The 5th Yosemite Summit Conference in Yosemite, CA

Our promotion side.

Hi, my name is Cliff Roach and I'm an alcoholic.

This is a group of morons

from Farmersville

who have a Cliff Roach fan club

in Farmersville, CA.

I remember I went to my high school counselor and I said I don't want anything else in life except to have a fan club in Farmersville, CA.

Kind of get you here, doesn't it?

And the leader of them is a nitwit

named Grass.

I didn't make that up.

His name is Grass

and all the guys in that group say I really love Grass.

It's eight. It's 729 for the clock watchers.

I don't want anybody getting nervous.

We talked here, my Al Anon and I, we talked here 19 years ago. Can you imagine? And we wanted to come back ever since.

I hope we do better this time.

You did good today, honey,

And we would probably never would have got back except that Stevie and Roger down here were

bromance on the A campus 19 years ago. She hit on him. He was a newcomer and she brought him up here to triumph over him. And

they were entranced with our talks. They. Oh God. And so

they didn't close to us. Ever since

Stevie's allowed me to help her sponsor Roger and I,

I deeply appreciate the small things I get to do. But they've been harassing this committee now for I don't know how many years.

Finally this year they said, oh, for Christ sakes, all right,

bring back the two from Oceanside, wherever the hell that is. No. So here we are. Thank you, Stevie and Roger, and thank you to the committee, Lou. And everybody's been so good to us. And thanks to Kevin and his wife, who just, they just drag us around. He jumps in the car

and, you know, the last time I talked here, you know, I was thinking about coming back. Remember the last time we were here, we, we were in some cabin somewhere. We walked everywhere on the, you know, and we wrest around and saw the mountain and everything. And that was 19 years ago

and I've had bypass surgery since then and, and I was 61 then.

I was riding big waves then

and I got this car. You have to get a step ladder to get in

A and it's kind of hard to breathe up here, isn't it? You know, you have noticed that, okay. They were really, really, really, really glad to be here again. I had told someone today that the first time we talked to me all the years that I've been speaking, today is one of the top three experiences I ever had.

Was here it in in this meeting and let's not spoil it tonight please.

I had just won World War 2

and I was attending College of San Jose State College

and, and on the GI Bill, which I had richly deserved. And every morning I had a 7:30 AM class and my buddy and I would March to class each morning. We were used to it. You know, early in the morning, we had a 7:00 AM class. We were going through Saint James Park there in downtown San Jose. This one morning as we March through the park, we heard this noise

and my buddy Richie and I turned and looked

and there was this, I don't know if you call it remnant of a human being on the bench there. I guess he'd been a male at some time, and he was so dirty. He shined and and oozing from him, from every orifice. Was that clear enough?

And the stench was horrendous. We were both wretched and we heard our way through the park and we got to the other side of the park and my buddy Richie said

that guy was an alcoholic.

So I knew what you looked like.

And I made a picture in my little mind here of what an alcoholic looked like, and

picture almost killed me. It damn near killed me. Now, why I should be in the dark about alcoholism is unknown to me now. My mother died of alcoholism on Skid Row in Los Angeles when she was 43 years old. She fell down a flight of stairs and broke her neck in a drunken stupor. And they call her death accidental fall. My dad died young of alcoholism. My aunts and uncles died of alcoholism. My grandparents died of alcoholism. My sister died of alcoholism.

I'm the only one left because I went to the A&A.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not an alcoholic because we have the gene. You know, most of you are familiar with the genetics nowadays and they say that the genes have a lot to do. They call it, they impel us

and my family the DNA. Just add Booth, that's it. It's all you know, it's supposed to be a recessive gene, you know, not in the Roach family.

It's a dominant gene, little blue gene down to you and the chromosome going

one more baby, one more.

And I'm not an alcoholism because of my family, because of my genetic structure. When I was new in a a as a surfer dude and a good spot to surf was in Ventura and right near the the big surf break there in Ventura was the courthouse where a a member there a judge. His name was Dick Heaton when I came on the program. Here's the head nod. He had like 30 years when I came on it for and he was also, beside being a judge,

he was the president of Mensa. That's the Smart People's Club. You know, I learned to spell that a couple of weeks ago.

And I would get out of the water there from surfing. You know, I shower off and then I'd go up to the courthouse and knock on the door to Gal, let me in. He'd come back from the bench and have coffee with me. You know, I was a new cover. And he was so kind to me. And he was a brilliant, brilliant man. But he had another member of Mensa

before he came to the program. He and another brilliant member of Mensa studied alcoholism while drinking,

and they studied alcoholism for two years. They almost died

and after two years these two brilliant men came to the conclusion alcoholism has caused by drinking.

Who would have thought, huh?

And so, like, probably like you, I became an alcoholism by drinking. I've always been an alcoholic. I've never been a social drinker. I don't the hell social drinkers do. I don't know why they drink. The morons.

Did you ever drink with those weenies?

Oh, come on, you know, you take the cap, off you go. They say I'll get it, I'll get it.

I don't trust people like that, do you?

And I'm a wild and crazy drunk. I love

fighting.

I used to say I like fighting better than sex. That's called Step 2.

I love fighting. I would fight every chance I get. I never won, but I loved fighting.

I want to tell this story because I like to tell it when we have signers.

Remember the late Dick

Dick? What's his name? Well, anyway, this guy, Houston, when he talked, I used to love to be with him when they had sinus 'cause he always said I love to drink because when I drank I had brass balls that clanged when I walked.

So I always quoted whenever there's this insider.

Well, I one time four other guys that I went down from Bakersfield, CA down to Long Beach to have a good time and I I woke up in the morning, this fleabag hotel where we were staying and I thought I was blind and I had blood face down on this pillow all night. See and it dried. So when I come up, the pillow came with this.

I'm smothered in there. I'm terrified. So this other guy and I took there's a sink in the corner. We threw water on the.

I was drowned, you know, Finally.

And

we got the pillow off. There was this mirror in the dresser. I said put the pillow back.

Oh my God, I look like Quasimodo, you know what I mean? But I would tell a story because I always remember the guys that were with me. These four guys were my pals. They said you were great, Roach. You got up 19 times,

kind of friends I had my whole life, you know.

But I met Mrs. Roach, my Al Anon, whom you heard this afternoon.

I always like to introduce is my al Anon.

You know how they introduce us? Have you met my alcoholic? Sit up,

tell them how long you've been sober.

Anyway, I met her in 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 tell you for sure. We entered this 20 year suicide packed together and as she said this afternoon, we had we had a dual disease, we had alcoholism and Catholicism.

Consequently, we had a kid every nine months and 20 minutes,

what it seemed like to me anyway, every time I come out of a blackout.

Hell is that

you know, they're OK. They're OK when they're little.

Feel like chickens

but they grow

and the older they got the weirder they got.

God knows the word or she got

and as the head nut

and after a few years I became a school teacher.

Guy commits felonies and blackouts, becomes a school teacher.

Just a hobby, Lighten up

and I talked to As Pat said this afternoon, I taught my first three years in Manteca.

I don't have to go to purgatory now.

And after three years and we moved to Oceanside, CA, which is just 30 miles north of San Diego, right on the blue Pacific. And that's where I spent my whole career, and that's where I intend to die unless I go too soon here tonight.

And anyway, I was a very successful school teacher. That's not a oxymoron.

I love teaching and the kids love me and I love the kids. I did a hell of a job as a high school teacher. Some college, but primarily high school.

Somebody asked Mike Alan on one time how come her husband such a good high school teacher and she said, well, he's a very well educated adolescent.

I hate it when they're accurate and cruel. Don't you?

But anyways, I did a well in Oceanside and then after of course after moving to Oceanide being a macho drinker.

What meeting you guys running?

What's the name of your meeting?

She's learning to read,

as I was saying for us so crudely interrupted. I

holding fun.

It's a guy. I lost my place.

Anyone's teaching there at Oceanside High, and I became a surfer dude because all macho guys become surfer dudes if they live by the beach. And I loved surfing. Oh, I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I surfed until I was 74 years old.

Many people do that, you know,

after the bypass and everything, you should should have seen me out there that last couple of years.

But but the kids love me. They just love me. They say help Mr. Roach back on his board. There you go

but in 64 my buddy Rick, buddy Woody and I got this guy gave us this ability to use right denim on the beach. We had a surfboard shop right on the water. Can you imagine right there on the sand. It was, it been an abandoned bar, as a matter of fact, and the mayor of the town was just sitting on it, you know, to make money later what she did. And we had to fix it up and painted, put windows in and

got a refrigerator.

And a few months later we got some surfboards too. No big hurry there. Can you imagine for a couple of budding drugs? Can you imagine right on the water every evening? We became sunset connoisseurs.

We should measure sunsets by martinis. Somebody come down and say I'd like to rent a board. Screw off, Charlie, we're watching the sunset real time. Best one we ever had was a 15 martini sunset. Oh, you should have seen it. It was glorious

and the sun and Woody and I went right together.

They found this in the morning with sudden burned mouths. Remember that.

I think that ought to be on the 20 questions.

You ever had a sunburn mouth?

I get the hell out of here. Come back when you're ready, pal.

But we did really well. But in February of 1965, I went down on a Sunday morning to repair a board with freezing cold. We were weren't open. We were back teaching school again and I had a hangover on Sunday morning. Imagine that. And I was real thirsty

and I went to the refrigerator. She was just Coker because I was not a morning drinker in 64,

65, whatever it was.

I was a weekend drinker, remember?

Take Wednesday off, get off my back. I'm a weekend drinker. Shut up. And so anyway, I was real thirsty and I opened the refrigerator and and Woody been there the night before and he had left about, well, maybe this much vodka and a half a pint.

My dad would have called it a licking the smell

and I feel them. So I there were some orange juice and I thought, oh God, that'll put the fire out. So I mixed up that little dinky drink and I drank it down and I went on about my business and we had some new people here tonight and welcome. Can you imagine that girl, girl with two years coming all the way up here, everybody going. It got me up here out of going

two days. Come up to the front. Oh yeah, wait for me, pal.

God love you. You know, read that book.

We signed it for you. You read that part too.

In any way, I that blue drink, I drink that little drink and I was sanding on the board and that little tiny bit of vodka got in my bloodstream. You know how it'll do? Little, little,

certain.

And my mind talked to me and my mind said shame on you, shame on you. That was Woody's booze you drank.

Why don't you go up to the liquor store

and get old Woody a pint?

The kind of guy I am, you know what I mean? That afternoon I got Woody 1/5

and I ended up just boring. I drunk my dad would call just resin all over the board was screwed forever. Shock was a mess crawled home literally on my hands and these eleven blocks got up the next morning called Ralph remember him for an ignored an amount of time and I lurched out and said to my wife at that time. She having those pre album ticks in the eye by then.

It's a marine town. We couldn't let her go downtown.

Do not. And

I said to my little bride, I said I got to do something about my drinking. I'm getting drunk when I don't even mean to.

Most time I meant to. And a little devil. She'd cut this thing out of the paper

about the AMA.

I don't know why she thought to do that. And it said what it's always said. The only, as far as I know, the only ad we've ever had said if you want a drink, that's your business.

If you want to quit,

call Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't bite you, but I love it. I think it's perfect. We're not a treatment center and we're not a hospital and we're not a halfway house. We're not a do good society. Hell, we're not a very nice people.

But that little gal with the two days? If you want to stay sober, this room is filled with people who go to the ends of the earth for you, who will go to the ends of the earth for you. If you want to quit drinking. If you would rather drink, have at it pal,

I don't care. So anyway, I called the a NA because she was looking at me

and they, we don't have like maybe 12 meetings in the whole north county in that those days. And I went to about three of them and the

I realized I'd been hasty.

Oh, got to jump the gun here.

Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, they seem to have the collective IQ of an orange.

Oh,

I tried to help him

about the third night. I'm late a little nicci on them

and this one guy said hey we keep it simple here.

I said no getting.

You're gonna fool me, Leroy.

They used to have a meeting on Sunday night there little meeting. There may be 40 people. They would bring people in from outside. And I went to that meeting every month whether I needed it or not. And I was skulk in the back door. Get the loser's chair, you know the one right by the door. And I would fold my arms and I would judge the speakers.

Sounds to me like everybody's nameless Clem.

His wife name was Martha.

They'd been out of bib overalls about an hour and a half,

and aside from the redox tardation, they had drunk too much.

And they had drunk too much for three years, and it started really interfering with their lives. So they'd come here to the A&A

and they had put the

and returned to be in good, decent, happy, sincere, worthwhile folk again.

They had been rehabilitated.

My hero was in 1965 was a guy named Eldridge Cleaver.

He was a black militant terrorist. That was my hero.

My politics were blown up or burning down. I didn't give a shit with.

I was for peace.

And if you weren't for piece of chicken

And old elders had given his speech a few months earlier, and he was talking about the prison system in California, about how they're always trying to rehabilitate him. He says. You know what? They've never known? He had never been debilitated.

You can't rehabilitate somebody who's never been debilitated. I

I don't know, but that's how I felt in the A and A. At some point, Clem and Martha in their wretched lives had been OK. I don't know about you, but I have never been OK. I have always been insane. I walked on the edge of psychosis my whole life. When I was four years old, we lived in Venice, CA. I was four years old, just standing on the Speedway, wait for a car. When a car would come, I'd go

and I'd wait for another, like a little soldier at his posture.

Then how to do this yet you know

that's all I felt when I was 4.

But I live my life by anger and violence, vendetta and I was totally insane and that's how I live. And so I resigned from a a didn't have any meaning for me. And for the next 5 years I was in and out of AI was an A a loser. If they ever have a loser's Hall of Fame out of a bus right by the door,

I'm a loser's loser. I'm an over educated pompous ass

smirking loser. I had to head Bob down here.

Oh man. And every time I came to the aid, these guys and tell them it's going to get worse if you go back out there and I go back out there and get worse. See, I almost died of alcoholism because I'm a functioning alcoholic

now. You know the good stories, You're the great stories of people been on death row and Skid Row and murdered 37 people. Things give you a stature on the program, you know what I mean?

I'm a functioning alcoholic. Now that the experts, whoever the hell they are, the experts say that 95 to 97% of us who die of the disease of alcoholism, who become dead from alcoholism or people like one,

people who get up every day and go to work and do the job and do it better than you do it better than anybody. I'm a goer and a doer and achiever,

a functioning alcoholic.

My buddy Holmes is a function in our caucus, one whose wife works.

Don't tell that to Dallin on beating. No,

they do not find that amusing.

As a matter of fact, it makes him go.

You married guys, do you remember that?

Don't you think you had a few too many?

As I say, you got a few too few. That's your problem, lady. Have a couple of loosen up for God's sake. You know, on this one she was worse. They're worse kind. She was a counter.

You have one of those, huh? That's your 5th 1:00 today.

Shut up and eat your breakfast. Will you leave me there?

And

the week I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, this time, the week I came this time I weighed 163 lbs at 4% body fat. I said surf for like 3 hours and then get out and run 5 miles. I could bench 285. Took me 25 minutes to pass a mirror

ever for God sakes. Don't ask me for directions, I say. It's right over.

My daughters used to get money from me all the time. They would. I didn't have a shirt on, which was most of the time. And they come up and say V up, Daddy, V up

they go, oh, OK, have $10. Yes,

I hate to tell you, I was two years sober before I figured that out.

What do you mean alcoholic? I'm an Adonis for God sakes, and I was one of the top three debate coaches in the United States.

That's an honor roughly equivalent to being one of the top three prostitutes in Elko, NV

among speech coasters. It's a big deal. You know, I became a speech coach by accident. The principal called me in one day, which he was want to do. And he had got this flyer in the mail about a debate in a speech tournament which was being held 30 miles down the road at San Diego State. And he was all excited about it. I was teaching a speech class. He said why don't you take some of your kids, that I better really be good for them so I, you know, I'll be in trouble and said, oh, what a good idea.

I found a six or eight dodos. We went down the road.

We were amazed when we got there, there were like 50 schools participating, maybe 500 contestants. All the boys were in three piece suits with vests and ties. All the girls, these lovely business clothes. We're in Levi's and sweatshirts. What the hell do we know? And they slaughtered us. They killed us. We did not win around. I mean, they ground us in the dirt as they did what kind of drunks you are. But I don't care for losing.

And I went in the coaches room there, about 20. I've been there. They're all pals. They're buddies doing this all the time

and they ignored me it seemed to me.

So I hung around all day. You know who you are and snub you more that way if you hang around. One guy there really pissed me off. He had a lot of hair that bothered me right away.

No, not just here. I mean one of those silver manes. Gorgeous 9 barbers to get it right. He had about $1000 suit on. The other coaches did this when they went in front of him

two in the afternoon. This Prince of coaches,

this Gray haired Cretan

turns to me and says, where are you from?

God, I was grateful to be spoken to. Finally I said Oceanside, He said. Oh, where is that

30 miles up?

He gave me a resentment.

I don't being a resentment, I mean a resentment. And I went back to Oceanside High and I built me a speech team.

Took me two or three or four or five years, but I built a monster speech team. I built a juggernaut speech team, and I did it with sheer hatred.

Do you know how much work that is to make 150 people do what they don't want to? Do? You have any idea what you go through for that? From 7:00 in the morning till 9/30, 10:00 at night, in their faces, screaming, yelling. Coaching guy next door used to say I'd love them

while he's watching. Leave your room wiping the spit off their glasses. You don't.

And this reporter said to my captain, what's the secret of your coach's success? The kids said terror.

She wasn't lying. She's the chairman of the speech department and the chancellor of women's studies at San Francisco State College today. Didn't do her any harm. You know

poor old Bobby and I. They fired for choking one guy,

and it was a guy.

Oh God, it's hard work. See, I'm a functioning alcoholic. I don't touch a drop of booze all day. Out in the globe compartment of the car waiting for me. It's up. Half a pint of hot vodka.

I love to talk about hot vodka talent on meetings. They go, Hey

God, you and I know, huh?

And it was just called to me all day that half a pint. Go get him Cliff baby. I'm waiting darling,

and I just go through that day and not eat anything all day. Drink 300 cups of coffee

and stayed pissed off

that last kid. Relieved now of this Roach agate,

I'd lurch out to that 58 Chevy station wagon must surfing car

and I get in that car and open up that half a pint of hot vodka. Man,

what a way to end the day like that Chief Stogie and go little.

I always drink half the half pint. Didn't you? Is there anything like hot vodka

into the bloodstream?

The muscles relaxed, the brain would subside. I puff on that stogie.

God damn you're a good coach

and I finished that half a pint and I would sit there in the darkness of that 58 Chevy mine on an abandoned school lot

and I would have my 8 minutes.

This is my store. I don't know what the hell your story is, but in my case, after I drink about 1/2 an hour,

something happens to me

and I have about 8 minutes

where everything in my life is all right

where I am enough

for about 8 minutes.

And then I would, in all the years that I was in and out of a a a loser, I never once told you about the 8 minutes. Not once. And then I would go home and destroy my family.

I really start drinking when I would get home and tap this afternoon was talking about our five kids. And I'm a raging alcoholic. I'm a violent alcoholic and an abusive alcoholic and a mean, satirical bad drunk. And I got drunk the last seven or eight years every night at home. And I turned that house into an insane asylum. I was raised in an insane asylum, and I thought my folks were bad. I made them look good

the late 60s. Now three of my kids are in high school in the late 60s.

Oldest son is working his way through high school, is a Hashi salesman.

Never had to give him any spending money. I'll guarantee hit him up for 1/5 of all once a week. Yeah, Dad, what do you need? You know,

had hair down to his butt and his head went like this all the time.

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

Loved LSD or he loved LSD?

Lot of you remember, you see things when you take LSD. Are you right in the middle of sense? He say, what was that?

What's your shape? I'm in. At the time I said I don't know. What was it? Where, what

and grandma was living? She said. I'll explain.

Oh, my God.

So I destroyed my family.

No human power could have reached, could have saved my family. No, he was too late. It was a totally destroyed seven group of people. Just it's too late. No human power could help my family. But I built that speech team

dying of alcoholism, and I built that speech team and after a couple years my team won one of those tournaments. But I didn't say anything to the great haired guy. Wasn't time yet?

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

The next year there were I think 14 tournaments with 30 schools in each tournament. My team took first place in every single tournament. I can wait.

I think revenge is better than Christmas.

The next year there was a tournament. There were 25 schools competing in the tournament and my team scored more sweepstakes points than the other 24 schools

combined.

Then I went up to that Gray haired guy. Remember him?

I put my nose right against his and I said, do you know where Oceanside is now?

He just looked blank.

What are you talking about?

I said. Don't you remember four or five years ago you said to me,

Oceanside? Where's that?

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

The story of my life

four or five years. This guy's in bed every night in San Diego.

I'm of a notice that how I get here you

I'm going to tell you guys the story that I I don't very often tell because I love you. This group. I got to tell you my wife's going home. She's not.

If this offends anybody, I'm really sorry, but I've got a lot of new people. I want you to know you don't get all well here.

Several years #7 or several years ago, I had a prostate trim

and and I was in, I had a lot of trouble with it. I mean, it was, it was bad. I was in a lot of pain,

so I put up with them for about a month only. I just called a doctor, you know, tile. There's a little girl came out and said the doctor's office. I said this is Cliff Roach is that butcher ruined the whole cock. I'm a terrible pain here and I told her where it was and where it moved to. I did about 10 minutes ending with I pissed about a couple times. For Christ sakes, I didn't do that when I was drunk

and the little girl said, Mr. Roach,

this is your eye doctors.

So if you're new here,

we don't get all well here. But I want to tell you what's different is I started laughing

and she started laughing

and we laughed on the floor and

scream. Do we laugh? So a couple weeks later, I went into the eye doctor's office

and I said, where's Evelyn? And they said right over there. I said Evelyn, not Mr. Roach.

Evelyn said oh, hi, Mr. Rhodes. And everybody else in the office went

a lousy thing.

But right after I had that that event with the Gray haired guy, my wife and I had one of our main events, which the neighbors have come to miss so much.

Our neighbors never got television till after I got sober. Did yours? We were always the entertainment for the neighborhood. Hey, he's coming back. He's coming back.

Don't have those Venetian blind marks on their forehead, you know.

But anyway, she threw me out what she did,

I said I was going to move out and everybody said yeah, now I'm living down at the beach with my buddy and his girlfriend. What? I wanted to live anyway. I said if I can, it's unload that witch and those long haired dolphin children like a drink, like a gentleman again. And I'd gotten rid of them and it wasn't working. And I was drunk when I I missed work, which I would always bend my badge of courage. And I felt like my life was slipping between my fingers. And I went by the house one afternoon trying

wife about money and the has she sells and was kind of bobbing in the background there

humming a tune from the sub planet Pluto. And

as I look back on it's the dumbest thing I ever did in my life. I turned him and I said, Dave, what's it like not have your old man around the house?

And my 16 year old boy looked me right in the eye and he said it's beautiful.

And I'm standing here tonight coming up on 37 years Silver. And

I'm standing there tonight because of the courage of a 16 year old kid.

He had a lot of reason to be physically afraid of me. I was a lot tougher on him. Any of the other kids, even.

He was honest enough to look me in the eye and tell me what I really was. And I went back to that dump of the beach and ranted and rave and sniveled in whine. But I did not take a drink that afternoon. It had been a long time since I had not taken a drink that afternoon.

Save some of that for me forever. The meeting.

Wow, man,

And relatively urban.

Anyway,

I sat out in the screen porch there and I watched. I watched the most beautiful sunset that I've ever seen. It was one of those where the sky and the and the water and the wet sand and all the same magenta color. And as the sun was going down into the ocean. I, I had, or I guess you had or you wouldn't be here tonight. A A or Al Anon. I have what our big book calls the Moment of Clarity.

My friend Polly calls it the Moment of Grace

the gift.

Grace and I went in the bedroom and I dugout the Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I had read in one of my travels through the program. Being an English teacher, I thought it was very poorly written.

Newcomer Gal. It read a lot better this time. And I read the big book for three days and three nights. I called in sick. I didn't go to work.

I ate a little bit, slept even less, and I read the big book and I read it cover to cover. If you're new, I read all the stories. I read the appendix in the back and on the third time through the book on the 13th of January 1970 at 3:00 in the morning, I was on page 63 again.

And on page 63, if you knew there's a little prayer and the prayer is Step 3.

I've always called it the formal

terms of surrender. And I knelt down on that filthy, filthy linoleum floor

on that dump of the beach where I was living, and I read that prayer out loud to myself. I read God offer myself to thee to build with being, to do with me as you will

relieve me of the bondage of self.

And I've heard maybe 200 footsteps in my years in the program.

And the number one defective character every man I've ever worked with is self obsession.

And I had an experience on my knees there that morning on the 13th of January 1970. And for years I tried to tell you what happened to me.

And three years ago, this little gal in the Grapevine article, she did the same thing I had done 32 years before. She was in a treatment center. She's 17. She's 2522 now. And she did exactly what I had done 32 years before. She knelt down in that treatment center and read

the third step per out loud to herself. And in the article, she said

I was engulfed by a great laughing love.

That'll do it for me,

A great laughing love.

And I have not had a drink since that time. And that night I was at Bill Blake's house, this little electrician my wife talked about today. He'd been a Skid Row wine over there in Oceanside, was sober eight years. One of those a, a fanatics you hate when you're a loser, you know, you come in the door and they personally, like carry him. He's only saying he's just say stupid things to be like, you want to go up to Los Angeles with us tomorrow night?

No.

Well, I used to want to say is I can't stand you guys hear what the hell? I want to drive 100 miles, meet some Oreo, you know, but I would just say no thank you.

And but he was always there. Very annoying man.

But that night I was at his door and that's one of the two things that I'll talk about anytime I ever give it a pitch. I'm a loser. I'm a five year over educated, pompous, smirking looser.

Mark Eagle's wife opened the door.

Here he is on the porch,

loser,

our unit and I have never seen anyone so glad to see me in my life. Can you imagine? She said click. Oh, And I was like, oh, pours me a cup of coffee. She said, oh, this is wonderful, this is great. She said Bill's been crazy lately. He said nobody to work with all this. And so

then Bill comes in clip

half an hour. I'm thinking

anything else I can do to help you folks out?

We're glad to help any way I can.

Cliffs here. We can start a A now,

But you know, three weeks later, I was in a newcomer meeting and one of the other newcomer has said, what do you mean this is a selfish program?

When the guy asked the question, I knew the answer. I got the answer the night I got here. They were glad for me. They've been praying for me for five years. But they were more glad for Bill and Margie because they knew the great secret.

You can't have it unless you give it away.

You can't stay here unless you're willing to give it away.

These people on the committee up here with me, they know what I'm talking about.

Goof Ken with the taping. He, he knows what I'm talking about,

spends every weekend of his life making records at jerks like me. Can you imagine that? I'd love to see these kids where they show up, they're everywhere and they carry the message their way. Got a guy in my Home group? If you're new, he will find you.