Soberfest 2005 in Jamestown, ND

I'm gonna quit when I'm ahead. Hi. My name is Cliff Roche, and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety dates the 13th January, 1970. My home group is the Carlsbad AA Workshop, and my sponsor is John Akerlund.

And his sponsor is John Haley. I don't know who the hell his sponsor is, But I just want to know that my sponsor has a sponsor. That's what I want to know. I love to count down, Let's give juice to the old guys, you know. Yeah.

We kinda had Jim and Jim during the day today. The kiddie program's over now. The adults are up here now. I really enjoyed both of them. But I whenever we do the countdown, I always I took this guy to a meeting, 12 nights in a row.

And I whenever we do the countdown, I always I took this guy to a meeting, 12 nights in a row. And I took this guy to a meeting, 12 nights in a row. And in California, probably here too, they always ask for people in their 1st 30 days of sobriety, raise your hand or stand up or say something. 12 nights, this guy sat there. So finally, on 12th night, I turned around and says, why the hell don't you raise your hand?

He said, I'm not sober. I said, oh, oh, okay. I'm taking any more meetings either. But I really I really did enjoy both of you. They did a terrific job and a little later than I might take a dive but, I'm very struck by the the dynamics of the of the AA here, where, you know, people are really alive and sober or sober and alive.

You know, it just, you go so many places, you know, where they just sit around the table and stay sober. Clancy calls them great tunnel meetings. You know, you have to have hemorrhoids to get the expression just right. And Clancy says, you just trudged down the long gray tunnel, and every year a trapdoor opens and a cake comes down. But, you know, people are alive here and it's really going in.

So, so many young people there, respect sponsorship and the traditios and you don't find that everywhere either. So for old guys like me, it really is a thrill. I'm not and I have I really give you a lot of juice. Okay. I'm through kissing up now.

We'll get going here. Whoever the hell they are, I've always said, the expert is a guy with a PhD who's still drinking. But the experts say that most of people that die of alcoholism are like me. 95 to 97%, they say, of the people who die of alcoholism are functioning alcoholics like me. Guys who get up every day and go to work, and do the job and do it better than you, who do it better than anybody, you know, a goer and a doer and an achiever, a functioning alcohol.

My buddy at home says a fousereating alcohol is one whose wife works. Don't tell that at an Al Anon meeting. No. Oh, no. No.

No. They do not find that amusing. You know, it makes them go. You married guys. You remember that?

Don't you think you had a few too many? Nice to say, you had a few too few. That's your problem, Lydia. Have a couple to loosen up for God's sakes. Mine was the worst kind.

The counter. Oh, they're the worst guy. That's your 5th one today. Shut up and eat your breakfast, will you? Leave me to hell.

Leave me to hell alone. I, I met Maya Al Anon. I love to call her Maya Al Anon. You know how they introduce us. Have you met my alcoholic?

Sit up, boys. Sit up. Tell them how long you've been sober. I met Myl and An in college. She was down on schedule looking for an alcoholic to abuser.

And, you're looking to be abused. You got your boy here. I'll guarantee you. The past master of abuse. And we had a dual disease, Mya Al Anon and I.

We had a dual disease. We had alcoholism and Catholicism. And consequently, we had a kid every 9 months and 20 minutes. And that's what it seemed like to me anyway. Every time I come out of a blackout, What the hell is that?

They're alright when they're little, you know, like kittens. But, but we had 5 of them and they grew. And the older they got, the weirder they got. And God knows the weirder she got. I was the head nut.

And, my early drunken law is pretty much like yours. I didn't steal any golf courts or anything and leave the police on a chase, but I was, I was active. Loved to fight. Fighting was my hobby. I I think sometimes I'd rather fight than have sex, which is step 2.

And it was a shame because I liked it so much because I never won. When I get enough boozy to be brave, I would lose my muscle coordination. And, boy, you can get seriously damaged doing that. You can get hurt doing that, and I did it over and over. Hardly ever tell this anymore, but one time, 4 other guys and I went down from Bakersfield, California, to to Long Beach, California to have fun.

And, I woke up in this fleabag hotel in the morning, and I thought I was blind. I had bled face down on this pillow all night, seeing it dried. So when I come up, the pillow came with me, and I'm in a panic there. You know, I'm smothering. And another there was a sink in the corner in the sky, and I threw water on the pillow for about 10 minutes, almost drowned doing that.

And finally went and there was a big mirror on the dresser. I said, put the pillow back. Oh my god. I I looked like Quasimodo. But the the point of the story is I only remember the guys that I was with.

They said, you were great, Roach. You got up 19 times.' Kind of friends I had my whole life, didn't you? And, but I did have a great time drinking. I've always had a great time drinking. Anybody in this place that says they didn't have a good time at some point, better go back and try again.

But I had blackouts. Never had a good blackout. I've looked for years for somebody in AA who had good blackouts. Oh, yes. I had delightful blackouts.

Thank you. I there was always blood when I had them and always my blood and, wrecked cars in jails. But, I met my wife in college. We got married, and I I became a school teacher later in life. Guy commits felonies and blackouts, becomes a school teacher.

Very good. Very good. Just a hobby. Lighten up. And, I taught for the 1st 3 years up in a little town up in the San Joaquin Valley, called Manteca, which means lard in Spanish.

Couldn't even call it La Montaquia, you know, just Manteca. And so I survived that. And we moved to Oceanside, California in 1961. And we had 4 kids by then and another one, surprisingly, along the way. 30 miles north of San Diego, right on the Blue Pacific.

It was 81 there yesterday when I left. And it'll probably be 80 when I get home tomorrow. And, if it's not a oxymoron or something, and I was a very successful, high school teacher. I was good at it. I loved it.

Kids love me. I love the kids and I accomplished a lot. Some but he asked my wife one time, why is your husband such a good high school teacher? She said, well, he's a very well educated adolescent. I hate it when they're accurate and cruel.

And, but of course, all my life being Marvin Macho, you know, so many of us suffer from that, you know, I'm gonna be a tough guy. Well, I was raised in this Irish Catholic family. Oh, really? Yes. And my father had been the leading contender for the middleweight championship of the world.

When he's in his youth, my uncle Jack used to clean out saloons for a hobby. You know, just the big tough guys. And I had a back problem, big yellow streak down the middle. And, you know, so that macho crap I carried right into Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, into Alcoholics Anonymous.

But since I'm macho and we moved by the ocean, I became a surfer dude. And I surfed until I was 74 years old. And my back finally said, that's enough. I go out and you should see the kids. They love me there.

You know, I'd be palling out. Mr. Roach back on his board. There you go. The kids love me.

But anyway, I searched for a lot of years. I was in in my 30s when we moved there, but I became a surfer and another teacher and I had a brilliant idea. We were gonna open a surf shop there in Oceanside, right at the end of The Strand. Guy had this little building that had been a bar, been abandoned. So he just donated.

It's the building, the mayor of the he was just sitting on it to get rich, which you but anyway, it was all beat up. We're going to open a surf shop there, again. So the building was all beat up. We had to paint it up and put put windows in and fix it up. And we got a refrigerator.

Few months later, we got some surfboards too. No big hurry there. And we had these 2 chaise lounge chairs. I mean, this place was on the beach, on the sand. And we had these 2 chaise lounge chairs.

We became sunset connoisseurs. We used to measure sunsets by martinis, you know. I was a mixer. I'd say, looks like about an 8 tonight, Woody. And the best one we ever had was a 15 martini sunset.

Oh, you should have seen it. It was glorious. It was glorious. The sun and Woody and I went right together. They found us in the morning with sunburned mouths.

Do you remember that? I think that should be on the 20 questions. You ever had a sunburned mouth? No. Get the hell out of here.

You're not ready yet, pal. Come back when you're ready. No. Very well. That was in 1964.

And, we did very well over the summer, but then the winter came and got cold, and we went back to teaching school again. In February of 1960, 5 I went down to the board 1 Sunday morning. It was freezing cold. Repair a board and I had a terrible hangover. Sunday morning.

Yes. And I was really thirsty. And I went to the refrigerator to see if I can find a Coke or something. And my pal Woody, my partner had been there the night before. And he left about, well, this much vodka and a half pint.

Just a little dinky amount of vodka. But there was some orange juice in the refrigerator and I thought, you know, that would put the fire out. I wasn't a morning drinker at that time. Well, I was a weekend drinker. Take Wednesday off.

Get off my back. I'm a weekend ringer. But anyway, mixed up that little dinky drink and just drank it down and went on about my business and I'm standing on the board there and resin is cooking and about 15, 20 minutes went by and that little bit of vodka got in my bloodstream. You know how it'll do? And my mind talked to me.

My mind said, shame on you, Cliff. Shame. Shame. Shame. That was Woody's booze you drank.

Why don't you go up to the liquor store and get Woody a pint? That's the kind of guy I am, you know. That afternoon, I got Woody a 5th. And you know what happened. I just ended up a blind stupid falling down drunk and the board was screwed forever.

The shop was a mess. And I literally crawled home 11 blocks of my hands and knees and fell into bed, got up the next morning and called Ralph. Remember him? Ralph. I called Ralph Horn in an amount of time, you know.

Right down, it was just me and I hate that part. And I said to my, long suffering pre alanine she had one of those pre alanine ticks in the eye by then. Couldn't let her go downtown. It's a marine town. And, I said to my wife, I said, I I gotta do something about my drinking.

I'm getting drunk when I don't even mean to, and I hadn't meant to. And she, the little rascal, had cut this thing out of the paper about the a and a. I don't know why she thought to do that, do you? And, if you're new here, as far as I know, the only ad we've ever had. If you want a drink, that's your business.

If you want to quit, call alcoholics anonymous. I love it. I think it's perfect. It sums up how I feel about it, you know? We're not a treatment center.

We're not a hospital. We're not a 12 step house. We're not a do good hell, we're even nice for people, you know. But I know the people in this room that I know would go to the ends of the earth for you if you're new, if you wanna quit drinking. If you don't, have at it, pal.

We'll get you next time. That's the personally, how I feel about it. So anyway, I called the a and a. And in those days, in 1965, there were only 12 meetings in the whole North County at that time. They were all those little gray tunnel meetings, you know, the little 6 dodos around a table.

They had the collective IQ of an orange, it seemed to me. And, you know, I mean, I tried to help him. You know, I about the 3rd night, I was laying a little Nietzsche on him, And, this guy said, hey. We keep it simple here. I said, no kidding.

You could've fooled me, Leroy. I didn't drink for 5 months. I almost caught on fire I was so dry. But I used to go to a little speaker meeting they would have there in in Oceanside on Sunday nights at 6:30. And I would wait for the meeting to start to skulk in the back door, you know, and grab the losers chair and one where you get one foot outside.

And I would sit there in my smugness, my overeducated pomposity and judge the speakers. Sound like everybody's name was Clem. His wife's name was Martha. They've been out of bib overalls about an hour and a half. And, I'm in North Dakota for god's sake.

Sorry about that. You know, and, they were they really were kinda retarded people. And, and they would go on and on and on. I used to sit there in the back and listen. And it sounded to me like they had been rehabilitated.

You know the word rehabilitated? Was nuts when I was 4 years old. And I was nuts when I was 4 years old. And it was a long time before I drank. I've always been crazy.

I live on the edge of psychosis. My whole life. And, I had heard a speech by Eldridge Cleaver. He was a black militant terrorist who was my hero at the time. Well, that was my politics in 65.

Blow it up or burn it down. I didn't really care which. You know what I mean? I was for peace. And if you weren't for peace, I'd kill you.

But Eldridge had been in prison most of his life and he was giving a speech. I went down to hear him and terrific speaker he was. But at that night, he was talking about the prison system, about how they're always trying to rehabilitate. He's saying, you know what? They'd never known.

He had never been habilitated. And you can't rehabilitate somebody who's never been habilitated. That's how I felt in the a and a. So after 5 months, I resigned from AA. You ever done that?

Really upsets them, doesn't it? Cliff who? And, if there's new people here, I hate this part of the story, but it's the story. You got to tell the whole story. The next 5 years, I was an AA loser.

The back of the room, smirk with that over educated, pompous ass, smirk, judge you, go back out and get drunk again. I'd come to AA for 30 days then I'd drink for 2 years. That's a slip. Then I come to AA for 40 days and drink in a year and a half, you know. One time, I came in the afternoon at the old club there in Oceanside.

These 4 guys quadro stepped me. You ever been quadro stepped? They get it all four sides. You just oh, I got the message that day. I levitated out of the building.

And, I went over to my buddy Big John's house. He was worse than me. Pounded on the door. John Kentor said, John Rockhurst, we have to go to AA. John said, oh, okay.

The great big guy led him to the meeting that night, and became his sponsor. And the next day, we both got drunk. Just a loser's loser. But I I really think I almost died of alcoholism because I was functioning alcoholic. Bottle of wine and a brown paper bag.

The wicker came to Alcoholics Anonymous, this a way to a 160 3 I had 4% body fat. I used to serve for like 3 hours and then get out and run 5 miles. I could bench press 285. Took me 25 minutes to pass a mirror. And don't ask me for directions.

I say, it's right over there. My daughters used to get money from me all the time. They'd wait till I didn't have a shirt on which was almost all the time. They'd come up and say, V up daddy. V up.

They go, oh, oh, can I have $5? Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I was 2 years sober before I figured that out.

So but I I was one of the top 3 debate coaches in the United States. That's an honor roughly equivalent to being one of the top three prostitutes in Elko, Nevada. But among speech coaches, it's a big deal, you know. And I became one of the top speech coaches in the nation by mistake. Tournament.

I was teaching a speech class. Really be good for them, good training. And I was in big trouble, so I said, what a good idea. You know who we are. Dredged up several misfits to want to go and we drove down 30 miles down the road to San Diego State College.

We were amazed when we got there. There were like 50 schools participating in this thing, like 500 contestants. All the boys in 3 piece suits with vest and ties, the girls in these lovely business clothes, wearing Levi's and sweatshirts. What the hell do we know? And they killed us.

We did not win a round. I mean, they promised the dirt what they did. I don't know what kind of drunk you are, but it ticks me off to lose. And I went in the coaches room. There were about 20 of them in there.

They're old pals. They've been doing this for years. They're buddies. Bought and they snubbed me. And, so I hung around all day.

You know how we are. They can snub you longer that way. One guy there really ticked me off. He had a lot of hair. That bothered me right away.

Not just a lot of hair, but it was that steel gray, gorgeous, beautiful blue. You know, it took 9 barbers to get it right. Get about a $1,000 suit on, and the other coaches did this when they went in front of him. 2 in the afternoon, this gray haired cretin suddenly turns to me and says, where are you from? God, I was grateful to be spoken to.

I said, ocean side. And he said, oh, where's that? 30 miles up the road. Where's that? He gave me a resentment.

And I went back to this oceanside high and I built me a speech team. Juggernaut speech team is what I did. I built this powerhouse speech team and I did it with sheer hatred. 7 in the morning till 9:30, 10 o'clock at night, every day in their faces, screaming, yelling, crouching. The guy next door said, I'd love to watch them leaving your room wiping the spit off their glasses.

And this reporter said to my captain one time, what's the secret of your coach's success? The kid said, terror. She wasn't lying. Hey. She's the chairman of the speech department and the chancellor of women's studies at San Francisco State College today.

Didn't do her any harm. Bruises on her butt perhaps. That's about it. You know, poor old Bobby Knight, they're fighting for choking 1 guy. You know, and it was a guy.

Anyway, I, you know how hard that is? Do you have any idea how much work that is to make a 150 people do what they don't wanna do? I mean, you gotta stay in there all day. I mean, by the end of the day, the nerves are hanging out the end of my fingers that far. My brain's too big for my head.

Every muscle on my body's in a knot, and I finished that last at maybe 9:30 at night. Good night, mister Roach. Yeah. Get that out. But in the glove compartment, all day waiting for me.

See, I don't drink all day. I don't touch a drink all day. I just have to know it's in the glove compartment when I get through here. The longer I wait, I think the better it is. That little half a pint of hot vodka, you know, whatever thrifty had in the basket that week.

Remember? Blow the dust off, and it would just lie there in that glove compartment, call to me, Go get them clip baby. I'm waiting darling. And I'd finish with that last kid and I'd lurch out to the car like one of those cheap stobies I spoke to in those days and open up that hot vodka. I'd love to talk about hot vodka at Al Anon meetings.

They go, but you and I, we know. And I would always drink. I suppose you did too. I always drink half the half pint. Just oh, and that vodka into the bloodstream.

I puff on that stogie. I think, damn, you're a good coach. Then I'd finish the rest of that half point. I'm gonna sit there in the darkness of that car, and I would have my 8 minutes. And I don't know what your story is.

This is my story. After I drink about a half an hour, something happens to me. And I have about 8 minutes where everything in my life is alright, where you're okay and I'm even better. There's nothing if I am enough for about an 8 minute period. And, I was almost willing to die for that 8 minutes because in my life, that was the only peace of mind I had ever known.

And And that's the only way I could keep going is if I had if you'd have stopped me on the street and said, what's serenity? I would have said it's about 8 minutes, 40 minutes into my drink. Cause that's the only peace of mind I had ever known or was ever to know. And I think it's real significant that all the times I was a loser in and out in and out of a, I never once told you about the 8 minutes, not once. Told you about the 8 minutes.

Not So I'd go back out there and it'd get worse and I'd come back and I'd go out there and I'd get worse. But I built that speech to you. Now, I almost killed my family doing it because when I finished with that car in the evening, I drive home and really start drinking. And I'm a real violent alcoholic and a real foul mouth, mean, vicious alcoholic and I got drunk at home every night. And we had these 5 kids and I turned that place into an insane asylum.

Now, I was raised in an alcoholic family where you got under the bed and hope they didn't find you. Here the fists hitting the flesh of the ball bodies hitting the wall. And I would lie there as a little kid under that bed and say, I'll never be like them. 3 of my kids are in high school in late 69. My oldest son is working his way through high school as a salesman.

Never had to give him any spending money. I'll guarantee you. I used to hit him up for a 5th about once a week. Hey, dad. What do you need?

And he had hair down to here, you know. Head went like this all the time. Oh, he was you should have seen he was a pip, that guy. He was beautiful. Loved LSD.

Probably a few of you understand that. And, he used to scare the hell out of me. I'd be right in the middle of sentences. He'd say, what was that? Of course, the shape I'm in, I said, I don't know.

What was it? Where? What? My my drunken mother-in-law lived with us and she would say, I'll explain it. My wife and I got hysterical recently.

We were thinking about we used to listen to the explanation. But anyway, then my daughters had boyfriends, looked exactly like my son. The 3 of them used to get on the couch together. It was a zoo. It was an insane asylum.

No human power could have relieved my Through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the program of Al Anon. I was grateful to hear Jim give alcohol Al Anon some juice today. I don't think Al Anon jokes are funny. Well, a couple of them. Yeah.

But, but I have the greatest respect and admiration and love for the program of Al Anon. It's more responsible, I think, for the for the salvation of my family even than AA. But we were all just nuts. And, the experts say, same ones the experts say that for every alcoholic's alcoholism, it destroys 7 lives. And we had 5 kids.

So we were right on the media. But as I say, I built that speech team. I'm dying of alcoholism, but I built that speech team. And, after a couple of years, my team won one of those tournaments. But I'd say thing to the gray haired guy, remember him, wasn't time yet.

The next year, there were 12 or 14 tournaments, 30 schools in each tournament. My team scored more sweepstakes points than any. We won every single tournament, every single one. But then the 3rd year, there was a tournament. There were 25 schools competing in the tournament.

And my team scored more sweepstakes points than the other 24 schools combined. Then I went up to the gray haired guy. I put my nose right against his, and I said, do you know where Oceanside is now? And he just looked blank. He said, what are you talking about?

I said, don't you remember about 4 or 5 years ago? You said to me, Oceanside, where's that? And he said, we just moved here from Nebraska. I didn't know where it was. And, that's the story of my life.

You know, this guy's in his bed every night, down in San Diego, you know, and I'm up in Oceanside, I'll catch you, I'll catch you, and he didn't know it. You know? And so, right after that, my wife and I had one of our main events, which the neighbors have come to miss so much. Our neighbors never got television till after I got sober. You know?

We were the inter we've always been the entertainment for the neighborhood, weren't you? Oh, yeah. He's coming back. He's coming back. They all have those Venetian blind marks on their forehead, you know, from watching out to them.

But that night, we had a pip boy and, we really went at it. And I said, maybe I ought to just move the hell out. Everybody said, yay. Go for it, dad. And, so I did.

I moved out. I moved down at the beach with a buddy of mine and his girlfriend and with my surfboard. I had said for years, but I just unload that witch and those long haired dope fiend children, I'd be okay. And I got rid of them that one. I was drunk all the time.

I was missing work which had always been my badge of courage. And, I went by the house 1 afternoon to harangue my wife about money. And the hashey Salem was kind of bobbing in the background there, humming a tune from the planet Pluto. I turned him and I said, Dave, what's it like not to have your old man around the house? And my son, my 16 year old son, looked me straight in the eye and he said, it's beautiful.

And, he was more afraid of me but anyway, you know, with good reason. He had more reason to be physically afraid of me because but they the courage that little 16 year old guy I probably would not be here tonight if it wasn't for the bravery of that 16 year old kid. He looked me right in the eye and said it's beautiful. And I went back to that dump in the beach and sniveled and whined and screamed and hollered and cursed. But I did not take a drink that afternoon.

And I went out and sat on the screen porch and watched what's still today the most beautiful sunset that I ever saw. And about the time that the sun was going down into the water, I had what our big book calls the moment of clarity. I saw me. I saw what my son saw. Polly, my friend out on the coast, she calls it the moment of grace.

I love that. Grace. A gift. It's all a gift. It's all just a gift.

But I, went in the bedroom, dug out the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I had read in my travels through the program. And being an English teacher, I thought it was very poorly written. I had read a lot better this time. I read the big book. Are you new tonight?

I read the big book for 3 days 3 nights. I called in sick. I didn't go to work. I ate a little bit. I slept even less.

And I read the big book for 3 days 3 nights. I read all the stories. I read the appendix in the back. And in the second edition, there was a story called The Professor and the Paradox. And he was another egotistical school teacher and he saved my life.

And, he's in the new book, Experience, Strength and Hope. All the old stories that were in the the big book are in there and that and it's in there. The professor and the paradox. And on the 3rd time through the book on 13th January, 1970 at 3 o'clock in the morning, I was on page 63 again. And on page 63, if you knew, there's a little prayer.

And the prayer is step 3. I've always called it the formal terms of surrender. And I knelt down on that filthy linoleum floor that dump in the beach where I was living and I I read that prayer out loud to myself. God offer myself to either build with me and to do with me as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self.

And both the speakers spoke earlier than me today, nailed it. I've heard 200 footsteps in my ears in the program, and the number one defective character of every man I've ever worked with is self obsession. Relieve me of the bondage of self. I looked up the word bondage when I was new. It means slavery.

And something happened to me on my knees that morning on 13th January 19 70. My life has never been the same again. For a little for 32 years, I tried to tell you what happened to me and I never could. And then 2 years ago, in the grapevine, this little girl, she's 22 now. She was 17 when she did this.

She was in a treatment center and she did exactly what I'd done 33 years before. She knelt down and read that prayer out loud to herself, on her knees. And in the Grapevine article, she said, I was engulfed by a great laughing love. That'll do it for me. I was engulfed by a great laughing love, and I knew exactly what I had to do.

That night, I had one with this little guy, Bill Blake's house, little electrician there in Oceanside, had been a skid row wino, had 8 years sobriety. You know, one of those nauseating AA fanatics that you just hate when you're a loser. You know, you barely get in the door and they leap on you, you know. Hi there. Yellow teeth pointing at you.

He used to always come up and put his number and say, would you like to go to a meeting in Los Angeles with us tomorrow night? No. For you cretins around here, why why do I drive a 100 miles to meet some more of you? You know? Then I would just say, no.

No. Thank you. You know? I didn't like him. Isn't it funny?

I was at his house that night knocking on the door. 5 year loser. Just an obnoxious, overeducated, pompous, jerk, loser. In and out all those times. Margie, Bill's wife, opened the door and here I am.

Are you new tonight? I have never seen anyone so glad to see me in my life. This loser, she saw me, Margie, lit up like a Christmas tree. Oh, Cliff. Oh, come in.

In the house I go. Pours me a cup of coffee. She said, oh, this is wonderful. This is great. Bill's been crazy lately.

He said, nobody to work with. Oh, this is so nice. Then Bill comes in, ah, Cliff. About a half an arm thinking anything else I can do to help you folks out. Be glad to help any way I can.

You know? It made me feel like Cliff's here. We can start AA now, you know? But 3 weeks later, I was in a newcomer meeting and one of the other newcomers said, what do you mean this is a selfish program? And when the guy asked the question, I knew the answer.

I got the answer the night I got here. They were tickled for me. They've been praying for me for 5 years, but they were more glad for Bill and Margie because Bill and Margie knew the great secret. You can't have it unless you give it away. You cannot stay here unless you give it away.

Everybody has their own. My sponsor had this theory that everybody who comes to AA, al because alcoholism, we take care of that. Everybody who comes to AA has their own particular brand of insanity. We can fix that too. He used to say, we got a wrench that'll fit every nut.

But he also believed that everybody who comes to Alcoholics Anonymous has a gift or gifts of some kind. And if you don't bring your gifts, then you have to go back out there and die. You know, in that funny, silly, goofy show you did earlier, that's people bringing their gifts, negligible gifts, but their gifts never I'm just joking. But don't leave your day jobs. Oh, they turned the mic off on me.

That'll work. They trust a guy with 18 months on the goddamn mic. Well, I wouldn't live in my backyard alone. You know? And so, I love to watch people bring their gifts.

I love to watch people. A guy in my group, Carlos, if you're new, he finds you. He has an antenna of some kind. He pounces on you. He finds you if you're new.

And then people will make great coffee. My sponsor was the worst speaker in the history of AA, Bill was. He was terrible. He used to say, I've talked everywhere at AA once, but you put my sponsor in the front seat of a car with a newcomer. He was magic.

No one ever escaped him. No one ever escaped him. And when he died, excuse me, we had a meeting for him. There were about 700 people came for this little electrician. And I led the meeting.

I said, how many of you here loved Bill? 700 hands shot here. How many of you had a resentment against Bill? 700. He never had a resentment.

He was a carrier. Oh, he was something. Thank God. He was the meanest man that ever lived. Thank God.

The nicest thing he said to me the 1st 5 years was shut up. Shut up. I told him I have degrees, you know. He says so does a thermometer. You know where they stick out sometimes.

I I thought I thought the first step was shut up and get the car. Though he had a colorful adjective just before car. Just shut up and get in the car. Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. You don't know nothing, you moron.

You if you knew anything, you wouldn't be in my back seat. Now shut up and get in the back. In the middle, on the hump. There's a method to that too. I mean, if you're the one on the hump in the middle, you become a 12 stepper.

You find a new guy. Hey, come with us. And now I'm on the window. Alright. You know?

You wanna talk about love? The man took me to a meeting every night for 2 years. He took me to a meeting every night for 2 years. First, it was just me, then Al came, and then Skip, and then Bernie, and then Bob, and then Don, and then the other Al. We had so many Als.

We had to give them names like the other Al, the real Al. The other Al was not crazy about it. Pretty soon, we had 3 carloads of guys. And we went everywhere in Southern California. We didn't go to a meeting in a town one night.

We went to meetings all over hell. We went to LA all the time. His sponsor was Clancy. So we had to go up there every Tuesday night and to hear the laughter. He took me to meetings like this, like like you people.

He took to meetings where people were laughing because he knew me. I couldn't stay here. I'm sorry. If there were only great tunnel meetings, I'd be drunk out or I'd be dead. I I'm sorry.

I can't I can't live without the laughter. Oh, I love the laughter in the alcoholics of the homes. I think the laughter is the spiritual part of the program. There are 3,000,000 sober members of Alcoholics Anonymous worldwide, which is like 1 jillionth time any treatment center or any other programs of solving alcoholism has ever touched. We're so far ahead of anything that ever touched, and we're the only ones that laugh.

That's the secret. You know? And if you're new and you don't feel like laughing at yourself, we'll do it for you. Yeah. Bill would always help me out with that.

And if he and if he yeah. Shut up and get in the back. Oh, I love the laughter. I like to get me a new guy, you know, take him to a meeting, take him to another meeting, take him to another meeting. Maybe the 12th or 13th or 14th meeting, I'm sitting beside him and he goes, gotcha.

I gotcha now. Because once we got you laughing, you belong. See? So if you're new here tonight and you've been laughing, you're screwed because you know you belong here now. See what I mean?

There's 2 of them that haven't laughed yet. So I'm watching them. But they protect themselves. I wouldn't laugh either when I was there. Nothing I laugh at will ever come back and haunt me again.

The stuff I used to lie awake all night, my teeth grunting and my stomach turning. It's funny now. And if I get a new guy and get him to laugh at himself, he's almost home free. Oh, the laughter. I love getting brand new Alonons.

My wife's meaner than me. We get brand new Alonons. We take the speaker meetings. AA speaker meetings like this. You Get her in between us, you know, so she can't escape.

And the guys up here at the border go, I fell on the Christmas tree and smashed all the presents. We all go. This dude, little Al Anon sitting there. Not funny to her. So we just take her to another meeting tomorrow night.

And one night, she throws her head back and laughs. And, hey, you're out on the line. I don't care where when you laugh here, then you know you belong, and you're on the path to start to get well. And I had lots of troubles when I was new, terrible troubles. I owed a $1,000,000,000, you know.

Oh, didn't have a brass razoo. She wouldn't go to Al Anon. Had a foul mouth. Had all these long haired doping children flopping around the house. So So I would go to my sponsor's house and just sob.

I had a nervous breakdown. He'd open the door and I'd just let it go, you're there, dude, over there now. You know, and I'd go through the whole, sobbing through the whole story, and he'd always listen, never interrupted me. He'd just stand there. I found it's good to make a noise once in a while without saying, oh.

That way they think you're paying attention, you know. And I'd finally, I'd just run down. I'd just be out of all the things that were happening to me in my life. And he would say, go get Al and take him to the meeting. What the hell has that got to do with the nervous man?

But if you knew, remember that morning on 13th January 1970, I I gave it all up. I gave up having answers of my own. I turned it in. So I did what the man told. Al had no driver's license, of course.

And he was a 10 year loser. I was only a 5 year loser. And he was a big blowhard. I hated him. And I'd drive out of the meeting.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. We'd set the meeting up, make the coffee. Everybody come, everybody go home. We'd set the meeting down, put the chairs away, wash the coffee pots. We had real cups.