The 7th annual South Bay Roundup in Torrance, CA

during and I'm an alcoholic

I don't remember the Newburgh group in Cleveland Ohio thank you for allowing me to be here today I want to thank the people that asked me and and and the burden I might have been on Dave and his family I apologize for and deeply grateful for the effort they've put in to our allowing me to stay in your home I A. R. if there's one thing I can tell you about alcoholism that's possibly the most important thing I can tell you about alcoholism in my life is yes and it's this really is important it is that if I could stop drinking on my own out and never come to a

that's the bottom line most important thing in my life today that if I just couldn't stop drinking I was looking for happiness or peace or joy if I could just stop drinking on my own I would never never come to opt out as a matter of fact

at that time in my life if I couldn't stop drinking on my own I would know spit on a best day yeah yeah Holik's anonymous and that's a fact

and that's a fact hi you are young I really didn't have a problem with my drink

other people had a problem with my two

my mom had a problem with my drinking my neighbors had a problem with my drink and they're not set up problem with not a drinker

and it was not enough to do nothing about it

I don't think it became my problem I decided to quit and I believe that's where the story starts for me I made a decision to start drinking in January the fifteenth of nineteen seventy the fact that I made that decision in the city jail had nothing to do with this

it was January the fifteenth because it was public record

I think it was you know on January the fourteenth

the decision

and I think it's also fair to let you know I remember being in January a lot

I don't remember being here January tenth but a public record shows that I want

the stock dreaded going not because the jail if there is anything at all I could tell you about jail is it all right J. O. well I had no trouble with jail not at all I had no trouble with hospitals I had no trouble with shootings or stabbings or be it not me the reason I made a decision to stop drinking was because I had lost control of my life

I could no longer control my life

I like to drink

most read stories

it was dangerous

are you

snow was my record and I want to read your courage everywhere I went I did nine months once

one of them benders it started somewhere in the end of November beginning of December I know I made up all kind of an idea that I didn't want to get involved in this are the holidays coming up and all that stuff and I just said I'm going to drink no more and I didn't stop

all right it was a couple of weeks and it is broken I found myself unable to get home before two thirty or three o'clock in the morning

somewhere about another couple of days or a week after that I found myself at the bar room at six thirty or five o'clock in the morning even anyone open and I'm scared and I don't know it's cold man it's called and I need a drink

about a week after that I find myself in a position where I can't sleep if I get all my two thirty or three o'clock open foreign I'm pacing the floor and I've been pretty good for eighteen or twenty hours I got a woman I don't know exactly what the problem is I don't know how to solve the problem in a very short time I'm not even at all maybe a bag of chips in the smoking and I put some catch up on top of that it's a breakfast of champions and I'm

no launched what no not mistaken a lot no one should know a lot of dead bodies but you're right nothing stinks like a dream coming off a drunk not to smells like gas and I couldn't smell myself god still worst part of it all I could see myself

former naval to sleep

unable to change my clothes I would come home at two thirty or three o'clock and I would just lay down on the bed with full intentions of changing my clothes lying around and I would wake up and sweat and walk and I would be confused good news and I don't sleep the rest of the night B. twenty minutes or half an hour later and I had a problem and I don't know what to do

I'd wake up finally a five or five thirty not walked out the door ready

well to change my clothes unable to take a bath but standard six o'clock in the morning or five thirty in the morning and I would be coming up part

sure if you had an odd feel a little bit better and I'd say to myself this is gonna stop

and it's going to stop right now

what do you do it before I could get my hands on the line to walk thank you I got a

I got a

problem and the problem is and I

I knew that I couldn't help what was happening to me but if I got offered a strong man I got arthritis drug use was never going to happen again

but I couldn't get off to drug

in a very short time already Joe Joe Monday will let you know I'm unable to sleep unable to change my clothes and I'm unable to think about no I don't mean to tell you there's no talk or no water no calls I need to tell you that I was running my life when I could no longer do what I want to do

control my life

my pride and joy I I couldn't think things out I couldn't think things through I was always good for you and I I I don't know what to do next I would

the bathroom and no one would have to go to the bathroom in my brain would go another direction I looked down and I had wet my pants and I didn't want to live like this

I know one thing for sure when I got arthritis drug I was never going to drink again

I know that for sure

I told you I was picked up on and talks on a camp in another one on the eleventh and another one on the fourteenth and finally on the fifteenth was a fellow man and a longer campaign a drug thank

they put me at all on the whole the cells were nobody could get to me because I had done something that made him mad hello

and they were going to visit me

do you sell for three days on a suspicion charging a one

good for twenty days coming up with a drunk guy shock and I threw up when I was sick and it is

offer you and and and don't eat in the morning no no coffee in a baloney sandwich at lunch you know coffee and I wanted to do is follow me with the things inside of it's

thank you for joining

I had a steal and a toilet

and I don't know about you but when I come off thank god get dusty and I had a drink from the same place I went to the bathroom and I don't want to live like this no more

I stopped long enough and not sell the make that decision if there is it going to happen no more I hate going to drink no more and I formulated a game plan

and again it's a very simple game plan

if I'm going to stop I'm going to have to make some changes I'm telling you that on January the fifteenth nineteen seventy I had a sincere honest desire to stay sober I had a willingness to make changes I didn't want to make you do things I want to know because I didn't want to pay no more

and I realized that if I'm going to stay sober one of the changes I'd better make as good a job

I wasn't real good at her

it didn't impress me

it wasn't always that way

when I was sixteen years old I look at the condition of my life and where I was living and I made up my mind it was going to be different I made up my mind I was going to get out of it is done I lived in that I was going to do for my family had never been able to accomplish before I was going to work hard and I know that's the only way to do it was to work hard and I want to jobs in our state my money and I made a down payment on a brand new pickup truck at sixteen years old I was the only one that twenty four I couldn't keep a job I had

issues I had tried my desires I had tried my drinks I drank

to live my life the way I want to live my life and that's expensive drinking

expensive drinking

I'm twenty four years old and and and I'm rekindled I'm twenty four years old and I thought maybe I could do it now I go inside me now let's do it

I felt another thing I had to do was to get some responsibility

I see that you would get

yeah I would get houses and cars in jobs in schools and families then they would start doing the things that I was still doing it I felt that's what I needed

that's the joke you know

so I got the job I got I finally still charge me I got to go through a lot of fun when I when I did the things I thought I was going to do I want a job and went to work every day and and and and that's two different things

I get a job and go to work every day I

well I got some responsibility I got you know when you're sober wrapped in sweet

all right

good things are usually drawn white colored glasses I just everything looks different I didn't have to face any problems well you gave me a drink and energy and all the world goes away I don't see no reality in most of my problems if I got any or your full

I got a local conditions of my life you know

why are are you know I don't know

savings account I don't have a checking account ID number credit card driver's license or I don't know a lot of worry card I I I don't know I like you know you're not

I know a place you on a diet here curator ten bedrooms a couple kitchens in a couple of outside a three car garage with Kelly just over the top and I paid forty five Bucks a month for the whole shooting match they want to raise

a new song

creatures

and so now I drank I didn't see any of this

even if I knew that I was going to have to make a couple changes and one of them was right for you are you sure I do not know

I didn't do nothing I just drank I didn't play tennis or golf or or I don't do anything I was just drug or not

and that's our job to because all my neighbors are Paul locks

I used to go bowling three or four times a week I know

was never at his door

they were mine

the living room window and and minded and I never see this refrigerator kitchen window when an

also I would

in today's day

but I was ready to do anything I do in order to stay sober that's the deal that's good do you but as far as I'm concerned

to me that I wanted to stay sober so what I would do things I didn't like to do

I don't know I didn't know about the Holocaust anonymous I had one for someone that's my will the life saving life giving well that it pulled me out of

really life threatening situation

and will that got me didn't know those life threatening situation

no no less

a look at the conditions of my life and I'll tell you what I do for a long

as you know I started doing what anybody would do I'm going to change it one of my good

if I had a problem

I was reading ballplayer

I started looking for the finish my

I did finish it off and I would just start stop

I was after was enough and all these wires and I don't like water

I know

wires out

did you know it was just like that I would I would start a lot of stuff with a lot of

I'm in a lot of action and I could never follow through no follow through with no thing

no follow through

hi I are trying to do things the way they were supposed to be done but I don't

I got lost in the confusion I got

and the ability to run my life normally I was used to live in like a drunk

I was just used to live in like

I stayed sober among funders power I thank you all for a month and I was like a tiger in a cage I wish I was

zero point

and and and just screaming in my mind

I was just trying to figure things out

what are you going to pull that I drink I had to drink because I'm an alcoholic I'm a chronic alcoholic

in progress

and I have no defense against the first drink I have no defense then when the time came for me to drink I just did not put off my desire to stay sober it's not that I thought I could handle it again

options I had no power I had nothing to pull me through those moments when the drink is there when I take it I was self sufficient and independent in my power wasn't going off

it just wasn't good enough and I'm an alcoholic

well look

then I'll be sober

not self sufficient I don't depend on my power

I'm John but I still put

we just thought that I had a successful very

I was elected judge pouring drinks for everybody that was at a party all all all her family came through

I don't mind

I used to look

I burned amount

I took him to the cleaners

and I don't mean just money

I was expensive hello

I was expensive

I can't tell you how many times you know my mom raised five kids

I can't tell you how many times you work hard how many times the paddy wagon would pull up in front of our house hello maybe my brothers or or me or all of this is

and my mom would have to walk through the neighborhood which shaving your head on down and she never drank

who did she loved me

she loved me

and she worked hard

and I robbed during that

I robbed her there

when I had already missed the I think

all right all right all right I can remember I talked before two to fifteen years old I would I would hope I pretty much friends over enough and my mother would say to me don't hang around with them guys male leader going to get you in trouble by the time I was seventeen she was children guys don't hang around

what's

she knew

when I try again and I honestly don't

why did I drank a gin and me I could not believe that that happened to me what made

everything are going to stay sober

I was

thank god I wish six what can my drugs three or four hours long

well I I I had a I had alcoholic placing on my body rejected it probably reach would not would not accept alcohol in any form and I was you know

and I would add it would took me days to recover from three or four hours to drink a day sitting on a couch well shaken when I go on the floors

well done for days are no fun

so I made

not only

but I'm not going to

this is a good decision my mom told me a long time ago

as I told you

I know it's a good idea of what

one problem and that is I don't know nobody else

ninety nine percent of the people I've ever met in my life I was very

in a few different abrasive and I was violent and she shows a lot and I didn't make a lot of

I don't know because I don't want to drink no more I felt it was that I didn't know well would do

so what I'm trying to tell you

I didn't want to drink so bad I'll give you all the friends I have

I just did one drink no more

when I started pushing everything and everybody know weddings

okay

no party

no get togethers I don't want to drink no more than a five

what time I'm going to drink I know what's going to happen already

and I pushed all the way

little did I realize that the world is going to get out

I didn't know that I honestly didn't know

it got lonely inside this world I was living in our country store for three or four days maybe no we're drinking again for a couple hours and I got a scare I got scared this is not

no defense I got nothing yeah

is quick I don't know what it was treatment centers in detox units injured joints in Photoshop I don't know I could go to need a place that no I do something that nobody else knew about I don't know it was all good now if I could do nobody could ever live

I didn't know

I just didn't know

I got afraid it was going to be like this forever forever is a long time and I tell you all this with my daughter and I didn't know I would not I'm not scared me he was living he was living like this forever I might live to be sixty or seventy or eighty years old and I didn't want that kind of pain forever not forever

not fair

whatever the ball told me to do I did and that's how simple it was to fear started is that interfere greater for to walk out the door I sit on the side of my bed at six o'clock in the morning as the sun was rising and I were rough I would rock if anybody's ever been locked up and you see them you leave them alone

and I would sit on my bed and I would pretty much just under a month I don't know if I was going to drink or not but it would take a chance I don't want to go through this no more

I would leave all my money at home I would love to France for two but you get two cups of coffee I make a phone call

the firm Jupiter I couldn't go out to lunch and drink I would walk to work

I couldn't get in a car to go on a lunch no I'm an alcoholic

I'm an alcoholic lunches eleven thirty I'm drinking and eleven

somehow someway I got whiskey and and drink inside the workplace and I believe that's enough a holic I can find to drink in the middle of the Mojave Desert I know

yeah

posted opportune time to double places your jaw showroom

I don't want to drink no more

and I can help what's happening to me

here started coming down my eyes you know was one of those things are still going to drop nobody likes nobody likes to fight

and I feel like being a fight broke in November we've been drunk I stand at the bar and yours are coming out of

the most disgusting condition I've ever been

I couldn't help what was happening to me I couldn't tell anybody don't you understand I can't stop drinking

going up or down to me and then I would

okay what I did and I would be humiliated

he added that I would do that I don't ever do that again

three four days just sick and throwing up instructions what you need to do that can do it again

following a hole in my life was unmanageable but I couldn't help what was happening to me

and I lost the biggest thing I could loose for me

and that's my hope

you have a lot

a lot of good looks a lot of money a lot of telephone skills with a lot of holes I was overloaded with poker with my friends when I was a just a thirteen or twelve I would gather up to eight nine year olds would show your fourteen year olds in football

we can do is just loaded with remember when I was twenty one I want to know where she will up on seventy nine

I'm sorry you feel pretty good even though we don't go back to god that they're going to be tough pants offer you

when I flew back

and they did

but twenty four years old and I see no light at the end of the day twenty four

this is ever going to get

we

hi we

I can't stop drinking

I forgot your name nineteen seventy did I find you guilty she went down to kill it off

twenty years

and I don't want to put the pop star

Josh I can stay sober in a joint sharks may be

I'll tell you about the time I got to the judge it was nothing he could do

there was no need to call upon me there was no offering

all through my own selfishness and already inflicted upon me walk

what do you take away my freedom

good for a drink I was held captive inside a ball away if you're not going to get

you might

don't people don't love you

and I could enjoy it just like I could do

maybe just maybe I could stay sober in

what could you what could you members of society due to me would you take away the precious gift of peace of mind that Alcoholics Anonymous has given us

believes that the alcoholic and a chronic and progressive they just go back home no no

you can hope for is to drink to oblivion drink only

I think the only can't regulate

yeah I can't do that to me I've heard too much you're ready I know I say anybody with a soul should never be in that condition

what we are not so they locked me up and I did the same thing so that I

shall I spill over

because eighteen grandes

but I looked around and I said to myself

more the news

I

more than

sometimes roll

you know what's going on with all all off a hundred times

our

okay I couldn't grasp on it not to

what you're worth the savings passage in the book the first time I read it in not

and and I tell you I just leaped out at me from the pages in the passages this there are those who make the supreme sacrifice rather than fight again

and I tell you that day in that cell with all the hopelessness with all the disappear with all the self pity that one drunken now I gotta do something I'm not going to suffer like this forever

there you go Mayfield village and they go to jail no figured in Mister Dennis staple right here

in about three years ago they had a keen interest a high school principal the WR are you still in the soap or not but I believe he understood my shape I believe he understood self pity as I understood it I believe you understand guilt and remorse in humiliation as I understood it in itself and what I did and it couldn't check rather than for it again when the default five snatched a crisply nearly seventeen years old no threat no murder no not just drank

and didn't want to pay the prices of historic and fifth day in that cell I've had enough

that day and that's all I did something that was more against more against my nature than suicide more against my will be taking my own life and that's something with the render

surrender

total

surrender

usually I was good for surrenders I don't know trouble which renders I'd hang my head in my feet not see I'm sorry right

and if you give me five hundred Bucks my promise I will do the work and if your daughter for parking or keep

press charges no and and as far as I'm concerned with the roll through renders for a guy with my pride

I know it's not the kind of surrender I'm talking about

I'm talking about a total submitted

what I mean

about five or six squad cars took me to an abandoned building up on Jones and Broadway as I was walking in the door they took the cuffs off the back of the head with a shotgun but when I went down on the floor he took a little circle and he started hitting me

and they kept hitting him they can't beat me and I spread my arms out a beat my hand so I could make a fist and they just kept on and kept on me hit me with SAP's Jackson's stuff I've never been hit with before and I just kind of curled up here and I just kind of curled up there just seemed like it kept going on and on and

you know it dawned on me that it finally had enough no they just had had enough for me and they were going to beat me to death in this abandoned building in the middle of the rats in my body and nobody would ever know the difference

and I tell ya gotta fear inside my guts I think it is something come out of me that I never I never heard before or since and it was a screen by screen come out to me that I I just didn't sound human

I don't want to die that way

and they stopped

and as far as I'm concerned that's the kind of surrender I'm talking about you understand

that's the kind of surrender I've made all my life

because as soon as they start you know I tried to get back up on my knees and up on my hands and it dawned on me hello was easy

I should have screamed at twenty minutes ago

and when I get out here

it was like my head was made out of glass you know they just read the thought and soon as I got up on my knees one of them drop kicked me right in the chest and he started all over again

they kept on and they can't die in a cap dot

and I started to beg and I started to cry and I started to please please please don't kill me

please just document

total surrender

please don't do this to me at that day and that sell the surrender was total please

please just somebody help me out I'll do anything you say just please help me

I'm ready I've had enough

help me

and it's unfortunate that by the time a guy like me gets to a place like that there's no there's no

no more probation over cultural war there is no more nothing no more nothing there you go that's it I'm going to burn them up are you already told you that

by the very

the disease that I had with with that moment I know it is just a moment of total surrender I was

later stated despair greater depth about the whole flicks welcome home Brainerd

because there was nobody there

nobody bought one and that one is god

and it's simple

it's just that simple

in that moment of total surrender when I was ready to do anything

anything to read there's not out here don't you know you can't see the surrender

do you know what's going on outside inside all you see is what you see only god can see on the inside

only he knew and it could be that way

I want to surrender was told when I was ready for ginger repairs

and if you're just like this

two guys in the next book talking about a program called Alcoholics Anonymous just like yeah

not only

at a time

a dozen different occasions

sorry

one

at that moment

I talking about a program called Alcoholics Anonymous and he wasn't talking to me

you could

you couldn't talk to me

it was one of the guys go down for a first

good for you

the good doctor

I was close enough to

well it's good talking about the moment of total surrender

he said he was lifted out of his room and board on top of all my you know wouldn't intrude

the free number someone blow by me called a spiritual experience

well the total surrender

spiritual experience

Alcoholics Anonymous caressed mark for the first time in my life and I bought

I think it's only fair

it's only fair to tell you

well I said in a lot of sales listening to a lot of places within a lot of people don't have a lot of

all kinds of good stuff I don't know what shapes

what do you guys are telling me

interstate

do you believe guys like that

so what I'm trying to say to you is this is that did not sell in nineteen seventy

surrender god gave me great

he made grace to recognize who

and the truth is Alcoholics Anonymous

that's the truth

you see I couldn't recognize truth I had lost the ability to record I live the life to all

I lost the ability to recognize truth that day and that's L. god gave me grace to recognize truth and reason to believe that guy was a loser I don't believe in losers have already been attention to what would happen they would lie I would listen and I will I do with this is Rigoletto for welcome back alive that's how we that's how I live my life in lock up it's just that simple

it's just that simple that day I believe them and I had no reason to believe it because he was a loser

they've been in a one on got drunk shot a guy to death in a phone booth on on forty or forty ninth enough on the west of forty ninth street and he was facing murder one electric chair

the electric chair

thank god gave me grace to recognize truth through stressful needs no support no backup gold is gold you know put in a garbage can afford not to steal gold you can change that truth is truth if it comes from the mouth of a lawyer or an honest man truth is still true

it stands alone and unsupported thank god gave me the grace to recognize truth and he gave me that grace in advance I did not earn my way into Alcoholics Anonymous that was one good deed not with one kind act I don't normally do to cross the street at a signal fault full money no nobody out of a burning bill I do nothing for nobody

god gave me the grace and if it's not tell you this this is just kind of the way I look at it I believe you've been at the door my heart not going all my life you always wanted to come in I just wouldn't let him I didn't need him and I didn't need you

and until I needed him in you I wasn't going to let you in and it's that simple you got that now now I got the message

now I got the message and the ball is in my corners you see

the ball is in my corner I get down to join I get down to the joy and I shoot him a car to sending a letter a letter to cost cutting and I said I want to join Alcoholics Anonymous and they sent me one back it's it's

not you

now you

if not you

well you know if I was still in quarantine this if I had any communicable diseases that go there for a long

what are the letter I said I wanted you to know

no I've already told you what about three

if it gets all bruised

others

we are

good god gives me the grace grace is sufficient to say

what does

I got a

I will give you

if you're an alcoholic

I would do whatever you can start

it was also

I was what I was doing

it's from god not from the outside not

when he told a story just like I told you to nine of loneliness and fear

let's

of what is in despair whether he was in jail

that's not a message

the messages on the inside the things that you didn't know about me that I kept secret the things that held me captive the things you wouldn't let me go those are the things that I had inside of me there's a lot of convicts and join I don't drink at all the just not nice people

and I happen to be a not nice person who had contracted alcoholism if I could stay sober I'd still be a not nice person drunk or sober

I said

so I started talking he started talking about all the stuff that I held secret he started talking about all the fear is afraid of the data for you to live afraid to try again he talked about all the loneliness and despair and hopelessness he talked about hearing ability to managers don't like that's all they talk about as I said in that you know you should is experience is all

the difference is in flux with me it was like you opened up my guts and put him on a table nobody ever knew these things I couldn't tell friends that I had for twenty years what was going on inside of it I could give that to nobody just given it to me for free he showed his experiences and his friends

he gave me back my whole

you know you can't buy that

you know you can't get that anywhere that's a gift from god and he gave it through you he gave me back my whole I sat in a chair and I just couldn't believe what he was saying to me I sat in a chair or not and I just I I I I I know you won't believe this but I used to be very excitable I

when I started to get excited I wonder

when I reached over

and I did it

right because I do

because I didn't know what else to do

I don't know what else to do the job

all that I'm

we all work from the dining room

the young

I wanted to do

I

I had no idea what was going on

I believe that the grace of god held open

just allow me to do

if there's one thing that got

I was very proud because I know it's the gift of faith

I had no reason to believe

no

when I talk to you about faith

I don't mean

Jamie squire who turned her came back I'm not talking

a little face the tiny face a child like faith

you know what I mean

when my little girl was three years old

our third birthday party she felt

it's not on the sidewalk

can scream cry if you know how women do well

let me get away with not

do you see

not not

the story but I tell you a little secret

I know the beast within

I know the beast within

I never change that beast

I know it may be included in a hurricane suffered people wherever I went I never changed the beast

you gotta calm down

seventy two I was involved in the first prison right in fifty years same song

raw emotion

my beast not polite

I have to keep that beast chained up you give me a job rather mild

you know how women are she kicked in

still I finally went out here and I think that little girl looking like you still need to stop crying