The Men with Men Group's Open AA Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

good morning beautiful day in Iceland and I'm delighted to be here with you Tom I have a strong alcoholic

I'm a member of the primary purpose group not in Reykjavik but his southern pines North Carolina

in my sobriety date is groundhog day of nineteen fifty seven

it's amazing I'm alive

it is

I never thought I'd make this and I will promise you that today I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous I never intended to stay sober this along

if you're new and you've got some

notions of not stay and don't stay too long because they'll get you and the first thing you know you're just stuck here for life you know

I never meant to get as good as I've gotten

hi dad does I had no real interest in getting good I've gotten so darn good

that is ridiculous I I

I'm boring and

no I tell you what I am is is probably the most fortunate man on the planet that is far as I'm concerned

been blessed with a way of life that some

incredible you know is that that a that a guy like me would make it for as long as I have in the program

and probably just as amazing if not more is the fact that it has not been a long suffering journey I've been blessed with tremendous experiences with tremendous rewards treatment in every department of my life yeah I become a citizen of the world and there are few places that I can go and not have friends and and and what that is really something for a guy who lived in complete isolation that's a great thing

I'm still I'm doubly blessed in that I'm still just as dynamically involved in the program today as I've ever been

still just as enthusiastic as I've ever been

I've never been more fired with creative thinking that I am right now

at my age I'm supposed to be saying now

sometimes I think it kicks in but for the most part you know I can function did reasonably well

so it's it's an amazing thing I I I guess if there were indeed real

it kind of an objective in anything that I would like to get done in our visit here this morning

now I'm when we get through I would like for you to know

that is this guy who is an alcoholic of the hopeless hi

I would also like you to know that there is hope for those of the hopeless type

and that there really is hope for a life beyond your imagination

that's an ambitious thing but I think if I wanted to get anything

what what what what should I be attacked by on ice lenders

and rough when you get dressed thank you Tony thank

though it is been a wonderful host guys are really great to me he was also my translator

I went to the Thursday night

read over that a lot of love

I need translated into my ear

took two showers to get the saliva out

good great great jazz get around visit

it

he's gonna do it again tomorrow night I guess

I am glad we only visit just a minute before get into some serious going

I was in Texas last week

and

that's not too hard duty

and I was having dinner with a guy

and he wanted me to try a special dish that he had it was an appetizer you know before dinner

and it looked interesting I thought it was Friday plant or something

and I said what is that

and he was just sufficiently evasive to make made more suspicious as I said no I'm not going to have it but tell me what it is

and he said it's lamb price

well I've never heard of lamb price and I said what is it that he said well it comes from Iceland

and then he told me the origin of lamb price

if you don't know ask your neighbor now I'm I'm not gonna get too graphic with this

but I'll tell you the lamb that donated to the fries is not happy about it at all I've got

I don't really believe in what he was telling me what that was

so when I got off the plane I didn't tell the guys but I would watch in the lambs in Iceland

they are very nervous cruise days

as a whole

you've got to be gentle to the students

to

well

let me get going I gotta run news got important engagement he's do you got to get out of here he made me promise not to talk more than our

I will talk longer than our

it just seemed like

I'll talk as fast as I can and it'll seem like slow motion to you

it is language is difficult enough when you speak it slowly

but you guys have fun with I don't understand a single word yeah

the

I am not a truly blessed guy I don't think I'm anything unusual as a member of an average slice of life my experience is might have been a little different but that alcoholism was exactly the same I just kind of start and I'd really like to focus on

I'd love to just tell my drugstore I love drunk stories had absolutely level especially mine I just left I could tell that thing all day

and with great relish you but I'll I'll just kind of cut to the chase of that I've

I'm a guy I found myself

in a maximum custody penitentiary at the age of twenty four

and

obviously I guess any anybody who found themselves in such a situation would be mystified and bewildered and and and and and totally hopeless and I was all of that

and I'm I'm twenty four years old is a point in life when most most folks are just getting started the living

they're just getting out of college just settling into a career just getting married starting a family so green time of life

and the twenty four I'm sitting locked up like a wild animal in a penitentiary

absolutely convinced that I will never leave that place a lot I believe that

and so I looked at the the the situation I was in there was no future I did even give thought to the future

at that point in my life and if if I've had any real desire for anything

I think it could be best described as a desire to just disappear I just wish they were dollar

and so

to look at that and look at the futility of it

was bad enough but then add to it

that

I was serving in the Senate

for a crime of which I had no recollection whatsoever

then around

the crime I committed was the one that I know anybody in this room we can identify with

but thank god for most alcoholics the greatest fears are never realized

the greatest fears are bad dreams

and they don't happen

but sometimes they do and for those they become real nightmares and I was one of those

I was serving a sentence for taking the lives of two people

I can be nice to myself and say that I had an unavoidable accident that was certainly true in the sense that it intended to it

two young people were trying to cross the street that I happened to be driving along with blind drunk blacked out

in random downs guild

so not only the surroundings

but the the weight of having committed a crime

so horrible that there's no adequate punishment there is no adequate punishment for a crime like that

so I'm looking at a lot of troubling things

and I wasn't just some nice young preppy fellow own way to a party who had an unfortunate accident

that culminated alive that by any measure would have been better had it never happened

I was twenty four years old when I look back at my life

I couldn't and can't to this day and this is absolutely true

not melodrama or overstatement

when I look back at life I could not think of one thing that I had done to satisfaction or to real completion

not

I couldn't think of one person

not one person

who wouldn't have been better off if they had never met me

everybody that I was associated with got hurt disappointed used abused misused lied to heart broken whatever

and so that was my legacy

and so here I sit as a twenty four year old guy having lived a life like that what would you bet on that case

not much not much

I wouldn't bet ascent

absolutely not

I've been drunk all my life but it didn't believe was alcoholic

I just thought I had a situational kind of problem

I don't really believe is an alcoholic

I've had you know we use the word potential a lot around here

I've been told one time

that I have a non usual level of potential

only one guy ever told me that

I had a thousand tell me I was the most worthless pieces of junk they'd ever seen

I never heard that

I remember the potential

and I don't really believe was about how like I thought I was a burning rocket scientists did was get ready to happen and one of these days that if I can just get off on the right foot go get em tiger I believe that

I'm going to write down the sewer yeah I don't believe that

but if you picture that guy if you picture that god and kind of fill in you know the story

itself is a fairly typical story of alcoholism

if you just sort of forget the cage that I was in

it forget the the unfortunate things to happen it's the story of alcoholism because here's a young gal on the rocks and lives over is no longer working is no longer functional and everybody could see that except me

what does it take to turn a case like that around what it what does it take to really give a nudge in the right direction

yeah I just like you

have had Cognos admitted turning points in my life

most of the time I turned the wrong way

but let me share with you some turning points that moved it in the right direction

and if someone were incredibly simple

most profound things are simple

and when I look back and it was what happened at that started to turn around one day I was a I was extremely I was extremely extremely affected by what I've done

yeah I lived under an absolute mountain of guilt yeah I didn't communicate with anybody I didn't carry on conversations I didn't visit I didn't ask anybody where they were from I never spoke to anybody unless they ask me a direct question

and

one day a fellow who worked at the prison

call me out for an interview you know a lot of people did

this guy was as kind of a social worker type of fella

and he called me out and did a standard textbook social work inventory out of our interview I know that now

family history social history criminal history all of that stuff I've been through that many times with all kinds of folk I never had anybody value wait my case and make but one diagnosis

you are now calling a drunk you bomb you know that I heard dad always all my life

never had any effect on me you know I always thought they had sort of faulty assessment tools or something I'd I'd I'd I never really believed in this

and when I would get through declaring the hopelessness of my condition they would give me suggestions that were well intended

but totally useless like

why don't you quit drinking

well I never gave any serious consideration of that either I mean quitting drinking was not on my menu of things to be yearned for yeah I know you might have been just dying to get here I was

well I guess we're all dying to get here but but I didn't really want to stop right

I kind of felt sorry for people who didn't drink

you know what I made I would people who didn't drink

to me they look like they didn't drive I mean this storm looking people that didn't look miserable look unhappy and J. I'm even drunk I feel better and they did not

I never I never wanted to be like that those were not good role models I never had any interest in that

I didn't like you know rolling around on the floor and throwing up and stuff like that

but he was worth it

what I got

and so I didn't really I didn't believe that I can I don't have any interest I don't tell you this I don't know if I was incredibly stupid or just uninformed but lead to the same thing

until I was sober for a fair time in Alcoholics Anonymous I never connected the first drink

with the outcome

never did

you know I always thought when I took a drink and wound up in the wrong state

or in jail or in a hospital with stuff broken I didn't even know been hit

a man I woke up one time mandate for god's sake

that's really serious when you get in that

I'm lead to lady I didn't even know

lamb hair

this

she obviously didn't know me either because she saw what she had she left real quick

but I would never when I would wake up in some bizarre circumstance never wants

did I say that not that I recall never once did I say Jeez I shouldn't started drinking

I never thought of that yeah I never understood when

here comes again I never understood

even when I got in a about what happened to the fore with with with a guy like me which was great I think so yeah

the

it sounded to me like when I heard alcoholic so yes the first break to get you there when they took a drink they just fell out or something or had a run in theaters some kind of thing well I never did that

only thing I did when I had the first break was take another right

then another one

they're known in wind up in some cage word wrong state or whatever

but I never connected that

yeah I didn't understand is something happens to me when I take first break that doesn't happen to other people I never knew that

and and so this guy that interviewed me that days told me the same stuff that you had a lot of trouble blues as yeah

and he said

never had heard this before

he said we have an aid group here at the institution and I think you ought to go

that wasn't the Mandurah mandate or you know didn't put a leash on the it take me to the meeting none of that

it was just like say if you're hungry go we you know

it was about that that flat we have a group you're going to go I've never heard of a in my life

never had looked for I never would have paid attention to that but I never heard the letters

I don't think he explained it because I don't think he knew what it was

somebody had told him

thank god somebody did

yeah when you see a fellow and he has a record that sick and is all about drunk

telling me to go today and that's exactly what he did

no that's not a monumental kind of intervention is

but here it is

I responded to the first suggestion I ever heard and have never looked back

that amazing innovation what makes up a huge turning point one guy said Hey guy you got it they fix it you ought to go over a

now I was obviously wasn't healed but it was but I never had another drink

as I walked into my first meeting there were after that it that little session he sent me a little note and said you can go to your first meeting February second of fifty seven and you had to have a we are listed to go because of the crowd I guess

and so I walked in

I was not pleased to be going to Alcoholics Anonymous at at at at I was in a place I don't know if you've ever been like this or not but I was at a place that I was just so busy so absolutely beaten

that I had no response left yeah I mean I couldn't even read it reacts J. they have

it's like a noodle and Jody I just sort of shuffled in a lot of ground source heat or something you know and and walked in my first meeting it was about the size of this it was a big big meet at three are members of that group and one guy spoke to me that an officer on the door it is look at my name on the shirt I was got yesterday said that out and I sat and listened to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous had no earthly idea of what to expect

I thought it would be some kind of a religious thing yeah I'd I'd you could just imagine some evangelists to stop that you know with a lot of holy roly stuff

and I expected that yeah

and the end of and sure enough

that serenity prayer that we use is the first thing I heard and I thought yep that's exactly what it is yeah they got me

as I did respond well and then they did all the stuff we normally do is with the readings and all that kind of thing and then introduce a speaker

and this fellow got up and told the story

and I tell you not had not been raised in a greenhouse I had I had lived in a very

this is our world

but when I listen to that fellow tell his story I was shocked

I thought wow I own would he be telling some god awful story like that the three hundred Haley good convicts it it it made no sense to me and tell me if he could have been a chicken's head off and it wouldn't bother me anymore I mean I thought that that is just crazy

and not allowed to say that I didn't identify would be the understatement of the year I do not done about anything about like a guy is a little short felt totally uneducated and and as

and

when he got through I have I know that I left that meeting more confused than I was when I went in

and

the amazing thing was that I was back to next week

is back to next week nobody sent for me

they wouldn't of come hunting me if I hadn't been there they wouldn't even known as Mr

it is been a chair

but I was back yeah and I thought minutes out I understand fully while back now but but I was kind of kind of mystified I didn't puzzle over it I just found myself back there the next week

today I know exactly what that was and I value what date was that fellow who spoke

that day was without question the most enthusiastic man that I've ever known I mean ever know what what a marvelous felt he was crude his his his his language was atrocious he he he was

it was certainly not an eloquent speaker but he was the most passionate guy I'd ever seen in my life and he just absolutely was on fire he was always that way

and what brought me back to my second meeting was that magical spirit of enthusiasm that communicated to me that there is life after sobriety

now I didn't think that through I just found myself back in the next weeks at

I sat in Alcoholics Anonymous for many months

and I don't think I have ever been more out of place anywhere

then I was in Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't feel that I belong

yeah I was twenty four years old at that time

since I'm now sober forty seven years you know that that makes me sixty three years old

or thereabouts I

I'm twenty four years old

and twenty four year old alcoholics were not showing up in Alcoholics Anonymous in nineteen fifty seven okay to you that

I was the youngest member in every meeting I attended for several years

as a wonderful feeling now that I'm old and along with two

it is not a wonderful feeling when you as a kid on the block

and do god deliver me from well intended people yeah I have guys walking up to me how old are you boy

yeah

twenty four Sir

oh my god you gonna quit drinking

well I was thinking about it and

as all god you don't you know what drink it is then I'll just get started it's what it's for you and it really encouraging you know

with to cat it would come by and and I've noted it was lovely

how do you saw

twenty four

and it is kind of picture ID just kind of pet you only hear about them all is that wonderful yes

well yeah thrill a minute you know

yeah yeah I'm just a young frisky guy and I'm in a geriatric ward job did you it always reasonable goats

yeah real thrill

I look at the future and it looks like a long great Tom I mean I could not afford to Lawrence do you do if you don't drink

I didn't do anything I didn't write it so when I tried to envision a future it looked like said Sagan and slow run

I was not thrilled you know and and I was a hoot but but I had just enough that sort of teetering site yes funny about it I think psychologists have a name for it

they call it approach avoidance behavior you don't own own own one hand I would listen to somebody tell their story about getting your life together and I would find myself feeling hopeful yeah

you privately that's a Jeez you think that could happen to a guy like me

and then on the other side and I would find myself thinking about that long wait trundle and I'd say oh my god what is it does

one of the

I'll be struck bone dry

and at that time the life expectancy ahead of me was fifty years

Jeez that is a long dry spell and so I had really mixed feelings that I felt out of place that I really didn't believe I knew it was too young I knew it was too smart

at the end of that

I knew it was too bad you know a lot of people are embarrassed to be an A. A. R. I. shame to the United

I was just I was ashamed to be here not because I was too good but because I was too bad

the car when you've committed something as horrible as I had done it's awfully hard to justify breathing

never mind looking for a new life

so there were a number of forces

that militated against my ever that ever stay here long enough to stay as I was extremely miserable guy for the fourth of eight or nine months I you know I I you know I I

why do you do that to some extent that I've always been a reader of alumina curious type of fella so I read everything we had we didn't have much in those days but but I read everything we had read the book

and I was fortunate in that there were a number of things that that really constituted turning points for me

the as I look back yeah that man who spoke at my first meeting and by the way he became my first sponsor

a year later

it took that long to get used to it but a year later you wonderful guys

that was a huge turning point thank god I met somebody at my first meeting that demonstrated the joy of recovery and not some sad sack who stop break and it was a happy could just cry yeah I'm glad I met somebody with signs of life and that brought me back I was fortunate in that the group I went into

I started to say even though it was an American priest because he present look maybe because it was in an accident because the person was a powerful labor

the recovery group the Jackson prison in the state of Michigan is one of the finest day groups I've ever seen

and thank god for that

because it was a group and what I mean by that we don't have quality assessments of groups

but if you look at him on a continuum you've got some that are overly casual you know that you can barely tell us a meeting

and you've got others on the other extreme there are well ordered and purposeful and thank god I got into one it was well ordered and purposeful and and and so I was given an introduction to the program that was logical and very very useful

not by visiting people from outside but the other guys in the joint the only difference was they were ahead of me up there

and they explained what they had learned

it took me through of an introduction to the steps it wasn't like doing this after they they introduced the first first place I ever heard the term

design for living

design for living I was in that introductory thing but those guys that you don't have never forgotten it

it was a logical call her a lot understandable

explanation of what this is

that this is not some mystical thing that happens to a fortunate few this thing call recovery

that recovery is a product of actions taken

that it's a logical design by which to live

and what was told to me and what I found to be true as it if I take the actions that are prescribed in the strips

I will have a changed life I will have a change in my personality

and my Modi's don't even matter

if I will take the actions my motives will get corrected as we go

and I know that because of what happened to the

and and so I got introduced to the sound kind of way I was on

I was a guy I was a pretty aggravated case if you if you were here yesterday with on a spiritual thing I really tangled up in that department

and and in a spiritual program that's a huge barrier

I'm not going to dwell on the steps too much they're only the heart of the program you know so I just kind of slide

not as old well loaded too much

but but let me let me just kind of a dress that may maybe three different aspects of that in a global kind of way

you know the first three steps in our program

to me are the foundation upon which recovery is built you know there are things that give me solid putting their things it gives me security and give me an assurance that I can actually stays over

I know people

I know a lot of people

who have never done more than three steps

and if survival is all I care about it is quite enough

if I'm somebody who can be satisfied with just not drinking for one day at a time good good

I can make it on that

but if you're an aggravated case like I'll

the tiger that I rode in the Alcoholics Anonymous didn't die

at soccer still there

and he's still chomping away

and I'm not satisfied for survival

now I didn't know that at the time but but I know when I got pushed in and I started to work out a fumbling kind of grasp of that I tell you where the it in that foundation

I tell you what is a huge huge turning point came

that changed the course of my life I hope you reversibly your reversibly so far

where I really started to get what we call depth and weight in the program

now I'm just kind of a loss tragic face on the ground that's who I am

yeah I'm I'm sort of wistfully hopeful that something going to happen

I said I was an alcoholic

because everybody else said they were

I didn't think it was deep down but I hated the breed only something else in there so they said they were out yeah me too yeah but it didn't mean a thing

I tell you where that change one day I went to a meeting and does that in a second kind of group that I'd like to talk about it don't those first three steps to me have to do with my relationship with the power to render

about my relationship between me and and and my survival with a power greater myself powerful things

the second group that I want to just kind of lumped together talk about our four through seven

because they have to do with my relationship with me with my relation with understand who I am what I talk about when I say I'm an alcoholic

I went to a meeting one day

Anderson is one of those for us hi cylindrical lamps and the

I didn't intend to do it is a life changing

but a guy came and spoke and he spent the entire meeting on the fourth step only talked about

what a great detail about how to do it I had a real straight it read out of the book all that kind of stuff now I knew what he was talking about intellectual I read that and understood words but the words and the mission is you're not necessarily the same

as I I knew academically what he's done that

so you got to go through that and I went back to my sale after the meeting I said okay I will try that

as I sat down took the obligatory a legal pad and

number two pencils and what I intended to do was write a little story

about how cruel life was

and what a victim of circumstances I want to give that that's really what I meant to write those want to fail your

mentally that's how I process

makes sense when I just was thinking about it

but we start putting that out in the open yeah that's what I meant to do is go right at little sad story

we'll probably show today but I want to say it

I started to write

and I swear to you this is exactly the way it happened I started to write I wrote two lines of what I had in mind

and then I would call what happened to me a lot of things we could hold a moment of clarity

I don't know what it was but it was not anything sh startling or or shocking all that dramatic in a way

but I started to write that and all at once it was as if I hit a wall yeah

and all it wants I just stopped

and the charade was over

that a life of illusion and delusion that had been my entire existence was over

and for the first

give me for the first

so myself into clear focus for the first time no I didn't do well on it and this was instant kind of stuff I came to that stopping place very quickly

changed and just started without any thought or preparation just started to open up and and some people say it's hard to take an image or maybe it is

maybe it is

I could not have not taken an inventory that day had I wanted to not take

because when I opened it it was like one of these geysers that builds up the pressure that comes out

and that's the way that was you know as soon as I opened up

it was just a rush of stuff in my hands flew trying to keep up with that tumble of thoughts that came out and I have to admit I started to scribble roughly scribble things that I had never looked that are considered in my life and I just unloaded

no it wasn't a well defined as thoughtful kind of an inventory

when I got through I had three pages of rather hopeless looking scribble nobody could read it

nobody supposed to

that's my inventory

I'll tell you this I've done a lot of important days work seriously

I've never done one equal to that

invite

it was a crude looking piece of work it was the best piece of work I've ever done in my life bar none

I've done I've done now I'm I'm not an analysis for you

I've done three inventories in forty seven years

I did the second one yo this is laid out in the book with the columns and a little more analytical it did not have the value of the first

it had great value

but it did not have the values for

because when I got through that inventory that day I didn't know what to expect I knew what the books say it

and when I got through with it I knew right thank you very much what is that

okay he's from Denmark you gotta check these things

that's how you get forty seven views check these

thank you very much

but what what what happened was that I knew I knew at the depth of my soul and I was alcoholic

not too young guy not a complicated case not to tragic case I knew I was alcoholic

I knew that I had this illness no question no question

there's a place in our book this is

almost exactly this that they're close right I can't tell you what pages on if I tell you place number online or I just say it by accident I don't know would not

I'm fine there's a place somewhere in alcoholism Jeff about alcoholism says somebody says this

we learned that we had to fully concede to our sales there we were alcoholic

this is the first step in recovery

a simple sounding good but you think about that conceit is a very important word to me that's a private work

personal work

as an inside job you know I told you I was an alcoholic when I started that's not conceded

that's a Jennifer cation as communication that's and I want you on let's talk

as a leading

concede is it admitting to my inner most sale that I'm beat I am the heat I have an illness whose nature is such that if I take a drink of anything with alcohol in it I cannot predict what I will do

cannot predict how much I'll drink how long I'll drink or even what I'll do when I drink

and I knew that that day

tremendously important thing you know I truly believe that the render is a touch tone of nude of new life and and and that's what happened that day I have never here it is forty seven years later I have never for one second doubted it

not for one second

that fight was over fell out callers advised over

and I conceded defeat

yes doc I'm quipped I'm not somebody who wised up

it's a G. sober look so much better I think I'll try it forget it that's not even on the table

I'm not a guy who has decided that I won't drink

not in modeling which

I'm a guy who can't drink

and the fight is done it is done

and I lost

but god ever gave yeah

that day I became a real member of Alcoholics Anonymous

nobody knows it but me

nobody cares about me

it's not a public Dale didn't sign anything

but from that day to this I have never gone into a meeting without no and one hundred percent while I was there

I sat in the meeting Thursday night with Cody Toadies yes but in my ear

I knew I was there I knew what I was there

I've never been the loss tragic face in the crowd another time

I'm a man on a mission I know well I'm not here to be entertained nor am I here to entertain