From War, Booze, and Chaos to 49 Years Sober: AA Speaker – Howard W.
AA speaker Howard W. shares 49 years of sobriety from his Navy drinking days through war, marriage struggles, and finding AA fellowship in Montreal.
Howard W., a Navy veteran from Alberta, Canada, found AA in Montreal after 28 years of military service and progressive alcoholism that nearly destroyed his marriage. In this AA speaker meeting, he walks through his journey from wartime drinking and dangerous blackouts to 49 years of sobriety, emphasizing how a fellow member’s blunt honesty about Step 1 finally broke through his denial after five years in the program.
This AA speaker shares his story of Navy service, alcoholism, and recovery spanning 49 years of sobriety. Howard W. describes his progression from teenage drinking in wartime Alberta to dangerous incidents during his 28-year naval career, including hospital visits from alcohol poisoning and reckless behavior. He details how a confrontational moment from another member about truly accepting Step 1 transformed his understanding of powerlessness after five years of attending meetings but not fully surrendering.
Episode Summary
Howard W. opens his talk with characteristic humor, joking that St. Patrick was Ireland’s first AA member because “he got rid of all the snakes.” Behind the laughter lies a powerful story of 49 years in recovery that began during his service in the Royal Canadian Navy.
Growing up in Inisville, Alberta, Howard was just ten when his father left for World War II. By the time his father returned six years later, Howard was already “well into his cups” at sixteen. That first night of his father’s homecoming, Howard got drunk – a pattern that would define the next decade of his life.
Howard knew from his first drink that he was different. “Every time I ever took a drink in my life, I wanted another one. And there was nothing I could do about it,” he explains. At 21, a Navy doctor in Halifax told him he was allergic to alcohol and should never drink again. Like many alcoholics, Howard took this medical advice as a challenge rather than a warning, drinking for two weeks straight and then deciding his problem wasn’t what he drank, but who he drank with.
The stories from Howard’s Navy years read like a cautionary tale about untreated alcoholism in uniform. There was the cross-Canada train trip where he got so drunk he woke up in his underwear after getting sick on a fellow passenger’s wedding dress. The night he set his pajamas and mattress on fire, then calmly moved the evidence to someone else’s bunk. The incident with an illegally imported monkey that earned him the nickname “monkey man” at Vancouver’s airport. Each story reveals the progressive nature of his disease and his uncanny ability to talk his way out of consequences.
Howard’s drinking escalated during the Korean War. A chief petty officer told his commanding officer not to send Howard to Japan, warning “he’ll drink himself to death.” Instead, Howard was stationed safely in Edmonton, where he met Jesse, a brilliant high school classmate who would become his wife and recovery partner.
The turning point came in Montreal. After a particularly violent drunk where he nearly threw Jesse down the stairs, she asked what he planned to do about his drinking. Howard had heard about AA through a Navy friend and reluctantly agreed to make the call. The man who answered was Dan, an ex-judge who cut straight through Howard’s prepared excuses: “You can quit lying now. I’ve heard them all.”
Howard’s first AA meeting that snowy night connected him with Dave B., AA trustee and the first member in Quebec. Dave’s story appears as “The Man Who Mastered Fear” in the Big Book. Hearing Dave speak about feelings rather than just drinking war stories gave Howard hope that this program might be different.
However, Howard’s early recovery wasn’t smooth. Despite attending seven meetings a week and working in service positions, he struggled with doubt about whether he was truly alcoholic. He describes two near-slips where something intervened – running out of gas while driving other members home, or finding his old nightclub had lost its appeal when viewed through sober eyes.
The real breakthrough came after five years of sobriety during what Howard calls his “whining” period. AA speaker talks on surrender and acceptance often describe similar moments of truth, and Howard’s was particularly direct. An old professional gambler in his Victoria meeting listened to Howard complain, then stood up and said, “If that fat boy would just realize that he hadn’t done Step 1, he might get someplace.”
That confrontation sent Howard walking the streets of Victoria for two hours, furious but ultimately recognizing the truth. “I decided after two hours of discussion with myself that the old gambler was absolutely right. And I haven’t wanted to drink since and I haven’t needed to drink since.” This moment illustrates how genuine spiritual transformation can come through fellow members’ honest feedback.
Howard’s commitment to service work became legendary. He describes answering phones, making twelve-step calls, and the importance of training newer members in service positions. “Service in this program is very important to all of us,” he emphasizes. One of his most meaningful service experiences was working with his sponsor to deliver refurbished toys to needy families in Point St. Charles, Montreal’s rough Irish district.
His sponsor played a crucial role in Howard’s development. The man who called him “about as humble as Hitler” also pushed Howard into speaking commitments and prison meetings when Howard was terrified of public speaking. This pattern of sponsors pushing sponsees beyond their comfort zones appears in many recovery stories, including other talks about the transformative power of sponsorship relationships.
Howard’s marriage to Jesse survived not just his drinking years but also his early recovery mistakes. He admits to being a “meeting nut” who attended seven meetings weekly while Jesse stayed home alone. Both found their paths – Howard in AA and Jesse in Al-Anon, where she also accumulated 49 years. Their two children, ages two and infant when Howard got sober, never knew a drinking father.
The spiritual dimension of Howard’s recovery developed gradually. Initially ashamed to believe in God (“sailors don’t really unless the ship is sinking”), he came to see divine intervention in both dramatic sea rescues and quiet AA moments. He shares the complete Serenity Prayer, noting how Bill Wilson adapted it from a pastor’s longer version, showing how AA wisdom often comes from multiple sources.
Howard’s honesty about his character defects continues into long-term sobriety. He describes being a compulsive buyer who once purchased a $5,000 electric organ on impulse and never learned to play it. “You’re not always straightened out in the head when you sober up either,” he admits with characteristic humor. These ongoing struggles keep him connected to the newcomer experience and valuable as a sponsor to eight or nine men facing similar challenges.
The talk concludes with Howard’s gratitude for 49 years of freedom from the obsession to drink. His story demonstrates that recovery isn’t about perfection but about honest self-examination, willingness to be changed, and commitment to helping others find what he found in the rooms of AA.
Notable Quotes
Every time I ever took a drink in my life, I wanted another one. And there was nothing I could do about it.
If that fat boy would just realize that he hadn’t done Step 1, he might get someplace.
I haven’t wanted to drink since and I haven’t needed to drink since.
You can quit lying now. I’ve heard them all.
Service in this program is very important to all of us.
Sponsorship
Service Work
Long-Term Sobriety
Fellowship & Meetings
▶
Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
I brought my own bottle in case you people haven't got any. You know, today is St. Patrick's Day in case you people don't know it. Nobody has said anything about it except this morning, and that was a lady that said that. So I'm going to start out. Did you know that St. Patrick was the first member of AA in Ireland? Now just think about that for a minute. He got rid of all the snakes. And I've had a few of those snakes and I know what they're like. And I'm awful glad for St. Patrick.
In that same line, there's a tale that goes around about little Patrick. Patrick was an awful drunk. And this was before AA, and Patrick finally died in the drink. They laid him out in the living room, and the mother was bringing the people through to see him. The first guests arrived and they said, "Oh, poor Patrick. Poor Patrick. What did he die of?" And she said, "Gonorrhea." And everybody kind of ducked and walked away.
Finally, one of the sons came over and said, "Mother, mother, why are you telling everybody Dad died of that terrible disease when you know he died of diarrhea?" And she said, "Far better that they think he went out as a sport than he really was." And that's what started. Now, you'll have to excuse my French, but that's the only one I know. So, sorry about that.
My name is Howie and I'm an alcoholic. I'm old and I'm on oxygen and I don't really care. How's that? I'm pleased about it. Anybody that can make it this far in life has got to be pleased about it because God's been good to you. And don't ever forget it. He has really leaned us out there and said, "Howard, I'm going to put you through some stuff, but somebody's going to carry it." And it's been the organization of AA and the fellowship of AA that has carried me through. And with a lot of prayers from a lot of people in AA, I've gone through quite a bit and I'm not the least bit sorry about it. In fact, I'm grateful.
I was born and raised in a little town in Alberta called Inisville. I'm going to tell you a bit about that story because I think it's important. When the war broke out—the Second World War, that is, in case you people don't remember—we had one, you know. I was ten years old and I remember I delivered the telegrams to my father that said report for duty. War has broken out. And I never saw him again for six years after he left. The army, and by the time he came home, of course, I was sixteen, seventeen, and I was well into my cups by then.
I remember the first night that they got home, I got stinking drunk. And the amazing part about it, my mother used to get really upset, but Dad never did because he just knew, "Well, it's another soldier." He said, you know. My mother was upset about it, but nobody really said anything. But I knew from the day that I took a drink that I didn't handle it the same way as other people. I just didn't. Every time I ever took a drink in my life, I wanted another one. And there was nothing I could do about it.
Now, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the medical side of it, really explains that. It says you can't look at alcoholism without looking at the physical side of it. And I believe I was truly allergic to alcohol. And in fact, when I was twenty-one years old, I was thrown at Christmas Day in Halifax. I was thrown in a hospital—the Navy hospital. They had me all wired up and my heart was pounding so bad that I thought I was going. The doctor told me a couple of days later when they got me settled down, shot full of vitamin B and all that good stuff. He said, "Uh, young man, I think that you're allergic to alcohol and you should never drink. It's dangerous."
So, like the typical alcoholic that I was, I didn't drink for two weeks. I really didn't. And I thought I had cured myself. This guy told me I shouldn't drink. I won't drink. And then I decided that my problem was not what I was drinking. It was the people I was drinking with. I had to get away from them. So I got away from all my friends in Halifax. I got moved to the West Coast. And that's where I wanted to go in the first place.
I got on the train and the boys had provided me with a whole little Tachi case full of rum and a few other drinks and I got on the train and I was drunk before we left the station. And I got into more trouble on that bloody train than you'll ever believe. Let me tell you a few of this tells you the character of me when I'm on a drunk.
I got on, as I said, I got drunk before I left the station. And then I met a girl and I had all this rum. She liked rum. We got in her bunk. I got thrown out of her bunk. And the next thing I know, I woke up and I'm in the smoking parlor rather, and there's a big black man there—that's the porter—and he's saying, "Uh, man, you're in trouble. You're in trouble." And I said, "What did I do?" And I said, "Where are my clothes?" And I was in shorts.
He said, "You passed out in the smoking room last night and I threw you in your bunk and I did. I took all your clothes because I thought you might get sick. And you did." And I got sick all over the girl down below me. But then I ran down the aisle to make it to the smoking room and he said, "Some old lady stuck her head out and screamed because I had no clothes on and you're in trouble."
And you know, by the time we hit Montreal, I figured I was going to jail for sure. And I talked the girls that I got sick on into me paying for dry cleaning. And I forgot to tell you it was her wedding dress I got sick on. She was going to get married. I know this sounds like a sailor's tale, but it's not. It's the truth. And I talked my way out of it as I normally could. And I got off in Montreal and got drunk for three days and rode the rest of the way to Alberta without any meals or any food because I was broke.
And they say when you spend like a drunken sailor, you don't take long. You don't take long at all to not have a nickel because when you're making thirty-five dollars a month—no, forty-six a month—you don't get drunk too long. And I stayed in the Navy for twenty-eight years. And I didn't think I'd ever get over it. I was single then and I didn't really give a damn. And I got back and I got promoted. That's another thing I could never understand. They promoted me to petty officer and I was back on the West Coast.
The first night that I slept in the single men's quarters, I set my sleeve on fire on my pajamas. I was. And the mattress caught on fire and a few other things and you know, I got up just as smooth as could be. I put the fire out with a bucket of water and I moved the mattress onto somebody else's bunk and I went in and I went to sleep. And that was it. And I escaped like that a lot.
Then the Korean War broke out and they were talking about posting me. In fact, I was supposed to leave the next day. I was supposed to leave for Japan and I was to be the supply petty officer in Japan, supplying the ships that were fighting in Korea. And I heard the chief that was in charge of me said, "Uh, are you really sending him over to Korea, Japan?" And the officer said, "Yes, that's my intentions." And he says, "Don't. He'll drink himself to death." And it was true. And I got sent to Edmonton. That's where I spent the Korean War. It's very safe in Edmonton, you know, except if you're the bartender, and I was. And I almost drank myself to death.
And in that time, I met a sweet little girl called Jesse. We'd gone to school together. Matter of fact, Jesse was the brilliant student in high school and I was following behind her about thirty-nine behind her and there was only forty in the class. So that's got to tell you something. I was into the booze then and Jesse used to get quite a kick out of me because I had a disappearing act. I'd go to school, register, sit by the window, and soon as the teacher turned her back, I'd go out the window and gone for the day. And I held down a full-time job in between and it was wartime and they needed people.
As I said, one of the things I really discovered that I really was allergic to alcohol and all kinds of things happened to me after that. I started. Jesse and I got married and we moved to the West Coast and I was on a ship out there called the Stettler, and things started to happen on the Stettler. I had a very good boss. He used to send me down to court every once in a while and I was duty-free and I'd get into it and I ended up in Vancouver one night. Ended up in a hospital and I was vomiting blood and I was hemorrhaging.
And I always remember those doctors because they always said, "Were you drinking much?" You know, "You're stinking of it but you can't tell them that you were drinking much." I said, "No, I was at the Legion and had three beers. Now I'm sipping a rum, so how you going to be able to tell?" But they let it go at that.
And that trip I remember very well because they kept giving me enemas every day that I was in there so they could take X-rays. And I got so that I got a sore ass out of it. That's about all I got. And I came back and they said the diagnosis was suffers from acute gastritis. Now I don't know any alcoholic that drinks at all that doesn't have acute gastritis every morning because I always did.
That was the ship and I know I'm telling sailor tales here, but I think it's important that you know just how crazy that some of us are. There's not just a physical thing to it. There's a mental obsession. I knew I shouldn't drink physically. I knew that if I took one drink, I was going to get drunk. And yet I kept thinking it'll be different the next time. And so on on this particular ship, Jesse was still in Edmonton and I was to go and get her. We just docked. We'd come around from Halifax to the West Coast and we had just docked and I was to fly home that night.
And this is where I picked up the name the monkey man. I was going to go ashore and fly to Edmonton. And I was going ashore and somebody had bought a monkey down in Panama. And as I went to go ashore, he jumped on my shoulder, wrapped his tail around my neck, and away I went. And I went out to the airport, and I'm all snapped up on that good rum that we had. And I tried to get on the airplane, and they wouldn't let me. They said, "You can't get on the airplane with that monkey." And I said, "What monkey? You're seeing things." And they didn't believe that. They wouldn't let me on.
And so I went to the Legion down the street and I drank the day away. And I woke up at three o'clock in the morning in a hotel. I had no idea where I was. I was in this hotel and sitting on the end of the bed was this bloody monkey. And it was going. And if you think you woke up from a drunk trying to get rid of snakes, try and get rid of a monkey that's been landed illegally in the first place.
So I took the monkey back and then I had to go to the airport and you know, everybody in the airport was saying, "Look, there he is. That's a monkey basket." Okay. And you feel about this big. And I remember I met Jesse in the airport or on the sidewalk in Edmonton. She didn't know I was coming home and I was shaking so bad and I said, "God, it's cold in Edmonton. I'm just freezing to death." And it was the shakes is what I had. I was. It didn't take much to make me sick. And it got worse and worse and worse.
And Jesse and I ended up then being posted to Montreal and it was supposed to be for two years and I arrived down there and they posted me to be an instructor. Now, one of the things that they said when I was taking my training to be a petty officer was that this man is not recommended to be an instructor. And of course, that's the first place they posted me—to be this instructor. And I was terrified. I'm the guy that in grade one they asked me to read something and I got up and I peed myself. No, I'm not going to do that ever again. I've got a real fear about that. That's why I like podiums. They're nice. They're very good. You know, stay away from them.
In any event, we got to Montreal and things got worse. I got into all kinds of trouble. I remember chasing my car down the Atwater Drive at about one hundred eight miles an hour. I had a great big Buick and I got another guy driving my car rather and I'm sitting beside him and telling him to go like hell, you know. Get down there. We'll get some.
Well, it got worse and worse until finally one night I came home. Jesse by then was so fed up with me, she didn't know what to do. She, like all good wives that marry alcoholics, thought that she could reform me. And I really didn't want to hurt Jesse. I didn't want to hurt her at all. But the last time drunk I was on, I turned from a happy drunk to a physical one. I was going to throw her down the stairs and we lived in an upstairs apartment. And I was mean and cruel and I woke up in the morning. I didn't know what had happened overnight.
And Jesse said, "Uh, Howard, what are you going to do about your drinking?" And I had heard about AA through another friend of mine in the Navy who had joined it. He tried to talk to me about it and I told him to get lost. But anyways, I was faced with this and I said, "I guess I'll phone that AA outfit." She said, "Okay, I'll phone him for you." Something like that. I said, "Wait."
And the guy of course on the other end, his name, he was a big Irishman too. His name was Dan. He was an ex-judge, defrock, but he was an ex-judge. And Dan said, "Well, if he really wants to talk to us about it, he better get his rear end down here and talk to me." So I agreed that I would do it.
I always thought I went down by myself. I was always proud that I'd joined AA all by myself. You know, about four years ago or so, Jesse was speaking and she mentioned that she'd gone down to the AA office with me and I didn't even remember she went with me. But I do remember what happened when I got there. I remember Dan all the way down rather. I was thinking up what I was going to tell this guy down at the AA office. And I was going to tell him about if he had a wife like mine or he had a boss like me, my boss, mine that I got and all the problems that I got, he drank too.
And I got in the door and he said, "Uh, my name is Dan. You must be Howard." And I said, "Yeah." And he says, "Well, you can quit lying now. I've heard them all." And I didn't know what the heck to say. I really didn't. And Dan didn't lecture me like most of us don't. We don't lecture. What we do is we tell our story. And Dan told me his story. He'd been on the skids in New York and he'd been in Montreal and he'd been all over the place, but he had sobered up in. And he sobered up. And he told me that I don't need to go on with this suffering any longer. And he gave me those twenty questions, you know, the famous twenty questions. And I thought I did well. That's the first test that I ever took that I passed, you know. I had a fear of tests, matter of fact. And I got there anyways.
And Dan said, "Uh, Howard, the best recommendation I can make to you is you go to an AA meeting." And I went to my first AA meeting that night with Jesse and all the way down it was snowing like mad and I said there'd be nobody crazy enough to go out on a night like this to go to a meeting. And she said, "Well, we'll go anyway." She was pushing a little, just a little, you know.
And we got in there and a guy stuck out his hand and he said, "My name is Jimmy and I'm an alcoholic." And he said, "Uh, you must be a new fellow." And I said, "Yeah, how'd you know that?" You know, but it's so hard to tell. And in I went and I sat down in the back row with him and he bought me a cup of coffee because he knew I couldn't handle it. I was not just shaken from booze, but I was shaken because I was scared.
And if there's anybody new in this room tonight, you'll be scared. It's a big decision. It's a big place to go and you're scared that somebody's going to find out about you. And anyways, I went to that first meeting and I hit the bonanza. Eric mentioned it the other night that Dave B, he was an AA trustee and he was the first member in the province of Quebec in nineteen forty-four and Dave was the speaker for the night. Dave was a very small man. He wasn't a big man kind of, and his had a little bit Pauly in his arms. They used to shake a bit like this and I thought he was still drinking because of this arm going until he talked.
And you know, Dave meant a lot to me. He gave me my first Big Book in the first year that I got in AA. But Dave talked that night and he talked about feelings. He didn't talk a lot that night about his drinking days. He'd been in I don't know how many institutions. As I remember, he's number two in the Big Book if you want to read Dave's story. And he was a terrific man. Dave was so busy in AA at that time that he had an extra room in the basement where he could hide and he couldn't hear the telephone and they would—he would have to lock himself away because he was so busy in AA.
And I listened to him and he mentioned these feelings and I automatically knew that this was the kind of guy that I could listen to. And I did. I listened to him. And that was the last time that I drank really, was just the day before that. And it isn't that I didn't want to. I can recall in Montreal going to meetings and going to meetings and I get tired of them because I had a problem and my problem was I really didn't believe I was an alcoholic. I didn't really believe that I was like you people. I was a little different.
Most of the people in Montreal at that time were people that ended up on the skids or they'd been in jail or they'd had all kinds of problems and I hadn't gone that far. In fact, they questioned me when I first came in. "Are you sure you're an alcoholic?" After a while, I began to believe it wasn't, you know.
So, one night I decided, after I got fed up with going to all these meetings—I was going seven days a week—I decided I was going to go out and get drunk. Give it a trial. Just have a few. Go nightclubing. I want to live a little. So down I went to my favorite nightclub and all by my lonesome. I sat down. I ordered a Coke and I looked around and this seemed to me that this wasn't the same place that I used to drink in. You know, your thoughts change a little. There was dancing girls in this place and they'd all aged, you know, without that drink. They'd all aged, the whole bunch. And there were cracks in the wall. I never saw those before either. And they had the nerve to charge me a dollar eighty for a Coke. And I wasn't going to stay. And I got up and I left. And I never wanted to drink.
Another night I decided I was going to go drink and I went to my own meeting. And after the meeting, I was going to drive the guys home. They saw that there was something wrong and they said, "Howie, you'll drive us home?" So I loaded them in my little car to drive them home. And somebody stepped in and ran out of gas. I never got drunk. I went home and I went on an AA.
I moved to the West Coast and I moved all over the place after that and I went to constantly. And but I couldn't grasp that thing that people were talking about of serenity. I kept saying to guys, when the hell do you get this serenity you guys are talking about? Because I didn't have any.
And what the problem was that I was in an outfit called the Navy and say ninety percent of them drank and I was the sober guy that was sitting next to him. And I had difficulty with that. So I kept thinking, "Oh, you're different. You're different than them other guys. You never really went that far. You're young. I'm twenty-eight years old when I get in here."
So I went on that way for about five years and things had straightened around at home somewhat but not as good as it should have been. And I had a lot of problems. And finally I was at a meeting one night and it was a kind of a funny group. We had a real mixed bag of people. The book tells us that you know we are a bunch of people that wouldn't normally mix. Well, that's the kind of group I was in. They had everything in there. And this one old guy was a professional gambler. That's all he did. And of course, being, you know, I was higher than he was. He was just a bloody old gambler.
And I spoke and I wasn't really speaking. I was whining. You know how you get when you're really not satisfied with things in life. And I was whining away and he got up next to speak. And he said, "You know, if that fat boy that just spoke—God, that got my attention right now. I was a great man. What right he to call me a fat boy even if I was." If that fat boy would just realize that he hadn't done step one, he might get someplace. And I had five years in the program. I'd worked in service. I'd worked in this. I'd worked in that. I did all kinds of things for the good of AA, but I didn't look after myself and I didn't really accept that I was an alcoholic.
So that night in the streets of Victoria, I walked the streets. I was so mad at that guy. I had a number one resentment against this old gambler, Pex. And I decided after two hours of discussion with myself that Pex's text was absolutely right. And I haven't wanted to drink since and I haven't needed to drink since. And that's the kind of fellowship in this program that reaches out to you one simple statement and says here is the truth. Please accept it. And I did and I've been around ever since and a heck of a lot happier.
You know, when they first printed the Big Book, they talked about the first hundred men. We, the first hundred men of this program. And how many we got now? We got over two million kicking around in one hundred fifty countries of the world. And I've been lucky enough by being in that Navy to visit a lot of those countries and really enjoy different types of fellowship.
I can remember being in England going to a meeting in London or no, in Portsmouth rather. And they were conducting meetings there. They had never seen a Big Book. We brought ours along with us, the seven of us off our ship, and they had never seen a Big Book yet. They were all sober. They did it differently. They don't all do it the same way.
The group in Victoria that I used to go to, they call the roll every night. And I didn't realize it the first night that I was there. I didn't realize what they were saying. They said, "Well, we're going to call it." And they call out the names and they called out Howard. And I said, "Yeah." That meant you had a drink. I didn't know that. And they—this was the honesty part of the program where he answered, "Yes" or "Nay." And so they're different. Halifax was different.
I spent a year in Fort Churchill—all two of us, you know, was a big group. And I went. We went to the CEO of the base that was loaded with drunks. You could see them all over the place. And we said, "We're starting an AA group here and if you have anybody that you'd like to send over to our hall, we've got this space behind the theater, send them on over." He says, "Well, that's fine, but I haven't got any drunks in my division."
All right. CO's wouldn't see it either. So, and I went on in the program and did all the things that you're supposed to do in the program to keep you sober. And one of them is service. Service in this program is very, very important to all of us. You know, I was on telephone answering not too long ago, and we have a different system in Edmonton than you'd probably do, but our group has to take it the ninth of every month, and we get. And we have trouble getting people to take it because they're scared.
And you know, I'm thinking of giving some lessons on how to answer the telephone because most of the phone calls—if you'll remember, as you get a new person on the line, you know, you get those phone calls and they, you know, like Bob Newber, you get the phone and you say, "Uh, this is AA. Can I help you? You think you have a drinking problem?" "Oh, how much do you drink?" "Oh, not much." "How much is not much?" "Just two to six a day." "Oh, that's not bad. No, you probably haven't got a problem." And you hang up. Or you'd say, "No, go see ADAC. Don't see us and get put into your detox."
Yeah. And I think that's wrong. I think that we have changed our part of AA that hurts a lot of people because you can't—they won't always take you in a detox. I have a friend of mine in Victoria that was barred from all the detoxes in BC. Now he was pretty good. We could probably get him in in Alberta if he was around. So we needed to get people interested in service. So many don't know what it's all about and they're scared of it. It's not that they don't want to take telephone answering or they don't want to go on a twelve-step call. They don't know how to do it.
And it's up to the people that have been around for a while to train. We need to show them how to do it. And that's what we're doing at any of these functions like this, the roundup. We're showing other people that it works and it works well.
One of the things that I didn't mention tonight was I've got forty-nine years in the program, but my wife also has forty-nine years in Al-Anon. [applause] And she's been sober longer than I have. I can't understand that. I like what Dr. Bob had to say about that. For some reason, we alcoholics seem to have the gift of picking out the world's finest women. Why they should be subject to the tortures we inflicted upon them, I can't explain. And I feel the same way. I don't know why, but they have stuck to us.
And without Al-Anon, our marriage would have split many years ago. And we've been married—I don't know—fifty-four. Did I get that right, Jesse? Fifty-four years I think. [applause] Our two kids—one was two years old when I got sober and the other one was just a baby. And so they don't know anything about a drunken father. They know that I was in AA and they neither one of them has a problem.
Now sometimes you wonder about that. Do we pass it on to generations? Is this a gene that's in us? It doesn't make any difference. They'll have to handle it anyways. But I think there is something in that personally. My great-great-grandfather was a drunk. My uncle was a drunk. And it might go on, but not probably in this next generation. And they're not interested in it.
Another thing that Dr. Bob said that I believe a lot of us find out the is, "I come into AA solely for the purpose of sobriety." Who's been here through but it has been through AA that I have found God. And you know, a lot of us—I say a lot of us, but particularly me—I think in the beginning I think I was ashamed to believe in God. You know, sailors don't really unless the ship is sinking. They don't believe in God then. Then they swim like mad.
I always remember we were in the middle of the ocean and one of my shipmates was a little drunk and the ship rolled and he went over the side and there was man overboard. And we threw him a life buoy and they turned the ship around, come back, got him, fished him out of the water. His name was Spike Gillis. So I shouldn't give his anonymity away like that. Anyways, he came out of there and he was singing a song something about "Oh God has saved me now." And I said, "Not Spike, you never mentioned that before in your life."
And I've seen it. I've seen it at sea. I've seen God in his action at sea and savings people's lives and people hollering for God. And I've also seen it in AA. And we don't all of us don't get saved. Just before I left Edmonton, a very good friend of mine, I looked on her as a very good friend, a nurse, about forty years old, had their first year in AA and went on a slip and committed suicide. And we wonder why do those things happen?
And sometimes it's because we're so carried away with our own self, we don't pay enough attention to other people and we lose some unnecessarily. Or there's some judgment goes on and I think that I have to be very careful with that in this program. I've learned that you know, I even caught myself the other day saying, "Look at that nut got nailed for driving and drinking." And I must have drove drunk four hundred times and here I am accusing some guy of being a terrible guy because he was driving and drinking. We can't judge anybody, but we can sure pay attention to each other and try to help each other.
How many people are sponsoring people these days? You know, you're given this sobriety, but you got to give it away. It says that in the book. And I believe this book, by the way, this Big Book of ours is so close to anything that you know, we talk about our feelings and that everything that's said in there is true.
And you know, Bill didn't get it all just overnight. Bill didn't pick up this stuff by himself. A lot of it came from other people. And I thought, "Oh, you phony Bill." The first time that I saw that the Serenity Prayer in its full length. Anybody ever heard it? It's not just the four verses, but there was a pastor that put this out and it went, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time."
What do we talk about in the Big Book? "Enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardships as the pathway to peace, taking as he did this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that he will make all things right if I surrender to his will. that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever in the next. Amen."
A terrific prayer that Bill must have. I think he was pretty good at stealing stuff of other stuff, couldn't it? Now, Bill was, you know, was quite a man when you study him. Bill was very human. He was very human. He was just like you and I in a lot of things. He made a lot of mistakes. And I'm not criticizing, but I met a doctor in Saskatchewan once that had treated Bill. You know what he treated him with? LSD. That's hard to believe, but that's true.
And Dr. Hoffer was his name. And he lives in Victoria if he's still alive. Yeah. Is he? And he's a terrific doctor. He was trying to help alcoholics. And I attended one of his lectures in Saskatchewan at that time. I was at a university there. And he—I was a smoker then and I always remember him because he came in and he said, "How many of you in this room are smokers?" We all hand up our hands and he took a count and wondered what this was all about. The next day he came in and he had a bag, little brown bag, and it was full of those nipples that they have for babies and he said, "This is what you guys really wanted." And it's—I didn't take kindly to him. You know, he was a terrible man as far as I was concerned. He was a vitamin kick guy too.
And my sponsor got a hold of him. My sponsor believed in vitamins. He was always shoving them at me. His name was Murray Black. You might have remembered him. But Murray was always giving me vitamin B and vitamin this and vitamin that. And I didn't believe in them, but you know, I—lots of the bags never got home because I'd dump them on the side of the road. But Murray believed in them.
And he was a wonderful man. A lot of people in AA that I've met. Am I overtime or where am I? They—a lot of the people that I sponsored me when I came into AA really got to know me and they really told me things that nobody else would have told me. One day we were talking