The Montana Fall Roundup in Missoula, MT

Good morning. My name is Vince Yell and I am an alcoholic. Hi. I'm glad to be here this morning and I'm glad to be part of AA and I'd like to thank your committee for inviting Pat MetEye in Missoula, Montana. I've never been to your lovely state before now, but I must tell you, it's gorgeous.

It's lovely and it's smog free. Pristine. And it's just a delight to be here. We had as Pat told you last night, we had a colorful trip out here. We just got off an airplane and it exploded in flames moments after we got off.

We were on the other side of the terminal and we looked out the window and the plane we just gotten off, it was exploding in flames, which is a kind of a spiritual experience in itself. And it's good to be here. I must say that you wouldn't think that a nice, respectable man like myself be married to a woman like that, would you? That is really a tug restored, isn't it? But we're glad to be here.

During the countdown last night, when Katrina was doing the countdown, we had in addition to all of the old timers, we have a lot of new people in their 1st year of sobriety here at this conference. And I want to welcome you to AA, the new adventure of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want you to know this morning where you are. You're in AA. It is distinctly different from anything else you've ever been around.

It is not psychotherapy. It is not a treatment center or a care unit nor is it aftercare. It is a spiritual program and understand that if you're new, because that's what it is. And I think there is a tendency some days today some places today at AA to soft pedal that, to not to stress that because it's somehow embarrassing to our sophisticated notions of who we are now in the late 20th century. Well, I'm going to tell you who we are.

We are members of a spiritual program and it will require of you if you're new certain things that you'll have to do to recover here. Contrary to popular belief, none of it is optional. None of it is suggested. It's mandatory what you have to do here if you want to get better. Now you have an option not to get better.

You can do that if you want. God knows I did it for a long time. I'll tell you that. But I want to start out this morning and, I think I'll tell you about my first AA meeting because there aren't so many new people here. I want to tell you about how it was that I came to AA.

And it was a long time ago now. It was in November of 1965, which more and more makes me feel ancient at Alcoholics Anonymous considering the age that some people get here at today, which is wonderful. But it was in November of 1965. It was on a Friday night and it was in the basement of a Presbyterian Church in the Los Altos section of Long Beach, California. And Long Beach the Los Altos section of Long Beach, California incidentally is a very nice upscale upper middle class community.

Today, we would call it a YETI community. In those days, that word had was not in the vocabulary yet. So it was just upscale upper middle class. It was a lot of split level ranch houses. You know what I mean?

All owned by dentists and insurance salesman and real estate people that kind of a community. And when they got a drinking problem, they went to the Presbyterian Church on Friday night. And they were nice people. They were dressed well. They all seem to have coats and ties on back then.

And they were all incidentally married to pretty blonde Alabond women. You know what I mean, who all did needlepoint during the AA meeting. You know the crowd? You know what I'm talking about? And that's the kind of an AA meeting it was.

As a matter of fact, if you knew nothing of alcoholism or nothing of AA or nothing of alcoholics and if you were to just as an ordinary citizen wandering off the street into the basement of that church and if someone were to say to you this room is filled with mostly alcoholics. Can you pick them out? You wouldn't find any. Not any alcoholics there. They were all tightly wrapped people.

You know what I mean? With well ordered lives. I mean, nobody looked like an alcoholic in that room. Everybody looked good. You'd have picked what out?

You'd have picked me. I was there. I look like an alcoholic, but I was the only one in the room that did. I had on a torn T shirt and a ripped pair of jeans and I had not shaved or bathed in over a week and I just spent the previous 5 days in the Long Beach City Jail due to a series of unfortunate circumstances that were not my fault. The police department of Long Beach, California dispatched us as it turns out.

They had regularly abused my civil rights on a consistent basis, it seems, that being the latest. And I like to remember why I was in the basement of that Presbyterian Church on that Friday night. And it's important to remember And if you're new, I want you to hear it. I'll tell you first of all why I was not there. I was not there because I was in search of lifetime sobriety.

Alright? I was not there because I wanted serenity or I like this quiet heart. Those were not my concerns in November of 1965. You want to know why I was there? I had no job, no car, no money, no place to live and it was the only one place I could think of where I could sit down and not be arrested.

That's why I was there. So if you are new and you are not if you're not if your therapist told you your motivation is not what it should be, I have very good news for you. We do not grade you on your motivation here. If we did, this would be a smaller meeting and you'd have a different speaker. Doesn't matter why you're here.

The only thing that counts is that you're here. It's all that matters right now. So you must stay here. Now, as a matter of fact, if we get this out of the way, if you are new, you it's not a question of whether you want to stay here or not. You simply have no other choice.

There's nowhere else for you to go. This is the end of the line. This is it. Been anywhere else. So you have to stay here.

Now, I should tell you that I I I went to that meeting. I sat in the back of the room where most new people sit in AA meetings. You never get up close if you're new. You might catch it if you don't have it, right? And I sat in the back.

And I should tell you also from the outset that I am Irish and I'm Catholic, and I'm from New Jersey. And I have great difficulty with people from Texas. We There's a bad chemistry there, I want to tell you. And I sat in the back of that room next to a guy who was about 6 foot 5 and he had on cowboy boots, a 10 gallon hat in his lap, and his name was Tex. And Tex was not sober very long himself.

He was at what I like to call the evangelical stage of sobriety. You know where that is? Somewhere about 3 months. And Tex wanted to hep me. He told me.

He said, Boy, I'm going to hep you. And I told him, Tex, why don't you go hep somebody else? I'm really not interested. But he helped me anyway. And the first thing he did is he repeated to me in rapid succession all of the AA cliches.

And they are dreary, aren't they? And I thought, good grief. Easy does what? Finally, he draped his arm around my shoulder and he said, keep it simple. I thought I'll bet you do, Jack.

I have absolutely no quarrel with that. That was the only thing he said that I could agree with. I was certain that was true. And he gave me a handful of pamphlets, which we have for everybody that's new. If you haven't got we have whoever you are or whatever you've done, we have a pamphlet that covers your case.

You know? And on top of the pamphlets was a card with the 20 questions on. I'm sure you use that out here, but the card this card, this quiz was designed and originated by the medical school at John Hopkins University, a very prestigious school where they have in their infinite wisdom, they did a study on alcoholism. And they decided somewhere along the line in their infinite wisdom that they can decide how alcoholic you are by the way you answer these 20 questions. And the key is, if the more well, first of all, I can tell you this if you're new.

If you're new and you don't like it here and you want to get out of here and you want to find a way to justify and rationalize your way out of here, find a way to answer no to these questions. Because the more yes answers you have as you go down the column, the more alcoholic you get. The criteria is if you answer 1 question yes, you may be an you may have a drinking problem. If you answer 2 questions yes, you do have a drinking problem. If you answer 3 or more yes, you're an alcoholic.

I answered 19 yes. I answered no to the question, do you seek lower competitive? I couldn't find any. Now, I don't know what that means. I just think it's superfluous.

It's probably the most useless thing you'll ever do. I don't know why we're upset with convincing new people are alcoholic. We really are. We have a preoccupation with that. That's unbelievable.

And I do it too. We all do it. I guess we don't know what else to do with you when we first meet you is to convince you, you ought to stay here. You don't need to be convinced. You know you're alcoholic.

You don't Missoula Missoula are not here this morning. It's not where they come. People here are alcoholic. And but, anyway, I'll tell you a good reason to take that test. It will please the old timer who gives you the test, which is a very good reason to take it because they tend to treat you a lot better when you do things they like.

So it's a very politic way to get into AA. Now I took the test and I the meeting began. It was and it began the way we began. I don't know whether you do it here in Montana, but it began much the way we do in Southern California. They read that portion of our book in chapter 5 that constitutes our recovery program, which is something else you ought to understand if you're new.

That's AA. What's in that book, that chapter and those steps, that's AA. Anyone else tells you any different, they're lying. Get away from it. Now, if you want to recover here, you must take those 12 steps, not work them, take them, do that.

You must execute them. AA is a program of execution. It is not philosophy. No one cares what you think if you're new. Your opinion about anything is useless.

We don't care if you believe in God. That is a luxury you left a long time ago. You use that up. You better find a way, pal. You better find a way.

You gotta do it here. And it doesn't matter whether you believe in god incidentally. What you will discover when you're here for a while, he believes in you, and you must take those steps. Now I heard those steps read at that first meeting in the basement of that Presbyterian church. And I want you to know that I am the end product of 4 years of of 8 years of Dominican nuns, 4 years of Jesuit priests, and I didn't hear anything new.

There's nothing new there to me. Nothing that I have not been exposed to, indoctrinated with and lived within the framework of my entire life. I know that ethic. I am well familiar with it. Now some of these things, we you as a matter of fact, it seemed to me rather broad brush spiritual strokes, if you will.

I mean, you call that you act like you invented these concepts here in this in AA. Let me tell you something. These things have been around for a long time. This is the basis of living for almost every epic Eastern and Western in the history of mankind. We call some of these things by different names, that's all.

You talk about a searching at a fearless moral inventory like that's some kind of a new idea. Let me tell you, you ask any kid that's been raised in the Roman Catholic Church about a searching and far fearless moral inventory. I'll tell you what. It's called a different name. It's called examination of conscience, but it's the same thing.

It's the exact same principle. You talk about admitting to god and to another human being the exact nature of your role. Every Saturday afternoon from the time I was 7 probably through the time I was 16. So I am well familiar with these concepts. I knew it then, and I know it now.

So what I said to myself, subconsciously, I didn't reason it all out to base with that church, but in the back of my mind somewhere, I said, if this is your answer, my case must be different. Because if this is what works for what's wrong with you and me, I will never get better here. Because I know all about that, and it has nothing to do with the way that I drink alcohol. So I dismissed those steps subconsciously. And the meeting continued.

And several people participated, and it was they were nice people. They were insurance salesman and dentists, I think, and they were and they said innocuous things that seem to be inapplicable to my life. They talked about one guy in particular said 6 months prior that evening, he got drunk through the mortgage payment on his house. Then he found you wonderful people in this splendid program. And, this little blonde allen on wife nodded her head yes and did another row.

And I turned to Tex and I said, where do you send the more difficult cases? Because I don't know what's wrong with him, but there's a lot more wrong with me than that. And he said shut up or something equally as appropriate. And the meeting continued. And if I had any doubts as to whether I belonged at that meeting or not, they were cured at the end because we have in California and I don't know whether you do that here.

How do you celebrate AA anniversaries in Montana? I don't know. But back in California, they do it in the lexicon of a birthday party. You know what I mean? They have a cake and they put candles on it.

And it is really, if you're new, strange. You know, I mean, it really it's embarrassing. I mean, you are sitting in a room full of middle aged people and some jerk has gone for a year without taking a drink and they walk down the aisle with a birthday cake with a candle on it and all these morons sing happy birthday to this fool and he blows the candle. I mean, it is really like some cheap pop psychotherapy, isn't it? I mean, think about it.

Doesn't it smack of the day room at a mental institution? Really does. I mean, most take cake time. It's like something you would do right before dance therapy after you've spent the morning working on your wallet. And they had a series of these hideous birthday parties, one after another.

And they had one for a gal who was about 110 and she was sober forever because they had a bonfire on top of it. Flames came up off of this birthday cake and she hobbled up there and she huffed and puffed as she kind of blow them out, looked like emphysema would kill her before she got the candles out, she got them out. And she came up to this podium and she said her name was Phoebe and she was an alcoholic. And then she said something about did I want what she had. That was my first AA meeting.

Now, it is safe to say that I did not have a spiritual awakening. Let me tell you what I did though because if you're new, it may be the only significant thing that I have to say at AA when you when all of it is boiled down, And that is this, for the next 3.5 years, I drank no alcohol, nor did I use any mood altering chemicals whatsoever. And I participated in every facet of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I did everything there was to do in AA in that three and a half year period of time. I was in an AA meeting nightly.

I was involved in my group. I had every kind of an AA commitment you could have. I did everything there was to do in AA except one thing. I did not take these steps. And you know what happened?

My alcoholism got worse. It got worse while I was intensely active in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It got worse while I sat at AA meetings nightly. So if you are new and you are exposed to the very popular expression today in AA meetings, I just love it. Bring the body here, the mind will follow.

Let me give you a clue. That's wrong. And if you're around anybody who's given you that gas, get away from them, because you have to do a lot more here to bring the body much, much more. Now my alcoholism got worse while I sat in AA meetings, and I knew it was getting worse. And there are people here today that vote who have been an Alcoholics Anonymous some period of time, who have not taken these steps, and who are getting worse.

And they're getting crazier by the day. And the way that you know you're getting worse is because you are surrounded by people who are getting better. Because recovery here is visually perceptible. You can see recovery in AA. You can see somebody getting better.

Nobody has to tell you they're getting better. Do they? You just watch them and you know they're getting better. Something happens to people who get better here. It is it is absolutely miraculous.

They get boom. Something happens in their eyes. They get a sense of purpose about their life. They have direction. They're going somewhere.

They are operating on all 8 cylinders and they are talking about things that make me crazy. They are talking about developing a relationship with a higher power, A personal relationship with a higher power. They are talking. They are writing inventories and making amends paying money back and they are helping people for free. No price tag.

And they're getting better. And there are other people here who are not getting better. Who sit in the back of the room and they're arrogant and they don't like anything that goes on here. And they criticize everybody who's doing anything here. They don't like the secretary.

They don't like the leader, and they don't like the speaker. And they resent not only do they have you what happened to me, I started I have a whole new set of resentments. Not only the ones I brought in here, now I hate these bastards in AA because, you know, they're all getting better. I'm getting worse. And it's a miserable existence here, isn't it?

And there are people here today that know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a terrible existence. And it's a terrible way to live. And you watch people get better all around you. And I used to think, when do I get mine?

When does that happen to me? When do I get to feel like that? I used to think they had secret meetings somewhere where they you know what I mean? Do you ever have that feeling where they shared what was really going on that made you feel like that? It certainly couldn't be this.

I mean, it had to be something much different than this. And so now on the outside, my life looked good. I was 24 years old and I bounced up. When you're 24, you don't stay down incidentally. So don't confuse outside things with recovery in AA because you get better in a hurry just by attrition if you're 24.

Good things happen. You don't drink and you don't use any chemicals and you stay at AA, marvelous things will happen to you if you don't do anything. On the outside, things will great things will happen to you. Great things happen to me. I have a wonderful education.

I come from a wonderful family. Let me tell you that for a minute too. It's another thing I want to talk about that I know. There is somehow a feeling and somehow a notion in AA meetings that I am in these days that somehow hating your parents can make you a whole human being. I'm going to tell you something.

If you're operating on that number, I got some bad news for you. Because I discovered something when I wrote that fearless and searching moral inventory that you demanded I write. And you know what I found out? My life's my fault. And when you write it, that's what you're going to find out.

Now I have this wonderful family. They're my wife calls my family Norman Rockwell. You know what I mean? They're a big Irish Catholic family. They're all married to the same spouse.

There aren't any other alcoholics. They're kind. And then we have a big reunion every year in New Jersey. And all of my nieces and nephews and sisters get together and there's it's a typical Irish Catholic family. There are 8,000,000,000 kids, you know, and everybody loves them.

They love each other. And they're all glad they have it. There's no and they drink beer, I suppose white wine now, which isn't that hideous? I'm almost glad I'm not drinking today. I think I'd see me sitting I'll have a glass of Chablis.

You know. But anyway, that's what they drink. And they they do that during the day during this picnic. And at 4 o'clock, the funny thing happens. All the coffee pots start bubbling.

Nobody drinks anymore. They quit drinking, they drink coffee, and we all go home. Can you imagine that? That's the damnest thing. It's hard to find them, isn't it?

It really is. It's it's it's unbelievable. And so that's what what my family is like. My family is soft to it. I am the youngest of 5.

My youngest sister is 11 years older than me. And for an Irish and I'm the only boy, they're all 4 girls. Now I want to tell you, for an Irish Catholic family, I came along to this and my mother was 45 and my father was 50 when I was born. So here was this 50 year old Irishman who had a son after all these girls and all these sisters who did nothing but I mean, I was like the crown prince of the year. You know what I mean?

I mean, they dressed me in sailor suits and soldier suits. Well, right you know, I believe we've got pictures at home. I mean, I've got waving the flag. It was during the war. I mean, God, oh my, I had every uniform and hat known to man.

You know what I mean? They had it was just wonderful. I mean, they and you know what? They loved me. And I always knew they loved me.

There was never any doubt. They cared about me. They nurtured me. They saw to it. I got the best in life.

Right on after my parents died when I was 12 within 1 week of each other, they were sick. And these and my family, it was almost like I missed my parents and I loved them and it was terrible, but I never missed a beat. I mean, it was all there for me. There was plenty of love. There was plenty of protection.

There was plenty of care. There was plenty of and I wanna tell you about nuns and priests. My own and I wanna tell you about nuns and priests. My only experience with nuns and priests is that I was exposed to a group of men and women who cared about me enough to see to it that I was educated in spite of myself. They saw to it that I had the very best of everything.

I was not exposed to any warped spiritual perception of god, None of that happened to me. All I got was the very best. Therefore, my alcoholism is not the fault of the Roman Catholic Church either. So, if you're new out there and you're still trying to hang it on them, quit blaming those poor nuns. I got to tell you, they take a lot of heat in AA.

And I'm going to tell you, they don't deserve it. So and hang it up, because they're not going to take the blame. Let me tell you, it's not going to happen. Now I went right on to I went to an Ivy League University and I quit school my senior year because I had a fight with my family and I showed them I joined the Navy, right? It was an intelligent decision.

And I was a biochemistry major, so I was going to be a physician, hope that was the grand plan. And in the Navy, if you're not a physician, the closest you can get to being a physician is a hospital corpsman. That's what they said they would do with me. And so I went to hospital corps school. I took tests, first of all, which is very good.

You know, I that's another thing. I and I think a lot of alcoholics are like this. I'm very good at written tests. Are you good at written tests? I'm bad at living life.

Great at written tests. As a matter of fact, did you ever have the feeling if life were a written test, you'd never have to be here, right? I mean, you'd never have to come to AA. I mean, you just it all would have been fine. It's always practical application is where I get the jackpotting.

So I went to Navy, they gave me these tests. I went to hospital core school and I graduated number 1 in the class. And they said to me, well, we want to send you to a more advanced medical school where we train hospital corpsmen to function on destroyers, small ships where there are no physicians. So it's a more sophisticated medical training and it's a lot longer time. It's a brand new school.

And would you like to go to that school? I said, said, certainly. They sent me that school, and I graduated number 1 in that class. And they said, you're really a bright fellow. How would you like to go to medical administration school, which is another year and a half school, so you could learn how to become a medical administrator?

And if you complete that school successfully, we'll make you an officer in the Navy. Went to that school, graduated at the top of that class, and they commissioned commissioned me an ensign in the United States Navy. And then they sent me to Okinawa to the Marine Corps. Hell of a thing. I mean, I didn't plan on that.

That isn't what I had in mind, but I got sent to the northern end of Okinawa, to the 3rd, to the 5th the 3rd battalion, 5th marine, 5th marine regiment, which was one of these, we killed all the jacks on Elo, you know what I mean? They were it was really just Jones here knows. Well, I rest my case. They're all like Jones and his brothers, I mean all of them. And, I lived in the officers' pub in the northern end of Camp Schwab.

You remember that? And I met a guy over there who is a Navy surgeon, a thoracic surgeon, lieutenant commander. He was a we became spiritual brothers because we discovered the answer to life together. And if you don't know where it is, I can tell you. You know where the answer to life is?

It's in the officers club on Camp Schwab in Okinawa and it's called Haagen Hague Pinch. And it goes for $0.60 a drink, $0.60 a shot for Haagen Hague Pinch. He said that then. And he and I lived in this officer's club. When I say we lived in there, we literally we lived.

First of all, I was a medical administration officer, and they couldn't find a job for me. It was no so all I did was live in the officer's club and drink. It was all you know? And I helped him with I saw some patients helped him with sick call, but he was worse than I was as it turned out. And pretty soon, the battalion commander, this lieutenant colonel decided that we were unfit to be around patients.

So we got relieved of our duty and we got we spent the end of our naval career in charge of Venereal Disease Control on the island of Infiniti. Unceremonious, very nonprofessional kind of a way to end it all. You know? And I ended up back in the United States, and I got out of the service. And I went back to school, and I got my degree.

And I ended up in that AA meeting I was telling you about in 1960 5. And that was the background. And you got to know this because when I was with this three and a half year period of sobriety, I was telling you about a moment ago, why some wonderful things happened to me. And first of which was a new profession opened up in civilian medicine. It was called the physician associate program.

And what it was is they took some people who were had this medical training in the military such as myself and they licensed us to go into emergency rooms and primary emergency medicine as a physician would do in an emergency room. And it was a whole pilot program in California, and I was the 3rd licensed PA in the state of California in 1966. And I got the very best job a PA could get in Los Angeles in 1960 6. I went to work in an industrial emergency room in the industrial complex of LA where Kyser Steel and Norris Industries and all these big manufacturing plants work. And they would have these terrible injuries.

I mean, Kaiser Steel have terrible things happen to some of their people at night and Latchford Glass would have people would get sliced almost in half. It was terrible. And we would handle all of this trauma in this emergency room and I was the PA there and I was a good job. And it was professionally rewarding, and I was very confident in what I was doing. I was well trained.

I made a lot of money. It was monetarily rewarding. It was a good place to be. I mean, it was a ground floor of a brand new profession. I met a beautiful girl.

We fell in love and got married. She was the daughter of a long time sober AA member. We were that grand young AA couple. You've got one here, I'm sure. They're just so cute, aren't they?

He's got a great job and she's pretty and boy, nothing bad is going to happen to them. They have this wonderful program, all that gas. Maybe, maybe true, but I would say it was not true in our case because I had not taken these steps and I had no program. And I go into this emergency room night after night and funny things would begin to happen to me. I become inadequate, less than, not up to the task, frightened and alone, all the things that you and I know about that happened to people who don't who are alcoholics but don't drink and don't have a spiritual program.

Now although I have no spiritual program, I have a very good medical background, so I know how to take care of depression. I use Dexedrine. 15 milligram Spectrals work best. And by the time I was through with those, I was taking 7 or 8 of them a day. Now anyone that knows anything about amphetamine abuse understands that as you're moving right along is what that does.

Whatever you're doing, you do it in a hurry. But it has an overriding problem and that is this. Long about the 5th or 6th day when you have not slept nor eaten, your hair stands right up on end, I guess, I'll tell you, Your eyes dilate right out of here to your ears. And when you show up in the emergency room like that to help the sick, The guy you were leaving never wants to go home. But there is an answer to that.

And the answer to that incidentally is a drug called DevRel, which is Demerol incidentally is another thing I want to talk about, Drugs Demerol is a narcotic, comes from opium. It's really a synthetic, but it's the same analog, chemical analog. Opiates incidentally, narcotics are addictive. Any drug that comes from opium is addictive, period, which is the difference incidentally between, and I hope I don't upset some of you who are here, but I don't care anyway. But I hope I don't.

Narcotic addiction and alcoholism are different. Going to tell you they're the same. That's not true. They're different addictions. Narcotics come from opium and they are addictive.

I mean, case closed. They are addictive for everyone. Heroin, morphine, Dilaudid, Opium, Percodan, they're all from opium and opiates are addictive. They are physiologically addictive and they are psychologically addictive. If you inject them in your vein, you will get addicted.

That is a promise. That is not true with alcohol. Did you know that 9 out of 10 people who drink alcohol do it with impunity? They are not alcoholic and they never end up in AA. 9 out of 10, we represent 1 out of 10 people who drink alcohol.

For us, something else happens when we drink alcohol. It does something to and for us that it does not do to other people. 9 out of 10 people who drink alcohol are social drinkers. That's what they are. Now I don't understand them, but that's what they you know what social drinkers do?

Social drinkers, people who normal ordinary human beings drink alcohol. They do it in a different way than we do. They They drink they say things like, no more for me. I have to drive. Or they say, gee, I'd love to have another with you, but my wife's waiting dinner.

Or the very best, my favorite, let's eat. That's what social drinkers do. I don't drink that way. I happen to be both. I happen to be both.

I happen to have been addicted to Demerol and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm sure many in this room are both, but they're 2 different ball games. And I think it's good to understand that when you knew because all of the psychotherapeutic community would like us believe it's all one big can of worms and it isn't. And it's important in AA that we know that it isn't. Now I became addicted to Demerol.

I mean, I got it out of the narcotic drawer. And I injected it and I got addicted. And when you're addicted and all of you know, when you're addicted to any drug, you use more and more of it all the time. There's a problem with Demerol. Demerol is called a controlled substance.

Let me tell you about that. That means that people care about what the hell happens to DEVIRON. I mean, really. I mean, people, all kinds of human beings are involved with where Demerol is. I mean, they spend time measuring the Demerol vial.

Christ, you know, Jesus, Vince, where the hell is the dope? I mean, it's gone. Every time on your shift, it's always gone. And long and short of it is, I'll tell you about who cares the most about Demerol, the people on the State Narcotics Board in the State of California. They care more about Demerol than you could possibly imagine.

They ended up in that emergency room early 1 Friday morning inspecting the narcotic logs. And you know what they did? They placed me under arrest like a common drug addict. Called me out of that emergency room and took me to the Los Angeles County Jail, put me through the booking procedure, which was a hideous kind of a thing for a fellow like me. And I didn't have to go to jail, I was charged with a felony appropriating narcotics for my own use.

No, I didn't have to go to jail. That charge was subsequently reduced to a misdemeanor, but I was put on probation and I lost my medical license. As well I should have. And to make a long story short, I ended up spending the summer of 1972 living in an apartment by the airport in Los Angeles with this girl that I married, she and I lived there. And we spent July August of 1972 with my drinking 1 half gallon of vodka a day and she watched.

And all of the things that happen to you when you drink a half gallon of vodka a day happened to me. And once again, I think that's axiomatic. I think if you have if you drink a half gallon of vodka a day, you never have to worry you know what I like about that kind of drinking? You don't have to worry about any diagnosis. You know what I mean?

Nobody ever accuses you of being in denial. You really you drink a half gallon of vodka in a day and you go crazy is what you do. There's no and the same thing happens to everybody. I mean, there's no social drinkers that half gallon of vodka a day. What you do is you vomit bile a lot.

You don't you're never asleep and you're never awake. Do you remember that? You're never drunk and you're never sober. You live in a twilight zone that you only know about if you've been there. You can't describe it.

And you lose £35 in July August, if you're like me. And all of the bad things and the nightmares and the terrors that chase alcoholics, They change when you drink a half gallon of vodka a day. And finally in the beginning of September, this girl's family came and they moved her out of that apartment. And they left just me there. And I had some money left and I don't know how much, but enough to get over that liquor store several more days.

I don't recall quite how many. And I would buy that half gallon of vodka and I would bring it back. And I would somehow get through it to the next day. I was in and out of black outs all the time. I don't know what what was real and what wasn't.

And I came out of a blackout in the early part of September in Newport Beach, California. And I remember how I got there. But it was mid September in Southern California, which is quite warm. The temperature is about 110, and I had on this 3 piece wool shoe suit and a white shirt and a tie. I was sitting on a bench by the Balboa Peninsula going through the ads the Orange County Newspaper because I knew I needed a job and next to me was a suitcase.

I became cognizant of where I was doing that activity. Now I don't remember how I got there, but that's where I was. And I found a job that day too as I found a job as an apprentice embalmer for a mortician in Costa Mesa, which if you are new and you need a job, do not do that. I'll tell you, it's a god awful job. I mean, it's just and the job paid $80 a week and a fringe benefit was it had an apartment over the casket room.

We kept the casket. I mean, have you ever walked through the casket room in the morning with a hangover? It will set you free, I promise you that. So I went to work for this guy and I didn't like him and he didn't like me. And he was something out of a bad B movie.

He was just he was awful. He was walking, drug his right foot, he was like something in the right foot. And he didn't like me and I didn't like him. And I got drunk and I stole his hurts is what I did. And on September 20, 1972, I came out of yet one more blackout driving the wrong way on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach in a stolen hearse with a young lady next to me, who I did not recall meeting incidentally, who was screaming hysterically because I thought it wrong way.

No, I was never thinking, Jesus, I really somehow I always end up with neurotic women. But she was screaming and carrying on and I and the reason I know that she was unstable is because when I got this thing going in the right way, she continued to scream, which is a big clue. I hope she got home all right. I haven't seen her again that day and this. That was September 20, 1972.

From that date to this, I'm not I've not had a drink of alcohol nor have I used any mood altering chemical whatsoever. And that's amazing when you can that's not like it's not for the guy who is 40 years sober, not for 17 years. But that was what I did. Now, what's so incongruous about that is it was not and this is what you should hear if you're new. I didn't know.

It was not my intention on September 20, 1970 if you would have told me my future, if you would have materialized, the back of that hurts and if you would have said, here is what will happen to you, it would have been incredible. But I didn't know it. You would have said, tomorrow morning, you're going back to AA for 17 years, you're not gonna drink any alcohol, you're not gonna use any drugs, but something more important is gonna happen to you, something unbelievable. You are going to become desperate, in sobriety. So desperate that you're going to become willing to do things that you do not believe in.

You're going to become willing to take actions that seemingly have nothing to do with what you think is wrong with And you're gonna do it out of abject desperation because you're so terrified not to do it. That's why you're gonna do it. And as a result of those actions, you're gonna get recovery from alcoholism in AA. And I wouldn't have believed that. That.