Serenety Sam M. from Richmond, IN at Celebrate Sobriety Vancouver

We, had narrowed it down to 2 men and and 2 women, and then came the final decision of who? And, we listened once again to, both, male tapes. And, after that, it was there was just no question. It was hands down that, you know, we just had to bring this gentleman to you. And hopefully, he would be available.

So without any further, well, you know thank you. Bless you too. I'll ask Now you know what I've put up with for a year, okay? I'd like to ask Sam M. From Richmond, Indiana to come up and speak.

Thank you. Well, look at the miss, the Al Anon left. Yes. Yes. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.

Oh, well. Oh, what? Oh, this is We're getting instructions. Okay. This thing's bad for my oral fixation.

Truth is I left my name and phone number and some rather exaggerated measurements on the, restroom wall of the Odyssey. And Wilson found it there and called me and sent the tape. That's where I'm at tonight. A little scattered, fragmented, not been alright. Managed to get through the day.

And wouldn't you know the Al Anon would say it better than or do it better than we do. They they always do that, you know. Some years ago I thought I had a spiritual experience. I'm not sure what it was now, but at the time I thought that's what it was. And my sponsor says you better get over to Al Anon with that.

And so I did. And I said to a woman over there, I just had a spiritual awakening. She said, the trouble is some of you bastards that have these spiritual awakenings is you go right back to sleep. Always with the truth. He was related to my sponsor who always told me the truth.

I didn't pick him for that. I picked him because I thought I could manipulate the old fool. Didn't work out. Anyway, I had a rough life. Most alky's have.

I was a mess as a kid. I got into a lot of trouble. My aunt Bessie would give me a quarter if I would say fuck in the grocery store and embarrass my mother. I got a dollar if I set it in church Being a good Catholic, I taught to nuns a lot of new words. My mother had sentenced me to 8 years in a Catholic school.

She was going to cure me of whatever it was that was wrong with me because there were a lot of things wrong even at that age that were very apparent. It took me two and a half years to learn to say yes, ma'am and no, ma'am, and then to give them what they wanted. And then I went in the opposite direction. I became an altar boy. I sang in the choir.

I got straight As and I got them off my back. And that's the only reason I did that. I didn't care about being good. I knew what I was going to be just like the rest of the family, which, well, most of them are alcoholics and them that don't drink should mess. I managed to get through the good old Catholic school.

I went straight from the Catholic school to a reform school because, well, the family business is stealing. So I got caught. The nuns got me out of it for a while, but then it was too late. I'm out of there. So they put me in the reform school where the discipline was the same.

They had uniforms and it was a lot of, well, it was very similar to the where I'd just been for 8 years. However, while I was there, I went through puberty in about 20 minutes. And I got out of reform school and I was, just a horny little kid loose on the streets with nothing but a heart on and a bad attitude, which was pretty much what it was when I got to AA. Some years later, not much had changed. I was a a hell of a mess.

I don't know how you people drank, but I did a lot of it. I didn't I got started sometime after that, and I'd already been in the penitentiary and been in a lot of other jails and places. I'm a lower companion. If you haven't figured that out by now, I just started at the bottom and kind of laid there. I started to drink after I got out of the penitentiary, and I also used a lot of drugs.

I didn't care what it was that might work. I smoked a lot of non habit forming marijuana. I took a lot of amphetamines because I bullshitted myself that they enhanced my intelligence, and all they did was speed up my mouth. So I had an amphetamine mouth and a Demerol brain. Got into a lot of trouble.

I also ran into a mathematical genius who figured out how to fill out income tax forms and get money back. Although neither of us worked at this place where we got the check the 1st year, it was, for $1200 and we cashed it and spent it. And we sent it in again the next year. Why not try it again? And so we did it again, but, 2 weeks later the police arrived, but I had used my father's name.

So they arrested my father for it, which was not all that unusual. My father was drunk all the time. He thought he had done it. So the old goat went into the courtroom and plead guilty and they put him away. And while he was in the federal penitentiary, he found alcoholics anonymous and he sobered up and he never took another drink the rest of his life, but he never knew that I12 stepped him.

I held off making that amend as long as I could, but it got to me and I had to do something about it because here's my father, a member of alcoholics anonymous. And by this time, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Yes. It's time to make those amends. I was about two and a half years sober, and I went to see him.

But papa had a different program than I did. I noticed that right away. We're leaving to go to the meeting and he picks up a pistol out of his desk drawer there and stuck it down in his pants. And I thought, what the hell kind of meeting are we going to? I said, what the hell is the matter with you?

You afraid somebody's going to steal your big book. He punched me right in the mouth, knocked me on my ass. And while I'm lying there on the floor, I realized that amend I had to make. And I thought, well, I better hold off here a little. Well, it came to me that the step says except one to do so would injure them or others.

And so I immediately became others and I held off making that amend. Finally, he died a few years ago, so I got out of that. Well, I'll make it on judgment day. He won't kick my ass in front of God. I don't think one never knows Hell of a temper.

I hope there is a judgment day. I wanna see what you guys get. Nosey. I'm, I was a hell of a mess no matter where I lived. And I moved in the middle of the night, which was the only time I could move when the landlord hopefully wasn't around.

I never owned much of anything. Everything could be put in 2 brown paper bags, half of which was stolen. Of course, that's how I earned a living as such. And I was an animal loose on the streets. I was also a witness to a killing and I knew how to be an alive witness.

When in doubt get the hell out of there. And when in doubt drink, of course, which I never stopped doing. But I went home to mama. I reeled in my umbilical cord, but mama had been to Al Anon and she pulled that frying pan routine of release. She got me up against the wall and released me Said you can stay here a few days and you get your ass out of here because you're loaded.

You're gonna stay loaded. You ain't doing anything about it, and I really don't wanna see it. And I said, who? Me? Always had the stock answer.

The fastest gun in the west with excuses. Say, oh, it's your fault. Always put it someplace else. Never took the responsibility for a damn thing, and here I am a so called adult. I was there for a couple of days, and my youngest brother came running from the police and others the same as I was doing because I was beating his a penny.

And one morning, he and I were puking together. He says to me, if our luck holds out, we'll be dead by noon. And I had 2 more years of drinking to go and it's a good thing I didn't know that because I was at the end of the road then but I couldn't and wouldn't do anything about it. What I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous was my father. What I knew about Alcoholics Anonymous was people that I listened to on bar stools who would talk about singing the AA hymns and standing on street corners passing out literature and picketing liquor stores.

And I thought, Jesus, I don't want anything to do with these people. And I moved to Venice, California where I was to live for the next 30 years of my life. I moved into the worst place in town. I knew enough to start at the bottom. I lived next door to a girl who was a manic depressive suicidal.

It was natural for us to fall in love. She would come home every night from work, brush her teeth, turn on the gas, and go to bed. She had made suicide a way of life. We'd lay around all day and all night listening to a lot of jazz records by some fine singers that leave you with no hope at all. One of my favorites is by an old lady named Chippy Hill and part of the lyrics of the song were, one of these days I'm gonna walk out that back door and lay my head on some lonesome railroad line and let the 2 19 trains satisfy my mind.

And of course we loved it when it rains. Everything was a downer. We just loved that sort of thing. I lived in that building for almost 2 years. And, unfortunately, it was in the middle of the block and the, the liquor store was directly across the street and we were supposed to walk to the corner and do the crosswalk thing.

But one night very late we got out there and painted our own crosswalk directly across from the apartment building's front door. That was probably the most ambitious thing I'd done in in some years. I called my father at Christmas time, which was the only time he would accept a collect call from me. And he smarted off to me. He says, what did you get for Christmas?

I said, I got 2 gallons of wine and a £500 benzodine tablet because I lied a little because I had I had fantasized for years about getting a Benny tablet this big, see, hacked that thing up with ice pick and rocket to the moon because I sure didn't like the earth. Anyway, he suggested that I go to Alcoholics Anonymous and I said, what for? And he said, because you're dying. You ding dong. And I knew I was.

I knew I'd been drinking and using drugs way too long, but I didn't know what to do about it. I couldn't stand the thought of going any place. I was too goddamn lazy. I wanted to deliver to the house marked occupant. So I paid attention to him and he said, don't go over there smoking any weed either.

If you go over there clean or you ain't going to hear anything. And I didn't know we did distorted or screwed up my hearing that much. Nevertheless, I quit. It took 2 days to do it, but I did it. And I finally went into Los Angeles to go to a meeting of alcoholics anonymous.

I left the house at 10 o'clock in the morning, and at 10 o'clock that night, I got there. It took me the whole damn day. Well, I got there about 10 minutes to 10. The meeting was over at 10 o'clock, and I walked in and there was a lady sharing and she said that she'd wet her pants twice and come to AA. And I thought, goddamn, wait till they find out what I've done.

Because I didn't think anything about wetting your pants. I just came with the territory. I always hung out. There was a lowlife bar in Venice that I used to drink in. It had a sign that says men's room.

You open the door, you're in the parking lot. Anyway, I stayed sober that day, and I've been sober and clean, kinda, for 2 days in front of that. I went to a meeting the next night. I didn't identify with anything there either, and they didn't mention marijuana, so I didn't mention it. They They didn't mention pills.

I didn't say anything about it either. They didn't mention heroin or any other things that I'd messed around with. So the end of a week, 10 days, I'm still clean, but I ain't liking it. And so I was with some of my old friends and I smoked a joint and I got thirsty, so I drank and I got drowsy. So I took some amphetamine.

That's the usual progression. And I'd heard about well, I've been at some meetings. I'd heard about lower companions. I knew what it was. I thought, well, one more time.

I stayed loaded a week. I came back and I have been back since that time And I walked into a club in Los Angeles after cleaning up one more time, and I said, where the hell is a lower companion meeting? And a guy said, come on. I have just the group for you. And he took me over to the corner of PICO and Alvarado in Los Angeles, where there was a group called the end of the line.

And that sucker was the beginning of the meeting. The chairman had a bunch of stuff up here and he just brushed it aside and says, well, hell, there ain't no traditions here. It's every man for himself. I began to feel at home already gone to those other meetings and they kept reading that damn thing about demands, rigorous honesty, and some other things that I really didn't like at all. And here, this guy just swept it all aside.

He asked for announcements. Some guy stood up, said that his announcement was that he was sinking into a depression and he was going to kill himself that week and he wouldn't be at the meeting next week. So wanted to say goodbye to all of his friends. I finally found somebody to identify with even though he was leaving, But it was a start. Chairman said to the guy, I said, go ahead and do it.

You son of a bitch. Nobody likes you anyway. So I knew there was a lot of attitude at that group About 10 minutes into the meeting through the side door came 3 dikes. Yeah. We don't need the slides this evening, do we?

Okay, good. Listen, I live in Indiana and I got to tell you that's, woah, it's very easy to go to meetings there. You just drop your IQ 50 points, walk in, fit right in, Very bigoted area. Although there's other bigoted areas, I'm certain of that. Anyways, this was a warm open group and hell, you know, the only requirement for membership there was breathing.

That damn thing. And through the as these ladies came through the door of the drinking one dropped her purse and out fell a gun, a bottle, and a dildo. The 2 sober ones got to fighting over the contents of the purse. The The German kicked their ass out and left the drinking one there and she sobered up and she is a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous today and she says that she is sober because she was welcomed at that group. And I believe that it damn well better said for all of Alcoholics Anonymous instead of there's an awful lot of crap going on sometimes at some meetings that I go to about, well, this one and that one, they're always pointing fingers.

It's a program of rigorous gossip on a lot of days. And I live in that area that I live in. You never know what they're gonna talk about. I went to a meeting not too long ago and the guy said the subject for this evening is spring. I said, what?

Spring? I liked the guy that was chairing the meeting that night because he is a trip and a half. This one, I mean, he's just an old dirt farmer out in the back country there, And but he'll get up in a meeting. He'll say, and I want you new people to know that by god, I had myself a spiritual awakening out there in the cornfield. And I also want you to know that it was a damn might better than mister Bill Wilson.

So I've had a few good times living around there. Some strange people have come to the meetings and I got to tell you, I am very grateful for that. We're beginning to build the nucleus of some human beings coming in there. They've been in the closet for years and that has nothing to do with sex or anything else. People just been in the closet, their closet, human beings afraid to be anything.

Although we had one not too long ago that really laid it on the line. He says, I'm here because I'm tired of giving head to the wrong people. About time something woke those people up to get down to where it's really at. I'm so grateful when somebody like that comes in. They really saved my life because so many people are in that neck of the woods, they're just so square, but you know that works for them and not far from where I live right now is where ANA was born in Akron, Ohio.

So something works for somebody across the street. Okay. Please be my guest. I don't wanna throw rocks through anybody's stained glass window. There there's a couple of fanatics in my neck of the woods that, what Bob is talking about that, yeah.

I've seen him. This guy is such a fanatic. He's frightening at times, but it's a performance. When he shows up, he carries a big book with him. That is the thing is totally highlighted and underlined every damn word in it.

And he throws it on the floor and he said, hits the floor and goes, wham. And he looks around to make sure it got everybody's attention. He said, and there is the spiritual kit of tools that was laying at my feet. Then he picks it up and he says, and then I worked these steps and I was rocketed into the 5th dimension. And I think why not?

If if that works, hell, let them do it. I don't give a damn. Far be it from me. I once read that same line in the book some years ago to to my sponsor. I said, see if there's something about being rocketed into that dimension?

And he said, well, in your case, you're standing on the launch pad with your ass on fire. So forget it. Because I had all kinds of questions to this man. I just tore everything apart. No matter what it was, I thought, well, now just what does that mean?

I said, what about live and let live? And he said, in your case, it means mind your own goddamn business. I could understand that He translated for me. I said, well, what about think, think, think? He said, in your case, it's with what, what, what?

So forget it. Wait until you've been sober a couple of years, then try it. See what happens. You might like it. He could always cut through my ego, which, of course, is horrendous, and I probably couldn't bury it in the Grand Canyon.

Some left over and my defects of character haven't gone away. I'll try to leave you with some hope since I have been sober a long time. Last January, I was sober 37 years. All that means is I'm old and I was lucky enough to get here when I did. And I've been here a long time.

It's as simple as that. Nobody's ahead of anybody else here. Now we're in the same boat here. I have to work this this 12 steps. I still gotta do them.

And some days I look pretty bad. Hell, not too long ago. I looked so bad. Somebody tried to 12 step me and I let him, He needed the exercise. He was just talking away, telling me what I should do.

About the time I think I've gotten rid of my defective character, I find that they've been in the garage all the time. They've made it in the night and multiplied. So I don't there's people I know that have been sober as long as I haven't longer, but they sometimes drift away from meetings, but I have never wanted to. I've been very lucky. I I I'm so nosy.

I don't want to miss anything. And I think about the night that a lot of people that have come into meetings where I have been and I happened to be there and we are still friends to this day And what if I'd stayed home that night watching SlippaVision? You wanna watch something? Push the damn button and watch it when you get home or later. Something like that.

I've been to too many great meetings and I also disagree with people that say, well, I've never I've never been to a bad meeting. And I think, come with me. I know a couple right up the street that every time I go there, I think Jesus, I've had better flashbacks than this goddamn thing. Don't stick your head in the sand and pretend there ain't a lot of shit going on out there. We can't blame everything on the Al Anon.

I'm sure we'd like to point that finger really fast, but damn it. I have to take the responsibility for my own actions. And I don't care if I wake up on judgment day even and find out that it's my parents' fault. It's society's fault. It's that church and all the other things.

I am still stuck with being me. I am the problem, but I'm also the solution if I'm willing to look in there. And it's on a continuing basis because I have a tendency to forget a lot of things. It's another major re reason in my life for going to meetings because I've missed out on a a lot of wonderful things, I think, if I stay home too damn much. Some time ago, I was at a Thorazine group in a in a treatment center.

And, there was a guy reading chapter 5, and it took him 25 minutes to get it done. We thought he's never gonna make it. Funnier than hell. He got to the part where it says we are not saints and he read it. We are now saints.

He looked around, he said, isn't that wonderful? Where in for a rude awakening when he got out of that place. If he got rid of the Thorazine, I I don't think for Xanax a day is clean myself or sober. Some people in my neck of the woods are heavy into that sort of thing. Oh, they think Prozac is wonderful.

It changed my whole life forever. I heard a woman some years ago when a lot of things were popular to be tried. Some years back, you know, a lot of Valkyries tried LSD, like, lysergic acid, and, oh, it's a spiritual experience. And I remember a woman in a meeting saying, I want a spiritual experience, but I don't want it by artificial insemination. Well, yeah, I want mine to be for real.

Thank you. What are the fake ones? I'd had them before and run it straight into the brick wall. I need any more of that. The message is work those steps, go to meetings, and don't forget to pass it on.

Share with whomever comes into your life. I've had some wonderful people come into my life and some of them are in this room tonight. People that I've known for 30 years. And I like that. I like the continuity of that.

My family does not know I exist and I come from a very large family and they still don't know what the hell is going on with me. I'm just somebody that comes along that they know. I see him at the family reunion. My uncle Frank says, when did you get out of the army? I've never been in the army.

I'm 67 years old. It's obviously been a long time ago. If I was in the damn thing, then he says to me, how long have you been wearing glasses? Since I was 9 years old. I don't wanna be around people like that.

I communicate better right here in these rooms many nights and sometimes in some strange ways. I got a phone call in a card not too long ago from a kid that I knew some years ago. He was, oh, he was cute. Name was Alexis. He's about 17 years old, and he kept saying to me, look.

I wanna ride on your motorcycle. Come on. Come on. I wanna ride on your motorcycle. And finally, I thought, okay.

I've had it with you. Get on. And I took him up on the freeway, went about 95 miles an hour. I thought this cure this little shit. I'll get rid of him.

Came back to the meeting and I said, well, Alexis, what'd you think of that? And he said, you know, I've always wanted to be a motorcycle bitch. I'm yours. All right. I had to explain to him in the first place, it's biker bitch not motorcycle bitch.

You You should know that. Going to be adult, he must know the terminology. I hope it's obvious that I've come here to have a good time. I do. That's one of the major reasons I go to meetings.

Not that I don't take take things serious. Of course, I do, but not somber or deadly. Come on. Let's have a good time around here. Let's enjoy ourselves, and you're gonna go through rough times.

I don't pay much attention to people or believe them to say, oh, where everything gets better, it gets better and it gets what has gotten better in my life is my ability to cope with the tough times. Hasn't gotten better on some days. It's gotten different. I've been in suicidal depressions though. I was sober.

I thought there was something wrong with my program. There wasn't anything wrong with my program. I just needed to live some more. That's all I experienced something else, and I didn't want to. I'm a professional balker, the same as most alky's and dope fiends that I know.

I'd rather not do it. If I fall into a rut, I'll start hanging pictures. But come on in here and use this thing. That's what it's all about. It's to be used in the proper sense of the word, then it's to be shared.

Otherwise, how are you gonna know it? It's just somebody's crackpot theory. It's just something we read out of a book. That don't mean anything. I read a lot of books.

I told my sponsor about that and he said, oh, yeah. You're a well read idiot. Oh, I always translated. And I still need meetings because I still need to run into people like that. I need people to tell me the truth.

And there are people in my my life today that know all about me and that's a freedom that I never thought I would ever have. It's something I dreamed about, I wished, I wanted it and then I found out I could have it and then I found out how to maintain it and it all has to do with coming here and being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and being involved with this so that I can in turn be involved with life and get out there and mix and mingle with all kinds of people. I've done a lot of wonderful things in my life that that I could not have done lying there on the living room floor wishing and being a world traveler through television or something like that. I get out and do it now and experience it. And I'm a very lucky human being and anybody that's in this room is.

So maintain that luck. Use it, and then don't forget to pass it on. There's always some newcomer that will come along that at least shows me how to live through the next couple of days. They don't know that. You're supposed to be smarter than them and all you have to do is keep your mouth shut.

Well, I have keep my mouth shut and I learned this some years ago. I took a newcomer to a meeting and I hadn't opened my mouth. I couldn't have got a word in edgewise with this dude. He'd never shut up all the way to the meeting. Then I overhear him before the meeting starts saying, boy, I rode over here with Sam tonight.

He really is a wise old man. And I thought, I didn't said a damn thing, but I didn't mind taking the credit. But they call late at night or something. I say, oh, yeah. Page 61, I think you'll find the answer.

And I don't know what's on page 61. It doesn't matter. Because they'll get in there and read and they'll think, well, that old wet brain son of a bitch, he's fouled up and they keep on going till they find the solution to their problem. Then they think, oh yeah, boy that Sam knows you. So we don't need any glorification of the individual here.

The old Doc Smith said that and I firmly believe that. There's cults all over the damn place. Some of them down south. They're pretty big down there, you know. They even got their own literature and books and videos and all kinds of things.

And I thought, what the hell is that all about? You know, because I don't like that sort of thing. We're in this together. Nobody's ahead of anybody else here. Please remember that.

If you have a cult guru around here, well, release the son of a bitch. Get rid of him. Waiting for well, my ego was like that at one time within Alcoholics Anonymous. I was gonna we have a book around here and I thought, well, I'm gonna rewrite that thing as Sam sees what Bill thought he saw. Well, there's no clock up here, and I had to watch when I came to AA, but I don't now.

I've had a good time tonight. I hope you guys have. And remember, you're never alone again. We can all lurch along the murky road a happy destiny together. No, the book says trudge, I know, I reworded that.

Some days I lurch, I'm all over the road. I need a seeing eye newcomer to get to meetings. You missed the spiritual part, but that's okay. I told them the secret of life, but they're gonna forget it so it doesn't make any difference. I think the secret of life is there's no secret.

It's all out here. We're let's do the best we can with what we got. And I believe that God's will for me is trial and error. So I'm out there and mingling and doing all kinds of things and just enjoying the shit out of myself on most days. Some days, I don't.

I've I was mooning my neighbors the other day, then I found out they weren't home. I don't wanna miss out on anything, so I hope you feel the same way. So get in here and join us as we all lurch along the murky road to happy destiny together.