29th Annual San Diego Roundup in San Diego, CA

My name is Jack, and I am an alcoholic. Amen, Jack. This is some church basement you got here, Ted. I am a, member of the Hagerstown group of Alcoholics Anonymous. Cleverly named, don't you think?

We are the 3rd oldest group in the state of Maryland. We meet on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. We do a big book on Mondays, steps on Thursday, and open discussion or anniversaries on Saturday. If you're in Hagerstown, come see us. I kind of, was interested in the way Ted characterized the speakers.

He said we've had some really good ones thus far. I know you got a great one tomorrow and I agree with thus far. I wanna thank the committee for, inviting me to be here. I guess, maybe more specifically, I wanna thank the committee for allowing Mike, to invite me to be here. I think it's important that you know who is responsible for my being here, because if, if I say anything that offends you in the next two and a half hours, you take it up with Mike because, he's the one who invited me.

So, I, I'm gonna put my, watch up here, not because I can see it or pay any attention to it. I just think it gives hope to the newcomer, and I think that's important. I think it's real important that, you probably all know this, but in case somebody gets hold of a CD or a tape of this lead, that that you know that I am not a spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous nor am I an expert on Alcoholics Anonymous. Actually, there's even some confusion about why I'm even here, and not the least of which is they usually have a good speaker on Saturday night, and not this year, but maybe next year. My, my mom is, gonna be 91 years old in 10 days.

And, I talked to her thank you. I talked to her earlier this evening, and my mother is is very confused as to why you all would invite me to be here with you this evening. My mom was married to my alcoholic father for 30 years, and she knows what an alcoholic is. And my mom tells me I'm not an alcoholic, and I wanna listen to my mom. Part of my confusion about why I'm invited here is because and I want you to know, if I'd have known that this had so much so much cache, I would have tried a lot harder, but I have never been to prison.

I have never been to jail. I've never had a drunk driving arrest, or a driving under the influence arrest. I've never, never lost a job because of my drinking. My wife is here this evening, and if I don't screw this thing up, we'll be married 40 years come, August. You may wanna give her a chip for that after I finish this chat.

She's, here this evening and in her capacity as lie detector. So, if you see her jump jump up, you know something's going on. So I I don't have any multiple marriages as a result of drinking. Drinking. I I don't even have a good tattoo.

And, so, you're probably just as confused as my mother as to why I'm here, and we'll try to, allay some of that confusion. I said that my wife and I are gonna be married 40 years come August if, if I don't screw this thing up. I wanna introduce, 3 people to you who are very near and dear to us. My wife and I, were introduced on a blind date. My roommate from college married her roommate from college, and they fixed us up at the University of Maryland on a blind date.

And I'd like you to welcome, our good friends, Joyce and Tom, and their son, Matt, who are seated down front here. Quite frankly, when we were, when we were in college and I was, just getting started in this drinking business, I always thought if I ever got as bad as Tom, I was gonna quit. And, don't you know? He quit anyway, you know? And, he's not even one of us.

Can't believe it. I don't know, Tom, you should've hung in there, man. I think you could've made it. I really do. My dad as I said was an alcoholic and here's an event that happened in my life that was, which will you'll see played an important role in my life.

I was 14 years old, my mom and my sister were out for the evening, and my dad and I were home alone. And he was trying to get me to do something that I didn't wanna do, and as I as hard as it is, I know for some of you to believe, I was somewhat stubborn stubborn and hard headed, even as a 14 year old, and I refused to do what my father wanted me to do until he started to negotiate with me. And he said, son, if you'll do this thing for me, I'll do whatever you want me to do. What is it, son, that you'd want me to do? And I said, dad, I'd like you to quit drinking.

And he thought about that for a minute, and he said, you know, you're absolutely right. Drinking is causing us a lot of trouble. Your mom's after me to quit drinking, and I think the business would go better if I wasn't drinking. So, okay. I'll I'll make that deal with you, son.

I'm gonna quit drinking. I gotta tell you, I was just ecstatic. I had been praying to God that my father would stop drinking. And this was an answer to prayer. Absolutely.

And when my mom and my sister got home that night, I met him at the front door, and I told him, our troubles are over. Dad and I have had a talk. He has agreed to quit drinking, and joy reigns supreme in our house that night. I know my mom had been praying that my dad would quit drinking. I know my sister had been praying.

There was a God, and he was loving and caring and gracious, and he had granted our petition. And the next day, my dad got drunk. And I closed the door on God. I didn't wanna have anything to do with a God that would play fast and loose with the feelings of a family like that. I didn't know why, but apparently I was unworthy.

Certainly my prayers were unworthy, and I didn't wanna have anything to do with a God that was like that. I know if I was ever gonna be anything in this world, if I was ever gonna make anything of myself in this world, it was gonna have to be all me, all by myself, on my own. And I set out to do so. It wasn't very long after that that I was introduced to beverage alcohol for the first time, and my guess is that it that it did for me very much what it did for you, if you're alcoholic. I mean, I I always felt a little out place.

I always felt that, I was the odd person in the room. But, with a couple of drinks, I mean, I could do things that I had no ability to do, when I was not drinking. I mean, I could engage in social conversations. I could talk to people. More importantly, I could talk to girls.

And, and I could dance. I mean, drinking, I could dance. Not drinking, I could not dance. Joyce, remember I won that dance contest in college? You bet.

We were terrific. I digress. I could, I thought I could sing. Not as good as Angie, mind you, but I thought I could sing. I heard somebody from the podium not long ago say that when they drank, the pimples fell off and their boobs got big.

I had the pimple experience, I did not have the boob experience. But alcohol for me was the elixir of life. It was a solution to life's problems. I where have they been keeping this stuff? I mean, I no wonder my father drank.

I mean, I did feel sorry for him that he couldn't control it, but but my goodness, I this is this is it for me, buddy. And I'm gonna do this as often as I can, as much as I can, whenever I can. And that became a real controlling thing in my life. I didn't know it then. I certainly know it now.

I, an indication that, maybe there was something going wrong from the very beginning is I spent 5 years in high school. I'd like to think it was a result of a series of bad breaks and misunderstandings. But as I look back on it now, it would appear that alcohol had a lot to do with it. I got thrown out of a lot of classes in school, I got sent away for a little while, for 18 months, but they released me early. And I came back to high school, 18 years of age, which made me the most popular guy in my senior class, because you could buy beer in West Virginia at 8 18.

And, we only live about 10 miles from West Virginia. So, when, I started community college in, one summer, my good friend and I, had determined we wanted to go to California. We were gonna take a road trip. And so we had packed up my car, we had 12 cases of beer in my car, and we had a little overnight bag, each of us. Everything you need to have to drive to California.

So, I had quit my job. I had a pocket full of money, and the night before we were to leave to go to California, my friend's father wouldn't let him go. And, so what's a guy to do when he's quit his job, got a pocket full of money, and a car full of beer? Well, if you're in Maryland, you may know that Maryland has a little strip of its eastern border on the Atlantic Ocean, and that is, we have a a town there called Ocean City. And so I went down to Ocean City, and in Ocean City, I had friends who were working there.

They were working in hotels, so they let me sleep in the basement for free. I had friends who were working in restaurants, and they let me eat leftover restaurant food. And so all of my time, effort, and energy was focused on drinking those 12 cases of beer in my car, and then spending the money that I had to buy whatever I needed, to re refurbish my supply. I enjoyed my I I was living like a bum in Ocean City is what I was doing. But, I was a keen observer of the social scene, and I I decided that I really would like to go to work in Ocean City.

And, that's, that was what I was going to do the next summer, but the the question was what kind of job would I get? And I can tell you this, if you go to Ocean City, it doesn't make any difference if you're an if you're a lifeguard or a beach boy, a waiter or a waitress, a bartender, it does not make any difference. If you drank like I drank and acted like I acted, they would arrest you. And I noticed there was one group of people who were working in Ocean City who were not getting arrested, and they were the Ocean City policemen. So I became an Ocean City policeman the following year.

They assigned me a boardwalk beat, and I had only been working for a couple of days when it became clear that I possess a singularly unique talent, and that is I can spot an underage drinker from at least a 100 yards. And I would spot one of these underage drinkers, and I would approach them, and I would determine that indeed, in fact, looking at their false ID that they were in fact underage, and then we begin the discussion about what was in the cooler. And, of course, you open up the lid of the cooler, and there displayed, laid out a neat rose, are the Coca Colas or the Pepsis, maybe a little tuna fish and a loaf of bread. But I think you know and I know that when you reach way down in the bottom of that cooler, out comes the Budweiser. And when that Budweiser comes out, everything changes.

Because you see, you thought you were gonna go to college, but you're not, you're going to jail. You thought you were gonna go into the United States Army, but you're not. You're going to jail. We're gonna call your parents at 3 AM to come down here to get you out of jail. Your life is over as you know it.

Somewhere in that conversation, one of these folks would generally say something like, couldn't we come up with some alternative to this? Well, what did you what is it to you were gonna suggest? And, officer, couldn't you just confiscate the beer? Confiscate the beer. Well, if I take the beer, I'm gonna have to take the cooler.

If I take the cooler, I'm gonna take the tuna fish and, you know, the Coca Cola. You can have it all. Well, okay, but I'm gonna write your name down here and don't you ever do this again. Now you cannot walk a beat and drag coolers full of beer around behind you. So I had to work out an arrangement with my lieutenant and my sergeant, and that was, I would call them, they'd come with the squad car, they'd take the cooler, they'd give it to me at the end of my shift, and if I happened to come up with any wine or whiskey, they got the wine and whiskey.

That was a good arrangement for both of us, and it worked out really well. I didn't get arrested that summer. I didn't have to buy anything to drink that summer. I drank every day that summer, and that's my definition of a good summer at Ocean City. I had such a good time, I went back for a second year, they gave me a squad car.

You can do a lot of damage with a squad car. First of all, you don't have to rely on your lieutenant and your sergeant so much, because you got your own very big trunk, and you can get a lot of coolers in there. Made me very popular with my fraternity brothers. They would come down to Ocean City for the weekend. Jack's rent a cooler business was available, we were open.

And you didn't even have to return the cooler because I had plenty of coolers. No problem. Again, I had a good summer. Didn't get arrested, didn't buy anything to drink all summer, drank every day. So why not come back for a 3rd year?

I came back for a 3rd year. I'm gonna tell you an event right now that changed the course of my life. You probably had such benchmarks in your life. This one I can point to and say, this really made a difference. I was working a midnight to 8 shift.

It was 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. I stopped a car on the beach highway for drunk driving. The driver was obviously drunk. I was writing up the ticket for drunk driving, and he looked up at me and he said, you don't know who I am, do you, officer? I said, no.

I don't. He said, well, I am the state's attorney for Worcester County, the county you're standing in right now. Well, I'm a college kid. I didn't have any idea what a state's attorney was or what they did. So I said, well, good for you, sign the ticket.

And he signed the ticket, and there was a fellow in the car who appeared to be sober, so he drove, and away they went. At 8 o'clock that morning, I pulled into the parking lot at the, city hall where the Ocean City Police Department was located, and there standing in the parking lot was the chief of police. And as I exited my, cruiser, he said, Quarterman, he said, come up to my office and bring that uniform citation book with you. Well, these were the first words the chief had spoken to me all summer. Seemed to me I was gonna be getting some recognition for a job well done, Long overdue recognition, I might add.

So, I went up to his office and much to my surprise, as I walked into his office, seated on the couch right inside the door was the guy I gave the ticket to at at 3 o'clock in the morning. Chief said, give me that ticket book. I handed him the ticket book, he flipped it open to the ticket I'd written, he handed it to the guy on the sofa, the guy on the sofa reached in his coat, he took out a pen, and he wrote across the face of that ticket, case dismissed. It was at that moment I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. And and if I could be one of those state's attorneys, the ability to dismiss traffic charges with a stroke of a pen were gonna come in mighty handy.

So I went to law school. Law school interfered with my drinking somewhat, but I did, I did graduate from law school, and I went back to my hometown of Hagerstown to practice law. I'd only been there a very short period of time. Then it became apparent that the state's attorney's office was advertising for an assistant state's attorney. So I rushed right over.

And, I said, here I am, I'm the answer to your prayers. Where do you want me, to sign up? But when should I start work? Now, what I'm about to share with you is what I think they said to me. I know some of you understand that that much of what I think happened in my life never really happened.

That that much of what I have I I think I've heard people say to me has never been said to me. I just thought it was said to me. But this is what I thought I heard them say. Something like, what? What?

You just got out of law school, are you some kind of idiot? You've never tried a case, you've never interviewed a witness, you've never selected a jury, get out of the office. That's what I thought I heard them say. Now upon reflection, I believe they said something like, the position has been filled. But I heard what I heard, and I walked out of there angered.

Now having been an Alcoholics Anonymous, I recognize that what I really had was a resentment, And there's nothing like an alcoholic with a good resentment. And in our community, I'm sure very much like your community, we elect our state's attorneys, so I went out and found a lawyer who wanted to be state's attorney. I ran his campaign for state's attorney. He was elected state's attorney, and he made me deputy state's attorney. Well, I hadn't been in that office 10 minutes and I discovered we had a serious problem, and that was we had no badges.

And there's no point in being a state's attorney if you don't have a badge. So I designed a really great badge for the state's attorney's office and when you get a badge, you get a badge case. And so it you put that badge in there and it's got this clear glass in place where you drop your driver's license. So when they pull you over and they ask to see that license and registration, you just hold up that badge case with your driver's license in it. They don't look at that driver's license, they look at that badge.

What kind of badge is that? Deputy state's attorney, Washington County. No problem officer. No. I certainly I understand.

Yes. You I I'll slow it down. No. No. And I'll only go on a couple more blocks here, so no.

I'm almost home. No, sir, I'm not no. I understand you're just doing your job. I really appreciate the professional courtesy. Thank you so much.

Good night. Now you're probably getting some insight into why I don't have any DUI arrests on my record. Well, my boss state's attorney, was going to be appointed circuit court judge, and this was a good thing, I thought, because if he got to be circuit court judge, I was gonna get appointed state's attorney. I don't know how it is in California, but back in Maryland sometimes, the State Senator sticks his nose in where it doesn't belong and screws everything up. And that's what happened in this instance, and my friend, the state's attorney, didn't get appointed judge at all.

Some other guy got appointed judge. And I was upset by that. Not so much that my friend didn't get to be appointed judge, but because he didn't get appointed judge, I didn't get to be state's attorney. I don't know about you. I may not be much, but I'm all I think about.

So one night, sitting around talking about the injustice of this whole situation with a couple of like minded friends having a few adult beverages, it was determined that somebody ought to run against that state senator. So I ran for the state senate. I didn't know that the State Senator was gonna, run off with the secretary from the Appropriations Committee and abandon his wife and children and move to Florida, but he did, and I got elected state senator. Now in Maryland, when you get elected State Senator, they give you a license plate. And on that license plate it says state senator.

Now this is an aid in efficient law enforcement because when they come up behind you on the interstate with those overheads gone, and they get close enough to see that license plate, they turn those overheads out. They pull up alongside, they turn that interior dome light on, and they toot. Beep beep. Hi, center. Hi, trooper.

Hold it down, senator. Okay, trooper. And that way, you don't have, you don't have the state police tied up along the side of the highway when they could be out really arresting real criminals. I'd like to tell you about my legislative experience in Annapolis, but, well, we have a group of people in Annapolis, our state capital, I'm sure very much like your state capital, Sacramento, whose only purpose, for being is to make sure that any member of the House or Senate who has a desire to get something to drink alcoholic is able to do so. And these people are called lobbyists.

And I had a lot of friends who were lobbyists. So anything that I would say to you about my legislative experience would be primarily hearsay and stuff that other people had told me, which I don't know if it's true or not. And I don't like to spread rumors in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, that guy that got appointed judge, he didn't like the job, and he didn't stay in it very long, and, and he resigned. And so I went to the governor, and I said, governor, I'd like you to I mean, I'm a state senator now, buddy, so I'd like you to appoint my friend, the state's attorney.

I'd like you to appoint him judge. And the governor said, well, Senator, we're very still very upset about all that adverse publicity that was generated back in that dust up, several years ago. And so I'm not gonna appoint your guy judge. But if you'd like to be circuit court judge, I'll appoint you. Well, in Maryland, it's a 15 year term, and I was in a community that only had 2 judges, so it doesn't come around all that often, so I became a circuit court judge.

Scary, isn't it? I want you to know that under my leadership as circuit court judge, Alcoholics Anonymous enjoyed a tremendous membership increase. Big spike in membership, because, you remember, I got that alcoholic father, and I know what to do with alcoholics, so I sent him all the alcoholics anonymous. I was responsible for a lot of that growth in our community. Now keep it in mind now, I'm drinking alcoholic all through this.

All through this. I loved drinking. I loved everything about drinking. I loved the ambiance of drinking. I loved the appropriate glass for the appropriate drink.

You know, those tall, thin Tom Collins glasses frosted, those cold tankers that they pull out of the freezer for the beer, you know? You know those shaped martini glasses? Those big olives with those big pits that you can only get in a large double martini. I loved everything about drinking. I did, however, have a bad gin experience one time, and to this day it's hard for me to go into a pine forest.

I, I loved I loved Jack Daniels' black label on crushed ice with a twist of lemon. There are some of my people right out there. That was to die for. Absolutely. However, if you thrust a brown paper bag my way and said, here, take a pull on this, I wouldn't ask you what's in there.

Because there's no point in asking you, because you wouldn't have shoved it towards me if it wasn't good. So I'd take a pull on it, and, oh, man, that's good. Whew, good stuff. What is that? And you know how you have, you have a barbecue over at the house, or some folks in to play poker or whatever, and you're cleaning up afterwards, and you got the beer cans around.

And this one's this one's about half full. You know? Man, what was that, cigarette butt? I I thought there were some cigarette butt drinkers in here. Yep.

Yep. I loved everything about drinking. I saw no reason not to drink. I had no problem drinking. Other people might have had a problem with my drinking, but I'm a circuit court judge, so I got no problem with it.

We had, to give me some idea of how cooperative I tried to be with our bar association, they were having a continuing legal education program on the prosecution and defense of drunk driving. And the prosecutors will talk about, their objects in the prosecutor's case. Defense attorney's gonna talk about how they defend against drunk driving. Sergeant Long was there, he had his breathalyzer. The only thing they needed was a volunteer to drink the beer.

Somebody who was impartial, unbiased, fair minded. In 1982, a lawyer and I were going out, stated purpose was we were going out to dinner. But, this was one of those occasions that he and I had determined that we were gonna go out and you were just gonna get drunk. Not one of those situations where you find yourself being struck drunk by accident. This was deliberate.

We were gonna get drunk. We were gonna get snot flying drunk. That's what we were doing. We were gonna be drunk, and we did a good job of it. And, we ended up in a place where, a local, cocktail lounge, which was frequented by most of not all of the recently separated, divorced, single, best looking women in Washington County.

We went in there just to get a nightcap, just to have a little something before we went home. And I gotta tell you if, if I had known that this was going to be my last drink, I would've ordered something different. If if I had known I was gonna have to come to San Diego and confess this in front of all you, believe me I would've ordered something different. It is with a great deal of embarrassment that I tell you that my last drink was Tia Maria. I know.

I know. Pretty weenie drink. I'll grant you that. In my defense, however, I will say that I'm pretty sure that that drink came from a tainted bottle. And the reason I know it was tainted was because I got sick to my stomach driving home.

Now I understand that sometimes you get sick to your stomach, like if you're drinking at 10, 11 o'clock, and you go out behind a broad ax and throw up behind a dumpster, and you go back in and you continue drinking. Because throwing up is part of drinking. I know that. And sometimes on Saturday mornings, most Saturdays actually, hugging that toilet in the, in the bathroom on my knees. That's part of drinking, that Saturday morning thing.

I understand that. By the way, anybody is is there anybody who's found anything to compare with the cool feel of porcelain on your cheek? Oh my God. A year ago at Christmas, I I apparently I ate something that disagreed with me and I found myself with an upset stomach and I was laying there with my head rested against the toilet and I thought, oh, this feels so wonderful. Haven't done this for 23 years.

And all that came rushing back. But anyway, I got sick going home, so I'm pretty sure it was a tainted bottle of Tia Maria. My wife is an elementary school teacher, and as you probably know, those elementary school children are just disease infested. And they bring every germ in the community into the school, and then my wife brings those germs home. And when I got up on Thursday morning, it was another one of those situations where I had gotten sick as a result of her bringing back a flu bug, And I got up, I got the flu.

And, but hey, we go to work. If we can get there, we go to work. And I went to work that day. The next day was, Good Friday, and, I was off work and, so I was home. I had the upset stomach that goes with flu.

By Saturday my condition was not any better, although by that time I developed that lower tract distress that you frequently experience with flu. And if you got lower tract distress and an upset stomach at the same time, that's gonna hone your decision making down to a very fine edge. Because it was never clear to me exactly whether I should be sitting or kneeling or kneeling or sitting. And my wife tells me at least one occasion that weekend, I made the wrong decision. Now you can you can talk to her about that after I'm finished, but I'm moving on.

I wasn't much better on Easter Sunday, and by Monday, they had taken me to the hospital because I was dehydrated from all of that kneeling and sitting that I've been doing. That night, they performed, emergency laparotomy on me because my abdomen was distended. They found my abdomen full of, peritonitis gangrene, and while they were trying to clear that up, my kidneys quit and my, pancreas was digesting itself and my liver was enlarged, and then my respiratory system quit. And so things weren't looking too good for the home team at that point. I spent 3 weeks in intensive care in the Hagerstown Hospital.

My, my condition was deteriorating. The doctors came and they said that they were gonna send me to Johns Hopkins, and I was very encouraged because I knew people who had gone to Johns Hopkins, and they had come home. And I knew people who had gone to the Washington County Hospital, and they had died. So since I wasn't doing very good in the Hagerstown Hospital, I thought Johns Hopkins sounded like a real good alternative. They told my wife, on the other hand, that they were sending me to Johns Hopkins to die.

That they had, there was nothing more that they could do for me in Hagerstown. They doubted that there was anything Hopkins could do for me. But if there was a slight chance of my survival, that's where they wanted to send me. Now if they had told me that, I would have been very discouraged by that, so I'm glad they didn't tell me. Got down to Hopkins, and for 2 weeks, they did everything but hang me by my thumbs.

They they did everything they knew to do. They presented me to the internal medicine department to get see if they could get a vote on what I had. They couldn't get a majority vote, for what my problem was. My belly button birthday is May 14th. On May 13th, these doctors came in to talk to me, and I, I just I said, before they could say anything, I said, I I I need a day of rest.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Please, for God's sake, just leave me alone for one day. And they said, well, judge, we we don't know what to tell. We don't know what else to do for you. We've done everything.

We we just don't know what to do for you. So yes, we came to tell you we're not gonna do anything tomorrow. And so on May 14, 1982, I turned 40 years old in the Johns Hopkins stationery store in Baltimore, and she purchased a form lease. And she filled it out, and it was a lease between me and god. And she gave it to me as a birthday present.

She said, here is your new lease on life. And 2 weeks later, I walked out of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. My kidney function returned. My, liver function was lining up, the way it was supposed to, my pancreas stopped digesting myself, they had taken me off the respirator before I got out of Hagerstown. And when you're in a hospital for 7 weeks like that, they wanna talk to you before they send you home because they wanna give you some do's and don'ts.

And, but if you've got an undiagnosed illness, they really don't know what to tell you about them do's and don'ts because they're not sure about what you had. And it was my position then, and it's still my position today, that it's much better to survive an undiagnosed illness than to die of a known cause. I was just getting to relieve the, leave those good doctors, they just told me don't get it again judge, it's likely to kill you. And as I was getting ready to walk out of their office, the one doctor said to me, judge, we got one more question I'm a I I'm a I'm a lawyer. Well, I was a lawyer, now I'm a judge.

I mean, when I was a lawyer I had to drink with clients, had to drink with other lawyers, had to drink with judges. Now I'm a judge, I gotta drink with other lawyers, I gotta drink with judges. It's a professional obligation. Of course I drank. How much?

Not too much. Why? Well, we would like you to not drink for a while, because alcohol really does a number on your kidneys, and your kidney functions return, but we don't know what's gonna happen if you drank alcohol again. And, you know, the kidneys, are one thing, but on top of that, you got, your liver. And, alcohol really does a number on the liver, and then of course there's your pancreas which was digesting itself, and alcohol does a number on the pancreas.

And we just think you should let those organs rest a while. How long do you want me to not drink? A year. A year. Well, I haven't had anything to drink since April 7th.

This is May 28th. I maybe maybe I can do that. Maybe. No, judge. They said, you don't understand.

This is Labor Day weekend, and we want you to not drink from June 1st, 1 year from June 1st. Now I know there are people in this room right now at this very moment who have already seized upon the injustice continuous sobriety. I want you to know I fought for those 7 weeks, And this argument broke out between these learned physicians and this knuckleheaded judge. And we reached a compromise and the compromise was I wouldn't drink until April 7th. And then if I thought the pain and suffering which I have just endured the past 7 weeks was in any way associated with the consumption of alcohol, then I could decide not to drink until June 1st.

And I left that hospital. I need to tell you that when I talk to people who are not in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I tell them about the the the the crime that they were trying to perpetrate by taking away my 7 weeks of continuous sobriety, Normal people don't laugh at that. They look at me like I'm crazy. And, of course, I am crazy. And that's one of the reasons I'm here tonight, because I'm crazy.

Which of course then calls into question your sanity because you're sitting in here listening to me. When I left the Johns Hopkins Hospital, I walked out into a world which I knew nothing about, a world without alcohol. In our book, it says, when you take alcohol away from an alcoholic, he becomes restless, irritable, and discontent. Well, I'll tell you, that's an understatement in my case. And I embarked upon the most incredible, most difficult, most insane experience of my entire life.

I had no program. I had nothing. I was not drinking and not changing, and I was going stark raving crazy. My wife and I separated 3 times when I was drinking. And after I stopped drinking, we separated 3 times.

I think that's a pretty clear indication that drinking had nothing to do with those separations. But I think alcoholism had everything to do with all 6 of those separations. Man, what a horrible, horrible way to live, not drinking, not changing. Well, I could not drink because I definitely didn't wanna end up like I'd been in that hospital. That just was not an option.

Drinking was not an option. So what's a fella to do in that situation? What do we do when we can't go back to drinking? While we go for the fast suicide option. Can't do the slow suicide option?

Go for the fast suicide option. Our sheriff had shot himself to death, in the basement of our courthouse, and I felt that maybe if I shot myself on the top floor of the courthouse, that would give some symmetry to the building. That's my best thinking. I didn't look at it as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. As far as I was concerned, I had a permanent problem.

I could never drink again, and I could not stand living like this. If not shooting myself, then how about a bridge abutment, accidental death? That would be that would be good. That would be a good way to go. Youngest circuit court judge in the state of Maryland killed tragically in accident.

I could see those headlines. 2 friends of mine, Bob and Ken, active members of Alcoholics Anonymous, saw that I was dying of untreated alcoholism. My dad, my alcoholic father, on July 3, 1968 was walking by a Methodist church in Agerstown, and the pastor put on the message board outside, don't buy a 5th on the 3rd for the 4th. My dad went to Alcoholics Anonymous that night, and he never drank again. And he was an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he died with 15 years of continuous sobriety in this program.

And I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Alcoholics Anonymous for my father's life. I carry his, 15 year chip with my 24 year chip, And I hope in some some way, he knows tonight that I'm trying to give back to Alcoholics Anonymous, in some small way, to repay the debt that I owed Alcoholics Anonymous for my father's sobriety. He lost everything of value in his life, everything of meaning. He lost that 30 year marriage to my mom. He lost my respect.

He lost the respect of my sister. When my sister got married, he was not invited to the wedding because she was afraid he would come drunk, and I gave her away. He lost the opportunity to give his only away in marriage because of alcoholism. And he showed up at that wedding, and he showed up drunk. And, you know, he came to Alcoholics Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous gave him back his dignity, gave him back his worth as a man, and he became a man of integrity, the man God had created him to be all along.

Now Bob Bob knew did not know my dad personally, but he knew my dad had died with 15 years of sobriety. And Bob said to me, Jack, you know, we got this book in Alcoholics Anonymous. We call it the big book. Maybe you'd like to read that and find out about your father's illness. Clever guy there, Bob.

I think we all know if he'd have said anything remotely close to, we'd like you to read it so you'd find out about what's wrong with you. I wouldn't have touched it with a 10 foot pole, because there's nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm not drinking. Alcoholics drink.

I'm not drinking. Ergo, not alcoholic. Everybody knows that. Mind your own damn business. Leave me the hell alone.

I'm just fine. Little prickly maybe, but fine. Well, I read the, the book that, Bob wanted me to read, and not surprisingly, of course, my father is in there. And my father's in there because alcoholic, he's a real alcoholic as described in the big book, so he belongs in there. The thing that came as a big surprise to me was, it says in that book, many of us at an early age close the door on god.

And you remember I told you what happened when I was 14 years old, and I thought I was the only one who'd experienced something like that. And how could they put that in a book written before I was born? And then there's a thing in Bill's story where it talks about how he would, go into the bar, swear he's not gonna have anything to drink tonight, and then whiskey rising to his head, my God, I've done it again. Oh well, I might as well just stay here and get good, you know, good and drunk. How many times did I go into the broad act saying, I'm not gonna have anything to drink tonight, nothing to drink tonight.

Well, maybe 1, no more than 2. And I tell my wife I was gonna be home by 6 no later than 7. And at 9 o'clock, I'm still sitting there, And they've had dinner now. And she's putting the children to bed, and there's no point in going home now and having a row, so I'll just stay here till closing time. How many times did I do that?

I'd like to say I only did it once or twice, but before I got sick, I was doing that almost every day of every week, of every month, of every year. Yeah, I'm in that big book. I had to concede to Ken and Bob that well maybe, just possibly, there was a slight, slight possibility I had a mild, very mild case of alcoholism. We caught it just in time. Just in time.

And Bob and Ken would come to my chambers on Fridays, and they would bring their big book and their brown bag lunch. And we would read the big book together, and they would tell me of the importance of what we had read, and I would explain to them the true meaning of what we had read. Bob and Ken were carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous as it had been carried to them. They gave it to me straight from the shoulder. They didn't sugarcoat it.

They didn't twist it. They just gave it to me from the big book because they knew that I didn't know, And I had no idea that they knew something that I didn't know, and I had no idea that they knew that I didn't know that that that they knew something that I didn't know. Because if I'd had known that they knew something that I didn't know, that they knew that I didn't know, I'd have been very upset by that. But they were persistent and consistent in carrying this message to me. And then one day, finally, I came to realize that actually they knew something that I didn't know, but by that time I knew what it was that I that they knew that I didn't know.