The Paramount Speaker Group in Paramount, CA

My name is Clancy Imlesland and I'm an alcoholic.

Instead of you are admiring my brick up there has been there forever

and I'm one of the older bricks around here I guess.

Although there is a guy up there in 69 but

and Keith and Sue Drummed have a prettier sign than anybody. They should have, shouldn't even have one.

But anyway, there's something nice about being old.

I was talking some of the brick we're just saw at another to Las Vegas

convention,

and I said something there that about being old. How much we'll say it again.

I'm one of the few people that you will ever know who sat and chatted with Bill Wilson for a while.

You can't do that anymore 'cause he's dead.

And

but in 1963, I was sober five years and I was on my job. I was sent to New York to get some signatures on proxies for various things. And I, I did that the first day and I whipped it off. And,

and so the next year, what do I do today at that load of World Service office to see Bill Wilson? They just had had the International Convention in Long Beach in 1960. And I heard that. So I went over there and I said, I want to see Bill Wilson. The girl said, well, he's he's booked up every hour, hour by hour for the next two weeks. But maybe I can get you in three weeks if you like. I said no, I won't be here.

So over the archives and I was looking through some old pictures and old letters from Doctor Bob and things like that,

and all of a sudden here with Bill Wilson, you know, you're the young man who wanted to talk to me. I said yes Sir.

Well my 11:00 didn't show up, come on in. So we sat down and talked for an hour in his office

and you know what he said.

I don't remember.

I was more concerned with what he thought about me than what are you saying?

But I I had. That's one of my two big moments. The other moment was in 1960

at the International Convention. Sister Ignatia talked the only time she ever talked to the convention, and she talked about the day we're building. Doctor Bob called her to see if they had somebody in the hospital that they could come and talk to. And she told it very well that really had heard about so many times. And I galloped up afterwards. I shook her hand and I kissed her on the cheek. And I said, that's really great talk, Sister Ignatia. And I said I thought, oh, but wait a minute, are you supposed to kiss a nun?

Especially if you're not a Catholic.

So I, I said, is I hope I didn't offend you, Sister Ignatius, is it all right to kiss a nun? And I think she said, is it almost 60 years ago? It's hard to remember. I think she said as long as you don't get in the habit.

I can't remember every detail 60 years ago for Christ sake,

but I I'm glad to be here and I'm glad to be safe and sane and sober and enjoyed your talk very much.

I told her at the break that I years ago, I used to play pool with a girl who looked like her and I tried to give her some money back. And

the worst thing if she would have taken it.

But it's The funny thing, I've been, I've been so over a long time and I've been active and involved a long time. And so I've been a lot, done a lot of places, a lot of talking around the world and so on.

That's the amazing thing, because each of us come here feeling we are uniquely different.

But you do. I mean, if there is a slogan for newcomer alcohol, it should be, but you don't understand.

And one of the main things is I've come to learn over the years that the main problem is in A A is the same problem I had and all the people around me had. I never really thought I was an alcoholic. Not really. Maybe I drink too much. Maybe I don't take care of myself very well,

but I'm not an alcoholic cause Alcoholics and we were just old gaunt people, long black coat suit drank and went to jail and I wasn't like that.

I had a wife and children and I had trying to make it in the world and I had ambition and grit and pluck. I thought and in 19,

in 1950, I got out of college. But I really, I was in College in 1950 because when I was 14, my mother and father got divorced. That was in such a religious situation, I'd never heard of a divorce. So I'd really appalled me and I what I replaced my affection for them, whether it was a strong patriotism,

and I felt very bad. This was 196071 Secret 41, and the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. And I immediately began worried about that and I determined to go over it and kill Japanese if I could.

And early 1942, at the end of my sophomore year of high school, I told my mother I wanted to go to Superior, WI and visit my aunt. And she packed my little bag and gave you some money. The guy, that guy to give me a ride to Minneapolis so I could. I just learned how to hitchhike. I didn't never tried it. I said just press your thumb and smile

and so that won't be bad. I got a ride to Minneapolis and I stood outside of Minneapolis. I remember the highway and

I had a hard time, but I find some guy stopped. He said,

where you going? Kidding. I said San Francisco, 'cause I thought that's where you'd go to enlist. And he's well, so am I. I'm in the Navy, going back to a ship half in. And he drove me all the way from Minneapolis to San Francisco. And we'd stop at night. There were no motels, but he'd give me a room in the trailer court or something, or a bed, and he bought my meals. I didn't think about it. I mean, I look back and think, God, that nearly was remarkable that he would do that.

But at that time I thought that's just what what is when he hitchhiked. You tell people where ought to go, they

they get you there.

I sold my own to be over there and kill Japs and get rid of it, bro. He said, well, you're a little. I was about this tall and out of faithful of pimples and wore glasses. And she said, I don't think you're quite looking grown up enough to get the Marine Corps like you want to do. And you can't get any service, I suppose, he said, but you might get into the merchant ring. They're just crying for people 'cause all their good guys go to the Navy and I'll let you in the Red Coast Guard office and you go in there and tell me you want to be in the butcher brain and

that's all it takes. They'll give you some kind of application. Put down 16, don't put down 14 years, which we are. And we came to San Francisco, the ocean for the first time. How? Just the way I dreamed it would be. And it's wonderful. We drove down Market Street and you stopped to the Coast Guard office. He said go in there and I'll just tell him you want to be in the merchant Marine. So I went in so I would be in the merchant. Green guy said fell off his application.

He gave me an application. I put down 14

and they're sixteen, he said. Well, you're only 16 kid, you have to have your parents permission. So I took her on the block, got my parents permission,

and that afternoon I was on a ship going to the South Pacific.

And it really I was

dumb, Dumber than we have to be, but on a ship with a bunch of tough old sailors and they're all drunks and filthy mouth. And I was raised under church. I didn't talk like that. And I don't drink whiskey. And remember they all drank and sang dirty songs. Like I divert my head and wonder if God was going to punish him.

And

just outside of Pearl Harbor, a guy come over by bunkery

WW my face and said, Eric, have a little drug case. Thank you, man enough to have a little drink kid. And I thought I'd better stop this now. I was going to tell him I I happen to be a Norwegian Lutheran and we don't drink whiskey. We hardly ever even talk to people who do drink whiskey. And we are we are quite good people. I was going to tell him that, he said. Why do you think you're man enough

to heard a voice say God damn right?

Five nights? My first drink is whiskey Day.

Burn my mouth and my throat and my stomach and my throat and my mouth and his shirt. Finally

get the bottle of Little Son of a Bitch

and the next day they think we need to Honolulu got me a bottle of beer which I didn't like. The reason I mentioned that is because so often in a we hear about

first drink and it was wonderful. I hated it. We sailed around the Pacific. I never drank and drop. I wouldn't drink with those guys because I thought they were sinful and I besides, I hated it. And

when I was 17, I, I went to the Navy. I was able to enlist in the Navy

at the end of the war. I was to enable hospital outside of California, South San Francisco being sewed together and

that's all there was to it. You know, they dropped the atomic bomb suddenly they ended the war and this Red Cross that there had shelves of tests they were supposed to give the soldiers and sailors as they came through. So I was, I would've been very good on tests because I read a lot. Remember, the guy came in my office after, in my bed after I had taken the test, he said. Clancy,

this is strange, but you seem to be in the top 5% of intelligence of the entire United States Navy.

And I said, I know,

but I got out of the Navy there in 1946, and I went back to Wisconsin, to my home. And, you know, I don't think anyone in here remembers 1946, but millions of people log out of the service at once. They all went back to their hometowns or whoever they were and stood around on street corners and raised hell. And so when they tried to get them to do is go back to school,

they had the GI Bill, which would help people pay for the GI bills on your school. And I didn't want to go back into high school, be a junior in high school. I was too slick for that. But we all went out of the VA and showed him my certificate. I got it as a base of that test. He said, that's remarkable shit. I can get you the University of Wisconsin and he got me in the University of Wisconsin. And

when I was in school, I noticed that after school, every day after college classes,

the veterans all gathered together when downtown drank and the good people went to the Luther League. Ers of God damn place. And

so I didn't want to be with them high school snots. And so I went to the veterans and I knew that I should really drink. That's what veterans did. So I really tried to learn to drink. I've drank, forced myself to drink and didn't like it. But I eventually, by my end of the first semester, I liked it.

I guess I crossed an invisible line. I didn't see it all, and

I started to really enjoy how it made me feel secure and stronger and older and wiser.

And in college I did very well. I was an editor of the college newspaper and I

won some awards. I was at a national championship team and I,

I give the talk at commencement on behalf of the senior class and we are anyway, is that wonderful? And then I we all shuffled across the stage and got our diplomas

and mine was blank, which I knew it was going to be

because I had been taking an English history course at 8:00 in the morning and I never could get up for it. I just hungover too much. And so they gave me incomplete and I had to go to summer school to get that. I thought, God, that's really terrible. I've won a whole bunch of trophies for this college, university, and I've been a really a great student and now they screw me around.

I was supposed to go to work teaching in Duluth, Denfield High School in Duluth, MN, teaching journalism. And I got to work at the US Rubber Company at Ballast White site, 1600 white sidewalk tires, do a shift. And on the way home, I stopped in a bar and drink heavily and get home drunk. And there was nowhere at home. So it's all right. And I,

I tell everybody about how they screwed me. I said, you know, I did so much for that at the university and they treated me like this. I'd tell that story to anybody. You know, they get so tired of hearing it. Don't tell us about that story anymore. Jesus.

But one night I was in a bar and this pretty girl came in. No one under who she was, but I could tell by looking at her. She wanted to hear that story.

I told her that story for an hour and a half, how I'd been victimized and she. That seems odd. You have your fingernails are dirty and you're you're smudge on your face. Your shirt is not clean. I just came home from work. Don't you believe me and I'll show you. We jumped her car and drove to the campus course at 1:00 in the morning. It's all locked up

but I found a door in the administration building that had just panes of glass that took a rock and broke one of those and got it. That took her up to the the Roman, the 2nd floor where the trophy case was turning the light and a whole bunch of case of beholding

trophies and smirking and laughing and she was overcome. I could tell she slumped to the floor.

I thought, Oh my gosh, she's probably had a flat tire. So I tried to. I tried to pump her up as best I could,

and

right there, the Policeman's flashlight illuminated us. If you ever want to try a perfect Passion Quencher, try a Policeman's Flashlight. What are you doing there?

Nothing anymore.

So we were arrested now as arrested for breaking and entering in the night time, which is automatic five years in Wisconsin State Penitentiary. I thought, oh Jesus. But it turned out the school put in some cloud and said, well, he's really not a criminal. He just, he's an immature person, drinks too much.

So I got they got to be used to drunken disorderly, but I remember sitting in that

sitting in that courtroom, so sick and oh God, the judge was a friend of our family. He's going to come and give me some another one of the endless lectures I got. And I said then the guy came into the box. She said, who's having a son? I said I am. She said, hear this for you. I looked inside of all my books, all my notebooks and a little note on top saying I covered for you as long as I can, but I can't cover. This one is signed by the Dean.

You're expelled. So I was expelled after I graduated, for God's sake.

You think that's funny?

You'll never make it as secretary around here.

You're supposed to sob, but how sad it is. Poor bastard.

But I remember and I got a telegram that afternoon from Duluth, MN, saying that my job is teaching journalism had been cancelled on the grounds of moral interpreted.

And I oh God, what a day. Then the judge finally came in and he gave me that look. We've all gotten that look of how could you do this?

Why do you do that, Clancy? Why do you act like that?

He said. I I regret that you're that sorry

as well, as I said, he says. In my experience, people who are that sorry,

they're not only sorry for what they've done, but they're sorry for what they're going to do.

I said, oh, no, judge, I learned my lesson. But he was right, of course, and I got another night. I no longer had a job, no longer at a college education.

I got a job with the newspaper as a sports writer covering the Green Bay Packers, which was a good one of my favorite job I've ever had in my life. And I met this girl with black hair and black eyes

just flashing and all. I remember all you ever meet in the Van, Lutheran churches,

blondes with blue eyes and go, ah,

for she was deep and I could see that she was deep and she won my heart. And I finally proposed to her. She said, yes, I'll marry you. I'm so happy. But then she dropped the big one on me. She said I'm a Catholic. Oh God. Because at that time Lutheran's didn't marry Catholics in Wisconsin. He just stuck them with sharp sticks

and

but my love overcame my dismay and we got married and for about a few months I the best life I've ever had. I enjoyed work I was doing writing for the Packers and I enjoyed my home camp. Couldn't wait to get home. I'd gotten a bottle of gin and a bottle of vermouth so I didn't have to pay a dollar and a half of martinis anymore. I could just make it as much as I wanted

until I could call halves that I've table

and it's just wonderful. Happiest days of my life. And then my wife spoiled it. Her Catholicism.

I'm I'm not trying to be

controversial, but she screwed my life up.

I'll tell you how she did. She used to turn your babies one after another.

I said can we use birth control? No,

I know what I'd have done if she said yes, because here I've been all over the world

and ships and different places,

and I only heard the word condom once in my life, in a Navy training film where it showed this girl would be Hooters and if you go to bed with her and don't wear a condom, you'll die.

And I was. I'll take my chances,

but but you know, think you were a lot different. You don't realize it, but all this took place in 1950.

At that time

young guys or young girls or anybody didn't walk in a drug stores and say gay, give me some condoms. You find some older person who is depraved and you know, and they get them to go and say things like, hey,

give me some cigarettes and some rubbers.

Now look how much different, how much progress we've made. I live about half a block

of drugstore on the West Side and Kashmir. I guess their kids, I guess they're grown up, you know, their kids. To me, they say, I think, hey, I want to buy some condoms

and some cigarettes, you know,

but I got more children I had to raise, I had to get some money going. So I got a job at a big company as a writer and advertising department and

I started my career. I did that for years. I work in places and eventually the few months they call me in and say, Clancy, you really write well. And I'd tittered gently. Thank you

to say, but we can't have you, you, you. We need you on Mondays as well as the other days of the week.

And when you come in on Tuesday, you smell bad.

And so I somebody told me about Alcoholics Anonymous. I thought I could use that to throw off the scent as rear right, Mr. Carlson. I got drinking overseas when I saw that horror. People like to hear that, you know, and

I'll go to this thing called a A and I'll come back in a couple weeks and I'll be cured and I'll get my job back. He said, fine, we'll get keep your pay going. So that was my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, fall of 1950.

Eight guys sitting around a table, just ugly old pukes, you know, talking about how much they lost and how much they drank and how much pain they'd had. And I thought, Jesus, what a bunch of losers these guys are. I got to get out of here. But a couple days of that and I realized they couldn't possibly help me, but I had to pretend to be interested

and I realized I get another job. A job I get is not going to work out. So I got a job in the adjoining state,

Illinois,

in an advertising agency. I worked there and did very well till the day came by the six months and he called me and said, you know, Clancy, you're drinking makes it impossible for you to work here and so on. And I went through that year after year after year, gaining more children as they went along and

and had a terrible time. I had some good years and some good bad years. I some years I made a lot of money

'cause I could write well, but other years they'd be more concerned about my drinking. And I went through one spell in the 1950s when I got just the right amount of alcohol. I don't know what the hell caused it. I would go out and harass police officers. That's a stupid thing to do, all right? You know that you're a fascist son of a bitch.

I started going to jail more rapidly then,

but that's just a disorderly kind of show. You get out of the 6:00 in the morning and I got to go home and make it take a shower and go to work, you know. But I got one morning, one of my neighbors was standing there. He said, he said, I, I'll come down to give you a ride home. I said you shouldn't have come down here. That guy, I got his badge number. I'm going to get his ass. He really was abusive to me and hurt me a lot. He said. I don't know about that, but

we're trying to reach it. Last night, wherever you might be drunk,

'cause your little son died and we couldn't find you. And oh, that just about killed me.

Oh, in jail when your son dies, Jesus. And I,

my wife and I took him up to Wisconsin, buried him like a grave next to his grandmother, my wife's mother, and I took a bow in his casket. I said, John Emerson,

this will never happen again. This will never happen again. I'm so sorry. I'll make it up to you somehow. And I went back to Texas and I quit drinking. I didn't go to a A a a makes you want to drink and

and I went to AA and I didn't go to AA stopped drinking, came home, had dinner with my family, with my kids. Hadn't done that for a while. And then we're just we'd go for rides. Sometimes I'd help with the school work. Every little meal would say prayer for baby John is all very touching.

But one thing happened that happened after me. One of the reasons I always knew I was not an alcoholic

is that unlike Alcoholics, I can quit drinking whenever I want to. I've quit drinking many, many times. Whenever the limit of remorse is high enough, I can stop drinking and I I could always stop drinking. My problem has never been that. My problem is after I stopped drinking I'm doing OK, but somehow or other be talking about at the break. It's almost though somebody

puts an invisible spring in my gut

and in a couple of days they start tightening. It

has done in commodities. I need a drink. Just comes out as Jesus is a crappy place. Crappy people, crappy family, crappy neighbors, crappy everything. I work for a crappy guy

that makes you kind of unpleasant and, but I, I, you can do that for two or three days with that. And I tried all sorts of things at one time. I I went to a psychiatrist in Milwaukee and I spent a lot of money

and I took his pills and I read his book and he worked with me, but it didn't quite get rid of it. I've still got it. And I discovered somewhere along the line, how do you know how to get rid of that feeling? Have a couple drinks.

MMM.

Oh Jesus, that's good.

Then you feel pretty good again,

and if that were my problem, I would be home free. But my problem is I don't seem to stop drinking when I feel good. I seem to keep going and all of a sudden it's 11:30 at night in the bar. I went another five for a minute and I was 730 and I'm drunk again and somebody give me hell about my drinking and I

my problem is not alcohol. My problem is how to stop in before I get into trouble,

you know, and that all that crap

and I worked on that. I spent years just sitting thinking to myself,

playing little games with myself how to do it, how to do it.

But my big problem is all is going to a bar on the way home. Just have a couple drinks, drink one drink, feel better, drink another drink that says let's party. And at 11:30 I think, oh damn it, I'm late again.

And so I, I was trying to find that solution

and I'm, but I'm not really an alcoholic. I wish I were, but my problem is not alcohol. My problem is I thought about this a lot is my emotions. I feel things too intensely. It's almost as though I suppose that I should have a layer of something over me that isn't over there over me. And I feel things too much and I can see when people are screwing me around

and I think I can see how crappy they really are and on and on. And it makes me upset.

I want things to be nice. I want to see people with crappy people in crappy situations. I don't want to get lost trying to find

this place

and so I

I went to a a off and on and AFL maybe might help me 'cause they talk good on but a try to be a place for people to. I no longer have anger,

I no longer have rage. I found a loving God and that's all I need. I'm doing like me. You think that's what screw you?

What do you know? I'm not an alcoholic. I can't return to God this evening. That's the two things you have to do in a a quit drinking and return to God and become wonderful and I can't do that. I am naturally not guy geared for that.

And so I I went to over these years between jobs, I had to scramble for a job all the time. She had all those kids and I've often I hear people talk sometimes and they say, well, I just took a year off for drank that whole year. You won't do that if you get a bunch of kids in your house saying food, food, food.

You scramble. And I did that and I

did all right.

Then when my little boy died, I, I really made an effort to quit drinking. And I did not quit really, but I tried to quit

and

when I was working in Texas

and and I quit in trying to be and everything was fine. We said a little prayer for baby John every meal, and I was home every night. And then,

as it had to happen, I guess somebody snuck into my bedroom one night and put an invisible spring in my gut. When I got in the morning I was nervous again,

not didn't want to drink, just

Jesus. How do I get in this situation

and I but I thought I can get through this for baby John. But the next day it was even worse as very tense and by Friday I was just crazy. I needed something to take the heat off me. I didn't know what to do and I got the more I just did. I feel terrible. I'll go and get some coffee. That's what I need. Went to the kitchen, there was no coffee. Little note there for my wife saying I've taken the girls to church.

Yeah, that's great. When I eat a cup of coffee, you're in that damn church. Well, screw you. And I went out the garage and I was just crazy. I took a hose and ran it from the exhaust pipe into the car and

turned on the motor and went to sleep and died. I just couldn't couldn't stand it anymore and apparently my neighbor was sitting his breakfast nook and watching me do this

and I didn't come out of the car. So we ambled over there and found me dead in the car.

They pulled me out and they beat on my chest. They rushed me to the hospital, worked at me for a couple days and then they decided I seem to have some emotional problems they felt. So they examined me and determined I was emotionally unstable and committed me to the state insane asylum for an indefinite period. Now that is a bit of an overkill, I think.

I,

I want to, I'll tell you, small town nut houses are bad places. They're always made of bricks and just had some bad attendance. Oh,

I remember the first night I was in the Big Spring State Hospital, just got to sleep, almost just get to sleep. And I heard somewhere around me,

oh shit. But eventually you get used to the evening scream and then you

and

I did not ask for a while. They noticed that my resume in El Paso. I had been on the faculty of the University of Texas at El Paso staging a grand opera called

Mephisto El Mephistopheles. And so on that basis, they allowed me to drive direct a Christmas pageant in the Nut House.

And

not very complex, just trying to hold the three wise men off the verge of Mary as much as you've got it too.

And later that year I got next summer. I I was getting restless. I wanted to get out of there. I didn't know how am I ever going to get out of here because every time I got restless did make give me some more check marks again.

And at that time Texas did something that I didn't ever dream of. I heard about it later. They made a new law that whoever puts you in the nut house, whoever inside your commitment papers,

they could get you out if they agreed to be your supervisor to take responsibility for you. And I heard that and I kind of started writing the most wonderful letters to my wife. Oh, honey, I've learned my lesson. I have to be near you to live.

And finally she came down and got me out. Then I got a job in Dallas at this big advertising agency. Tracy Locke. Or none of you are old enough to remember

Elsie number the boarding house. I don't imagine somebody a couple of old guys back there remember. But I wrote those ads. It was very, very successful. And they called me in one day and said, you know, Clancy, you really write well. Thank you very much. But we are the head chairman of the Freedoms Corporation visiting our mission

business lately yesterday. And we took them through the meetings and we went to your office and you were drunk

and you talked rudely to him. And he was very upset because he's a religious man. And we promised him that we would fire you and try to see that you never worked again. I think God, what a craphead you are, he said. So I want you to be out of your office at 5:00 tonight, clean it out and go home. We call. I called your home and told your wife that we were going to do called her yesterday.

I thought that's redone. That's really crappy.

So she gets a running start on me and

he said, I'm, I'm giving you a very, very big severance check, 'cause we appreciate what you did for us, but we can't have you here. And I went down and cleaned out my office and went down to got a little room in a motel and made some new friends with my new money and we drank and had parties and fun. Then I ran out of money and I had to go home.

Couple days later I didn't want to go home and hear that same old

dribble, but I got home and there was nobody there. Nobody home. No furniture, no nothing. All my clothes in a pile on the floor porching. We can't take any more. We're leaving now that isn't that just like them? Make one mistake and they turn on you.

But I I figured she probably turned me in. She probably turned me in. And so I had to get out of that state and I got AI knew a guy that had a car that he wanted delivered to Los Angeles.

So I I said I'll do it. And the first day I got as far as El Paso, where I had a lot of friends, found a good way to hide my car, went to Juarez where I'm a living legend.

By midnight I was standing on the bar. The Chinese Palace once year more yo soy El maestro de Los locos and Chihuahua.

And my fans were saying I thought that meant welcome

and next year, I guess the old Phoenix. I got the jam with somebody in the Mundum Phoenix jail all night long. Woke up in the morning so sick and I'm kind of there terrible. And I got to Los Angeles finally, where I didn't know his soul. And I

one thing I've learned in years of slipping there's one If you're a slipper and you have no place to go, there's one place you're always welcome. And a a club is the only place in the world where the worse you look, the better they like it. Welcome. Welcome.

So I went to a club and I got in and I had no money

and the manager of the club said you can't hang around here. Let's remember I'm gonna let you do it 'cause you're gonna die in our parking lot, I suppose. But

you can win the club with three rules. You can't ask anyone for money which you've already done none of your smart aleck sarcastic remarks and you have to go to a meeting every night.

I was reading one night in that club woman brought in a big tray of chocolate cake slices and about 4 lbs of that so I could build up my strength and I went every day and I thought God I can't stand this. This is cruel and unusual punishment because of these idiots talk. But I I stuck around. The manager says you can come in here, but you you under those rules.

And on Friday, I saw a guy in the meeting I'd seen in the movies. I thought, oh, oh, actor

with money. I bet he'd like to have a new friend.

And I had no teeth. I give my gum a smile

and it turned out that he didn't want a new friend. But over a period of time, he asked me my sponsor,

and he saved my life and he did certain things for me. He showed me I was an alcoholic and he showed me that I don't have to return to God in a A and that there's a way to go here. And if you're new today, let me tell you. I know we're running a little bit late, but I might as well tell you anyway.

How could I be an alcoholic? Remember telling him, I said, Bob, I told you about these emotions and these feelings. What do you think my problem is? He says, I think you're an alcoholic. I said, how could I be an alcoholic when my problem isn't really alcohol,

it's a lot of other things, he said. Kid, Alcoholics aren't people whose problem is alcohol. Alcoholics are people whose answer is alcohol. If it's your answer, you're stuck with it for the rest of your life.

And I thought about that later that that's, you know, I've always been able to quit, but I always have to start again and think you're so crappy. And I said I but I can't return to God. He said you don't have to return to God. Said why don't you read the steps once in a while on the wall.

Step 2 says came to believe from wherever you are. You're coming to believe in something, can't you believe it in power greater than yourself as I don't think so. He said can't you believe in a loving God?

No, he said.

Do you think I'm doing better than you are? Of course you are, he said. Congratulations, I'm your new higher power

and I could believe in that because I do. He's trying to help me. And he gradually took me through the steps. And much to my surprise, I was eventually stayed sober and I held a job finding crappy little job busboy. But I had a job and I was three years sober.

Can I get me some juice and a big melted corporation? And when there's a beginning writer. And two years later I was director of advertising for the whole corporation.

And with Emma S5 years over, my same wife and children. Oh, they heard the crinkle of green in my wallet all the way to Texas,

leaked out of their post office box and came to my side,

attached himself with a group of starving chiggers.

Nine months and 10 seconds later, another Catholic hit the street.

But somebody gave me a book on the rhythm system that I memorized. That baby, I'll tell you

when I was 15 years sober, when I was 15 years sober. Look back, remember thinking about the first day I got last chance it got sober last day I drank. I'd been thrown out of the Midnight Mission and Skid Row Mission. Two guys threw me out on the sidewalks. They don't come back I, you dirty bastard, But I hear I was now as a publicist for Big Beverly Hills firm,

had another little boy growing up, had my family,

but I just didn't feel right. I have a big house out in the West Side and my kids were doing well. You know, some of them were in college already. And I, my sponsor had died. I had a new sponsor named Chuck Chamberlain and I went to him. I said I don't know what the Hell's wrong with me, but I got everything anybody should have to be happy, but I don't feel good. He said, I know your story, boy. He said. You went down awfully quick

and you came back up awfully quick,

and I think you just don't feel you don't deserve it. I don't think that's it. But I started to watch out for things I could do to feel like I deserved it. So once I found myself going down to fill in briefly at the Midnight Mission, that terrible place, and I hung out in there and I really got to like it.

I told my wife, I said I think I might take that job. She said they paid what, 5000 a year? And you're making 100,000 a year. You think a little bit of a chop off?

I said yeah, but I can do it. So I went down there and I told him I'd run the midnight mission for six months until they found somebody and then my savings would be gone. But tomorrow morning I go go back there. I've been there for 42 years now waiting for something good to happen.