Alano Iceland

Hi everybody. My name is Bud McDonald and I am an alcoholic.

Now you notice I gave my last name and I violated the tradition of anonymity inasmuch as it's my I'm allowed to do this, I can do it, but don't nobody put it in the paper, take a picture of me or anything like that. If you do, you're crazy anyway, you know, I mean to break the camera, but

but I didn't know and did this a little while ago that I was going to be here talking to you folks. I figured I get to see some meetings down here. My Home group is the hole in the ground in Huntington Park, CA. That's in Los Angeles County and it was the oldest group in the world meeting in the same room. It lacked two months of being 60 years and

we ran it the way we wanted to. The

we had four secretaries in 60 years.

So I mean, like I say, we ran it the way we wanted to. A guy named Tex had him started the group in 1941

and when he started the group, it was he had joined the mother group in Los Angeles. There were about 15 guys sober in a in a a in Los Angeles. The Saturday Evening Post article by Jack Alexander hadn't had just gotten out and New York was flooded and flooded with letters from people wanting to know about this thing that Alexander had reported on. He was going to expose this click that they had this

sinful thing that what they were doing with drunks or whatever it was, but

they joined started that thing in Texas. Adams found out about it. His sister Sybil was the first woman in Alcoholics Anonymous in the West Coast to Galley. Marty Mann was in New York and two other women in Akron, OH.

They didn't think women could be drunks, you know, couldn't be alcoholic. But

Sybil wrote a letter to New York after this article on the Saturday and Post that magazine, wanting to know where it was. And she would come there if they would because she had a real bad drinking problem.

And they wrote her back and said, well, there's a small group in Los Angeles meeting at the Cecil Hotel on Friday nights. And so she gets her husband to take her down there on this Friday night. And they met and talked to the people. And then the guy that was leading the meeting says has is the custom the women will have to go meet in the kitchen because we are only Alcoholics here.

And Civil was Christ and her husband who was a non alcoholic never had two short beers in his life with subjected to this a a meeting that these guys had.

So anyway, Civil got ahold of

the guy is a milkman out in Whittier

called him and says send your AAA ambulance after me. Well, you know, and but he told her to come back the following Friday and I need to make sure she got into the meeting and she did met these people. And by this time a lot of

stuff was coming to Los Angeles from the general service and or it was just the central office in New York at that time. And they had this big box of mail of people writing wanting to know about helping. It was a whole bunch of them from women that had drinking problems. And Frank Crandall, it was leading the group at that time, says we have

a woman alcoholic now and we have these letters for women with problems and we're going to turn them over to civil. And may put civil in charge of the drunken women.

And civil had never been in charge of anything. And she could see play from us, Civil in charge, civil's in charge, civiled in charge.

But anyway, she went out and began to make some calls on people. And she, one of the guys she called on was her brother, Tex Adams. It was a labor broker down on Skid Row. And he said The Walking man that was going through the papers on people's front porch, you know, and stuff like that. So he gathered up a bunch of his drunks and went down and find out what this scam was. There had to be some money to be made someplace in this thing.

And the old taxi went down there and he found out there was no money to be made in. But he did find out that it was it helped him with his drinking problem and he paid attention to these guys and he never had a drink from that day till the day he died. And that was some eleven years after that that he died. But

old Taxi started the whole underground group accidentally. He wanted to say something one night and Randall told me shut up, you don't know nothing. And you sit down and takes us to hell with you. And out he walked

and he says I'll start my own group. They said you can't do that. You'll wreck AA. He's watch me

And so he went down to Walnut Park, which is Lulu Town in southeast LA and they had their first meeting in a guy named Walter Watt

in his living room. And there were about six or seven guys there in this meeting in civil.

It was kind of so funny. Oh, Texas leading the meeting. And he said, alright, we're going to close the meeting now with the Lords Prayer, said recite the Lords Prayer with us. And she's, I didn't know it, you know, and it's kind of ridiculous because we hear the Lord Prayer all the time, but she didn't know the Lords Prayer.

But anyway, they started that group

and they said in a little place at the end of the Jay, Carolina streetcar switch around there, and this is where they located. And that building caught fire the night before the Japanese bomb, Pearl Harbor in 1941, December the 7th. And so that night, they rented the place where the whole underground finally established itself. And it was at the old Ebel Club in Huntington Park at the corner of Clarendon and Malabar.

They started these meetings

and it began to grow. And then some guy would get mad at text about something and say, you can't do it this way. Tax, they tell with you, here's a book and a pound of coffee. Go start your own meat and don't answer with me. And so more meetings in Southern California were started as hate the hole in the ground

as anything could be. And so this is what how it began in in Southern California. The group was text died in

November of 1942 or 52. And he gave the keys to a man named Duke Carson and appointed him secretary. No election, no nothing, just he appointed him secretary. And so Duke was an old ex convict at 11's Worth Penitentiary used to smuggle Chinese into the United States when it was profitable to do so. You know,

I think Tom Murphy that was around there one day and he was applying for a job and he was filling out this application and

he put Duke down as a personal reference and it says occupation is Murphy Rd. down Oriental importer.

So this Chinese smuggler, he took over as as the

of the the secretary of the group. I arrived there March 10th, 1953 and I came in out of jail. Now I, I've been in reform school. I remember when my brothers were going to high school, I was going to reform school. And when they were going to college, I was going to prison. And so our lives were a little bit different. I was I was the town horses ass, you know, and

but

I read the book Alcoholics Anonymous in jail and I had met a guy that was in a a just briefly

and he looked and sounded just like a drunk that I used to drink with one of my drinking buddies. And he,

he wasn't an alcoholic, couldn't be, you know, because he drank like me and I wasn't an alcoholic.

And so anyway, this guy, I listened to him and I got out of jail on that Monday, March 10th, 1953.

And I thought got home. My wife picked me up down the LA County jail and we went down to her folks place where they were kind enough to allow me to stay after being in all kinds of trouble again. And I got out, I had a

10 year to live sentence hanging over my head. I had to make restitution, about $9700 that I'd stolen. And and I didn't know where the hell I was going to get that kind of money or anything. But I thought I better call some of my friends and let them know I'm back on the bricks. And I couldn't think of a living soul that wanted to hear from me.

My mother wouldn't allow me in her home, wouldn't allow me anywhere around there. I'd stolen from her so many times. It's there's no hope there. My brothers wanted nothing to do with me. I clipped and clouded them in every direction. And they wanted, they'd had all they could handle of this child, you know? And I thought, well, I'll call Alcoholics Anonymous. And I looked it up in the phone book. I've locked them big LA phone book that thick open. And it opened right now Alcoholics Anonymous in the Southeast.

And I don't know, maybe that was an omen or something

that I called. And the guy who later became a very dear friend of mine, old Joe Pender, we called him Alabama. He was

little wine oak in Alabama but he knew more multi syllable words than anybody I ever heard and he could make he can make asking for a cigarette sound like a major speech or something.

But an old Alabama. I told him I said just got out of jail and he said have you had a drink yet? And I thought, that has got to be the dumbest question

I've ever been asked. Young calling A and I said no. And he said, well, you better get your ass over here now that you know they need me right now. It's a better hurry than get over.

So, so I go over there and and the wife and I and we listen to what these people had to say. And everybody was trying to impress each other with how bad they were. You know, the more evil things you had done, the more status you had in Alcoholics Anonymous

and kind of sound like, can you top this?

But they said they had a meeting there that night and it was called a beginners meeting, that I should come back to that meeting. And so I came back at night and a guy named Jim Farewell was leaving the meeting. Jim died a couple of years ago with 54 years of sobriety. And well, Jim Parwell was leading the meeting. And I didn't know what the scam was. I knew there had to be some hook someplace in there for these people to get this bunch of people around. And this was in hard times. It was

Dwight Eisenhower as a president of the United States and

it was kind of a semi depression and there was a lot of guys hanging around that place and a lot of tall tales that you heard and everything else. But I went back to that meeting and I heard this young farewell talking and he was a tall, thin man, very well educated. You could tell by the way he talked that he was well educated and knew what the hell he was talking about.

And oh, Farewell told a little of the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, how Bill and Bob met and their connection with each other.

And he made sense. And I thought that he was being paid to be there,

be at their meeting. And then they took up a collection. And I knew evens being paid, that's where the money had to go.

But I listen to what he had to say. I heard guys tell some big Wizards that I couldn't believe, you know. But there was one guy, this old Duke Carson, the the Chinese smuggler, he talked about sitting on the edge of the bed at 3/4, 5:00 in the morning wondering what in the hell is the matter with you? Why do you do it?

And you can't stand the guilt. You can't stand the pain.

And I was doing all right. I was drinking beer and Joe bought me a double shot. Well, God damn it, every time I drink beer and whiskey, I'll go off the deep end. I'm not even out of the jam I'm in. I'm planning the next one because the next time will be different. I won't drink beer and whiskey and I'm planning the next one.

And so I, I was attracted by that and I came back to the meetings and listen to what they said. And I said, and I got the book and reread it and tried to study it and tried to find out what it meant. And a lot of it confused me. And there was a lot of talk about God in there. And I didn't believe in God. I was agnostic. I didn't have guts enough to deny the existence of a supreme being, but I couldn't see where there was one,

and I didn't have the guts enough to say there wasn't those. So I

chose to be an agnostic for a long, long time, but

I kept going to the meetings and listen what these people had to say. Like I say, I had this big restitution bill I had to pay. I had never paid anybody anything at anytime. I,

a banker, financed the car from me for me one time. And my folks, he was a friend of theirs and because of their friendship, he financed his car and they found it about eight months later with the rear end out of it marked parts and some places to curb Bell Gardens or someplace, you know.

And I would him and I would everybody that I could think of. And I can't find a job. I'm blackballed in the trucking industry. I was a truck driver, drove long line trucks and other than doing time in jails and prisons, I was in the Marine Corps in World War Two and I came out of the Marine Corps in October in 1943. And I went ahead

thank her Christmas dinner in San Quentin prison and

in California night. Thank you. I'd like to,

I got you some big John Dillinger story about what a bad ass I was when I come to time to go to prison. But what actually happened? I'm not drunk with some buddies of mine and one of them had a gun and we run out of money and the market was there and that looked like a good place to borrow some money with that gun, you know.

And so we did. And as we fled the scene, the guy that was driving the car, he was drunk and the drunkest one of the five of us,

you run a Blvd. stop sign and the cops started chasing us to run the Boulevard stop sign and we knew we were caught.

They didn't even know the goddamn market have been robbed yet. And you know how we're getting caught?

And so anyway, they we stop and Jimmy Golf, the guy that had the money in the gun, took out running and they kneeled him and nailed the rest of us. And of course, I didn't know any better. I pled guilty and got a public defender.

Public defenders are the best friends of the

County Attorney or the city attorney has they can turn a guy around real quick like. But anyway I they sent me to prison and I did 3 1/2 years and got out. Never straightened out completely, still drinking. First thing I did was get a jug when I got out and then right back to the same way I live when I was living before.

In trouble and everything. I was married to my second wife when I got busted on a big restitution thing.

But my first wife divorced me while I was in prison

and things were pretty bleak and and down like and it wasn't any heroic big shot deal at all. It was just a stupid bunch of gunsels that we didn't know what the hell we were doing. You know,

I went to jail the second time for robbery. I held up the Southern California Gas Company. Now they have money there because people using those days, they didn't send checks or have credit cards or anything like that,

they'd pay in cash. And so they always had a lot of cash. And that's where this 9700 bucks came from. And I got caught on that deal. And but I, I hired an attorney and he got me out of this particular jam and got me probation and restitution and all this kind of stuff. And I when I got out of jail,

I was looking for work and I had all kinds of things happened, things that begin to look good and then they turned bad. And then all at once they look good again. And I wouldn't know exactly what that was happening,

but I wasn't drinking. I had read the book Alcoholics Anonymous and gone to that first meeting. And I continued to go to the hole in the ground and listen what these people had to say

and things. I stayed sober in spite of myself. I really, you know, because most of my thinking was I got a drink and make things all right, you know, but at least what these guys said. And and

I was two years and five days on the program and stand sober

and got a steady job, not knowing I was going to be a steady job when I

not knowing I was going to get a job at just so having one Saturday night, my wife and I were going to the movies and we were going to the cheapie movie to 15 or 20 cent movie. I forget what it was, but we're standing in line and the guy that I used to work for was standing right behind us in line.

And I didn't know I when, when I quit him, I counted him to come outside and fight and all this kind of stuff, you know, really left a good impression. You know, you could.

But anyway, we were talking and he says, I understand you don't drink anymore. And I had a reputation of being one of the wildest drunks in the trucking business and and I said, no, I haven't had a drink for a year. He's well, good for you guys. Like you shouldn't drink. And I thought, that's yours, you know?

But I, I continue to stay sober and coincidentally one year later, I'm standing in that same line and that same theater and this guy and his wife are standing behind me. I just, it was a Friday night and I had just finished a job that day. I'm going to be out looking for another job at doing Carpenter work at the time, couldn't get a job driving truck because I couldn't give any kind of a reference.

And this guy is standing in line again. He says you're still sober. And I said, yeah,

he says what are you doing? I said, well, I'm out of a job. I just finished a job today, but I'm going to be looking Monday. He's why don't you come by me? And he said I got 4 trucks now. He had one when I worked for him, before him. He's just come on by my place and talk to me. And I didn't, he put me to work. I went out on a truck that night. And I retired from that company 30 years later as general manager of the outfit and couldn't tell you how it happened other than that. Didn't drink one day at a time.

And things turned around, and slowly but surely I began to make a little progress. And things were

the goose hang high, you know, it was things were pretty good. And I'm going to a lot of meetings and I'm finding out what makes me stay sober. And it was working with younger people. And other people want to say younger, I don't mean in age, but they were newer than me and Alcoholics Anonymous. And Old Duke was the secretary of the hole in the ground at that time, the Chinese smuggler, and

he would have me haul him around. So hey, bud, what are you doing tomorrow afternoon? I don't know why thinking come take me over to court. I got to go see the judge about something. And you knew all the judges around there. And he was a real con man of the worst kind, you know. And so he could get anybody to take him over there. But he's. But I want you to do it. And I would go and I'd take him and I got to meet and judges. I used to be scared of judges, you know, I get them from them and they feed me, find me guilty and find me or put me in jail or whatever. And I

wasn't really didn't like judges too well, but I would do whatever he told me. And by doing this, I met these judges and I began to gain little of their confidence. I time went by and I'm staying sober. I'm working hard, I'm going from driving truck, I'm in sales and then I'm in the top management of the company. And these guys are

treating me real well in the in the business. The judges are

as well given

lots of drunks probation. We started the court cards that they're universal now. Everybody, every court has them all over the country and all over the world. I do believe. But Judge Emerson and I started that. But I

had things going just so, so good for me. I bought a house, got my wife satisfied, we got another baby in the house and things are are looking pretty good. All because of alcoholic synonymous. I tried to take the credit for it and I couldn't.

It was you people, you know, the people in Alcoholics Anonymous,

and I

began to understand what the 12 steps meant and what they meant to me.

I looked at that first step, admitted that was powerless over alcohol in my life would have become unmanageable. Well,

all I had to think of is any one of the many times that had stopped to have a drink or two on the way home and wind up drunk against my own better judgment and not know why

I'd wind up drunk against, not intended to. All I was going to do is stay sober. And so that kind of showed me that I didn't know how to handle alcohol. There was something I was missing because other people

kept their jobs and they kept things going their own way

and I couldn't do that.

I my life was unmanageable. I couldn't pay bills. I couldn't keep a job,

got divorced. My first wife, my brothers wouldn't speak to me. You know, all this kind of stuff was happening. And so I knew that I didn't know the first thing about managing my life.

And that second step says, came to believe that the power greater than herself could restore us to sanity. The insanity they talk about is that crazy idea when you're sitting on the edge of the bed wondering why, why, why do you do it? You're drinking beer and Joe bunch of the double shot and you went off the deep end again. The next time only drink barely whiskey. I'm not out of the jam. I'm in and I'm planning on the next one. You know, that's nutty,

Bill. Bill in the book talks about the the jaywalker. This guy is a compulsive jaywalker.

You get down the middle of the street and somebody knocks him on his ass. One day he gets all healed up and I got his back out there jaywalking again and he gets knocked down again, get healed up and he's back out jaywalking again. That guy is crazy. He's not a jaywalker. He's insane.

And that's what they're talking about in it. That came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. The only power greater than me than I knew of was a prison guard or a cop or somebody with a,

you know, some kind of a financial hold over me, like a boss or somebody like that. That was a power greater than myself. But when I put the plug in the jug and just kept it in there, things begin to get better. I didn't have to sit on the edge of the bed wondering why, why, why

and I I might begin to straighten my life out a little bit. And we were still trying to pay off all this restitution that I owed and everything else. So I changed the third step a little bit.

I I made a decision to turn my life, my will, and my paycheck over to the care of my wife.

My God, the bills got paid, you know, And slowly but surely, these things began to happen.

I looked at that fourth step in the book, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. I asked Duke, what the hell does that mean? And he said, well, you know, anything immortally wrong. He said, you ever done anything that you're ashamed of, that you don't want to tell anybody else about that? You think it's that dumb? I said, yeah. He said write it down.

So I wrote it down. You know, then I found some other things that I didn't like about me and things that I'd done, and I wrote them down. Some of them were financial men, some were apologies, some were that I couldn't make amends for. But other than to just be

right about what I'm doing now, these were the good things. And so I knew what that four step meant. And Duke and I sit in the shade of a pepper tree over Walnut Park, California, in my little 1937 Chevy. And I had this

notebook pad and he's battening on his knee there. He had cataracts at the time. Maybe that's why I picked him to be my sponsor because he couldn't read, you know, but,

but he took, but we talked about it. I'd written in there and I, I evaluated the things that I could do something about then and try to make amends to the things that I'd done. That's what the 5th step says, admitted to God, ourselves and another human being, the exact nature of these wrongs.

And I talked to Duke about it and he steered me the right way because I began to make some amends and I began to forgive myself as well as other people forgiving me for the things that I've done. My older brother and I didn't speak for eight years. He hated my guts and I hated his. He was so narrow minded. A solar credit card to his and went to Florida and back on

he he couldn't see the fun in that

I stole his golf clubs and sold those but he couldn't prove it,

but he had given up on me, but I

eventually ran into him. This was about four years after I was sober and told him, Don, I got your name on a list of people I've heard harmed and I I owe you some amends and he said, bud, you don't owe me nothing. Mom tells me you're sober and Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm just tickled to death that you're like, you are, you keep doing what you're doing.

And I thought he hated me and he loved me all the time, you know, and that 4th and 5th steps made that possible. My kid brother and I made-up for a lot of things. I made some little petty things that bothered me. I would have got 27 bucks in the service station for charging gasoline there. And the guy had been a friend of mine. And I'm I owe him this money and, and I can't drive through the intersection of that service station without feeling guilty.

So I went to him and paid him the 27 bucks and told him why

and made him happier than hell to get the 27 bucks but to renew my friendship and I could buy gas in his station again. He wouldn't give me credit, but I could give, you know, but I, I could buy the gas there, you know. And so that was part of making those amends

and the

humbly ask God to help me remove these character defects, you know, is another thing. I had to, I, I became entirely ready to do it and I was ready to do anything I'm supposed to be ready for, you know, but doing them is another thing.

And to humbly ask God for help to do something I didn't seem to be able to do for myself was a tough one for me. But I found I got in a situation where I didn't know what. I had a guy that

been at the hole in the ground one Sunday night and talked and I gave my business

if I could help him in any way, give me a call if he decided he wanted to do something about it. He didn't think he was for him

who had been kicked out of the Navy because of his drinking and actions. And

and so I gave you my card,

you know,

office one day I met at this time I'm managing this traffic

California and

and we didn't have cell phones at that time,

but I

stop to have lunch and the secretary call me. You better get back over

talking to someone

and he's calling you for help. So I zipped her

about 5 miles from where I was

and there was no use and stuff so I told him to hang on till I get back. I really get over to his kiss and hits me. This guy just got a gun. He's going to blow his brains out and he's been drunk about it.

I don't know how long, a long time. And I don't know what I'm walking into. And he lived in the garage apartment upstairs over garage. And I parked the bar and I walked up, turned the name they turned on. They got halfway up the stairs because I didn't know I was going to fix and what I'm not going to open.

These are the men. I came in and had two pea bread pistols coffee table in front of it.

We started. I don't know what I said, I have no idea what I said to him or anything. I said to myself I'm going to have to take what to do and we need to talk and he decided he wouldn't

have had a fluid

very personnel. This guy was had been kicked out of the Navy, but he'd been an officer and I called there that I knew and told him I said

is in the Navy and he wants some help. You don't qualify. I got

now for the first time and many times that I've been in that place, I didn't even have to stop at the guard shack on the way in. They give me the high ball and then through there I went, went back and bought him

and by God, he got the,

he went well and I didn't have a damn thing to do with it other than being the messenger. You know, the carried, carried the drunk and carried the message. He left those 2P Beretta pistols with me when I left him at that Navy place. As I told you, I'm an ex convict and that's all I needed was the cops to catch me with those two pistols. I'd go back to the penitentiary real good,

but I took them over to a captain on the Southgate Police Department where this guy lived and gave him to him and told him who they belong to him

bid and the guy is is still relaxing. He's still alive. He's got 30 some years of sobriety. And it's just one of the things that happens and people don't plan for. You have no idea what to do, how to handle it, and it handles itself and we don't know what to do about it. But that 7th and 8th step or 6th and 7th step become entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and humbly ask him to remove my shortcomings and help, humbly ask him to help me. God, I don't know what to do.

You're going to have to take over. You know,

the eight step made a list of all persons we had harm and became milling wind willing to make amends to them all and made direct amends to such people wherever possible except one. To do so would injure them or others. We used years ago have a thing called the 12 Step Play, and Civil was the one that got this thing started and she had the guy that looks like a real executive businessman

and Leo Kelly, and he was Bill Wilson. And she'd be Ruth Hawke, who was Bill Wilson's secretary, who typed up the transcript of the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

And they would pick out a guy for each step and they would tell about that step. And then they would cast the part of Jimmy Burwell. And Jim Burwell was the guy who is responsible for Appendix 2IN the book God as we understand him in the chapter to the agnostic. He was the atheist that came in that build like a Drew Bill and got his crazy in New York.

And but Jimmy Burwell, I got to know him. We were both on the conference committee one year and

became a lifelong friend. I got to be a pallbearer this funeral. You just one hell of a guy

and so

that eight ninth step we get there and Burwell would be butting in and telling you're crazy in this man. The other thing and when we got to the

each step, this guy that got up and pulled out, he made this list of all people need harm. He became willing to make amends to them all. And then George Ratanas, this little fiery Mexican jumped up in his you crazy son of a bitch. You told me don't that I got to make amends to these people and everything and apologize. And he said I'd pull my wife off his playing around that galled on the hall and she went down and pulled her husband and he beat the hell out of me and the wife left me and all that.

And he would carry on about this God damn thing in this place.

But it tells us, you know, that except when they do so would injure them or others. I can't do this to, you know, just get myself loose from this. But I can't involve the other people. I can't tell somebody something that's going to hurt them or break up their marriage or anything like that because that's what it means when this is, you know, except when they do so but injured them or others. We have to be careful about those things.

That dense step.

I don't really like the 10th step. Well, I don't. I'm back off from that. There's one word in there I don't like. It says we continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong. And here's the word I don't like promptly admit. I don't like to promptly admit I'm wrong about anything at any time,

but I do know.

But no matter what,

if I'm wrong, the easier or the sooner I can get rid of it, the easier it is to get rid of. And it, you know, the greatest argument stopping in the world is 2 words. I'm sorry. And if we do it soon enough, you can really get away with it, you know. And so I know what that 10th step means. And it, it, I, I have learned from that. And it's kept me out of trouble so many times that that this

promptly admit I'm wrong when I am. The 11th step was a real churchy sounding step.

Last time I went to jerk, some asshole stole my hat

around those kind of people. You know,

when we sat through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out

through prayer. Little person, but a good unselfish thought, a good wish for the guy next to you. That's what a prayer is,

and meditation is to direct my thinking a little positive line. Get alone, quiet with me and just meditate on what it is that's bugging me.

Director of meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him. I didn't understand him too good, but I did know there was something. And I don't know there's God British and New Allah or what it is, but there's something there that seems to protect me from getting in trouble. I just back off and you have to do it guys, because I don't know what to do and everything I do is wrong. And a lot of times doing nothing is the best thing to do. And then

but there are other times that I must take some action.

And when I meditate on that 11th step, I know what it's about. The 12th step, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. And this is where I got my spiritual thinking that there is something that Congress, Buddha or Shindu or Allah, whatever that power greater than I am, is, that seems to direct me in the way I want to go. And I

know what it is. I try to carry this message to Alcoholics and practice these principles and all my affairs. This is what I'm doing tonight,

telling you a little bit about my story, a little bit about what has happened to me in my life and how these 12 steps have affected me. I

I think about my life as of March 10th, 1953 more money like I never hope to repay. I got a marriage hanging by a thread by why my wife kept hung up on with me I will never know. If anyone ever treated me 110th as badly as I did her, I would have killed him. I never physically abused her, but boys, psychologically I did, and I was that kind of an asshole. And

slowly but surely things began to change and I began to change.

I can remember sometimes and I thought about going back to robbing people and stuff like that because I knew how to do that and how to get the money and stuff like that. And I learned more independent teacher about that than I did anyplace else.

And, but I,

I remember one time I was at a meeting on a Sunday night and I'm having a hell of a time,

good new job and keeping one and keeping working. And I've been doing Carpenter work and stuff. And

friend of mine that I've done time with happened to be there. And he says, how's the work looking board. And I said, got to go out looking tomorrow. It's Monday and I'm going to be out knocking on doors. I forgot to tell you. So I got a friend in Downey.

He's a building contractor and he's got a job for you. Go tell him that I told you to come by there and he'll have a job for you. I go to the Johnny. He's got better job and went home. People with that night next Monday night out there and Donnie at this guys address right nearly and I wake the guy up. You know, contractors usually up early anyway but heating up and I says Johnny told me to come and see you at a job for me.

Oh, he says, you know that crazy Johnny, ha, he is a good guy to money. And I'm thinking, oh Christ, what am I going to do? I ain't got no job here, you know.

And we talked for a little bit. He went back in his house and I said out in front and thinking, what the hell am I going to do? I don't have enough money in my pocket to buy gas to get home, hardly. I don't have any cigarettes.

My family is hungry. We got to, I don't know where we got it. We had a whole bunch of spaghetti. We've been been eating spaghetti and Oreo margarine and cheese and that's what we've been eating for about 3 days. I got the two little babies in my life and

what the hell I'm going to do, but I'm getting embarrassed sitting in front of his place. I fired this old Chevy mine up and headed east or West on 3rd St. in Downey and I got about two blocks from the middle of School Road and when I got there it's a dead end and I got to either turn right or left.

If I turn right I'm going home but then I'm locked in. Got no money to get gas, got no nothing to do.

And the veteran left. I'm going down to Hollydale and I'm going to tie up with my old crime partners and they all know how to get some money. And we'll be using dragging and drinking and all this kind of stuff. And about two blacks, before I got there, I saw one man digging in his front yard. This is about 7:00 in the morning