The Aberdeen Wednesday Night Group's Soberstock Roundup in Aberdeen South Dakota

My name is Clancy, Emma's London. I'm an alcoholic

and I'm very glad to be here this evening at Sober Stock 3. There's a girl in our group or musical organization LED off Woodstock. Originally they were the first act at Woodstock and when I get back I'm going to tell her that I was at Sober Stock 3.

I know I'm glad to see everyone here, all the people back in the Half Measures bar sitting back there. I really enjoyed our first speaker. I've heard him speak several times. I always enjoy hearing me as a He has a splendid flair for visual imagery that I enjoy very much.

Intelligent, perceptive. But there's something I must say when I was a young man in a when you were growing up in the Bronx,

stole my car. You know, that's when you're growing up in the Bronx.

I was already sober in Los Angeles, struggling to become a better person. And in my early years, my, in the 1960s, I worked in radio and television in Hollywood. I was a promotion director for Channel 9 in Hollywood. And I, another guy and I created something called Boss Radio, became the number one Hard Rock station in the world. And we just all were slick and everyone around us was Jewish. Everybody was Jewish

and the business seemed like then later on through a guy, a sponsor named John Frankenheimer got into some movies. There was a bunch of movies surrounded by Jewish people. And Los Angeles has a large, a large population of Jewish people, right? Alert, receptive, but Jewish people,

and I'm glad I enjoyed, really. I have what's called a Yiddish cop I, I enjoy working with it. However, I am from up here and I'm a Lutheran, and I'm so glad that now at last you're here where I'm in the majority.

Jesus Christ, why don't you get out of here?

And I've talked about this, I've made, I've said this, I think a bad ex something like this, that, you know, I, I have kind of reputation for being cynical and kind of slick and I'm, I'm not at all. I'm down deep. I'm a I'm a Pussycat. I really am. But I,

I was thinking, just thinking tonight, if, if I had, if the doctor told me I had one day left to live.

That almost happened recently, by the way. But if I had now I, the Doctor Who had one day left to live, I think if I could, I'd come to here, come to this. I wish this procedure would be going on

and I would like to sit there while John did the raffle for the cowbell.

No lap if you wanted to make that last day seem like forever.

But I had to get up. I had to get up at 4:30 this morning to catch a plane out of Los Angeles at 6:30. So I'm really off the top of my game. I'm kind of soft and gentle and I, and it was kind of a wasn't a bad trip. It just was a Northwest Airlines trip, you know, which is that hideous little thing, mosquito. You fly from Minneapolis.

The stewardess, I guess they don't, they call them flight attendants now, but the steward is kind of a she must have had a hangover. She was solid and but it wasn't a bad trip. I'll tell you a bad trip.

While back I spoke in Reykjavik, Iceland, which is about

tooth 1000 miles beyond any lengths and

the only thing good about it. They're all, they're all descendants of primeval Norwegians, and they have a kind of a bastard Norwegian language. And nine MC

and

I try to worm, worm my way into their warmth. And on the way back, it's a long trip. You got to fly air, Iceland air. Yeah. I blotted it out in an effort to stay sane.

Iceland air to Minneapolis, then take your domestic airline. I did that and I sat in Minneapolis on Sunday night, just tired and God had been a long trip, but I had to wait 4 hours for a plane to Los Angeles and I was sitting on the red carpet room, which is the frequent flyer room for United Airlines

and had to go to SIP. Went to the washroom, a nice little washroom there, 2 little stalls side by side, little doors and I sat one of them just doing my business and

sitting there thinking I'm as well. Not much longer. All of a sudden, the voice comes from the other side, says hi there.

I'm not a senator. What are you talking to me about it?

I'm sorry I said that.

I remember one, one time in 1962,

a guy was listening to a guy talking Los Angeles who is a very vociferous, opinionated guy, and he got upset. There are three things we don't talk about. This was during the Kennedy administration. I guess he says now three things. We don't talk about, Dave. We don't talk about sex, religion or politics because it's such a polarizing thing. We don't talk about those things. But I do want to say a few words about that damn Catholic president screwing those girls.

But anyway,

this voice said hi there and I, I think I'd just tell her, just tell her that I presume, the boy said.

What are you doing tonight?

Not that I better quash this now. So I'm going back to Los Angeles to see my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. But thank you very much for asking. I thought that should do it, but it didn't. Long pause. The voice said we could really have some fun tonight if you wanted to. And I was tired and I was a little stressed. I should over. I overreacted. I said, look, I don't know what your problem is. For God's sake, get off it. I'm not in here to listen to your damn nonsense.

There's a long pause and the voice said. I'll have to call you back. This asshole the next door won't shut up.

That's a recall a bad trip,

but it's always I always enjoy listening to you speakers such as tonight and other speakers who are talking about the program because it's so odd how we come from such diversified places and diversified backgrounds. I came I couldn't come from a more opposite one than a big city Jewish family than small town Norwegian Lutheran family and I was surrounded by security by and was raised there became a good student. I I learned to sing little songs in

like it was confirmed and catechized and and I lived in a very strict structure and I was shoved to head in school because I could read fast. And my dad was a teacher that everybody respected in town and I just had a perfect childhood and same same rooms doing the same thing. Who can judge such a thing? I'd want to blame my alcoholism on that good behavior.

I guess I'll have to. You never hear anybody. Now you get upset.

I come from a mafia home.

So if I came to a good Christian home and shit, what happened? I don't know. Yeah, in my years, in my thousands of dollar investment in analysis,

psychoanalysis, some years later when I went to see what had happened to be one of the things that stuck out. And I believe this to be true too. When I was about 12, I was a straight A student, doing well and doing fine, everywhere secure, felt good. My parents got a divorce. Now, what's the big deal about that? All kinds of parents get divorced. Can you imagine that at the age of 12, I had never heard of a divorce?

Nobody in our church ever got divorced. Nobody in our family ever got divorced. Never heard about it

and all of a sudden here my mother and father separated. Of course someone explained it to me and I understood it, but I understood intellectually. But I felt put upon somehow and I almost instantly I have a flare for doing the wrong thing. I guess because it wasn't certainly given to me. I had it all along to almost instantly do the worst thing I could have done. In retrospect, I could see that I began playing my mother against my father to avoid discipline.

My mother give me hell and run to my father. My father give me hell and run to my mother. Both gave me hell. I'd run to my grandma

and I fooled him again and again and again and again and again. But I was 15. I was flunking out of high school. I had few of any friends that become a smart aleck, cynical, nasty little snot.

And I was really on the way to some bad end, I'll tell you.

And what saved my life is the Japanese bomb, Pearl Harbor. And I got interested in more movies. I'd go to war movies. I still have many friends because I was always making smart remarks and cynical remarks. Nobody wanted to be around me much I guess

there was a war movies that suddenly struck me if I could become a war hero I would really be something. So I one day I told my mother I want to go to Superior WI to visit my aunt and she packed my little bag and gave me a bus fare and the guy gave me a ride to Minneapolis and I decided to hitchhike to San Francisco to get the war and I never hitchhike before. I lit a very secluded life even and I said well stand here.

So I stood there in my

and the car stops right on kid San Francisco. So am I hop in and the way we went,

he's going back to a ship. Here's the Navy. I don't know why he picked me up just out of some had to be a St. all the way across the country. He bought my meals and at night there's no motels. You'd stop in a trailer court, you'd get me a bed and he'd listen to my prattle and I didn't think anything about it. I just I never hear I just thought that's what it is when you hitchhike, you tell him where you're going. They get you there food. I know and we I told him I wanted to be in the Marines and go over there and kill Japs and he said well kid, you're a little small. I was about this big and face full of pimples and

he said I don't think you have a little have a little difficulty in the but I'll tell you what they're crying for people in the merchant marine. I mean, all the good guys that go out in the Navy and you might be able to get into that.

I'll show you where the Coast Guard office is and go in there and tell him when we get there, you tell me you're 16, you want to be in the merch Marine. And I said, OK. I remember the morning, one of the golden moments of my life. I, I think about it. He dropped me off at the pier in Oakland. It was a fog, kind of foggy. And I smelled the ocean for the first time. And he put me on a ferry going across

the Bay to Ferry Building in Los San Francisco.

Remember standing on the thing, It's just amazed. And all of a sudden, the sun started to come up and the fog lifted. There was San Francisco Spires coming out of the fall. Oh, God, a smell of sea. And I got to the Ferry Building and he said, give me an address on Market Street. And I walked up there with my little bag and I went and said I would have been the merchant brain. And I said, OK, fill out this application, kid.

I put down 16, as he told you. Well, you're only 16, kid.

We have to have your parents permission. So I took it on the block, my parents permission and they were so desperate that you should be Siemens papers right there. Temporary ones, followed them up with criminal ones. Took another guy and I down to the turned out to be Montgomery Street. I didn't know what it was to the union Hall and we had to sign a waiver for dues. What the hell that is Took us to the Embarcadero, put us on a ship that afternoon. We're on a load of torpedo warheads going to the South Pacific

and it really was fun for about an hour.

That's where the World's Fair was last year.

That's Alcatraz.

That's the Golden Gate Bridge.

After that, there's just nothing ever. And they stuck me in a room. They called it a cabin. People around here in Minnesota know what a cabin is. It's got logs in it. These are just a room with three of the worst type of people that any small, skinny, pimply faced Norwegian Lutheran kid can be with. And these people are called men.

What the hell are you supposed to be?

I could see there's a little tension in the room. I told him a joke that I was used to cover. Good and steady Halls

didn't go over there. Why'd you get your damn bunk there? You got that one? Shut up

I still bake remember that bunk and the ship was moving on as hot in there and these guys start talking and my God, I felt bad because I was a Sinner and I I'd want to be a Sinner. I don't but I seem to need more fun than other Lutheran somehow and I just. But I every time I sin I feel guilt. Yet I have such a flair for it. I mean,

but I had not remembered to keep the Sabbath day holy several times. I had not remembered to respect my mother and father and treat them with honor, and I had learned to say some dirty words.

But I lay in that bunk and I felt these guys start talking, and I thought, My God, I'm in a room with some of the worst sinners in the history of the world.

These guys had been in law in San Francisco for three or four days with a ship, and they'd done dirty thing after dirty thing after. I mean, I even at the age of 15 in Eau Claire, I'd had sex. But I've been apprehensive and I'd been afraid. I'd been alone and these guys were doing it. These guys were doing it with people,

I don't know what,

and I suddenly realized, of course they've all got black hair. Those are the Catholics I've heard about,

but it was kind of a difficult start and but anyway, a little short time I'd be. I finally had a job after a couple of days on the ship. I became the ship fool, you know. Hey kid, get out of bedroom dumb. We need a left-handed wrench.

Hey, kid, go up on the bridge. Tell the Catherine who needs some elbow grease.

These guys are drank every day and they drank whiskey. They weren't supposed to have it on the ship, but who's going to stop being all these were really any other era they had been pirates. You know,

I, I don't walk the plank, I suppose, but

they'd drink whiskey after their watch. They all had whiskey in their sea bags. And I was just shocked. To the best of my knowledge, I'd never been in the same room with a bottle of whiskey up till that time. Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans don't do that. And one day one of these boobs turned to me, says, how about you, junior? You think you're man enough for a little snort? You shove that bottle in my face. And I decided to get that settled right then, once and for all.

I was going to tell him, you get that bottle out of my face.

You may not know this, but I'm a Norwegian Lutheran and I'm on to what you people do. I've heard about you and I don't drink whiskey and my mother and grandmother promised that I never would drink whiskey and I'm I'd want to be like that. Keep that whiskey out of my face. I was going to going to tell her that just demolish him because I just preparing it. He said, why do you think you're mad enough? I heard a voice say God damn right.

So I had my first drink of whiskey out of the first glove, but I ever saw it and burned my mouth and my throat and my stomach and my throat and my mouth and his shirt. Finally.

I'll get them out of the way then. I'm sorry to make sure

to this day I don't know, a worse emotion, a worse feeling than public humiliation, embarrassment for someone just makes you look like a nothing and there's nothing you can do about it.

I wonder just hit these guys as they laughed.

I I thought later there's something I could have done. I'm glad I didn't think of it. They've thrown me overboard. But it would have been cute. Was it lean over you? Yeah. Take that.

Just give. Give one of them. Give one of the old eye,

but all the way across the Central Pacific when nobody was around, every at least once a day at sea and one of these guys sea bag and take a drink of whiskey and I'll throw it up and I'll have to wipe it up. So they didn't know, but I was so desperate because I had this delusion that the reason they thought I was in non human non man, because I threw up that whiskey, the reason they thought it was a non match, I was a non man, you know. But we're coming into Pearl Harbor. They're digging up ships all around us. Very exciting. I'm down there the night before my 16th birthday,

taking a drink of that crap, and it stayed down. Then I couldn't breathe

and somewhere along there, suddenly I felt significantly different. I felt significantly better

now. I don't really remember this at all.

Guy gave me a tape of a talk I gave when I was three years sober and I remembered it then, and I'm now quoting that tape.

I can hardly remember where my hotel is for Chrysler

and I, I didn't realize that I had a great reaction to it. One of the problems in my life, it always seemed to be is that for one reason, I always felt different when I was a kid. I mean, although I did well, I always felt I didn't quite fit in. It's almost as though there was something missing in me. I didn't know what it was, but at a distance I could get along with a lot of people, but up close, it's almost as they look disappointed in me. There's there's something about me that I don't

grow on you. Somehow I don't fit in very well.

And I thought it's like, if you're going around, you're supposed to feel like this, to feel like this a lot. And Rag, I figured when I grew up it'll be all different. It wasn't different. But I know one thing that day, I suppose in looking back, although I never would have guessed it at the time

drinking have the drink Husky made the scale go away. First time in my life and I felt like men looked. I never realized that then either. I mean I had no knowledge at all Dumber than hell because I feel better. But in retrospect, I can see that does from you. And it was wonderful and I I didn't become a terrible alcoholic. I learned to smoke on that ship. You know, we talked about,

talked about, well, about smoking tonight. You can't. We don't want you to smoke in the building

or outside the building or anywhere else. Jesus. But I never, I never know where my family spoke, but I smoked and puked and smoked and puked one day I smoked and didn't puke and I smoked 2 1/2 or three packs a day every day for the next 40 some years. And I, I love smoking and I would be smoking now if. But

now here's a sad story.

In 1985, at the International Convention Montreal, I was in charge of the field flag ceremony

where countless nations moved in and had an intricate ballet where they marched and dipped their flag. Guys, they were so beautiful and they so dummies couldn't do it. And one guy from Poland almost killed him. He just stupid. I didn't judge him. I just wanted to kill him.

But we're rehearsing in this big stadium before and they had no PA system

and I had to scream my instructions at him and I blew out my voice and got very hoarse. I got back to Los Angeles and it never got better again. So I had to go to a doctor and he said, well, he said you've blown out your you got a really a growth in the bottom of your vocal cords. It may be very, very intense, dangerous for you must operate almost immediately. And they want to put me in. Operator took out a third of my vocal cords

and my voice used to be clear and nice. Not

And I think about that because for five years my doctor had been saying to me,

for you to smoke is to die. Yes, I know it. I'm going to quit, doc. I really am. The doctor said to me, you know, smoking didn't 'cause this problem with your vocal cords, but if you smoke and irritate that you could go mute.

Never smoked again after that. But one of the great problems in smoking and I it's a, it's getting really bad for smokers. You know, wherever you go in any country, in the city, in the country, maybe it's an even in Aberdeen,

you drive down the street on grainy nights and there's people outside.

Are the businesses in the daytime outside? And I don't read that, but people think they have the right to come up to you and denounce you for smoking strangers. You know, why do you smoke? Don't you know the harmed second hand smoke does for people?

They were doing that when I was smoking. I took me 5 years to think of an answer

but answered I had to quit smoking so I'm going to bring it to you smokers here tonight. There is an A a meeting in the world for you to get this kind of information.

The next time someone comes up you says how do you smoke? Here's what you say.

Why do I smoke? I have a feeling one of these days they'll find a market for phlegm and I'll be rich.

They never ask you again.

And I learned drinking and smoking. I'd become a terrible alcoholic. It took me into Honolulu the next day and got me 3 bottles of beer that made me tipsy and made me feel good. And it's just something you learn as you grow up. You learn things you heard things make you like, the things you don't like it. I learned that drinking makes me feel good and sometimes I drink too much. It makes me sick. And, and I went on later on the war when I got old enough, I went in the Navy at the end of war is the Naval Hospital, Northern California. And they passed around some tests and I've always been good on tests because I read a lot

and I, I took a test and nice thing I thought, I thought it was very cute, but it really did be a lot of harm over the years because for some brother, it happened to just fit what I've read or something. And I got a very, very high grade, like 99 percentile

and the highest 1% of test takers, the United States Navy. And I wasn't that smart and I wasn't that socially aware, but I did it. So I get, I got a high school diploma out of that from Armed Forces Institute. And from then on I carried if it takes these boobs all over their time it takes I can get by on 50% or whatever can get by with.

But I went back to Wisconsin and went to college after the ward got married in college, went out in the world. I won some trophies for the University of Wisconsin knowing out the world, became a sports writer, which to this day is my favorite job I ever had in the world because I like it. And

I got married in college. So this girl with flashing black eyes and black hair and just so mysterious, something you never see in the Lutheran Church. And she told me she is a Catholic. I thought, but I thought maybe you could overcome that somehow. And, and after I got working, she began manifesting the terrible behavior patterns of Catholics that I never knew about. And I never do a Lutheran boy that did know about.

But if you marry a good Catholic girl,

Olive, you're about to have a big family.

And she began turning out children with monotonous regularity.

I began a my second career a national distributor of small Catholics.

So I had to get better jobs and

I got it advertising and public relations. All these years I drank and I really enjoyed drinking is drinking breaks down the walls and my side of me. I'd makes me feel the way men look, although I didn't think of it that way, just out of something made me feel good and I smoked and drank. Grace Helen were World War 2 veteran on top of it just a

it's just great. I'll tell you if you had a new tonight we'll have a bunch of new people. I want to tell you something shocking. Alcohol is the best friend I ever had. I never had a better friend than alcohol. Friends come and go, lovers come and go, jobs come and go, cities come and go,

but on a few drinks is just

and everything is all right. That's you can do that anywhere in the world, not even realize that it's something unusual. Just

I've often thought about that sometimes. Sometimes we wonder if people are Alcoholics or you maybe have a friend you wonder if they're an alcoholic. Here's a test I've created to help you

get them to stay sober a week and then give them a big drink to hear. Drink this

and if they say.

You're in trouble, Jack,

but alcohol is the best friend I ever had. The only problem I ever had, I would tendency sometimes to drink a little too much,

where's my psychiatrist pointed out later. I have many times been thoughtlessly over served

in addition to being confined psychologically by the Norwegian Lutheran Church,

in addition to being being raised during the depression. Didn't even know there was a depression, but once he explained it I could see how to discard me.

I had a lot of things,

and sometimes I drink too much and then I act bizarrely. The psychiatrist says that's because you've been so repressed you're breaking loose for the first time. Sounded right to me, but I tried to convince several arresting officers of that.

So somebody said, why don't you go to this new thing in town called a A some of the Old Town drugs are getting sober. They're not staying sober. At least they're cutting down. So I went to my first day meeting went went to a room, 7 or 8 fat guys sitting on the table. What the hell you're in here?

Well, it was like being right back on the ship.

I know, I know know why? Because I was 22 and look, 22 and in that state of Wisconsin wasn't anybody less than 40 in A at that time, you know, just like somebody 12 coming in now say I think I'm an alcoholic. Do you I think you got a broken nose. You know, I said I some people suggested I come here. Do you think you're an alcoholic?

No,

Hey, what the hell do you think is wrong with you? Now try to be honest with I think I'm a little too sensitive.

Listen to this, Earl.

Well, I never said that again for a long time. I'll tell you

when I went to A for a while. New people here not just take long to learn about A. A. A is a place for Alcoholics. Go. What are Alcoholics? People who drink too much, They become alcoholic, they have a problem. They come to the aid and admit they're a problem. Then they return. They return to God and live happily ever after, I guess. And none of that is me. My problem was not really alcohol. My problem is all sorts of things, emotions and feelings and feeling different,

and alcohol helps me overcome them. That's what alcohol so good at. It seems to the scale goes away and I can be something I can do things I can't do when I'm sitting so obsessed with myself and so obsessed with my what I should do next and what's wrong and what I can do about drinking gives me some fluidity, I guess. And I

alcohol. I wish alcohol were my problem, but it isn't and didn't take me long to discover that Alcoholics are people who can't quit drinking. Mr. I can quit. I can quit anytime. I quit

then and thereafter. For years I've quit and quit and quit. My problem has never been I can't quit. My problem is after I'm sober, a day or two or three or sometime a little longer, someone seems to sneak into my bedroom and put an invisible spring in my gut,

and the next morning when I get up they start to tighten it

and a dozen commodities. I need alcohol because just

little growing restlessness,

just little irritability. Just a little tired of taking this sermon every day for what I used to do Just a little. Just like watching the world slowly turn from Technicolor to black and white.

And I've tried. I can't tell you how much I've spent and things I've done to beat that. I've gone to psychoanalysis for thousands and thousands of dollars. I've read books, I've done tricks, I've done all sorts of things. But I'll tell you how you cut that feeling. You take a couple drinks. That's how you cut it.

There's nothing wrong with that, except unfortunately, sometimes I drink too much. Sooner or later then they say, see, your problem was alcohol, wasn't it? You have to say, yeah, I guess it was, but you just want to shriek. No, it wasn't. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't alcohol. Alcohol help me. I got to find some way to control that. It's like modern man. I look back like modern man trying to control Atomic Energy

and every once in a while there's a little Three Mile Island, you know, got to find a way to avoid that.

And probably one of the most interesting things in the book, You know, I've read the book when I first came to a, a guy told me to read the book and I read it. And I'll tell you what my reaction was. This is terribly boring. Some years later when I came off Skid Row, they had me read the book again. And this time I found it. It was even more boring than I remembered.

It's just, you know, I had been busy writing successful advertising and television commercials and take this action and do this thing blah blah blah, going to the catering truck and cursing at that son of a bitch and that

and what you're looking for action a just read and read if you are thorough distinguish of your development.

One of the things happened reading the book in retrospect, I never discovered. I never realized my stories in the book. I've read, read it and heard it read and never paid any attention to it. When a sober while one night I was listening to some boob read chapter 3, which they do in our area some of the time. Now you know when you hear reading like chapter 5 as interesting and valuable it is to us, but when you've heard it around 5000 times, maybe

you don't really hang on every word anymore. For earlier, we see the person. Let's see how that thing is going to work. Let's see what this is. Maybe I should make that call. God could and would have sought.

Yeah, that's good.

And somewhere there was off my feed that night. So I was listening to Chapter 3.

And much to my surprise, it was my story. If I'd have heard that when I was new and paid any attention, it probably wouldn't pay any attention at all. But I but those who are new here, you wonder, We say we're all the same. What way are we all the same? Look around you. Different sizes, shapes, colors. There's nothing we have in common. Different backgrounds, different histories.

Our first speaker took dope. In my era, we didn't even talk to people who took dope.

I talked to him now because I've learned to do that. But I

I must say one thing with the speaker, though. I must I got to say this. It hurts me to say it, but I've known him for many years and he was getting a little pudgy

and the sickness he's had has reduced his weight down. He looked, I've never seen him looking better. How could I get a just a small dose of that sickness?

The but chapter three, one of the things they say that what do we have in common if you're an alcoholic like us? Here's one thing, somewhere along the line, all of us have voluntarily or involuntarily, and certainly without knowing it, accepted the obsession that somehow someday I will control and enjoy my drinking,

he says. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Just knowing I I I can't go without trick. I got to find a way to do it.

And so we continue to fight the term alcoholic because we must sustain our ability to drink. And then we have occasional brief recoveries. We've all had brief recoveries. You think that's it? When I eat before I go out, that's it. I'll eat before I go out and get and line my stomach. And then eventually it'll just learn just you just puke more. That's about all. Yeah. Just bad. Followed always by still worse relapse

than that Dale delicate dainty little phrase in there, reaching a stage of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

I just think that's how drunk these poor people get. That's what that means at all. That's how you feel after you get sober again and people want explanations from you for your behavior. And there aren't any except to say leave me alone.

And we tried dumb little things like changing from one kind of booze to another or drinking beer. Only everybody's tried that, I'm sure. Drinking natural wines, taking exercise, reading books,

getting his spiritual movement, Taking a trip, Not taking a trip. I've tried every one of those things except one. I never tried not taking a trip.

I believe when the heat is on, only cowards stay around,

move it out. That's why all my children were born in a different state and all have different.

I never knew there was any, but I always knew my case was different. That's the other thing I think we come here with. I've never met an alcoholic who came to A who didn't secretly feel his case was different. And we all have good reasons for it and a superficial level. Our cases are all different, that's true. But he doesn't tell you been here a while and get down a few layers that you realize what we have in common. But I went in and out of a A for the next. Every time the heat was on, I went to A till the heat was off.

And this went on for years and finally I went down one more time instead of bouncing back up it all went my family left my home left, they took back my car. Tracy Lock, big advertising against you in the South that I was going to make my big comeback and I cost them a big account and I was in deep trouble and I had to get out of Dallas quick. And the guy said will you drive my car to Los Angeles for me? I said sure I will

and I drove it as far as Phoenix and got drunk and lost it. Never did find it. All my clothes, everything, my ID is in there.

Terribly upset about that. Drunk that night looking around the streets who couldn't find somebody said you better cool down guys, I'll screw you, try to be a cop. And he threw me in jail overnight

in the middle of the night. I was very, very sick and I had to vomit. So I went over the toilet and vomited. Turned out of somebody's bunk, but he wasn't in it. I mean, just that. Laid down a tile, put my cheek on the tile and slept asleep. The guy came back from wherever he was. I'm going to have a trustee. Found his bed full of vomit and drunken fools. Damn you. Damn you.

And although I didn't mean to do it, but he kicked my front teeth out,

that was one of the few mornings I was ever glad I'd been in psychoanalysis. I was almost instantly able to identify his problem.

I remember thinking this son of a bitch is overreacting,

but I didn't want to say anything to make trouble.

They let me out the next morning. Blood, vomit, torncoat, all of my clothes, all of my ID, all of everything I had in the world was in that car and I never have. I haven't found it yet

and I I'll tell you if you want to be a long term slipper as I was, let me give you some advice. I'm telling you how to do it. One thing, if you're really getting a bad shape and really look terrible, can't get in anywhere. There's always one place that welcomes you and a a club that is the only place in the world where the worst you look, the better they like it.

Oh, this one's mine, Fred.

So I,

I went walked over to the A club and hustled some old lady for a bus fare to Los Angeles. And

couple days later I'd, I'd, I'd run across if I didn't got it broke again. And what had happened was I had a guy at KFWB, which was a radio station on Hollywood Blvd. and I'd give him his start and he was now a big star. This was a rock'n'roll station that was a news station. But I called back and said, Jesus, Ted, I said I've had a terrible car accident. Now my teeth got knocked out. I'm waiting for a check. Could you help me? Oh yes, don't be able to come out on the bus to Hollywood Blvd. Come up this upstairs and see him. And he shocked what he saw me. Oh, my God,

give me a lot of money,

He said, well, I just feel so bad, but I rented a room and got drunk and had fun and wiped the blood off me and ran out of money. After a few days, I called him. I said, Ted, my check hasn't come, could you help me a little bit more? I said, no, I can't. He said, I called Dallas and you, you're a bum. Nobody down there's got any time for it anymore. He's burned everybody off and you make a fool out of me. Don't. Don't. Oh Jesus, Ted,

I'm so sick. You got to help. Please, she said. OK, you come to the back of the station, the alley back of Hollywood Blvd. Tonight at 9:00 I'll come on the fire escape. I don't want you to come up to the station

and I don't want to see again. I said, oh, thanks, Ted. I was out there in the rain. He came out of the fire escapes of hair. Now stay away from here. He threw a $5.00 bill that fluttered down into a mud puddle, and I crawled out and got a nice Ted. I thought I outsmarted him, boy. And a couple days later two big guys threw me out of a Skid Row mission. I said. And stay out of here, you mooch.

I translator. I'm not a mooch. Three years ago I was on the faculty of the University of Texas ads that I wrote the LC Del Mirage for. The board and company were running it. Very weak in life and time and serving post in New Yorker. I've had my picture in the New York Times for one of my achievements. It was really hard to explain these things in midair.

I started to say that old, damn old mission, The Midnight Mission, 4th corner 4th in Los Angeles St. Didn't know anybody in town except Ted.

Mouth was bleeding again, sick. Felt so bad that I know I had a feeling that I I couldn't identify, but I'm sure there are people in this room who've had it, and I identified not because I've had seen people with it. When you get to a point where you suddenly realize there's no friendly direction, it's all equally bad. No one's going to be glad to see you wherever you go

and that is a bad feeling. Now I better get to an A a club. I'm going to die

or a die on the street. I was worthy a club here pal, he said. Well there's no way club around here, not downtown. You have to walk out to Wilshire and Fairfax. Where the hell is that? He's well, Wilshire doesn't come down this Friday. I have to walk this hill to Hill Street and cut out a wheelchair and walk W till he come to Fairfax and on the left hand side there's a club.