Bobby M. from Cleveland, OH at the Gopher State Roundup in Bloomington, MN

I'm an alcoholic and my name is Bob Moore. Hi.

Hey,

my kind of guys,

the enthusiasm in this room is awesome. And I certainly before I started running my big mouth, I want to thank the committee honestly for really asking me to come out here and share your 30th roundup, the Gopher State roundup.

And as I lookout among you, I want you for me to give yourself a hand because you're some beautiful people to me tonight.

I told Ed we clean up well, don't we

now 25 years ago.

Dave, wherever Dave is for keeping in touch with me and Betty Peter for picking us up at the airport,

Ernie L was an honor to meet you wherever you are. Ernie, I hope to get to see you some more of this conference before I leave. And last but not least,

Ed and Betty and I get to go a lot of places and they're no strangers.

You know, as Ed talked about the language of the heart, there are no strangers when you wear your sobriety like a loose garment. I'm OK and I've never been OK in my life. I am OK with 3000 people here tonight. I'm OK and that's the joy of this wonderful program.

Couple of things I learned early on.

There's a God, and I'm not it. Nor are you.

Some of you think you are

and Alcoholics Anonymous works.

I got a lot of ambivalence as I sit here because I I was touched tonight and and and my daughter has grown up here going to Al Anon in AA and she thinks she has a sobriety day, but she hadn't drank yet. So

let's hope you know the wet sit, you know?

But I just got through going. I was telling that about going through something with my dad.

I thought I hated my dad's guts, and I don't know if a lot of you can identify with that, but I come in the Alcoholics Anonymous hated hating everything. Everybody and everything. Everybody had ever done anything to me. I hate it. Hate does nothing to the person you are hating but destroys you. God was at the top of the list and for five years

in Alcoholics Anonymous. I refuse to say God,

I thought God was sitting up there on this high and mighty throne. Why would he let all of this stuff that was going on in my life? And for five years I set the higher power. I thank God for wonderful sponsorship because my sponsor would say to me, I want you to pray every night and thank God for that day of sobriety and get up in the morning and ask God to go with you ain't talking to him, OK. And so my prayer like that would go

whatever's watching over my sponsor, watch over me,

you

the next morning, whatever, watch it over my sponsor, watch over me. And for five years I did it in my fifth year, one of the best Christmases I've had since I was a little boy growing up in Birmingham, AL. And the gospel singing friend of mine by the name of Jean, and I called Jean and I said, Gene, God did this, God did that, beautiful Christmas God. Jean said to me, no more higher power. No more higher power.

Emphatically, God, tonight as I stand before you,

I watched my dad, a proud, proud man who had 35 years in the Army, having me to pick him up and take him to the bathroom and clean him. And my daddy looked at me one night and he said, I never thought, son, that I'd ever see one of my kids would have to clean me. And I thank God. And I said that is OK, But I thought about us because sometimes we're very unkind and mean to people in Alcoholics Anonymous.

I thought sometimes about us, how we treat people. And sometimes we do it in recovery because you don't know before you leave here who's going to have to give you a glass of water or to clean your behind. It taught me something. I was really, really into watching my daddy because because of Alcoholics Anonymous, I could do that for my dad. I did it for my mother. And I thought I hated my father.

My journey in Alcoholics and my journey began in Birmingham, AL.

I was born when black wasn't beautiful.

I ain't like being black

and I didn't want to be another color, but it was horrible times for black folk. If you grew up. During the time I grew up, Ku Klux Klan marched through the community, kept us in fear, but we were proud, proud, proud Black people. My mother always would say education was going to be our out. And my grandma, my mother got pregnant with me at about 12 years old. And I remember hearing my grandmother said you don't bring bastard babies into this world. No offense to no one who has a child

wedlock. My story that time, Different time, different era. I grew up during the time you got your Fanny tan. It was not called child abuse.

And we did not come out of a dysfunctional home.

That's a treatment jargon.

It was the norm. You got out of line. My Mama hit you. My mother? Yeah, my, my grandmother catching me there, you know.

But it was what I call mutual respect. You knew what to do where your place was. Everybody raised you, the teachers in the community, the people in the community, the teachers. You went to church whether you wanted to go or not. There's an African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. And that's the way I was raised. I was raised, right? I was raised, grew up in Seinstein Baptist Church, baptized by Reverend Martin.

And in that church, if you smoke cigarettes, you're going to go to hell.

You drank alcohol, you were gonna go to hell. You had sex and wasn't married. Whoo you gonna burn in hell

Now before I come to you, I'm doing all of the above

and we going to have a good time on the way to hell.

I got drunk with some kids about 12 years old, my first drunk. Significant consequences. That's what alcoholism addiction is, consequences. I was telling my friend bringing me over here today, if we could drink successfully, most of us would drink. I couldn't do it. And thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous. But I have no nonsense mother.

And these kids brought me home. They dumped me on the porch and they ran. They knew my mother.

Couple of things happened. My mother beat my butt, she broke a broom over my head and she run in the house and got her gun. Now at 12 years old I get sober real quick. Trust me,

would she have shot me? I doubted it. She scared the hell out of me, though. I know that.

But my mother said something to me that night that I'll take to my grave. Sonny, before I see you like this, I would rather see you there. Not 12 years old meant nothing but 30 and 35 and I'm walking the streets of Cleveland doing anything now. You let your little minds run rapid. I don't know. You're sitting out there and say, well, I wonder, did he? Yes I did.

No Bobby Moore. Bobby Moore did. Yes, I did

know a little nice lady. I just said he didn't do that. The hell if I did.

Unlike a lot of you.

Unlike a lot of you

who don't want to talk about it. That is the freeing process. That's what makes me OK tonight. I can talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. You know I don't do like a lot of you. Oh thank God for blackouts. I wasn't in no blackout.

I needed some money. I'm not in no black guy. I've been

steal something, then I'll go in the blackout after I get it.

But before then I'm wide awake. I know what I'm doing. I'm doing anything on the streets of Cleveland. You want me to steal for you, give me a drink. Want me to lie for you? Give me a drink. You want me to Make Love to you and I hate your guts, Give me a drink. Alcoholism. Alcoholism that a liquid would cause you to do and become

anything because of the need. Now, one of the things, if you didn't do it,

don't sit out there and judge me. I will not be judged by you. I will be judged by God. Skid Row is a state of mind. You take it to suburbia. Puke is puke,

Fighting and raising hell is. I don't care where you are is raising hell. I wouldn't look at the evidence. Graduated from high school at 16 and honors student most likely to succeed. Smartest dude in the class. Best looking dude in the class.

Gotta say that one

stuff had started happening to this little boy when he was a little boy that my mother died, didn't know. Thank God for Alcoholics Anonymous because I hated some of those people had done things to me. I work in treatment, I work in psychiatry. And when you see macho Man comes into Alcoholics Anonymous, he's fighting, he's angry, he wants to beat up the world and he's got to play daddy and play husband. And he was gang raped in the penitentiary.

It's hard for him,

it's difficult for him, it's difficult for him in relationships with the opposite sex.

This is the cleansing process here, and that's where a lot of you let it go right over your head. It's not what you think of me, it's what I think of you. It's not what I've done, it's what I do today. You know, I'm under new Management Today.

I'm hanging around with people, with school, with my mom and dad. And a lot of stuff happened to me shouldn't have happened. And I was very angry and very bitter with Chicago at the age of 17. And I come back from Chicago and I think I'm grown at 17, had no clue about life, dealing with life on lifes turn responsibility. If it feels good, I want some more. That's why I drink so much. That's why my sexual conduct was out of out of order. You know, I come back from Chicago. My mother is remarried to her husband in Detroit.

My grandmother's there and I had to get a job. And if there was a time I drank successfully was during this period of time. Now we just don't stay there at that mellow mold, you know, when we cross that imaginary line. I don't know when I did it, but my drinking got on the road and my grandmother would say I was acting ugly, you know, 'cause I'd get drunk and talk about your mom and your daddy. And people don't don't take kindly to that.

And, and, and everybody would saw me grow up in that community.

So when I would act ugly, as my grandmother would term it, granny got it before I got home. And I'm sick of these nosy people in my business. I had no business. My business was about getting high. I'm young, I bounce back, got a letter from Uncle Sam and I'm ready to get the hell out of Dodge. I do my basic in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and I ended up in Iceberg, Germany. Strange customs, strange moves. And the first thing I say when I get off the ship. Now I can drink like I

I'm nosy. Neighbors can't dip in my business, you know, my business was about getting high. I meet people like me. In Germany, water seeks its own level, you know, I'm stationed around the University of Munich. I have friends of mine who are attorneys today, doctors today. I'm in some guest house, some horror house. I'm somewhere drunk.

Story of my life got a wonderful pictures.

My wife is going through the scrapbook and she said how do you look like that?

Sound drunk.

I'm drunk ever. You know, we want to take pictures here, grab me, you know,

take my picture when I get drunk and store my life. Booze was rashes, cigarettes was ration. I typed out the division stamps to get the booze and the cigarettes. We sell the booze to the Germans, sell the cigarettes to the Germans. I'm drunk every day. Everything I do is drug affected. I'm drunk every day now. I had met Doctor Martin Luther King long before he became prominent. The movement was in the black community. My pastor was a part of that,

and every Monday night Doctor King would come into our one of our churches there in Birmingham. Now I'm in Europe and his pictures plastered all over the European paper and they're kicking his butt. They're throwing him in jail and there's nothing worse than a drunk with the cause.

We are dangerous. We are dangerous.

Sobering comes out right, you know. I could articulate my feelings, but when I get high comes out wrong. My second sponsor used to talk about an old B.B. King song. Same old story, same old song goes all right till it goes all wrong. Same old story, same old song, you know? And that was a time I could drink successfully. I could do things. I was smart, I was intelligent. But once I got high, I was capable of murder.

My journey, my journey.

Angry people don't have fun. People who hate don't have fun. People who And I'm sitting there and the more I drink and I'm hating and I'm angry and everybody in the EM club one night is shaking their booty. They're having fun. And I'm not having no fun. The more I drank, the more pissed I got. And I leaned over to a guy next to me and I said someone of another color. Call us a name we don't like to be called.

And one of the worst race riots erupted. I'm responsible

and that don't go well with me because I was raised differently. I used to go over to the boarding group. Don Cassini comes to. I think he's been there a couple of times for you guys. But Donald Group is a boarding group on a Monday night and that would be a lot, lot of old timers over there. And I'd go over there just to hear these old colleges and they'd be sitting up there talking and I'd be sitting up there trying to hear what they were trying to say. I remember one night one guy stood up and he said

isn't it wonderful

to be sober? And I looked at him. I said hell no, it's not wonderful,

you know, I'm wearing Salvation Army clothes. Just before that, I got sprayed for bugs at the city mission. You know,

my life is not wonderful. Yeah,

I'm wearing Salvation Army clothes. Oh no, it is not wonderful.

But ladies and gentlemen, as I stand out here and look at your beautiful faces tonight, I am so grateful to God that I became an alcoholic. Because had I not become an alcoholic, I would not have met you. I would not have found Alcoholics Anonymous. Had I just put the plug in the jug. I would have still been hated. I would have still been hated and I wouldn't have had your wonderful 12 steps to get rid of the garbage. I give the garbage to the

man. I dumped the garbage. I don't hate no more.

One night I'm over there and the guy says a pickle is a cucumber before it becomes a pickle. I'm still listening. Once it becomes a pickle, you can't put it back on the vine. Become a cucumber again. In essence, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. You don't hear a lot of that stuff like you used to 25 years ago. It's like riding a bicycle. As long as you pedal the bicycle, the bicycle will move. You stop pedaling, you fall off.

First guy I saw get drunk and Alcoholics Anonymous. I had three months. Ernest M had 16 years. He got drunk and I asked a guy named Pappy. I said Pappy, what happened? Ernest had 16 years. He said he got he graduated Bobby Moore. He stopped going to meetings. So I knew at three months I got to go to a lot of meetings because I didn't want to get drunk like Ernest.

I'm up there one night and God said a was like sex.

If you're not enjoying it, you must not be doing it right.

I'm not done. The highest man is everybody more. I got a good one for you. AA is like the mafia. You leave, you die.

After those guys got killed, I didn't feel good about myself and I started drinking during the day. I broke every law. God's in man and I should have been kicked out of the army, but but, but for the grace of God, I got an honorable discharge. I leave the army. I stop off in New York. I got money at home. I've sent bonds and sent the money I made selling booze to the Germans home to granny and I go back to my grandmother's house there in Birmingham, AL and I moved back into the room I went to high school out of. I pay no rent. I buy no food,

drunk every day. Alcoholism has not said in it deadens all of that motivation that drive that incentive to do anything that is right. I remember I watched a movie down at the treatment center and and they were talking about drinking up. This woman was talking about she drank up her willpower. So do you have some willpower? She said no, I drank my willpower.

I just drank up everything. It just destroyed my life,

just destroyed my life. I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy the things that I went through. It is in remembering that I stay. So, you know, I'm

around Birmingham and I got money, I got bonds, I got a lot of rental friends. And if you don't play my game, you don't act. By the way, I want you to act and I get rid of you and I get some more people. I got money, I'm buying. And if I buy, you dance to my music. It's a controlling this. I love it. You know, I'm in charge. I'm the man in charge, you know, and we drink and blowing this money running to the bank like an idiot. And around this time we get a letter from my mother's minister. The logistics of the letter was my mother was dying,

had a beautiful mother, and I went to the Army remembering my mother as this pretty lady with long hair who used to get out and play ball with my brother and myself. And I get on the train. I go to South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, and my mom ain't pretty anymore. She's skin and bone and down of cancer and I feel helpless and I feel hopeless, but I know how to spell relief. I sell my mother's house and I go take her back to Alabama and I watched her die horrendous death.

Cancer stinks and it smells and it robs you of your beauty.

And my mother, my grandmother was ill, my brothers in California with my dad and I got to clean my mother, and my mother resented the hell out of me seeing her naked. But I'm so grateful to God that I did that. I'm so grateful that God allowed me. Didn't stop drinking, but she was priority. And I go all over the United States running my big mouth, and invariably someplace there's a guy who's everybody. Well, let me tell you about how I took care of my mother.

You know, I, I take my hat off to these guys, but I did it because I loved it. She was priority. I'm an alcoholic, but I do what I have to do.

So my ritual for two years, I gotta clean her, clean the bed. And when I clean her, clean the bed, feed her, then she fall asleep, then I drink myself to sleep. And one Saturday, I leaned down to kiss her and she was no longer with us. Remember a friend of mine who went to high school with me, he put his arms around my shoulder and he said, I know how you feel. And I said, no, you don't. Your mama's still living 25 years later. And Alcoholics Anonymous, if I hadn't walked in your shoes, I don't say I know how you feel. I can empathize,

love you till you learn to love yourself. I can care for you all I want to but I don't know how you feel if I hadn't walked in your shoes. Your Mama died, called me. I know how you feel. And I drank 3 bottles of wine and I went to that funeral to show them the mythical them how I felt. Always showing them, always trying to prove to them and never knew who them were, but I had to show them how sad I was

in sobriety. I've gone back to funerals and a very dear, dear aunt. I just watched how beautiful and how peaceful she was in death. And I view dying differently than I did when I was drinking. My perception is off. I don't see things clearly.

Dying is a part of living. We're all going to go there. But between birth and death, there should be some good living. That's what this stuff in Alcoholics Anonymous is about.

Enjoying life, doing the things that you enjoy doing without booze, without drugs, and just enjoying life, remembering who's running the show.

There's a God and it's not you. And I'll set up a couple more times before I leave you. Just keep that in mind. There's a God and you have to find that for yourself. Those of you who are new with us, your sponsor can't do that for you. Nobody can do that for you. That you bond with a power greater than yourself. You find a God of your understanding. And I found out in Alcoholics Anonymous that God works through people with skin.

You know, the people who love me the most were these little white women from Lakewood, OH

and I'm Hayden. So if you're sitting out there and talk, thin and black ain't in you ain't heard nothing. I said tonight I was hating. And those little women in Lakewood, OH loved me until I could learn to love myself. An incredible journey. God works through people with skin. My mother dies. Traumatic, just traumatic. My brother comes home for the funeral and was in Cleveland, OH

and that's how I got to Cleveland. Early 60s. Some of your kids weren't born. They have an affectionate name they call Cleveland, not the plum. Wasn't the plum when I got there in the 60s? Bunch of dilapidated buildings and I'm ready to go back to Birmingham. I know every nook and cranny, but there's an area where my brother live and I'm sure there's one in Minnesota like it is years ago. We used to call it the Red Light District.

See, I heard they know. They know 107 to 50

15 Euclid was lit up like Las Vegas prostitutes worked all night long. Pretty girls, I don't know how they make money today. I don't beautiful girls They they were look good, smell good and I became part of. Now, if you haven't been on the streets, if you haven't been on the streets and you don't understand, don't judge me.

Don't judge me. An alcoholic, male or female, will do what he or she has to do to get what they have to get. And thank God that somebody about you lose and you didn't have to go out there.

I ended up being a street person, doing anything on the streets of Cleveland for money or forget high. I'm not ashamed. There's no shame to my game today. That is the beauty of this program. When you wear your sobriety like a loose garment, that person is no longer with us. But when I take a shower and I see the gunshot wounds and the beatings and the cuttings in the stabbings, I know,

I know every scar on my body either. I'm in the process of getting some money.

I'm trying to do something to get something to get high off of the story of my life. God stabbed me in the heart and living about called the down bar of 105th and Euclid. This was the 3rd or 4th time that my lights were almost put out. And I remember coming out of that 8 1/2 hours of surgery, open heart surgery, and I'm laying up there with tubes coming out of every conceivable part of my body and all I can think about, I'm going to kill this guy.

I'm going to kill this guy. I'm going to pay somebody to kill him because I know how it's done. To show you how this stuff in Alcoholics Anonymous works, I've been with you for two years, this gentleman, and I'll use that word loosely, that cut me, was on the 115 Euclid on the cane and walked up to me and didn't know who I was. I'd been with you for two years and I no longer hated this man. And he asked me for $0.50 on a bottle of wine.

Needless to say, I hadn't gotten that. Well, I didn't.

Six months later, this man dies as a direct results of alcoholism and if I live till July 26th of this year, I will celebrate 25 years of uninterrupted sobriety.

And all I do today is suit up and show up.

So I don't know. The guys I sponsored, they expect me to tell them something profound. And when I tell them something as simple as don't drink, don't drug and go to meetings and pray, aren't you going to say something profound? That is the most profound thing that I can say to you. Alcoholics Anonymous work, get in the middle of the bed, as my sponsor would say to me. I'm out there on the streets doing anything and everything,

and my introduction to Alcoholics Anonymous goes like this. I get sick out there, I'm bleeding from the mouth and rectum. I don't go to ERI don't find a physician. Had a friend of mine that lives across from Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest hospitals there in Cleveland.

I'm across the street in Cleveland, drinking vodka, chasing it with beer. God had a television set in the corridor. I would have to pass this TV set to puke my guts out. 30 or 40, your time. Who's counting? One of the times I come back by that television set, Channel 43 there in Cleveland. Had a commercial from our central office. Do you have a drinking problem? Oh did I?

I know nothing about Bob Bill, AA12 steps, big book. I know nothing, but I call that number

and I'll be eternally grateful because I believe God intervened in my life. I don't believe I did it by myself. I believe God was instrumental in that. What makes the guys that I ran the street with, Most of them are dead. Other prostitutes, most of them are dead. I'm walking down Huff Avenue, a guy shooting at me shoots the guy next to me. He dies. I'm still here

and sometimes we don't know what God has for us. We don't write the script. Had I written the script, I would not have put this conference in that script.

What a mist of blessing.

I call the central office on that television set and they sent out my first sponsor, little bowlegged black guy by the name of Herman Way, alias Hooks. And I'm eternally grateful because it was this little giant that brought me the message who spoon fed me Alcoholics Anonymous. And he wasn't running around trying to show me how much he knew he wasn't a Big Book thumper. And no offense to no one who is, I read the big Book for 25 years. It is not to impress you.

For me. You reap the benefit of that. My relationship with God is none of your business. You reap the benefit with me being connected with God by the way I treat you. You won't have to tell me what you are and what you're doing. You show me. That's what this program is. It's an action program. It's like love. Love is an action word. You can't talk about me and beat me up and call me names and tell me you love me. It's an action component and that's what you got to do in this program.

You got to get it for yourself. It works if you're working and if you don't work it, you're not going to get a bow osmosis from your sponsor. My sponsor took me out to Brecksville VA Hospital and I meet the 2nd man that's to affect my life for the rest of my life. Little short white guy I am hating.

We're sitting in pajamas like you guys are watching me, and he walks up to this podium. Little short white guy like my sponsor.

My name is Phil Burkhardt and I have 35 years of uninterrupted sobriety. And I lean over to the guy next to him. I say he's telling a damn lie.

I couldn't envision anyone stand sober for 35 years. But as I've done so in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's an acquired quality. You listen to, learn, learn how to listen. I heard what that little giant said that night. He asked us what's the most important thing to us and allowed us to respond. And the guys would say the wife, the car, the house, the job, money, sex. And we went down these lists of things that were important to us when we were done. This is what that little giant said. If you

they play preference in your life If you put the sobriety above all of those things actually is five years old. Wednesday night I look up at the clock. We are playing games and she said daddy, please don't go, please don't. GoDaddy goes to Wednesday night Unity every Wednesday night. We're watching cartoons on a Saturday morning and I look up at the clock. It's time to go to my second Home group, the VA Saturday group on a Saturday morning 10:30. Last 25 years have been there. If I'm not

the town

and she'll say please daddy don't go, don't GoDaddy. Daddy goes to VA hospital every Saturday morning.

Home group members know I'm here. Every guy I sponsor know where I am. They got cell number. They know I am here at your conference tonight. That's how I sponsor. They know where I am. My sponsor did it to me. The joy of this program

said, because without the sobriety, you will lose all of those things that were near and dear to you. I knew that I got out of the Army. Guy said let me take you to New York, do this for you, I'll call you. And I got a glass of booze in my hands. Come out to LA, Bobby, let me do this for I'll call you. And I got a glass of booze in my hand.

It won't let you. It just won't let you be that person that you were created to be. You know, we are very creative and artistic and intelligent people under the influence of alcohol. We're capable of murder. You know, booze and drugs will not let you rise to your full potential. Like to say I stayed sober, but it didn't.

I'm drinking, going to the meetings, you know, and around Cleveland, we comment. I know you guys don't comment, but when we get a Newman that's commenting too much, I know that was me, you know, 'cause I drank some vodka. And then I go to your meetings and they said Newman. Yeah, right here, right here, over here. And then I want to thank you people, you wonderful people,

you know, we get real proper and I want to thank you for this alcoholic. So now, and I'm drunk, you know, I'm full of vodka.

And one night they couldn't wake me up and they kicked me out of the program,

overshot my mark.

I'm back on the streets trying to do my thing, and my thing is still in and line and any kind of way that I can get some money. And people don't take kindly to you when you're trying to rip them off and do things, and especially when you're drinking. I gone back to college and it wasn't to get a degree or pursue a career. My GI Bill was about to run out and I got good money to go to school. I played tennis at one of the schools and I had a white bag with a strap.

I used to house my racket, my my changing underwear and

incidentals in there, and now this bag houses everything I own.

We hear stories of guys coming into Alcoholics Anonymous with a brown paper bag. I had a beautiful white leather bag. Beautiful,

but everything in it was funky, filthy, dirty and nasty. And so was I.

So was that I was just rotting to the core.

It's an incredible thing when I stand and tell my story and my daughter looks at me and she doesn't know that guy.

When I tell you what it was like and all, she know that I'm the best daddy since sliced bread.

But I got to be the good daddy because of you. I got to be the good daddy by watching Men and Alcoholics Anonymous, watching my sponsor who was an incredible father. I got to be a good person by imitating you

and welcome the walk like you walk the walk and talk in the talk like you did.

It paid off. I had some wonderful teachers. Many of them are gone. I've lost two sponsors. I'm working on the third one.

My third response is just afraid all of them die. Bobby, and he's a priest. He's a priest.

I've scared the priests.

I like to say I stayed sober, but I didn't.

I just played all the games. I played them before I got here and almost didn't make it. But God allowed me to come in the doors. You know,

my last drinking was done an apartment building on Chester Ave. where everything booze wise, drug wise and sex wise went on and I'm a part of. I could always duck and I could always blame him. When all else failed and you catch me doing something, they picking on me because I'm black.

Well, I'm still black 25 years later

and been to jail in 25 years.

I've been employed for the past 25 years.

I'm dependable

these past 25 years thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous.

Told one of the guys in that apartment building. I said, man, I got to get out of here. I feel like I'm losing my mind, but I'm homeless. And he said no, where we can go. And we went to the City Mission. I don't know if you got one here. We got old one. They got a new one they just built. But I went to the old 125 years ago. Cockroaches bigger than me up in there.

You got to fight them to get into bed,

and they make you sing for your supper, and you gotta sing those hymns and eat those hard Donuts, drink that lousy coffee. And when you go through all of that ritual, then they make you take all your clothes off and then they spray you and your clothes for bugs. And that was the most degrading thing that had happened to me since I had been drinking. And I lay in that bunk naked and my life, just like AVHS tape going through my hair. What happened, what went wrong? All I want to do is have a little fun and then I'll go back to school.

All I want do is have a little fun then I'll settle down. My brother had three beautiful kids and old beat up Chevy and went to work every day. Every day and I called him a square. But I'm laying on his couch eating my sister-in-law food and I don't have a pot or window. You know what to throw it out of.

But I'm the slick one and he's the square one. And for all of you slick people out there, this is the slickest thing I've ever done coming to Alcoholics Anonymous. Gummy up. Yeah,

4 o'clock. Next morning they put us out. No money, no insurance. I go to the hospital where I'm employed. Saint Vincent Charity Hospital, one of the oldest treatment centers in the country. Rosary Hall, Cystic Nation was that Go up on the 2nd floor like the television set. It's awesome when you sit back and see how God has moved in your life.

You can't see it when you're drinking. I go up on the 2nd floor. The priest comes out of his office. Why didn't come 10 minutes early, 10 minutes later? Father Gregory French later became a dear friend. I didn't know who Father Greg was. Then I saw the collar and I ran over to the good Father and I said, Father, help me, I'm an alcoholic. I'd been to your meetings and I got drunk. I'd been in treatment many, many times. I got drunk. I go lay up at the Brecksville VA Hospital three months at a time and I got drunk.

But that morning, that morning with Father Gregory French and many of us, we know what we are. We will admit sometimes we don't accept. But that third and very crucial one is a surrender. I had a buttermilk around Cleveland by the name of Victoria Zublick Vick is is gone to that meeting in the sky. But every time I chair the meeting, Victoria Zublick was going to leave for me. One what Victoria said is what Victoria did. This is how you get the Alcoholics Anonymous.

Throw both hands up. Surrender that morning with Father Gregory French. I surrender. No more fighting, Mr. Alcohol. You are the winner. No more fighting. And I stopped boxing. My arms are too short. I couldn't box no more. I come out of the ring with Mr. Alcohol. Father Greg sent me to Metro. No beds. I ended up at Harbor Light. The Salvation Army Harbor Light program. 18th and Prospect. One of the worst parts of town. And I got sober and I

drinking them in that worst part of time. When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. I got sober under horrible circumstances, but I got sober and I'm still here. I went in the harbor light and I walked into Harbor light, and that was a woman there who knew me when the money was good and I look good and I smell good. And she said, hi, baby, how are you? I thought you were dead. And she reached for this bag of funky, filthy, dirty, nasty clothes.

I didn't want to see those clothes. But this woman grabbed the clothes. She went over to the washing machine and she washed them. I finished the detox phase and I went up to the 7th floor to Three Quarter way house. And every morning that God let the sunshine, every morning I got up, I went to that detox center. And when a drunk would puke on the floor, puke on himself, puke on me. May I wash your clothes? And I've been giving back to Alcoholics Anonymous every since. You don't always have to be up here.

Thank you.

Everybody called me the card man. It was a beautiful woman. And now Alcoholics Anonymous, who's no longer here, she just sent beautiful cards. But she affected my life. And when somebody would do me wrong and Alcoholics and young boy, I'd send a lot of cards. You know, I sent a lot of cards. But somebody gets sick, I send cards. I go to the hospital, I go visit old timers and nursing homes.

That's carrying the message also. That's carrying the message. Also,

I went in that that that that treatment program were drunk from the streets. And five years later, I'm the first black director of that detox center. And that's not exclusive to me.

That's not exclusive to me. I've got hookers that walked into our Home group and that's why I harp on that because sometimes we get too squeaky clean and we look down our noses at people who just come from the streets. I've got hookers in my Home group who have come in and get a masters degree and defy you to call them anything but lady today. And that's what this is about.

It's not what you've done. It's not what you've done. And I know what goes with that is a lot of shame. It's not what you've done. And you young people who are here, stay here with us. Please stay here, get an education, stay here and grow. I don't care if you're 16 or 60,

pain is a great motivator. 16 or 60 this program will work

Alcoholics Anonymous works and you found a God of your understanding. Find somebody who has a working knowledge of the big book in the 12 steps.

Get your Home group. I've been homeless so I know what homeless me. Get your Home group and dummy up. I don't care how many degrees you got, forget them. Dummy up.

Intellects, intellectuals are the hardest to get this program. They are. They are. They're the worst.

Oh God,

I lost that job. It wasn't because of incompetence or the executive director said I did a marvelous job. There were people that I thought everybody in a a loved you and everybody that kisses you with that kiss of death sometime. And it's not always earth people that do the dirt to you and they did it to me. But it taught me something. It taught me something. I had incredible sponsor. My sponsor said you're not working. You go to more meetings.