The 15th Annual Tri State Roundup in Laughlin, NV

I am Bill Smith. I'm definitely an alcoholic

and I'm sober through the grace of God and the fellowship of this program in God of these lights bright.

OK, God, I'll tell the truth,

Dick said. He was going to raise his hand if I if I didn't, I couldn't see where he raised it or not.

Most of the time I'm not nervous, but tonight I am. My sponsors with me, my sponsors got 38 years of sobriety. I, my sponsors wife died last month and she been bedridden for five years. And he's been sort of loving her to death, taking care of her. So he hasn't really been out of the house in the last five years. So the people that he sponsor have been running a herd on him

and we don't. We take him everywhere we go and he sponsors a lot of people. You got some better speakers than me coming up, but none of them has put together as good as me. Thanks, Dick.

I'm put together better than most of it, and if you give me a couple seconds, I can prove it. I forgot to bring my Hydra, my hair dryer down. And so I call housekeeping, ask them would they bring me one and they said they'd be right over. So I took $3 and I stepped outside my door and not very much close and the door shut behind me

and I'm standing in the hall with this 3 bucks and some guy comes down the hall. I said it ain't what it looks like.

So then I get on the phone and the housekeeping and the front desk says I don't guess you have any, any ID on you. I said no, nothing else either. If you hurry up and send them up here because I'm supposed to go down and speak if you have hurry. So that's what you get to listen to the night.

So I just want you to know that I'm very well wrapped.

I got a great honor in writing down from Las Vegas to here with my sponsor. I love my sponsor very much. I turn my will in my life over to care of Ted Davis, and he very slowly turned it over to a very loving God and the people of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's just the way it was.

He told me to make sure I talk about the disease of alcoholism. I told him I was really nervous. He says, you know, and I got a routine. I do. I'll workout hard. I run, I eat right. I try to do everything I can and get a lot of rest. And he said, you've done everything you can and God will show up. And I'm counting on that. And that's just the way I live my life. I just think if I do what I'm supposed to do,

just loving God I have in my life will take care of everything else. So I'm going to tell you really quick, this is something that I just believe in. Believe me, no one speaks for Alcoholics Anonymous and I certainly don't. I'm one of them people that believe that alcohol and all this other stuff that we use has very little to do with alcoholism.

I just just has very little to do with it. If that was true, if alcohol was a problem, everybody that drink a Budweiser resetting at these tables and that's not true. There's something else wrong with me. Doctor Silkworth says this about guys like me. Alcohol does something for me, not to me. Makes my brother tipsy. Does not do that for me. Let's me get up and go dance.

Also let's me get up and fight if somehow always lets me go to jail. I don't know, but this is just me. It just lets me go play is what it does.

And Johnny H says it better than I can say it, so I'm just going to quote him. He says all his life he was uncomfortable and when he drank, he was no longer uncomfortable. And that's the way it was with me. I heard a guy described it. He said he took a drink and it come out the end of his fingers and his hair didn't do that for me. What it did was it just sort of took the fears away. I'm a guy that's always afraid of everything. I've only got an eighth grade education, you know, and I told my mom after I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm reading a book.

I got the words in, I don't even understand him. So she wouldn't got me a dictionary. And she says here, look them up. So that's what I've done over the years to get some kind of understanding of what kind of disease I have. And this is what it is. Once I take a drink, one thing always happen. What Doctor Silkworth says that I'm going to have another drink. And then once I have another drink, something else is always going to happen. I'm going to have another drink. And in Chapter 3, this says that like this, I'm a person who cannot control it. And the great obsession

of every person like me. And I looked up the word obsession and just it's, it's, it's above all other suggestions,

is something that you cannot escape. My sponsor says it's something that owns you. The great obsession of people like me is to have a few drinks and go about their business. Doctor Silkwood puts it like this. He says we see other people drinking with impunity. I said that word in these rooms for years, not even having the slightest idea what the hell it meant. One time a guy says, what does that mean? I said, I don't know, let's go look it up,

he said. Jesus, you always say that. I said was in the book.

It says mean with other people. See other people take a drink without consequence, without punishment. My brother can drink without consequence, without punishment. Not only that, he can do that stupid stuff. You know what I mean? Have two drinks and look at you. I don't want no more.

Why not start to feel it?

Thought that's the reason you did it,

not knowing that once I take the first drink that I'm no longer in control.

Hired a guy, saved one time that I was telling my sponsor. Only down here he knew when

he developed the Craven for alcohol. I said, Hannah, well, would anybody know that?

Just I have no idea. I just started out drinking a cup. I drink a glass of white whiskey and a couple of beers at the age of 15 and had no idea when it happened. But all I know is once I started drinking, somewhere along the line, I didn't seem to shut it down. And so that's what I believe is the allergy of the body. Once I take a drink, one thing always happens. And they say it different ways. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they said like this

once too many and 1000 is not enough and never never understood when they said that when I was sober by the

sponsor decided he was going to start a club and Alcoholics Anonymous call the triangle club.

I got the job of digging the ditch on the newcomer, you know, and so I'm digging this ditch in this July or June in Las Vegas, about 112 the old timers up, you know, within the under the umbrella with ice tea,

making sure the newcomers get the ditch straight. And I looked at this old jerk and I said, tell me a cold beer wouldn't taste good right now. And he says, Billy, I would never tell you that. I said, see, He said, let me ask you a question. What does the 4th and 5th and what does the 15th one taste like? He said they just lose their taste after three or four. And now you just drinking. What does the 15th one taste like? And I said, wow, that's right. He said, when did you ever have a cold beer? I said Oh my goodness, back to digging the ditch.

And that's how I learned about alcoholism from people like you. I joined the Navy to see the world and became a drunk. Just that simple

in the 50s and everybody else sent their money home and did things with it. I found out you could get the cheap stuff and for you young people, you were going to blow your mind $0.90 a quart.

The good stuff cost a dollar a quarter. I would never buy that.

You get the same effect for $0.90, so why would I spend the extra $0.35? I'm not looking for taste. I'm I'm what? I'm on a doctor. Silkworth boys. I was arrested eleven times while I was in service,

ten of them being for alcohol related, and I thought it was the Navy and I was going to make a career out of it because I knew people like me have trouble when they get out. It looks like I was having a little bit of problem with this drinking and so when I got out I got locked up by the Long Beach Police. But the reason I got out of the Navy, I went to Imokuni, Japan. You can do a lot of things in the Navy and they'll forgive you, but you can't miss the boat.

And the boat left, and I wasn't on it. And I went over to one of those houses that I love, you know, and they served that stuff in these houses over there. So I had everything I needed at my fingertips.

I thought I was a man.

Girls told me later on they had to ride and deal the men. I wasn't it.

But anyway, I didn't miss the ship. And they took all my strengths away from me, made me mad. And so I got out of the Navy. I and I went before the old man. He says if you got anything to say. And I said, yeah, 16 more days and I'll be out of here. And the day I got out of the Navy, I got locked up by the Long Beach Police,

celebrating getting out,

had the one drink just to celebrate. And I had no intentions of doing all the things I did. It's going to have a few drinks, kick back and celebrate my actual mind. My alcoholic mind is a fabulous thing, This thing.

I was just, I had no intentions of doing all the things I did. I was just going to have a few drinks, trying to get lucky and going in, come on back to Florida and I got locked up by the Long Beach police. And some kids said that's well, why don't you go back to Illinois with me? And I left California, took me 42 days to get to Florida.

It would have took me longer, but I only had $840 when I left California. And I wound up in Chester, IL. I don't know why I went there, but that's where I wound up. And I called my father and I said, if you'll send me $56, I can get a bus ticket and get home.

And don't tell me I didn't love my folks. But it didn't amazing. Once I took a drink, all bets are off. All bets are off. You can't guarantee my actions because I can't control how much I drink. Once I take a drink, I'm going to go skip around, which I always do. There's a guy that I drank with here in Las Vegas and and I started telling this story three or four years ago and

he was one of the few friends I had deficits right before I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

And we started drinking at our old place that the plush horse

on Sahara. They started killing people. We didn't bother us.

We were just drinking. We didn't want to, you know, get any other stuff.

And one time we were drinking, he said let's go get drunk. I said great idea. And we started drinking and I got so drunk that I couldn't sit up on the stool. And so I told him I said I can't do this no longer. I got to go home. So I get in my car and I'm driving home and I got one eye closed because I got like 9 white lanes and I got to get them to come together. So I close one eye to get them to come together and they do and I get home. And when the book book Big book talks about,

I should have slept for like 10 hours but I didn't. An hour and a half later I wake up and I'm really in bad shape

and my wife looked at me and I said don't say nothing. I'm back in the car going driving back down to the plush horse wasn't very far from where I live and my friend is still sitting there and he's still drinking.

And I started drinking again and I passed out again and I woke up and he's still drinking.

And I thought, God. And so finally at that, they said, I wound up in a stool in a booth, sleeping in a booth. And he finally went home

three or four years ago. I run into him, him and I became business partners in some stuff. And I finally said to him, I said, listen, will you please tell me what happened? What happened with your drinking? He says, oh, Billy, that stuff that you and I were doing was nuts. That's insane. He said, I had to knock that stuff off. If that's insane to do all them things. I said, you mean you don't drink at all? He's all sure

when we go to Europe or someplace like that, we have a glass of none of that crazy stuff like you and I did.

Now, if you walk in and watch this, he could drink more than me. You would say he's the alcoholic. Look at this guy. This guy keeps passing out. He can't drink. This guy can really drink this stuff. And in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, it absolutely describes this human being as a person who can drink. He will lose a few years of his life. He will have a miserable time. He will have health problems. It tells you right in there

and he is not alcoholic. What my friend had was a drinking problem and he said he can moderate

stop and the very next paragraph describes Billy Smith. What about the real alcoholic?

And that's what I could never understand, even them being in these rooms for a long time. So I finally got back to Florida. I got a job.

General Electric was a good job.

If you missed five days, they fire you. I missed 28. They wouldn't fire me. So I just quit.

We're just bored. Nine to five, you know, is one of the best paying jobs down there. I had no education. I went in as a janitor and got promoted right away and went wound up in a lab, had an excellent job and went to work on a fishing boat. And I thought I'd found heaven. These guys could drink. I said yes, this is for Billy. And when you come in, we go out and fish and work hard and we've worked 1718 hours a day and drank. The other one would sleep on the way out to the fishing grounds and

all them other guys wanted to drink, get drunk

and fish. I'm going to get drink, get drunk and tell them how to run the fish company. And I got fired. I could not believe I got fired from that job, but I did. And that's how I wind up in Las Vegas. I wound up in Las Vegas, got burnout. I couldn't work, could no longer drive in the state of Florida.

One, one time when I my brother's,

you know, this,

this disease

is really in the big book. It talks about how slowly did we go down the hill and what to me is the biggest thing. And I've heard Bob talk about it and we've talked about it for years. But it's a really a disease of separation. And I'm going to spend just a few minutes if I can, to get into this. I everybody always says that and they shut up. And what happened was me, the way I understand it and the way it happened in my life

is it's such a slow process that might that my alcoholic mind doesn't pick it up. What's happening to me,

You know, when I first started drinking, it looks like I'm fitting. I mean, it looks, you know, the way I feel is I'm starting to really fit in,

but when people see me drink, they started getting a little scared and they don't feel comfortable any longer. I think I'm fitting and they start backing away from me. And first of all, it's like friends and stuff. And first of all it's non Alcoholics. They start pulling away from me because I don't drink like them and they don't want to drink like me. So they start separating themselves from me.

Then I started separating myself from friends. My brothers come to got me out of jail one time in a strange city. They got me out of jail before and I took their car, let them standing in a strange city. And I said if you say anything, you know what will happen to you. And I left them standing there. I can tell you the next time I call them, they didn't come,

you know, And I was sitting in Tampa jail and finding my oldest one next to me. I'm the oldest one next to me says if you're looking for Bill, he's in Tampa jail. And we just thought you'd tell you, my father come over and apologize for my rotten brothers for not coming and getting me out. And I thought they owed me an apology. But they didn't be left in a strange city anymore with no car. And I don't blame them. And I still remember that ride back across Grandy Bridge to St. Petersburg, FL.

I felt about this tall in that car. I never felt that bad in my life because my father was crippled and he's looked at me and he was just as serious as he could be. And he said, Billy, why don't you do a little more fishing and a little less drinking? And I thought, God, how do you do that? How do you fish if you don't drink? How do you do anything if you don't drink? I can't stand the uncomfortableness from not drinking. I can do. And don't get me wrong, I can stay sober for a while. I've done it. But I just get it up to here.

My buddy said just like a grind, it's just a grind. And after a while it's like the heck with it. And so then I started separating me from my family and from my employers and the last person in my life when I was coming out here, I went and told my mother, I'm going to Las Vegas. And this little Gray headed lady with a third grade education looked at me and says and she loved me more than anything in the world. She said I'm going to help you pack,

she says dead. And I do not know what to do for you.

I'm thinking a couple 100 would help, you know?

And so that's it. And I separated everything and I wound up alone and I come out to Las Vegas and a friend of mine said come out to Las Vegas as showgirls and bars 24 hours a day. And I couldn't think of a better place. And what happened for me was I learned how to drink in Las Vegas. I used to get him, I wouldn't have to Panhandle much. I could just get like $0.50 and I'd go write a Keno ticket. And one time I won $55. I had five out of six and won $55 for $0.50.

I give the Keno writers $30 or 25 of it, and I kept the rest because I know I'm gonna need them.

And when I'd write my $0.50 keynote ticket, they would fold it and hand me my ticket because back then they would give you a drink ticket and I'd open up my ticket and it would be 8-9 tickets in their drink tickets and I'd go, thanks. They said get lucky. I'm thinking that's right, get lucky. You can have the money. I don't need the money. I need this. This is what I need to fill this hole. And what Las Vegas did for me was it got me in the hospital real quick. And I was 29 years old laying down here and

told me was I wasn't gonna live any longer, that my body was shot, that I had liver problems. And I'm laying there thinking 20 nines a little young. I know guys like me don't draw Social Security, but 29 doesn't seem like quite enough.

I've always been like, felt like us, like a strong person because it's self-reliance.

And so I got in my car and come back and I said, well, maybe I'll cause the problem is alcohol is the problem. Let's just quit.

I'd like to tell you my sobriety date is in, but boy would I be lying. They could have to hold up his hand. I don't want him holding up his hand,

but I had ever intentions. I probably meant it more that morning coming out of the hospital than I did this morning. I never been that serious in my life. 29 just didn't seem like enough. I had a new wife. She drank like I did.

I came back and I told her, I said if you take one drink, I'm leaving.

You don't understand that

if she takes a drink, I'm going to take one. I'm smart enough to know that,

she said. Let's try and quitting together. She said she was an alcoholic. I'd never said that. Never said I hadn't got enough money. You know, even when I was walking and I'm Fremont Street with everything I own in a carnation box,

everything I owned before I got married in a carnation box, if I had a few drinks in me and $3040 in my pocket. I remember one time they locked, they put boards on that little room I had on one side of the street on 1st St. was Skid Row. On the other side it was not. So I used to look at the guys on Skid Row and I said if I was bad as them guys, I would do something about my life. I'm one block from them, you know, But that's a long ways in my mind.

You know, I don't understand what they're thinking. You know, they were sleeping in 50 Cent cots. They had cots back in you could rent. It was stuck in there so bad. It was horrible,

$0.50. If I was as bad as them, then I wouldn't do it. And they had all boards locked up. I had three or $4.00 in my pocket. I couldn't get my stuff out of that room. That wasn't worth nothing to anybody except me. It was everything that I had. It was precious to me. It was a white shirt that wasn't white. It was the black pants that wasn't black. But I need them. I'm a crap dealer and I went downtown and I got lucky and I went a lot of money.

60 or $70

if you're broke at

a lot of money. I went back and flashed it at these people who ignore that door up on my thing and showed them how bad they treated a really nice guy.

And I put that money in my pocket and I carried myself in my bag and I went down, got me a room for $25 a week. You got on to tell you what that looks like, But it had an amazing. I was all cheered up and you asked me how my life is doing. I would tell you not that bad

4 hours before that it was horrible but in an amazing $40 and a few drink just not that bad.

Shoes with holes in the bottom of them.

So I came back and I told us if you take a drink, I'm leaving.

And so her and I together started white knuckling. Now that sounds good, except there's another part of that. They put me on a drug called Sponsole. I looked it up. It says to keep extreme Alcoholics from shaking. Do you know I seen that word. It didn't even bother me. It's like they're talking to somebody else. I wonder why you give them to me. I guess my stomach is bad.

I had a bad stomach. He told me that the word alcoholic, I didn't even see my alcoholic mind cannot pitch it up. Never said my the mind. I have never seized the picture. Even now he doesn't see the picture. I just got to keep doing this thing and so and so when I started using this stuff and I remember one time I ran out and I panicked. I told her to get on the phone, call this guy and have him send some more. I have white knuckle dip for some people say eight years, some people say 6, so I say 7.

I'm not sure, but I stayed sober on my own and so I knew I can't be an alcoholic. No alcoholic can go that long without drinking. If you're new here tonight, maybe, maybe there's a person in here in the first six or seven years like I used to. Every now and then I go, you know, I'm not a real alcoholic, not a real one. You know, I know I had drinking stuff things, but not a real one

because I still didn't understand

the disease of alcoholism. I just couldn't understand it. I couldn't even understand what obsession meant. It means, you know, it supersedes any other idea. Once I make up my mind to drink, nothing gets in the way. You can't stop me once I do that. But I just couldn't understand it. So I went like seven years,

and the morning I got up to go play golf, my life was probably the best it was in years.

I had a little boat, a truck.

I had a daughter, 6 year old daughter, 7 year old daughter, 6 year old daughter. My wife thought I was pretty neat.

The neighbors didn't have anything to do with me. Not only they had lost all my friends, I lost all my acquaintances because I was telling everybody. I go down to Plush Horse and tell them you guys need to straighten your life up.

Look at this. I can drink ginger ale and everything. All I know is if you go in the Barber shop long enough, you get a haircut.

And so one morning I went out to play golf and the last thing on my mind, I would have bet you everything I owned against five cents. I wouldn't have took a drink that day.

And I'll tell you something, when I moved up to class, I was playing in a tournament. It was 4000, first prize and I was in 3rd place and I was playing the best off of my life and I was playing with the two metal boys and another acquaintance of mine and all Roy said to me once I told Roy, I said look how I'm sweating, it was June. I said it's hot, I'm sweating. And he says no wonder you're drinking all those Cokes, they just full of sugar, why don't you have a beer? And I said, why didn't I think of that?

I haven't had one in seven years.

And they give me a drink and I had it and I tell everybody I put better. I don't know if that's true or not. And I had another one and the worst thing in the world that you could dream of happened to me. I didn't want another one

and I went home and told my wife. I says look at me. She says what I said. I had two beers at the golf course. I'm not drunk. I don't want another drink. There's nothing wrong with me. I wasted 7 good years of drinking,

she says. I know one thing, You're nuts. I know that.

I said, look, I'm telling you, Inga had two beers. Nothing's wrong with me. I don't feel bad. I don't want another drink. My neighbor says. I hear you had a drink at the golf course I've got coming over. I said hell, I'll be right over and I had four.

What you knew here

and you go back out. I hope you get fired. I hope your lady kicks you out. I hope nobody talks to you. I hope you wind up in a Skid Row detox center 'cause if it don't, maybe the same thing will happen. You happen to me. There's nothing wrong with me. The alcoholic mind right before I picked up that drink. It doesn't say Billy, why don't you have a couple of beers at the golf course 14 months from now? You're going to have a 9mm late in your ear. You're going to be trying to commit suicide for a straight month. It didn't say three weeks from now you're going to be a falling down and drunk again

worse than you've ever been. It didn't say that alcoholic. Mine never gives us a picture. Absolutely not this most cruelest thing to read. It just it's like I will feel better, Maybe I'll put better. I don't think I did, but then maybe that's what it told me. I don't know what it really did tell me. If I read the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, this is what it says. If we're really honest, we don't have the slightest idea why we picked it up.

We might come up with all kinds of excuses, but we don't have the slightest idea of why we picked it up. I don't have the slightest idea other than I have a disease called alcoholism in a monthly obsession such in my mind

you can't turn it off. I must drink. And my sponsor says once I drink, I have to take this thing all the way down.

And that's the thing that really just destroys people like us. The big book says that maybe some of us could quit earlier. My sponsor says if you're a real alcoholic, he's not sure about that. It reminds me of a story. A guy takes a dog into a vet, and the vet lays a dog up on the table table. And he looks at the guy and says, Sir, your dog is dead.

And the guy looks at the vet and says, you got somebody else can look at my dog. I really like that dog and the best they sure do. I'll be right back. And he goes out and gets a cat. And this cat comes in and walks all the way around the dog. And the cat leaves. And the vet looks at the guy and says, Sir, there's nothing I can do for you. The dog is dead. He said, what's my favorite dog? You got somebody else can look at it. Investors, I'll be right back.

And goes against the Labrador and brings the lab in and the lab walks all the way around the dog and the lab leads

and the vet looks at the sky says Sir, listen, the dog is dead. Guy says OK, OK, how much they owe you. And if that goes $600.00, Ty says $600.00 for what? He says well, $50.00 for the office call and $550 for the CAT scan and lab report.

If he quit what he was ahead, he could have got off of $50.00 but will not like that. Are you sure I'm an alcoholic? Well, I'm not sure. Let me drink a little more and find out for sure. I got to make sure that you're knowing. And what happened was I've heard people say come back in the rooms, go out and drink. And this is what they've said and I not saying they're not telling you the truth. They said that they picked up where they left off.

I can tell you from my experience, I did not pick up from where I left off.

It was like I had drank for seven years because within three weeks I was worse than I'd ever been

and I no longer. So now I just put give seven years and I said, you know, we got to knock this thing off again

and I'd make 4 days and I would make 9 days and I'd make one day. Doctor self worth anything. He talks about the different type of Alcoholics and he always talks about the guy who's always quitting. I said, well, I never did that.

That's the one thing that I never did.

Thank God I stayed long sober, long enough to understand what he was talking about. I'm a cramp dealer. I get so drunk when I get up in the morning, I'd be so sick. I'd go in and I tell a friend of mine who was a pill man, we called him Zook to pill man. And I'd be shaking like this and I'd say, Zook, look at me. I said, I got to deal cramps. He said, Billy, wait a minute. He go in his little box and get this. And he says, here, take these. And about 15 minutes later I go, Oh yeah, that'll work.

And then sometime I'd go in the book calls them heavy accentives. You can call them what you want to.

I go in and I've been on three day runner and I say so look at me man, about 3 days he said, but I don't worry about a thing. Give me a little whites on you what they were and about 15 minutes I go, Oh yes, let's deal. You know, you know it's a sad thing about that is I would even ask them what it was. I need to go from here to here. Doesn't make any difference. I just need to change the way I feel has nothing to do with what I'm doing.

So in this 14 months I started drinking and I'd go home and I'd tell my old lady I'd be coming home and I'd won't stop by and have a couple of drinks

and she called me up. When are you coming home? And I just hang the phone up on her.

So then I started trying my best not to drink, and I drink in spite of it now. I don't want to do it no longer. In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, this is what it says for Billy Smith in Chapter 11. There come a time when you can't live with it, which means it's not doing for me when it did when it was 1617 years old. And you can't live without it, which means I can't quit doing something now that I know this killing me.

I got to the point where you could no longer make me feel good. You couldn't say, Billy, you're OK because I knew that wasn't true.

Billy, you're going to be all right. I said, no, that's not true. This is the way it's going to be. I'm sitting in a bar one day and a plush horse in an airline pilot come in and sit down beside me. And I started talking to him for like an hour. I asked him all kinds of questions. And when he got up and left, the next guy come in. I was an airline pilot for Eastern Airlines. This guy flew a little one. I flew the big one. God, I wanted to be somebody. I didn't want to be what I was. I could no longer stand myself. I look in the mirror and I

this is not what your mother and father raised. This is not it. And I didn't know what to do about it. And you know, I just come to that point and so sober again, clean and sober, not cleaning, but sober without, as physically sober as I am right now. I've taken 9mm and for 30 straight days, almost 30 days, I take on front yard and I load it and unload it and I put it to my head

and not stick it in my ear. And one morning I thought your mother's going to think she did something wrong

and she hasn't done anything and thank God I pulled it away. Had a girl that was in the 7th grade shooting in the second grade. She was having massive problems. You're not supposed to have massive problems in the second grade.

And I'm thinking I'd read, I heard if you do that, somebody else in your family will do that. I've read what is the most selfish think you can do? But I can no longer stand the pain. I cannot stand the pain of sobriety and I still can't without Alcoholics Anonymous. We've got lots of friends and one of them I'm going to talk about 23 years of sobriety that went and did that. And so I could just no longer do it. And I think this living God said, I think he's ready

in October or somewhere in that. In the fall of 1975, there was a roundup in Alcoholics Anonymous

and

my ex-wife told me she was going to take me to a dance and she took me to an AAA meeting

and I thank her to this day for lying to me. I

I called her before left. She's had an operation. I make sure that she's OK. We're just friends and I want it that way. And so does she. She took me to the roundup of Alcoholics Anonymous and they had one speaker and all. I heard him heard. I went to all the meetings and I heard one guy say this. All he said was he got up in the morning and he had to watch his mother die. And if he could have waited today evening when he could have drunk, he could have been a part of it. He could have really felt it. But he said sober, I had to go through the motions

and I thought, and my wife says you're always like that. I could no longer let you in. I could no longer let you get close to me. If me and I started to become friends, I would do something stupid to push you away from me. I would say something or do something because I couldn't stand it. Because I knew once you figured out who and what I was, you're not going to have anything to do with me anyway. So I just beat you to the punch. Book says we'll know loneliness as few do. And I'll tell you something, God, where I was just a body of one

and that was it. And I couldn't do any better.

But when I did was I started going to a thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't go on that Monday and I started going to Tuesday. I just told my wife I'm going to an alcoholic synonymous meeting. And I went down to the old Alana Club. It's costing Jerry Nugget. It was like for this for the Skid Row guys went and I felt comfortable there because I understand where they come from. And I sat in the back of the room and they say any newcomers without under 30 days and I'd raise my hand. I say my name is Bill and it all stare at me

and I'd stare back.

I thought, come on over by little buddy and we'll talk about it.

And then the meeting was over. Some of them guys would come by and say you keep coming back

and I thought, what for?

You know, you definitely don't have anything I want. Most of them are saying can you give me $2.00 so I can get a pack of cigarettes? And I just started going on my days off. I'd spend a whole day down at the Launa Club and I didn't drink. I sit in the back. They said get a sponsor.

I said in your life all that, some guy tell me what to do,

Why don't you start working the steps? Why don't you go help another one? I said why don't you come on outside and we'll talk about it.

And so from a distance they go to me. Keep coming back. We had a guy back in Vegas that just died. He said he'd been happy since the day he'd been in Alcoholics Anonymous. That is not my story. I got locked into pissed off position and couldn't find the key

and I stayed there, you know, and I'm still sort of defiant and stuff. And but I did the one thing necessary. If you're new here, I still did not understand the disease of alcoholism. And I've said this before, I caught the disease of alcoholism

from loving people like you with people who have tolerance like you and people who have love like you who didn't say you don't raise your hand, say you're an alcoholic, you have to leave. And that's the people that I got 365 days not drinking locked in the pissed off position

and they didn't get me a cake or nothing.

I didn't tell him I was sober a year because I didn't figure they'd believe it anyway.

When I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I, you know, I told my sponsor one time they saying clean and sober, see, I'd go to the a meeting, go home and

fire up a joint and sit in a corner. I said, turn the music on. I always thought everything that sound better and everything a little better. That stuff made me so damn paranoid. I couldn't do anything. I went to a meeting one night and some old lady said this. If you keep smoking that stuff, you're going to get drunk. And I'm trying to figure out who told her, right? She was just making a statement. But you know what happened that night? Billy Smith heard it. There was like 70 people in there and I heard it

and I went home and my wife added stuff all laid out and I said I can't do that no more. She says why not? They said people that do that get drunk and I don't want to get drunk. If you're new here, I did change my sobriety date because it bothered me because I am clean and sober since October the 18th, 1975. And so I sealed that stuff up 'cause I know I'm going to need it. And I kept all my seeds and I put it in the refrigerator.