceland. I discovered the magic just like you discovered it. As long as I can get a little of that stuff inside of me, I can play any role that I wanted to play. It didn't mean it bad to me whether you believed it.

I believed it. I believe that was the cowboy. I believe that was in the circus. Who? What? Man, You believe

that's how it was going to be for a number of years? Oh, I got a warning right off the bat.

We all had warnings, but we don't heed them I guess.

I got mine the very next morning.

I don't know if any of you have ever been down South. You would never believe the place where they stopped a train that takes the marine recruits to this God forsaken place called Paris,

the place called Port Royal. I don't even know why the hell I ever gave it a name 'cause there is nothing there

in the middle of a swamp. Big swamp

trees, I don't know. What the hell is it called? They look like it. Did you know trap hanging down and things flying through there like that?

And all you can see coming up out of the water is the top of the railroad tracks, you know, and it's hot up here and cold down here. So it's sort of steams. Looks like we're Dracula would hang out, you know,

and I don't know if the Marines do that on purpose, the psychological reasons or what, but they, they bring that damn train in there at 5:00 AM,

you know, you don't know whether it's nighttime, daytime is gonna get light or dark, if it's very confusing, especially if you have a hangover. And man, I'm experiencing my first hangover. Man, I wanna die. I'm sicker than 20 sailors at Pearl Harbor. You know, I wanna throw up and I can't throw up. And I'm freezing at death and I'm sweating and shaking and bells are ringing. My neck is heavy. Oh, I wanna die, you know,

and I stepped down off of this train if it had water.

And that's when I saw the first real Marine that I was to see.

I see him right now. Right now, I see this guy coming out of that farm. You know, I would have been better off with Dracula, believe me.

And he didn't have all one of them blue and red outfits with all that other crap up there. Now I gotta he was about 5 foot eight and he was 5 foot eight. Everybody had looked at him. He was 5 foot 8

and he had no net. His head came right out of his chest.

I was bright red. He won't want to smoke you the bear hat.

And he walked like he had a bad leg.

And it came right up to me.

I'm telling you I'm sick, right?

I don't know why the hell he picked on me, but

I was dressed in the style of my day. And this guy definitely didn't understand style

because in 1941, I don't know, it's a hell of style. Was the Springfield, MO. But in New York City we wore pants that were very tight at the cuff and you couldn't get your pants off unless you took your shoes off. The beltline came way up around here someplace. You wore a coat down below your knees with padded shoulders and a hat with a brim out of here, a watch chain down. You call them zoot suits

and that's what I had on. Now this guy must have been from the Southeast someplace. You know, they talk funny down there anyhow, definitely didn't understand style, but he threw his face right up into mind playing chinny chin chin, you know, and hat spitting and slobbering all over my Stacy Alazar. Well, I guess we got another brother that New York freckles here. Jesus Christ, that here went right through my head

was like somebody took a javelin and threw out my God.

And you know what alcoholic rage is? That's when your actions overrule your common sense, you know, And I haul off and wipe this guy, you know,

not the way to go into any branch domestic. I spent the 1st 72 days of my Marine Corps career in the Paris island. Briggs you know,

my God is infinite wisdom finally let me out and, and I went on overseas and I was overseas when all hell broke and I joined the Japanese program and they kept us over for a while and everything was fine. I don't know when I became an alcoholic. I don't really know about that day when you cross over that invisible line. You know, there were days early in my drinking when I thought I was in a lot of trouble from drinking. And later on there were times when I I didn't think I was in trouble. So I don't really know,

but as a construction worker, I worked all over the middle W here, worked many times in Missouri, here in Louisiana and Chicago area.

And anybody that's been in that business knows what it's like. You're out of town and you act like a bunch of idiots, like a bunch of little kids, and you're drinking up a storm every night and raising hell and your values change a little bit. And we called it fun. We called it fun. I, I was watching a little biography of Vince Lombardi, the Green Bay Packers coach strip before he came down to the meeting and reminded me of her. I worked on that stadium up there in Green Bay for the Green Bay Packers. And we were living in a place called the Northland Hotel

away from home, you know, two weeks at a time. I'm getting drunk every night and raising hell. And our idea of fun in those days, when you come to work on a Monday morning, you know, you got to patch over your eye. You're sucking soup out of a straw. You got three stitches in your upper lip. You got an IOU for a restitution in the restaurant downtown and a warrant for your arrest. And you're saying to the guy alongside it was, Jesus Christ, Bruce, you should have been with us. We had a hell of a time this weekend.

I thought that was fun. I thought that was fun. And then your badges change.

I wouldn't stand here tonight and bore you with a blow by blow description of what happened to me,

but I would think it would be important for any of you who were in here in new to here one statement.

If I had time to tell you of all of the so-called pitiful and comprehensible demoralization that became part of my life, I would want you to know this.

It all happened after I came to my first meeting of alcoholic synonymous.

I came here wedding light,

but a clean bill. I had never been in jail, never been sick, never threatened with a divorce, never had lost a job in my life. I wound up at my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because of a rather silly thing

in your neighboring state. Here

we were building a shopping center in Milwaukee, WI,