Salmon Arm Roundup, British Columbia, Canada

Howie W welcoming his wife, Jessie. They're from Innisfail, Alberta. I brought my own bottle in case you people haven't got any. You know, today is Saint Patrick's Day, in case you people don't know it. Yeah.

Nobody has said anything about it. That's except this morning, and there was a lady that said that. So I'm gonna start out. Did you know that Saint Patrick was the first member of AA in Ireland? Now just think about that for a minute.

He got rid of all the snakes. And I've had a few of those snakes and I know what they're like. And I'm awful glad for Saint Patrick. And in that same line, I'd like there's a tale that goes around about little Patrick. Patrick was an awful drunk, and this was before a and Patrick finally died of the drink.

And they laid him out in the living room, and the mother was bringing the people through to to see them. And the first one guest arrived, and they said, oh, poor Patrick. Poor Patrick. What did he die of? And she said, gonorrhea.

And everybody kinda ducked and walked away, and finally, one of the sons came over and said, mother, mother, why are you telling everybody that that is that terrible disease when you know he died of diarrhea? And she said, far better than he they think he went out as a sport than the shit he really was. And that's what started. Now you'll have to excuse my French, but I that's the only one I know. So I sorry about that.

My name is Howie and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm old and I'm on oxygen and I don't really care. How's that? I'm pleased about it. Anybody that can make it this far in life is gotta be pleased about it because god's been good to you and don't ever forget it.

He has really leaned us out there and said, Howard, I'm gonna put you through some stuff, but somebody's gonna carry you. And and it's been the organization of AA and the fellowship of AA that has carried me through. And with a lot of prayers from a lot of people in AA, I've gone through quite a bit. And, I'm not the least bit sorry about it. In fact, I'm grateful.

I was, born and raised in a little town in Alberta called Innisfail, and I'm gonna tell you a bit about that story because I think it's important. When the war broke out, the 2nd world war, that is, in case you people don't remember we had one, you know. I was 10 years old, and I remember I delivered the telegrams to my father that said, report for duty. War has broken up. And I never saw him again for 6 years after he left the army.

And by the time he came home, of course, I'm 16, 17, and I'm well into my cups by then. And I remember the the first night that they got home, I got stinking drunk. And, the amazing part about it, my mother used to get really upset and dad never did because he just knew, oh, it's another soldier. He said, you know. And my mother was, she used to get upset about it, but nobody really said anything.

What I knew from the day that I took a drink that I didn't handle it the same way as other people. I just didn't. Every time I ever took a drink in my life, I wanted another one. And there was nothing I could do about it. Now the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous in the medical side of it really explains that.

It says you can't look at alcoholism without looking at the physical side of it. And I believe I was truly allergic to alcohol. And in fact, when I was 21 years old, I was thrown on Christmas day in Halifax, I was thrown in a hospital, the navy hospital, they had me all wired up and my heart was pounding so bad that I thought I was going. And the doctor told me a couple of days later when they got me settled out, shot full of vitamin b and all that good stuff, he said, young man, I think that you're allergic to alcohol and you should never drink. It's dangerous.

So like the typical alcoholic that I was, I didn't drink for 2 weeks. I really didn't. And I thought I had cured. This guy told me I shouldn't drink. I won't drink.

And then I I decided that my problem was not what I was drinking. It was the people I was drinking with. I had to get away from them. So I got away from all my friends in Halifax. I got moved to the West Coast.

And that's where I wanted to go in the first place. So and I got on the train and the boys had provided me with a whole little patchy case full of rum and a few other drinks. And I got on the train and I was drunk before we left the station. And I got into more trouble on that bloody train than you'll ever believe. Just let me tell you a few of this.

This tells you the character of of me when I'm on a drunk. I got on as I said, I got drunk before I left the station, and then I met a girl, and I had all this rum. She liked rum. We got her bunk. I got thrown out of her bunk.

And the next thing I know, I woke up and I'm I'm in the sleeping parlor, or the smoking parlor rather, and there's a big black man there that's a porter and he's saying, man, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. And I said, what did I do? And I said, where are my clothes? And I was in shorts.

And he said, you passed out in the smoking room last night and I threw you in your bunk and I took all your clothes because I thought you might get sick and you did. And I got sick all over the girl down below me. But then I ran down the aisle to make it to the smoker's room and he said, some old lady stuck her head out and screamed because I had no clothes on and you're in trouble. And, you know, by the time we hit Montreal, I figured I was going to jail for sure. And I talked to girls that I got sick on into me paying for a dry clean.

And I forgot to tell you, it was her wedding dress I got sick of. She was going to get married. I know this sounds like a sailor's tale, but it's not. It's the truth. And I talked my way out of the as I I normally could.

And I got off in in Montreal and got drunk for 3 days and and rode the rest of the way to Alberta without any meals or any food because I was broke. And they say when you spend like a drunken sailor, you don't take long. You don't take long at all to not have a nickel. Cause when you get making $46 a month, you don't get drunk too long. And I stayed in the navy for 28 years and I didn't think I'd ever, get over it.

I I was single then and I didn't really give a damn. And I and I and I got back and I got promoted. That's another thing you could never understand. They promoted me petty officer and, I was back on the West Coast. And the first night that I slept in the in the single men's quarters, I set my sleeve on fire on my pajamas.

I was and, the mattress caught on fire and a few other things. And you know, I got up just as as smooth as it could be. I put the fire out with a bucket of water and I moved the mattress onto somebody else's bunk and I went in and I went to sleep. And that that was it. And I escaped like that a lot and then the Korean war broke out and they they were talking about posting me.

In fact, I was supposed to leave the next day. I was supposed to leave, for Japan. And I was to be the supply heavy officer in Japan, supplying the ships that were fighting in Korea. And I heard the chief that was in charge of me said, are you really sending wind over to Korea or Japan? And the officer said, yes, that's my intentions.

And he says, don't. He'll drink himself to death. And it was true. And I got sent to Edmonton. That's where I spent the Korean war.

It's very safe in Edmonton, you know. Except if you're the bartender, and I was. And, and I almost drank myself to death. And and and in that in that time, I met a sweet little girl called Jessie. We'd gone to school together.

Matter of fact, Jessie was the brilliant student in in high school, and I was following behind her About 39 behind her, and there was only 40 in the class. So that's gotta tell you something. I was into the booze then and I, Jesse used to get quite a kick out of me because I I disappeared. I had a disappearing act. I go to school, register, sit by the window, and as soon as the teacher turned her back, I'd out the window and gone for the day.

And I held down a full time job in between. And it was wartime and they needed people. I, as I said, one of the things I really discovered that I really was allergic to alcohol. And all kinds of things happened to me after that. I, I started Jesse and I got married and we moved to the west coast.

And, I was on a ship out there called the Stettler, and, things started to happen on the Stettler. I, I had a very good boss. He used to send me down to court every once in a while and I was duty free and I'd get into it. And, I ended up in Vancouver one night, ended up in a hospital. And I was vomiting, blunt, and I was, you know, hemorrhaging.

And I always remember those doctors because they they always said, were you drinking much? You know, you're stinking of it, but you you can't tell them that you were drinking much. I said, no. I was at the legion and had 3 beers. Now I'm just thinking of rum.

So how are you gonna be able to tell? But they they let it go with that. That trip, I remember very well because they kept giving me enemas every day that it was in there so they could take x rays. And I I got so that I got a sore ass out of it, but that's about all I got. And, I came back and and they said, the the diagnosis was suffers from acute gastritis.

Now, I don't know any alcoholic that drinks a tall that doesn't have acute gastritis every morning. As I always did. That was the ship that, and I I know I'm telling sailor tales here, but, I think it's important that you know just how crazy that some of us are. There there there's not just a physical thing to it. There's a mental obsession.

I knew I shouldn't drink physically. I knew that if I took one drink, I was gonna get drunk. And yet, I kept thinking it'll be different the next time. And so on on this particular ship, Jesse was still in Edmonton and I was to go and get her and we just docked. We'd come around from Halifax to to the west coast and we had just docked and I was to fly home that night.

And, this is where I picked up the name, the monkey man. I was gonna go ashore and fly to Edmonton. And, I was going to shore and and somebody had bought a monkey down in Panama. And as I went to go ashore, he jumped on my shoulder, wrapped his tail around my neck and away I went. And I went out to the airport and I'm all snapped up on that good rum that we had.

And, I tried to get on the airplane and they wouldn't let me. They said, you can't get on the airplane without monkey. And I said, what monkey? You're seeing things. And and, they didn't believe that.

They wouldn't let me on. So I went to the legion down the street and and drank the the day away. And and I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning in a hotel. I had no idea where it was. I was in this hotel and sitting on the end of the bed was this bloody monkey and it was going And if you think you you woke up from a drunk trying to get rid of snakes, try and get rid of a monkey that's been landed illegally in the first place.

So I took the monkey back, and then I had to go to the airport. And and, you know, everybody in the airport was saying, look. There he is. That's a monkey man. Yeah.

Okay. And you feel about this big. And And I I remember I met Jesse in the airport or on the sidewalk in in Edmonton. She didn't know I was coming home. And I was shaking so bad.

And I said, god, it's cold in Edmonton. I'm just I'm just freezing to death. And it was the shakes is what I had. I was It didn't take much to make me sick. And it got worse and worse and worse.

And, Jesse and I ended up then being posted to, Montreal. And, it was supposed to be for 2 years. And I arrived down there and they posted me to be an instructor. Now, one of the things that they said when I was taking my training to be a petty officer was that this man is not recommended to be an instructor. And of course, that's the first place they posted me, was to be this instructor.

And I was terrified. I'm the guy that, in grade 1, they asked me to read something, and I got up and I peed myself. So I'm not gonna do that ever again. I've I've got a real fear about that. That's why I like the podiums.

They're nice. They're very good. You know, stay away from them. Them. In any event, we got to Montreal and things got worse.

I got into all kinds of trouble. I remember chasing my car down the the Atwater drive at about a 108 miles an hour. I had a great big Buick, And I'm just I'm I got another guy driving my car rather, and I'm sitting beside him and telling him to go like hell. You know, get down there. We'll get some well, it got worse and worse until finally, one night, I came home.

Jesse, by then, was so fed up with me. She didn't know what to do. She, liked all good wives, that married alcoholics, thought that she could reform me. And, and I really didn't wanna hurt Jesse. I didn't wanna hurt her at all.

But the last time drunk I was on, I turned from a happy drunk to a physical one. I was gonna throw her down the stairs, and we lived in an upstairs apartment. And, I I was mean and cruel, and and I woke up in the morning. I didn't know what had happened overnight. And Jesse said, Howard, what are you gonna do about your drinking?

And I had heard about AA through another friend of mine in the navy who had joined it. He tried to talk to me about it and I told him to get lost. But anyways, I was faced with this and I said, so I guess I'll phone that a and a out. So she said, okay, I'll phone them for you. Something like that.

And the guy, of course, on the other end, his name name he was a big Irishman too. His name was Dan. He was an ex judge. Defrock, but he was an ex judge. And, Dan said, well, if he really wants to talk to us about it, he better get his rear end down here and talk to me.

So, I agreed that I would do it. I always thought I went down by myself. I was always proud that I joined AA all by myself. And, you know, about 4 years ago or so, Jesse was speaking and she mentioned that she'd gone down to the AA office with me. And I didn't even remember she went with me.

But I do remember what happened when I got there. I remember Dan, all the way down, rather. I I was thinking of what I was gonna tell this guy down at the AAE office. I was gonna tell him about if if he had a wife like mine or he had a boss like me, mine that I got and all the problems that I got, he'd drink too. And I got in the door and he said, my name is Dan.

You must be Howard. And I said, yeah. And he says, well, you can quit lying now. I've heard them all. And I didn't know what the heck to say.

I really didn't. And Dan didn't lecture me like most of us don't. We don't lecture. What we do is we tell our story. And Dan told me his story, and he'd been on the skids in New York, and he'd been in Montreal, and he'd been all over the place, but he had sobered up and and he sobered up in AA.

And he told me that I don't need to to go on with this suffering any longer. And he gave me those 20 questions, you know, the famous 20 questions, and I thought I did well. That's the first test that I ever took that I passed. You know? I had a fear of tests, as a matter of fact.

And, I got there anyways. And and Dan said, Howard, the best recommendation I can make to you is you go to an AA meeting. And I went to my 1st AA meeting that night with Jesse. And and all the way down, it was snowing like mad. And I said, there'd be nobody crazy enough to go out on a night like this to go to a meeting.

And she said, well, we'll go anyway. She was pushing a little, just a little, you know. And, we got in there and a guy stuck out his hand and he said, my name is Jimmy, and I'm an alcoholic. And he said, you must be a new fella. And I said, yeah, how'd you know that?

You know, it's so hard to tell. And in I went, and and I I sat down on the back row with him. And and he bought me a cup of coffee because he knew I couldn't handle it. I was not just shaken from from, bows, but I I was shaken because I was scared. And there there's if there's anybody new in this room tonight, you'll be scared.

It's a big decision. It's a big place to go, and you're scared that somebody's gonna find out about you. And, anyways, I I went to that first meeting, and I and I hit the bonanza. Eric mentioned it the other night. That Dave b, he was a AA trustee.

And he was the first member in in the province of Quebec in 1944. And, Dave was the speaker for the night. And Dave, was a very small man. He wasn't a big man. Kinda in his had a little bit of palsy in his arms.

He used to shake a bit like this and I thought he was still drinking because of his arm going until he talked. And, you know, Dave, meant a lot to me. He gave me my first big book. The 1st year that I got in AA. But Dave talked that night and he talked about feelings.

He didn't he didn't talk a lot that night about his drinking days. He he'd been in, I don't know how many institutions as I remember. He's he's number 2 in the big book if you wanna read Dave's story. And, he he was a terrific man. Dave was so busy in AA at that time that he had an extra room in the basement where he could hide and he couldn't hear the telephone and he couldn't and they would he would have to lock himself away because he was so busy in a and, I listened to him, and and he and he mentioned these feelings.

And I I and I knew. I automatically knew that this was the the kind of guy that I could listen to. And I did. I listened to him. And that was the last time that I drank, really.

It was just the day before that. And, it isn't that I didn't want to. I, I I can recall in in Montreal going to meetings and going to meetings, and and, I get tired of them. Because I had a problem. And my problem was I really didn't believe I was an alcoholic.

I didn't really believe that I was like you people. I was a little different. Most of the people in Montreal at that time were the people that ended up on the skids or they'd been in jail or they'd been there. They had all kinds of problems. And I hadn't gone that far.

In fact, they they questioned me when I first came in. Are you sure you're an alcoholic? After a while, I began to believe it wasn't, you know. So one night, I I I decided after I got fed up with going to all these meetings, I was going 7 days a week. I decided I was gonna go out and get drunk, give it a trial, just have a few.

Go night clubbing. I wanna live a little. So down, I went to the to my favorite night club and and all by my lonesome. I sat down. I ordered a Coke.

And I looked around, and this seemed to me that this wasn't the same place that I used to drink in. You know, your your thoughts change a little. There was dancing girls in this place, and they'd all aged. Without that drink, they'd all aged, the whole bunch. And there was cracks in the wall.

I never saw those before either. And they had the nerve to charge me a dollar 80 for a Coke, and I I wasn't gonna stay. And I got up and I left, and I never wanted a drink. Another night, I I decided I was gonna go to drink, and I went to my own meeting. And after the meeting, I was gonna drive the guys home.

They saw that there was something wrong and they said, how he'll drive us home? So I loaded them in my little car to drive him home and somebody stepped in and ran out of gas. I never got drunk. I went home. And I went on in a, I moved to the West Coast and I moved all over the place after that.

And, I I went to AA constantly. And, but I I couldn't grasp that thing that people were talking about of serenity. I kept saying to guys, when the hell do you get this serenity you guys are talking about? Because I didn't have any. And what the problem was that I was in an outfit called the navy, and say 90% of them drank.

And I was the sober guy that was sitting next to him, and I had difficulty with that. So I kept thinking, oh, you're different. You're different than them other guys. You never really went that far. You're young.

I'm 28 years old when I get in here. So I went on that way for about 5 years. And things had straightened around at home somewhat, but not as good as it should have been. And I had a lot of problems. And finally, I was at my a meeting one night, and it was a kind of a funny group.

We had a real mixed bag of people. The book tells us that, you know, we we are a bunch of people that wouldn't normally mix. Well, that's the kind of group I was in. They had everything in there. And this one old guy was a a professional gambler.

That's all he did. And and of course, being, you know, I was higher than he was. He was just a bloody old gambler. And, I spoke and I I I wasn't really speaking. I was whining.

You know, how you get when you're really not satisfied with things in life. And I was whining away, and and he got up next to speak. And he said, you know, if that fat boy that just spoke, God, that got my attention right now, I was a great man. What right had he to call me a fat boy, even if it was? If that fat boy would just realize that he hadn't done step 1, He might get some place.

And I had 5 years in the program. I'd worked in service. I'd worked in this. I'd worked in that. I did all kinds of things for the good of AA, but I didn't look after myself.

And I didn't really accept that I was an alcoholic. So that night in in the streets of Victoria, I walked the streets. I was so mad at that guy. I had a number one resentment against this old gambler, Tex. And I decided, after 2 hours of discussion with myself, the tux Tex was absolutely right.

And I haven't wanted to drink since, and I haven't needed a drink since. And that's the kind of fellowship in this program that reaches out to you one simple statement and says, here is the truth. Please accept it. And I did. And I've been around ever since and a heck of a lot happier.

You know, when they first printed the big book, they talked about the first 100 men. We, the first 100 men of this program, And how many we got now? We got over 2,000,000 kicking around in a 150 countries of the world. And I've been lucky enough by being in that navy to to visit a lot of those countries and and really enjoy different types of fellowship. I can remember being in England, going to a meeting in London, Or no.

In Portsmouth, rather. And, they they were conducting meetings there. They had never seen a big book. We brought ours along with us, 7 of us off our ship, and they had never seen a big book, yet they were all sober. They did it different.

They don't all do it the same way. The the group in Victoria that I used to go to, they called the roll every night. And I didn't realize it the 1st night that I was there. I didn't realize what they were saying. They'd they said, well, we're gonna call it, and they called out the names, and they called out Howard.

And I said, yeah. That meant you had had a drink. I didn't know that. And they this was the honesty part of the program, where Halifax was different. I spent a year in in Fort Churchill, all 2 of us.

You know, it was a big group. And I went we went to the CEO of the base that was loaded with drunks. You could see them all over the place. And, we said, we're starting an AA group here. And if you have anybody that you'd like to send over to our hall, we've got this space behind the, theater.

Send them on over. He says, well, that's fine. But I haven't got any drunks in my division. Alright. CO's wouldn't see it either.

So And, I went on in the in the program, and and did all the things that you're supposed to do in the program to make you keep you sober. And one of them is service. Service in this program is very, very important to all of us. You know, I was on telephone answering not too long ago and, we we have system in Edmonton than you'd probably do, but, our group has to take it the 9th of every month. And we get, and we have trouble getting people to take it because they're scared.

And, you know, I'm on I'm thinking of giving some lessons on how to answer the telephone because most of the phone calls, if you'll remember, as you you get a new person on the line, you know, you get those phone calls and you know, like Bob Newberg, you get the phone and you say, this is AA. Can I help you? You think you have a drinking problem? Oh, how much do you drink? Oh, not much.

How much is not much? Just 26 a day. Oh, that's not bad. No. You you probably haven't got a problem, and you hang up.

Or you'd say, no. Go see ADAC. Don't see us and get put into your detox. Now. And I I think that's wrong.

I think that that we have, changed our part of a that, that hurts a lot of people because you you can't they won't always take you in a detox. I have a friend of mine in Victoria that was barred from all the detoxes in in in BC. Now he was pretty good. We could probably get him in in Alberta if he was around. So we need to do to, get people interested in service.

So many don't know what it's all about, and they're scared of it. They it's not that they don't wanna take telephone answering, or they don't wanna go on a 12 step call. They don't know how to do it. And it's up to the people that have been around for a while to to train. We need to show them how to do it.

And that's what we're doing at any of these functions like this, the round up. We're showing other people that it works. And it works well. One of the things that I didn't mention tonight was I've got 49 years in the program, but my wife also has 49 years in. And she's been sober longer than I have.

I can't understand that. I like what doctor Bob had to say about that. For some reason, we alcoholics seem to have the gift of picking out the world's finest women. Why they should be subject to the tortures we inflicted upon them, I can't explain. And I feel the same way.

I don't know why, but they they have stuck to us. And without Al Anon, our our marriage would have split many years ago. And we've been married, I don't know, 54. Did I get that right, Jesse? 54 years, I I think.

Our 2 kids, one was 2 years old, when I got sober and and, the other one was just a baby. And so they don't know anything about, a drunken father. They know that I was in AA and, they neither one of them has a problem. Now, sometimes you wonder about that. Do we pass it on to generations?

Is this a gene that's in us? It doesn't make any difference. They'll have to handle it anyways. But I I think I think there is something in that, personally. My grand great grandfather was a drunk.

My uncle was a drunk. And it might go on, but not probably in this next generation. And, they they're not interested in it. Another thing that doctor Bob said that I I believe a lot of us find out the is I come in a solely for the purpose of sobriety. It has been here through but it has been through AA that I have found God.

And, you know, a lot of us I say a lot of us, but particularly me, I think in the beginning, I think I was ashamed to believe in God. You know, sailors don't really unless the ship is sinking, they don't believe in god. Then then they swim like that. I always remember we were in the middle of the ocean and and, one of my shipmates was a little drunk. And the ship rolled and he went over the side and it was man overboard.

And, we threw him a lifeboat, and they turned the ship around, come back, got him, fished him out of the water. His name was Spike Gilles, so I shouldn't have given his anonymity away like that. Anyways, he came out of there and he was singing a song, something about, oh, God has saved me now. And I thought, Spike, you never mentioned that before in your life. And, but I've seen it.

I've seen it at sea. I've seen god in his action at sea and saving people's lives and people hollering for god. And I've also seen it in a way that we don't all of us don't get saved. Just before I left Edmonton, a very good friend of mine, I looked down on her as a very good friend. A nurse, about 40 years old, had their 1st year in AA, and went on a slip, and committed suicide.

And we wonder why do those things happen. And sometimes, it's because we're so carried away with our own self, we don't pay enough attention to other people, and we we, we lose some unnecessarily. Or there's some judgment goes on, and I think that I have to be very careful with, with that in this program. Because I've learned that, you know, I even caught myself the other day saying, look at that nut got nailed for driving and drinking. No.

I must have drove drunk 400 times, and and here I am accusing some guy of being a terrible guy because he was driving and drinking. We we we can't judge anybody. But we can sure pay attention to each other and try to help each other. How many people we're sponsoring people these days? You know, you're given this sobriety, but you gotta give it away.

It says that in the in the book. And I believe this book, by the way, this this big book of ours is is so close to anything that, you know, we talk about our feelings and that everything that's said in there is true. And, you know, Bill didn't get it all just overnight. Bill didn't pick up this stuff by himself. A lot of it came from other people.

And and I I thought, oh, you phony Bill. The first time that I saw the serenity prayer in its full length anybody ever heard it? It's not just the 4 verses, but there was a pastor that put this out and it's and god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time. What do we talk about in the big book? Enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace, taking as he did this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next. Amen. A terrific prayer that that Bill must have I think he was pretty good at stealing stuff other stuff, couldn't it? Bill was, you know, was a was quite a man when you study him.

Bill was very human. He was very human. He was just like you and I in a lot of things. He made a lot of mistakes. And, and I'm not criticizing, but I met a doctor in Saskatchewan once that had treated Bill.

You know what he treated them with? LSD. Now that's hard to believe, but that's true. And, doctor Hoffer was his name, and he lives in, Victoria if he's still alive. Yeah.

Is he? And he's a terrific doctor. He was trying to help alcoholics. And I I attended one of his lectures in Saskatchewan at that time. I was at the university there.

And, he, I was a smoker then. And I always remember him because he came in and he he said, how many in this room are smokers? We all had our hands up and he took a count. I wonder what this was all about. The next day he come in and he had a bag, a little brown bag, and it was full of those nipples that they have for for babies.

And he said, this is what you guys really wanted, and that's I didn't take kindly to him. You know? He was a terrible man as far as I was concerned. He was a vitamin kick guy too. My my sponsor got a hold of him.

My sponsor believed in vitamins. He was always shoving them at me. His his name was Murray Black. You might have remembered him. Murray was always giving me vitamin b, vitamin this, and vitamin that.

And I didn't believe in them but, you know, lots of the bags never got home. Because I dumped them on the side of the road. But Murray believed in him and, he was he was a wonderful man. A lot of people in AA that I've met am I over time or where am I? They, a lot of those people that sponsored me when I came into AA really got to know me.

And they really told me things that, nobody else would have told me. One day we were talking about my ego problems. He wanted to talk about them, I didn't. And he said to me, he said, Howie, you're about as humble as Hitler. And I thought, oh, boy.

Here we go. And he come out with some really priceless stuff that helped me along the line. But he but he taught me the first Christmas I was in AA. He taught me a real lesson that how how to give. He had another guy that had just got out of jail and he had me over there and he had a basement full of broken toys and he said, now put them together.

And he had us work on them for night after night after night. And, then he said, now you're gonna deliver them. And I had a little Austin car, but then and, I was delivering them all over Point Saint Charles, to people that were needy. And one of them was a a lady that needed her husband was in jail. And they didn't she had an electric stove and it was broken.

So Murray had tracked down a gas range and a brand new one and he said, how will you deliver this? So I had this on the top of my little Austin and I'm down in Point Saint Charles and that's not a district you wanna travel in if you're stealing something. And I was a little worried. And I got down there and I got it up to her place, and she tore a strip off and eat like I never had done before. She said, when you deliver something like that, you better be ready to hook it up.

I had no idea how to hook it up. I said, yes, sir. Yes. I got the heck out of there. And then I went to my sponsor and said, what were you doing to me?

Oh, he says, I never thought of that. Oh, yeah. So he got one for and I I learned a real lesson in living in that that area that, not living, but working in that area, point Saint Charles. It was primarily an Irish district at one time, so so I should've learned something. But, my new group that I had in Montreal did not have 6 months sobriety on any member in it.

Now you can imagine what kind of a group that was. You You know, we read up on our traditions. Each group shall be autonomous. You know? And, we decided that we should open a halfway house down in Point Saint Charles.

So we went to the United Church minister and and talked him into it. This other guy, Richie, he's still sober. He lives in BC now. He had to leave town. He's he's anyways, we, we we got this space from the United Church minister, to have a a coffee shop and, a place where people could drop in.

And it's right down in the skids, and and we we opened this place, and and we we got we needed a guy to run it. So we got somebody off Skid Row that had just sobered up. His name was Jake the Snake. I don't know if you ever met him, Eddie. They had some funny names for some of those guys down there.

And Jake, it ran fine for the 1st month or so, but the the old timers in in Montreal kept saying, you guys shouldn't be doing that. You should not do that. We're not in that business. So we didn't have it open too long, and and, the guy phoned and said, some of these guys are so badly dressed. They feel embarrassed when they go to meetings.

You know, they don't have any clothes. So we started gathering clothes for them. And the best dressed dump drunks in the meetings in Montreal were the ones right out of that halfway house. Because all the rich guys brought their nice suits down and everything. You know?

But anyways, it ended up, you know, talking about anonymity. It ended up that we got a phone call one night from the United Church minister, and he says, you gotta get down here. You gotta get down right away. He said, Jake is drunk, and he's got a bunch of women in. Oh, it was a it was a mess.

So we went down and and Richie, this was an ex military policeman, said, Jake, get out. And Jake said, you can't tell me I'm the manager here. And Ritchie drove him in our gentle kind AA way, whack, you You know? Down he went, and we whacked him out of there and kicked the girls out and and closed the place up. And it's never been opened since that I know of.

But we learned the hard way. And a lot of us in AA learned the hard way. We we break every rule in the book, even when they tell us not to. And that's in our nature. I'm thoroughly convinced that it's in the nature.

Somebody mentioned what are some of the things that you did wrong in AA? Well, that's one of them. But the biggest one that I did wrong in AA was that, I was a meeting dud. I went to 7 meetings a week. Now who was at home looking after the place?

Jesse. And she got, I don't know why she didn't leave. She didn't. Thank God. And, I wouldn't recommend that to anybody.

Yes. A is important, and a comes first when you're first sobering up. But if you overdo it, you're gonna pay for it. You know, you'll still end up like I did after 5 years with with all those meetings. I still did not have that serenity, and I didn't give it to Jesse.

And for that, I truly am regretful. I did my 5th step with a woman minister. That's interesting. She was a wonderful woman, and so did Jesse. She did hers, brother, in Victoria.