The 5th Yosemite Summit Conference in Yosemite, CA

good beginning to let

my name's cliff road German alcohol

looking

nobody else they can do this anybody else in the world as you guys

vacuum in

okay not give us the money the world is

mmhm

this is the norm is the legend that is about you know

yeah and we would never do anything anybody told us to do

just the fear dying is going to keep doing it now right

nobody else was so you're wonderful

I'm very glad to be here radicalism moment I've had a wonderful time at this moment

we'll see how it goes from now on

I really enjoyed guard last night brought him all the way here from Winnipeg they talk funny don't day

he got twenty three years of sobriety when he gets twenty five years utility more a time

no idea

I promised I would tell use notes

skews me Garth

always an old pal I lied

I really got a lot of talking I really enjoyed guilty I'd I'd never heard Gil before and he was he was wonderful he really taught me a lot about me I really like the party is talking about if they had a vaccine for for alcoholism who the hell would take it you know

I know when I was do they used to tell me I had an allergy

I could hardly keep a straight face when I was a loser yeah

my old pal loser Alfie here tonight

because we were beautiful what appear we were but they used to tell me had an allergy and I used to just all thank you

I had real allergy what is this nonsense and I have an allergy to them soon

but that's an allergy alters you know if I go out in the sun

things grow on me and this guy just build a swimming pool just burning **** off me mom you know

and it hurts so I don't gonna serve

only to sponsor not to go in the sun all got

yes

now unfortunate for me I love to serve on the oldest Sir from the Pacific coast not good but all you know

all the kids love being done to help fuel guy back needs more Congress road

and I just love to surf you may say I am obsessed with surfing

what I do is I get up at before dawn I get the water when the sun just coming up you know when I surf when the sun starts getting warm I get out and go home

well I control my surfing

I don't need any stupid steps for that either

when that weird woman you heard this afternoon gets on me you know I don't run out the yards I take that back you know

I just pull my sponsors they

so I don't know I just this allergy nonsense but I remember one night we were having fish up in LA and now with alchemy fish boy and he'd finish the seventeen point one all you can eat you know understand round going

no

and al said somebody's obsessed with fish

and when the other guy thirty B. CUNY says well you can't get a five oh to eat fish

and Albany plus he says never help me dance either

when you have that kind of allergic reactions in women can you imagine all the doctors you don't need pages cliff because of you we pages you'll be the greatest love of the world has ever known in the toughest guy that ever lived

thank you Dr

they be out of features in that market all guaranteed

I just couldn't identify with it you know on the side you know what and Gil was talking today about he had that three stages of drinking fun drinking fun and trouble drinking I forgot what the left was I dozed off Gil I'm sorry as a

but I don't know I don't know of Guilderland goalie because he didn't say phone right he said it like an Alamo fun

well yeah

we had a nice night didn't quit

you know why

we have

you know

we know exactly what to me

I mean there got in my school is going to go

you

you mean get the crap beat out you're going to jail

thank you your car at the bottom of a ravine in the morning

with you in it

I could not resist fund

I was just like that damn dog in the call of the wild joy just could not resist I don't have on those days with the boss of enough to get me and got me

and all of a billion dollars

and I was married to her

and I had those doping children

everything was wrong

hello Allegan bicycle on cliff

let's go have some fun

you know what I mean

almost died of that

and I know about fun in trouble too you know but I I never had the just very dialog from the first day I had flown in trouble

first time I ever drank us fifteen years old five the four foot eleven medium nine pounds twelve pounds that was pimples

let's go to this high school dance in this other little we unite gag down this half a point of booze

and I damn pimples went and I grew a lot

then I went to that high school dance and I had

all I had a good time that night there are only two girls in the school I could dance with city that were small enough but that night I dance with all of you know

come on baby Alexis

my face was well I just got up and

one

I had a good time

in a second time I drank was like three weeks later I thought of that quarter of a point a

ten high I would do it for me at the fifth of port wine would be even better

and it was

and I had a blackout

and I woke up the next day and they tell me what

much of my life is here say from now on

will I marry her then became her say

you know she gets up and tell these lies about me this afternoon and I can't say a word because I don't remember any of that crap

I'd have to take her word for Lou

in the

and that night these guys told me the next day that I had and we're out of this by Kern river near Bakersfield there enough and I'd try to with every guy out there by this river and they'd all be hell out of me and I tried a couple of smaller girls and they went to

and I tried a deputy sheriff

and I went to jail and I was fifteen years old

and I woke up at least they put me in a cell by myself I woke up in jail in the morning all right the guy was rattling the bars and I thought oh all never do that again

and I never did I never drank port wine again as long nine

and that's pretty much my drunk log

you know lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of times man I had fun all our love to drink I liked it or just get out and get among them I love singing and I love dancing I love fighting

unfortunately I'm no good at that

but I was raised after this afternoon in this Irish Catholic family really yes

one for us you have this thing in a phone booth you know

in a minute in my family like in many Irish families are you know the rough and tough and hard to bluff and they love to fight and they're good at it my old man was a professional fighter a leading contender for the middleweight championship of the world my uncle Jack used to clean up saloons as a hobby you know

we'll we'll have this back problem big yellow streak down the middle of it

but I found it if I could have enough

to drink if I could get enough booze in me I could be brave

and I was not brave and tough and same thing

that's the second step that's insanity

vehicle one I might get enough booze to me to be brave I'd lose my muscle coordination

I became one of the great beating takers of all time

I would take legendary beatings

and I was proud of them

the second step when I got here you know

I know you know that night the first night I drank that blues the most at the dance that's the first time ever doing this number that Hey watch where you go

I do several guys knees that night you know

you know lots of times I had all the fun they don't have those blackouts I just hated blackouts I never wanted to have a blackout as is gonna have a couple of nips

where is Jack

a couple of minutes I heard that since my dad died of so I have a couple of minutes and then I have a couple more minutes and then the next to get me and I'd wake up one time I woke up in Long Beach that's one of my fondest memories of four other guys going down from bigger field on Long Beach one weekend to have fun and I woke up in his flea bag hotel in the morning and I thought I was born

I had bled facedown on his pillow all night scenic drive

so when I come up the bill came with me

it was smothered in there you know

so this other guy and I was a sink in the corner we threw water on this bill almost drowned them you know

finally got a kind of what

you know there's a mirror on this dress on or forget I said put up hello back

one of the moto

I never get the guys I was with the they said you were great Roach

you got up nineteen time

that's the kind of friends I had my whole life

you know and that's that's that's my pattern drinking that's the way I drink and I never understood when I was fifteen and I swallow that ten nine and hit bottom this class he said would boom I crossed the line into alcoholism I have never been a social drinker I don't know what they are really I'm married to one

she and several errors with them one time driving pad up the

the talks somewhere on five Allen on the movie

I want to talk about that

and we stop for dinner huh the waiter comes over says of would you like a cocktail before dinner

you should watch that was decision time

do you want one I don't care all I want if you have one now but if you want one I don't know what

to make a decision

I got to the top left

well it's only this one down here she says up do you have come quite that grease

in his waiter says no we don't have any loans

she says well never mind

well I let that go by us I said no Sir were you looking

they all went

members

don't shoot I think you had a few too many

I just I know you had a few too few

then

so anyway I met Pat when we were college of any of your ears after a lot of you were here this afternoon and

we fell in love and

inter destroyers suicide pact

the

and we had a dual disease with alcoholism and composite

we had a kid every nine months and twenty minutes seems like to me I don't

seems like every time I come out of a blackout it

mmhm

all right when they're little like kittens but they grow up and they did establish for Oneida god when I woke up there's wrecked cars in flood

hello

and but we did real well with S. or four jobs five ourselves but in the course of winter came in nobody wanna rent surfboards and blah blah blah blah

and then in February nineteen sixty five I went down on a sunny morning cold freezing mornings when not a fixer for the shop I was not a morning drinker nineteen sixty five as far as I know I was a pretty much a weekend drinker will Thursday Tuesday but a weekend drink

well is that what we can do here is

and I'm in their stand on this board I got the resin cooking over there and I got thirsty and I thought to be a coke in the refrigerator and I open the refrigerator and what was in there was what he had been there the night before he left about this much vodka just about a drink

in this bottle and there were some orange juice in the refrigerator

you know a screwdriver taste nice and so I devote enough for the one I dragged through driver no one on about my business and I'm Stan and working with they're not kill this case there's new people here my sponsor used to call me these things are

you know what we're gonna do this weekend

know what

we're going to go to a round

get along little doggies and

so if you got dragged here you know least you'll hear this story

newcomers like this story after about twenty minutes my mind talk to me

newcomers how do you know my my still talk to me today but I'll listen

I have met the enemy he lives here

the only enemy I have in the world is right in there

I I in the schizophrenics don't you there's only two of them

you guys you just have a nice conversation or one could say shut up you know when you get twelve of all talking at once in a while I remember that voice that morning my head said

cliff that was off filthy trick

you finish woody's blows off like that then a man

you guys are way ahead in

yeah if you go get him apart

hello guys that afternoon I got him a fifth

and I ended up you know just bori I brought my dad used to say does resin all over the board was screwed forever the shop was a mess you know and I couldn't log in I lurched home and I told my wife I got to do something about my drinking I'm getting drunk when I only need to

and she had cut this whole thing out of the paper

but if you want to drink it your business you know they I don't know why she thought to that end up

and I called a the only time I recalled a with your motive was that time I just want to do some about my drinking the next they'll stand came out and got me

took me to a a meetings there in nineteen sixty five

and I like to skip this part but I can't do that I am like a

similar problem has never really been alcoholism

that's my problem

just to

what a method that surgically removed I couldn't get it off you know

and the people in the A. did not seem to be sensitive to me

they're a bunch of clients you know well I was a great wondering sniffer

and I go to local discussion mean there weren't very many meetings and in Oceanside Carlsbad seven nine and I've won a civil way and these guys would tell me that I was whining sniveling

well that ticked me off so I would cut them off I would go to that meeting anymore I punish them

like all the Roddick said punish them with my absence you know I'll be careful today I still do that kind of thing well after a while I ran out of meetings

I'm sure all of them you know

except the speaker meeting there in Oceanside on Sunday night six thirty I went to that every other week whether I needed it or not but you know and I would wait until that meeting was about started slipping that back door and sit down and soon as they said a man out the door I would go they had a son member that you know is that we care

that used to really take me I waited like twenty seconds after the meeting the night nobody threw their arms around may

phonies

it was the big the big show in nineteen sixty five was laughing

and I had the most insane desire in those meetings to just leave up in the middle of the meeting say

I want to do that

well we have a really good speed you know some god the nine not houses and twelve prisons and murdered his own mother whether braids and and

you know all those things give me a stature on the program

I like those guys they really entertaining you know

but it seems to me like everybody else's names claim

his wife's name is Martha

and they just been out of the bib overalls about an hour and a half you know

no women Martha had been good decent

sincere worthwhile folk their whole lives

but they had drunk too much

in everyday drunk too much for a few years it really started interfering with their lives

so they'd come here to the a in a

and return to be in good decent worthwhile folk again

they had been

militated

you know my hero nineteen sixty five was a guy named Eldridge cleaver

he was a black militant terrorist

that's my politics in nineteen fifty five vote up or burn it down I don't give a **** you know

yeah

if you decide to

but a piece of metal makes a hell of a weapon yeah

big chain on that sucker you know and I did not hear elders give one of the famous talks down in San Diego and he was talking about the prison system California's couple months before I came today and he was talking about how there was kind of rude ability yeah

he says you know they've never known

he had never been

the military

you don't

it'll take somebody who's never been

militated

that's how I feel now close enough not to grow if you were but I always been crazy

I was crazy long before I can remember a little bit snatches of my life when I was four years old

we lived on a speedway in Venice California and I was a little short pants my little tricycles there and I was standing there in his car for going by house going

I don't know how to do this yet C.

the best I could do

and that's how I felt my whole life

I was angry my whole life and I was afraid the whole life

in a manipulated people and I I was a black person well because I had to be

three and when you all my life I try to tell people how I feel us over about three years enough reading Ernest Hemingway's book but three o'clock in the morning I read the moveable feast and he described this guy in the book and I got to that page he said he had the eyes of an unsuccessful rapist

do

I'll tell you something if you feel like that drinking helps

and they wanted you know in my drink and I don't know about yours no matter how bad my drinking was after I drank about forty minutes hi head eight minutes that were glorious

even that'll last couple rotten years I head eight minutes where it was just

I wasn't angry and I wasn't afraid and every muscle in my body was relaxed and I love god and I love the world and everything was well

right after that you'll

let's see in my life if you walk up the ministry said what serenity

I would have said it's eight minutes forty minutes into my drink

that's only serenity and they want me to give that up to hang around with Clinton mark

you know

so I quit a no one noticed but I quit a Allah good a couple years and weeks and ally leapfrog for years he had ten years of Lebanon had five but mine with quality slipping

but I I got to where I come to a a when he was on there I started being a real sincere a you know when I was going to they were going to throw me out of closed and whatever I would go I'm going to eight one time I came for forty days not going for a year and a half and then one time I came for thirty days and I was going for a couple years my favorite comic came in the afternoon time about four o'clock went to the old club there and these four guys quadro step me all afternoon given cuando steps to get all four sided with

and Jesus levitated out of the building I never had it so good at that time you know lord of my buddy big John's house that's it John Robb college and we have to go to a big Johnson's okay

John had drunk three weeks too long then you know

so I let big John of the meeting that night and became his sponsor

and the next day we both got drunk

on and on and on and on and on

and you know one Garfoot talking about last night you were talking about you know you take a drink and then you just go my sponsors that what my sponsor can drink or he can live

like work and things like that you know my my sponsor taking your lunch time you wouldn't seem for three four years

you know he can drink that's all you can do almost functioning alcohol a lot of us die

because we function I couldn't alcoholic look at all I'm doing

what a life mile man told me and by the way my mother and father were both alcoholics so I guess I'm of the old the old child alcoholics

hi everybody the little child somebody for Christ's sake you know

we got a guy down in our group the adult child of a Baptist all

you can make love stand up or say you're dancing

you know

a few years of the adult children of family do you

compulsively draw circles their whole lives

why is my old man told me that I remembered my whole life was you can't be an alcoholic if you eat breakfast and go to work

he never said a word about few can breakfast up

every morning I would eat well if I go

in a kind of a drug test you ten times more you to prove I'm half as good I don't know if anybody identifies that I'm working full

you're not done all the work that isn't nobody asked me to do I'll do your work to get here I don't know

I got a you know I can't be an alcoholic look at me I'm just questioning

and that's where I live your just right on that it's just grown the principal for five years before I quit drinking a prince will call me on Monday among other things I teach speech

you never guess that would

any call me in and he said to put these that I got this flyer here they got in there having a debate and speech tournament down San Diego state college now San Diego just thirty miles south of us twenty minutes by freeway and he said they're having this

the way I drive anyway

Charlie making about two minutes and forty seconds

no hands on which is difficult but rather a loop rather the guy drives with no hands

but anyway he's the head this flyer C. and he said would debate and and and competitive speeches admits that be really good for your students want to go down there and see if that's something they'd like to he's the boss of I found like six or eight kids and I don't know much about I trained a little bit more I knew we went down to this tournament and we were amazed when we got there

the speech Germans are big deals I mean they're like fifty schools were participating in this tournament like five hundred contestants join three piece suits and ties on we were Levi's with L. we know you know

and we got annihilated I mean we got the win win around

not okay drunk you are but I don't like to lose

checks me off to lose someone screamed already not going to coaches room and they all know each other you know we love that but twenty of mineral pals and they snubbed me

it seems to me anyway so I hung around all day so they can not be longer you know

in one guy really pissed me off he had a lot of hair that bother me right away

when was was one of those great names you know not a hair out of place is just gorgeous feel great about a seven hundred dollar suit on the other coaches did this when they went in front of them

in the

kind of the Bruce of well

and anyway almost set about two in the afternoon this clown turns to me

he said where are you from

I got I was grateful to be spoken to I said Oceanside

he said

where is that

thirty miles off the coast

sucker gave me a resentment

I mean what I mean Reuters

I don't think if they would buy the next four five years right in thinking that sucker

I went back to the high school I went to the I. Q. files of the school I found the fifty smartest kids in the school I thought we can offer your innovative

so I don't want to debate I should ask you that get your **** in around

and they went

other teachers will hold for four thirty on their nine thirty ten o'clock every night every night two kids every half hour this screaming and ranting and raving cursing yelling

some reporter want to ask this kid of mine it was what's the secret of your culture success the kid said terror

yeah

Hey you know much work that is

well man I'll get your temps when you do that

what makes the nerves hang up in your fingers about this far into your garden green gets too big for your head in your

yeah

do it all day I don't kind of drink you are but I don't have to drink all day especially if I don't eat

the only thing you'll do it you just wait

in a half a point one in the glove compartment all day you know whatever thrifty have the basket that week that was there you know

warm welcome right all this going on a warm vodka or wine and a bottle just lie there not glove compartment all days to go get him baby I'm waiting Darling

thank goodness for that last kidney even you know not get out and get that going to school because big cigars no there's not like a cigar and I'd open up that she bought

and I just always drink half of it just a little little little little little

god is there anything in the world C. five get this greasy stuff just slides down there

and does its magic I don't know but it made me well

it put me back together nerves go back

all the muscles will not sit there in the dark as well as blues went to work for me you took all of the characters in the in the round the world

could it be one tenth the good of a quarter of a pine up warm vodka

do not smoke that cigar ****

okay then you're a good coach

belittling

then I hide the ball

I used to run a fingerprint in the morning or something I don't know

then I'd sit there not finish that's a guard that sits in the darkness that car and smoke that cigar

think about that gray haired son of a **** down in San

a day went viral I didn't give him a few minutes

and then I go home and get drunk

Pat talk about our house today love you weren't there it was an insane asylum

we have these three kids in high school at the time you know

in the late sixties

oldest son is working his way through high schools ahead she salesman

here does but you know

only mother man Hey man what

good god in Miller's D. they're strange those guys you know you run the middle sense you see those lights

what what was

module can model it was say all explain

in three

three but see we attracted other crazy people I know what your house is like well done Jack Parr said it's like they took the world everything loose role of southern California

in southern California you know

strange people a lot of people I don't know what they were doing their you know they don't know what I was doing there either all this not house was crazy

in their we're all sick sick sick people

but I built that speech came

and in a couple years we won one of those fixed term

but understanding the gray here guy wasn't time yet

I know when it's time

the next year they think they were twelve or thirteen term examined with my team won all twelve

but I can wait

I think revenge is better than Christmas known you

noon

the next year there was a tournament there were twenty five schools in this tournament competing my team scored more sweepstakes points this is the way they figure these things more points than the other twenty four schools come by

then I went up to that gray haired Cretan and I put my nose right against his and I said

BMO or Oceanside is not all

good morning

what are you talking about

I said don't U. remember about four years ago

you said to me Oceanside words that

he said

we just moved here from Nebraska I don't know where

this story

I can just pull that gun insurance okay of it you know

here's this guy's in his bed in San Diego or not

you just go through life long

okay

do the same thing for me today

you know that I always thought was here in the universe one room

and sometimes even do it right all right got

well that's still on the freeway I'm still awaiting

and she says they all got up this morning said let's go out on the freeway and get it

when people are cruel and accurate you know

it also gives

Ellen on gives you that

anyway right after that

today we had one of our main events in the neighbors have come to miss so much and

I threatened again to move out everybody said yeah

and so I moved out down to the beach where I wanted to live in the world

and I knew that I unloaded that shrew

and those don't think children

I could drink like a gentleman again

and it didn't work out that way you'd be surprised if Suria I was drunk all the time and I've got my life is going down the tubes and was going to happen

one afternoon I came out of school and hadn't had a drink

and I went by the house to bring Pat about money I think

and my son Dave the hashish sales was gonna bobbing in the background there

I did something really stupid I turned to Dave I said they what's it like not to have your own man around the house

he looked me right in line he said it's beautiful

in a toes on sensitive you hurt my feelings and I went back to the dump on the beach in Iran and raves screen hollered

but I did not take a drink that afternoon

and I think that's significant in a long time since I had drank that often you know no we're not sat on the screen porch and I watch the ocean the rest that afternoon and into the evening

and it was winners for the sun went down very early on was the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in my life

all of those with this guy in the water and the wet sand or all that magenta color

and I sat there is that's about the time the sun went down into the water

I had what I assume you had or you would be here with me tonight

I had that moment of clarity that our book talks about

I just saw cliff

and I saw what I had become

no I told you earlier I never like myself my whole life I despised myself my whole life

but I have had maybe three things about myself that I had had respect for

and it came to me

that evening that I had traded those three things are for things whatever they were for the privilege of drinking alcohol

United like what was left the only thing left the cliff was the animal

and I went in the bedroom that is we'll see Baghdad through there and I got out the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous which I had thrown in there when I moved I had read it one of my travels through the program and being an English teacher I thought was poorly written

read a lot better this time

and I read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous for three days and three nights I slept a little bit I ate some called in sick then go to work I just read the big book all the stores

cover to cover I specially love the story of the professor in the paradox I was in the second edition another egotistical school teacher you know and on the third time through the book it was three o'clock in the morning on the thirteenth of January nineteen seventy

and I came to pay sixty three again

and I came to that prayer on page sixty three which is step three

and in my befuddled confused state it just seems like it would be a good idea if I would just kneel down on that filthy dumpling oleum floor on a joint of the beach if I would just read that for a lot of myself that's what it is

I read god I offer myself to the to build with me and to do with me if you will

relieve me of the bondage of self

it all has spiritual awakening I had a kind of quiet knowledge that I was going to be alright that I wouldn't charge my life anymore

I've only met two or three other people that had that kind of carrot would nothing like Wilson had no wind up my union or anything like that I

I just knew I was going to be alright

you know I've been in charge of my life for forty four years

and I had screwed up I've been in charge of your life for forty four years I've been in charge of the universe for forty four years and I couldn't do it anymore and I just turned it over to this power that I've come to love in call of god in Alcoholics Anonymous I call this power god because you know you seem to want to

I you know I told Josh a radical rebel revolutionary my whole life

I'm not a radical revolutionary now because I'm a good soldier

I do what I'm told

yeah I I I I wore ties my whole life I'm a school teacher at or these god damn thing

I don't think it's stupid that were tight when you speak but my sponsor doesn't

he was a loyal slipped under the stuff the motel did him a tie is respect for the program

since he saved my life what the hell

no I don't I don't disobey orders anymore that's what I said

you know I just March

until March of

I got rid of all my revolution most often thank god thank god and then you know I don't know anything about gotta speak I know two things about god