"Day of Sobriety" in San Jose, CA

our speaker for today yes Clancy I from Venice California

my name is plenty of Muslim and I'm an alcoholic

we want to I want to much applause they've used up most of my time with all the sobriety crap

yeah I'm really glad to see such an enthusiastic group

one of those yeah but I want you know I'll take care of them

I want to

I didn't I didn't hear the name of the gentleman who got the first restaurant but I want to wish Happy Birthday to Bruce

and I think that's really

but they saying Happy Birthday to Bruce I really kind of got here's my eyes because not that much on the mentalist particular musician

right back on the other end of the day the worst thing I ever heard

I like to give credit where credit is due

I

I welcome all the new people

you're the some people will tell you you are the most important person in the room

but you are not

you are the second most important person in the room

because of I'm not in the room it doesn't make any difference who is

to me and that's what should be for everybody

your sobriety is the most important right after mine but if I don't stay sober it doesn't make any difference to stay sober to me I want to thank them Bernie

Bernie and Tommy o'neil twins becoming to the airport today and greeting me

whisking me off to

Bernie's home and

I was starving had any breakfast to give me a drive Big Island some decaf coffee and

stay on the phone so I couldn't put in the order for more

otherwise why marketers was give me a ride back to the airport to

just getting very hot

and I actually have a special number of you people I met people in the community did other times I want to

I would like to really distinguish disclosure that

you've never heard of it I never heard of but they're very distinguished

there are two young guys who just moved here from Claire Wisconsin and that's where I'm from is Claire Wisconsin and they've heard of me like

or maybe like you most children here about the boogeyman

you know I can get you

and so they came up to me and

are you

I'm very glad to have them here because one of them is studying to be a Lutheran minister

about cal

and

I think like as I told him I don't know of anything from other preparing to be listed minister or any kind of argument and being a member of a learn more about humanity here than you'll ever learn and all the theological schools in the world

great let

also young lady president who's

his father I sponsored known in Los Angeles

and I only you know once she

a letter after her father been slipping about nine years and finally had a first birthday a couple months ago and she came down for

he goes to some seven o'clock in the morning meeting

so I went down to just a token but I hated it

but she and I met there and she's in the program and sang with allergies driven down here at night I trust the teachers with thirteen degrees below your father sobriety to make some slight contribution of my material well being I have a second thank you

but this is a this is I really wasn't terribly looking forward to coming up here's Tom was saying earlier I'm gonna put all three can I like Sunday afternoon football games and Sunday morning football games and

and Sunday should be a day of rest in your house in San Diego last night I had a

get a meeting down there and I missed the Michigan Notre Dame game and broke my heart and I get home in time

this is an emergency room you people just might procure Tory

we don't even believe in purgatory you know we

and

get your plane this morning

okay as in most cases in the start

once I sat down and got going I just have enjoyed this afternoon very much at that time just give an excellent talk this afternoon I thought he

what

this can be larger than you mention a name or anything yes

let me read you the phone book here and

but I'm just giving excellent talk at five thirty just give it to me maybe it was like fifteen but I

you seem to be one of his best toxin and I thought the panel I'm surprised usually panels on anything this is Pamela sponsorship

alon anything usually

at best you might approach being a Homer if you get up that high in

because they all

and I was pleasantly surprised

I know there were excellent because most of them agreed away I secretly think

I knew there with the top of their business

I thought they were excellent and usually usually sometimes women on such panels women ages I'm more concerned how they look at me as women than they do with age and they have a tendency to million miles and I thought both of these women just talk is eighty eight yes absolutely

really

I'm trying to do

this is not this is not a

and the risk of

there's something about San Jose that brings up the terrible part of me I

I'm wonderful everyone

I'll tell you I don't know if you're familiar with kernels

and carnivals they you know they have shows along the midway

and first I put out something kind of flashy

and that draws what is known as the ten or the mood is

and then they use that flash return the turning the tables listening those movies tickets to get inside to see a bigger show

and that's what we had this afternoon Tom o'neill was

you can

do you all stumbled in

and they had the panel

show you the product

then at the end of shows a car was you know not there's a thing called a blow

we try to get them moved his

so you get a new crowded

I am your

I'm going to get up and just leave the legacy here and all of us have to keep talking always anybody get

do not are you

I was up in the drawing room have that man sing Happy Birthday to Bruce again

I don't have anyone here from Los Angeles with the I know that I was quite touched when introduced Tom to speak

and the people from Monterey giving a rise in inflation just hard time

all you could hear my

so I didn't have anyone here you stand for me

it does stand for me hardly any place

I

good lord let my dog out to mention one thing you just work

I used to drink

John you tell a bad joke

we lose sight of it sometimes

this morning Tom Brady's house Thomas and company might is going to give some terrible talking thirty seven member this is actual meetings on Sunday

and usually at a convention Sundays as spiritual meeting

because this is not a convention but had to remember

that yeah

Sunday morning doesn't make a meeting a spiritual meeting but makes a special meeting is a collection of three or more gathered together to discuss a variety that's what makes

meetings all meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous her spiritual someone not quite is apparently religious as others but all our spiritual and we are gathered here this afternoon the selection of spiritual meeting and the meeting of Saturday Night Live next Saturday night will be a spiritual journey Sunday morning meetings all the meetings you might go to tonight and next week that's a good thing remember because this is a real program

and probably the greatest makes up people like me have when they come around here

using spiritual religious

I think your spiritual and maybe you do too and I think that chart and I think of god and in the sense that spiritual

but

eighty eight

eight eight eight deals with spirituality at a level that is not included with religion at all you can become religious here but that is not a part of a at all that's a personal choice that you'd be coming and we decide to become a car salesman who does make a difference what you do the spiritual aspect to this program deals with the spirit of people like you and me

and the alteration of that

to do something that is almost impossible to be done

and that is to alter

the world around me

this range range thing when you stop and think the purpose of a parent may not to change me at all

to change everybody and everything I see that's what eight years for now we know that it's not actually literally corrected something changed in me but you don't see changes in you the best way to measure how you're doing just to look around you everybody seems to be pretty well okay you're doing okay

if they all look crappy your crappy a lot of how you can improve your need okay

I I found that it did but I never heard that concept was slipping in and out of eighty eight

I did not have a great many years

and at first I thought it might be of some help to me my first meeting I happen to be in the Claire Wisconsin county jail you little props

and I was in there I'm not a big danger I was in a fight in the car because I had one time in my career I want to

I'm attempting to redress social imbalance

and social injustice

and from time to time I would see the right wing fascist

making an unjust arrest

and captain the truth would step in

it's a new

we went over there

I think I get a new lease

to maintain some degree of

I'm great

and people like you I'm not going to just get some

I know that

yeah welcome all of you to really get that

to get it the correct in your voice

and you wanna know something funny on two or three occasions based on my remarks I got policemen to release the man they were arresting

and doing it soon after I started

Mr pattern being set up

but I didn't know Claire Wisconsin

over the weekend I wouldn't be there long and might make happen to be the town drunk

end of it some

came to visit him

and in a small town you know everything you ever do it in the paper everything you get the paper just that's why I live in a big city Hey I just

everything that happens is there's a great room

and this one to eight the main agenda we've been made to measure the papers on your on the go to in a in a meeting

as a teacher of the year all weekend playing checkers with the jailers dog

so we get out of there and it took me across the courthouse square

I'm a meat market around west end Avenue just eighty

twenty

stronghold in that town is

thirty

kind of fun watching it and it enhanced my feeling of superiority

another name all Maloney

and drinking large don't retain

put the plug in the job

and I just never felt god damn wonderful

I don't know but that's what I remember

and I was a young guy on my way up I was making my move this is just kind of a laugh and a year later in a different city I got some jams and people not a great divide and I work AT again same old schools different city same places

any difference in the heat was on I went to eighty eight and I thought maybe it might work I could find the right people I don't think so

and just terrible that town they were

they were preaching god give me

about a return regards

I've always had the feeling that many people in their style thank god and so they must

you hear people in eighty eight games like I've been searching for god for thirty years and I found them here

I never search for god ever I've known where god was I was two years old

he slowly circles the supplier of the our savior's Lutheran church and I was any good

can you give it the Catholic

and that's okay with me

you get to be one of the other

some people sometimes when you're sitting in a meeting just kind of get some established some rapport and someone who will do it

thank me later yeah right

that's all you can do to keep from saying well ma'am you'll never see me thank god again

I

audio here's a few

I had some problems but there were problems not dealing with drinking

I had one time to consider the possibility I might be a real alcohol but I didn't it didn't it didn't scan because although I drank like an alcoholic unlike alcoholics

my basic problems were not drinking was not drinking

it was sometimes like a mass grave destroys anybody unlike alcoholics I seem to have more to do

seated problems are feeling is there things that other people didn't have

I

over thirty years ago I went into analysis

to try to help other people may say you should go to an Alice as you can see a psychiatrist

I

I don't know but to date in mind all right because

it was a better type of people who want to psychiatrists that

more sensitive and intelligent debate too many common people are going to psychiatrists

anybody with money your insurance

and then I found out a lot of things about things I don't know how the hell I over the phone I found out that I had been fired by the depression

I live in order to better the question

and I am

but I've been scarred by

I found out that the I. twenty five please use I didn't know that

it may seem that way to me in number one doctor said to me

in nineteen thirty five we believe have a bicycle

I don't know

the mother on the way home

I never had any

one million nine

I watch my kids ride their bikes and think you ungrateful little not I never had any

mental image for about two months it seems like I'm just a little

brown haired blue eyed

rosy cheeked little boy standing on the streets of Oakland Wisconsin watching his little friends ride your bicycles back

don't worry about me are going to psychoanalysis

almost too much remember that

in nineteen thirty five I never knew anybody who had a bicycle

one can't get in without using

you can we beat him up and broke his bicycle

yeah

I don't know what psychoanalysis or psychiatry does for other people but for me it seems to have the tendency to fertilize my paranoia

I just the more I learn the more I realized I've been screwed all along

one of the great memories of my little boys from my my parents were teachers in the state to keep straining depression so I could live with my grandmother and grandfather and they just idolized I just have the run of the house as a little girl

all it is what it is in command

and I got the second house I discovered that I had incurred in the sense of rejection because my parents had rejected me and left me with my grandparents

son of a ****

another golden memory down the dollar

right now my dad at

evaluation and

several thousand dollars cheaper I'm not putting it out all right but one thing is that he does for people like me I'm not supposed to do this but it does it for me thank you so your normal

about you to feel this way

that is completely blind to the fact you're not getting any better

hell's wrong with you you can tell by the hour

wrong with me in one year

I am

I still see a psychiatrist once a week today

a lot of people

it may work as long as you do you say it does

how do you see a psychiatrist once a week and for very simple reason

I told him if he doesn't get to that one night meeting I won't be a sponsor

don't tell your dad I send them

I got into metaphysics

I got into a lot of things I didn't read books I did a lot of things but primarily trying to do was to find some way

to relieve pressures by some women only fell in to relieve emotions to relieve stress to relieve anxiety to relieve

the motion that always seemed to me as I got older that my emotions were like other people's only there were more

more intensely because more

great

collisions with other personalities and hurt feelings you might be could be hurt by a lot

and I can spot rejection two blocks away just by

get some of them put me down

one of the things I helped to get through these emotions sometimes but if you drink

that's why I drink another drinker I'm not some crazy old main

I don't

criminally assaulted million nurses in the norm

that's not me

I am a

god it's been much hurt by bad breaks and misunderstanding

I have been granted something that worked against me one gift the gift of being

intelligence

and most of my life surrounded by others wishing why couldn't I be down like that

well this after taking the same thing about me unfortunately

another gift I was given a house built I have been given the gift by some celestial being too almost instantly

and identified

when I was young it took me two sentences in a handshake the trouble is if you get older they multiply just everywhere you go they just need more and more crap

but if you are like me you may wind up your drinking days if you have a telephone and you get a telephone bill you find a lot of long distance calls on

this is a way around here's a crap you got to go a long way to talk to anybody

haha third grade and I guess he's New York nine

thank you

well if I could just find some way to redress the imbalance of the

because

in a

from time to time I put on a burst of speed and I know they will be fine and go to hell

last year about a year and a half ago I was up in Vancouver Washington eight thing

and these people up here what

I was in Portland Oregon

I never went north to San Francisco

there's no restaurant

at the meeting in Vancouver

I've been assigned by god to follow them wherever they move to like get the message

I didn't read could win one of these topics of conversation among some of the people I've met

what they're talking about their experiences with the mount St Helens upset

you know there's nothing in the world

people talk about things that you have nothing to contribute yeah

the majority of the things that happen to me

but the interesting thing is that little by little in their towns and by what margin it would be great actually things will get great great along as we get great and we're getting great

it is some kind of right he couldn't Russia

what are some

is not to make it even hear about

but I don't know what the graying of their communities mount St Helens

number plate on the way back as good about them

that that really

is the great story of my life

it seems to me that all of my life

I have needed it

in

not in color is like a living I want I want to

and things and

and I look for him again and again

and after you find them

one day some invisible mount St Helens

and they began to turn gray

and the colorful job begins to turn very

and a lot of begins to turn gray

and the car begins to turn gray

and the house begins to turn gray

and it just gets career and grow your

I have never given yet I thought about this before I've never even I I don't even understand why I don't even want to leave to go back to Kansas

why would you wanna leave colors to get back to some BPO toned arms somewhere in

there may be a partisan poppies over there no

Brad Richards but we can work it out yes

not going to work out over there and one of the great

and most of the things in therapeutic I have done in my life I do believe the desperation because I guess I felt as things become great

that's right

our research on in plans in place to me

because it seemed to be you come in the end of an

a great title

it's a great

your walk daily after days of

another day

can you make a years or some kind of sunshine no

on the arm pushed under sixty nine send cake with a candle

it don't take long at

this is not the answer to my problem

I don't want any more great

I can be good for awhile

I was trained to be good

as good as anybody I know

but I just didn't have any natural flair for

I never had any training in evil

but I have a natural

so I can get a good

eventually I got to get

and then I got you

because my training I always felt never made me quite good enough to stay good but maybe just good enough to you couldn't enjoy even very long

even even turns gray after awhile everything turns gray

and you have some

on some color some

some

and I discovered a long time ago that a few drinks has a tendency to enhance the coloration of my surroundings that's what I drink I never thought of it that we didn't go to a bar in St I believe I'll have some alcohol to

and the

colors of my surrounding

my thoughts are more like a screw

but that's what it boils down to be

and I would start over and over again

again and again and could not find a way to do

I

I came

and so we're like they said other people but you have to listen I've been over now

for

thank you and good

it is only one thing worse than that and that's the long term success stories you know that

right

all right right on the blog for forty one years

one day I walk through that door

the desire to drink let me instantly

I now have four million dollars

different families have returned the main

I thought I wish I would then like you you have some of a ****

but I've been cursed with the ability to think and feel

and I very nearly died I came today is a relatively high bottom rung

I spent a couple years a relatively high bottom right then became a relatively medium bottom run for a few years I wound up

has a low bottom drop

being

eighty six from Skid Row missions

and that there's a certain pushed or rejection when that happens

you know I'm not some run of the mill bomb you're throwing out here I'm

I've been on the faculty at the university of Texas I've directed grand operas I'm a great sports writer I have ads appearing in life magazine

and you're throwing me out except I couldn't say it is clearly meant to because I just had my front teeth kicked out

in the Phoenix contact

there is a credibility gap when you can't pronounce consonants

but I knew one thing I knew that my case was truly different

and I had to find the place would be some color there is no color in a

and I've searched for that color and I found it again and again and graze out and everything graze out and it all gets great

and I hate

the anxiety comes back in the despair the desperation and frustration

and the loneliness I did loneliness of being alone in a room I can always handle that is the loneliness that overcomes you in the middle of big crowds of people

we are supposed to be fitting in yes

you look around they always seem to be having fun I always felt why have I with all of my gift of being able to spot crap is

I would trade it all for the ability to make small talk

I've always felt I'm the only one in the world who cannot make small talk

how are you I'm fine

going up

if you do say something is the wrong thing

did you ask about her mother her mother we just executed last week

seven

it is a sensitive spot your mail app you know

let me tell you something funny

I mean this is not very funny will kill a few minutes to live drawing

about three or four weeks because I was talking at a noon meeting a question answer meeting

we talked for thirty minutes then they have questions for thirty minutes yeah you know kind of meeting people go to noon meetings before I worked for a loss of hers

what is the true meaning behind the first half of the fourth step

you know that sort of crap

and we're near the end of this one guy called Amanda kind nice this kind of program is going back I spoke to you guys for like its data

I'd like to ask you what do you do about anger and great

I began to doubt that's a very understandable emotion I was familiar with

I noticed the leader

but I mean the secretary said a little note to me St

you better cut it short the meeting is supposed to end in three minutes

and so are my usual gracious way

I said I've gotten to know the secretary said asking me to cut short my answer

and

I know that many of you have probably got to get home to your apartments and rest this afternoon

well I go back to work and want to keep you from

I said it probably won her the right home and watch General Hospital in the

there is a kid around through the crowd

not Tom in this case

but I kind of a little laugh ran through the crowd I could imagine that night I said what what the trouble is a Christian the man that asked that question is the star of General Hospital

the whole **** panoply of television I had to say the wrong thing

so I went up and snuffed him afterwards just to punish him

but that's the story of my life with small talk it seems like

and I went through life trying to use alcohol to help tide me through things I never thought much about it

it's like you know a few years ago it was disguised as Japanese stumbled on to something his fist at them I was resent them because I never thought of it but he had somehow identified something that I never identified

all my life I've been dealing with emotions and fighting among finding answers and right hander

but the number one the motion of my life I never identified those over a few years and I had to hear some real emotion

described

it isn't a big thing there's a I've had a lot of good things but the number one in most of my life

has always been for most years just a low level of unease

it almost imperceptible level body just hours

this isn't quite it

that is not quite

that is not quite yeah

this is not always kind of been on the

and alcohol which we have that feeling of unease alcohol makes my life colorful and alcohol gives me a little posture

alcohol gives you some kind of a

something

and sometimes I get in trouble when I drink because I have a tendency I was about to burst loose because of the repercussions of my goodness I'm so good I'm good I'm bad at

and I

I had no idea that

but there was something that describe the nature of my illness

I was coming to understand the nature of the illness is the biggest single stumbling block of anyone some variety

I've been watching this for years and years we get

with all of the discussions about things really mean about the steps on and very little attention sometimes it is paid to what is the nature of the illness

I read this book several times now sober for a number of years before I noticed that there is an absolute

description of my story and I never identified at all times I read it

and that's the story of most of us I believe but check

I didn't

read today

the first page or two of chapter three

talks about the nature

charismatic nature of the illness

it says a great

of people like us

is that somehow some day we will control and in your eight hour drinking

the purpose of this room is just down the

many of us pursue it into the gates of insanity and death not up to the gates of insanity and get into that's why maybe over ninety five percent of people like you and me will literally wind up pursuing it in to the gates of insanity and death

that's why I'm number of people in this room today who are currently feeling good will wind up pursuing it in to the gates of insanity and death

maybe maybe maybe we don't know it depends on how you're doing when the crunch comes nobody knows when the credit account

and the one thing we have in common

at some

enjoy control of enjoy my drinking

and then it goes on to say that we have apparently really

recovery and we all are familiar with them

he always buys

read

until you get to a condition as a delicious choice award letter writer all my life and I just love that section was a choice of words

you get to a stage of pitiful and concrete and civil demoralization

years ago I used to think that's how you got when you were drunk and gets a drug used to put a bullet in capitalization

I've come to believe the last number of years that that is not how it is at all that is the feeling that comes right after your server again this time

all in a comprehensible demoralization you can't even think of a rationale to say you're sorry to set up the lady on the people around

but there's a

yeah there's a lot of talk

among we talked a lot about suicides in feelings of suicide gonna commit suicide and attempted suicide on and on

two years ago I was on a radio program for the eight public service office in LA at some calls he made this guy had been a talk show about an hour and a half talking about my story in answering phone calls and they listed me alcoholic

return my good name I'm sure

but this guy would lead me to my story

and he said he stopped me in the middle of it all

do you mean

thank you your wife and your children keep her

and then you park your car in your garage

and turned on the motor

and committed suicide

and that unless a new labor going buying items for the motor running only log already dead and be on your chest Getty montage education you mean that happened

yeah I couldn't believe this course and I just said you know what

you can

media

and that

he had his music L.

I've never talked to anybody

who's actually tried to commit suicide

that could have been eight allies of Mike I never talked to anybody who didn't

if you haven't tried to commit suicide you haven't lived

there's a lot of talk about drugs drugs all the time are going to commit suicide whatever they get awarded

number two

but very few drunken suicides are successful comparatively speaking some of the very few are

I've often thought to ponder that

the store is the field of suicide I think they have any idea when an order is still better

but I think welcome to this

drum side

to make somebody's story

that they put them in a rejected them or treating them badly

and when you're in the middle of your

then you realize I won't be here to see the

yeah

and then you have

that's why I haven't made you have to

hi

I just

check them out

okay she's heard me one

I want to thank you for your help me I want anyone to disturb me can you please

against god but I believe he would find out where I was I was screwed up

so we worked out a deal where we were going to do just for cuteness we almost did it we got caught at the last minute we got nailed by that we're gonna put on a diet of prayer for atheists

it was time we dial this number and nobody ever answers

but the

very few drugs actually commit to that most of them are considered to be accidental you know when most alcoholic suicides take place

shortly after so Brian T.

shortly after being sober again when you're immersed in the stadium pitiful incomprehensible demoralization that is so strong that it temporarily induces psychosis that submerges the basic survival instinct which is the strongest instinct anybody has

and they don't make calls because they can't even think of any reason to rationalize or justify their conduct I'd rather die than try to explain it again certainly that's an aberration and certainly that's not very often

but that's what alcoholic suicides take place it's a funny thing

hi yeah a few years ago as most of you know

when I was seven had become somewhat successful again after sobriety and working in marketing and advertising

I gave up that career and for the last few years I'm I'm the director of the mission that eighty six me

get revenge on a long term basis on those people

I'll tell you something funny about Skid Row

I can't remember the last suicide on Skid Row

there's hardly ever suicide on Skid Row people die badly they die almost every day at my desk to somebody who has been found dead in the doorway stabbed to death in the alley followed in front of a bus or a truck