Reunion in Bristol, UK

Okay. Thanks very much. But without without further ado, you know, to say it gives me great privilege to introduce our our next speaker is an understatement. And, Clancy is gonna be celebrating, 46 years of sobriety, on the 31st 31st October. And, we've also got Clancy, little Caitlyn, and it reads, to Clancy, happy 46th birthday, love, and the reunion.

And the sobriety date, 31st 10th 58. Without further ado, please give a warm Bristol them. My name is Clancy Inlis Lind. I'm an alcoholic. I'm very glad to be here tonight.

I feel kinda sad. I got the same size cake as she did. Nice to see you newer people staying active. But I, I'm kind of a sentimentalist, I guess. I'm maybe as corny and I'm a sentimentalist today.

And I'm maybe a soft you're getting old soft my old age. But I was thinking that, you know, if I had one day left to live, if somebody told me I had one day left to live, I think I'd like to, I'd maybe ask them if they could read to me the announcements they read before the meeting tonight. It it would make that last day seem like forever. But I am glad to be here. I'm glad to be safe and sane and sober, as I like to say.

Glad to be back in Bristol. Glad to see a lot of friends. We were talking this afternoon, we had us sitting around drinking coffee and talking over at the, hotel about something that seems to be of general interest to people, and that is that why some people seem to be able to come here and not have to do what other people have to do. And this is extremely strange. And I've given that some thought over the years that talked to people, and it's become clear that, I think it is quite clear that there seem to be different types of alcoholics.

They're never I don't know if there's any delineated anywhere or put down anywhere, but there seems to be a type of alcoholic that by any measurement is an alcoholic, but something dramatic happens. Something that really threatens their security. Maybe they, lose their family, or they lose a job, or there's a death in the family, or something that really threatens them. And they are able to stop, and they never drink again. And most of us know of people like that, who used to drink, but don't drink anymore.

Then there's another type, a variation of that same type who seem to be an alcoholic, but who have become physically addicted to alcohol, as well as psychologically addicted. Physical addiction to alcohol, we we we forget that. It's not doesn't happen to a lot of alcoholics, but what it happens to you is really bad news. It is much more difficult to get an addicted alcoholic off alcohol than it is a heroin addict off heroin. They, they die much more often.

But anyway, these are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created. And they take them off medically step by step, and they point out to what's happened to their lives, and how things are going bad. And by the time they get off out of that treatment center, they realize my life is chaos. I quit. And they never drink again.

And we know people like that. In fact, there's a hospital up in Seattle, Washington called Chic Shadel who specializes in those type of alcoholics. And they truthfully say, we can cure your alcoholism in 14 days. Because they medically withdraw them, they point out their their lives, and they quit. And they have long lists of names of people who've been able to do this.

Then there's another type of alcoholic who seems to be an alcoholic by any way you measure it, they just they drink and raise hell and so on. And something really happens to threaten their security, loss of a job, loss of a family, something that really threatens them, and they quit. But they always eventually drink again. And the same type of people come out of treatment centers with tears of sobriety, but tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks. Tears of sobriety, but so sincerity.

And they realize what they've done with their lives and they quit. But they always begin to drink again. And these are the people who have baffled science, and medicine, and institutions, and the law, and their own families as long as there's been alcohol. There's records of these people for 1000 of years. And one time, they thought they were possessed by devils.

They put them to death because they didn't seem to respond to anything. And they flogged them and whipped them and sent them away to Australia from England. Get rid of them. Do something. Sounds funny, but it wasn't funny at all.

And, to this in my lifetime, I'm kind of old but I'm not as old as 5000 years. In my lifetime when I was a little boy, was still no answer for these people anywhere in the world. Anywhere. They just were hidden, sent away, left to die. It's just amazing.

Just amazing. And these are the people, as I say, probably the worst, the people that they baffled worst were their own families. I'm sure there was hardly anyone in this room tonight who's an alcoholic, Whereas, they've seen that terrible as I have seen that terrible look of disappointment and sadness on someone who loves you. And they say, oh, how could you? How could you?

You promised, and the children were starting to feel a little better again. Now look at you. How could you? And it makes you feel terrible, so you have to say things, oh, get off my back. Goddamn it.

Leave me alone. Because you feel so bad, and I don't know why it is either. But these are alcoholics. And when Bill Wilson wrote this book about people like us, because this program was designed not for alcoholics, but for alcoholics of like us. He again and again in the book refers to alcoholics of our type.

Alcoholics of our type. He doesn't specify any other types, but he sensed that there was alcoholics who could not be helped. And he was one of them and he knew there were large large number of them. And so, all these years, there's never been any answer to it. And then in the as most of us know in the beginning in 1930, there's a series of funny little coincidences that happened.

That for the first time in history, enabled people like you and me to live with some degree of hope. This rich kid in New York was sent to Switzerland, and doctor Jung worked on him. And some of you know this, but it's interesting thing. A lot of people don't understand this. And when Roland's family, this man, they wanted to help him.

They found the best psychiatrist in the world. And they wrote to the best psychiatrist, said, would you treat our son? And, they wrote to doctor Freud. And, doctor Freud refused to take the case. That's the first break we ever got.

If, if he had taken the case, we might all be sitting here drunk saying, when I dreamt I was sober. But they couldn't get to doctor Young, so they doctor Freud, so they got to doctor Young that he treated this guy for a year, and the guy got drunk again. He refused to take him back. And, he said, what does this mean doctor? Doctor says, it means that, as far as I know, you must keep yourself confined voluntarily or involuntarily for the rest of your life.

Otherwise, you almost certainly will drink till you die or go mad. That's the best doctor in the world. That's the only help he had for people like us. And he came back through a series of coincidences. He got something called the Oxford movement, And he had he'd been so impressed by what the doctor said that he was He wrote later, I wanted to stay sober as long as I could so my parents would have a pleasant memory of me when I died drunk.

And it sounds funny except a few years later, his parents had a pleasant memory of him when he died drunk. But while he was sober through a series of coincidences, his family sent to Vermont to celebrate his new found sobriety. He happened to get there just in time to keep a guy from going to the penitentiary. A guy named Eby. And he brought him back to New York and this Eby happened to be in happened to think he was supposed to go find someone to tell about the Oxford movement.

He happen to think of his friend, Bill Wilson, by coincidence and got a hold of Bill Wilson. Just a series of little funny things. If anything happened slightly differently, we wouldn't be here today. It's just amazing how these things happen. And Bill Wilson finally got the Oxford movement, had some sort of a psychological upheaval, he called it spiritual awakening, spiritual experience.

And he got a job finally. He was a failed stock broker. They sent him out to Akron, Ohio to do a deal, and the deal blew up in his face, and he almost got drunk. Standing in the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel, I stood there where he was standing. Years later, I kinda tried to recreate the feeling.

Got $10 in his pocket. You can either pay off the hotel or buy a train ticket home. Doesn't know what to do. And right over there in the corner is a little room, like spread over there where those doors are, and over there's a little curved yellow sign saying cocktails. And he's he thought if I if I had a drink or 2, I could figure out what to do.

We all know that feeling. And he started. And if he'd got there, we wouldn't have got here. I'll tell you. But he happened to see a telephone.

Remember, he promised he'd call some but in the Oxford movement, he called somebody who accidentally got him in touch with some rich lady whose doctor was a drunk. And they got together and they talked about the spiritual values and how much they've been trying to do things, and and the doctor went off to the medical association convention in New York or Atlantic City. When he got off the train coming home, he had to carry him off. He was so drunk. And our lives hung by a thread so thread so thin you can't imagine.

But, then they they did something, they, realized something. They realized that sitting around discussing spiritual matters isn't had what had isn't what had kept Bill sober. He'd been trying to help people. So they thought, maybe that was it. We should try to help people.

So they went to the hospital in Akron and tried to help a guy who became number 3, and little by little a grew. In very difficult times, most of the people in those early days got drunk. Who could How could you, interest because they they had a concept if we just can give them some religion. And, religion had not it's what kept Bill sober. It was helping people.

But as they help people in little by little separated religion from spirituality, and there seems to be a difference, a grew. And now, over through a lot of vicissitudes and problems, and getting bigger, and almost expiring in 19 5th forties, and they had the right traditions to keep it together and little by little grew. Now it's in a 100 and 34 countries. There are couple over 2,000,000 sober alcoholics, which, you know, is pretty remarkable. You stop to think that when I was a kid, there weren't any.

There weren't any. Now there's a couple million. We have, meetings everywhere. Probably the most sobriety in the world is in the United States, because that's where it started. And of all the, you know, the United States probably the hotbed of AA in the United States and the world of Southern California for some reason.

But there are more sober alcoholics in Southern California than in New York and Illinois combined. It's just a there's in our meeting list in Los Angeles, we have 3,000 meetings. I mean, can you imagine that? My home group in Los Angeles has a membership of over a 1,000 every Wednesday night. That And they're all excited.

Some of you have been there. And, so you think, well, what doctor Yilman said is not right. You have to keep yourself confined. You're you're gonna be alright. Except there's one little cloud in the sky.

It I, you know, I I was just thought funny thought, you know, I said that AA kind of the center spot of AA in the world almost to Southern California. There are some people who think Akron is the heartbeat of AA, because that's where AA started. Akron has the same relationship to AA that Bethlehem has to Christianity. Something nice happened there once, but not for a long time. Don't anybody tell anybody in Akron that, please.

But in America where there's AA everywhere, there isn't a town that I can think without a group or people and they travel around, so the sobriety is available everywhere. It is estimated by the National Institute of Health, as the most recent figures couple years ago, that today, over 90% of alcoholics of our type in America still die drunk. Or as a direct result of drinking. And you wonder, why would that be for God's sakes? You don't have to stop drinking.

There's places to go. It doesn't even cost anything. If you want professional help, go to some treatment center and pay get one of those $10,000 big books, if you wanna do that. But a a a is, everywhere. Why would this be?

I, I'm in a situation different than most of you, I suppose. When I was sober a few years, I'd become fairly successful in life and working in radio and television and the corporations. I in some hideous fit of misjudgment, I left a job at the marketing in the publishing firm, and for the last few years, I work in the middle of skid row, which is the bottom rung of the ladder. And when I go to work in the morning, I live out by the ocean, by the Pacific, and I get in the morning, I get in my car and drive downtown, and then I pull over to where I work, and I have to get out of my car and have to step over the bodies of dying men, women, and children to get to my office. And, when I go home at night, I'd work all day trying to do what I can and come home at night, step over the bodies of dying men and women and children.

And, you would think, gee, if you, you know, you know so much about alcoholism, why don't you help these people? And I can't tell you when I first went down there. And I have from time to time since, I've really spent a lot of time trying to help these people. And, most of them don't wanna hear it, and they they can't believe that the the problem is what they think it is. And it made me so frustrating.

Now, why can't you accept this? I got a way to go. I work with people who are staying sober, and you're dying for God's sake. I'll tell you, the the ability of alcoholics to deny their illness is incredible. I think about that.

The Los Angeles County Charity Hospital, county county hospital it's called. Big, big hospital. If I went over to the cancer ward there, where these guys are dying of cancer, poverty stricken people dying of cancer, stricken people dying of cancer. I said, hey, got a deal. I've got a cure for cancer.

It's gonna work. It's worked for people. Does anybody here want it? They would beg they'd please please take me. Or go down the floor and one of the big AIDS wards in the world, charity AIDS wards.

You walk in there, it's just like walking into hell. Smells bad, but they're, you know, they're all gonna be dead soon. Open sores, dreadful. You know, what what do they say if I say, hey, I got an answer for AIDS. There's an answer now to help you save your life from AIDS.

Anybody want it? They would crawl across the floor and lick your feet to try to get it. Jesus, give it to me. Give it to me. But month after month, we go down to the alcoholic ward where guys laying in a bed with his liver out to here.

His skin is yellow, not long to live. I'm not going to your goddamn AA meeting. I don't need that crap. And it's funny except you come back next week and he's dead, and there's a new guy in the bed saying he is not an alcoholic. Now, if people hours almost away from death from alcoholism alcoholism, can still deny their alcoholics.

It's easy for any of us to do it, because we can all find the reason to prove we're not. And that's what makes it such a threatening and frightening disease. I'm trying to work with these people. And I'll tell you, what really and frightening disease. I've tried to work with these people.

And I'll tell you, what really got to be finally was this. I was giving a guy hell and suddenly realized, if sobriety could be conveyed by good intentions, by good wishes, by people trying to do the right thing, Why did I slip in a a year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year. The worst years of my life came after I had been exposed to a, and people were trying to help me on a yearly basis. And I started off as kind of a high bottom drunk, and I worked down to being a medium bottom drunk. And the last day I drank, 2 big guys threw me out of a Skid Row Mission in Los Angeles and said, get the hell out of here you stinking mooch.

And I tried to swim. I met a mooch 3 years ago. I was on the faculty of the University of Texas. Ads that I wrote were running that very week in magazines. I I've had my picture in the New York Times.

But it's really hard to explain these things in mid air. I stood outside of that damn old mission. I just had my front teeth kicked out in the Phoenix, Arizona jail. I'd lost in Arizona all my ID, all my clothes. A guy had given me a car to drive and I'd lost the car, got drunk, got into beef, got thrown in jail, a guy in the jail kicked my teeth out because I vomited on his bunk.

I had I had a terrible feeling. I've talked about it before, but the feeling, you know, I don't I'm sure there are people here who've had that feeling. When you suddenly realize there is no longer any friendly direction. It's all the same. Nobody wants to see you anywhere.

That is really makes you gulp. And I, if a God called me that morning and said, you know, you've been playing around a a, now going to a a and leaving and laughing at it, and ridiculing it, and telling what a bunch of idiots they are, and now you're dying. Why wouldn't you go back to AA if he had said, at least, admit you're an alcoholic? And I'd have to tell him, pal, because I'm not really an alcoholic. My case is different.

The universal flag of everybody like me that dies from alcoholism, my case is different. I know I got problems. Jesus, I've had problems since I was a little boy. When I was a little boy, I recognized the fact that, there seemed to be something missing in me, and I don't know what it is. But I know when I get close to people, they don't seem to like me as well as they like other people, as far as I can tell.

And I don't seem to fit in very well. And people I don't I don't feel comfortable. And the people I like to be with are people kind of above me, but they don't wanna be with me. The people wanna be with me are the people kind of below me, and I don't wanna be with them. And I, it's almost as though you go through life one way or another.

If you're supposed to feel like this inside, it's always like this for some reason. Just not once in a while you feel okay, but pretty sure it goes back. Just always nothing quite right. Nothing quite. I think if I I look back at my life and for many many years, I never even thought of this.

But if I would say one phrase that when my more than anything else, it would be just, this isn't it either. This isn't the woman. This isn't the job. This isn't the place. This isn't anything.

And I I didn't know how to explain that to people. These feelings are feelings of guilt because I was raised in a very, very strong church, the Norwegian Lutheran Church, and I was not unable to live up to their standards as far as I could determine. I'm I'm of course, I made the standards much higher. Kids that would it's either perfect or nothing, you know. And, my life has been spent missing goals, and so what I do to make up for it, I make the goals higher.

Screw it. The hell it is. Why even try? And I've spent 1,000 when I get to be be an adult, I spent 1,000 of dollars in psychoanalysis to discover why I had these feelings. I discovered all kinds of reasons and made me feel better.

I, you know, psychoanalysis at least for people like me is a strange thing because I don't know. I always liked it. I don't know why I liked it because all you ever find out is ways you've been hurt that you hadn't been aware of yet, you know. I found out I'd been terribly scarred by the depression. I didn't even know there'd been a depression.

But once they explained it, I could see it. I'd been repressed by the Norwegian Lutheran Church. I didn't know that, but really made me upset to hear it. I, owe a lot of things, you know. It used to make me feel good.

I mean, I lived there thinking, sober a number of years, maybe 25 years ago. Was sober a number of years, maybe 25 years ago. Some guy came up to me that I was sponsoring, and was telling me about a new therapy he had found that really made himself feel better. Something called adult children of alcoholics. And I'd never heard of it at that time.

I said he said, you wanna go to a couple of meetings? I said, sure. So I went to a couple of meetings with him. And in the middle of the meeting, I could suddenly see how psychoanalysis had made me feel better. Because they're doing it to these people.

And I'll tell you how they do it. I don't know if they intend to do it this way, but it does it for people like me. Of all the emotions I know, probably the worst emotion continuing basis is long term deep seated guilt. Guilt of crappy things you've done, and sometimes even more sinister than that, things you didn't do that you should have. Sins of omission.

I promised my grandmother I'd take care of it. I didn't. And on and on and on. It just and it's always you could do whatever you want, but guilt is a bad thing. The only thing I ever knew to beat that feeling is drinking.

It gets rid of it for a while. It gets rid of the scale. That's what drinking does for me. It gets rid of the damn scale. And, now, what would you think of a therapy that would help you get rid of guilt?

And that's apparently what adult children of alcoholics did for these people as psychoanalysis did for me. I'll tell you how you get rid of guilt. By convincing the patient that he or she is, and has always been the victim. You are the victim. You've been hurt.

You've not been loved the way you should have been loved. You've not been nurtured. The people you'd coach should have taken care of you didn't. They may have tried to. You have had bad things happen to you.

And little by little you should realize, I'm a victim. And when I become a victim, it's no longer my fault. It's their fault. I'm just what they created. I'm a victim.

And really, I tell you, you go to those meetings, there's no laughter in those meetings. They talk about resentments. They talk about sadness and they it's tough tough life. Hey, well, what's wrong with that? At least you get rid of guilt.

I'll tell you what you find out something. There are no free lunches in the world. There are no free lunches. And now, I'm not attacking adult child maltitol. I'm just talking about my reaction, what I've seen in myself.

There are no free lunches and to get rid of guilt that way through victimization, there's little price tags you pay. You don't even see the price tags, but you can see them in retrospect. And I could see it in psychoanalysis, the price tags I paid, although I wasn't aware of it. First of all, whether you intend to or not, you must build, sustain, and enhance resentment. Resentment to those who failed you.

Resentment to those who didn't love you. Who didn't take care of you. You lot of resentments in those types of therapies. People sit around and share the resentment. The second little price tag you pay is that you must accept the fact that you have been made terminally different, and you never continue.

You can't change. I heard one of the guys say one time, one of their gurus, he said, we are like trees in a forest. When we were sapling, someone reached within us and ripped out our hearts. And we continue to grow, and we look like all other trees, but we are empty inside and nothing can ever change it. And so, you now you know you're different and you're always gonna be different.

And the 3rd little price tag you pay of course is that, if you're like me, intermittent but intense self pity. I could have been something by God. I'll tell you the the line that I ever saw in literature, in the movie on the waterfront, half punch drunk fighter sits in the back seat with his brother, the gangsters says, Jesus, Jimmy. You could've you should've taken care of me. I could have been a contender.

Yeah. It's a touching always touched my heart. I do think, well, these are inconveniences, but maybe, maybe it's worth it to get rid of guilt. Guilt makes you commit suicide. They just make you feel bad.

And, maybe they are for most people. But for people like me, who suffer from this particular form of alcoholism, it's an interesting thing. You look at the book Alcoholics Anonymous written for people like us, and it lists the 3 most lethal emotions for alcoholics. Number 1, resentment. Number 2, feelings of difference.

Number 3, self pity. And why are they so lethal? Because they will justify every drink I take till I die from it. And it will never have been my fault, and you don't understand. And it sounds kinda funny except when you're in the middle of it.

That isn't hardly funny at all. But I, I knew there was something wrong with me and I read books. I I I was my greatest thing that ever happened to me is when I was 15, I was kind of a screwed up kid. I ran away to the beginning of the war, and I got in the merchant navy. Should never allowed me in, but they're crying for men.

And then, one of those ships I got, the guy showed me how to drink, and I drank a little bit, and it made me made the scale go. I didn't know it then, it just made me feel like something. And I scale go. I didn't know it then. It just made me feel like something.

And I didn't become a terrible alcoholic, but that that alcohol in my life, I say it again and again. Alcohol is the best friend I ever had. Friends come and go, lovers come and go, jobs come and go, cities come and go, states come and go, but when a few drinks is making that scale go away and making you feel like something, boy, no matter where you are, that's something. And of course, I have a little trouble sometimes. And I had I don't like the trouble.

I don't like being arrested. I've been arrested. I have a particular form of difficulty. When I get to a certain amount of drinking sometimes, I have an absolute need to counsel police officers. God damn.

That you would think that you'd remember what happened the last time you did it. I'm gonna tell you, pal. I'm I'm your boss. I'm a citizen. So I've been to jail overnight a lot of times and, but it's an interesting game.

We were talking the other night in Newbridge. You know, you if you ever get a chance, Newbridge has got a great little group there. A very pocket of enthusiasm. And not only that, but you you no longer have to seek lower companions. They're there waiting for you.

Not really really good group. But we're talking about this, about the that how the chapter 3 is such a, you know, you read the book and just If you stay around a while, the book gets smarter and smarter and smarter as the years go by. And one of the smartest places in that book is the first page or so of chapter 3, where they talk about people like us who feel so different, and wonder what we have in common with other people. And one of the things, after you're sober while you could look back and say, well, that's that's one of the things I should have recognized, I didn't. But people of our type, somewhere along the line, must and do accept the obsession that someday, somewhere, I will find a way to control and enjoy my drinking.

And people say, why do you worry so much about your drinking? I don't know, but I'm gonna find a Why would you want to have to find a way? Because for people like me, I can't live like that. It's too unpleasant and uncomfortable. And when I drink, it's not that way.

And I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I drink because I'm a feeler, and I'm gonna find a way to do it. And they have that funny little paragraph in there that sometimes people laugh at, but they're not funny at all. Drinking wine, always drinking at home, try never drinking at home, try never try to get physical exercise, read spiritual literature, drink beer only, change from one kind of boost to another. All the things you do, trying to find the formula, and, should have let your eyes go down again.

Occasional brief recoveries followed always by still worse relapse. Then he get to that stage of, god, what a testy, touching little things, pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization? You think that's how drunk you get. That is how drunk you get at all. That's how you feel after you sober up.

Pitiful and in because they want answers and I got no answers and I'm just as baffled as anybody. Leave me alone. And, next time it'll be different. I'll I'll I'll quit tricking. That's what I'll do.

I'll quit tricking. One day, I'll watch it this time. Because drinking makes for me, makes good times better and bad times good. That's all. That's why I drink.

I'm not a drinker. I'm a feeler, and you don't understand so to help with you. When I was sent to my 1st day meeting in 1949, that's a long time ago. I was 22 and I'd had after I've been the merchant name for all, I went to the United States Navy and I was end of the war as a naval hospital. I've been sewn together and passed around some tests that I've I did very well in the test, so they gave me high school diploma because I still never graduated from high school.

And went to college after the war and went out in the world, became a sports writer. And, all these years I drank heavily, and then have carrage than the young guys can do. And, I was having some problems getting in beefs, and so somebody suggest I go to this thing called a a because this was a new thing in town and some of the old town drunks were even cutting down on their drinking. But I remember going in there. I had, you know, I was 22.

I didn't know there wasn't anybody within 20 years of that that whole state yet. And, remember the guy looked at me and said, what the hell are you doing here? So I they told me to come. You think you're an alcoholic? No.

I'm never alcoholic. So what do you think? How there's wrong with you? I tried to be honest with you. I think I'm too sensitive.

I never told anybody that for a long time. But that's an interesting phenomenon too because in those days, there weren't any young people. Now there's a lot of young people in AA. And you wonder, how could it be young people in AA? How could these old people be around?

Because you and it turns out it isn't it isn't how long you drank, it's when it begins to have that special effect for you. But, you could sit in a meeting and some some old guy you have to say, I drank for 40 years. And he looks in the front row and there's some little kid about 22, and he said, as if to say, how can you be an alcoholic, you little puke? I drank longer than you've been alive. And he doesn't know the little puke is looking at him thinking, if you're any kind of an alcoholic, how do you last 40 years, you old son of a bitch?

It turns out it isn't how long you drink. It's when it begins to make the scale go away to do that a special effect when you need it to fill a hole. And I, I stood in the street corner in Los Angeles. I was an old man. I was 31, but I was an old man.

My life was behind me. Wife and children gone. Life gone. Occupation gone. Career gone.

I'd never get another job, they told me because I'd screwed up so many bad bad times. And, I would have bet my life. I could have put a light detector in my arm and said, are you an alcoholic? I said, not really. Because I knew what an alcoholic was.

If you're a dude tonight, you already know what an alcoholic is. Alcoholics are people whose problem is alcohol. You come to a 8, admit your problem is alcohol, and then you feel better and you return to God, you live happily ever after. Or happier anyway. And I knew that wasn't for me because my problem is not alcohol, and if God exists, I am damned.

So, I cannot ever return to God. You talking about God if you want it, but don't tell me about it. And, it doesn't work for people like me. That's why I'm not an alcoholic. So that's why it got strange to find myself standing here tonight.

I've come here at tremendous expense and no little inconvenience. So I can stand here and say a strange thing happened to me. Next week it'll be 46 years since I stood in that street corner in the rain. And I would have bet my life that day, and thereafter, there was no help for me. And I knew I knew more about AA than the people who's trying to help me.

I'd read the book and I'd been to meetings and all these idiots in the turn it over, keep it green, remember when, you are not alone. No, but I'm gonna be soon. So I just for a few minutes wanna talk tonight a little bit about what changed my life. Maybe it helped somebody here, maybe it won't. Who cares?

I'll be gone tomorrow. Not really, but it makes me sound tough to. I walked off that street because I had to get out of the rain, my mouth was bleeding from the teeth being out and I walked 72 blocks in the rain to an a club where I was gonna try to hustle some money. And I, had a little bad luck there and I wound up sleeping in an abandoned car in the a club parking lot and going to meetings in this damn club where all these had these signs all up and those hideous steps again. If you are like me, I'll tell you.

The first three steps of a 8 can keep you out of a 8 till you die. I mean, if you got if you're like me, feelings insensitive and misunderstood, hurt, and self pitying, how you gonna overcome it? You're gonna admit that your problem is alcohol, and therefore your life is screwed up, then you're gonna return to God. He's gonna make you sane. Then you're gonna turn your life over to God.

Hooray. Hooray. Shit. That doesn't work for people who are cursed with the ability to think. Well, I hung around this club for a while and I was, I'm getting tired of Now, I also, you know, I used to thought what is serious of funny little things that had to happen for me to be here.

I used to see him a movie actor came into the meet meetings. And I I now know that he was not a very good movie actor. It hadn't been made. I've been in more movies in the last few years than he ever was, but I didn't know that at the time when I oh. And if he had a if he was a movie actor, I knew he had to be having some wealth somewhere.

And these old guys were saying to me, I'm just trying to stay in this club because it rained day after day and I stayed in there to gather the rain and hustle a little bit, but I could. But they said, get a sponsor. Get a sponsor. That's the trouble with these activist groups. They wanna get get a sponsor.

So that, I'll get this movie actor and we'll share his fame and fortune. And I'll set them up, I'll get some teeth, I'll get some clothes, I'll go back to New York, I'll be sober, my eyes are clear, I'll say, well, yes, I used to drink and have troubles, but now I've learned my lesson. Give me a job on probation. I'll work for nothing till you see what I can do. I'll do a wonderful job.

I'll make some money. I'll come back to Los Angeles one day. I'll come to this club. I'll buy this club and I'll burn her down. You know, not much of a motive really for sobriety, but enough.

So I said, it's gotta be my sponsor. He said, yeah. But I want you to do it, I tell you. Oh, sure, Bob. And I found out later he didn't like me.

He didn't I found out he really didn't like me. It made me feel bad at first, but I realized now he shouldn't have liked me. I was the worst type of newcomer that ever comes to AA. And that is a long term slipper who already knows all about AA. God, they're a sickening bunch.

I've had a few of them. I think you're misquoting the book there, aren't you? And God has given me 2 or 3 of those the last few years to punish me for being my bad behavior. But, but he tried to help me. He take me with him a couple of times to hear him talk and he talked to me.

I heard him say something along the line and that it seems so odd to me. He said something I assured him tell somebody. He said, you know, as long as you think your problem was alcohol, you're gonna die drunk. And the way I'm like, what the hell is that about Bob? He's, well, that's you know, a lot of people think their problem's out while they have a lot of problems.

I said, oh, what is the problem, Bob? Too much white flour for Christ's sake? What is it? You know? But now, look.

And over the next few days, he gave me an explanation off and on. They'd be long lectures about how see now, if your problem is alcohol, you're wasting your time going to AA. AA doesn't, can't help people like you. You have no problem. Well, what is the problem?

He said, no. There's an answer for people with an alcohol. I said, what is the answer, Bob? He said, you quit drinking. I said, that's stupid.

That's stupid. I've done that a 100 times. It doesn't work. He said, that's right. That's because your problem isn't alcohol, apparently.

You have something else. Something that sounds like alcohol that may kill you. I said, what is it, Bob? He said, there's something called alcoholism. I said, oh my god.

Don't play word games with me. I look terrible, but I'm a smart guy. Alcohol, alcoholism. And you spend a lot of time explaining the difference, but it could be synthesized in one sentence. But I would think it was the cornerstone of my life, really.

An alcohol problem is overcome by stopping drinking and cleaning up your act. Apparently, there are some types of alcoholics who can do that. But in this particular form of alcoholism, which unfortunately for you and me, looks almost exactly the same to the naked eye. It's mind consuming, perception distorting, bodily eroding thing called alcoholism. You will discover sooner or later, if you haven't discovered yet, that stopping drinking and cleaning up your act has no significant long term effect on your life other than to gradually make it so painful you can't stand it.

I said, Jesus, Bob. If it if alcohol does that bad thing to you, why do people drink it then? Is that the whole point kid? People think alcohol does something bad for them. That's way down the road.

That isn't what makes alcoholics. People never seem to understand around here. What makes an alcoholic is that alcohol, the special effect is it has to do something special for you that it doesn't do for most people. And you don't even know it. That it's almost instantly changing your perception of reality as soon as you drink.

Changes your relationship to the to the world around you. Makes me taller and more self contained, and them smaller and less frightening. I remember thinking, Jesus, Bob. What's wrong with that? He says, because it isn't really happening kid.

You're just fantasizing now. And you're out of whack step with everybody. And also, set up that damn thing called the phenomenon of craving for people, I guess. I don't understand it. Nobody else does, but it sets it up.