The 14th annual Crested Butte Mountain Conference in Mt. Crested Butte, CA

Good evening. My name is Mac Brewster, and I am an alcoholic. And on June 15, 1966, someone brought me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and through the grace of a loving God and 12 steps, people like you, I haven't found necessary to drink any alcohol, go to jail, and live the way I used to live. To that, I'm very grateful. I'd like to start off here.

I got a lot of thank you here. And, first of all, I wanna thank you for not getting after me a little bit up here. You know, I went to Canada one time to speak, and there was a, a cop from England that was opening this meeting, and he just turned me upside down before I got started. And then I got finally got to the podium. I said, you haven't been over here too long.

You never cut a guy up and then give him the mic. You know? And, you know, I ate that guy's lunch. Boy, I really got it good. But, I'm glad I'm here, and I'm glad I got to meet, Roan.

And I got some special people here to thank, you know. The board and especially, I I know a lot of people in this room. I noticed quite a few of you before I came over here. And, I I know a lot more now. And I, hope that before this, weekends up that I meet everyone here, and I have a lot more friends when I leave.

But I'd like to thank the board, especially. I've never been treated so good. Spoiled from the time they call me and asked me to come up here. I had people calling me. I want to know, you know, more about me.

And then when we got over here, they just, class act. You know? That's why it's just a class act. And, I'd like to thank especially my Joe Ben and his wife, Eddie Ben. They really treat us with kindness and a lot of fun and, we've enjoyed their time here.

And, and I also wanna thank my wife, Kaye. I'd like for her to stand up. Kate, would you stand up, please? When I first got invited to come over here, I she was working and, she I was gonna come by myself and it's really been a pleasure being over here with us. We we had a good time.

And I'd like to thank all those people that were in charge of those walks. You know, for the last 3 3 days, we've taken a little walk in the hills here. And, and, I I just like to thank you for getting me back. And And and I I have some special friends here. 1 of the board members, and I forget who it was when we came in here a little early.

And, when you went to a little meeting, one of the board members said, Max, if you give a real good pitch, you your hair will all come back. And, so I'm looking to find out which one of the board members that was in case, my hair don't come back. And I can go on and on with this, but another special friend of mine is June sitting here. You know, I got to come to this conference. I didn't have to.

I got to come. And I'm always reminded of that when I come to AAN Junior's to remind me that I said that. Once in a while, I'd forget. But I do. I got to come over here this weekend.

I'm glad to see June here. And you you really get a treat tomorrow night. Her and I got to share in Arkansas one time in Hot Springs, a little town. And, we're sitting in the Hilton Hotel. And up on the hill, on the side of the hill from the Hilton, was a little lady sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair.

And I took Joan out and I told her that. And I said, that's my mama sitting over there on the hill. And, it was. She's sitting over in a rocking chair and I could see her from the hill and, you know. So I've had some, this this program made up of a lot of memories.

It really, lot of memories that come in. And when I came in here this weekend, I met a guy named Charlie. And I met Charlie here 4 or 5 years ago. I guess it's 4 years ago when we were here. And our lives have crossed from years.

We were both born in Texas. I ran away from home when I was 16, went to see Charlie when I ran away from home in Texas when he's 15 and went to see. He beat me to the program by 8 months. You know? And, Charlie, are you here?

Where you at? Alright. Why don't you stand up? And And I'd I'd like to just take a minute and, have you think about it and remember tonight when we close our prayer. There's a special couple that brought day and I up here about 5 years ago, and his name's Charlie.

Charlie Bell and Betty Bell from, Houston. And when I went to Brazos about 1985, I met Charlie and he's leading the meeting like we are. And we became friends and we traveled all over the world again. They couldn't come up here this weekend because of Betty's help. But, remember them in your prayers.

And, Jim in, Virginia from Waco, my friends here, they came out to the world convention, California. And they came out with Betty and Charles in a week early, and we got to know him and really being friends. When he was out there in California, I introduced him to everybody as the guy that started the fire in Waco, you know. And, I still have people come up and ask me, that guy started to fire in Waco. Is he still sober?

So they they remember you, Jim. Really do. And, with that, that that just about takes care of all the all the stuff and we're gonna get down to some business here. And, my name is Mac Brewster and I am an alcoholic. And, my home group is, in Covina, California.

It's a clubhouse called the 502 Club. And in California, if you get caught drinking and driving and they give you a ticket and it's a 502. And our clubhouse has nothing to do with that. It just happens at our clubhouse. It's located 502 Second Street.

And, we have some fun people. We have a lot of very very active old timers in our group. We have a lady out there named Camille, and she's been sober longer than dirt. And I mean, she is mean as a junkyard dog, that lady. And I hadn't seen her in a long time, and she came into a meeting one day.

And I went over and got her a cup of coffee. And I said, where you been, honey? And she says, oh, I've been out 14th stepping. And I said, 14th stepping? And she says, yeah.

When you get too old at 13th step, they let you watch. It's it's funny when you you tell that, the old timers laugh and the newcomers look at each other. You know? So there's something that grows on you. Yeah.

We have a, another member of that group, and I spoke on a waterfront for a maritime luncheon they were having on AA luncheon. And this guy came to this meeting, and he's an old timer and AA from my group up in Covina, and he went blind a few years ago. And he came up and they called him up to do a 10 minute pitch. And he came up with with his little cane, and he hung it on the side of the podium. And he said, his name, and then he said, I wanna tell you a story about a blind man and his dog.

The place got very quiet. He said this blind man's going down the street with his c and I dog and a dog walking right into the telephone pole. And the guy fell back, cracked his head. Damn near killed him. And a stranger ran over and got the guy a blind man up off the ground and, brushed him off.

And the blind man reaches in his pocket, and he pulls out a cookie, and he starts calling the dog. And the guy says, I don't understand this. He says, my god. The dog almost he walked you right in that telephone pole. Now you're gonna give him a cookie.

He said, no. I'm just trying to find out where his head is so I can kick his ass. I got another one about our home group, and it's very true. I went over to a meeting because some guy came in from Saint Louis and he went to see him, take in a meeting that night. And in our clubhouse, we have about 40 meetings a week.

And, we have a banner on the wall in our clubhouse. It says sobriety capital of the world. And the old timers in that group catch those newcomers and they actually convince them that that is the greatest meeting in the world. Greatest group. And I I think we call it group pride.

And I think that if you're like I was when I got here, I didn't shouldn't have any pride in myself. And, we watch those newcomers latch on to that group pride. And I always said if I'm away from home, it's nice to speak at the 2nd best group in the Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you don't feel your own group is the best, don't come over and messing ours up. You know?

There's something about yours and that's the way I I am. And, I'd, like to get down to business here and tell you about the last drink of alcohol I ever had. And I hope and pray it's the last drink that I ever had. It was on June 14, 1966 in a flop house on Anaheim Street in Wilmington, California. Now there's a lot of Wilmington's around the country, and a lot of people don't know where Wilmington, in California is.

But, I'd like to tell you where it is. It's a little resort area on the way to Catalina. Now that doesn't get any laughs here except from Charlie. You know? You know?

Stuffed in between, Long Beach and San Pedro and Los Angeles in the harbor, there's a little town called Wilmington. And, I grew up in that town. I moved there when I was 13, 14 years old. I grew up there. So I'm talking about a town that I knew something about.

But, it was, about 10 o'clock in the morning, and somebody beat on the door. And I came to and I let them in. It was a 16 year old daughter of mine. And I don't remember everything that took place in that room that night, but I remember this. I I remember these few things that she was asking me a lot of questions.

They were very hard questions. They were questions like, why are you drunk every time I come down here? Why aren't you working? Why aren't you paying my grandmother the money you owe her? Now those are hard questions.

The only answer I had that day, I poured a water glass full of whiskey. And I tried to get it down and I got it in my throat and I couldn't swallow it. And I spit it back in the glass. And I have a little girl who was in there maybe 10 minutes, 5 minutes. Felt like it was an hour or 2.

But when she finally left, as she was leaving, she told me about what it was like outside. She said, the sun's out and the sun's shining and you're cooked up here in this room drunk again. She said, why don't you go out and set in the sunshine and try to see what you're doing to everybody that cares you and loves you? And she left. So I find myself maybe an hour, half an hour later sitting out there beside the building, one of those chairs.

And I had this drink in my hand. And I get it in my mouth and I couldn't swallow it. I'd have to spit it back in the glass. Now I know there's this many alcoholics in a room. There's a lot of people here that had those mornings when you couldn't get nothing down.

And I'd had them before. It wasn't a I knew if you're persistent, you hang in there and work at it, you'll get one down pretty soon and and then it shows on the road and you're gone again. But that day, I was just having some real problems. And I'm sitting out there and the sun was shining and a guy came out and he pulled up a chair and he had his shirt off. Big man had 2 big eagles tattooed on his chest, and he had a coffee cup in his hand.

And this guy pulled up a chair, and he sat and talked to me about my drink. I remember he said, you know, I used to drink the way you drink. I used to try to get them down when I couldn't. I have to put them back. But he says, I don't live that way anymore.

And that guy, I what I remember about him, he had the shiniest eyes I ever saw in my life. And he sat there with a coffee cup and talked to me. And I used to tell people in a a for a long time that that I did not know why I believed any that day. I know today. You know, the language we talk here in a a is the language of the heart.

One drunk talking to another. And that's what took place in that, beside that building a little over 31 years ago. One drunk talked to another. And I thanked for a few minutes because I know Danny talked to me from the heart. And I thanked for a few minutes that day, I listened with my heart instead of my hip.

I was in a meeting one time with some guy told a newcomer, hang on to your seat because it's gonna be a hell of a trip. And one of the old timers, they're on the waterfront, said no. The trip you're gonna take is about that 4 from your head to your heart. That's where the trip is here in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I believe I took that trip for a few minutes that day because I believed that guy.

When he got through with me, I believed him. And he said, if you'll go back in your room and shake it out, I'll come and get you tomorrow. And I'll take you to a place where you never have to have another drink as long as you live if you don't want it. He didn't mention Alcoholics Anonymous, and he did not tell me what time he's coming to get me. He just said, you go back in the room and shake, and I'll come and get you tomorrow.

I'll take you to this place where you never have to have another drink. You know, I I don't remember if I ever finished that drink that day. I don't know if I ever got it down there or not. I don't even remember anything that took place in that room. I know what happened the next day.

Along about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, all hell broke loose. I came down. I've been eating a lot of what they call speed back then. I got hooked on Benzodrine when I was in the Marine Corps. And, I used to eat, eat those dinnies and drink that whiskey and turn around watching my heart beat through my shirt, you know.

But that stuff will do weird things to you. It really will. And I was coming down off a 6, 8 weeks run on that speed and whiskey and, I was having a hell of a day the next day. Along about 2 or 3 o'clock there, something came in that room. And I'll tell you what it was.

You could've cut it with a knife. It was fear. Fear came in. I've been there before. I'd I'd I'd go walk that same walk a lot of times.

I knew what I had to do. But fear came in that room And I got frightened that this guy wasn't gonna show up to take me to wherever he was gonna take me. I remember that it was like this. It was getting dark. And I go to the window and I'd look out and I did pay some more.

Pretty soon there was a knock on the door and I went and answered the door and the guy was there. And I talked to Danny about it over the years about what we said. He said, you didn't say anything. We walked down the street a couple of blocks and turned on a little street in the harbor area there called Broad Street. And we walked down a few blocks more to the harbor, and we sat down in the back of a union hall.

And there was 10 guys sitting in this meeting in this union hall. And I've heard people say they've been in Alcoholics Anonymous for years, and they never saw anybody they drank with. Not true with me. I knew everybody in the room. I knew everybody in that meeting.

I'd either been to sea with them. I drank with them, been in jail with them, Fought with them. Something I knew everybody there. You know? And I didn't know what it what the game they were playing, but I sat there that night.

And I remember 2 or 3 things that happened. And one of the things that was hap that happened is these guys started praying. And I remember that I moved my chair a little further back from the table because I I didn't wanna pray with them. Then I remembered that, somebody says, is there any alcoholics here? And everybody in that room raised their hand except me.

I can assure you that 31 years ago the word alcoholic around the people that I drank with was a dirty word. You called somebody an alcoholic in a bar that I drank in and he'd knock you off that stool, you know. It was a dirty word. I used to have a mother-in-law that used to call me a alcoholic. You know?

But she used to call me a communist too. So it really didn't make any difference didn't make any difference about her, you know. I don't wanna be no alcoholic so I didn't raise my hand. Then I heard one other thing. Maybe the meeting is over and maybe it wasn't, but a guy said to me, he said, you know, Mac, I don't know why you came here tonight.

But he says, I wanna tell you why I came. He says, I came here because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I'd never heard that before. It just seemed like it put it together. Maybe I'm not an alcoholic but I am tired.

And I was tired. I was 36 years old when the guy brought me to that meeting. And I'd already drank up 2 families by that time. I started losing stuff before most people got it. That's right.

I drank up a wife, some kids, and a home out in Torrance, California by the time I was 25 years old. I got another wife, some stepchildren, and I drank that up before I got here. Had a dream. I grew up around the waterfront in Los Angeles. And I hustled the waterfront during World War 2 in that popular war.

I found out that I could go down on the waterfront, make more money in 1 afternoon than most people could working all week. I'd hustle the passenger ships or whatever. I carried luggage, and I loved it. And I built my self a little name down there as a kid that would do most anything for the approval of other men. And I would, and I did.

I had a dream and I wanted to be president of one of these reunions and I wanted to sit up there in that leather chair and wanted to walk in that long bar down in San Pedro, have that bartender pour my drink before I got there. You know? I had those dreams and I I got elected president of a longshoreman junior when I was 29 years old. And I got that job because of what I would do, not what I knew. And I drank that up before I got here.

You know, the guy who had that job before me, it was a 4 year job. He lasted three and a half years. He drank it up. I drank it up in 3 years, you know. The same guys that sat in that union hall with me the night that I was elected and I sat in that leather chair and I put my feet up.

We're drinking good scotch. And I said, you know, they better watch me, man. I'll be going to San Francisco next, and I'll get old Bridges' job too. You know? Had a lot of ego and had a lot of pride.

And I'll tell you something. Whiskey beat all that out of me. And I don't stand up here before you and tell you that I picked up a drink one day and my life went to hell. It wasn't that way with me. I used and abused alcohol for almost 24 years.

And somewhere in all that mess, I became an alcoholic. When I was new here, I wanted to know. It was about 30 days before I raised my hand. One day, my hand just went up and I said I was an alcoholic and but I I sit around for quite a while trying to figure out if I'm an alcoholic, when did I become an alcoholic? Because I had a lot of fun drinking for a lot of years.

When did I become an alcoholic? I used to ask people in the meeting, think I'm an alcoholic? Most of them say, I don't know. You gotta make up your own mind. And I asked this old timer one day, and thank God for those old timers in that waterfront meeting that I came into.

This old timer looked me right in the eye and he said, yeah. I think you're an alcoholic. I said, well, when did I become an alcoholic? He says, I think you became an alcoholic about the time you quit bragging about how much you could drink and started lying about it. Yeah.

I see some head shaking. You're damn right. I used to brag about how much I could drink. And then it came a time when I'd lie about it. I'd say somebody get after me and I'd say I'm not drinking any more than anybody else around here.

Now leave me alone, you know. And that's the way it was. I remember in bars. And I drank in bars all over the world. I drank in some of the finer spots, Charlie, like post office street in Galveston, Texas.

You know? And I'll tell you something, and Charlie will agree with it. He's been all over the world. I have had never seen a town like, Galveston was in the forties. Man, that was a a place to drink.

Party town. I drank in New Orleans. I drank in San Francisco and in Barbadero Street. And San Pedro, they had a place down there on Beacon Street, and It was a bar, famous bar, world famous called Shanghai Reds. And I drank in Shanghai Reds when I was big enough to get on a damn stool.

And it was a it was fun. There was no stigma to it. It was fun. It was part of being a man. I heard somebody say here at regionally, they didn't remember their first drink.

I remember my first drink. You know, I was born in Texas. I said that in a meeting over in Pomona near my house one night and so somebody yelled in the back, that's alright. We still love you. You know?

But I was born in Texas. My father got killed and shipped me off to Arkansas to live on a farm with my grandmother. Right out of Hot Springs, Arkansas, there's a little town across the river there called Sunshine, Arkansas. Now that's not the end of the world, but you could see it from there. You know, it's it's right over the hill.

I was introduced there to a a grandmother who raised me up and she was Southern Baptist. She was a member of the Antioch Baptist Church in Sunshine, Arkansas. And I can remember when I was 7 or 8 years old, I used to go with her and we'd go up on the highway and we'd walk down the road to Sunshine to the church. And I remember those people used to ride by in their car and they'd wave to us. And then we'd sit in the front row and they'd tell us how much they loved us.

And then we'd walk home every now that's what I saw as a kid. There was more to it than that, but that's what I saw. Those people told us they loved us and I I fell in love. My grandmother told me every day of my life that she loved me, but yet I fell unloved all my life. I lived out there on a farm in sunshine and, when my mother remarried again, I moved into a little town in Hot Spring called Hot or in Arkansas called Hot Spring.

And, I thought everybody lived in the world lived the way they did in Hot Spring. In the thirties, there was a wide open town. It was a gambling town. All the gangsters came from all over the country to Hot Springs. It was like Vegas in the south.

I got I attended school and I got the other horses running on the racetrack, then we'd sat in class. And when I was 8 or 9 years old, we'd, I learned how to read a recent form when I was 10 years old. And we used to bet the daily double and stuff like that, and I thought everybody lived that way. And I go out the racetrack, and I'd hustle that racetrack. And I saw real men out there.

Real men out that racetrack. And I tell you what they were. Most of them had a nice suit on. They had a drink in their hand. They had a handful of money and a nice looking lady on their arm and a smile on their face.

And it beat anything I ever saw at that Baptist church. And that's just the way it was with me. And I don't mean to be putting anybody down. You know, I'm not making fun of any really. Just the way it was with me.

My mother remarried again, and she married a big redneck. He's a redneck when I met him, when I grew up with him. He's a redneck today. You know. A few years ago, he had a bad heart attack and some operations.

He and I went down to Hot Springs to see him when he got out, and he wanted some goat's milk. So we got him in his pickup truck, and we're riding him out in the country. It's some lady who sold goat's milk. He rolls his window down, yells at the joggers to get a job. You know?

Yeah. It said it worked the way I worked when I was that age. You wouldn't be running up and down the goddamn road. You know? This guy built bridges.

He drove a pickup truck, and he drank whiskey, and he liked to fight. And And I used to go out on the job with him in the summertime, and, they would build these bridges and these guys would work a half a day on Saturday. And then they'd stand in the middle of this bridge and and drink whiskey for a while. And I was out there fishing off the bridge and I ride back to town with 1 of them. And I was standing there by that circle that day and the jug came by and the old man took a big belt and he gave it to me.

I don't know. Maybe I was 13 then. I'm tall as as I am today. I was 6 foot by the time I was 13 or 14. I'm standing.

That man gave me a a drink of whiskey, and I took it. And I gave it to the next guy. And for years, I never thought anything about him. But, you know, when I got into my inventory later in this program, I discovered something. I got something from that first drink.

You know what I got? I got a nod of approval from other men for the first time in my life. Something that I'd wanted all my life. Just a nod of approval. I thought that drinking whiskey was part of being a man, and I got it with the first drink.

Then I wondered when I was new here and I'd sit in these meetings, why do I feel so bad sitting here? How am I gonna go out in that world and function as a man without having a drink? You know? It was part of the thing that I got from my first drink of alcohol. I left Hot Springs when I was 13, 14, maybe 13.

And I moved to California right before the war started. And, I hustled the docks. I I did everything I I wanted to do, and I had those dreams. And I I fulfill most of them. I came back from a big, trip and I had a lot of money and I met a girl from Torrance, California and got married, bought a house.

And I remember people used to come to me and they'd say, hey, kid. Better slow down. You're gonna lose that house. You're gonna lose that wife if you don't slow down. I don't ever remember anybody telling me to quit.

I remember going into bars and I'd see some guy laying across the end of a bar drunk or a lady laying. And I said to myself, I couldn't hold my whiskey better than that. I quit. I remember that. I, I became that guy that I used to look down the bar at.

I had a lot of problem with authority all my life. I used to say I left home because I wanted to go see. I left home because there was no place for 2 guys that who run that show. And my dad was the one who was gonna run it there. So I on the side one.

Turn your cassette over and continue to play on the other side. With authority, and I ended up in the Marine Corps. And I'll tell you right now, that's a hell of a place to end up if you got a problem with authority. And, I came back to the doc. Another thing that happened to me that was pretty cool, I was in, LA and I was still going to sea then.

And that came to me one day and he said, you know, they're gonna put a big gambling ship off Long Beach. They're gonna anchor it 3 miles out. And they got it looking for some guys to go aboard that ship, but he said you gotta have some connections. You know, of all places to go, they went to Hot Springs, Arkansas to get the dealers and all the guys that come out and run that ship. And so through the people work aboard a large gambling ship off the coast of California right after World War 2.

Could you imagine having one out there today? My god. Yeah. We have water tacks just for 1 right behind the other. One side of the ship, we loaded them on.

The other side, we took them off. Yeah. And they were a lot lighter when they went off the other side too. And the coast guard finally came out and tore that party up and put a bunch of them in jail. I got to take the ship, be on board the ship when they brought it back in.

And that's some of the things I got to do. I, was approached one time, Charlie, and I was talking about it today. I was approached one time by some guys and they were having a lot of trouble with some a lot of nonunion ships coming down out of Gooseway, Oregon and some of the places up north. So for a year or so, I used to go up north and get on some of these ships and I bring them south. And some of the things I did, I'm not proud of.

Not ashamed of them anymore neither. Just things that I had to do as an alcoholic, I think, to survive out there. But I said I decided to give an equipment aboard some of these ships and I got people hurt. When they got to the harbor, they couldn't even unload their ships most of the time. And I became known as a young man that would do most anything for the approval of other men and keep his mouth shut.

Back then they called it holding your mud. You just keep your mouth shut. And that's when I got elected on to that union. I was all bluffing the most most of them knew it. But I did a good job for a while and then the alcoholism took over.

I drank up my second wife after I got that job. And I remember the night those guys came in with a letter from San Francisco and had Harry Bridges take my job away from I remember walking down the the main street. It was Avalon Boulevard in Wilmington. And I'd be walking down towards the harbor, and I'd see somebody coming down the street. And I'd cross over the other side of the street because I couldn't remember what lie I told them the last time I saw.

Them. Somebody stopped and offered me a ride and I'd say, no. I'm just walking down to get my car out of the shop. Now they knew I didn't have a car. The worst part was I knew that they didn't that they knew.

Yeah. Had a lot of fun drinking. Had a lot of fun drinking. I used to drink in a place on in middle of Long Beach, there's a hill called Signal Hill. And I used to drink on Signal Hill, and it's the best place in the world to drink.

You go up there on Friday afternoon with a pocket full of money, you drink your way down the hill over the weekend. If anything happened to you, you got in any trouble, if you didn't kill anybody at 10 o'clock on Sunday night, they open the doors, threw everybody out. If you didn't have any money, they give you some money to catch a bus or cab home with. And I love to drink up there on Signal Hill, and I had a lot of fun. I spent a lot of money, had a lot of fun, and almost died.

If I'd had that much more fun up there on that hill, you'd have a different speaker here tonight. I had a guy almost beat me to death up there. He, he he beat me sober in a parking lot. I got a steel plate here in my face. He kicked my cheekbone right through the roof of my mouth.

Broke my nose, kicked my ribs in, and stomped my hand. Every time I tried to get here's the old school. Get a guy down, you don't let him up, and that's the way it was. Now they shoot them. Yep.

Now you have to shoot him to start with, I guess. But back then, this guy kicked me sober out there in that parking lot. And I can talk about it today, and it was over 34 years ago. And I can still taste blood in my mouth and remember choking on my own blood. And that guy wailing away, and he wasn't gonna let me up.

Cops hadn't came there that night, he'd have beat me to death. That's a sad story. That was me out there in that parking lot. That wasn't just some stranger. You know?

3 days later, I got ahead like a watermelon. I'm sitting in a in a bar drinking with some of my friends and we're laughing about it. It was like it happened to somebody else, you know. Play the game, you do the things, you pay the price. And I was willing to pay the price back then.

Then I think it became a time down there on that street when Danny picked me up in 1966. The price had been paid and there was nothing left. We're just talking about it daily. How do you know when somebody reaches bottom? You know?

1 of the old timers in that maritime meeting told me he said, you know when he reaches bottom when he quits digging. And I just guess I quit digging down there one day. But they took me under their arm and god bless them. They were a group of old timers in the maritime ministry that believed in not letting a newcomer sit around till he thought he ought to work the steps. They drug you screaming and yelling right into those steps.

And that's what they did to me. And this guy that brought me to a a I went to a meeting one day and somebody said, do you have a sponsor? And this guy says, yeah. I'm a sponsor. I couldn't remember signing up or any of the stuff, you know.

And one day somebody says, are you working the steps, Mac? And then he says, yeah. He's working the steps. He's on step 1. Yeah.

I didn't even know what the steps were. And I and furthermore, I really didn't care. You know? And I'd sit in meetings when I was new, and I'd try to figure a way out of this. I always sat in the back when I was new because you hear different back there.

You know? Truly do. I heard a guy stand up to this podium like I am tonight one day at a meeting, and I almost fell out of my chair. This guy says, I came to AA and I only drink beer. I thought, my god.

I drink beer when I wasn't drinking. You know? And I don't mean to offend the beer drinkers. You know, I have met a lot of good alcoholic beer drinkers since I've been here. But I didn't know that then.

You know? I heard another guy, like I told you, 502 in California if you get caught drunk and driving. And this guy said, came to AA because they got a 502, and I think, well, why would you come here if you still had a car? Tell you something. I wouldn't have came if I had a car.

I don't believe you. And there's no easy, like I say, in the back. And this guy, got up the podium one night. He said, I came to AA. I got my wife and my kids back.

I'll never forget that. This guy started crying. I'm sitting back there, and I'm watching him. And I thought, god, I can't remember crying. Look at that.

I was 36 years old and I never knew how to cry. And I got in my inventory. I dug around. I found out why. A lot of things.

You know, these guys that brought me to AA were very loving old men. Hard drinking, rough old men. And they call it tough love. I mean, they gave you a lot of it. Yeah.

I know. I remember I was in a meeting one day and, you know, I'm not too smart, but I listen good. And I heard him read out of that book and it says in that book that these are only suggested steps. Some guy came by and he said, you're working the steps? And I said, no.

They're only suggested. 1 of the old timers come over and they said, yeah, Mac. But it's like a cop suggesting you get in car. Can't win. You know?

You can't win. I go on and on these days. I, seem like every time I turned around, they're talking about these steps. And finally one day, I just told them, I say, hey. You got the wrong guy.

Let me tell you about me. I owe the IRS a ton of money. I cooked the books in that union over there, and I got people that would really like to be dunking me in the bay right now. I owe my mother-in-law a lot of money. I owe everybody in town money.

You're talking about steps. I do not need steps. I need money. You know? What I need?

I need money. And you know, they'd say some silly thing like that. Money ain't your problem. Okay. And I I wasn't I wasn't proud of being in AA.

In fact, I was ashamed of being in AA. It was alright for him to see me down on the street fighting, raising hell, and going to jail, riding in a squad car. But I don't want anybody to know I was doing anything about it. Yeah. I go to this meeting on Avalon Boulevard on a Saturday night in the Seaman Union Hall.

And I duck I go down the street and there's a little sign out there about this big. It said a a it looked like a neon sign to me. I'd look up and down the street to see if anybody's coming to duck in there. One night, I ducked into there and a hand caught me, and it was this guy brought me to a a. He took me out on the sidewalk and made me stand out there in the front and greet people.

That was the longest 10 or 15 minutes that I ever spent in my life. Now let me tell you about where I was at. About three doors down was a bar called the folks'il. And I could hear the jukebox playing in the folks'il on Saturday night, 8 o'clock. Everybody's laughing and joking.

And I'm standing out in the street greeting people a a. And it came to that. It really did. I believe that if you take the 12 steps out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that you got another book. I believe that, I'm standing here clean and sober today as a direct result of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm a product, good or bad or and I know this. I'm the best mac I've ever been. It's a direct result of what came out of those twelve steps and what happened to me. I don't know how long it took me. My greatest fear when I first came here was when they'd pray.

It just seemed like they were praying a lot. And I thought if I really gotta believe in god, this thing ain't gonna work for me. And I had an old timer again take me aside, and he said, most of us come here, Mac, and then we come to believe. And he opened up his book and he read out of it, and it said in there that, the alcoholic's dilemma is the lack of power. And then he read a part of that book that says that the sole purpose of this book is to help you find a power greater than yourself.