Saturday Night Live Friday night speaker meeting

Glad to be here. I'd like to welcome the new people here tonight. You may be wondering what an alcoholic is, since you have been out there on the trail for a while. An alcoholic and an an alcoholic and a social drinker walked into a bar, and over the bar it said, All you could drink for a dollar. The 2 of the drinkers laid down his dollar and went over and drank all he wanted.

The alcoholic says, I'll take $2 worth. That's the behavior of an alcoholic. So, if you don't, you know what one is now, why The other definition is, sometimes out of my book, you're a person, a man or a woman who's lost the ability to control their drinking. So that's enough of that. Now you know who you are and what you are.

Next thing is when you're going to admit it. Next thing is when you're gonna do something about it. Because that's the only time that you will change, is when you do something about it. My alcoholic life started when I was, well, the first 9 years I was sober, I didn't have a drink. And then I got drunk, kept with my father a bottle of home brew.

See, I was born and raised in the state of Tennessee, where they make that paraffin spit in white lightning and things of that nature. That stuff, did you know that you get up the next morning after going on a drunk, and your hair hurts, and your teeth itches? And the only thing you can do to get rid of that is have some more of that same stuff. That's what I brought up I was brought up on. At the age of 15 years old, I was poisoned on some of this rocky gut whiskey.

An okie hoedown, you know what that is? It's a dance that's been held out in a farmer's house. And all the people from around, miles around, come to it, and they dance and drink, fight, and raise hell. I drank 1 half a teacup full of this stuff that night, and that's the last thing that I remember. And, my father come and got me and took me home, and he called the doctor.

And in those days they didn't have stomach clumps, the plumpy stomach out was. So the old country doctor, the only thing he knew to do was push and shove pure lard down my throat because I vomited. And that's how they got it out of me. And to this day I hate grease. And I, decided I wasn't gonna drink it.

That's hard to sell for 6 months. It never crossed my mind to quit drinking. I just shifted over to Tennessee beer. Homebrew. We called it Homebrew.

That's the kind of stuff, you know, you take the cork out of the bottle, a blue smoke will go in the air, 4 feet. Four bottles of it and, you know, and you're winding your ass and scratching your watch and you want to have your vent. So, this is the kind of stuff you know what I came up on. Come from a good family. No out products in my family except me.

So I command a unique position. And across the state of in Montgomery County, Tennessee, there's still spires back there that's left by this man standing here. In fact, I'd go back there right now and people say, You got old Hope, boy, you sliver out here on me. So, I, went on with my rigging at the time. I didn't drink any more hard stuff for 6 months.

And, of course, I got back into it again. But I was a little more careful, Next time. I only bring stuff because I knew where it came from. And that was fun. You know.

But it was good stuff. So this is how, I was introduced to John Baldy Cohen. And when I was introduced to John Baldy Cohen, I was a timid type of guy. When I drank him, you know, I became 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall. Everything about me changed.

I became something. I didn't know what the hell it was, but I became something. I didn't feel the same way. That's why he made me feel like this. So I continued on with this.

I said, Man, I have met something that's going to be with me the rest of my life. I'm never gonna let it go. And I damned it didn't. But this is something, you know, that damn near killed me. So, I hung on old John, took him with me wherever I went, drank him on every occasion I could find.

At the age of 18 years old I went to my father and I said, Dad, I'm going to join the Navy. And he said, Where's the papers, son? I'll sign them right now. He didn't give me any argument whatsoever. So I I joined the United States Navy in 1939.

And I was sent to Norfolk, Virginia for a boot camp. And this is where I got a little bit of resistance about being drunk like I did, because out in Norfolk, Virginia, I got all over the grass, you know, it says, Taylor's and dogs, stay off the grass. Well, being a, being a rebel, you know, what the hell? First thing I did was get on the grass. So, this is how I lived my life, you know, up until a few years ago was rebellious, defiant.

You say, I had to do something. That gave me an idea. Start searching immediately for a way to do it the opposite. And, sometimes, not searching immediately for a way to do it the opposite, just, To hell with you, and all for me. Well, the Navy don't like that.

They don't really like that. So, they told me to be back on that ship at 8 o'clock in the morning the next day. Sometimes I arrive at 8 o'clock in the morning 10 days later. They don't like this. So they court martialed these things.

So I, in the Navy I was in the Navy a year, shipped around here to California. And I put in for ACI duty to China. An executive officer says, Your papers are ready, hope. You may go. And I never seen a man do something so fast.

So I headed to Hong Kong. I landed to Hong Kong in March 1940. I had arrived at the places I'd been looking for. The Nirvana of the alcoholic was the Asiat Fleet. Discipline was not near as bad it was in the States.

You could buy good booze for a dollar and a half a quart. All day long, the exchange was 22 to 1. You could take a $10 bill and you had 250 Chinese nets in your pocket. Hell. 10¢ a bottle for beer?

Man, this is what I've been looking for. And all the people out there, you know, were nuts. Asiatics. That's what they called it, Asiatic Fleet. We were Asiatics, you know.

Had to be. Rum, dumbs, and misfits. That's what we were. And so I stayed out there, into a war book out, being a rum, dum, and a misfit. And I was one of the lucky ones I got out, too.

I don't know how in the hell I did it. Because I'll tell you something, not too many got out. But I was one of the lucky ones I got out. And we retreated down to the islands, you know? We sailed through blockades and minefields and didn't know we were in them because we didn't have anything on our ships to tell us that.

I don't wanna do a 4 pack of the 4 stack of Detroit. We hit Singapore, and we wired in, you know, where we were at. And they said, you're in the middle of the minefield. Tried that on for size. It makes you do this, you know.

I'm nervous. So what happened, you know, we went to the dock and the British, you know, they carried grog on their ships. Run, they called it grog. And they said, Blimey! Fellows, we're willing to share with you how you'd like a few barrels of rock!

Well, we were 5. We had a captain that was a Jew. His name was Carl. Hell of a fellow. Love to drink.

He says, Great! You know, but the commander of the whole squadron wouldn't let us dig draw aboard our ship. Well, anyway, we got drunk at Singapore. And on back into Australia and on down to the line back into the United States, and I, you know, I retreated backwards all a long time, you know. And I can stand here tonight and tell you that my war record was a cause of me being an alcoholic, but it wasn't.

I was in a hell lot more danger on the beach than I ever was at sea. Because, you know, I would walk off into anything drunk, you know, like dry dock with no water in it, swimming pools with no water in it, you know, balled out hatches aboard the ship all the way to the building to that son of a bitch, a 150 feet. You know, take all the skin off my chin and I'll pass those ladder runs, you know. I don't know why I'm standing here tonight. I'll tell you.

I am living on somebody else's time. But the good Lord said to me, I suppose, a long time ago, You ain't going, fella, until I'm ready. Because as an alcoholic, you see, one of the primary things about an alcoholic is that he is constantly trying to destroy himself. So, you see, as an alcoholic out here, you hear many people say in that program that they don't have any suicide offenses. We have suicide.

We're suicide all the time. Self destruction is our main course. Self destruction probably destroy that damn thing. I don't know why, but we do. So, if you're an alcoholic, I might have to disagree with you if you don't have to say suicide sentences.

So, this is my some of my brief things when I was a young man, just getting started. Kind of an anchor to carry around with you. And, really, this happened to me, you know, and I was like I went on where else is there and got back to the States here in 1942. And, I was court martialed three times before I was 20 years old in the Navy. So they don't like, you know, for guys to say they're gonna be back at 8 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, then get back the following Wednesday at 8 o'clock.

You know, that's called overleading. And they court martialed it for those things, you know. Well, I do, in fact, time. The fact is, they told me that I had to leave one ship, you know, and go to another one over here in San Francisco, just from the Hunter's Point out to Goat Island, which is out in the middle of the bay. It took me 5 days to get out there.

Because around the rim of that bay there's a lot of bars. So they court martialed over these things, you know. And, the captain called me down to his cabin, you know, and he gave me a follow-up advice and says, hold. He says, I wanna give you some follow-up advice. You know what an alcoholic does when somebody says, I'm gonna give you follow advice.

You know. So I listened. He said, I'm gonna give you a 72 hour liberty and I'm gonna give you just to go ashore. He said, I want you to go down here to San Francisco to 3rd and Howard Street, and I want you to pay particular attention to the people that's laying in the gutters with their head on a curb and sleeping in the doorway. So That's where you're going to be before you're 25, and I'm gonna help put you there.

She don't sober up. I said, Yes, sir. I went ashore and got drunk. I don't know where I went. Anyway, this went on and on.

So, none of these trips down to San Jose that I was over leave on, I met a lady. My wife out. Some of you know her, some of you don't. And she's the only wife I've ever had. I get to talk with some guys, I get to bring my wife up to date, you know.

Somebody asked me, asked me, What ever happened to your wife? And I left her back along about the first part of the talk, you know. She's still with us we'll be married 39 years, Let's put it quick. So, her and I got married. We had a son, we had a daughter, and I went on through the rest of the war and I didn't need court martiales any more, primarily because I guess I was out in the South Pacific all the time.

And the only thing we had out there was this raisin jack, you know. It kind of said, you know, you'd put all these fruit in one of those tin cans and put it in the back half after at the gear locker, you know, where it got about a 192 in the in the out there and it got 7 pockets, you know. And it boils, you know, and you drink that stuff. Jesus Christ. You know, your hair would go voom, just like that.

You took a snort of it. That was about the only thing that I got in any trouble, you know, with sandbags and coconuts out there and out there. I wouldn't have been getting any trouble out there. So, I got back to the States and got out in 80. I sat and landed in Tokyo Harbor where it was hailed as 3rd Fleet, the signing of all the papers and all that kind of stuff.

And I made a decision then when they offered me a lifetime in the United States Navy. And I said, Well, I looked at my record and I said, The 7 Oceans, the United States Navy and Jack Holt will not mix. So I'm the smallest, I'd better move. So I went out and came out in a civilian life and became a cabinet maker at 86¢ an hour. And, Alice and I then went on.

We had we had 2 children. Went on down the road and I didn't like working for somebody else. I wanted to work for myself. I went into business. I liked alcoholics, you know, worked hard and played hard and made money.

The harder I worked, the more money I made. But, also, the harder I worked, the more money I made, the more I drank. Until finally, you know, it started running around. The more I drank, the less money I made, and the more I worked. So, in 1952, I decided.

The pressure was too great. Sold the damn business. Got us now and I went for 3 or 4 months all over the United States, you know, and traveled. And during this time, why, I was getting this pressure off of me. So, I came back and immediately back in the business again.

And again, you know, I went to work, worked hard, banked hard, played hard. And, went on, you know, and I built up a big business. Bit. The largest gas shop in Sanathata County, single Leone. Had 30 men working for me.

And I'll tell you, that sounded like eating me up alive. Because, you know, we had recessions back then too, you know. But anyway, just going on through this, you know, my drinking was getting worse, and I was getting worse, I was getting meaner, you know, and this kind of stuff. And I can remember, you know, I always thought it was my privilege to drink. I didn't think anybody had any right to tell me by God that I couldn't drink all I wanted to and all I could hold.

So I remember I I'd leave the bar 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, whatever it was. Didn't make any difference. And on the way home, I'd get fighting mad. All started homing on, I'd get on the attack. Because when I was on the way home, I could buy glasses my right to drink.

And I knew damn well Alastair was just raised holy hell for 2 stuff just drop of it. By the time I got to the house, I was raging mad, you know? And she met me at the door, of course, raging mad. Well, that's where we had the battle, right in the front door. God's dead, screen doors fly, face door, you know.

And I can remember one night I was standing there, you know, I passed out. I used to be able to pass out on my feet and not know where I was. I could walk around, you know. And I never did stagger sideways. I always ran backwards, you know.

And I'd run backwards. I'd run backwards a half a block, you know, before I'd fall on my ass. And I can remember one time I was about where Melcarton was on Santa Claus Street. There used to be a drive in restaurant there. We was coming in from this bar and I stepped out to you and there was this hedge there.

Always, Let's take leaking a hedge. And I don't know why. Why? I hauled around to the leaking hedge. No.

Walked halfway across this parking lot. And all of a sudden, you know, I started running backwards. I owned a brand new suit, paid a $150 for it. And that was way back in '00says. I had to pay, I lost a hell of a lot of money.

I fell right in that sublickin' patch where I took a leak. Run right backwards into it. Now, it's brushing me off, you know, and trying to clean me up. I was doing all kind of things like that. And, I'd go home, you know, and I'd sit down in my big chair and I'd run back, go to sleep, pass out.

We had shoelaces in our shoes. And I'd just tie my shoelaces together, you know, and give me a hot foot. You know, these great big old wooden matches, you know. Well, I always had scorched shoes. God damn polish is all, because polish burns on shoes, you know, when you get them going good.

I had scorched shoes, you know, to get up, you know, and I'd tear the furniture up because I, you know, Goddamn, that hot shoes. I'll tell you, that's blistered. And, of course, you know, I'd tear up the coffee table and fall down. I said, Oh, don't say that. I weighed £240, you know.

I looked like a goddamn tank coming down the road. And, God damn, I looked back on this crap down out there and there was flooding. Everybody was trying to know. So, I was all these things was going on and I was getting worse, you know, and so. I used to like to drink the house sometimes, you know.

Especially when Alice the kids would leave. And I used to play a lot of motel rooms in those days because I'd run them off. You know, I'd get to where I'd get mean, you know, I'd get home and I'd be mean. And I always told her when I was sober, I said, Look, when I'm drunk, you and the kids get the hell out of the house. I don't wanna hurt you.

Because that was my house, by the way. So, she and the kids would leave. So, I was always paying, you know, 2 or 3 nights a week motel for her and the kids. There would be nobody at the house there but me, and my dog, and my parakeet. The parakeet's name was Petey.

And I said, Well, I don't like to be big for myself. So one day I found out that Petey loves bourbon. So I poured Petey a jigger of bourbon, you know, and he'd get up on the side of that bourbon, you know, in glass, he'd take a couple of snorts, you know, and he'd sneeze a little bit, you know. And immediately, I don't what the hell get into him. He'd get just amorous as hell.

He'd start chasing my female dog, you know, and she'd run on the He'd chase everything in a skirt, you know. Didn't bother him at all. He was a nut, an outfit from the word of gold. And so he and I drank together all the time. We'd get on some hellacious drums.

You know, He'd pass out and one day he was passed out on the floor and I stepped on him. You know? And, like I said, I weighed £240. And I I heard this little, you know, squeek, you know. Like, no.

I'd kept on my birds and my drinking partner. We stand, you know, and I kicked him up, and, hell, he was out, honey. Oh! You got his dick. I was crying, you know, and I was checking the car.

All of a sudden, you know, some little cluttering, he said, Come to, little nicks, you know, and come to. And I took them on and laid them on the table, you know. And he, you know, he went over there and he started So, a lot of times my house was nobody there but A, him, Petey, and the dog. And the dog was on the bed and Petey and I drunk. That was how it was.

God, he could talk, you know. He used to hang over my dining room table and we used to have those drunken poker parties, you know. He learned all the language of a drunken poker game, you know. Full house, raise 10, son of a bitch, bastards, you know, and go to hell, you know, and dream you and all this kind of stuff, you know. And, he was a linguist.

He could call that dog in from outside, he could call the kids in from outside. You know, he was a smart son of a bitch. I'll tell you. But he didn't know any, you know, he was just like, Oh, I'll be smart, but dumb too, you know? Didn't know when to quit.

But, you know, at the time, it was a hell of a canyon for me. And I'll tell you. But these are the things that goes on in Alfa's life. Now, you gotta be pretty goddamn shit to drink with birds, you know. You don't have very many people drink with birds.

I don't know anybody has but me. I don't heard anybody talk about drinking about drinking with birds. No, I was drinking with dogs and cats, but not birds. But, anyway, Peter and I, we had a hell of a time together. So on in the fifties, you know, the drinking was getting worse and worse.

Now it's getting meaner and meaner, I thought. Once every 2 months down to the divorce attorney, you know. I ain't signing those damn papers! Attorney, you know, I didn't know it. I knew it, but she wouldn't know it, but his wife had burned herself alive in Honolulu.

She was an alcoholic. And she had set the bed on fire and burned herself up to death in Honolulu. And so the attorney was on my side. He'd write up all the papers and stash them in his face until I was, Well, I haven't been able to get a hold of Jack. And, so this is one way, I guess, that he and I'm not divorced today was because of our attorney.

And he was a non alcoholic. That little man, though, with his wife burned herself up on a lube. She was an alcoholic. And he had a great understanding of the alcoholic, great compassion for me. And, to this day I believe that's probably the only reason Alex never did get through with it, you know.

But anyway, that's one of the things, you know, and as it goes on, my life has started getting worse and worse, and and and things started getting worse. I got sicker and sicker. By this time, you know, in 1957, by this time, you know, I was, kind of a drunk, you know, I'd be sitting in the house and, I used to get this weird, weird whistle in my head, you know, and it was like a vacuum, you know. Be like in a vacuum. And there'd be somebody talking to me, you know.

You know. And these shadows will be flying about it, you know. Jesus Christ. I could just catch 1, you know. There must be somebody there.

But I never could. Weird things, you know, like things. Big old things on you, you know, and you couldn't find anything, you know. Crawly things, things like that. And all of these things going on, you know, in your mind coming in and out and coming and going, goddamn, just playing a player, playing tricks on you, you know, all the time.

And sitting there just drunk as hell, you know. And I burned all the ass out of my pants and the chair that I was sitting in. And I was all forever dropping cigarettes down between the legs and lie. And one day, I got to hang up. Really?

But, Anyway, this is what was going on in my life. On Sunday morning, I came to March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day, 1957. I came to. And I thought a horse was trying to stomp me to death and I had him by the leg and I was hollering, Woah, you son of a bitch! Woah!

And Al was laying on that goddamn piano. I had a piano by the leg, you know, screaming and hollering and yelling. Not a stitch floatin' on, just laying there bare ass naked, hollering that horse, a petey drunk and the dog hiding on the bed. Out of the twitched car. The phone rang.

Ran on the other end of that phone, tells you, How you feel? That's it. Touch the goddamn bad. It was my father, Ali Stout. How do you know it?

He'd been on the program 6 years. He said, How do I do something about your drinking? And I said, Well, see, Al and I had drank a business down to 2 together before. And, I said, Well, I'd like to do something about it. But that's as far as I would go.

And so, he said, Well, I'll be over and talk to you. So he came over and went down to what used to be old timey's bar, restaurant, down on the corner of Ray Street in the Alameda. And the man that owned that was an alcoholic, NAA. So we went in and talked to him. And, they convinced me to go to a meeting that night.

So, that was my 1st AA meeting, March 17, 1967. And I went in that meeting, you know, about half crap because I didn't dare go down out of those drunks, you know, sober. So I had a few belts, so I went into this meeting, you know. The only thing that I heard in that first meeting, that night, was, If nothing else, stay sober for 90 days and you will save enough money to get on the good drunk. I said, Shit, that sounded like a hell of a good idea!

I wasn't ready to quit! It hadn't even crossed my mind equipment at all! So, I left that meeting that night, Well, that is firmly implanted in my mind! 90 days, by God, I d do it. 90 days.

And I did. For 90 days I didn t take a drink through sheer goddamn willpower. Nothing else. I wanted to drink so bad goddamn I could shoot a quatre out of the bottle. Nope, 90 days.

On the 91st day I drove to Salinas, where Al was working to tell him, by God, I was no longer an alcoholic and never had been. After 2 hours of that shit, he said, Why don't you step over to the nearest bar and try some control drinking, Jack? I said, Thank you, Al. That's what I've been doing. I'm gonna do it.

Just had to make sure I was an alcoholic. My record didn't mean a damn thing to me at that time. Look at your record. What the hell? Tomorrow I might be able to set a new record!

That's the attitude of a hardhead! Then, maybe 1 of you in here tonight, let's get started. Don't. Be a soft head. Don't be a hard head.

So, I went back out into the drinking field. Of course, during this time now, I've had Petey shut off, you know, he had a hell of resentment. Those bastards, you know, he was, he got a big resentment for not drinking. You know, he'd sit up in that cage and mutter and talk to himself. And I guess he had to be teased too a little bit.

He was going through an awful lot of motions. So, I went back out in the drinking world and, decided that this AA was not for me. Well, I'll tell you something. For about 2 months, I controlled it pretty good. I never got fallen down drunk.

And after that, it just seemed like everything went to hell. Those little people come flipping through my room, bigger people this time, you know, and I still couldn't catch them. I could hear them talking to me. Petey was happy. He and I was drunk together all the time.

The dog was hiding on the bed and had us and the kids back out in the motel room. So, this went on. And I, you know, wrecked few automobiles, did few things like this. And finally, on March 5, 1958, I was sitting in that same old bar, on the corner of the Alameda, Race Street, tiny. And I'd been on a 3 week drunk And I was sitting in this bar and all of a sudden I come to just as clear as a bell.

I mean clarity, absolute clarity. And then, I turned to the guy sitting next to me. I said, Charlie, this is my last drink. I'm going back to AA. He said, God damn, I'm going with you.

Because you get on that drunk with me, you know? So, on March 6, 1958, there were 4 of us. Us, 3 other fellows, it was me. And our 4 sponsors went in the old Prune Ridge meeting on Thursday night, on March 6. Like a squad of soldiers, we marched in there, you know, 4 babies and 4 sponsors.

And I began to hear different things in that meeting that night. See, I was there because I wanted to be there. I was there because I was safe. I was there because no one had asked me to come. My God, I was there because I was looking for some way, somehow, to feel better.

I was tired. You know, sick. I heard those guys that night when they said, you know, Go to meetings and don't drink. And there's no reason to drink. Period.

There's no reason to drink. You can manufacture me 5,000 excuses in 15 minutes, but you can't give me one reason to drink. The fact is, my sponsor said to me at that time, If you ever find a reason to drink, come and get me and I'll go with you. And he had never been able to find a reason to say, I looked pretty goddamn serious for a while too. Because I wasn't by any means, you know, satisfied that this was it at that time.

So, I went to meetings, and I listened. And I heard things like, first things first, and easy does it. You don't have to say so over a day at a time. Don't take the first break. And all this kind of stuff, but mostly, you know, go to meetings, they pounded that into me.

Go to meetings, go to meetings, study the book, go to meetings. So I did. I went to meetings every night. Every night. I had 2 weeks in the program, I got my first 12 step call.

And in those days, you know, you never heard anything like you hear today, you know, sometimes. Don't make any 12 step calls for a year and this kinda shit, you know? We never got started if we'd started that way. They kicked our ass out in the 12 step calls immediately. I had my 1st 12 step call in 2 weeks in the program.

I didn't know a damn thing. But I was enthusiastic. I went down to this cellar where this guy was in the goddamn cellar. He was laying on the couch with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his eyes were wide open staring at the ceiling. I said, Christ, he's dead.

I'm too late. You know, so I went over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, And he stomped so bad I couldn't stand him, you know. He he just, he let loose everywhere. So I picked him up and he weighed about £95, I guess, and I was still, you know, £240. Picked him up and I shoved him down into a goddamn washer tray.

Turned the water on it, washed him off, strung them over my shoulder, took them home on me. You know, there's no other place to take it, you know. So, I threw them in the back of my pickup truck, took them home with me. Like a sack of wheat, you know. Lay there.

Goddamn it. Don't you move either? Took him home with me, you know, took him in the bathroom, you know, stuck him in the bathtub, you know, drew the water, you know, for him, shaved him, you know, and sliced some hide off his face, cleaned him up. Alice took his clothes out and washed him in on. I said, Now, you stay there to soak.

You stink. And I went out in the living room. I'm sitting out there about 30 minutes ago and all of a sudden, one of these thoughts come beaming right in the side of my head, you know. You know how it's coming. I said, Something's wrong.

That son of a bitch doing something in there. So I went in there, you know, and here he was, water, like water wrapping right around here, you know, and foam coming out of his mouth, just rolling out of his mouth. You know, Holy Christ, what's happening? Some of them down alongside the staff coming on here, the quart, empty bottle of this rubbing alcohol, you know, with a strong crossbow going, you know. But to, holy Christ, he killed himself.

I said, Holy Christ, you killed himself. So I picked him up and I wrapped a bracket around him, throw him over my shoulder, and head for the doctor, you know. I get down to the doctor's doctor, a guy named Lovelace. So, I walked in with Johnny across my shoulder. I said, Doctor, so I die, and I just bothered with me, you know.

He said, What makes you think so? Because you drank this whole damn bottle of crap here. He said, oh, shit. He could drink a gallon of that. So what else you've been drinking, Johnny?

He knew the guy too. He says, I've been drinking shampoo. Somebody's taking shampoo and blowing bubbles, you know. Here, I thought he was phoning at the mouth and dying. So, I said, Well, I'll fix you.

You know, so I started the vendetta. Right then and there, I'm gonna sober that son of a bitch up if they killed it. And I'll tell you right now, boy, I worked on him night and day for 10 months, and somebody's still drinking to this day. Really! 10 months I worked on it.

Night and day. Last time Johnny ever called my house was in January. Right? He said, I might have come over and stay a So I threw him in the pool and every time he'd come up, I'd shove him back again, you know. So I kept in there.

I keep coming out. He was actually blue, you know. He was standing there like you like this, you know. He says, now you son of a bitch. He says, I said, you stay here 3 days.

Now I went out and I got my 30 off 6. You know, and I said, I'll blow your goddamn legs off if you try to try to drop that fence. And I guess he believed me, bro. He stayed there 3 days. He's never been back.

And he never asked me to come back. So that was my first 12 step call. But anyway, after that I said, Hell, this is great! So I decided that I'm, you know, I became a crusader. I started making close-up calls and gathering up drums wherever I could.

And my second close-up call was on a tile setter out in Santa Clara. And he was out trying to kill his wife with a 12 gauge shotgun. And out in those days had true orchids out there, and he was running, she was chasing through this true orchids, you know. Boom, boom, boom, boom. This 12 gauge shotgun on trying to shoot it was shit all he was running, throwing prunes off the tree because he was drunk.

So, I run him down, took the gun away from him. I wouldn't do that today. I'll tell you right now. Took the gun away from me, you know, and threw his him in a motel. And I called up, I said, What the hell am I going to do with this wife and 4 kids?

She said, Bring him home! So, I took him home, you know? Hell, we had alphys all over the place. Christ had them sleeping out in the backyard and in the living room and on the couch, in the bathtub, in the patio. That's the whole place you could take them.

We ran all the place to go. You couldn't put them in a hospital. They wouldn't take them. Poor cops don't want drunks. They don't know what they'll do with us anyway, you know.

All they can do is block us up and all we do is just mess up their place. Don't do it. It's okay, though. We get puke all over it and pee all over it and do things like that. We never do any good.

No good lock up analogy, what the hell? I took them home one day. This was my first 2 years, May 8. That's how it is. The old time was jumping up and down, but, goddamn it, that ain't the way you do it.

You ain't supposed to take them home with you. You're not supposed to carry the alcohol. I said, My God, I'm going in in length for their sobriety. I didn't know it, but it was going in the mind, you know, because I stayed sober. And I'll tell you right now, I had to have something like that to keep me sober.

But I had a lot of doubts about whole everything. But those guys, you know, they kept me busy, you know, like I have, but I was in here 6 months, you know, I had 12 babies. Hell, and I was hauling the meetings, you know, and I picked up crap a lot of times. In my 6 months, I'll stand up in the prune ridge and all I was crying. Tears coming down my eyes.

And I was standing up there telling a big story. What a loudest bonker I was. Every one of those bastards was drunk. There was no one sober. And I got all through, you know, and sat down.

This old timer, he had 10 years, he was an old timer, he had 10 years. Little guy about this tall, his name was Nute LeBlanc from Louisiana. And he had, been kicked out of the Jesuit order because he was an alcoholic. And he got up in the back and he says: says, I don't know who in the hell you think you are. He says, You're not God.

He says, You can't get anybody sober and you can't keep anybody sober. But he said, You missed upon this whole program, you idiot. You're sober. You know, it never crossed my mind before what was actually happening to me. Those guys were actually keeping me sober.

So I got that settled. Fine, that's good. On I went then, right on down the line. This little guy, you know, he had emphysema so bad he was in a wheelchair. And he I used to hate this goddamn guts because he was always telling me the truth.

Little bastard, you know? He was always telling me the truth. But I couldn't hit him, you know. He was just I'd just sit there just in a rage, you know, and I couldn't hit him. First time he ever he ever I ever invited him to my house.

You know, I was sitting in my living room. He told me to shut your goddamn mouth. Nobody won't listen to your shit. He told me that. My own house.

But, hell, you know, I felt like picking him up, throwing him out the window. You know, he knew how to handle me. Hell, I was a raging goddamn tornado. And he'd sit there, you know, and he'd tell me all about this kind of stuff. He knew the book.

He was a book man. He said, God damn it, the only place this program exists is in the book. So, you ain't gonna find it no place, sir. You gotta go to the Book to find it. He beat me in the head with that.

So, as the time go on, I grew to love this man, really, along with my sponsor, Al. Al is a gentle kind. This old boy just roughing a goddamn coffee. Louisiana, Southern boy, you know. Tough, mean, you know, all the time though, he was quaking inside, I guess, like all of us do.

But this fellow, you know, he got real sick. And just before he died, I went over to his house. He was sitting there in his chair and he said, Jack, the doctor told me that a glass of wine would be good for me. What do you think about that? I said, Well, Christ, at this point in time, I guess it would make a lot of difference, Newt.

He said, Boy, he'd come to me, God damn, you got up out of that chair. I'll tell you. I'll tell you right now, I'm born out sober, and I ain't drinking that goddamn crap. Okay, you know, but that's how man he was. He did.

He went out sober too. He never took that wine and he was dying. And my second birthday, I went running into his house and knew today I've been sober 2 years. He says, So what? Has my damn cat been sober 2 years?

What's so great about that? My mother never had a drink in her life. You bastard with my wife. Nothing wrong with her either. You come running in here telling me you've been sober because I know you've been sober 2 years.