The Paramount speaker group in Paramount, CA

Thank you, Ken.

He remembered my name by God.

Grateful to be invited anywhere. Most of us feel that way when anybody invites us. They didn't used to invite us. Remember, whatever you do, don't come to the party.

I I'd say, why? Then they tell me, oh, weren't you? I know if your life was like mine. Most of my life is hearsay.

I spent most of my life saying I did.

I'm sorry,

until I married my wife, then it became her say.

I I was born into an alcoholic family.

No, Yeah, really.

Nobody else here is like that.

My, My mother died of alcoholism when she was 43 years old. She was on Skid Row in Los Angeles and in a drunken stupor, she fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck. And on her death certificate, it says accidental fall. See, they don't even know the ways we die, do they? They have no idea of all the ways we die. And my father made it to like 61 before it killed him. And

my aunts and my uncles all died of alcoholism. My grandparents

all died of alcoholism, my sister died of alcoholism. I'm the only one left and I went to the A and A and that's why I'm alive.

You know, it's if anybody who can read in the last 15 or 20 years knows that alcoholism, there's genetics involved with alcoholism, like many other diseases. The scientists say it's

a predestination.

It's supposed to be a recessive gene, you know,

but in my family it's a dominant Jane. It's a little blue Jean down at the end of the chromosome going, hey, hey, I only have one thing to say, one more, you know, and I remember, you know, being raised in that zoo, in that alcoholic zoo, probably a lot of you identify here. You know what the bodies flying and the crash in, just get under the God damn bed and hope they don't see you. You know, And I remember lying under that bed and saying I'll never

be like them.

And I wasn't until I drank

and I, you know, if you're new and you think you don't need these steps, you don't need this program, I'll tell you, I, I went 15 years one time without any steps or anything and it was horrible. But then when I turned 16,

this other little weedy and I were going to this high school dance in Bakersfield, CA and we had a half a pint of 10 high. Why we got it? I haven't the foggy side where we got it, I don't remember. We had this big quarter party pack and anybody old enough remember party pack and I gagged down my half of the half pint and I mean I I gagged. Remember that when you first start drinking. Swallowed 8 times

yes.

Anybody that right mind go all screw this but I kept it down

and it did its magic and I went to that high school dance and I was I had the best time I ever had in my life. I was 4 foot eleven with 89 pounds, 12 lbs of that was pimples and

you know there are only two girls at the school I could dance with. You know they were small enough. But not that night baby. That night I danced with all of them. Baby, let's go.

I care where my face was

just

and I did a lot of that bumping that night to that. A watch where you're going. Remember that

I was always a real macho drinker. Hey, what? Yeah,

I bruised several guys knees that night and

couldn't wait to do it again. Couldn't wait to do it again. 3 weeks later I got a chance to drink again. Was going to go to some beach party up by the Kern River up there above Bakersfield and I some guy got me a bottle of port wine, 1/5 of port wine and I drank it all. I figured if that half a half a pint of do it, 1/5 of port wine to do it even better.

And it did. And I had the first of those blackouts. You know,

I hated blackouts, didn't you? I never had a good blackout.

I never woke up in the morning and felt I'd helped the Little Sisters of the Poor that night or something, you know? I mean, there was always blood, you know, mine.

And that night they, they tell me, you know, I did. Oh, really? They told me that that when I tried to whip every guy at this beach party and they'd all just kick hell out of me. And I tried a couple of smaller girls and

they whipped me too. And later that night, I tried a deputy sheriff.

Hence, when I woke up the next morning, I was in jail, Kern County Jail, not a juvenile, you know, 16 years old, beaten beyond recognition. Somebody had puked on my chest and

you know, I never caught that guy. I

oh, if I ever find that SOB anyway, you know, they're rattling, they barge. You know how they wake up a lot of guys heads going and I hope my Can you imagine the terror? I remember I was lying there, you know, the blood in the lips all swollen when I shot in the, you know, my teeth. It's gone through most of my lip And I remember lying there and all beaten and said I'll never do that

again.

I never drank port wine again as long as I drink.

And if you dozed off, you, you pretty much missed my drunken log. That's pretty much how I drank most of my life. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of times. I drank and I had

fun.

I want to say that in a meeting. All her eyes glaze over. They all go, you know? Yeah,

you the only people in the world know what I'm talking about.

Fun. No, don't say that in Al Anon meeting. Oh no, no,

that pisses them off. They don't like

they have fun,

but you guys know what I mean? You know,

fun getting beaten to a pulp and go to jail.

Find find your car at the bottom of a ravine in the morning. Remember that with you in it.

Funny, I almost died of it. One more good time. You'd had a different speaker tonight

was I could not resist it, you know, and that's the way I drank at all. If and then I have those damn blackouts and be all beaten up or go to jail and wreck card on it. Nonsense, you know about, but some of them were along the line. I got a college education and became a school teacher.

Guy commits felonies in blackouts, becomes a school teacher.

Just a hobby.

So then by the way, I I met my wife,

my my present wife. We've been married 52 years, but I still call her my present wife, keep her on her toes.

I met her in college, San Jose State College. She was down on Skid Row looking for an alcoholic to abuse her and

you're looking to be abused. You got your boy here, I'll guarantee you. And we entered this 20 year suicide packed together and

we, we had that horrible dual disease. I don't know if any of you had a terrible dual disease, alcoholism and Catholicism, and

consequently we had a kid every nine months and 20 minutes. You know,

it's what it seemed like to me every time

of a blackout.

Where the hell is that?

And they're all right when they're little, like kittens, but they grow. We had five of them

and the older they got, that goofier they got and God knows the goofier she got and

Oz the head nut. We moved Oceanside in 1961 and I taught my all my career there in Oceanside.

And I was, it's not a ridiculous thing to say, a successful school teacher, kind of an oxymoron.

I was a very good teacher and I love teaching. And, you know, I got so paranoid about those blackouts. I got so terrified about having a blackout that I've relatively quit having them.

Well, if you can't get real drunk once in a while, what I did is I got drunk every day, a little bit.

I drank every day. The last say, 1012 years, I'm gonna drinking. I had to drink every day. It was necessary for me to drink in order to survive. I came to A A the first time. Time flies when you're having fun. I came to a A the first time in 1965. Most of you weren't born, I know, but I, I was a surfer dude those days.

This other surfer dude and I got this surfboard chopped down at the beach there at Oceanside. Guy donated this little building to us that had been a bar and was all vandalized. He was just sitting on the property, you know, to get rich, which he did. But anyway, we fixed this building up for this surf shop. We were going to open and put windows in and painted it and got a refrigerator.

Four or five months later, we got some surfboards too,

and we had this

Shay's lounge chairs, two of them right on the beach. I mean, on the water right at the end of the Strand there. Notion I've you ever been there? And we became sunset connoisseurs, Woody and I. We used to measure sunsets by martinis. I used to say looks like about an 8 tonight Woody.

Oh, the best one we ever had was a 15 martini sunset.

Oh you should. It was glorious.

And the and the Son and Woody and I went right together.

They found us in the morning with sunburned mouths. You remember that?

You remember that, huh?

I think that ought to be on the 20 questions.

You ever had a sunburned mouth? No. I'll get the hell out of here. You're not ready yet.

I'm talking this guy down in Texas, old Bill B down in Texas. They done 20 questions he wants to put. Have you ever been run over by your own car

while you were driving it?

I've known that twice,

but I went down on in February of 1965, I went down to the shop to repair a board. Of course, it was winter cold, we weren't open and it was Sunday morning and I had a hangover. Really. Yes, honest.

And I was so thirsty and I went to the refrigerator to see if there's Coke or something there and Woody had been there the night before and he left about this much vodka and 1/2 pint bottle. Just my old man would have called it a lick and a smell, you know, just a taste. And there's some orange juice in there and I thought, oh, that'll put the fire out.

So I just mixed up that little drink, probably half a shot of vodka, and I drank it. I'm saying this, you new guys welcome. God, I hope you find here what I found here. I hope you stay here long enough till it happens to you. I'm glad you're here. That's the reason we came. You know, when I was been talking a while, I said to my old sponsor, my late sponsor, Bill, God, I might against the same damn story. He said tell him your story and talk to the newcomer and shut up.

He said shut up to be a lot

and anyway,

I that little bit of vodka just kind of like got in my system, you know how to do and went little around my system. Then it went

and

about 20 minutes later, see my mind talked to me.

My mind said shame on you, Cliff, That was Woody's booze you drank.

Why don't you go up to the liquor store

and get Woody a pint? That's the kind of guy I am. I'm telling you, that afternoon I got Woody a fifth and and I ended up just falling down. Stupid drunk resin all over the board was screwed forever. The shop was a mess. Crawled home on my hands and knees, 11 blocks on my hands and knees. And next morning got up sick and puking and said to my wife, I got to do something about my drink. I'm getting drunk when I don't even mean to.

And she'd cut this little thing out of the paper about the Alcoholics Anonymous.

She had one of those pre al Anon ticks in her eye and then and and it said, if you want a drink, that's your business. If you want to quit, call Alcoholics Anonymous. Only ad we've ever had. And I love it. I think it's perfect, don't you? It's perfect. We're not a treatment center. We're not a goodwill society.

We're not even very nice people.

But if you want to quit drinking,

there's people in this room that will go to the ends of the earth for you. If you want to quit, If you'd rather drink, have adapal. I could care less. But if you want to quit, we're here. And so I went to the A&A, and after a couple of meetings, I realized I'd made a grievous error in judgment. I mean, I'm highly educated, you know, I have degrees, you know, and these people seem to have the collective IQ of an orange.

I tried to help him.

You've done that too, have you? Yeah. I was laying a little niche when I'm about the third night and this guy said hey, we keep it simple here.

I said no shit.

You could have fooled me, Hiram.

So I quit a A really hurt him

and for the next 5 years I was an A a loser.

And I want to be sure if you're new here tonight or you're dropping by tonight or if you're one of your cards is in the basket tonight, it's very easy to be a A loser. And I was a loser for five years. I used to drink for like 2 years and then come to AA for 30 days and then drink for a year and a half and come to a A for 40 days and sit there and smirk. I had the loser sneer.

I love to go to jails and stuff, you know, tell me your story. They're sitting there, they're locked up or they got wristbands on a gun.

I always want to say I'm going home, jerk, you know,

but they don't let you do that. But I was a real, you know, because I was over educated, pompous jerk. One time I came in in the afternoon about 4:00. And these guys, Quadro, Stephanie, you've been Quadro stepped. They just got all four sides of me. These four guys says woo, woo, woo. Oh, I got the message that day. I levitated out of the building. As a matter of fact,

I went over to my buddy Big John's house and pounded on the door and John came to the door and I said, John, we're Alcoholics and we have to go to a A. Big John said, oh okay, just missed it by three weeks and he's a great big guy. Led him to the meeting that night and became his sponsor.

And the next day we both got drunk.

And that's how I treated a a boy. I was a loser's loser. They ever have a losers Hall of Fame? I'll have a plaque right by the door

and I almost died of alcoholism. Probably many of you in this room almost died of alcoholism because I was a functioning alcoholic. My old man told me if you eat breakfast and go to work, you're not an alcoholic. He never said a word about puking breakfast back up. You know what I mean? So I got up every day and I'm a functioning alcoholic. I do the job and I do it better than you. I do it better than anybody.

I'm a goer and a doer and an achiever. I'm a functioning alcohol.

My buddy at home says our functioning alcoholic is one whose wife works. I

don't tell Abbott and Al Anon meeting either

makes him go.

You married guys, you remember that,

don't you think? You had a few too many

to say You had a few too few. That's your problem Lane

and mine was a counter all she'd drive me crazy with accounting that

5th 1:00 today.

Just shut up and eat your breakfast, will you leave me alone?

And so I always functioned out there in society and I was dying about we die, you know, we die of cirrhosis of the liver. We die of a bad heart from over drinking. We we die from automobile accidents a lot. We die and we fall down a flight of stairs in a drunkest group and break our neck. We die a lot of ways. And most of us that die, the experts, whoever the hell they are, say that 95 to 97% of us that die of the disease of alcohol are functioning Alcoholics like me. Only three to

percent of us on Skid Row dying. And they can watch them die. And I just had kids and a wife, people watching me die. And I was the weak. If you're new, the week I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, this time I weighed 165 lbs. I had 4% body fat. I used to surf for like 3 hours and then get out and run 5 miles. I could bench press 285.

Took me 25 minutes to pass a mirror.

My daughters used to get money from me all the time. You know, I wouldn't have a shirt on. Most of the time they'd run up and say, oh, daddy V up, V up they go, oh, can I have $10? Yeah, sure. You know.

I was sober two years before I figured that out. I

so as you can see a A is maybe twice the man I used to be,

but I was in shape. My liver was gone, but I was in shape.

I was one of the top three debate coaches in the United States.

That's that's like being on the top three prostitutes in Elko NV, you know.

Apologies to any prostitutes here

or former former prostitutes.

I became one of the top speech coaches by accident. The principal wanted me to take these kids down to a debate tournament. I didn't know a damn thing about it. So I took these kids down to this debate tournament and we got down there. It was a big deal, over 50 schools and 500 contestants and we got slaughtered and I don't care for losing and I went in the coaches room and they all snubbed me because I was a newcomer except for this Gray haired creep with $1000 suit. On finding the afternoon he said where are you from?

He was the first one had spoken to me. I said oh, I'm from Oceanside. And he looked at me and said, oh,

where's that?

40 miles up the road?

Where's that?

I know what kind of drunk you are, but he gave me a resentment.

I've been a resentment. And I went back to Oceanside High and I built a speech team. Took me four or five years, but I built a juggernaut. Space seems what I did, and I did it with sure hatred.

I mean, I'm in their faith. From 7:00 in the morning till 939, I'm in people's faces screaming and yelling and cursing, coaching. The guy next door said I'd love to watch him leave in your room. Like in the spit off their glasses,

this reporter said to my captain. What's the secret of your coaches success? The kid said. Terror.

And then I'd go home at night and get drunk. And I'm a violent drunk and I'm a critical, sarcastic, mean drunk.

And I got drunk the last six or seven years every night at home. And I turned our house into an insane asylum. Everybody in that house was crazy. We're talking the late 60s now. Three of my kids are in high school in the late 60s. My oldest son is working his way through high school as a has she salesman.

Oh you should have seen he had hair down to his butt. You know, head went like this all the time.

Called his mother, man. Hey man, what's for dinner?

Oh, he was a Pip, that guy. He took a lot of LSD. He loved LSD

and he's just scared. The hell. I mean, I've been over sentenced, he said. What was that?

Of course the shape and I don't know what, what was it? Where? What? No,

and we're all crazy and everybody hates everybody and it's a nut house. But I built that speech team

after a couple years. We won one of those speech tournaments. But I'm saying that the Gray haired guy wasn't time yet.

We know when it's time, don't we?

I think revenge is better than Christmas.

The next year we won all the tournaments, all fourteen of them, first place in all them. The next year there was a tournament. There were 25 schools competing in the tournament. My teams scored more sweepstakes points than the other 24 schools combined.

Then I went up to the Gray haired guy, remember him, put my nose right against his and I said, do you know where Oceanside is now?

He just looked blank. He said, what are you talking about?

I said, don't you remember four or five years ago you said to me, Oceanside, where's that?

He said. We just moved here from Nebraska. I didn't know where it was.

The story of my God damn life.

Four years. This guy's in bed every night.

I'm up at Oceanside. I'll get you.

He didn't know it.

And right after that, my wife and I had one of our main events, which the neighbors have come to miss so much.

ARN Davis never got television till after I got sober. They didn't eat it, you know. I mean they all had those Venetian blind marks on their forehead, you know, from lunch.

And I threatened to move out and everybody said yeah, go for dad. So I moved down to the beach with my surfboard where I wanted to live anyway. And I have said for years if I get rid of that witch and those long haired dope fiend children, I'll be OK, you know, And I'd gotten rid of and it wasn't OK. I was drunk all the time. I was missing work, which I had never done. And one afternoon I hadn't had a drink yet. And I went by the house to hang my wife about money, and the Hashey seals was kind of bobbing in the background there and

humming a tune from the planet Pluto. And

I said, I did something so stupid I can't believe I did it. I turned him and I said, Dave, what's it like not to have your old man around the house

and all? Dave look me right in the eye and he said it's beautiful

and I didn't know it for several hours, but that was my bottom.

That's far as I'm going. I lost the respect of a 16 year old kid

and when I sat on that screen porch that dumped in the beach where I was living, that evening watch, which is still today the most beautiful sunset that I ever saw,

I realized that I had given up my own self respect a long time ago. Clint used to talk about nickel and diming himself to death. When I first heard him when I was new, I heard him talking about. That's what I did all my life. I surrendered everything that I ever liked about myself for the privilege of drinking booze. And I got up from that couch where I was sitting. I went in the bedroom and I dug out the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and that wonderful literature person of yours who did such a fantastic job.

Boy, there ought to be more literature people like that in a a who make it clear about the book. And the whole thing was great.

And she was telling me about that book. I'll tell you, steal the goddamn book if you want to. You'll read it. You'll get honest,

but I read that book for three days and three nights. I read it all. If you knew. I read all the stories. I read the appendix in the end. And in the second edition of the big book, there was a story called A Professor and the Paradox. It's not in the book anymore, But he was another egotistical school teacher, and he saved my life. He rang my bell

and on the third time through the book on the 13th of January 1970, which is my sobriety date,

he wasn't driving home. I'd give him a lot more. Next,

on the 13th of January 1973, O'clock in the morning, I was on page 63 again. And if you're new, on page 63 there's a little prayer, and that prayer is step three. I've always called it the formal terms of surrender.

And I knelt down. God hears that pattern, Don, on this linoleum floor that had exactly the same pattern as this one here. They're about the same as clean, too.

I knelt down on that linoleum floor and that dump of the beach where I was living, and I read that prayer in the book out loud to myself. I read God, Ioffer myself to thee, to build with me, and to do with me as you will

relieve me of the bondage of self.

And before I was four years old,

I had built a prison. I don't know what the psychological reason for that was. I could surmise, if you'd like me to. I guess I built a wall to keep you out,

and all I ever did was build a president to keep me in. And that's where I had lived all my life, in that prison. Peggy Martin in the in Nebraska says alcoholism is the only prison where the locks are on the inside and we have 12 keys

to let us out. 12 keys. My sponsor told me, since you're a brilliant intellectual, we numbered them for you, 1/2

And I read that prayer out loud to myself and I had a spiritual experience. You don't have to have this kind. I've only met seven or eight. There's nothing like Bill Wilson had no big deal. I just knew I was going to be all right. Two years ago in the Grapevine, this little girl who has who's 22 years old and she's seven years sober

and she wrote an article in the Grapevine

and she was in this treatment center. She knelt down and read, read the prayer out loud herself as I had. And I'd been looking for like 31 years to tell people how what happened to me. And this 22 year old girl who I got to meet when I was in Cincinnati and hug and kiss, she said. I was enveloped by a great laughing love.

Whoa, there it is. That's what happened to me. And about three nights later, I was in the meeting of a A and some guy was talking and I went, what was that

was like stitches tear to my stomach, you know, for the for maybe seven or eight or ten years. The only way I could laugh was like,

no, that's if you fell down and got hurt.

And I went, oh, I loved it. I've been laughing ever since. I love the laughter of Alcoholics Anonymous. I can't live without it. I like meetings like this where people are laughing, where people shake your hand when you come in the door. I was about to 8 people come up and greet us tonight. Well, they greeted me. They ignored him. I don't blame him.

Isn't he a peppy talker?

He's my best buddy. I can make fun of him if I want to.

He and I have a lot in common. See, we sponsor all these young guys, these horn alien guys,

They all have relationship problems.

I tell him I've been married 52 years, what the hell do I know about a relationship? So Don and I talk about important things on these trips, like prostates and things like that.

We both we both have little black books, but they're filled with doctors.

But anyway, I'm on my knees there and I surrender and I knew what I had to do. I had to go to this little guy named Bill Blakes house. He's dead now 12 years. He was my sponsor for 20 years and and I went to his house. He always tried to help me when I come to a Do you have any fanatics around here? You slippers losers, You know they come say you want to go here,

don't try to help me. I'm smirking now.

And so anyway, I went right to his house. He lived right around the corner from where I had been living

and I knocked on the door and I told you what kind of loser I was and arrogance, arrogant, over educated, pompous ass loser. And Margie, Bill's wife, opened the door and saw me on the porch.

You knew people listening.

I have never seen anyone so glad to see me in my life. Can you imagine this loser she Cliff. Oh Cliff. And I was like, oh force me a cup of coffee. It was just wonderful. She said Bills been nuts lately. He said nobody to work with. Oh this is so great. And then Bill comes in Cliff,

hey, about 1/2 an hour I'm thinking. Anything else I do to help you folks on,

be glad to help the way I can.

You know they made me feel like cliffs here. We can start a A now.

And three weeks later, I was in a newcomer meeting and one of the other newcomers said to the leader,

what the hell you mean by this is a selfish program? When the guy asked the question, I knew the answer. See, I found it out tonight. I got here. They were glad for me. They've been praying for me for five years. But Bill and Margie knew the great secret.

You can't have it unless you give it away. You can't keep this thing unless you give it away. My little sponsor had a theory that everybody who comes to AA has alcoholism will take care of that, and that everybody who comes to AA has their own particular kind of, you know, and

we have the cure for, he said. The 12 steps are there's a wrench that fits every nut

that we can take care of individual things too. And but he believed that everybody who comes to a A has some kind of a gift, something you can do well that will make the program better.

And I believe it. He made me. He made a believer out of me. I believe that's the marrow of my bones. That's what that little man taught me. He was the worst speaker in the history of a A. He used to say, I've talked everywhere at a A once

I was offered, never got out of World War Two or no. One time he bought a watch and he was right in the middle of World War Two and the watch went Ding Ding. He says, oh, then I got sober.

But you put my sponsor Bill in the front seat of a car with a newcomer.

He was magic. You could not escape him. He was absolute magic. He just couldn't do it up in front of people. He was the greatest. When he died, there were like 700 people came to the meeting we had for him. People from all over California and everywhere else. That little man had made such a difference in peoples lives.

I got to leave the meeting. I said when we started, I said how many of you here loved Bill and 700 Hand shot in the air. I said how many of you here had a resentment against Bill? 700 Hands.

Bill never had a resentment. He was a carrier,

nice to say. He said to me for the rest of his life was shut up.

I told him I have degrees, you know, he says. So does a thermometer. You know where they stick that sometimes

I thought, I thought the first step was shut up and get the car.

No, no. After 32 years and other of sobriety and everything,

I realize now that the first step is shut up and get the car.

Guy sponsors a big shot stock broker and this company he's working for has been driving him around. He felt like he was calling about every other day swearing and cursing these rotten people he was working for and I'm going to get them in this guy and this guy step, you know, so also a couple of weeks ago he called his real friend. How are you to Cliff? I said, boy, you sound good. What happened to you? He said, well, I decided to shut up and get in the car.

It just takes care of everything if you just shut up and get. And he took me to a meeting everywhere. We went to LA twice a week, we went to San Diego, we went to Laguna once, you know, just shut up. I thought everybody went through a meeting every night for two years. That's what happened to me. He took me to a meeting every night for two years. And he was so cruel to me. You cannot believe it.

He was So when he was dying

in the hospital, you know, he had emphysema for you smokers. Terrible way to die. He's lying there. And I had to go to Alaska to talk. So I leaned over the bed. I said, Bill, I have to go to Alaska. I'm going to be gone for four days. He says, yeah, he said they they called. I told him to send you as far away as possible

right to the end.

But all these other guys came after him. He was cool to everybody. I remember there were four was about we're all 1520 years. So we're walking at Southern California convention. We're all walking down the hallway and Bills voice says, hey, dummy. And all four of us turned around.

When I was new, you're probably like this. When I was new, I've always known what was wrong with me. I've always known. I knew it when I was four and I've known it all my life. My problem has always been I was not loved enough.

And thank you honey.

You sound like you're volunteering.

Oh, she's leaving.

That's something that went along, was it?

And driving them out here tonight,

I was raising that alcoholic family. And, you know, I never saw it. All my life. A lot of people tried to love me. Certainly my wife did. And my kids and my lot of my students and people through the years that I ever saw that. See. But my little sponsor knew what was the matter with me. He never told me. He never told me what was the matter with me because he knew I was too stupid or too brilliant. What's the difference here? Just as dead.

He knew what my problem had always been. I never loved enough.

I never loved it all.

I didn't know how to start to learn to begin how to love.

How can you learn to love when you live in that prison?

So he did what every intelligence sponsor I know does. He made me take loving actions

against my better judgment. He made me go and greet people like these people did with us here tonight. Hi there. You know, I hated that because I'm a real snob, you know? What's your name like? I really,

we used to have wall talkers when I got sober. The guys had drank too long. You remember the guys sit in the back and go, hey,

soon as the meeting was busy, go talk to the wall talker.

I go back there and say, how are you tonight, hack? Yeah, you're real good.

And there was this guy Al, who was a worse loser than me. He was a 10 year loser. I was only a five year loser. And he did have a drivers license. So whatever was wrong in my life, I had to go get a Hal and take him somewhere. And I hated how he's a big Bullard jerk. And so I would do all this loving action after loving action after loving action. Funny thing was, one night when I'm at the door and I you, you were coming in. I remembered your name

and when I asked you how you were, I wanted to know.

And I used to sometimes sit and look at the wall talking and think, you know, that guy saving a lot of lives here.

I see what's happened to him that could happen to me if I go back out there again. That guy was a hell of an example for me. And, you know, and I got mopping floors and all this stuff and I just started becoming a part of Al drank. He had almost a year again and he would been such a loser. And he he's like 11 days away from a year and he drank again. Guess who he called? Call me

and I went to help him and we're on the couch. He's crying and carrying on. Come on, get a shower out. Come and put your clothes on and we'll go to a meeting tonight. It's one day at a time, pal. Come on. One day at a time. You're going to go tonight.

Before I knew what I was saying, it came out of my mouth. I said I love you, Al.

I knew it was true. I don't know Val even heard me, but I knew it was true. I wanted Al to be sober as much as I want to be sober myself. And you, you knew people here tonight. That's how we feel about you. We want you to be sober as much as we want to be sober ourselves. Because if we don't get you sober, we may not stay sober either.

See, that's the magic of this thing. If I try to give it to you and you don't get it, I'm still sober. So anyway, I'll sober it up. And we became this dynamite 12 step team. Al and I, we 12 step the world. In those days. You get three and four or five calls a week. And we should do the good guy, bad guy. You don't like cops.

We always getting fistfights out in front. It's my turn to be the good guy now. Then we go in there, one guy say you're gonna shut your mouth, quit your whiny, get your ass to meeting. The other guy would say never mind him, come here.

We trust up the world

and I grew to love newcomers first, people I remember loving for fun and for free. I loved newcomers. And then when I Clancy was talking and he said treat your kids like newcomers,

All those dope friends

and I went home and knelt down and I turned my kids over to God. My God, my heart, power and my higher power done a remarkable job with my children.

My youngest son Chris has 14 years of sobriety and just a magnificent guy. Our middle daughter Jan had 12 years and got a bad back and they've given her pills and so she drank. Now she has two years again and she's just doing fantastic. Cured her back with yoga, by the way. And she she belongs to my Home group and we go to the meeting every Thursday night together.

And our eldest daughter kind of went wrong and she she's been an Al Anon about 17 years.

I like to tease Alan ONS, but I'm not an Al Anon basher. I'll guarantee you that. My wife is one of the greatest examples of the power in the steps I've ever seen. And my daughter kitties the same way. They took those same 12 steps we take and they put them in their lives. And that's the program. If you're new tonight, that's the program. The program is one through 12. If you haven't done the steps, you're not on the program. That is the program.