The Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Quarterly Meeting in Aberdeen, SD

Welcome to John.

I

thank you everybody. My name is John. I'm an alcoholic.

My, I haven't had a drink since May 19th, 1973.

And I'm a, I'm a member of the Young Men's Group of Philadelphia. That's probably the three most important things I'll say here tonight. That tells you who I am, what I am, and where I belong.

Before I start, I'd like to thank you, the crew, for having me here tonight. It's always an honor and a privilege to be asked to participate in your own sobriety.

I'd like to especially thank John for being a such a gracious host, I'd assume, and Matt for taking me around the meetings. That's an example of what service is all about.

You know, I, I've heard it said that the door to the sick, mine opens from the inside and laughter is a key to that door. You see, when you laugh, you relax, and when you relax the door opens and that's when we stick the message in.

I'd like to tell you a little story about another guy before I start my story that lived down my way. I live on an island

in Wildwood, NJ. I don't know if anybody knows where that's at, but this guy, this guy lived on the beach. He was homeless and he he was a drunk like me. He woke up one morning, he had that cotton in his mouth taste and he needed a drink real bad. So he started walking down the beach and

he's seen a bottle floating in the ocean and he thought, well, maybe there's a mouthful in there enough to hold me till I can get a drink.

And he walked over and he picked up the bottle and he pulled the cork out of the bottle and a big puff of smoke came out of it. And the next thing you know, it was a genie standing every side of them.

And the guy said I'm the genie of the lamp and I'll grant you any 2 wishes for let me out of this bottle

alcoholic. That he was, you know, cunning, baffling and powerful. He said. I thought it was 3 wishes.

You know, Alcoholics always want more,

he said. It's my bottle. I'll make the rules. It's 22 wishes.

So the guy said, well, when I found you, I, I was looking for a drink. I needed a drink bad. He said, could you give me a bottle of wine, a good bottle of wine at no matter how much I drink, I'll always have something there, a mouthful or two for the morning. And the genie said that's no problem. And another puff of smoke and the next thing you know, the guy standing there with a bottle of wine in his hand. And the genie says, well, that's it. What's your second wish? Let's go.

And the guy said, wait a minute, I want to make sure this works. So he took that bottle and he held it up to his mouth. It seemed like forever,

and when he let it down, he looked at it. The bottle was full.

He said, this is all right. So the genie says, see, it works, You know, let's let's go. What's your second wish? And the guy said, wait a minute, I want to make sure that this thing really works. So he took another big swig, another big swig. And he put it down and he looked at it, and the bottle was still full.

So the genie says, well, let's go. You know, what's your second wish? The guy looked at that bottle and he looked at that genie and he looked at that bottle. He said you got another bottle of this wine.

Now, see, I don't want to alarm you, but if you laughed at that joke, you just might have a problem with alcohol.

Because I've taught. I've told that joke to people that aren't Alcoholics, who don't have a problem with it. And they look at you like they're crazy. You're crazy. Like, why would a guy want 2 bottles of you know? But we know, don't we? Yeah,

once too many. 1000 times enough.

So before I get into my story,

I've heard it said in Apple Hawks Anonymous and around Apple Hawks Anonymous that if you don't put a drink inside you, it can't hurt you.

I'm here to tell you that's a lie.

See, alcohol don't just hurt the carrier, it hurts everybody the carrier comes in contact. But

I had a problem with alcohol long before I ever drank it. I had a problem with it when I drank it and I still have a problem with it today.

Say I

I come from an Irish Catholic background in Philadelphia, first generation born here in this country. My father and my, all my uncles were from the old country

and I, I was always a frightened child. I never knew why I was frightened. You know, I went to Catholic school. I was afraid of nuns and I, I was afraid of my older sisters used to beat me up. I was the last one born in my family. So that made me a mommy's boy. You know, the last one born is always a mom, mom's favorite. But I lived in his constant fear and and and

like. We never used the front door of our house and the shades were always drawn

and we always went up the back alley. I could stay over other kids house and eat supper but they could never come to my house and eat supper. I could stay over their house and sleep overnight, but they could never come to sleep over my house.

Now, I remember coming home from school and I I would go up that back alley and I'd open that back door and I'd yell at my mother. And if I didn't hear my mother's name voice, I didn't go in that house.

You see, I knew the horror that waited for me inside that house.

A typical Friday or Saturday night in my house would be my my father and my all my uncles and my cousins would be sitting in the kitchen drinking Jamison whiskey and stout beer and plot and overthrow the government of England.

And my mother, my aunts, my sisters, they would all be in the living room in a circle, kneeling down in a circle saying the rosary for the guys in the kitchen.

So you got to understand, not only was I a frightened child, I was a confused child. I didn't know where I belonged, you know, I didn't know if I belonged in the kitchen or, or in the living room.

You see, I just what I just described to you as an alcoholic house

and you don't need alcohol inside you for it to hurt you.

It affected my whole childhood.

It changed the way I've seen things. I thought about things. I lived in constant fear. We always, we always kept a bag packed under the bed.

Friday nights we would all sit there in a kitchen, huddle around my mother, staring at the front door, because we never knew who was coming through the front door. We didn't know if it was going to be Doctor Jekyll or Mr. Hyde.

I say my father drank alcoholically because he was 48 years old when he died. My father was 6 foot 3, weighed 64 lbs.

He picked up a drink one day and got what they call a wet brain. Never regained consciousness of who he was. This was back in the 50s. So the only thing they did for drunks at that time is they put you in a hospital and just keep you in a bed until you died and got rid of you.

And I swore up and down that that was never going to happen to me. I was never going to drink,

but I was a product of the 50s, you know, I was a teenage kid on the corner in them days. What we used to do in my neighborhood, we would get a 55 gallon drum and we put it fully full of wood and paper and light it on fire. And we'd we'd stand around and try to harmonize. If you can imagine, harmonize like the platters, if you're going to, if you can imagine 5 white guys trying to sound like 4 black guys

and they always had a brown paper bag

and they would pass the bag around. I really didn't know what was in the bag that day. I knew it was alcohol, but I didn't know what the name of what it was. I come to find out later it was a bottle of Thunderbird wine.

But I want to be accepted by my peers. I want to be one of the boys.

So when a bottle came my way that day, I took a mouthful

and I no sooner that bottle of wine no sooner left my lips and something amazing happened to me.

I that fear that I carried around inside me all my life left me like that instantly. I wasn't afraid of anything or anybody. Nobody was ever going to tell me what to do again.

The other thing I lost that day with that one mouthful of wine and I didn't know it though I was sober five years in a a God went right out the window. I wasn't going to school anymore and listening to them nuns. I I wasn't praying anymore. I I wasn't doing the things that good, good kids did. I was to live the next 17 years of my life. S will run riot.

I remember I was 14 years old and my mother asked me to leave the house and I was her favorite. I was the pride of the fleet

and I remember her standing me on the steps and saying, look, I put up with 22 years of that off your father. I'm not going to watch my son die the same death.

I didn't understand that. Now I understand that is tough love. That was the hardest thing in the world that woman ever did, because I was her favorite.

But that's the way alcohol effects the drinker and everybody around. But at 14 years old and I'm on my own, I thought I was super cool. You know, I, I

got an apartment and I got a job and I would let the kids bump school over my apartment and I, I condom ended our recess money and give him a bottle of beer and send them on their way.

Alcohol always told me I was smarter than a notch above. You know, when I was 14, I was hanging with guys 2021 years old.

By the time I was 21, I was flagged in every bar in my neighborhood. Yeah,

it wasn't long. Yeah, I tried working for a living, but I that didn't work for me for some reason. I just, I couldn't catch you into that working thing. Yeah,

I get amazed when I come to AA and I hear guys say that they retire with 20 years at the same place. I said, how do you do that? You know, like I couldn't make 20 days. See, I was the type of alcoholic. I I would get a job and they would have what they call lunch hour halfway through the day. And they would go all go outside in, in in my neighborhood and they would have the brown bags and they sit up against the wall and they'd eat their sandwiches and I would get out to the nearest watering hole

and I'd have a couple drinks

and I'd never go back to work. I forget where I worked.

I remember one time I, I worked for this company, Spangler Sign Company and, and I, I, I drank my way out of it and like six months later I'm on a load and I, I walk into this Spangler sign company and I'm looking around and the guy said, what are you looking for? I said, I'm looking for my time card. He said we fired you six months ago.

See, that's the way I drank.

But it was very shortly after that when I, as I, I, I found I suffered from another disease and that was called entitlement.

You see, if you had something I want, I thought I was entitled to it and I was going to get it. So I went from being a worker to a thief,

and that's how I support it myself most of my life.

But I was about 17 years old. I started to experience what Alcoholics Anonymous calls blackouts.

I used to call them lapses of memory. I just can't remember from time to time where I was at or what I was doing.

And I woke up on a train one day going to Fort Jackson, SC And when I got out there, I found out I had joined, signed some papers and Philadelphia to join the Army.

And I told the guy out there that there's a mistake. If they just give me car fare back, you know, we'll call it even.

That's basically what they did. They left

and me and this guy got, I found out later he was a Sergeant. Me and him got into a a fight right in the Company St. and I spent my first seven days in the Army in a stockade.

I wasn't to become a stranger to that. There's no Army story here. There's no war story.

It took me 3 1/2 years to complete two years active duty.

When it was all said and done I had 387 days AWOL time,

14 months stockade time and the rest of the time I would be shipped from 1 camp to another.

I want a wolf from from the army and I was I was home on leave and I never went back. That's what happened

and I knew the Army would be looking for me, but I figured they wouldn't be looking for a married man. So I grabbed one of the girls from the corner that I had dated before I went into service and and we got married. We went down to the local

church and that we got married. It wasn't out of love. I had no feelings or emotions. At this time, alcohol had Romney that it was out of convenience. She was 16 and wanted to get out of the house. I was 18 and wanted to hide out. It was like like a marriage made in Kensington. That's where I'm from.

The rocks in my head fit the holes in hers, you know, I mean,

and,

and the marriage, the marriage lasted like six or seven years and produced three children, none of which I was home to, to raise. I tried a couple times, but I, I just alcohol wouldn't let me be a father or a husband. See, I was a type of drunk guy. I would, I would go out on a Monday morning to go to down the bar for a drink. And she would see me six months later

when I got locked up. And my lawyer would say to me, John, go home, get the wife, get the kids, show up in court. It looks good. The judges like to see that, get a job. And I would do all that. And then, you know, I, I beat the rap and on the way out at the courtroom steps, I give her some money and I say, I'll be home later. She might see me six months from now. And that's the way that marriage went.

I think it was about

she got a divorce. I think it was about 3 months after my divorce on a Christmas Eve. I decided to, I have three children. I got a right to see them. I ain't seen them all that time. But now, now I got it right and that the truth of that story was I was in a bar on a Christmas Eve. I don't know if you ever been in a bar on Christmas Eve, but the only ones in a bar was me and the bartender

and I had about two bucks in my pocket. So I figure if I go around to my ex wife's house and she would either give me a bottle or some money to get rid of me. And I went around and I did what most Alcoholics do. We cause confusion. That's what we do best. I wasn't there 10 minutes and I kicked the toys across the kitchen floor.

The tree went through the front window

and my brother was there and me and him got into an argument. He broke a whiskey bottle and put over 400 stitches and he cut me from head to toe like a piece of meat

and I remembered him rushing me in the hospital that night. My left leg was cut at the kneecap. My toes was on my chest.

And The funny thing about that, for years I thought I won the fight,

but they took me in there in a,

they said they were going to have to amputate the leg. And I told them they weren't allowed to just sew it back on. I'll drag it around with me. And they put me in a they said, and they put me in a body cast. And this woman that I caused all that problems to my ex-wife. She came and took me back in her house and nursed me back to health. She fed me and she ran for my bottles of whiskey every day and she my 6 packs and she bought me a wheelchair and she encouraged me to go to therapy to learn how to walk.

And the day I walked, the very day I took my first steps,

I walked out of her life again. See, that's the way I repaid people that were kind to me and I went back to them upholstered sewers that I lived in.

Now. I didn't. I don't know if I told you or not, but I used to drive a truck for a living. I was a night truck driver. I drove other people's trucks.

Of course they didn't know I was thriving on. I think they call it a hijacking.

But anyhow, I got, I made a couple scores in hijacking and I, you know, I'm getting into my mid 20s now and I said, I said to a friend of mine, I said, you know, like, you know, I'm getting a little older now. It's time I become responsible to myself. I, I think I'm going to buy a business. So I had a pocket full of money about 35,000 and I, I said I'm going to buy a business. So I bought a business. I bought a bar. What else would a drunk buy?

And I'll tell you the kind of bar I had 4 doors from my bar. Bar was the Iron Workers Union,

around the corner was the Roofers Union, and right up the street was a Teamsters union.

And that was a kind of nuts. I attracted to my bar and I thought I had the sharpest nightclub in the city of Philadelphia.

And now the abnormal became normal. I got crazy.

It would be a Friday night,

I had a Go Go girl dance and a three piece band playing and a front door locked and I was the only one in there. People would be banging on the door trying to get in and I'm in there drinking by myself

and then I would break into my own jukebox, take the money and call the cops and say I was robbed.

Got crazy. I started to do crazy things. I remember I went up to after hours club one night and

and I told a friend of mine up here, I said, you know what my problem is? It's this bar. I have to get rid of this bar. It's taken up too much of my drinking time,

I said. They want me to air in the morning to open a place up, and then they want me to come back at night and close it up. Yeah,

so I went down and gave the bar away

and I went on like a 11 month tear load, constantly drunk. And a good friend of mine came. I went up down a Skid Row. I liked Skid Row. They don't care where you're from or you know, as long as you put the money on the table, they'll serve you, you know, And a friend of mine came down and got me and said you don't belong up here. And he took me back up into my neighborhood. And make a Long story short, I made a couple scores again and I was back on top and I bought another bar.

Now, I, I the second bar I owned,

as you walked in the door of my bar, the first stool right on the bar was 2 Sears and Roebuck catalogs. And people would come in there, have a drink, go through the catalog, make out an order of what they wanted and give it to the bartender. And you stop back in a couple days, it'll be there. Because that's the kind of guys I hung with. They were all hijackers of thieves or whatever. Matter of fact, they just wrote a book about my, my guys, the guy, the guys I hung with. It's cool. Confessions of a second story man, if you ever get around to reading it.

But anyhow, I got this far again and you know I'm out on a tear. I'm one of them kind of guys. I go out on like 3-4 week tiers at a time and I'm with this friend of mine and we're in another bar drinking and this friend says, John, if you ever need any money, this guy here alone, you whatever you want. And I said, Oh yeah, give me 1000 bucks and a guy whipped out 1000. Now this guy don't know me from a can of paint.

No, it gives me $1000. And I said to the guy with me, I said this guy nuts.

So I drink up to 1000. I'm back here next week and I see you another thousand. Give me another thousand. Make a Long story short, I owe this guy like 16 grand now. Now I didn't need that money. I had that much in my pocket or in my car because I'm hijacking 3-4 trucks a week. But I thought it was crazy. This guy just handed me money. Don't even know me.

And I walk in his bar one day and I said to him,

I hope there's no hard feelings, but I ain't gonna pay you that money.

And he didn't like that too much. I said, well, you got to be crazy to give me that kind of money.

And I don't know, do they have any loan sharks here or not? I don't know if I had loan sharks here or not. But they're not like, you know, they're not like a finance company, you know, or a bank. They don't put a lien against your house or come in the middle of the night and steal your car. You know what I mean? They have their own way of doing things.

He sent two guys over to my bar one day and they they put me in a car, drove me down to the Delaware River, put a 32 slug in my chest and threw me in their double river.

Now lucky for me, I don't know if you know anything about the tower ever, but at low tide it's about 1 foot of water and five foot of mud.

And that's what it was that day. They threw me in the river that day and I crawled out of that river and and about a block and a half down from where they threw me in was a bar. Now I walked down, if you can imagine I walked into this bar, I got mud from here down and and blood running down the front of me and soaking ring away. And I said to the barmaid, give me two shots of whiskey.

And the next thing I know, I wake up one of these plastic tents in a hospital, you know, with tubes all over me, in my nose and my arms.

And I got a friend of mine. I don't know how long I was here. I don't know, a week, 10 days, something like that. But I got a friend of mine to go get me some clean clothes. And he helped me pull the tubes out of my arms and my nose and that I got dressed and me and him walked down the back steps of the hospital. We left the hospital, went over to this bar where this loan shark was. I sat down beside this guy and I said look, there's no hard feelings.

Blow me a couple 100 bucks, I'll buy the water, drink,

see that's where alcohol what takes me.

I spent the next 18 months in my life working for that guy to work off these 16,000 I owed him. I was going out and doing the people what he tried to do to me.

But now, you know, it became to a point where you know, I could no longer I can no longer work. I can no longer hijack the truck. The guys I hung with that I stole with all my life, They would have a job going and they would say, John, look, here's here's some money. Wait here, we'll be back to pick you up. We got something going

and they'd never come back. Or they'd give me an address to where a party was, where there was no party. Nobody lived at that address. My friends didn't want nothing to do with me. The thieves I stole with didn't want nothing to do with me

now. The big money was going, the bar was going.

I found myself

filling the beer cases in the morning for for some bartender so you give me a shot and beer or running for a cup of coffee for him so I'd get a shot.

I was sleeping wherever I could sleep and band in houses. Empty cars. Make a Long story short, I wound up on a railroad siding and an abandoned car.

Put wine sores and body lice all over me.

Now I'm 29 years old and I'm shot out. And that fear that I lost when I was 14,

now it's back tenfold. I'm afraid of everything that I'm afraid of the wind blowing in the middle of the night,

scared to death of people.

I had long lost contact with my family, but my

somehow my sister want my one sister. She was a nurse. She came in that got me off that railroad siding and she brought me back to our house and she nursed me back to house.

Now, my sister was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I knew nothing about Alcoholics Anonymous, never heard of all the prisons and joints I was in. Nobody ever mentioned Appleworks Anonymous,

but

I know there was something wrong with my sister, right? Since I came into our house because she didn't have a drink and for a member of my family not to drink, it was something different. And she had these signs on her kitchen wall. Easy does it. First things first, let go and let God

and and they would play these tapes. This Bill Wilson guy and her sponsor would pick her up every this I thought it was her girlfriend pick her up every night. We played a cat and mask game for about a week. You know, they would tease me about going to a meeting and I would get back at them by by

borrowing $20 off. I'm going down the bar and getting drunk

and they would tease me. I did. I get up in a warning to to go down to the kitchen and they'd have the 12 and 12 on a toilet seat and I throw that down and then I'd go down to get a cup of coffee that out of the big book beside my coffee cup, you know, And my sister conned me one day. She said, John, I, I made arrangements for five girls to come and pick you up and take you to a meeting.

So I really didn't know what a A was a Bam. But I, you know, like I said, I was a product of the 50s. And I remember watching a James Cagney movies and a Humphrey Bogart movies. And they always had some kind of a waterfront scene. And they they would always have one of these brotherhood missions where the guy stood at the door and they handed out the hymn Bibles. And then they would go in and they would sing and then they would feed them a bowl of soup or something. I kind of thought that's what a A was like, like the Salvation Army or something, you know?

And I remember telling her, I said, look, Carol, I'll go to your meeting, but I ain't singing.

And Carol said you don't have to sing. She had five girls come pick me up and take me to a meeting on the way in the meeting that night, there was a guy there named Thomas Tom Shark. I could tell his name now, Tom Sharkey. Yeah, I knew for sure this guy was a drunk because when I owned the bars, I wouldn't let him in my bars.

That's how bad he was. He was one of them. 8:00 in the morning, he'd be walking in the door. You say, yo, Tom, take it somewhere else, you know, don't come in here. But anyhow, Tom said, are you new John? And I said, yeah. He said, well, it's important you get phone numbers. And he wrote his name and phone number down. Now I'm an uncaring alcoholic. I'm in acute stages of alcoholism. I have no feelings or emotions for anything or anybody. I took that piece of paper and crumbled it up and put it in my pocket, said yeah, I'll catch you later, Tom.

And I don't remember anything about the meeting, but I'll tell you this, I'm a fast study.

You could put me in any room with any kind of people and within 1/2 hour I'm going to be talking their language. So on the way home, I made sure I got five more phone numbers.

You, you got it.

The next day I called one of them numbers and the girl hung up

and my sister called me back and said that, John, it's not that kind of program.

So me and my sister got into an argument. I said, look, this is a crazy world you live in. And my sister was 13 years sober at that time. Started the first woman's group in Philadelphia. Very dedicated alcoholic.

She said it's not that kind of program. I said, well, you know, like I'd rather be back down in the neighborhood than than live under these crazy rules. So she convinced me that if I was going to go back to drinking, at least leave my gun with her

because I always carried a gun. I don't know if I said I was on a major crime list in Philadelphia for a lot of years, but I, you know, I said to her, yeah, I'll, I'll leave my gun with you, 'cause I knew I could get in my neighborhood and get a gun as fast as I can get a drink. And I did. I went down the neighborhood, I got a gun and I went and I got a drink. I was about four hours into my load and I got a phone call saying that my sister had just shot herself

with my gun.

Now I'm an uncaring alcoholic. First thing I did was left town.

The cops would not, would not like anything better to find out that that was my gun. I figured they find out it's my gun, I'm going back to prison for the rest of my life.

But Carol didn't die. I got worse. You didn't die. And I came back to Sarah and I asked her, went to the hospital. I asked her why she shot herself. She said she had a desire to drink that day and would rather be dead.

I don't want to confuse or hurt anybody in this room tonight. That is not what Alcoholics Anonymous is about. This is not about dying, this is about living. But you got to understand, I was attracted to people like that.

And I thought, boy, this a, a must really have something. If you have to commit Harry Carey, that's dedication.

But I stayed drunk for another four months.

It was a Friday night. I had just hijacked a truckload of Botany 500 suits off a place called Darrow's.

That's what I did for a living. Stole trucks.

It was a Friday night. I had a brand new sharkskin suit on

pocket full of money could choke a horse, you know, and I'm in a bar. I'm in one of the watering holes that I, you know, and I'm a poster sewers that I hung in and, and I got to cry in chunks.

I don't know if there's any real Alcoholics in the room tonight, but every real alcoholic knows what the crying trunks are.

We all get them.

I don't know why what I'm crying about. I can't stop crying and I'll tell my fist up to anybody will listen

and I don't even know what the fist step is,

but I'm telling this bar made, you know, I'm crying in my beer and and I'm telling this barmaid my whole stadtail. Well, how life dealt me a bad hand. And she listened for a while and she took my drink and my money and put me down with some of the roofers that I used to drink with. And they listened for a while and they got tired of it and they picked me up bodily and put me out on a park bench outside the bar and they locked the door to the bar.

Now it's late at night and I got to crying. Drunks, apocalypse, a pocket full of money.

And I'm sitting on this park bench and I, you know, like I say, I'll tell my fist up to anybody. And there's this little nurse standing there waiting for a bus. And I start telling her my whole sad story. I remember when the bus came that night, the bus came and the doors open. She ran in and ran to the back of the bus and said to the bus driver, take off, take off. I mean, I guess she was never so happy to see that bus come, you know.

Anyhow, I'm sitting there, you know, feeling sorry for myself and I reach into pocket at his suit that I just stole not five hours ago

and I pull out an old wrinkled up piece of paper

and it says Thomas.

Now why would an uncaring drunk save an old wrinkled up piece of paper for five months?

See, I used to try to explain that at a a meetings. And I know today, if you believe in God, no explanations needed.

And if you don't believe in God, none will satisfy you. You can call it I'd, you can call it God. I don't care what you call it. I didn't know what it was then. I know today it was divine intervention. It was God working in my life when I didn't even believe in God

and I called that number and a guy answered young men's A A I said I got the wrong number. I'm looking for TomTom ass. He said, oh, he's here

and Tom got on the phone and he says you want to get sober. I said what else would I call you for? See, I got to cry

crying drunks. I just want to talk to somebody till I can get into a drink again. That's what I want and I'll tell you anything you want to hear.

So he says I'll be right over and they came over to get me and I,

I'll tell you, I really don't remember too much of what Tom said tonight. I'll tell you what I'll remember for the rest of my life. What he didn't say.

He didn't say to me how much money you got in your pocket.

He didn't say to me, do you have any medical coverage?

He didn't say where do you want to go?

He said get in the car, I'll take you someplace beyond your wildest dreams. And he did.

He took me to this place. It looked like an old, old store with the big storefront windows and double doors. And I took three steps in and I immediately knew I made a mistake.

It was like an abandoned room, abandoned building, and there was bodies all over the floor.

There was number furniture in the place. There was a desk over in one corner.

In another corner there was a guy. I later found out his name was Depression Tom

and he had his wallet and he was talking to himself saying Spock, beam me up.

There was another guy he called Jimmy one eye. He was in the middle of the floor. He had one glass eye and he had a football trying to bounce it like a basketball.

The only thing missing analysts room was a was a big Indian and Nurse Ratchet.

It looked like the daycare center of a mental institution.

And I, you know, I backed against the wall. I said, you know, like, just stay away. These bodies, I thought, you know, I got a pocket for money, a new suit on. You took me here to roll me. That's what these bodies are. You know,

I backed against the wall, told him to stay away from me. Somebody come out and banged on that desk and it was like Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. These bodies all got up simultaneously. They started setting up these five hour Kmart chairs and they had what they call a meeting.

Now, I really don't remember much about the meeting. I wasn't listening to what they were saying. I figure I was trying to get out of there. I kept looking out the window. I do remember this. The sun was coming up when the meeting was over. That's the kind of meetings these guys had.

But I, I do remember this. Anthony was over. There was about 35 guys in a room and they all walked over and shook my hand, said keep coming back. And that was the hook that got me into Alcoholics Anonymous.

You see, nobody but nobody. Once you caught my ACT, they never asked me to come back anywhere twice.

And these guys were willing to accept me just the way I was. And that was my first conscious try at stopping drinking. I said that's it. I'm not going to drink anymore.

I'm going to make meetings like these guys. I'm going to do what these guys do. I'm going to be all right. I know what I have to do now.

See, that's a joke. When an alcoholic says he ain't gonna drink anymore, that's a joke.

See, if I had the power to say I'm not going to drink, I wouldn't need Alcoholics Anonymous and I wouldn't need God. But I don't know that.

See, when an alcoholic, a friend of mine up the city says when an alcoholic says he ain't going to drink anymore, that's like having sex with a gorilla.

It ain't over to the gorilla says it's over.

But but I'm sincere in my efforts. I slept on that floor of that group for four months.

I made meetings around o'clock. Now that group, they don't allow anything in that building except a a literature now outside contact with the outside world. I ate, breathed and slept. Alcoholics Anonymous. I get off that floor after four months, I went out and got a job. I went to work every day. That's two different things, having a job and going to work. And I did that and,

and I got, I got a car with four hubcaps on it. I got some folding money in my pocket. I got an apartment. I got a little honey

and about eight months later I got drunk

and I was more shocked than anybody because I told myself I wasn't going to drink anymore

and that was good enough for me.

See, I know today that you can't stay sober in self. Knowledge

and prayer alone won't keep you here.

This is an action program. I didn't know that then. I know it now. And I'm not. And I'm not one of them drunk to pick up a drink on a Friday and come back here on a Monday saying I I had a load, I had to go to a rehab and that that's not what you're looking here. You know,

you're looking at a trunk. You know, when I pick up a drink, I ain't done drinking till I'm done drinking. And I ain't done drinking till I can't physically put that stuff inside me anymore or I'm in incarcerated where I can't get my hands on it.