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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. Good evening. My name is M Brewster and I am an alcoholic.

>> And on June the 15th, 1966, someone brought me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. and through the grace of a loving God and 12 steps uh people like you I haven't found necessary drink any alcohol go to jail and live the way I used to live to that I'm very grateful I'd like to start off here I got a lot of thank you here and uh first of all I want to thank you for uh not uh getting after me a little bit up here you know I went to Canada one time to speak and there was a a cop from England that was opening his meeting and he just turned me upside down before I got started. And then I got finally got the podium.

I said, "Well, you haven't been over here too long. You never cut a guy up and then give him the mic, you know." And and I ate that guy's lunch. Boy, I really got him good.

But uh I'm glad I'm here and I'm glad I got to meet Ro and I got some special people here to thank you know uh the board and especially I I know a lot of people in this room. I knew quite a few of you before I came over here and uh I I know a lot more now and I uh hope that before this uh weekend's up that I meet everyone here and I have a lot more friends when I leave. But I'd like to thank the board especially.

I've never been treated so good. Spoiled from the time they call me and asked me to come up here. I had people calling me wanting to know, you know, uh more about me.

And then when we got over here, they just uh class act, you know, as well. It's a class act. And u I'd like to thank especially my Joe Ben and his wife uh Eddie.

Uh they really treat us with kindness and a lot of fun and we've enjoyed their time here. And u and I also want to thank my wife Kate. I'd like for her to stand up.

Kay, would you stand up, please? When I first got invited to come over here, I she was working and uh she I was going to come by myself and it really been a pleasure being over here with us. We we had a good time and I'd like to thank all those people that were in charge of those walks.

You know, for the last three three days, we've taken a little walk in the hills here. And uh and uh I I just like to thank you for getting me back. And and uh and I I have some special friends here.

One of the board members and I forget who it was when we came in here a little early and uh we went to a little meeting. One of the board members said, "Mack, if you give a real good pitch, your hair I'll come back." And uh so I'm looking to find out which one of the board members that was and in case my hair don't come back and I can go on and on with this but another special friend of mine is June sitting here. Uh you know I got to come to this conference.

I didn't have to. I got to come and I'm always reminded of that when I come to and June used to remind me that I said that once in a while I'd forget but I do uh I got to come over here this weekend. And I'm glad to see June here.

And you you really get a treat tomorrow night. Uh her and I got to share in Arkansas one time in Hot Springs in a little town. And uh we're sitting in the Hilton Hotel and up on the hill on the side of the hill from the Hilton was a little lady sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair.

And I took June out and I told her I said that's my mama sitting over there on the hill. And it was she's sitting over there in a rocking chair. I can see her from the Hilton, you know.

So, I've had some uh this this program is made up of a lot of memories. It really is. A lot of memories come in.

And when I came in here this weekend, I met a guy named Charlie. And I met Charlie here four or five years ago. I guess it was four years ago when we were here.

And our lives have crossed from years. We both born in Texas. I ran away from home when I was 16.

went to see Charlie when I ran away from him in Texas when he was 15 and went to see. He beat me to the program by 8 months, you know. And uh Charlie, are you here?

Where you at? All right. Why don't you stand up?

And uh and I' I'd like just take a minute and uh have you think about and remember tonight when we close our prayer, there's a special couple that brought Tay and I up here about 5 years ago and his name's Charlie Charlie Bell and Betty Bell from U Houston. And when I went to Brazis about 1985, I met Charlie and he's leading the meeting like we are. We became friends and we traveled all over the world together.

They couldn't come up here this weekend because of Betty's help, but remember them in your prayers. And um Jim and Virginia from Waco, my friends here. Uh they came out to the world convention California and they came out with Betty and Charles and a week early and we got to know him and really been friends.

when he was out there in California, I introduced him to everybody as the guy that started the fire in Waco, you know, and uh I still have people come up and ask me, "Is that guy started the fire in Waco? Is he still sober?" So, they they remember you, Jim. Really do.

And uh with that, that that just about takes care of all the all the stuff. And we're going to get down to some business here. And uh my name is M.

Brewster and I am an alcoholic and uh my home group is uh in Cavina, California. It's a clubhouse called the 502 club. And in California, if you get caught drinking and driving and they give you a ticket and it's a 502 and our clubhouse has nothing to do with that.

It just happens at our clubhouse is located 502nd Street. And uh we have some fun people. We have a lot of very very active old-timers in our group.

We have a lady out there named Camille and she's been sober longer than dirt. And I mean, she is mean as a junkyard dog, that lady. And I hadn't seen her in a long time.

And she came into a meeting one day and I went over and got her a cup of coffee and I said, "Where you been, honey?" And she says, "Oh, I've been out 14th stepping." And I said, "14 stepping?" And she says, "Yeah, when you get too old at 13th step, they let you watch." It's It's funny when you you tell that the old-timers laugh and the newcomers look at each other. You know that. So, it's something that grows on you here.

Yeah. We have a uh another member of that group and I spoke on a waterfront for a maritime uh u lunch and they were having a a lunch and this guy came to this meeting and he's an old-timer and a from my group up in Cabina and he went blind a few years ago and he came up and they called him up to do a 10-minute pitch and he came up with his little cane and he hung it on the side of the podium and he said uh his came and then he said, "Uh, I want to tell you a story about a blind man and his dog." The place got very quiet. He said, "This blind man's going down the street with his CNI dog, and a dog walked him right into a telephone pole.

The guy fell back, cracked his head, damn near killed him." And a stranger ran over and got the guy a blind man up off the ground and uh brushed him off. And the Brian man reaches in his pocket and he pulls out a cookie and he starts calling the dog. And the guy says, "I don't understand this." Says, "The my god, the dog almost, he walked you right in that telephone pole.

Now you're going to give him a cookie." He said, "No, I'm just trying to find out where his head is so I can kick his ass. I got another one about our home group and it's very true. I went over to a uh meeting because some guy came in from St.

Louis and he went to see him taking a meeting that night and in our clubhouse we have about 40 meetings a week and uh we have a banner on the wall in our clubhouse says sobriety capital of the world and the old-timers in that group catch those newcomers and they actually convince them that that is the greatest meeting in the world greatest group and I I think we call it group pride and I think that if you're like I was when I got here I didn't have any pride in myself and we watch those newcomers latch on to that group pride and I always said if I'm away from home it's nice to speak at the second best group in Alcoholics Anonymous and if you don't feel your own group is the best uh don't come over messing ours up you know uh there's something about yours and that's the way I I am and uh I'd like to get down to business here and tell you about the last drink of alcohol I ever And I hope and pray it's the last drink that I ever had was on June the 14th, 1966 in a flop house on Anaheim Street in Wilmington, California. Now, there's a lot of Wilmingtons around the country and a lot of people don't know where Wilmington, California is, but um I'd like to tell you where it is. It's a little resort area on the way to Catalina.

And now that doesn't get any laughs here except from Charlie, you know, stuffed in between uh Long Beach and San Pedro and Los Angeles in the harbor, there's a little town called Wilmington. And uh I grew up in that town. I moved there when I was 13, 14 years old.

I grew up there. So I'm talking about a town that I knew something about. But uh it was uh about 10:00 in the morning and somebody beat on a door and I came too and I let him in.

It was a 16-year-old daughter of mine and I don't remember everything that took place in that room that night, but I remember this. I I remember these few things that she was asking me a lot of questions. They were very hard questions.

They were questions like, "Why are you drunk every time I come down here? Why aren't you working? Why aren't you paying my grandmother the money or now?

Those are hard questions. The only answer I had that day, I poured a water glass full of whiskey and I tried to get it down and I got it in my throat and I couldn't swallow it and I spit it back in the glass and that little girl was in there maybe 10 minutes, 5 minutes. Felt like it was an hour or two.

But when she finally left, as she was leaving, she told me about what it was like outside. She said, "The sun's out and the sun's shining and you're cooked up here in this room drunk again." Said, "Why don't you go out and set in the sunshine and try to see what you're doing to everybody that cares you and loves you and she left." So I find myself maybe an hour, half an hour later sitting out there beside the bill in one of those chairs and I had this drink in my hand and I get it in my mouth and I couldn't swallow it. I'd have to spit it back in the glass.

Now I know where there's this many alcoholics in a room. There's a lot of people here that had those mornings when you couldn't get nothing down. And I'd had them before.

It wasn't I knew if you're persistent, you hang in there and work at it, you'll get one down pretty soon. and then the show's on the road and you're gone again. But that day I was just having some real problems.

And I'm sitting out there and the sun was shining and a guy came out and he pulled up a chair and he had his shirt off. Big man, had two big eagles tattooed on his chest and he had a coffee cup in his hand. And this guy pulled up a chair and he sat and talked to me about my drink.

I remember he said, "You know, I used to drink the way you drink. I used to try to get him down when I couldn't. I have to put him back." But he says, "I don't live that way anymore." And that guy, I what I remember about him, he had the shiniest eyes I ever saw in my life.

And he sat there with that coffee cup and talked to me. And I used to tell people and aa for a long time that I did not know why I believed Annie that day. I know today, you know, the language we talk here in AA is the language of the heart.

One drunk talking to another. That's what took place in that uh beside that building a little over 31 years ago. One drunk talked to another.

And I think for a few minutes because I know Danny talked to me from the heart. And I think for a few minutes that day, I listen with my heart instead of my head. I was in a meeting one time where some guy told a newcomer, "Hang on to your seat because it's going to be a hell of a trip." And one of the old-timers there on the waterfront said, "No, the trip you're going to take is about that for your head to your heart.

That's where the trip is. You're in Alcoholics Anonymous." And I believe I took that trip for a few minutes that day because I believe that guy. When he got through with me, I believed him.

And he said, "If you'll go back in your room and shake it out, I'll come and get you tomorrow and I'll take you to a place where you never have to have another drink as long as you live if you don't want to." He didn't mention Alcoholics Anonymous. And he did not tell me what time he's coming to get me. He just said, "You go back in the room and shake and I'll come and get you tomorrow.

I'll take you to this place where you never have to have another drink." You know, I I don't remember if I ever finished that drink that day. I don't know if I ever got it down there or not. I don't even remember anything that took place in that room.

I know what happened the next day along about 2 or 3:00 in the afternoon. All hell broke loose. I came down.

I've been eating a lot of what they call speed back then. I got hooked on benzene when I was in the Marine Corps. And uh I used to eat uh eat those vanish and drink that whiskey and stand around watch my heart beat through my shirt, you know.

But that stuff will do weird things to you. It really was. And I was coming down off a 6, eight weeks run on that speed whiskey.

And I was having a hell of a day. The next day along about 2 or 3:00 there, something came in that room. And I'll tell you what it was.

You could have cut it with a knife. It was fear. Fear came in.

I'd been there before. I I' I'd walk that same walk a lot of times. I knew what I had to do.

But fear came in that room and I got frightened that this guy wasn't going to show up to take me to wherever he was going to take me. I remember that was like this s was getting dark and I go to the window and I'd look out and I pace some more. Pretty soon there was a knock on the door and I went and answered the door and a guy was there and I talked to Danny about it over the years about what we said.

He said we didn't say anything. We walked down the street a couple of blocks and turned on a little street in the harbor area there called Broad Street. And we walked down the few blocks more to the harbor and we sat down in the back of a union hall.

And there was 10 guys sitting in this meeting in this union hall. And I've heard people say they've been in Alcoholics Anonymous for years and they never saw anybody they drank with. Not true with me.

I knew everybody in the room. I knew everybody in that meeting. I'd either been to sea with them, I'd drank with them, been in jail with them, fought with them, something.

I knew everybody there, you know, and I didn't know what it what the game they were playing, but I sat there that night and I remember two or three things that happened. And one of the things that was hap that happened is these guys started praying. And I remember that I moved my chair a little further back from the table because I I didn't want to pray with them.

Then I remembered that uh somebody says, "Is there any alcoholics here?" And everybody in that room raised their hand except me. I can assure you that 31 years ago, the word alcoholic around the people that I drank with was a dirty word. You called somebody an alcoholic in a bar that I drank in and he'd knock you off that stool.

You know, it was a dirty word. I used to have a mother-in-law that used to call me alcoholic, you know. But she used to call me a communist, too.

So, it really didn't make any difference didn't make any difference about her, you know. I don't want to be no alcoholic. So, I didn't raise my hand.

Then I heard one other thing. Maybe the meeting was over and maybe it wasn't. But a guy said to me, he said, "Uh, you know, Mac, I don't know why you came here tonight, but he says,"I want to tell you why I came." He says, "I came here because I was sick and tired of being sick and tired." I'd never heard that before.

It just seemed like it put it together. Maybe I'm not an alcoholic, but I am tired. And I was tired.

I was 36 years old when the guy brought me to that meeting. And I'd already drank up two families by that time. I started losing stuff before most people got it.

Right. I drank up a wife, some kids, and a home out in Torrance, California. By the time I was 25 years old, I got another wife, some stepchildren, and I drank that up before I got here.

Had a dream. I grew up around the waterfront in Los Angeles. I hustled the waterfront during World War II in that popular war.

I found out that I could go down on the waterfront, make more money in one afternoon than most people could work in all week. I'd hustle the passenger ships or whatever. I carry luggage and I loved it.

And I built my self a little name down there as a kid that would do most anything for the approval of other men. And I would. And I did.

And I had a dream. And I wanted to be president of one of these unions. And I wanted to sit up there in that leather chair and wanted to walk in that long bar down in San Pedro, have that bartender pour my drink before I got there.

You know, I had those dreams and I I got elected president of a long shoreman Jr. when I was 29 years old. And I got that job because of what I would do, not what I knew.

And I drank that up before I got here. You know, the guy had that job before me. It was a four-year job.

He lasted three and a half years. He drank it up. I drank it up in three years.

You know, the same guys that sat in that union hall with me the night that I was elected and I sat in that leather chair and I put my feet up. We're drinking good scotch. And I said, you know, they better watch me, man.

I'll be going to San Francisco next and I'll get old Bridg's job, too. You know, had a lot of ego and I had a lot of pride. And I'll tell you something, Whiskey beat all that out of me.

And I don't stand up here before you and tell you that I picked up a drink one day and my life went to hell. It wasn't that way with me. I used abused alcohol for almost 24 years.

And somewhere in all that mess, I became an alcoholic. When I was new here, I wanted to know. I was about 30 days before I raised my hand.

One day, my hand just went up and I said I was an alcoholic. And but I I sat around for quite a while trying to figure out if I'm an alcoholic. When did I become an alcoholic?

Cuz I had a lot of fun drinking for a lot of years. When did I become an alcoholic? I used to ask people in meeting, think I'm an alcoholic.

Most of them say, "I don't know. You got to make up your own mind." But I asked this old-timer one day, and thank God for those old-timers in that waterfront meeting that I came into. This old-timer looked me right in the eye and he said, 'Yeah, I think you're an alcoholic.

I said, 'Well, when did I become an alcoholic?' He says, 'I think you became an alcoholic about the time you quit bragging about how much you could drink and started lying about it. You know, I'd see some heads shaking. You're damn right.

I used to brag about how much I could drink. And then there came a time when I'd lie about it. I'd say somebody get after me and I'd say, "I'm not drinking any more than anybody else around here now.

Leave me alone." you know, and that's the way it was. I remember in bars and I drank in bars all over the world. I drank in some of the finer spots, Charlie, like Post Office Street in Galveastston, Texas, you know.

And I'll tell you something, and Charlie agree with it. He's been all over the world. I have never seen a town like uh Galveastston was in the 40s, man.

That was a a place to drink. Party town. I drank in New Orleans.

I drank in San Francisco and in Barkadero Street and San Pedro. They had a place down there on Beacon Street. And it was a bar, famous bar, world famous called Shanghai Reds.

And I drank in Shanghai Reds when I was big enough to get on damn stool. And it was a was fun. There was no stigma to it.

It was fun. It was part of being a man. I heard somebody say here recently they didn't remember their first drink.

I remember my first drink. You know, I was born in Texas. I said that in a meeting over in Pomona near my house one night.

And so somebody yell up in the back, "That's all right. We still love you." You know, but I was born in Texas. My father got killed.

They shipped me off to Arkansas to live on a farm with my grandmother. Right out of Hot Springs, Arkansas, is a little town across the river there called Sunshine, Arkansas. Now, that's not the end of the world, but you could see it from there.

You know, it just right over the hill. I was introduced there to a a grandmother who raised me up and she was Southern Baptist. She was a member of the Antioch Baptist Church in Sunshine, Arkansas.

And I can remember when I was seven or eight years old, I used to go with her and we'd go up on the highway and we'd walk down the road to Sunshine to the church. And I remember those people used to ride by in their car and they'd wave to it. And then we'd sit in the front row and they'd tell us how much they loved us.

And then we'd walk home every now. That's what I saw as a kid. There was more to it than that, but that's what I saw.

Those people told us they loved us and I I fell in love. My grandmother told me every day of my life that she loved me, but yet I felt unloved all my life. I lived out there on a farm in Sunshine and uh when my mother remarried again, uh I moved in a little town in Hotring called Hot or in Arkansas called Hot Springs.

And um I thought everybody lived in the world lived the way they did in Hotring. In the 30s that was a wide open town. It was a gambling town.

All the gangsters came from all over the country to hot springs. It was like Vegas in the south. I attended school and I could hear the horses running on the racetrack and we'd sat in class and when I was eight or nine years old, we'd uh I learned how to read a racing form when I was 10 years old.

And we used to bet the daily double and stuff like that. And I thought everybody lived that way. And I go out the racetrack and I'd hustle that racetrack and I saw real men out there.

Real men out that racetrack. And I tell you what they were. Most of them had a nice suit on.

They had a drink in their hand. They had a handful of money and a nice looking lady on their arm and a smile on their face. And they beat anything I ever saw at that Baptist church.

And that's just the way it was with me. And I don't mean to be putting anybody down, you know. I'm not making fun of any rel.

Just the way it was with me. My mother remarried again and she married a big redneck. He's a redneck when I met him.

When I grew up with him, he's a redneck today. You know, few years ago, he had a bad heart attack and some operations. And he and I went down to Hot Springs to see him when he got out and he wanted some goats milk.

So, we got him in his pickup truck and we're riding him out in the country and some lady had sold goats milk. He rolls his window down, yells at the joggers to get a job, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. I said it worked the way I worked when I was that age. You wouldn't be running up and down the goddamn road, you know.

This guy built bridges. He drove a pickup truck and he drank whiskey. And he liked to fight.

And I used to go out on the job with him in the summertime and uh they would build these bridges. These guys would work a half a day on Saturday and then they'd stand in the middle of this bridge and and drank whiskey for a while. And I was out there fishing off the bridge and I arrived back to town with one of them.

And I was standing there by that circle that day and the jug came by and the old man took a big belt and he gave it to me. I don't know. Maybe I was 13 and I'm tall as I am today.

I was 6 foot by the time I was 13 or 14. I'm standing that man gave me a a drink of whiskey and I took it and I gave it to the next guy and for years. I never thought anything about it.

But you know when I got into my inventory later in this program, I discovered something. I got something from that first drink. You know what I got?

I got a nod of approval from other men for the first time in my life. something that I'd wanted all my life, just a nod of approval. I thought that drinking whiskey was part of being a man.

And I got it with the first drink. Then I wondered when I was new here and I sat in these meeting, why do I feel so bad sitting here? How am I going to go out in the world and function as a man without having a drink?

You know, it was part of the thing that I got from my first drink of alcohol. I left Hot Springs when I was 13, 14, maybe 13, and I moved to California right before the war started. And uh I hustled of docks.

I I did everything that I wanted to do and I had those dreams and I I fulfilled most of them. I came back from a big uh trip and I had a lot of money and I met a girl from Torrance, California, and got married, bought a house. I remember people used to come to me and they'd say, "Hey kid, you better slow down.

You're going to lose that house. You're going to lose that wife if you don't slow down." I don't ever remember anybody telling me to quit. I remember going into bars and I'd see some guy laying across the end of a bar drunk or a lady laying and I said to myself, I couldn't hold my whiskey better than that.

I'd quit. I remember that. I uh I became that guy that I used to look down the bar.

I had a lot of problem with authority all my life. I used to say I left home because I wanted to go to see I left home because they was no place for two guys that could run that show and my dad was the one that was going to run it there. So I end one turn your cassette over and continue to play on the other side.

with authority. And I ended up in the Marine Corps. And I'll tell you right now, it's a hell of a place to end up if you got a problem with authority.

And I came back to the docks. Another thing that happened to me that was pretty cool. Uh I was in uh LA and I was still going to sea then and guy came to me one day and he said you know they're going to put a big gambling ship off Long Beach.

They're going to anchor three miles out and they looking for some guys to go aboard that ship. But he said you got to have some connections. You know of all places to go they went to Hot Springs, Arkansas to get the dealers and all the guys to come out and run that ship.

And so through the people that work aboard a large gambling ship off the coast of California right after World War II, could you imagine having one out there today? My god. You know, we had water taxis just one right behind the other.

One side of the ship we loaded them on. The other side we took them off. You know, they were a lot lighter when they went off the other side, too.

And the Coast Guard finally came out and tore that party up and put a bunch of them in jail. I got to take the ship, be on board the ship when they brought it back in. And u that's some of the things I got to do.

I uh was approached one time, Charlie, and I was talking about it today. I approached one time by some guys and they were having a lot of trouble with some lot of non-union ships coming down out of Gooseway, Oregon, and some of the places up north. So for a year or so, I used to go up north and get on some of these ships and I bring them south.

Some of the things I did I'm not proud of. Not ashamed of them anymore neither. I just things that I had to do as an alcoholic I think to survive out there.

But I sabotage gear and equipment aboard some of these ships. And I got people hurt when they got to the harbor. They couldn't even unload their ships most of the time.

And I became known as a young man that would do most anything for the approval of other men and keep his mouth shut. Back then they call it holding your mud. you just keep your mouth shut.

And that's when I got elected onto that union. I was all bluff and they most of most of them knew it. But I did a good job for a while and then the alcoholism took over.

I drank up my second wife after I got that job. Then I remember the night those guys came and uh with a letter from San Francisco and had Harry Bridges take my job away from me. I remember walking down the the main street was Avalon Boulevard in Wilmington.

I'd be walking down towards the harbor and I'd see somebody coming down the street and I'd cross over to the other side of the street because I couldn't remember what lie I told them the last time I saw him. Somebody stop and offering me a ride and I'd say, "No, I'm just walking down to get my car out of the shop." Now, they knew I didn't have a car. The worst part was I knew that they didn't that they knew.

Yeah. I had a lot of fun drinking. Had a lot of fun drink.

I used to drink in a place on in middle of Long Beach. There's a hill called Signal Hill. And I used to drink on Signal Hill and it's the best place in the world to drink.

You go up there on Friday afternoon with a pocket full of money. You drink your way down the hill over the weekend. If anything happened to you, got in any trouble.

If you didn't kill anybody at 10:00 on Sunday night, they opened the doors, threw everybody out. If you didn't have any money, they give you some money to catch a bus or cab home with. And I love to drink up there on Sigal Hill.

And I had a lot of fun. Spent a lot of money. Had a lot of fun.

Almost died. If I'd had that much more fun up there on that hill, you'd had a different speaker here tonight. I had a guy almost beat me to death up there.

He uh he beat me sober in the parking lot. I got a steel plate here in my face. He kicked my cheekbone right through the roof of my mouth.

Broke my nose, kicked my ribs in, and stomped my hand. Every time I tried to get up, he was in the old school. Get a guy down, you don't let him up.

And that's the way it was. Now they shoot him, you know. Now you shoot him to start with, I guess.

But back then, this guy kicked me sober out there in that parking lot. And I can talk about it today and it was over 34 years ago and I can still taste blood in my mouth and remember choking over my own blood and that guy whailing away and he wasn't going to let me up. Cops hadn't came there that night.

He' have beat me to death. That's a sad story. That was me out there in that parking lot.

That wasn't just some stranger, you know. Three days later, I got a hit like a watermelon. I'm sitting in a in a bar drinking with some of my friends and we're laughing about it.

It was like it happened to somebody else. You know, play the game, you do the things, you you pay the price and I was willing to pay the price back then. Then I think it became a time down there on that street when Danny picked me up in 1966, the price had been paid and there was nothing left.

We was talking about it today. How do you know when somebody reaches bottom, you know? One of the old-timers in that maritime meeting told me, he said, "You know when he reaches bottom when he quits digging." And I just guess I quit digging down there one day.

But they took me under the arm and God bless him. They were a group of old-timers in the maritime ministry that believed in not letting a newcomer sit around till he thought he ought to work the steps. They drug you screaming and yelling right into those steps, you know.

And that's what they did to me. And this guy that brought me to a I went to a meeting one day and somebody said, "Do you have a sponsor?" And this guy says, "Yeah, I'm a sponsor." I couldn't remember signing up or any of the stuff, you know. And one day somebody says, "Are you working the steps, Mac?" And they he says, "Yeah, he's working the steps.

He's on step one." And I didn't even know what the steps were. And I furthermore, I really didn't care, you know, and I'd sat in meetings when I was new and I'd try to figure a way out of this. I always sat in the back when I was new because you hear different back there, you know, truly do.

I heard a guy standing up at this podium like I am tonight one day at a meeting and I almost fell out of my chair. This guy says, "I came to AA and I only drank beer." I thought, "My god, I drank beer when I wasn't drinking, you know, and I don't mean to offend the beer drinkers, you know. I have met a lot of good alcoholic beer drinkers since I've been here, but I didn't know that then, you know." And I heard another guy, like I told you, 502 in California if you get caught drunk and driving.

And this guy said, "I came to AA because I got a 502." And I think, well, why would you come here if you still had a car? Tell you something, I wouldn't have came if I had a car. I don't believe him.

And it was noisy, like I say, in the back. And this guy uh got up the podium one night and he said, "I came to A and I got my wife and my kids back." I never forget that. This guy started crying.

I'm sitting back there and I'm watching him and I thought, "God, I can't even remember crying. Look at that guy. I was 36 years old and I never knew how to cry." And I got in my inventory.

I dug around. I found out why. A lot of things.

You know, these guys that brought me to a were very loving old men, hard drinking, rough old men. And they called it tough love. I mean, they gave you a lot of it.

Yeah. I I remember I was in a meeting one day and you know, I'm not too smart, but I listen good. And I heard him read out that book and it says in that book that these are only suggested steps.

Some guy came by, he said, "You working the steps?" And I said, "No, they're only suggested." One of the oldtimes come over and he said, "Yeah, Mac, but it's like a cop suggesting you get in the car." Can't win. You know, you can't win. I go on and on.

These guys, I uh seem like every time I turn around, they're talking about these steps. And finally, one day, I just told him, I said, "Hey, you got the wrong guy. Let me tell you about me.

I owe the IRS a ton of money. I cook the books in that union over there. And I got people that would really like to be dunking me in the bay right now.

I owe a mother-in-law a lot of money. I owe everybody in town money. You're talking about steps.

I do not need steps. I need money. You know what?

I need I need money. And you know, they'd say some silly thing like money ain't your problem. Okay.

And I I wasn't I wasn't proud of being in a fact. I was ashamed of being in a was all right for him to see me down on the street fighting, raising hell, going to jail, riding in a squad car, but I didn't want anybody to know I was doing anything about it. And I go to this meeting on Avalon Boulevard on a Saturday night in a seaman union hall and I duck I go down the street and there's a little sign out there about this big just said a hey.

It looked like a neon sign to me. I'd look up and down the street to see if anybody is coming. I duck in there, you know.

One night I ducked into there and a hand caught me and it was this guy brought me to a he took me out on the sidewalk and made me stand out there in the front and greet people. That that was the longest 10 or 15 minutes that I ever spent in my life. Now, let me tell you about where I was at.

About three doors down was a bar called the folks. And I could hear the jukebox playing in the folks on Saturday night 8:00. Everybody's laughing jokes.

And I'm standing out in the street greeting people. Aa and it came to them. It really did.

I believe that if you take the 12 steps out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, you got another book. I believe that I'm standing here clean and sober today as a direct result of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm a product, good or bad, or and I know this.

I'm the best Mac I've ever been. It's a direct result of what came out of those 12 steps and what happened to me. I don't know how long it took me.

My greatest fear when I first came here was when they'd pray. It just seemed like they were praying a lot. And I thought if I really got to believe in God, this thing ain't going to work for me.

And I had an old-timer again take me aside and he said most of us come here Mac and then we come to believe. He opened up his book and he read out of it and it said in there that uh the alcoholic dilemma is the lack of power. And then he read a part of that book that says that the sole purpose of this book is to help you find a power greater than yourself.

And then down at the end of step 12, it says, "Having had a spiritual awakening as a direct result of working these steps." We read at every meeting in California, a portion of chapter five of a big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And that chapter is entitled How It Works. And yet you'll run into people who's been through here.

You'll see them later somewhere and they say, "I don't know. I went over there. But I don't understand how it works and I was a little bit like that.

You know, they came to me and they said, "We're at a point now with you, Mac, where you're going to have to take an inventory. You're going to have to take a pencil and a piece of paper and you're going to have to sit down and put all this garbage and all this crap down because the type of guy you are, you'll rationalize it in your head and you'll make it all right." and it ain't all right. He said, 'I got to write sit down and write all this stuff down and put my name on it.

I said, it goes against anything that I've ever done in my life. You got statute of limitations. You got a bunch of things to think about before you start writing this crap down.

And I said, besides, I don't see how it has any bearing on me at all. And he told me something. He said, "You know, Mac, it's like a like you've lived in a station wagon all your life and you're flying through life and you're in the station wagon.

All the crap that comes up, you just throw it in the back of that station wagon, keep on driving, keep on drinking." He said, "One day you come flying into AA and you slam on your brakes and all that crap comes forward at the same time." He says, "I guarantee you this, that unless you have a home group and that you have a sponsor, you have a chair somewhere and they and you're surrounded by people that love you, the garbage that comes out of the back of that station wagon will make you drink again." I believe that today I cleaned it up. He explained it to me like this. He said, "You came in here awful shabby.

Look bad." said, "It took us a week to get food on your stomach, get you eating. We got you a haircut. We got you some work shoes.

We got you back on the docks. We got you working." That's what we did here. Said, "Now we're going to give you a bath inside." So, the outside package looks good.

Now, we're going to clean up the inside. You know, alcoholics are like that. They they really want the outside package looking good.

You know, I knew a guy one day with alcohol. He had a car. They This guy didn't even have an engine in his car, but it'd sit out in his driveway and he used to go out there and polish it all the time.

Yeah. Want it looking good, you know. I uh I sat out and made a list and did that and I I believe it.

I believe if you're new, you're fairly new. If you've been around here a long time, I don't care. And you haven't worked the steps.

You're missing the greatest adventure you'll ever have in your life. Finding out who in the hell you've been drinking with, you know, that's what it is. Find out about you.

See, I knew everything about other people. I made my living that way. I had to know.

But I knew nothing about me. I cleaned up and I went through those uh steps and I made those amends and I went to the welfare officer of that union that I took that money from and I sat down and I explained to him some of the stuff I did. He said, "I don't want to hear it." You know, I don't want to jail over all that except they couldn't stand the publicity.

You know, had a lot of things going there and I don't want none of that in the paper. So they let me work it out with the welfare officer of that union for the next uh almost four and a half years. Every month I paid a certain amount of my wages into that fund.

And it went for people who uh had uh run out of disability and been hurt and families that needed help. And uh one day I got a call and welfare officers said uh come over here. I want to talk to you.

He said, "We think we've uh about even now." So, he straightened it up. And I know today, if I had still been paying today, 30 years later, I still wouldn't have been even. But they let me off the hook.

And uh I had a lot of people around the waterfront that did not accept my amends. Their sons had not moved up to that list that got those good jobs that I and uh they didn't accept my amends. and I'm having a lot of trouble and I'm 5 years sober and I'm going to meetings in union hall housing projects.

I got a call one day and from San Francisco and one of the head officials of the union said clean everything up, wrap it up. You're going up to live in the San Gabriel Valley and you're going to work for a large foods company. And I did what I told and I moved up to West Cabino where I live today.

I went to work for a large foods company in the city of industry and I ne negotiated their contracts for them for the next seven years. I did all their labor contracts. I sat across the table from the Teamsters Union and I ne negotiated good contract.

I knew what that man had to have to keep that company running and I knew that Wildcat tracks would kill him which they had been. and we sat together and put the program with the teamsters that let this man make money and give everybody a decent job. He paid a decent living wage and that's all was expected.

And I got a phone call about a year ago one day and a guy said, "Is this Mac?" And I said, "Yeah." And uh he told me who he was. I couldn't remember him. He said, "You took me out of a 12step house about 23 years ago and you put me to work for that company." and he said, "I just I'm retiring in a few days and I wanted to call you up and thank you for that job you got me though you said I never had a decent job with benefits and just I felt really good for that guy for about five minutes and then I remembered that they fired me." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Eastern outfit bought this company out after about 7 years.

And when they came out, I guess everybody had a brother-in-law that wanted to come to California because they just wiped us out overnight. And I'll never forget that day. I'm sitting in my boss's office with him.

And they came in, they fired us both at the same time. And this guy had helped build that company from nothing right to where it was. And we were growing company.

And Chuck had a almost a big tear in his eye that day and he said, "You know, Mac, I never been fired before." I said, "God, I have, you know, and uh it ain't really a big deal." And it wasn't a big deal to me that day. You know, I did uh what you taught me to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. I left that place the way you taught me.

I left it better than when I found it. I cleaned my office out. But I cleaned put my books in my car and I went out and I had a name plate on the wall and I ripped that off and threw it in my car and I spent two hours in there and I hugged people and people hugged me and I cried.

They cried. I left there the way you taught me to leave any place. I leave today.

I went out at the 502 club that afternoon and I'm drinking coffee and some of my friends came in. They wouldn't know what I was doing there that time of day and I said I just got fired. And you know that what this one guy said, he said, "God, that's great." I said, "Great." You know, he said, "Yeah, you're the type of guy never had trouble with jobs." Now, what do you want to do that you never had guts enough to quit a good job to do?

What do you want to do now? And I I can tell you this, I really didn't know. These guys were all in the mortgage business, the insurance business, and the uh real estate business.

and they took me with them and I sat down with them and I like their style. I like the way they operate. I got an opportunity through this program and the grace of a loving God that I found here and a lot of wife a lot of help from my wife K.

I got an opportunity to go back to school. I end up in the mortgage banking business, nor mortgage broker business. And uh some of the same unions that used to look the other way when I came around uh gave me rights into large pension trust funds that I funded loans back there when interest rates was 17 18%.

Nobody else had money. Always had money. Same people.

And it's a direct result of these steps. You know, I went up to uh Los Angeles one day to pick up a big big check and I was looking at it and I'm sitting in my car and we're driving back to West Cavina and I think God, boy, I'm really doing about that time a great big sheriff bus pulled up and blocked me off in front. This sheriff bus is loaded with guys going to the county jail and I had to sit there and look at them.

And I remembered who really was running the show around here and what happened when I took over. I had a heart attack about 7 years ago. I don't know if it was a heart attack, but I damn near died.

You know, I'm out my front yard and that sucker hit and I just did a flip. And when I came to I'm on my hands and knees trying to crawl to get in the house and it was like somebody rammed an ice pick in my heart. And I talk about this.

He said when something like this happens your whole life passes and I think alcoholic somebody else's life passes or something cuz it wasn't that way with me. All I could think was I don't have time for this crap. You know I really could tell you that's what was my feel.

I don't have time for this. And when I got a good doctor and he took care of me and uh I did what I was told and I retired and I got a chance to do some things that is unreal as far as I'm concerned. And I got to tell you about a little love story between me and my wife Kay.

22 years ago I went into the clubhouse one day. I've been single around a for almost 10 years, nine years. And I said that I'd never get married again and you know all those things because it'd been so painful before and I met Kay and I fell in love with her and she had a little three-year-old girl and I was frightened to death.

I'll tell you. And I went to my sponsor and over a cup of coffee, I told him about cave and I told him about that little three-year-old girl in the fear because I told him about that 16-year-old girl that beat on that door and told me what a lousy father I was and didn't know how to be a father and all that. What Eddie told me that day was this.

He said, "You know, we've had you around here about eight or nine years, Mac, and we taught you how to treat people." He said, "You take Kay and that little girl home with you, and you treat them like you would a newcomer in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous." He said, "I've seen you in a meeting when a newcomer spills her coffee. I've seen you go clean it up and get them another cup." Just take them and treat them like you would a newcomer. You don't want to have any problem.

K. and I live up on the side of the hill on West Cabina jumped into my little house up there. That little girl is 3 years old, 25 years old.

I watched her almost destroy herself. I watch her break her mother's heart. I thought that because she grew up in a home where there wasn't going to be any violence and none of that stuff like my other daughters had to go through that she'd get to skate through life.

And it isn't that way. It's tough growing up out there in the streets as a kid today. I saw our Stephanie get involved in drugs when she was 14 or 15.

I saw her mother put her out of her house when she was 15 years old. She went to live with her father who is also an attorney, you know, and she lasted about six weeks with him and he put her out and I watched her go to the streets in Hollywood, those type of places. The good side of that story is that Stephanie's uh three years clean and sober today.

Alcoholic synonym. That little girl that beat on that door 30 31 years ago. I got to go to Long Beach City College and watch her graduate and get a degree.

She has uh 12 and a half almost 13 years clean and sober in AA. I have three grandsons. Two of them was sober.

They're both drunk and using drugs again. Now, my third grandson had never gotten any trouble. I used to call his mother and ask him, "You sure you got the right kid?" He ain't nothing like anything we've ever had in our family before.

He's 6' three. He's tall. He's went to school.

He does all the things. He takes his girlfriend on a cruise to the Caribbean and and all this and I could never figure him out. And one day she called me not too long ago and she says, "Sit down.

The kink in the armor has come through." And I said, "What happened?" She said, "I came home today and there's two girls standing on my front porch. They both got engagement rings and they're both engaged to your grandson, but he don't have a drinking problem. He just recently went over to Las Vegas and got married and came by and brought his bride and he came over and Kay and I uh uh took him over to a Mexican restaurant where we like to eat.

We all had dinner and met our met his new wife and everything's fine, you know. Uh we left home the other day and came out here and uh we live up on side of the hill in West Cabina. Little house, very very small little house.

Got some pine trees out in the backyard and I got a big weep and willow tree in the front yard that was given to me by the guys from Orange County in 1985 when I was chairman of the Southern California Convention. I got to put on a convention. We had about 5,000 people there and we partied.

We took rock and roll to Bakersfield and they still talk about it up there every time I go to the party we had in ' 85. And uh I believe in having fun in Alcoholics Anonymous. I got to take K a few years ago.

Her grandmother always tell her about Ireland sitting on a seaw wall at G Bay or Galway Bay and said, "Oh, Katie, one day I want you to go home." I got an opportunity a few years ago to take K to Ireland. We ran a little car and drove all around for a couple of weeks. went over to Wexford and she sat on the pier where people most of the Murphy's came from Wexford there and uh we got to go to New Zealand a couple of years ago and just rent a little car, go out in the outback and stay at ranches and farms and I saw her run the cows in with the farmers and help milk them, help share sheep.

We get to do some of the things that I look for in a bottom of a bottle most of my life. Like I say, uh I'm I know I'm running out of time. I don't even know what time it is, but I know I'm over.

But I'll tell you this, Alcoholics Anonymous will not solve all your problems. But Alcoholics Anonymous will teach you to live clean and sober one day at a time with unsolved problems. Yeah.

and if you're lucky, a quiet heart. Thank you very much for having me. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise.

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