The Club Med Playa Blanco conference in Playa Blanco Mexico

Good evening. My name is Paul and I'm actually a very mild alcoholic.

Things that Max said were grossly exaggerated.

Truth is that at the time she was talking about I wasn't even an alcoholic.

I didn't become an alcoholic until

I'd been coming to these meetings for seven months.

It wasn't funny.

It was a...

Change my life dramatically.

I'm glad to be here.

I'm really glad to be here.

I've had a wonderful weekend already,

and it's just now getting started for the rest of you.

Denny and Phyllis were our hosts and hostess.

And we've had a wonderful time.

And really enjoyed it.

Everybody should have a chance to be hosted by them.

at least once in your life.

I had a great meeting this morning at 7 o'clock.

I'm just delighted with that.

And looking forward to a great weekend.

And particularly, looking forward to Earl's talk tomorrow night.

And stand up and wave to the people.

Earl, I know you'd love that.

Come on, come on, stand up.

Thank you.

Too bad you can't see the blush that I can see.

Geez, I just made a terrible blunder.

One of the things I learned early in AA is you never smart-mouthed anybody who is going to follow you to the podium.

Oh, dear.

It was interesting the way the...

Kristen opened the meeting with the serenity prayer.

It reminded me I went to Colorado one time to talk.

They were having a fundraiser, and it was the second year they had it.

The first year, it was on a Saturday afternoon.

They had a meal at noon, and then followed by a speaker and other stuff.

And the first year, they had 150 people, and they were quite happy with it,

but wanted to have it again.

And...

And they asked me to come and talk.

And then what happened was the fellow that was setting it up, doing the work,

got what he called a resentment.

I don't know if you have those here in this area.

But he quit and called it off.

Well, that made everybody in town have a resentment that he called it off.

And they decided he couldn't do that by God.

They were going to set it up and do it themselves.

And instead of having 150 people, they'd shoot for 300.

Well, they worked so hard that they had 500 come to the thing.

And what that did was that put a strain on the caterer.

It was a catered meal.

And Cater said, but it's okay, he could do it.

It was just to take him a little extra time to get it ready.

And the other problem was that the local minister was supposed to come and read the invocation,

and he hadn't shown up.

And so that way they solved that was they went to one of the old timers and asked him, if the minister doesn't show up, would the old timer give the invocation?

And the old timer said, well, yeah, yeah, he would do that.

And he started thinking in terms of what he would say.

Meanwhile, the caterer is working and getting things going, and the alcoholics are getting

hungry and hunger.

And the old-timer is making notes on what he's going to write on his invocation.

And finally, the caterer says, well, the food's ready, we can serve now.

And the alcoholics all want to go in.

No, no.

They said, you can't eat.

Now you have to have the invocation first.

And so they called up the old timer to come and give the invocation before they could eat.

And he got up there and he started to read.

And the first word was the word God, and they all recited the serenity prayer and ran for the food.

I don't know what the moral of that story is.

I guess if you're ever, when you're an old-timer, if they ask you to give an invocation,

don't bring God into it too soon.

Anyhow, we're glad to be here.

People asked that we drove up or flew, and I said we flew up.

And if you fly someplace, one of the first things people ask you is,

did you have a nice trip?

You did you have a nice flight?

And what we had happened on this flight was there were two flight attendants,

a man and a woman, a boy and a girl.

And they were going down the aisle.

with the cart giving the drinks out.

And they were right by us and he served us.

And he turned to the man in the seat behind me.

And he said, what would you like to drink, sir?

And gave him his peanuts and napkin.

And he said he would like some white wine.

And she went through her cart, didn't find any white wine.

And she turned to the man attendant and said to him, do we have any white wine?

And this is all happening right here beside us.

And the man said, no, we don't have any white wine,

but we have plenty of red wine.

And so the woman, the woman attendant, turned to the man behind me,

and she said, sir, we don't have any white wine.

Would you like red wine?

And he had to think about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Until he

thought to think about that,

I hadn't realized, you know,

what a serious social blunder

it would be to drink the wrong color wine.

With airline peanuts.

Which actually,

actually it brings me to a...

I'd like to ask a favor of somebody.

I've been looking for somebody who is planning a slip.

What it is is that all the airlines have a magazine they put out.

In American Airlines, I think it's American Way or something.

And in this magazine, I was reading through it,

one of the department thinks this gal writes the thing every issue on the best buys.

And she'll talk about the best audio and the best video and the best play and the best movie and the best book and the best this and the best that.

And under the best drinks, she has the thing under the best wines.

And what she said was that the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnays have a crisp pear apple flavor.

LAUGHTER

with a touch of clove at the end.

Now, what I'm looking for...

Somebody who's planning on going out there anyway.

I really...

And remember, it's the 1992 Napa Valley Chardonnays.

I don't really care too much about the crisp pear-apple flavor,

but I really would like to know,

does it really leave you with a touch of clove at the end?

Thunderbird never left me with a touch of clove.

Thank you.

Thunderbird was my favorite white wine

and Ripple was my favorite red wine

You know

And if you're out there, we did check

It's not worth me going out to check it out

It's not worth me going out

In fact

In fact, I haven't had a drink.

The last day of last month was my birthday.

It was my 30th birthday.

Oh, no, no.

You're nowhere near as impressed as I am.

30 years is the longest I have ever gone without a drink.

Yeah.

30 years is a long time between drinks for me.

You know, the part about it, too, is 30 years without a drink and I'm not even thirsty.

You know, when I was drinking, I was always thirsty.

It seems like nothing makes me thirstier than having a drink.

Alcoholism is a self-perpetuating thirst.

And the best way to not be thirsty is to not drink.

And it took me a long time to figure that one out.

Doesn't make sense.

And actually, one thing I noticed, we didn't ask for newcomers.

Could we see the hands of the people with less than,

they were in their first year of sobriety?

Everybody with, oh, my goodness, look.

Oh, my goodness, wonderful.

Thank you.

That's wonderful.

That's one of the places

crawling with them.

We love that.

We love that.

We love to have newcomers.

I mean, Chuck, I said Chuck.

His name was Bill.

Bill W.

One of the two...

They haven't been around long, you know.

Yeah.

People are always changing their name.

Every time I learn what their name is, they change it.

Bill W., one of the two founders of Alcoholics Anonymous,

said someplace that was written that I read that he had said,

he said that carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous,

Carrying the message that alcoholism is a disease and that AA is a spiritual answer to that disease.

Carrying the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, he said, is our primary aim and the chief reason for our existence.

And I thought, God, those are pretty strong words.

Our primary aim and the chief reason for our existence.

And then I got the word R, but does he talk about us as individuals or us as groups or both?

But apparently carrying the message is the most important thing we do.

And one of the main ways, the most common ways, of carrying the message is by filling us seats in an A meeting and participating, being part of it.

And carrying the message to newcomers, especially, and to each other even.

It's particularly fun to carry the message to the newcomers.

I'd keep coming back to AA, even if it wasn't keeping me sober,

just to see what happens to the newcomers.

It's exciting to see the thing, the change that takes place

in the people when they get sober and when the Alon's sober up.

So, so.

So you're out, you're newcomers here.

They say you're the lifeblood of the party

and you're the most important in people in the room

and all that crap.

Actually, I'm the most important, but...

So we're really glad you're here.

In fact, we're so glad you're here

that we don't care whether you're glad you're here.

As a matter of fact, if you're really new here tonight

and you're just really happy, happy, happy, happy to be here,

We may not be able to help you.

At least not until you get off of whatever you're on.

That's why they say, keep coming back, you know.

And so anyhow, we're glad you're here,

and I'm glad to be here.

I talk about me being the most important person in the room.

You thought I was kidding, but I'm not.

We have one of our new meetings there.

We started a topic discussion meeting,

and the format is for the leader.

We pick a leader for each week,

and the leader comes in with a topic,

and then we talk on that topic for an hour.

And this gal came in,

and she announced that her topic was going to be...

bondage of self.

And I thought, that's a dumb topic.

She won't get anybody to participate with that.

Well, she did.

And I thought of a lot of good things,

and they didn't even call on me.

But, you know, that bondage of self,

I hadn't paid much attention to that

until she said that, and I got to thinking about it.

And that bondage itself,

I came to realize...

that I am basically the most interesting person I know.

I really find me fascinating.

I love to think about me.

And somebody asked me the other night,

says, well, have you figured out what you're going to talk about tomorrow night?

I said, yeah, me, you know.

I love to think about where I've been,

and where I wish I'd been, where I wish I hadn't been.

Things I've done, things that I wish I hadn't done, things that maybe do, things that

can't happen, things might not happen, things to worry about, you know.

I'd love to think about me.

You are interesting, but you're nothing compared to me.

That relieved me of the bondage of self.

I mean, I hope he doesn't take that too seriously.

What would you think about if you know...

Anyhow, in fact, somebody said to me, do you, you still get nervous where you're going to talk?

And I said, well, I don't think of it as nervousness.

I'd rather think of it as anticipatory anxiety.

Sounds a little more scientific.

And besides, what I do is I love the third step prayer.

And I, um,

I tell God, you know, in third step prayers,

God, I offer myself to thee to build with me

and do with me as thou will.

Relieve me of the bondage of self,

but I may better do thy will.

And I modify that when I'm going to,

in fact, the first thing in the morning,

before I really get out of bed.

I say the serenity prayer, third step prayer,

and the sub-step prayer.

And then at breakfast, Max and I say those three prayers,

and we do read some stuff that we read,

and we have a period of meditation.

And then during the day, frequently, if I have something I'm going to do or something that's a little bit scary or whatever, I'll say the third step prayer.

And sometimes when I've got nothing to do, I'll say that.

But like I mean who I'm going to talk, I'll say, God, I offer myself and this situation to you to do with as you wish.

Now, I would like it to turn out to be phenomenally successful.

I'd like to say things that will ring in their hearts forever.

But if you have it in your mind that this is the night for me to make a complete fool of myself,

well, at least one of us will have a good time.

And sometimes he really has a lot of fun.

It refers to it as having something to do with humility.

And I don't enjoy that.

So anyway, I leave it up to him.

Speaking of humility, I think I'm really impressed with my humility.

She bumped me. I'm proud of my humility. I think I have handled things very well.

Anyhow, I guess that's enough for the introduction. I should get into my story.

I was born November 3rd, 1918. It was a

cold and blustery night.

I remember thinking to myself.

I wasn't talking very much, Stan.

I remember thinking to myself,

what am I doing here?

Why wasn't I consulted on this?

And I think I carried that thought the rest of my life.

And I...

I used to drink, social drinking.

I didn't have a drinking problem.

I was neurotic.

In fact, I remember this should be added to the things we have tried in Chapter 3.

I was reading a medical journal, and it talked about how carbon dioxide inhalations were good treatment for psychonerosis.

And I've always thought that I was neurotic and I came from a very neurotic family.

I used to endear myself to my family by telling them how neurotic I thought we all were.

not alcoholics, but neurotics.

And I thought this carbon dioxide inhalation should be good for me.

What it is, is carbon dioxide is the thing that makes you breathe.

It's a thing that keeps you from holding your breath longer than you can hold.

It isn't lack of oxygen.

It's the fact that your body builds up carbon dioxide.

It makes you breathe.

And if you hyperventilate, you're over-breathing,

you're blowing off the carbon dioxide,

and you feel breathless.

But actually, you need to hold your breath

or breathe in a plastic bag and accumulate the carbon dioxide.

I'm going to send you all a bill on this.

You don't get all this physiological instructions for nothing.

But anyhow, when you're breathing carbon dioxide and you keep breathing too much of it, you breathe faster and faster and faster and faster and deeper and deeper and deeper.

And the lights flash and the bells ring and you go blind and it just goes, things get louder and louder and louder and all of a sudden your brain explodes and you pass out.

I thought, boy, that ought to cure something.

I will try that.

Yeah.

But I couldn't see my way to going to any doctor and saying,

I'm neurotic, and I want some carbon dioxide in relations.

Here's it written in this medical journal.

And besides, I'm the best doctor I knew.

So I just called up the gas company.

Not your gas company, but the gas company that sells tanks of gas

and ordered a tank of carbon dioxide gas,

and the guy delivers it in a big truck with these big tanks.

It was a tank about so big and so big around must weigh about 250 pounds,

had it on a dolly, runs it up to the front door,

and says, where do you want this?

I said, well, in the master bedroom, naturally, you know.

Yeah.

Where would you think I would want it?

With a hose and a mask and a valve, you can turn it on.

So it didn't take any medical degree to know you should lie down to do this.

You put the mask on and you turn the gas on,

but you didn't have to be a genius to know you needed somebody to turn it off.

Yeah.

So I go into the living room, and Max is watching TV.

I said, I'm going to take this treatment, and I'm going to breathe faster and faster,

and finally my brain's going to explode, and I'm going to pass out.

And when I pass out, will you come in and take the mask off and turn the gas off?

And she said, I suppose.

I suppose.

Anyway.

Anyway, it didn't work.

Didn't take care of my drinking problem.

I didn't have a drinking problem.

I had a sleeping problem.

I had a lot of marital problems.

Jeez.

Max, as she said, she...

He drove me to drink for 28 years.

In fact, as we were growing up, we've known each other since we were four years old.

And the Gansign boys, her uncles, and that were alcoholics,

and they were always getting put their name in the Alliance Review and put in jail for a common drunk.

As we were growing up, my parents

were not at least bit happy for me

all the time playing with the Gansling girl.

They were afraid that when we grew up,

but we might get married and I might turn out

to be an alcoholic.

By God, they were right.

It's not really funny.

Most people, people don't know

how they got to be an alcoholic.

I do. I'm an alcoholic by marriage.

LAUGHTER

So anyhow, yeah, we had our problems here and there, and it caused me to have trouble sleeping.

I found out that I could, when I went to pharmacy school, I found out the night, I'd go to school all day,

working in the drugstore all the evening, and then study it all through the evening,

and then jump in bed, and everything I'd been studied had been running through my brain,

and in the morning I'd be both tired and stupid.

and I found that I could drink a couple of beers, jump in bed, sleep real fast, and wake up smart.

And that's how I got through pharmacy school, drinking more and more.

And as the time went by, I found it took more and more to get me to sleep.

And it kept me asleep for a shorter and shorter period of time, so I had to repeat whatever I had taken to get to sleep.

And...

Then that increased to the point where it was harder and harder to get up in the morning.

And finally, I started taking amphetamines to get going in the morning.

I shouldn't mention drugs.

This is anything.

But I feel I do owe them at least an honorable mention.

I don't know that I could have had the stamina to have completed my pre-A. training period, if it hadn't been.

It did tend to affect my voice in that I sometimes couldn't, I affected my hearing,

and that I couldn't listen fast enough to hear what I was saying.

I think, my God, what are you saying that again for you?

I've already said it again. I don't know. It just sounds so good. I think I'll say it again.

You know, I've been talking.

So you have to take it.

Finally, the ultimate of trying to, working on a sleeping problem, that's a really good, that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one, working on a sleeping pound.

Because if you're working on your sleeping problem and you find something that works, you've got to think, oh me, what was that?

And I've got to remember what that was, so I can do it again.

And you're constantly alert to see whether or not you're sleeping.

And, you're...

The epitome of that was that I finally was shooting amatol at night in order to get to sleep at night.

I would go through the day taking pills and then evening drinking, and then it was time to go to Betty by.

And I would go to keep the amatol or pentothal or anything at all.

Okay.

I'd keep it in my bag, and the bag in the car, and a garage in the garage, thank God, was attached to the house.

And I'd go out and I'd mix up the stuff and get it in the syringe.

And then I'd try to figure out how much have I had to take upers and how much in the downers,

and how much I can squirt in, take it out, take it down, throw it in a bag,

and throw in the bag, and turn in the bag, and the car, slam the car door, and run down the hall so I could jump in bed.

And it was very tricky to judge it.

Took a lot of experience.

It wasn't entirely practical.

Because at least a little bit, too much,

and I'd just zing right under the car.

But that wasn't too bad.

The worst part was the least little bit, not enough,

and I'd squirted in, take it out, take it around,

throw in the bag, throw in the back, throw in the back car,

slam the car, door, run down the hall, jump in bed.

Nothing would happen.

Half measures got me nowhere at all on the thing.

Yeah.

and even when it did work,

when I did get just the right dose,

you know, you take the needle out,

you're supposed to put a band-aid on

and keep an antiseptic and all that's...

I didn't have time for that.

I didn't have time to put a band-aid on,

so I would put my arm up like this

and hope that the gravity would take care of it.

And I'd do all this one-hand and throw it in the car

and run down the hall,

and I'd run down the hall with one arm up the hair.

And I'd run into Max and try to act casual, you know.

actually it's hard to be casual when you're in a hurry

and it's a

and anyhow

I ended up in the nut ward

that's what I did

I remember sitting there in the nut ward

they wanted me to make leather belts

in fact

at that particular hospital there were fanatics

fanatics on leather belts.

You can't graduate.

I'll bet if they had a Senate investigation,

they'd find that people have been there for years,

and they won't let them out

until they make something useful.

They want me to make leather belt,

and they tried to convince me

that the quality of my life would improve

if I learned how to make leather belts.

I told them, I said, I said,

I have a whole wall.

I have a wall full of licenses and certificates and diplomas and papers to prove that I've been educated way beyond my level of intelligence.

And I don't see how making leather belts would improve my life in any way.

I didn't understand the philosophy, and besides, I didn't understand the instructions.

Yeah.

which is not my fault.

That's the fault of that dumb occupational therapist.

Because I've always known, if you don't understand anything well enough,

you can explain it to me so that I understand it,

then you don't understand as well as you're supposed to.

And she'd explained it to me three times,

and I wasn't going to embarrass her by asking her a fourth time.

So I was sitting there in the nut ward, commiserating with myself.

What's a nice guy like me doing in a place like this?

And this dumb psychiatrist...

who couldn't see that my problems were strictly marital,

walked up behind me and wanted to know,

would I be willing to talk to a man from Alcoholics Anonymous?

And I thought, my God, don't I have enough problems of my own

without trying to help some drunk from AA?

Okay.

I could tell by looking his face that he thought it was a good idea.

And I decided right there that happiness on a nut ward is having a happy psychiatrist.

And I said, yes, and in no time at all, this clown comes galloping into the room,

yelling at the top of his voice, my name is Frank and I'm an alcoholic.

Ha ha ha ha.

I was embarrassed for him.

Okay.

meeting a perfect stranger and the only thing he could think about to talk about himself was he was an alcoholic for god's sake

in fact everything he said he said in a loud voice us drunks and us alcoholics and alcoholics anonymous i thought my god man why don't you lower your voice

these people all think i'm a nut why don't we leave it at that and

Another thing I didn't like about the nut ward is they wouldn't let you stay in bed in the morning.

You had to get out of bed, and if you wouldn't go and make moccasins, then you had their leather belts.

You had to go and sit in the day room.

And the day room is a big room.

And one whole wall was glass.

And on the other side of the glass was the sidewalk to the main entrance of the hospital, which was right there.

And I could just see my patients walking by, looking in.

Oh, hello, Dr. Paul.

How are things in the Nuttward?

Anyhow, this Frank told this loud-mouthed story.

I don't remember long and on.

Very interminable story.

I don't remember anything he said, but I know it ended by him saying,

well, that's my story.

I'm going to a meeting tonight.

Would you like to go along?

And I said, hell no, I won't like it.

But I'll go.

And we went.

And I have no idea what meeting we were at.

In fact, I don't know how many meetings we went to before I knew what meeting we were at.

But I knew that meeting had a profound effect.

It had a profound effect on the psychiatrist.

Okay.

Now he was suspiciously very interested.

One knows what's this about a book?

What's this about meetings?

How often do they have meetings?

What's this about steps?

What are the kinds of meetings do they have?

When do you go into another meeting?

And I thought, my God, I've got me an alcoholic psychiatrist.

He's ashamed to go, so he's sending me.

Yeah.

So I wanted to go to every meaning I could,

so enough brownie points to get out of that dump.

And I told Frank I wanted to go every night.

Frank was good about that,

except for Friday night.

Friday night.

He didn't know that he would be going.

He thought maybe on Friday night he might have a date with Carolyn.

And I thought, well, that's a hell of a way to run an organization.

And I reported him to the psychiatrist,

who got somebody else to take me on Friday night.

And I finally got enough brownie points,

and I got discharged from the hospital,

and I had no intention to going back.

Why would I go back?

It wasn't an alcoholic.

The only problem was that Max liked the meetings.

And, of course, once I found that out,

threatened her if she didn't shape up.

I wouldn't go to AA anymore.

I said that once too often.

I said that once too often.

And she did what she couldn't do.

She drove down to Laguna Beach for Manhattan and went by herself, went to meeting by herself.

She couldn't drive the freeway.

She didn't know how to get that far, but she did it anyway.

She went off, went to the A meeting for herself.

Have you ever tried that?

You ever tried sitting at home on a Saturday night drinking while your non-alcoholic spouse is off laughing it up in an AA meeting?

I found it boring.

I didn't go back to meetings to find out what they were laughing about.

I found out the alcoholics laugh at anything.

Laugh at nothing.

Laugh just to be laughing.

I sat there trying to figure it out seven months.

And I ended up going to one meeting too many.

And one night I laughed with them.

Haven't had a drink since.

Yeah.

Laughter is very spiritual to me.

In fact, I'm convinced that my higher power laughs.

My higher power laughs.

Every time he hears alcoholics and Alon's laugh,

even if he doesn't understand a joke.

Just enjoys the laughter.

So I've been coming back ever since.

And when I first became an alcoholic,

I was just very, very mild alcoholic.

Very mild, just...

Almost a non-alcoholic.

But I had to keep coming to meetings in order to drink.

In fact, I decided that I came into this thing,

embarrassed to be here.

I thought my condom at the bottom of the social barrel

and I had this overwhelming sense of failure

in all areas of my life.

And I turned into an alcoholic and...

I found out I had to become an alcoholic in order to quit drinking.

And then I thought, you know, if I'm going to be in AA,

if I failed and everything else, I ought to at least succeed in this, for God's sake.

If you can't get any lower than this, you've got to at least succeed here.

And I decided I wanted to be a successful member of AA.

Simple request, it seemed to me.

And I didn't make a pact with anybody else, just with myself.

I decided...

going to be a successful member of a

in fact they even went so far at that time

they talked about stick with the winners stick with the winners

tick with the winners they said

I thought if I'm going to stick with the winners I ought to find out what a winner is

so I asked Chuck C he'd been sober a hundred years or so

he knew everything and I said I said what's a winner

and I was surprised when he had to think about it

and he said well I guess you have to die sober

And I thought, die, sober.

God.

That reminded me of how I used to plan on being one of the saints.

Ha-ha yourself.

I was really going to do it.

I went and got the book, The Lives of the Saints, big, thick book.

I was reading up, I decided which one was going to be my role model?

I was going to be a saint.

Trying to pick my role model.

Until I found out that the final thing about being a saint,

you can't be declared a saint.

until you've been dead 300 years.

And I thought, well, screw that.

Yeah.

I've never been happy about anything you have to die to get the accolades for.

I lost my sainhood.

And I thought, well, if I have to die to be a winner, I'll just be a successful member of A.A.

And over the years, I've changed my little bit what my criteria is to be a successful member of A.

But I don't know any successful members of A.A. who drink.

And then I found out that if I want to keep from drinking, I've got to keep going to meetings.

It takes a lot of meetings to keep from drinking.

But the more I went to meetings, the more I realized that if I want to stay sober,

I've got to work the steps to stay sober.

And then once I worked the steps, I kept going to go in the meetings and having worked in a step

and seeing what was going on around me.

And I found there are a lot of people, seems to me a lot, who go to meetings long enough to stay sober

to find out they have to work the steps in order to stay sober and work the steps,