The Sponsorship Group's 6th anniversary in Chatam, NJ

For our first speaker for 15 minutes, we're gonna have Tom come up. Tom Flynn from from Baltimore, Maryland, and then he's gonna introduce Clancy. So thank you very much. Man, I just like to have the right to take up the collection, I'm alcoholic, you know. Yeah.

First things first, I am not a problem drinker. I am an answer drinker. Life was a problem. Alcohol was an answer. That makes me an answer drinker.

Alcohol has taken me to places that National Geographic's never seen. I didn't even have a ticket. I can go up in here, go anywhere. Don't need a passport. Don't need anything.

Don't know whether I'm coming back, don't care. Fewer and fewer other people cared, too. I had a wonderful time drinking. Once in a while I hear a guy say, Oh, I picked up a drink and I was an instant alcoholic. I could cry.

So sad, you know. I had a lot of fun drinking. He picked up a drink. He said instant alcohol. He missed a lot, you know.

I think it's like getting pregnant without having sex. There's some there's something wrong here. But I digress. The I I I'm so wayward they have to give me a topic. They won't let me pick 1.

You know. And, that's okay. I can follow directions. I'm gonna talk about sponsorship, that wonderful gift, sponsorship, that enriching gift for both the sponsor and the pigeons. I call them pigeons, I don't call them sponsees, I'm no lawyer, you know.

I call them what they are. And, I sponsor quite a few men. I have the same sponsor. I have a home group. My home group is to Harbor City Speakers Meeting in, Baltimore.

And my sponsor's been my sponsor since I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, August 14, 1980. I haven't outgrown him. He's growing faster than me, okay. So I don't think I'm going to catch him in the foreseeable future. He's 84, he looks like he's 55, and he moves like he's about 56.

And, last winter he went to Central America to do some missionary work for his church and took his wife for 62 years with him. So he's a pretty steady fellow. He's been sober 43 years and he's still happy about it. And my sponsor is one of those very uncool guys. He actually tells his face about it.

He don't sit in the corner, you know, like the great Buddha or something, you know. He sits there smiling. And you can see that he is sober. You can see his eyes. They're clear, they're shiny.

And his eyes actually smile at you. See, that's how he is. I wanna be like my sponsor. I wanted to be like him 26 years ago. And I still wanna be like my sponsor.

Even once in a while he gets other pigeons he works with. Do you know, as long as I've been around, I still get a little jealous. You think you would get over that, wouldn't you? Well, I'm here to report to you I haven't gotten over it. Okay?

It just don't last as long. See, that's all. What is the advantage of a sponsor for me? I can only talk about my experience. You know, that's all I can do.

The most repetitious thing my sponsor has ever told me is, I have feet of clay. He must have told that to me a 1000 times. See. He tells me that He is mortal. He's like me, he has the same shortcomings and defects that I have.

They just don't run him anymore, not as much as they used to be. He's not a candidate for Satan, because then he and I couldn't get along. Yeah. But he's a candidate for a good messenger man. And he and I get along there.

I remember one time I did a meeting in Delaware, it was a Delaware state convention some years ago. And you have sponsors do this, they do the craziest things at the craziest time. I got finished talking. He came up and patted me on the back and said, Tom, you did good. And I felt very, very puffed up, my sponsors saying how good I felt, you know.

I was really going to, you know, the reincarnation of Demosthenes or something like that, you know. And then he asked me that stupid sponsor question. He said, You used to deliver newspapers in South Baltimore, didn't you, Tom? Yeah. Wally, I used to do that.

That's a good thing for you to remember tonight. You're the delivery boy. You're not the editor. So if I meet any of you guys on the street and I say to you, paper lady, you know what it's all about. You got that?

Okay. Okay. That's what it's about. That's what sponsorships about. It's that joy of passing along a message.

Not only is there a solution, but there is a solution for you now. Now is the operative word. The solution is for you now. Let's start now, you know. He don't say, You're gonna start.

Yeah, I thought I was intellectual, I was mistaken. I've soon gotten over that. And my sponsor says, We're going to do the steps. He don't say you're going to do them. I thought I should join an in-depth study group and impress him how much I knew.

But, he I can't impress him too much. I haven't impressed him in 26 years. I I've tried. I've even lied and exaggerated some of my feats, you know. Now my sponsors never called me a liar.

He suggested that I close the gap between me and the truth, But he's never really called me a liar. And sometimes he would say to me, Tom, I'd listen to you speak sometimes, and I, you know, like to tell you, I'm a much more accomplished liar than you. I lie better than you. So whatever early honesty I developed, I developed by default, not by virtue, because my sponsor was listening and he was a better liar than me. So it's true, that simple.

Now what he says, People can come to AA. A lot of people come. A lot of people don't recover. That's their business. I'm not critical of you.

That's how you see it. That's okay with me. See. Let me tell you real quickly how it is. If you come to AA and you think drinking is your problem, and you stop drinking, then the drinking has left.

If the problem's still there, after the drinking's left, You've got a problem other than drinking. It's still there. That's evidence of it, ain't it? It's here. Right.

It's that simple. So you need something else that's gonna take care of the problem that's left over. It's still there. And that's what the steps are, a program of recovery, not just stop drinking. See, you have to stop drinking, that really helps.

Armed with that help, right. I cannot face the truth about myself because I am delusional, see. Part of my illness is in my head. I am delusional. People will say, Oh, I'm in denial.

I cannot be in denial. Be in order to be in denial, you must know the truth. I don't know the truth. What I know is a non truth, and I believe it. That's delusional.

To be in denial is to know the truth and say it is not so. That's denial. So I'm delusional. But I've got to take some actions or I'm going to get miserable. Now how can I take actions if my mind, which is delusional, directs me?

Right? We all have experience for that. I am going to get delusional, directed results. It's very simple, you know. It's like 2 and 26, yeah that's right, Flations everywhere.

Yeah, right. Delusional. That's what I am. That's where a sponsor comes in. The next speaker has taught me what this is.

Alcoholics Anonymous, in essence, is one alcoholic talking with another alcoholic for the sole purpose of him taking some actions he does not yet believe in. I got that right, didn't it? It ain't got right. It's true. Now how can I take the actions with a delusional mind?

I can't. Can I? Of course I can. But my sponsor can. He can guide me.

You see, you don't have to understand to do these steps. You can walk right next to a sponsor who has already has the experience of doing the steps. You can avoid your delusional thinking from the very get go if you follow your sponsor's direction. For you're not listening to your head, you're listening to an informed, experienced, sober hit. And you will get those kind of results.

It's that simple. That's the importance of a sponsor. A good sponsor will always say whatever power he or she has comes from this higher power because a good sponsor will openly acknowledge that he or she, oven by themselves, were unable to pull this thing off. They couldn't get themselves sober. So where the heck do they come all saying they can get you sober oven by themselves?

So they will refer you to a higher power of your choice, your understanding. It may be him or her for a while. That's okay though. They'll let you play a little puppy dog for a while. You like that.

Okay. They'll patch you. Okay. Yeah. But they'll lower the truth on you.

And the truth is, what a good sponsor does, he takes my fearful, trembling hand, full of guilt, shame, and steadies that shaking hand, and watches me put that hand into the hand of a loving God. That's what a good sponsor does. And he stands in the background now as my friend. And lets me focus my attention on God, not him or her. He makes that transfer gracefully.

That's what a good sponsor can do. So you can avoid all the pain of early recovery with a good sponsor by following directions, doing the steps. You say, Oh, Wally, I can't do the steps. Why is that, Tom? When they said, I'm still fogged up.

Well we can do them twice. Once we'll do them just to lift the fog and then we'll do them unplugged. But what do you do with a sponsor like that? You do what I did when you're desperate. Okay.

There's the most spiritual words I've ever I can say the Lord's prayer. I can say everything. Right? I spent 4 years studying to be a priest. Okay.

I can say all that stuff. Yeah. We're all great. We're all searchers. Yeah.

Most spiritual words I've ever said. Get in the car, Tom. Okay, wawe. It's a willingness to follow the directions of another human being. That's what surrender is.

Ain't got a damn thing to do with Pearl Harbor. Right? Sure it is. Sure it is. That's what a sponsor can do.

Ever since then, my life has, power, unfailing power. It has a real, clear direction, you know, and I have a purpose that makes me feel downright upright. Thank you very much. Some of the things I said you may not agree with, I got them from our next speaker, Clancy. My name is Clancy I'm an alcoholic.

I wanna welcome you all here. All you folks up in the half measures balcony. I, I am glad to be here at this anniversary. I've been at the anniversary of this group, I guess every year since it was founded. And it's something I look forward to, and I'm glad to see it, continues to flourish.

It's a mark of a good group continues to flourish and grow and bad groups eventually dwindle and die. And so I'm glad to be here. I, had kind of a bumpy trip in on the airplane today and the wind was blowing here and they wouldn't take off because they couldn't land. It was just a rotten trip. But then I had to think, this is not really a rotten trip.

I'll tell you a rotten trip. I think I mentioned this once before. But some years ago, I was speaking in Reykjavik, Iceland. That's a long ways away from Los Angeles, I'll tell you. And on the way home on Sunday night, you take, have to take air Iceland to Minneapolis, which is like traveling in a box car.

And so I was sitting in Minneapolis at about 4 hours to wait before the United Airlines plane left. And at night, everybody's gone home. I sit in the red carpet room, which is the freaking flyer room. And I was tired and had to go to the bathroom. So I went to the bathroom, make cute little bathroom, 2 little stalls with little doors and little sink.

It's just so cute. And I was sitting in one of these stalls just thinking. And a a voice from the next stall said, hi there. I thought it must be some mistake. I didn't say anything.

The voice said, what are you doing tonight? And I better get this quashed right now. I said, I'm going back to Los Angeles to my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren, but thank you very much for asking. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

There was a long pause and the voice said, we could really have some fun tonight if you wanted to. And I was tired and I overreacted. I said, look I don't know what your problem is pal but I'm not in here listening to your crap. Just sit here and do what you're supposed to do. I'm a do what I'm supposed to do and forget it.

There's a long pause and the voice said, I'll have to call you back. This jerk of the next stall won't shut up. That's what we call a bad trip. I know there's a lot of new people here. Now I was talking to a few of them who got 2 days over and some other people before the meeting.

And, there's something I think that might help you understand a little bit what Tom was talking about, what I'm going to talk about, what you hear at AA. Something you never hear discussed at meetings, but there are types of alcoholics. We don't talk about it, but there there seem to be types of alcoholics. There's a type of alcoholic by any way you measure them, they drink and get in trouble and can't stop. And something happens that really threatens their security.

They may, lose a job or they may lose a family or somebody dies and they quit and they never drink again. And we don't know if people like that or some in my family. And the same type of alcoholic, if they have become addicted to alcohol, you don't hear that much. You just hear drug addiction. But physical addiction to alcohol is much more lethal than drug addiction.

When drug addicts withdraw, they get very sick. When physically addicted alcoholics withdraw, they sometimes die. They smash their head into the sidewalk and have all terrible things happening. Their heart goes. But these are the people for whom treatment centers were originally created to medically withdraw people off the addiction to alcohol.

Each step of the way they show them the nature of their problem. What's been going on? What's wrong? And they quit and they never drink again. Up in Seattle there's a big hospital called Shick Shadel and they advertise, alcoholics, we will cure your alcoholism in a month with 2 follow-up treatments.

And we think this is not ridiculous, but they have a long list of names. Just many, many names that for people who've done that. That's the type of alcoholic. Then there's another type of alcoholic, which seems to be a type of alcoholic. It's, they drink and they get in trouble and they can't quit.

And something happens that really threatens their security. Maybe they lose a job or lose a family or somebody dies and they quit, but they always eventually drink again. And the same type of people come out of treatment centers with tears of sincerity rolling down their cheeks and they quit, but they always eventually drink again. And these are the type of people that have baffled humanity for 4000 years in written history. Everyone has tried to help them.

They can't be helped. Years 1000 years ago, they thought they were possessed by devils They'd put them to death. They'd flog them and send them away. There's never been an answer. Over the years, science tries to help them.

Religion tries to help them. Medicine tries to help him, everybody tries to help him. And I suppose most of us will never what we are most familiar with, I would think, is, at least I am, I'm sure some of you are, of seeing that look in the face of someone who loves you. That terrible look of disappointment that says, Oh, how could you? You were doing better and you were doing, you were doing so good.

And the children were doing better. And and now look, you're drunk again. How could you do that? And the only answer I know to that is leave me alone because I don't know the answer either. Just leave me alone.

And it goes on and on. There's never been an answer. Just stop and think if you're kind of new tonight. In these 4000 years of recorded history of this type of alcoholism there's been 2 periods where there's been any group of people, such people staying sober. One was an organization called the Washingtonians from 18/40 to 8, for the next few years.

They had what they estimated after 5 years, they had a 100000 suburb drunkards, which is pretty impressive when you think A only had maybe a1000 after 5 years. I mean, they just took a sedation by storm. And the other place of course is Alcoholics Anonymous, which you're sitting in, which has been here. Started very slowly in 19 thirties, but has picked up speed over the years. The Washingtonians in 18/45 did something that makes sense because you hear it in meetings today.

Gosh, if we're able to help drinkers, we should be able to help many types of people. It's all one big disease. We should help narcotics addicts who are not alcoholics. We should help perhaps gamblers, no reason, people with emotional problems. Some of them got involved in politics.

Some many of them got involved in the temperance movement. Stell's stamp out the sale sale of alcohol. Some got involved in allowing Texas into the union. Some got into slavery, anti slavery work. They all got very busy.

And by 1848, they were extinct. Very few exceptions, they all died drunk. 100,000 of them. I had a book written by one of the few survivors in 18/61. He said, I don't know what happened.

We were doing so well. Then we all had so many things to do. We just didn't seem to have time to get together to help one another anymore. That's a small thing. And, they were extinct.

I'll tell you how extinct they were. As I said, Alkali Anonymous was formed in 1935. By 1939 they had written this book which wasn't designed actually to help alcoholics so much as was to get money to build hospitals to help alcoholics. Thank God it didn't sell so we couldn't build the hospitals. And in the end of 1940, a was fairly well known.

But the Saturday Evening Post had a writer who specialized in uncovering corruption. He had just finished a scathing article about the Philadelphia Labor Unions on the docks. His next assignment, Get the dope on those alcoholic anonymous fellas. And he wormed his way in and much to a surprise found it just what they said it was. People doing it for without for fun and for free as the saying goes.

Helping one another, getting up the night to help one another, doing all sorts of things. And he wrote a very remarkable article about it in the Saturday Evening Post in March 19, the anniversary of it, from 1941. So that I don't know how many years ago. That is a long time. And it took the country by storm, because all over the country people had knew these type of alcoholics that couldn't stay sober.

And here's somebody writing about somebody that takes these people and makes them sober. And they flooded New York with letters. Oh, my God. My husband's this way. My wife's this way.

My and all over the country A started just boom. And, by 1942, there were thousands of groups in the United States of people. And by 1943, the novelty is starting to wear off. The groups were dying off by 1944. They were dying off further.

Bill Wilson said he sat at his desk every day. See the letter, our group died. Take us off your mailing list. Our group got fighting about something. Our group got into a beef about money matters.

Our group got into, we don't understand why you have to remain anonymous. On and on. By 1945, he didn't know what to do. AA was dying. And a guy in North, he started the thing called the grapevine.

I thought that helped. It was a tabloid. It's not a small thing, but there was a tabloid. He thought, Maybe that'd make pull people together. It didn't.

In 1945, a doctor in North Carolina wrote him a letter and said, Bill, I'm sending an article for you that maybe we were running the grapevine because it's really kind of appropriate. And it was an article on the Washingtonians. That group that had been there 100 years. Bill had never heard of them. That's how extinct they were.

And he read all about them and what happened to them and why it happened. And he looked at the letters he's getting the same things, the same same fights, the same arguments, the same problems, the same lack of attention. And in a desperate attempt to save Alcoholics Anonymous, Before he died he sat down and wrote the 12 traditions, which are based on the experience of the Washingtonians as much as the AA. And a lot of people we don't even pay much attention. They're just something out in the book.

Thousands of alcoholics died for those before those traditions were introduced. The irony is, of course, that he introduced them 1 by 1 in the grapevine in the long form. If you have a book, look in the back across from the short form that we read sometimes in meetings is the long form, which explains what they're about. In my group in Los Angeles, we read the long form once a month because we want the newcomers to know what's going on. But he introduced them 1 by 1 in the grapevine.

And Alcoholics Anonymous had the same problem then as we have now. It's a difficult problem. It's full of alcoholics. And people all say, We don't want any rules. We're not here for rules.

We're here to find love. A lot of people wouldn't accept it. Some people did, but a lot of people didn't. Groups kept dying, but some groups hung in there. And Bill would ride around in all over the East Coast in his motorcycle with his wife in the sidecar, going to meetings to explain these are not rules.

These are trying to save AA. And even then, there in the letters in New York in the archives, a couple letters say things like this. Dear Bill, we would very much appreciate to have you come and speak at the anniversary of our group, but only if you promise not to talk about their traditions. If you're that so, don't come. I mean, that was really brutal.

So Bill and Doctor. Bob, Doctor. Bob was the co founder of AA in a sense. He lived out in Akron, Ohio. And Bill lived in New York.

And, Bill and doctor Bob always got along very well. Their followers didn't, because the people in Akron, Nick had come out of the Oxford group and they were a little more attuned to the Oxford group and the 4 absolutes. In New York, they're involved in actions and so on. And so Bill and doctor Bob, if we could just get all the these various people together once and see we're all on the same page, they don't accept the traditions. So they told their followers, find a place to meet.

And the people in Akron said, well, I'll go to a meeting but we're not gonna go to New York. And And the people in New York not to be outdone in spirituality. Okay. We'll go to a meeting. We won't go to Akron.

So Bill and doctor Bob got together. They come up with a solid but like decision. Cleveland. All right. So in July 4th weekend, 1950, the first major group of sober alcoholics of our type in the world sat in that room.

And there are people from all over. I have the tapes home at that convention. Very poor quality now, but I mean, what how fascinating to listen to. Doctor. Bob, the co founder.

Bill and Doctor. Bob both spoke, of course. Bob was dying of cancer. So they said, You probably don't wanna speak Bob because you're so sick. Oh, no.

My God is sick. I'm 15 years sober. I'm the 2nd oldest sobriety in the world. I'm I'm not done yet. Let that be a warning to the next gunner.

Well, I that's why I'm hardly ever invited back and shipped once a year. Yeah. But doctor Bob that day, his son on one side and a friend on the other took this tall, gaunt, dying man. And he they want him because he was the most, he was one of the great conveyors of the alcoholic sat on the spirit, better than Bill. And to the point of him, he he gave a short talk, which, many people consider to be the Gettysburg address of Alcoholics Anonymous.

He started off very drabbly. He said, oh, I'm so glad to be here, and I'm and I hope you'll go back and tell all the boys and girls in your group that all of us are together and we're getting much out of what we put into it. And he says, I look over this vast group. I'm glad that some small thing I did 15 years ago helped bring this about. And then he said, I wanna apologize for my health.

It has been good. I've been sick the last few months and, you know, just blah blah blah. But then, it's about I feel I'd like call your attention to 2 or 3 things. In the next 2 minutes, he specified what AA is right down the halls of eternity. He said, 1st, let us remember to keep our program simple.

Let's not louse it all up with Freudian complexes, which may be of interest to the scientific mind, but has nothing to do with our work here. Our work here, when reduced to the last, consists of love and service. And we all know what love is and we all know what service is. And secondly, he said, let us guard that erring member, the tongue, and try to use it with kindness and understanding. And there isn't a person in this room or any room like it who doesn't know exactly what he's talking about.

When things are going our way, I just we're just all wonderful. Love is the answer. I found a new God. But let somebody hurt our feelings or threaten us psychologically or do something that makes us angry? It doesn't take long.

I believe that son of a bitch twists baby chicken's necks. Pass it on. And finally he said, none of us would be here tonight if someone hadn't taken the time to take us to a few meetings, to explain things to us, to give us a pat on the back when we needed it. Let us never reach that stage of smug complacency when we are too busy to help our fellow man who still suffers from this disease. And that's all.

Thank you. He sat down and was dead shortly thereafter. But that really synthesized A. But the thing that, that whole thing was about on the tapes they had 6 young guys. Each of them took 2 traditions and explained these are not rules, these are not laws, there's no police department.

We're doing this to save AA. And they did them well and they, introduced them. 1 guy made a big point of saying, these these are we don't have AA police. We can't keep you out of the meetings. You know, through really some bad press in my area in Los Angeles, I've been called a dictator type sponsor.

I've been called a person who does not share, but rather tells. Here's what you're doing today smiley. You know, and that, it makes it sound pretty brutal except that it's hard to realize that you could you could be a dictator type sponsor only as long as you've got the absolute approval of the dictatee. If all he ever has to say is screw you, and the dictatorship is over. And that's, where have you been?

Why is your face flushed? But I You can only be a dictator as long as the the dictatee. That's why a lot of us old timers said it might have been a good idea to have AA police, you know, come at night. Did you say screw you to your sponsor? Come with us to the camp for a little retraining.

But they put in the traditions and that saved the Alcoholics Anonymous and that's why we're here tonight. And we don't even pay much attention to it, but those traditions saved AA. And that's why we're it's all about that's why it's rather important. That's why a group can last 6 years. The biggest group in New York for years was the was the, midway group.

Met on 5th Avenue. I spoke there in the 19 sixties, seventies too. Big enormous group. And they became the cutting edge of AA. And they realized, alcoholics now once upon a time should be for alcoholics, but should be for everybody now.

So they began having a combined AA and NA meeting and then they had all kinds of people with emotional problems participating. And, little by little they shrunk and they've been dead for 20 years. Nobody's ever even heard of them anymore. And they're the biggest one of the biggest groups in the United States. Because it turns out the reason that traditions are important, a meeting where anything goes is eventually a meeting where nobody goes.

It's almost as though people like us, we want meringue, but we need bread and butter. And you get bread and butter and the meat and potatoes at regular meetings. I very much enjoyed Tom's talk today on sponsorship because I am, I'm a strong believer in sponsorship. My, my life was my life I owe my life to it. I I was in and out of AA for years.

I I have an empathy for those people who cannot stay sober, who come here and can't stay sober. I admire the people who come here and get sober and stay sober. That's what the way it should be. But there's some of us who are obstructionists in our minds or something or just I can't accept AA. I don't, you know, AA is nice, but I've got a lot of problems, a lot of situations, a lot of deals.

As Tom said, alcohol alcohol makes it better. That's why I drink. I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I drink because I screwed around a lot when I'm sober. You know.

They say, Alcoholics can't stop. I can stop anytime. I've stopped 100 of times. My problem is that I can't stop. My problem is after I stop in a day, or 2, or 3, or 4.

One day somebody seems to sneak into my bedroom in the night putting invisible spring in my gut, And the next day they start to tighten it. And it doesn't come out as I need booze. It comes out as a little growing restlessness, little irritability. Just a little tired of this constant sermons about what I did last month. Get off it.

And, little by little, what happens to me when I'm on the wagon, the technicolor in the world gradually turns to black and white. It's all there. And I've tried a lot of things. I spent 1,000 and 1,000 of dollars in psychoanalysis to get to the root of my problems. And I got to what I thought was the root of my problems.

I had a great breakthrough. But it's I realized I still had the same feelings, you know. I just knew why now. Because why is always the answer. You know?

When I was drinking heavily, the psychiatrist said, were you are you from an alcoholic family? Were you inappropriately touched as a child? I didn't know how to explain it to him. I the only alcoholic in my family is me. And the only person who inappropriately touched me was me.

And knowing all the reasons why you are goofy doesn't help if you're still goofy, you know. What's the what's the purpose of it? You may be late at night in a bar where some big moose killer says, I'm gonna piss your mouth off all night. What the hell's wrong with you? Then you can tell them.

I was repressed by the Norwegian Lutheran church and my prayers were like, boom. I, alcohol if you're new, I wanna tell you something. It may shock you. Alcohol is the best friend I ever had. Friends come and go.

Lovers come and go. Jobs come and go. Cities come and go. But when a few drinks is just resolving all of those conflict I guess, you know, it's been said, I know you folks can't drink in here but I can. But, you know, it all seemed to me that for people like me, maybe not you, but but for me, you can always spot an alcoholic just by when they take a drink.

Oh, Jesus. The only thing that even comes close to it is when you're really old and you can go to the can. And drinking is the best friend I ever had. And I I learned to drink on a ship in the Pacific Ocean in World War 2. I was 15 years old as a little snot.

I would run away from home. And I didn't become a terrible raging alcoholic. It just it alcohols it helped me get through a lot of things. At the end of the war, I was in the Navy and hospital in Northern California. They passed around some tests.

I must have been good on tests. They gave me an honorary high school diploma from the Armed Forces Institute because I'm still a junior in high school. I went back to Wisconsin after the war and went to university, won some trophies for the university, went out in the world, became a sports writer, married this lovely girl, black hair and black flashing eyes. I was raised in the Norwegian Lutheran Church, very strict church. I I heard people in AA say things like, I've been searching for God for 30 years.

I never searched for God for 10 seconds. I've known where God was since I was 1 year old. He slowly circles the Our Saviors Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And he gives it to sinners. And he gives it to Catholics.

And that's what that's what so hurt me. And when when I fell in love with this girl, she dropped the big one on me. She said, I'm a Catholic. I can't take her home. She'll probably want to burn down our church.

But she had me, we got married down off the road and became a sports writer, newspaper sports writer. And my wife began manifesting the behavior patterns of Catholics that I knew nothing of. I'd been shared from them. You know, they talk about I know Tom has been a studied to be a priest and all bunch of Catholics in this area. But you can imagine, nor would Northern Wisconsin, you don't know these things.

But in in case by any chance there is a protest in the room. If you're loving a lovely Catholic, good Catholic girl, I'm gonna tell you something's gonna happen to you. You are about to have a big family, pal. I didn't know that. I became a national distributor of small Catholics.

I remember saying to my wife, can't we use birth control? No. I don't know what I'd have done if she'd have said yes. It seems incredible at this time, day, and age. But here I was, I'd been overseas, I'd been through a major university, and I'd heard the word condom once in my lifetime.

In a navy training film where they showed this voluptuous girl with a big hooters and said, watch out. Use a condom or you'll get venereal disease. At that stage of my life, I wouldn't care what I got. But, you know, in that era, you never heard anybody talk about what you hear, kind of bad kids going to drugstores and maybe say a thing. They wouldn't go to drugstores.

They'd just show each other. They'd say, I got a rubber. And even they'd be ashamed to go in and buy them. You know, they'd they'd have to hire someone depraved. Hey, give me a package of cigarettes and some rubbers.

Look how much progress we've made the last 55 years. The drugstore at my house in Los Angeles, kids with them. It can't be weird kids, but they must they look like kids. They come in and say things like, Hey, give me a package of condoms and some cigarettes. So all these all these years I drank alcohol, smoked and drank and raised hell, caused under the guise of a World War 2 veteran.

And the only problem I ever had with alcohol is that sometimes I drink a little too much. Whereas my psychiatrist pointed out to me, I have many times been thoughtlessly over served. And when I drink too much I sometimes act bizarrely, they felt. And so I was sent to my first AA meeting. Not since suggest I go.

1949, long time ago. Most of you little snots weren't even born, were you? We love you. That's something I must say. There's a lot of young people in this group.

And I don't know if anybody ever tells you this, but in my home group, we have a lot of young people. And if you're like the young people in our group, I wanna tell you something. You are the future leaders of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'll tell you something else. If you're like the young people in our group, I'm really glad I'm gonna be dead.

Bad. Anyway, But, He, I went to an AA meeting with just a bunch of fat old guys sitting around the table. 8 guys and I had to do alcoholics were alcohol. I remember a good one and the guy said, What the hell are you supposed to be? And I What kind of reaction is that?

I realize now I was 22. There wasn't anybody in that state under 40 in AA in 1949. So I'd Like some little kid 12 coming in tonight saying, I'm an alcoholic. What do you have for me? This.

But I, I tried to be. I said, Well, it was suggested I come here. Do you think you're an alcoholic? No. He's, What the hell you think is wrong with you?

I try to be honest with you. I think I'm too sensitive. Listen to this one, Earl. I never said that again for a long time, I'll tell you. But it didn't take me long to identify what what this was.

Alcoholics are people whose problem is alcohol. That doesn't take long to learn. And they come to Alcoholics Anonymous. They admit their problem is alcohol. They return to God.

They help others and live happily ever after. And that's very nice for them. That's not me. That's not me. My problem was not alcohol.

I thought it was till I tried to stop drinking and I stopped drinking for a while. And, I just life was flavorless. Like taking the salt out of my food and not feeling crappy outside. My problem always has been I can stop drinking, but a few days later that spring goes in my gut. And then just nervous and irritable.

And eventually I have a few drinks. And I don't drink because I'm a drinker. I don't explain that to people. I drink to restore the balance inside of me or something. And then sometimes I drink too much again.

They say, See your problem was alcohol, wasn't it? And say, Yeah, I guess it was. But down deep I just wanna shriek, No it wasn't. You don't understand nor does anybody else. There There's something wrong with me.

I don't know what the hell it is, but I sure wish I could get over it. And so I drank to Went to A for a while and then I left. And I went to a different city. Went to work in a big corporation as a writer. And I got troubled by drinking, and they called me and they said, You know, Emerson, you do a nice job writing, but we can't have you missing on Monday and coming in some day smelling like alcohol.

And I, I was a young guy and I thought, what should I do? And I had a great idea, just like a light bulb out of my head. This is in a city called Beloit, Wisconsin. I was working for Fairbanks Morse. I said, Mister Collins, you know, that's right.

I think I may have a drinking problem going back to the war. There's this new thing in town called Alcoholics Anonymous. Would you work with me while I went there in a couple weeks and got cured? I said, sure. Absolutely.

Well, good idea. So I'd go sit in these dreary stupid meetings with these idiots talking. I stayed drunk around the clock 25 years, night and day. One day I walked through that door and they told me to put the plug in the jug and I did. And I've just never been so goddamn happy.

And you could go home and say to your wife, well, dear, I've gone back to Alcoholics Anonymous. Wonderful. Wonderful. What do they want you to do, honey? Well, they want me to taper off.

And there wasn't any Al Anon then to screw it up for everybody. Ever since the birth of Al Anon, there's never been any rest for anybody, anywhere, anytime. Now they don't want you to taper off. You're supposed to stop completely. We know that.

We have the same steps you do. What's wrong with you? I release you, you son of a bitch. But with the time that I had for Fairfax Morris to go get cured I had found another job. And I did that again and again.

All my kids been born in different states. We're gonna be different. And some years later I finally went down in Dallas and lost it all. It's all gone. Family left and, they took away my company car and I had cost them a big account and they were very upset.