The 14th Reno Spring Festival in Sparks, NV

So now I'd like to proudly introduce Jack H. From San Jose. Hi, everybody. I'm Jack Holt, an alcoholic. God.

I'm glad to be here. You guys got any prayers left? Say them for me because I'm up here by myself. That's all right. Great Scott.

What a crowd. Beautiful. Beautiful. I'd like to welcome the newcomers myself. You're in a you're a special group to us.

All the new people and all the old people too, you know. But the new ones especially, you're among friends. You're among people with deep understanding of your problem. If it's alcohol, and if it wasn't, I doubt if you'd be here. Like I said, I'm an alcoholic, and I can remember spending So I did that and naturally I wound up here.

Anyone has to spend count years of countless vain attempts trying to control their alcohol winds up in a place like this or worse, you know, because that's just how it is. I came here a long time ago. In fact, there's a couple of my babies here tonight. One of them said to me the other day, you've been dry as a damn long that you're a fire hazard. So I didn't have anything to say to that.

I just brushed it off lightly. A little bit of what I used to be like, 1st 9 years of my life I was stone sober. I didn't have a drink. And the first time I ever got drunk, I got drunk helping my dad bottle home brew. I come from a family of Tennessee farmers, and from no alcoholics in it that I know of, I'm the only alcoholic in my family.

However, you know, farmers do make alcoholics too, or alcoholics make farmers. I don't know which. But I'm here tonight to tell you that first 9 years of my life I was sober, and I didn't have another drink after that because I got too damn sick until I was 14 years old. And I was at a dance, and I was and I was bashful, and I was all these kind of things that a young man is when he's 14 years old. So I had a couple of shots of white lightning.

Anybody don't know what that is? That's Tennessee terrapin spit. So I had some of that. And I felt 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall. Things got to going then.

I'll tell you right now, I became a dancer. I never danced before in my life. I became a singer. I never sang before in my life. I became any damn thing you wanted me to be, and I've never been anything before in my life.

That's what alcohol does to an alcoholic, so you know how how early I was an alcoholic. So at at the age of 15 years old, I was in another one of these dances to more of that white lightning from a different bootlegger. And I take 2 or or 3 starts of that, and I damn near died. I passed out right then and there. It was poison.

And my dad come to get me because, I was sick. I was dying. And he went and got the doctor. And the doctor came out, and they shoved and crammed pure lard down my throat till I vomited. That's how in the way they had to give that because they didn't have stomach pumps in those days.

So I don't like grease till today, even right now. No use for it at all. Hell, you can take your lard and stick it. I don't want it. But it never occurred to me to stop drinking.

Not once. I said I will not drink any hard liquor for 6 months. I shall drink Tennessee homebrew. Well, you take a quirk out of a bottle of Tennessee homebrew and blue smoke a kernel in the air 4 feet. Four bottles of that, you're scratching your watch and winding your ass and wondering where you are.

We're gonna soar with the Eagles tonight, kids. Not gonna be any of that sewer crap. You're gonna ride to high places. See the good things. They're for us.

You're damn right they are. So I drank Tennessee Homebrew for 6 months and went back to hard liquor in both of them. Then I had 2 things to drink. That was worse. At the age of 18 years old, I went to my dad and said, dad, I'm gonna join the Navy.

He says, get the papers. I'll sign them. He didn't give me any argument at all. Because I had been an alcoholic then, I did all the things that you could do drinking. So I became a member of the Navy in 1939 on January 25th.

I went to Norfolk, Virginia for boot camp. Anybody ever been to Norfolk, Fork, Virginia? I'll tell you right now that's a hell of a place to be if you're a if you're a sailor. Because my God, I'll tell you right now in those days they had signs all over the place, sailors and dogs stay off the grass. Well, being a sailor and a rebel, I got on the grass.

You know? And all I I was born a rebel. I came into this world a rebel. I'm still a rebel in spite of all the things that I've learned. So I became a member of the United States Navy, and I shipped around here to this great coast of California in 1939, and went to the world's fair in 1939 on Treasure Island in San Francisco, and I was introduced to your wine that you make here in this country, and I found out you get just drunk on that than anything else.

So I've had 3 things to drink then. Christ. I was getting better. You know? So I was here for a year.

I went to my executive officer, sir, I'd like to transfer to China. He says the papers will be ready tomorrow. He didn't give me any argument at all. So in 1940, I landed in Hong Kong, China, the utopia of the alcoholic in those days. You could buy good booze at a dollar a quip a quart and bad booze at 50¢ a gallon.

And some of that Samshu wish you that they that they, pickled lizards in, you get that for $4 for 15 gallons, I guess. I don't know. But, anyway, I used to buy that for my kid. But anyway, that was the way I was. And out there, I'll tell you right now on the South Coast of China, that was one hell of a place.

Fight, raise hell, and drink. That's all we did. Discipline wasn't near as strict it was here in the States. I went all the way into Peking, China. All the way.

In Peking, China in those days, they used to call it Piping, Peking, and all that. It was a and every every nation had their marine corps there because the ambassadors were there. Well, the colonel of the United States Marine Corps was a head man, so we had liberty every night. So I would drink one night with the Axis, and the next night with the Allies. It didn't make any difference.

We all got along just fine. Drunken in hell, you know, Russians, chaps, didn't make any difference. China. Next night, I'll be with Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, and all that. So everybody drunk, raised in hell, doing the same thing.

You know? You see? Get really goddamn politician wouldn't have any trouble. Turn all those people loose in the world. We won't we won't fight.

You'll find us loving, necking, breaking, racing hell, doing all this stuff. We won't be fighting. That's how we are, especially the alcoholics. We might fight, but we don't really mean it. So I spent two and a half years on the South Coast of China in the Philippine Islands, and I was out there in the battles and all went on.

I was out there when the war broke out. I fought under 3 different countries, 3 different flags, United States, Great Britain, and Holland. And I could stand here tonight and tell you that my war record was the reason of my drinking, and that would be a damn lie because I was safer in a sea battle than I was on a beach with a fifth of whiskey, because I was the kind of a guy to walk off in the dry docks with no water in them, looking for my ship. I said, where's the the left knee? The guy said, you're standing under it.

See, I got no minister here. I'm here on somebody else's time, God's time, not mine. I didn't do a damn thing about keeping me alive, but I'll tell you one thing. I'm sure glad I am. So I stayed out there until the war broke out.

Like I said, we got back here to the States in 1942, and in those days, you know, they used to court martial guys who had taken a long time to travel short distances, that was my trouble. So I was court martial retired before I was 21 years old. Get drunk, you know, it take me a long time to get somewhere. It's like when we got back from China, the first time they said, you boys are gonna have 30 days leave. You're brave heroes.

We got into San Francisco. I said, sorry, fellas. You're only gonna have 5. Well, I had a resentment right there. So I got I went off on a drunk.

Well, I've managed to wind my way somehow down to San Jose. It took me 5 days to get down to San Jose and 5 days to get back to San Francisco. Why does that text they do that. So it along came a time, you know, and I had to transfer the into Gold Island. Well, from San Francisco to to Gold Island is right out the middle of the bay.

It took me 5 days to get around the bay to get there. A Lot of bars along the way. Lot of people to talk to. So they court martialed with those kind of things. So I was court martialed three times.

Last court mar you know, last time the second time I was court shade down. You don't listen to them. Wants to talk to you like a father? You pull the shade down. You don't listen to him, so he talked to me like a father.

But I remember him saying one thing. Oh, I want you to go ashore. I'm gonna give you a thing. Hope. I want you to go ashore.

I'm gonna give you a 72 hour leave at Liberty. I want you to go ashore in San Francisco. I want you to go down 3rd and Howard. I want you to pay particular attention to people who are sleeping in the doorways and sleeping in a gutter with their head on the curb. That's where you're gonna be before you're 5.

I'm gonna help put you there. You don't stop this drinking. I said, thank you, sir. Took this 3 days liberty, went to shore and got drunk. What the hell else do you do?

Don't know where where I went. Went back to ship one time. On my my trip to San to San Jose, I met a lady there. She was with me tonight, my wife Alice. We was married 42 years.

Somebody said, how the hell do you do that? I said, I'll be damned if I know. It's her fault, not mine. But I didn't wanna leave her hanging out someplace. She's sitting right here in the front row watching me.

In fact, there's a lot of people sitting in these front rows watching me. I gotta be honest tonight, at least partially. We have developed something so called functional dishonesty. You know that's alright, I guess. So her and I, we met, and I convinced her that I was a $2,000,000 tobacco plantation owner in the state of Tennessee, and asked her to marry me, and she did.

Hell, I didn't have $15. I had to buy buy I had to borrow $15 from her sister to get married. We drove all the way to Reno, well halfway to Reno, car broke up in San Francisco in, Sacramento, and we came up to Reno, and we were married here in Reno. And when the first guy got married that day, and they always gave a serviceman, the first guy married, he'd give it to you, his married license was free, so they married me for nothing. I got it hung together though, 42 years.

I'll tell you that woman's a goddamn miracle, I don't know how. So anyway, I met her, so her and I got married. And you know, during the war years, why so forth so forth, I was away a lot. We didn't fight a hell of a lot. I was away a lot.

But then after the war, I got out of I got out of service 1945 and, went to work. And like all I've called is, I worked hard and drank hard and played hard. And so I worked for another guy for a year and a half and decided he was making too much money on my labor, so he went to work for me. That sometimes is too good. You know?

When our colleagues go to work for themselves, but I did. And I made good dough. The harder I worked and the more money I made, well, the more I drank, until finally it turned around the other way. The more money I made, the more I drank, the less I had, see. So finally her and I, you know, we were sitting there, and my God, all this stuff was taking place.

But she was a kind of a gal. She went along with me a lot. In other words, she didn't. Did I go home at night? And I remember I went home one night, and I was standing.

I was the kind of a guy when I got drunk. I would I could walk forward. I never staggered sideways, but I'd run backwards for 3 miles. You know? I don't know why.

Everything was tilted backwards, and I could walk around for hours and never know where in the hell I was, like a zombie. I went home one night, and I was standing in my thumb up on the doorbell and my head up on the screen door. Passed out right there in that position. So I gets up the next morning, I went and looked at the mirror, and I said, goddamn it. I got the measles.

I had these little tiny pimples all over my head. Honey, I got them damn measles again. You haven't got the measles. I hit you through that screen door last night. Down the stairs, I I guess, rolled out one long.

But she loved me, you know. And I go home and I lay her back in my big chair and I tie across my feet. She don't wear shoelaces. In those days, she'd tie my shoelaces together to give me the hot foot with these big old wooden matches. I'd come out of that chair and I'd tear up all the furniture in the goddamn living room.

Coffee tables would be splintered. I'd have bruises all over. I said, what the hell happened last night? She said you fell down. But like I said, you know, she love me.

She damn near killed me, though. I always had bruises all over me. She didn't have any. But, anyway, this thing went on, this trick went on. I got meaner, and I got bigger, and I got meaner, and I got tougher.

I got everything. Goddamn it. You know, I tell them I go home, I tell him, now you leave. Take these kids and get the hell out of here. To where to to a boy and a girl.

Because you know something when a guy gets big and he's mean, he's getting into his last stages of his drinking, his wife and his kids got no business at the house. So I didn't like drinking alone too much in those days. I always liked to have people around, at least somebody with me. I brought a parakeet called Petey, And Petey, you know, he loved bourbon. One day I let him have a sip of bourbon, and by God, you know, he was like me.

The first shot I ever had, man, he just ruffled up and became a real hero. So he'd start I'd I'd sit down with a dinner jigger, whiskey on the dining room table, he'd drink all the jigger and I'd drink all the bottle. Well, Pete and I get on these big drunks together. But he was quite a linguist, so he used to hang over my poker table. He learned all the all the languages there's nothing poker game.

You know? Son of a bitch, bastard, raised, tie, ten, and all this kind of stuff. Some of the stuff he learned, I won't even repeat here tonight. But he and I drank together. And one day, you know, he was passed out on the floor, and I stepped on him.

And I weighed 200 and £50. £240. Take that back. You always stretch a little bit when you get older or something. £240.

An old Peter was as flat as a pancake. I said, thank God, you know I've killed my best friend, and I was crying. I remember I picked him up, and I was petting him and crying. I said, Petey, Petey, what's the matter? Come on, buddy.

I took him over and I set him down on the table about 12 inches from that jigger of whiskey. Goddamn, he began to fluff up a little bit. He went over there. Had a couple of snorts out of that jigger, whiskey, you know, around the Rubywet. You know?

Flying. You know? And he'd take 3 or 4 drinks, you know, and he'd get real amorous and he'd start chasing the female dog. I had a female dog. When Alice and the kids was out of the house, that dog's in on the bed all the time with old Petey.

He was horny as hell all the time, going around chasing that dog a little bit. He was a real alky. And I loved him, and he loved me, and we together, we raised hell together. I'm telling you right now, we had some of the damnest parties you ever seen. You gotta be pretty damn sick to drink with birds.

Even drugs don't do that most of the time. I wanna tell this right now, Petey died with 2 years sobriety. We'll go on. We go on. He's in the early fifties.

Disease getting worse. The disease is getting worse. The disease progressing. Me getting sicker. My wife getting madder.

Pewed out to your attorney all the time trying to get divorced. Because I'm not gonna sign them damn papers to get divorced. Well, the attorney, said, after I sobered up. And his wife had died in the bed drunk in Honolulu. And this attorney of ours kept us together because he never tried to get me to sign those papers.

I never knew this until after I showed it up. But Alice would go down just ranting and raving divorce papers going. And, you know, and John would say, Jack, you don't have to sign them. We never knew this till after he sobered up. His wife would die.

Died. She was an alcoholic. See, so many things, you never know where hell's going to come from. So on the drinking went though after that. But I never did get divorced, we never did get divorced.

She stayed with me. She damn near killed me, but she stayed with me. I wasn't leaving all the time. I never was the one who wanted to leave home. I was trying to go to my house and, goddamn it, this is my house.

You get out. You know? I'm kind of an egotistical idiot I was. Yeah. I don't wonder why I had so many bruises.

I was wanting. She said, well, I'm not leaving. But then when I got mean and all this stuff, I can remember sitting in my house in my big chair, and I can remember shadows passing through that house talking to me, and I talked back. Uh-huh. I couldn't find anybody.

I remember music playing. No tele no radios on or TV's on. It was all playing anyway, and I was having a party in there, me that damn bird all by myself. Nothing on, but this weird thing going on in my head. So as I went on this program, that the disease getting worser and worse all the time, but I wasn't paying any attention to that.

It seemed to me like I was just getting better. I guess I was passed out more. But God damn, you know, after a while you begin to kind of wonder. Shows on 19 50, early fifties why these things was going on, you know, until I can remember as Petey and I drank Uh-huh. And I got sicker, I can remember in 1950 7 on March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day, I came to.

And I had a horse by the leg. Woah. You son of a bitch. Hold him by the leg. And I had a piano by the leg.

Now laying on the piano, that horse is trying to stop me to death. I had that piano by the leg. No clothes on, Petey laying on the floor, passed out, hot dog hiding on the bed. That was our routine, you know. Petey and I passed out and the dog hiding on the bed.

That was the kids out in the motel. I paid a lot of motel bills in those days. But then the phone rang. Your voice on the other end of the line says, how you you feel? You know, kind of persnickety.

Quiet. Kinda drives you nuts. I said, it's not too damn good. He said, how do you like to do something about your drinking? I said, well, I'd like to do a little something about it, but not not too drastic.

So on March 17, 1957, a man came over to my house, picked me up, and we went down. We talked to another man from our callers anonymous, Now I went to my 1st AA meeting. Saint Patrick's Day, 1957. I remember going into that meeting that night. Oh, I'll tell the story about my sponsor.

This the guy that picked me up was my sponsor Ali. And I made a call on him 6 years prior because he had called me up, and he and I was drinking together, and building together, and doing work together, and doing business together. He called me up to come over to his house, talk to him about his drinking. So I did. Went over there.

Me and a drunken lawyer, red nose, you know, by fellow by the name of Bean. Went over this guy's house, out of my sponsor's house to talk to him about his drinking. So I told him, I said, Al, and this guy, Bean, says, well, you could call AA. You know, those boys do you pretty good sometimes. I said, Al, that's too damn drastic.

You know, those bastards don't drink at all. I sat there and drank his whiskey and told him he should, you know, he should cool it. Did not go that far, but he did. He went to Alcoholics Anonymous on that day. Yeah.

Then I went over to his house 6 years prior, and he didn't have another drink. He's still over 33 years right now, now, coming up on 34. So I went to his his house to listen to him, but that's that's how this thing works. But when he came over to talk to me, I was I was all different. Well, I'll go with you.

I had some booze to drink, so I drank some. I couldn't go down to a bunch of drunks, you know, stoned sober after all. Felt like I was lowering myself, you know. Pompous ass. So I went to my first meeting.

I went to that meeting that night, I met a guy that I knew. He knew me, but we didn't know he was alcoholics, either one of us. He was chairing a meeting. So I heard him say one thing that night. He said, if nothing else, stay sober 90 days and you'll save enough money to get on a good drunk.

I said, sounds just right. You know, just exactly right. So I went back and I dry. And on the 91st day, dry. And on the 91st day I drove to Salinas to tell Al, my sponsor.

By God, Al, I never have been an alcoholic. I never will be, and to hell would. I'm gonna quit this damn buffet. And I spent 2 hours telling him why I wasn't an alcoholic. After that he said, well, Jack, if that's the way you really feel about it, just step over there to that bar across the street and try some controlled drinking.

I said, thank you, Al, and I did. Of course, on the way home I hit a car. That's how fast you get going, you know. Yes, sir. So back out on the streets I went, and I stayed out there for 9 months.

Old Petey was happy because I had him shut off. You know? He had a big resentment while he was dry, but he was happier than hell, back again drinking, you know, me and him, him on the floor and the dog hiding on the bed. All that stuff come back again, you know. These strange people coming through my living room, all things going on, yelling at him, hollering.

All this stuff going on again. Sick, Sick. Sick. So that's the way it was. I drank, and I drank, and I drank.

I never did any harder drinking in my life. It seemed like I was trying to catch up for those 90 days trying to make up for them. I controlled it a little bit for about 1st 60 days, but you know something? After that, it seemed like everything went to in a handbasket. God darn, everything went bad.

I remember turning off of San Carlos Street, left onto my street. The guy had his car parked in of his house. I pushed it right up on his front porch. I never did straighten out. I just kept turning, you know, while around.

360 degrees. Never had been a car parked in that street since in my car. I drove a car over a cliff in Mexico. I've crawled out of 3 wrecks, total wrecks in my life, and I got no business to be here tonight. I've done all those kind of things that the alcoholics do, wrecked car, did all this kind of stuff.

I'll tell you, that 9 months I spent out there drinking, that was the most terrible goddamn time I ever spent in my life. It was absolutely just sick. 158, I came to on a barstool. I came to 158, I came to on a bar stool. I came to, and I was sitting there, you know, and all everything was just as clear as a bell.

I don't know why everything got clear as a bell. I didn't know then, but I know now. Now I turned to the guy sitting next to me. I said, Charlie, this is my last drink. I'm going back to AA.

He says, by God, I'm going with you, Jack, because he'd been with me on that drunk. You know? He was sick. So on March 5th, I went in. I got up.

I went in. I called up this guy in AA. I said, hey. I wanna go to an AA meeting. I didn't know it was 10 o'clock at night.

He said, Jack, there's no meeting at 10 o'clock at night, and besides that, you haven't finished your drink. After all, you're still at the bar. Go ahead and finish it now. Get it over with. But I had.

And I called my wife out and says, come get me, and she did. One of my sponsors, crying, slobbering. You know how an old slob is. He said, well, what the hell? Just come on back.

No problem. So on March 6th 1958 I returned to our call list anonymous. 4 of us. There was 4 guys followed me in AA that time. I didn't know I had that much, power over them.

You know how. So 4 of us and 4 sponsors walked into the old prune Ridge meeting, still going on today. We walked in there like a squad of soldiers. 4 little babies, drunker than hell, sick, but I had my last drink on March 5, 1950 So my birthday is March 6, 1958. That's my birthday.

But I heard different things that night. I heard things like, if you never take the first drink, you'll never get drunk. And I said, well, I'll be damned. Who in the hell ever heard of that? Any idiot would know that, but I've lived 38 years and hadn't found it out yet, and spent 90 days in AA.

Because in my first 90 days I hid behind a post, didn't talk, wouldn't read, wouldn't do a good one meeting a week, and sit there with my ears closed. But I heard different things. I heard these guys talking about if you never take your first drink, you'll never get drunk. I heard them say you only have to do it a day at a time. Now I heard him talk about all these kind of things.

First things first, an easy does it. He says participate. Get busy. He said go to meetings every day, every night. I did.

I said, okay. I'm gonna give this thing a real try. So I started going to meetings every night. I had 2 weeks in the program, got my first step call. And this guy was laying on Vine Street down in San Jose, and he was down in the basement, in the apartment basement.

Well, it was just a room down there on the concrete floor. All he had was a wash tray. He was laying down on the couch. His head was hanging off the couch. His tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

His eyes are wide open staring at the ceiling, glazed. I said, this guy's dead. Hell, he's not drunk. But I went over and I could hear his heartbeat. So I picked him up because he stumps about I couldn't stand him, and I took him up and put him down in this washer tray and turned the water on him.

Washed him off because he stumped so bad, you know, he just really he'd let go of everything. So I stick him out of that white tree and strung him over my shoulder and took him home on me. Walked through the front door and said, honey, I got a sick one. She says, whew. You sure have.

She said take his clothes off of him. Take him in the bathroom. Set him in the tub, and I'll wash his clothes. So right right I did. Went back out, you know, sitting in the living room and just I was in there soaking.

In about 30 minutes, you know, a thought just seemed to hit me upside the head. Something's wrong. Ping. You know? I go in there and I look and here he is.

Water lapping right up here, you know. Foam pouring out of his mouth. I looked down alongside of his tub and there was an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, that skull and cross bone. Well, he drank the whole damn thing in a half an hour. I said, my God he's dead this time.

For sure. So I pick him up, throw him over my shoulders, little blanket over his naked butt, and head for the doctor. Run-in the doctor's office and I said, doc, this guy's dying. He said, what makes you think so? He said, this this empty bottle here.

Hell, he drank the whole thing. He said, oh, hell. He could drink a gallon of that. What else you been drinking, Johnny? He knew him.

Johnny said, I've been drinking shampoo. Capone blowing bubbles, you know. Yeah. I thought he was dying. So I said, well, by God, I'll start a vendetta right now.

I'm gonna sober you up to kill you, man. And you know something? I will protect him 10 months, and he's in San Francisco jail right now for drinking. But, boy, he taught me a lot. I'm telling you.

During his time, he taught me a lot. The last time Johnny called me, I went and got him, took him home on me, and threw him in my swimming pool in January. No heat in it. And every time he'd come up, I'd shove him back under. And I'd shove him back under.

When he turned blue, I pulled him out. I took him in. I set him on the couch. I said, now, my god, you stay there. He says, I'm gonna get out of this damn place.

I ain't still here. So I went and got my 30 yard 6 gear rifle. I said, Johnny, if you cross that baptism, I'll blow your damn legs off. You stay on that couch. He stayed there 3 days.

Said can I go now? I said yes. He's never called me again. That was my first 12 step call. During that time, when I was working with him, though, you know, why I was beginning, you know, I said, well, hell.

I'll just go out and make 12 step call. That's all you gotta do. So, hell, I was out making another 12 step call. I made a 12 step call in a tile set in Santa Clara and he was trying to he was out trying to shoot his wife with a 12 gauge shotgun. He was out You know, this is way back in those those days now.

We had prune orchids. She was running through the prune orchard. He was behind her. Going all the prune clump the trees. So I caught the little bastard, you know, and took the gun away from him.

Paul Allen said, what tell him I'm gonna do with his wife and 5 kids out here? Just bring them home. Bring them home. Hell, I had alcoholics all over the place. In the bathtub, out in the patio, in the front yard, in the backyard, everywhere.

But boy, we was mobiling. I'm telling you. God damn. I was all going to taking them to meetings at night in my pickup truck. They was getting drunk.

Had 6 months in the program. I was standing up in the meeting on Thursday night again, tears running down my eyes, and I was telling this sorrowful story of what a lousy sponsor I was. And boy, I mean, I was crying. When I got through with this 5 minute tearjerker, every damn one of them was drunk, and I was telling everybody what a lousy sponsor I was. And I got all through and sat down.

A little man got up in the back, says, I don't know who the hell you think you are, says you're not God. You can't get anybody sober and you can't keep anybody sober, but you missed the whole point of this program, you idiot. You stayed sober. No. I said, I don't remember Sure did.

That's what it is. That's what it goes. So I kept right on, 12 stepping. Right on, 12 stepping. The hell hell with those 12.

Gotta go 12 more. That's what you do. 1 gets drunk, we'll get 2 more. You want you want to know how to grow fast in this program? Get a whole bunch of babies.

They keep asking you questions. You gotta go find out. So I've always been a 12 stepper. So I had 12 babies. They was all drunk, but I was sober.

That then no difference now. I knew what was happening. I knew why I was sober. These guys had kept me so damn busy I didn't even have time to drink. And that was good.

That was good. That was good for me because see, I was an egotistical son of a gun. I'll tell you. Proud, egotistical rebel. You know, nothing like a southern gentleman who's a rebel.

Shit. Might not know who I was, but I was a gentleman. That's it. But, anyway, I kept on cross stepping. And I piled these guys up.

I don't know how many babies I got. I wouldn't even stop the count. I really don't doesn't make any difference. What I'm really thankful for, though, is that they were all there when I needed them. So as I 12 step and kept on in this program, it was on now.

I had I'm in my second birthday. I went running into this little guy in Newt's house. They told me that wasn't God. I said, Newt, today I've been sober 2 years. He says, so what?

Where's my damn cat laying over in the floor? Right. Hell of a guy. Really. Here he was.

He was 4 and a half feet tall, I think. He used to be a Catholic priest. Jesuit at that. And threw him out of prison for being a drunk, you know. So he used to talk to me.

And he talked me and he was sick in a wheelchair. Well, it's a singer. So I couldn't hit him. I weighed 200 and 50 pound. I made more.

I weighed more than this damn wheelchair and this old lady and everything else put together. He'd say those things to me. Shut up and listen. Sit down. I invite him to my house when I was in the I knew him about a month.

He's in my living room, I said, and I started telling him my story. He said, nobody won't listen to your crap. Shut up and listen. But on this date, I had 2 years. I did.

I sat down. I listened. He started talking me about things. He started talking me about our program. Well, I'll call it.

Said, Jack, you know, this is the greatest program that have been written for mankind. And I said, you're right. As far as I knew at that time. He started talking to me about things called self honesty and different things like this. And he told me, he says, you know, Jack, if you want the program, you gotta go to the book.

Nobody can give it to you. You gotta go to the book and get it. So he talked to me for about 4 hours that afternoon about our book, about our program. And he piqued my interest in this book. So I went home and I started studying this book.

This book called Alcoholics Anonymous. And the more I studied it, the more interesting it's got. And if you haven't studied, it's about time you started. Because it's it is the program. Some of those things that I learned out of this big book I'm gonna show you tonight.

One of the first things that I learned was on page 25. It's called pride. Pride. Anybody here having trouble with pride? It says in there, you know, there is a solution.

And the solution is, and none of us like it, the solution is a leveling of the pride. Doesn't say kill it or destroy it, just level it. Well, how on hell you level your pride? Well, just ask yourself 2 questions sometime. Where has pride caused me to do things I didn't wanna do?

And where pride kept me from doing things that I should do? That covered my whole damn life. Pride is something that's caused me more trouble in my life than any other at all other things put together. Why you think an alcoholic says, hell. I'm not going to give up drinking.

You mean, because you're so damn smart. We know that. No. Even though we are intelligent people, we wonder why though. But it says that in there.

But it says if you will level your pride, which means you don't let it drive you up the wall any longer. You drive it up the wall. He said you level your pride, then you will be rocketed into a 4th dimension of living that you never knew existed. That I can testify to. That I've been living in.

Every once while I run out of it, I'll get back into it pretty quick. But this is all on page 25 in chapter 2 of the big book of So one thing, unless we learn it, it says this is required for the rest of this program. Well, I don't know about you, but required to me means must. Now you're hearing, hey. Hey.

We got no must and I'll call it synonymous. But I'm gonna tell you right now, we got some damn world betters. Now I'm gonna tell you, you better get on them. Then on chapter 3, more about alcoholism. You learn.

You meet yourself right there. You rub eyeball to eyeball that drunk. That alcoholic. You wonder, how come I didn't solve this damn thing into the gates of insanity or death? Why?

Why are some of us picked? Why have us some some of us chosen? Why are some of us here tonight and millions out there and countless others not? I don't know. Don't ask me that.

That's God's business. But we're here. In chapter 4, the old agnostics, they taught us on page 25 or page 55. They taught us. They teach us right there.

They said they could get all the way up to the shore, but they couldn't get out of the boat until they looked deeper than themselves. And they found this thing. Please turn to side 2 of this cassette to continue the program. But they couldn't get out of the boat until they looked deeper than themselves. And they found this thing and they called it the great reality.

They didn't call it God. Called it great reality. Means God, but they couldn't use God. They were agnostics. So they found this thing called the great reality.

And when they got in touch with that. See they got to where they they couldn't trust their own logic. They couldn't trust their own reasoning. So when you can't trust those two things, then you gotta go someplace else. So we look deeper than ourselves, we find this thing called God, this great reality.

The difference between getting in touch with that and not getting in touch with that is just like having a television set not plugged in and one that is plugged in. That's the difference. Our path. Doesn't say paths, it's not plural. Our path?

Doesn't say paths. It's not plural. Just says path. Path. You know, they build highways across this great nation of ours from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

Some of them are 8 lanes wide. And that's easy, softer way to get across this country. But not the alcoholic. Hell, no. Gotta be another way.